I move: That the Dáil do now adjourn until Wednesday, November 15th, at 3 p.m.
Adjournment Debate.
I beg to oppose this and ask the House to oppose it. If it were a normal adjournment for a week, or even a fortnight, there would be no reason to oppose this. If we were in normal circumstances even there would be no reason to ask the House to oppose this motion. But I should like to point out to the House that the President yesterday stated that the adjournment would be for three weeks. He has reconsidered the position and it is now five weeks.
It is not five weeks.
Mathematically, no, but it is very near it. Again, the President's distinctions amount to nothing. It is as long an adjournment practically as we have had in the summer. It is as long as we might normally expect with such a "hardworking" Government at Christmas. But I ask the House not to adjourn and not to allow this country to be for five weeks without a Parliament sitting. I do so because I think it is the duty of the House, owing to the recent conduct of the Government, to keep continuous watch over the Government. I think if ever there was a necessity for that it is on the present occasion. The necessity has been proved by the action of the Government during the past couple of weeks. The Government, as everybody knows, are armed with such immense powers by the Constitution (Amendment) Act and by its being called into force, and they have shown such irresponsibility in the use of these powers, they have shown such determination to use those powers tyrannically and partially—I use the word "partially" in the sense of partisan spirit—that I do not think the House is justified in separating and not, as I say, keeping continuous watch over the very reprehensible conduct of the Government and its individual members. We have witnessed in the course of the last few weeks, grossest abuse of power, on the one hand, on the part of the Government and a complete abdication of the functions of government on the other hand. They have been very active in some respects, but in one of the most essential matters of government they have been completely quiescent; they have completely failed and broken down.
Every day we see disorder, riot, incitement to violence become more rampant. As far as we can see, there is no attempt on the part of the Government to take any effective steps against it. They cannot pretend that they have not the powers. They know perfectly well they have the powers. They have utilised those powers in twopenny-halfpenny matters. They have scented out conspiracy, which I shall come back to in a moment, where conspiracy did not exist, and they have deliberately shut their eyes to the real conspiracies that do exist and threaten the very foundations, not merely of this State, but any kind of order in the community. They have tried as well as they can, as I put it on a previous occasion here, to crush their political opponents between the top millstone of their abuse of the powers that this Parliament entrusted to them and the nether millstone of anarchy which they make no attempt to deal with, which their allies are putting into effect, and for which, I suggest, they themselves by their recent conduct and speeches are to a very large extent responsible. We should not be surprised at that, because now in the seats of power we have really anarchy enthroned. It is not to be expected that a Government of that kind, a Government with such an outlook, a Government holding the views they do, would make any effective attempt to deal with a situation of this kind.
I am not going to trace the gradual growth of disorder in the last couple of weeks. That was done here last night by Deputy MacDermot. I do not intend to go over that ground again. If Deputies were here they heard the story. If they did not they can read it in the Official Report or in to-day's newspapers. But we have had a series of open flouting of order, a deliberate attempt to interfere with any expression of political opinion in this country, that reached its culmination in a sense in Tralee last Friday— but it was only the culmination, as Deputy MacDermot pointed out—when we had murderous attacks made on individual leaders of this particular Party. In that connection, I should like to ask Deputies to contrast a sane, moderate responsible view taken of these proceedings and the statement made by one of the Ministers in the same connection—the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
We had the Dean of Kerry, in whose town the disgraceful scenes occurred, giving it as his opinion—I do not think anybody who was the least conversant with the facts would think for a moment of challenging any portion of his opinion—that the whole affair was deliberate and organised, that these men armed themselves with hurleys and deadly weapons and were guilty of murder in their hearts. I hold that that situation arose owing to the conduct of the Government. I am sorry that some members of the Government —if they are not amenable to argument they might be occasionally amenable to ocular demonstration— were not present to see exactly what the forces are that they refuse to deal with and that are being let loose on the country. I understand quite well the optimistic spirit with which the President can look on these matters. I wonder does he care and does he think that he can chain up these forces that are now so irresponsibly being let loose on the country. Having reduced the country to economic ruin on the one hand, apparently the Government are going to allow it to be reduced to a shambles on the other hand.
I am not here to criticise the conduct of the Guards on that particular occasion. I have the greatest sympathy with the Guards for the position in which they find themselves, a position that is daily becoming more and more impossible for any man with a sense of responsibility on whose shoulders there is put the burden of preserving order in this country. I have felt for some time past that the Guards must be grasping the fact that if they take really effective measures to deal with the forces of disorder they will not only get no support from the top but they will get the very opposite. It is useless for the President to say that he is in favour of free speech. It is useless for the Minister for Justice to give us platonic statements of the same kind when the whole trend of their speeches now and for a very long time past has been in the opposite direction.
After that disgraceful scene in Tralee, a disgrace not merely to this country but to any civilised country, we have the reaction of one of the most prominent members of the Government Party, the Minister for Industry and Commerce. It is quite true that in that particular speech he also gave lip-service to the doctrine that it is the business of the Government to preserve order, but let anybody read that speech as a whole and see what meaning he is bound to take out of it. What is it but an incitement, an appeal to the forces of disorder? What is it but an excuse for them? An excuse of that kind given by people in responsible positions can only be looked upon as an appeal to go on with the disorder. What good is it for the President to say that it is the business of the Government to keep order when, in the same sentence, he tells us he cannot make parties popular? Is not that taking the whole sting out of the statement that it is the business of the Government to keep order? It is not occasional lip-service to the principle of keeping order that can save this country but really effective measures on the part of the Government.
The Minister for Justice, speaking last night, challenged Kerry Deputies as to the orders that he had given the Guards in Tralee. How were Kerry Deputies to know what orders he had given? They can only judge by results. The meeting was not even a public meeting, though the fact that it was a public meeting would be no excuse for disorder. I am not making the distinction that there is any justification for the breaking up of public meetings, but in the case of this private meeting in a hall everyone in the county knew that attempts would be made to interfere with it. If not I suggest that the Government's information is of the kind that the President doles out to this House. Attempts were made to get halls. The halls were got and the lettings cancelled. Why? Intimidation. Everybody knows that intimidation is becoming more and more rampant in that part of the country and no steps are taken to deal with it. We have steps against unfortunate farmers who are supposed to be guilty of the conspiracies that the President sniffs out, but he seems to be incapable of really sensing the stench so far as this disorder is concerned, possibly because he is so accustomed to it.
What I want the House to consider is not the individual bowing down before the principle of government by the head of this State or by members of the Executive Council, but I want the House to consider the general attitude of the Government towards this whole matter. These men in Tralee may have been guilty of attempted murder—and they were—but if an occurrence of that kind were attempted to be carried out a large portion of the responsibility must lie on the failure of the Government to do its duty. Reading Ministerial speeches since they came into office 18 or 20 months ago, their speeches dealing with interruptions at public meetings, there is only one conclusion to be drawn from them: "We will preserve order," but in fact though that is stated the gist of their speeches is this, "you can break up meetings." It is quite a long time, last November I think, since the President was questioned in this House as to what he intended to do with a speech that was made inciting to disorder. He said he was giving it consideration and that the matter was having the attention of the Attorney-General. The debate on that took place last November. What action has been taken since then? Has any action been taken? Yet farmers are put in jail and are left to languish there for a month for alleged conspiracy, conspiracy that the President knows all about—a portion of the general conspiracy, I presume, that he knows all about. Yet people who are engaged in the real conspiracy, a conspiracy to interfere with their political opponents and to murder their political opponents, people who are engaged in conspiracies of different kinds—against them the Military Tribunal is not brought into force. That is the administration of justice!
When the Minister for Justice was speaking last night he referred to one particular thing at the close of his speech. He was quite eloquent for the moment at all events on the duty of preserving order. Of course it could not be done in Tralee. It was a pity. But he finished up with one sentence that was quite characteristic. They must preserve order—that was the general gist of what he said—but he added: "also not allow any provocation." What were the instructions sent out in this respect?
What is provocation? That is what I would like to know. What is his construction in that respect? We all know that when one or two Blue Shirts are together, that is provocation, but when 300 or 400 people march in military formation, that is not provocation but, apparently, an effort to quieten the feeling of uneasiness of the people of the towns and countrysides where they operate. "Provocation" there must not be! It is quite obvious, from the statements of most of the Ministers in the Cabinet, that the very existence of political opponents is provocation. Was not that the gist of the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce a couple of days ago? Reading the speeches of the least eloquent, and the most eloquent, of the Ministers, is not that the gist of many of them? What are the facts? This stands out again and again. The President assured the country that he had the means at his disposal to secure freedom of speech, that no other disciplined body was necessary to do it. The fact, however, remains that coincident with the suppression of the National Guard, these attempts at disorder increased in number and violence. These are the facts. It is quite obvious, even from the speech of the Minister for Justice last evening, that the Guards are not capable of dealing with a situation of that kind. In reality what has the Government done? They have taken from the Party opposed to them any opportunity of protecting their meetings, even in a legal way, and they stand convicted of not being able themselves to deal with the situation.
Again, I call attention to the fact that the Government's suppression of the National Guard smoothed the way for an outbreak of anarchy and rioting. I suggest that it was meant to do that. When there are meetings of this kind and arrests made, who are searched? The people who are attacked. After all, their very existence is a provocation! In their economic policy you have discrimination. That was the key-note; so here also there is discrimination. Nothing is done against the real menace.
In that connection I would like to call the attention of the House to a few typical pronouncements of Ministers. Technically they did not say "Go out and beat your opponents." Technically they are on the right side of the law, but morally they are on the wrong side. The House will remember the state of the country and the political feeling. It is in that atmosphere that statements of Ministers must be judged. Speaking on the Oath—I do not know the exact date— Dr. Ward said he was glad that there were people who in certain circumstances would be glad to take unconstitutional means. Coming from less responsible, but more highly-placed people, we have various outpourings of eloquence from the Minister for Finance. I wonder is it necessary to read them? I shall not read them all. I hope he will not be hurt. He is rather vain about his eloquence.
"I am sorry to say that while we have the support of every thinking Irishman, there are, unfortunately, reactionary and Imperialist elements in the country, with the help of a reactionary and Imperialist Press, spreading the spirit of faction among us, and in this connection I recall the old saying: ‘It never was the Sassenach that beat us; it was the Gael that beat us....'
"Ireland's cause has often been betrayed before, but never, except when public life in Ireland has been as degraded as in the days of Castlereagh, has Irish treachery flaunted itself in the public eye. In the past we have had Sham Squires, Leonard McNallys and Captain O'Sheas, and a host of other furtive, secret hypocrites posing as patriots, but until Cumann na nGaedheal gave the lead, such men did not dare come out into the open. How long will the true Irish farmers, the working farmers, the class whose courage and endurance won the land war and the Black-and-Tan war——
Not by constitutional methods, I may remark—
——allow their name to be dishonoured by such as these?...
Knaves and traitors, stand aside, way for Ireland.—Fág an Bealach."
That, I say, fully expresses the view of the whole Party. As I pointed out, that is the whole basis of the present policy. More abuse from that prolific fountain of abuse. Perhaps it is not necessary to continue, but these statements, coming from Ministers, who know perfectly well that there are guns about, and that there are men disciplined and trained in the use of guns, can, I suggest, only have the effect on the ordinary man of appealing to violence. The Minister for Finance in another speech said:
"Every man who wants to see that money is kept in this country, who wants to see Fianna Fáil succeed in this fight, will have to be active in impressing on those who are going around sapping the courage of the people and encouraging the British, that they will have to keep quiet."
Attempts were made to get the United Ireland Party "to keep quiet" at Tralee. All that is the natural consequence and the logical carrying out with courage of doctrines preached by Ministers—by every one of them. I am not going to weary the House with any further eloquence of that kind. The House and the country is but too familiar with it, and with the complete lack of responsibility on their part. I am not going to deal with certain statements made a considerable time ago which have been utilised by these men. The precept and the practice of Ministers who now sit on the opposite benches have been utilise by these men, as justification for their acts. I leave that as it is. I am dealing solely with the situation that faces us to-day, a situation which has been allowed to develop by the Government. I suggest that as far as the Government could do it, they helped its development whilst apparently keeping their hands clean.
But that piece of eloquence of the Minister for Finance pales into insignificance when compared with the conduct of the President. He utilised his position as head of the Government—I am not dealing with him personally, because I am not interested in him—and his privileged position in this House to slander a Deputy, a former Minister of this State, by making a charge against him which he now confesses was without foundation. He promised to set up a tribunal to go into that. He has gone back on that promise. He used this slander against Deputy Mulcahy as one of the excuses for bringing into operation all the force of the Public Safety Act. He made the statement without foundation. He accused Deputy Mulcahy of one of the biggest crimes of which an Irishman could be accused—because that is what the charge came to, if it came to anything—that Deputy Mulcahy had been in consultation with the English Secretary of State for War to bring about a revolution in this country. He refuses to bring that slanderer before a public tribunal in this country. I expected nothing better from the President—from the head of that Government. I think it is monstrous that this House should be utilised for a purpose of that kind because, remember, what was the effect? A man got up here and uttered against a Deputy of this House, a Deputy who has given honourable service to this country, the biggest slander from a political and patriotic point of view that could be uttered against him, and did it, as usual, without accepting responsibility. The lie gets there —because he now confesses it is a lie by the person that told it—the lie gets there, and we do not know who told the lie. The public is not given an opportunity of judging that, and no people know better than the members of the Government and the Deputies sitting on the opposite benches the advantage from the political point of view of getting a slander going against their political opponents.
The President refuses to let the slandered Deputy face the person that brought this baseless charge against him. It is quite characteristic. Remember the country in which that charge is made. We have irresponsible talk by the President and others to justify an attack upon their political opponents by bringing into force the Public Safety Act; we have the working up of an artificial state of excitement—as if there were not enough excitement already in this country—and that is the moment when people are being locked up by the Government under the pretence that the invocation of the Public Safety Act is necessary in that atmosphere, that the President makes a charge of that kind against a Deputy in this House. It is not merely a slander. Anybody can see that in circumstances of that kind such a charge easily can have other consequences as well. The head of the Government, if anybody else did it, would quickly denounce it as felon-setting. He would very quickly denounce it as such, but now he utilises his privileged place and high position in this State to make a charge of that kind. I do suggest to the House that in a situation of that kind it is not proper that the House should adjourn for such a prolonged period as five weeks, and I will ask the House to oppose it.
On a point of order, is this the usual adjournment?
No, very unusual. That is the reason we are opposing it.
This is not the same as an adjournment at the end of a session.
It is for a long period.
It seems to me that the usual adjournments are those at the end of the session. On more than one occasion before we have had adjournments of this kind when business was not ready for the House, but they are not the usual adjournments at the end of a session, and I think this is the first time on an occasion like this that this procedure has been adopted. I think this is an innovation.
What is the end of the session, sir?
I am not prepared to answer that question.
Everybody knows what is intended by the end of a session. I know that, technically, we have not got a definition of it, but everybody knows it to be when we are adjourning for the usual holidays at the end of the summer or otherwise. This is not an adjournment in that sense.
I do not hold with anything of the kind. This is an adjournment for a long period, and the usual thing is that when the House adjourns for a long period a certain time is allowed for debate.
I submit, sir, that that is incorrect. The procedure in the past when adjournments were taken on the usual occasions of holidays was that notice was given. That was the custom. This is quite an innovation altogether. I submit that it is an innovation and the usual procedure should be followed as in an ordinary adjournment.
I should like to submit, sir, that on reflection the President would surely wish to take advantage of this opportunity to make such a statement as would contribute to the stopping of intimidation throughout the country.
I do not think that the speeches that have been made would help very much in the preservation of order or anything else.
The President has made the point that as a rule notice is given. We heard yesterday for the first time that the House was going to adjourn. There was a communication between Deputy Mulcahy and the Chief Whip in which Deputy Mulcahy indicated some of the points that we were anxious to raise. I suggest that it is because of these points that were indicated there is an effort now to close the discussion.
My recollection is that when there is a motion for adjournment for a comparatively long period a long discussion is allowed on that motion. The motion, as I see it, is simply that the House do adjourn until a certain date. A discussion can go on on that motion until such time as the House adjourns at the time it automatically adjourns every evening. That can be done if the House so desires.
I am not surprised, and I do not think that anybody in this House is very much surprised, at the effort which the President has made to burk this discussion. It must be a very unpleasant discussion, of course, to the President. We are not very much surprised that the President endeavours to avoid it, but the President will discover that when a man acts as he has acted, when a man abuses his high position as he has abused it, this country will have discussion, and the country wants discussion. Surely, if there is any defence which the President can make for himself, if he has any defence to the various discreditable things which the President is charged with having done within the last few weeks, he should not be endeavouring now to shut himself out from the possibility of vindicating his own conduct. If he thought he could vindicate his conduct he should be up on his feet at once with a desire, and a passionate and anxious desire to vindicate his conduct and to show that in the various matters that are brought against him he has acted as an honourable man should act. That is not the the President's attitude. The President is not anxious to defend himself. The President is very anxious that discussion upon various matters should be closed down although there is no hurry about time at all. Of course, they are anxious that the Dáil should adjourn without discussion. That is because President de Valera and Fianna Fáil are afraid, and more than afraid, of discussion upon various actions of theirs during the last few weeks.
During the last few weeks, we have had a departure from what was Fianna Fail's great pronounced policy. Again and again in debate in this House, we have heard the President go down through a long litany of what he called coercion Acts. He has declared that they were all failures, that they had to be failures, that instead of checking crime they added to crime and that was not merely the view put forward by President de Valera but the view put forward by, I might say, every single one of the members of his Front Bench. They have brought the Public Safety Act, as it is called, into force now. What is their reason? What is their motive? Let us take their own view on the Public Safety Act as expressed in speech after speech. It was this: force is no remedy—we heard that again and again—it makes things worse than they were and applying force is only breeding criminals. There is the attitude they took up and now against a peaceful organisation, they are endeavouring to apply force. What is the object? What is in their own minds? We know their minds. We know what they say will be the result of using force and they come along and deliberately use force. What is that for? What can that be for if they were speaking the truth when they spoke as they did speak for years here in the Dáil? What can that be for except this, that it has been the deliberate object of the Executive Council to bring about the commission of crime in this country? If what they said was true, then in putting the Public Safety Act in force against the men against whom they did put it in force, it must have been a deliberate attempt on their part to drive these men into crime. They failed and they failed utterly because no matter how hard this Executive Council may try according to their pre-arranged plan of which they have told us, they will not drive law-abiding citizens into the commission of crime and they will not make men who observe the law and stand for the preservation of the law, break the law although if what they told us here in this House again and again were an expression of their real views that was going to be the consequence of putting this Act in force.
We have heard certain defences of that Act and we heard one defence the other night from a man who holds a minor office in the Government and I think that while that defence was being delivered to the House, it must have been, to use the President's own expression, gall and wormwood to him and gall and wormwood to the rest of his Front Bench. What was the defence of this from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance? It amounted to this: "You people opposite, you members of the Opposition, passed this Bill; you put this weapon into our hands. What right have you got to complain if that weapon is being unfairly or improperly used? You forged it and because you forged it, you now must suffer under it." That was the defence. What a magnificent defence!
We handed into the hands of our successors, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, a weapon, a powerful weapon, which they could use and which they should only use when occasion deserved, but they are using it corruptly and the answer is: "It does not matter whether we use it corruptly or not, it was you gave it to us." That is the defence put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary. Anybody in a fiduciary capacity, any trusted servant who embezzles his employer's money could put forward an excuse of that nature. He could say: "It is true that I am taking your money but that is because you trusted me and you were a fool to trust me." There is the defence that was put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary—"It is your folly that is to blame in trusting the present Executive Council with powers like the powers which are contained in the Constitution (Amendment) Act." That is the best defence which can be put forward.
Let us turn for a moment to consider one case that has gone before the Military Tribunal. It was the case of the Waterford farmers and with reference to that case of the Waterford farmers, I say, and I say deliberately, that there is something that President de Valera should explain to this House. A motion was brought before the Military Tribunal in the nature of contempt of court because President de Valera had made allusions to the case before it had been heard by the Military Tribunal. It got an answer from President de Valera, vague and uncertain. It was this: "I was speaking generally; I had not got the Waterford case in my mind at all." That explanation may satisfy the Military Tribunal. It does not and it ought not to satisfy this House. I will read to the House again the President's words. He said——
Is this a criticism of a judgment of the court?
I am watching very carefully to see whether it is a criticism of the decision or not.
I am not reflecting on the decision of the court at all. I say that the President's words require an explanation in this House and, with great respect and with your permission, sir, I will point out why. President de Valera said:
"I have already referred to the campaign of Mr. MacDermot's Party against the payments of rates. This illegal conspiracy has already assumed a very serious aspect in some parts of the country where representatives of the Farmers' and Ratepayers' Association have been endeavouring to intimidate farmers into signing a pledge to pay no rents or rates. The names of farmers who refused to enter into this dishonest undertaking are placed on a list of boycotted persons which is circulated to owners of threshing machines and other persons who would be likely to have dealings with them."
That was President de Valera's statement and he tells us now that he had not Waterford in his mind at all when he made that statement and that it was a general statement. We in this House are entitled to know to what parts of the country the President did refer. Where are these places, these parts of the country in which this illegal conspiracy, according to the President, which we now know does not exist in Waterford, exists? What parts of the country had he in his mind when he was speaking, since Waterford was not in his mind and the current charge was not in his mind? What parts of the country were in his mind? "It has taken a very serious aspect," he says, "and representatives of the Farmers' and Ratepayers' Association have been endeavouring to intimidate the farmers into signing a pledge to pay no rent or rates." Where is that? It is not Waterford. If the President knows of that, why have there been no prosecutions? I take it that the strongest case they could produce was the case in which they broke down and failed. If there were stronger cases than Waterford in the President's mind, where were they?
"The names of farmers who refused to enter into this dishonest undertaking are placed on a list of boycotted persons."
Where is that list? Why have there been no prosecutions in this case, the case that the President had in his mind when he was not thinking of Waterford at all? This list is "circulated to owners of threshing machines and other persons likely to have dealings with them." Why, if the President had not in mind the case in which a prosecution was brought, are there no prosecutions in these other cases? That is a matter on which some explanation is required. Here, presumably, is the strongest case—the only case— in which any offence of any kind can be charged. Yet, the President comes along and makes statements evidently without foundation and which there is no evidence to support. That is the attitude he has taken up on this matter. I should like to hear from the President how he is able to put out of his mind the case in which a prosecution is pending and concentrate entirely upon cases in which there can be no prosecution. That is the attitude of the President of the Executive Council. We have cases pending in our courts and "general references" only made to that particular class of case. That is the attitude the President has taken up, and it is an attitude with which, I think, this House ought not to be satisfied.
It will be very interesting to learn how the Labour Party will vote upon this adjournment motion. Some time ago we used have the Labour Party figuring as great advocates of the relief of unemployment and very anxious to have the case of the unemployed debated here. I see a motion on the Order Paper now urging that work should be provided for the unemployed, but I notice that there is nobody on the Labour Benches. I venture to think that, when the division comes, the Labour Party will vote to cut out this motion relating to the provision of work for persons in whom at one time they professed to have an interest—the unemployed. Since the conduct of the Labour Party on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, nothing that the Labour Party does will surprise me. The leader of the Labour Party and the other members of that Party ought very devoutly to return thanks that a merciful Providence "fashioned them hollow, the better they might their principles swallow." They have given an example of the swallowing of principles which would be very hard to beat in any assembly. So much for the Constitution (Amendment) Act and the attitude of the Government to it.
Another matter was referred to by Deputy O'Sullivan and I feel it my duty to refer to it also. That is the deliberate breach of faith with this House of which President de Valera has been guilty. In the debate on 28th September, 1933, the President pledged himself definitely to this House that he would set up a tribunal which would investigate the charge which he brought against Deputy Mulcahy. Nothing could have been more definite than the pledge given that night to the House. The President has refused to honour that pledge. How can this House stand high in the estimation of the ordinary citizen of this State if it is to be treated in that fashion—if the President, the Leader of the House, can make a definite promise to the House and then break his promise within a couple of days? How can this House be respected if the President of the Executive Council will not respect his own word? Surely, if there is one thing we should count upon, one thing we should be able to accept, it is a definite pledge, a definite promise, given by a man in the position of the President of the Executive Council. We should be able to take it that such a promise would be honoured. It has not been honoured. He has refused to honour it. He has deliberately broken through it. And why? He brought a very grave charge against Deputy Mulcahy. He charged him with endeavouring to stir up civil war in this country and, in furtherance of his efforts to stir up civil war, communicating with the Secretary of State for War in England.
That is a very grave charge indeed. It was not a charge of merely talking to or meeting the Secretary of State for War. It was not a question of Deputy Mulcahy merely meeting him in Glasgow and saying "Good morning" or discussing with him, as we saw in the paper the other day Deputy Geoghegan discussed with him, the merits of poodle dogs, their habits and characteristics. It was not a charge of that nature which was brought against Deputy Mulcahy. It was a charge of conspiring with the Secretary of State for War in England to foment civil war in this State. That was a terrible charge to bring. Upon what authority was it brought? The President made it. He is, no doubt, one of the most bitter men in Irish politics at the present moment. The President may hate and, no doubt, does hate many persons who sit upon these benches. But neither his bitterness nor his hate justifies him in bringing a charge of that nature without the fullest inquiry. Neither bitterness nor hate should entirely dull a man's conscience. He knew the nature of the charge he was bringing against Deputy Mulcahy. He knew it was a charge fraught with personal danger to Deputy Mulcahy. He knew all that and yet he brought it. Now, he should let us know what investigation he made first. Surely it was his duty, before he brought a charge of that nature, to investigate, so far as lay in his power, the truth or untruth of that statement. Did he make any inquiries at all? Who is this mysterious individual who gave him this information? He tells us, of course, that that information was given to him by somebody, that it is not an emanation of his own imagination. If it was given to him by somebody, why is the name of that "somebody" being kept back? Why is that "somebody" not being prosecuted by the Attorney-General?
Why is the President condoning crime? Why is the President shielding a criminal, because that was the gravest criminal libel that could be committed? How is this House to be respected if the President of the State deliberately flings a cloak around the face of a criminal, shielding him from the consequences of his crime? What is the Attorney-General doing? Why is there no prosecution in this case? Is not the President keeping back, even from his own Attorney-General, the name of this individual? If the Attorney-General knows the name of that individual it is the duty of the Attorney-General to prosecute that individual for criminal libel. Those are matters that we want to know; but as those matters stand at present we have the President of the Executive Council breaking his word to this House.
Why has the President of the Executive Council broken his word to the House? What is this force behind —what is shielding this particular individual so that the President dare not carry out his promise made in this House? What is behind this matter that this particular individual, this self-confessed liar, is in such a condition that he can defy the Executive Council and go scot free? Why is this Government putting itself into this position that it has to condone crime, and that it has forced its President to break his pledged word to the House? Will Ministers tell us what are the forces behind this thing? The President and the Executive Council have reduced themselves to the sorry state to which they have reduced themselves in the public estimation. Surely such a thing has never happened before. You had the President of the Executive Council asked a question here yesterday. He answered in the negative. He could get no further. He dare not open his lips in this House. He cannot explain his conduct.
After his dumbness yesterday and after this matter has been raised in discussion he gets up to-day endeavouring to prevent discussion of his conduct. That is the position in which the Executive Council stands at the present moment—an object of contempt to every respectable person in this State. Now we have the Government acting in this fashion, a Government which on its own admission has practically lost the confidence of the country, because, as we heard this afternoon, it dares not face the country at the county council elections. This Government is now so afraid of discussion that it has adjourned the Dáil after having met only three or four days at the expense of the public. It is now being adjourned for a whole month in order that the Government may, in the meantime, carry on without discussion. The Executive Council has, for the time being, a majority in this Chamber. It may be able, for the time being, to act as it has acted, but of this much I am quite assured, that there is not, even amongst the supporters of the Fianna Fáil Party, men who have got any respect for the law and any respect for the truth, who can respect a President who has broken his pledged word. There is not a decent man, even amongst the supporters of Fianna Fáil, at the present minute, but must feel heartily ashamed of the action of the Government.
I have listened to two speeches from Deputies on the Opposition Benches who are trying to work themselves up into a fury because the House proposes to adjourn for five weeks. I should like to know how that adjournment compares with the adjournments that we were accustomed to when the gentlemen opposite were in office. Was it not usual at that time to adjourn for considerable periods— from November to February? Was it not usual to adjourn from July to October? There is, in fact, an innovation which I contend redounds to the credit of the Government, that in the existing situation they have not sought a long adjournment. We came back after a comparatively short holiday of about six weeks, after a rather long and trying session, during a great period of which the House sat for four days a week.
The Government has to find time to devote some of its attention to administrative problems. All the attention of Ministers cannot be given to parliamentary work. But in any event, leaving out the question of the shortness of the proposed adjournment, what have the gentlemen opposite really to quarrel about? The Government came back and faced the Dáil, and the country, on an issue of confidence as to whether, in the opinion of this House, they were carrying out their trust to the Irish people. They got that vote of confidence. The gentlemen opposite can have no complaint on the matters that they have sought to raise to-day in connection with the administration of the Constitution (Amendment) Act. The matters they are raising now have already been raised in a previous debate, and I suggest to your serious consideration that it would be a waste of the time of this House to enter into a prolonged discussion again on a ground that has been very recently traversed. We got a majority on that particular issue that is now being sought to be raised. I submit that no new circumstances have arisen that would necessitate our having a prolonged discussion in the circumstances, especially in view of the comparatively short adjournment we are having.
One would imagine from the tone of the Deputies on the opposite benches that they were still the Government. I detect, however, a lack of confidence in their speeches, in spite of all their campaigning through the country and in spite of the floods of oratory they have let loose through the country about this unjust and tyrannical Government. In spite of all these things, things are not going well with them. If we need proof of that we have it in the fact that no effort has been made by them to put forward a constructive policy. The Opposition have not succeeded in achieving a reasonable degree of consistency between their speeches and the speeches of Deputy MacDermot in this House. They have not succeeded in achieving any consistency between the vague, quasi-military Fascist doctrines that they have been preaching outside around the country every day, and the speeches in this House.
If the Minister would allow me to interrupt him just for one moment, I would invite him to quote any Fascist military utterances that have been made since the United Ireland Party came into being.
Unless the suggestion that the ex-Commissioner of the Guards would shoot the Gárda who refused to support him in his defiance of the Government. It seems to me that no matter how Deputy MacDermot may try to cover the fact, it is well known to the country that there is an element of militarism in this organisation. It is composed of a body of men who are ex-soldiers——
Question; untrue.
They are going about in uniforms. If the Government is so tyrannical and unjust as those gentlemen suggest I wonder why it is that these men still continue to draw their pensions in security. If the Government is unjust and tyrannical how is it they are still drawing their pensions? Deputy O'Sullivan waxed very eloquent about conditions in Kerry. When the Deputy came into this House first, I believe he had not a very long national record. Fortunately for himself he had not personal experience of the happenings in Kerry and elsewhere that have aroused the bitternesses that have not yet been quenched, to take it upon himself to make himself responsible. He said: "I take responsibility for everything that has been done."
So far as this Government is concerned, we have done everything we could to forget the past. We have done everything we could to get our supporters, or those over whom we have any influence, to obey the law, not to create dissension but to present a united front in the existing circumstances. The Deputy knows very well that in County Kerry there are very bitter memories and he knows also that when the ex-Minister for Finance went down there in his blue shirt and held a meeting, no matter how anxious we might be and no matter what forces we might bring into County Kerry to maintain order at a meeting at which the ex-Minister for Finance or any other ex-Minister might attend in a blue shirt, there was bound to be ill-feeling and dissension.
I would like to ask Deputy O'Sullivan in all earnestness why is it not possible, if there is this anxiety to maintain peace, to avoid scenes of riot and to avoid the scare headlines and the sensational news items in the British Press, for them to hold their meetings as an ordinary political party and in the ordinary garb of citizens. The Minister for Industry and Commerce recently asked why it was not possible to do that. Why is it necessary for them to carry out a parade of men dressed in blue shirts?
There was no parade and there were no blue shirts at Limerick on Tuesday.
The Opposition cannot have it both ways. The Government are anxious to have their co-operation. We have always, whether on these benches or on the opposite benches, expressed a desire that there should be co-operation, and there should be an effort to heal the wounds of the past.
Hear, hear!
I fear that Deputy MacDermot, instead of trying to bring that about has, by his recent unfortunate alliance, simply placed himself in the position that he has unloosed certain forces that have their roots in the past and he has brought into the public life of this country gentlemen who recall to us certain things which we would all like to forget. I am not going to follow the example of the leader outside this House in going back to those events. I think we should have done with them and face the future.
I will ask the Opposition again why is it, if they are really sincere, they cannot carry out their meetings and their plan of campaign like any ordinary political organisation? So long as they continue in a vain attempt to pretend that they are helping law and order or that this force of Blue Shirts is going to maintain peace and order where the ordinary methods cannot do it—so long as they pretend that to the country, I see no hope of remedying the present situation except by the Government taking stronger and more drastic steps to put an end to these displays. The members of the Opposition must make up their minds—and I suggest to them that the period of the adjournment affords them an opportunity to think over the thing in peace and quietness—to realise the situation and ask themselves whither they are going. Do they propose to continue with this semimilitary force or are they going to give to constitutional methods that allegiance which they profess but which, unfortunately, they never carry into effect?
The speech of the Minister for Education is typical of speeches from the members of the Government. The Minister talked about memories in Kerry as a justification for crime committed in Kerry.
I did not.
I do not know what was the point, then, in speaking about the bitter memories in Kerry. Talk about bitter memories comes very badly from the Minister. I recollect the time when unarmed men were ordered to be shot. I was sentenced to death, Civic Guards were ordered to be shot at sight, tax collectors were ordered to be shot at sight, annuity collectors were ordered to be shot at sight, bank managers were ordered to be shot at sight—all on the authority of the last speaker.
You were never in danger of being shot at sight, anyway; you were always in safety.
The last speaker knows perfectly well that statement is not true. He himself in that period saw me and he ran away when he did see me.
He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.
He ran away when he saw me in 1922.
This Government was not responsible for order in 1922.
Who was responsible for Ballyseedy?
Shut up. If the people over there want to talk on that subject I am just as ready to talk on it as they are. The Minister said that when we were in office we adjourned the Dáil from November to February and from July till October. We could do so, because we managed our affairs in a businesslike way. The Dáil went into recess in the summer and also over the Christmas period. This Government brings in one Bill. Then there are twin Bills needed and the Bill gets to be three Bills. The business this year went on until we reached the month of August. When they came to the adjournment they thought they would be ready to carry on at the end of September. They came back at the end of September and we gave them a little business to do by putting down a motion. Then they had to adjourn again. They came back this week and now we are adjourning for a month. We adjourned from November to February; we did not adjourn from October till November. The whole procedure merely displays incapacity on the part of the Government.
The Minister has told us that they came back and faced the Dáil and the country. They did nothing of the sort. They merely faced the Dáil, where they have a machined majority of people who are very anxious not to run the risk of a general election because there is something very vital to them that they might lose if there were a general election. The last speaker referred to quasi-military doctrines being preached. None of our people have preached such doctrines. He talked about Fascists. I do not know the Minister's definition of Fascism. I do know this, that because certain people suggested speculatively that there might be certain changes in the method of creating a Government here, immediately, just like the President's blackguardly friend who made a libellous statement about Deputy Mulcahy, the other side declared there was a plot to set up a dictatorship, without any grounds upon which to base that suggestion. Nobody here has suggested that the Government should be overthrown by force.
The Minister for Education, the Minister for Industry and Commerce over the week-end, and the President, denounced the wearing of a type of shirt which is taken as the badge of the members of this Party. There is nothing illegal about it. The last speaker says that he sees no hope of the criminal conditions that have been manifested in various parts of the country being put a stop to unless we cease to wear a shirt that we are legally entitled to wear and that there is nothing whatsoever wrong about wearing. Certain other people who claim to be the Government of this country and whose declared object is to overthrow the constitutional Government have made a law—it was not this Government made it and there is no such law in this country, properly speaking—that we are not to wear a shirt of a certain colour. The gunmen outside have made that law and the Government, taking their orders from them, declare also, without any authority from the Dáil, that we are not to wear that shirt. If we do, the Government say we must face the armed blackguards who support the Government outside. Those armed men have made attempts on human life and they set out to destroy property.
There is no law in this country against wearing a blue shirt. The attempt of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the President and the Minister for Education to suggest that there is something criminal in wearing a blue shirt is merely an attempt to defeat the law. It is really an attempt to support people outside who, in the past, have been guilty of murder, and were engaged in an attempt to overthrow the legitimate Government of this country. It is merely an attempt, on the part of the present Government of the country, to preserve their faces with this illegal organisation, its leaders and their followers in the country. Last Sunday, I think it was, the Minister for Industry and Commerce stated that it was the prime duty of the Government to maintain ordered conditions. Of course he was absolutely right in that statement. He went on to appeal to the decent citizens of the country to give active support in maintaining order in the country. That was all sound doctrine. But in reality the Minister did not need to make that appeal because every one of us, as human beings, knows that we ought to give active support in seeing that order is maintained. But if it is the Government's primary duty still that does not relieve decent citizens, every one of us, from helping to preserve order in the country. What was the position in this country?
When we went out of office we left in the hands of the incoming Government pretty drastic powers in the shape of the Constitution (Amendment) No. 17 Act. Personally I was glad that was there when the present Government took over office, although I regarded the record of the people forming the present Government as the record of gangsters. (Oh!) Does anyone deny that they were anything but gangsters for ten years? But I felt that when they found themselves put into authority they would take some stock of their position, and that realising that they were now becoming directly responsible for the safety of life and property, and the maintenance of ordered conditions, they would feel it was their duty to make proper use of the authority they received. Instead of that, and instead of doing their duty, they seem to face round to their former position and to give support to their old friends. The Minister said that they would call upon the decent citizens of the country to give active support to the Government. A few days before the President put up the position that the Constitution (Amendment) Act, No. 17, should be invoked for the purpose of banning a body of men called the National Guard. He found it hard to make a case. He brought forward two things. One was that he said this body of men was usurping the functions of the police by assisting in maintaining public order at public meetings. I was present at some of these public meetings. Time and time again the police were very anxious that these men should be there because they themselves were not in sufficient numbers to deal with the blackguards who came to interrupt the meetings, and because they needed the support of decent citizens. Another point was the blackguardly lie put about in regard to Deputy Mulcahy. The President now shares some of the responsibility by sheltering the person responsible and has prostituted his office by putting about that story. Instead of using his office as President to protect people, he is using his position to protect the criminal and allows an innocent man to suffer. That is not the only instance of it. When it became abundantly clear that there is an organisation outside which denies to the citizens of this country their ordinary rights, as shown in their attempt to break up our meetings, the President comes forward and tries to make a little dirty propaganda. He says he cannot make men popular when they are unpopular, or unpopular if they are popular. Was ever anything more contemptible than that? His armed blackguards outside attack decent citizens, and he turns round and says he cannot make people popular who are unpopular.
What does the Deputy mean by "his armed blackguards outside"?
Are they not your friends? If they are not your friends——
I ask, a Chinn Comhairle, that the Deputy should be asked to withdraw the phrase "his armed blackguards outside."
Well, his armed blackguardly friends outside.
Order! The Deputy will have to explain, in reply to the President, what he is referring to when he says "his armed blackguards outside," and alludes to them as friends of the President and the Government. It is not a Parliamentary expression.
I am referring to certain people outside whose blackguardly action is availed of by the President in order to try to represent us as an unpopular Party in the country. When we were admittedly the vast majority of the representatives of the people in the country in 1922, in the proportion of 94 to 34, Arthur Griffith's meeting in the West and Collins' meeting in Cork were attacked by these people——
This Government were only responsible for order in this country since they took office. Events that took place in 1922 have nothing to do with the case.
The argument that we were unpopular, because these blackguards came to our meetings to make trouble, is a completely dishonest argument. It is an attempt to seize upon the action of these blackguards, which in itself is a disgrace, and should be condemned, but the Government try to seize it and turn it into an instrument of dirty and dishonest propaganda. Of course they would rather do that than do what is their prime duty, namely, to show up this blackguardism in the country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce complained that the police are hard-worked in trying to protect our meetings, and the Government, apparently, think that is the end of the matter. The week-end before he spoke we had arranged a meeting in Cork. A criminal organisation there, with known leaders, decided to try to break up our meeting and to prevent the holding of that meeting and to promote disorder in the City of Cork. The Government sent down certain protection. There were police and military there I believe. That was merely their duty. If the Government gets notice that somebody is going to attempt to shoot you, a Chinn Comhairle, to-morrow, is it sufficient that the Government should come and hold a shield in front of you or is it not their duty to cope with the people that organised that crime? The President's own personal organ, in reporting the circumstances, referred to one of those leaders as a brother of the murdered Lord Mayor of Cork. It is a disgraceful thing to advertise the fact that the brother of a great Irishman is, incidentally, connected with criminal conduct of this kind. All over the country there is going on something that is called "Bass raids." In the current number of An Phoblacht there is a list published of a number of publicans who appeared as witnesses in these cases. That was an incitement to murder, an order to criminals to take action against those men for doing their duty.
The Government has invoked the 17th amendment to the Constitution against the National Guard—they had nothing whatever against the National Guard—but it takes no action against the other organisation I referred to. That organisation, when certain operations take place, sometimes issues a notice to say they were against its orders or that it takes no responsibility. In the case of the Bass raids the Government knows well the organisation responsible for them, and the people who are at the head of that organisation. It sees the official organ of that organisation come out and give the names of the people who as ordinary witnesses went forward and gave evidence for the State. They are pointed out for the sole purpose of having them dealt with by criminals outside, and the Government does nothing to prevent it. Is it the Government's duty to protect people? If a man has a publichouse and sells a particular type of ale, which he is perfectly entitled to do by the law of the country, is the Government going to stand by and see his property destroyed when it knows the very people who have ordered that campaign to take place? It takes no action whatever against them, and even permits the names of the people it calls upon to give evidence to be published in an organ which is for circulation amongst those criminal types in this country in order to incite them to take action against those decent citizens. It is true that they have a legitimate Government authority here, but instead of taking that seriously they are, either by positive or negative action, conniving with criminals outside.
Some time ago somewhere in the County Louth gelignite was stolen. Some of it or all of it was restored. It was restored, I understand, by an organisation that the Government knows the members of and knows those who are in charge of it. I have not heard—I may have missed it in the newspapers—that any of those leaders were arrested. The Government has brought the Public Safety Act, as it is called, into operation against the National Guard. The National Guard promptly, when the Government declared the organisation to be illegal, ceased to exist as an organisation. The Minister for Industry and Commerce I think only last week warned us that in regard to any persons wearing a blue shirt it would be up to them to prove that they did not belong to an organisation which did not exist, and that they would not be eligible for membership of the Dáil. That was a distortion of the law and an incitement to the people outside to carry on their lawless campaign, seeing clearly that the Government was prepared to act as their tools. The Government not only refuses to protect the citizen in the exercise of his ordinary rights, it not only refuses to protect the citizen's property when it knows the people who have ordered that that property be destroyed, but it then tries to bring the police into the contest by recruiting this body known as "The Broy Harriers." We have seen the type which is recruited into that body. One man got up in court and admitted that he had been in America for some time past; that he came back with a gun; and that he had that gun in his possession illegally ever since. Now, I suppose as a reward for what he had done in America and as a reward for breaking the law here by carrying a gun, he is put in a position to get £3 12s. a week and to support the Government in trying to injure innocent people who are brought before——
The Deputy has made an allegation——
Is this a point of order?
It is. The Deputy has made an allegation that a certain person was used to injure innocent people. I think the Deputy ought to be asked whether, by using the word "innocent" in reference to the people whom he presumably has in mind, he intends to reflect on the finding of the Tribunal.
Oh, no.
With regard to that particular matter it is not advisable to quote the evidence given in such a case in this House, or as a matter of fact to reflect upon the witnesses or the evidence given. It may be legitimate to refer to "The Broy Harriers" at a cross-roads meeting. I do not say it is absolutely out of order here, but I say it is not consistent with respect for the police force to refer to any section of the duly constituted police force in those terms.
I say that they are clearly recruited in a different way from the ordinary police, and I am not aware that there is any, what I might call, official method of distinguishing them from the ordinary police. I referred to the evidence which came out in that case merely for this reason: everybody has certain evidence as to the types that have been included in that organisation. If I say that here I am, of course, producing no proof. I merely refer to it to show what did come out in a public court. This House is now adjourning for a month or so. We adjourned last August, and during the time we were away the condition of the country got steadily worse, and those lawless people became more active. They have continued to become more active even while this House is sitting, and it may be because of their activity and the awkwardness which may arise that it is necessary to adjourn the House for a month. If they go on for the next month at the same rate of progress as they have achieved during the last fortnight or a month, it seems to me that there will be urgent need not merely for the Government to act but for the Government to have the support of the whole Dáil. It will be well to have the Dáil available to make it abundantly clear that, when the Government does—as we hope it will—at last wake up and do its duty, it is not merely representing the Fianna Fáil Party but all the people of this country. I referred to how it was that this type of activity had increased recently. It has increased steadily since the Government decided to disarm certain people who, legally and with the permission of the Government, were carrying arms. At some time, I do not now remember exactly what the date was, Mr. Blythe, a late Deputy of this House, and others, went down to a meeting in Cork. In going to that meeting they had to pass a sort of I.R.A. camp of about 70 men, who were armed with rifles and machine-guns.
What did Mr. Blythe do about it? Did he report it to anybody except to the Deputy?
Is the Minister for Justice unaware that there was an I.R.A. camp, with arms, about 70 strong, and that they had two machine-guns?
You do well to avoid the question.
The military were sent out after them.
We got no information from Mr. Blythe.
Did you need it? Mr. Blythe was accompanied by State forces. They were responsible for him. To the best of my knowledge they took their duty very seriously, and they also were armed. It was pretty clear to those gentlemen in their little camp, with their arms, with the non-operation of the Government against them, that if they tried anything they would not be interfered with by the forces of this State. Our whole experience of them has been that they want a guarantee of safety before they operate. The moment it became apparent to them that the Government was guarding certain people they knew that if they tried any activity against them they were going to face danger. They were very indignant, and immediately an order came to my guards and to Mr. Blythe's guards and they were removed. Everybody in any way associated with the A.C.A. as a body was then warned to disappear, and we noticed how that had the approval of this armed criminal organisation outside.
They denied the right of the Government to disarm them, and the Government apparently denied its own right to disarm them, but in Tralee, when they suspect that somebody has a gun, they demand that the police will disarm that man lest they might be injured whilst they are throwing their Mills bombs into the meeting. There have been cases of corrupt Governments, Governments possibly more corrupt than the present Government; there have been cases of cowardly Governments, but I do not think I ever heard in history before of a clear case where the Government—instead of protecting its citizens, instead of trying to put down crime—says that men, who have guns on permits granted to them by the police, shall be disarmed, while leaving arms with those who are criminals, who are in a criminal organisation outside, set up to destroy the liberty of the citizens, and to make their own criminal laws operative in this country; where the Government goes out of its way to assist them and where Minister after Minister—the Minister for Education a few moments ago and the Minister for Industry and Commerce last week—gets up to justify that. The criminal organisation ontside says that we are not to wear a certain type of shirt, and Deputy Lemass gets up to comfort his allies of the past, if indeed they are not at present his allies, to say that we shall not be allowed to wear these garments, because his friends do not like the colour of the shirt. The men who are being disarmed are law-abiding citizens, merely exercising their lawful rights, whereas the people who are allowed to carry arms are in a criminal organisation out for murder.
I heard the Minister for Justice state yesterday in reply to a question by Deputy MacDermot as to whether certain people, if they were arrested, would be brought before the Military Tribunal, that the Military Tribunal, by the Act which constitutes it, is only empowered to try certain types of cases. It has tried the case of four men arising out of the sale of cattle. It has tried the case of nine men wrongly charged with conspiracy not to pay rates, but in Dingle a short time ago there was a number of young men together, and an armed body approached and fired on them——
On a point of order, I take it the Deputy is referring to a case which is sub judice, seeing that the men have been returned for trial.
I do not know whether I would be out of order in asking why that case—I am raising no point as to whether the men are guilty or innocent, but I want to know from the Minister for Justice why, in dealing with this case——
The Attorney-General
I suggest that it would be more suitable if questions like that were withheld until the case is over.
Very well. I quite agree. I should be very glad to hear if the Government is going to put up any reasonable defence for the present situation. I do not want a defence. I merely want to know if the Government is going to reverse engines, if it is going to deal with the criminals in this country, instead of taking action against law-abiding citizens. Preeminently on this question, arises the matter of the criminal libel against Deputy Mulcahy. The President said in this House that he had received a report. That report he now admits was a lie. He knows perfectly well that the report was a criminal libel against a Deputy of this House. It would be his duty as an ordinary human being not to share in the guilt or the sin of that individual by concealment of him. As President, he is the person who is responsible to us to see that we, ordinary citizens, are protected against attacks on us, whether they be attacks calculated to ruin our reputations or whether they be physical attacks. It would be his duty more than the duty of any other man in this country—it would be also the duty of any other man in the country—to see that the man who was guilty of that criminal libel was brought to justice. Having asserted eight times that he would have an inquiry into it, he gets up now, knowing perfectly well that it is the Government's duty to take action against that man, and gives a negative answer to the demand for an inquiry. He had already promised eight times that he would have an inquiry, but he will have no inquiry now because he knows it would bring out the identity of the criminal who sent this report to his Minister. It is solely for the purpose of sheltering that criminal that he is maintaining silence, in the same way as he sheltered the criminals against any danger they might incur if they attacked law-abiding citizens when he made the arrangement that permits for carrying revolvers should be taken from law-abiding citizens, in the same way that the Minister for Industry and Commerce in order to assist the criminals says that we cannot wear a certain type of shirt that we are perfectly and legally entitled to wear, and in the same way as the Minister for Education says that if that is continued, then—I do not know if I have got his exact words—this Government cannot be expected to maintain order or to protect those people.
This is only a matter of an adjournment for a month. I can only hope that between now and the end of that month the Government, instead of throwing out nice words about its duty to maintain public order, will talk less about it and see that it is done. One of the most ominous things I have noticed, recently, is its love of talking about majority rule. This sudden conversion of the Government reminds me that when they are about to do some of the dirtiest things in their career they generally speak in the most pious and most high-sounding terms. You will notice that as the Government's career becomes more dirty, its declarations become more high-sounding, more constitutional and more calculated to elevate the public. The public requires elevation certainly, but it also requires protection from the people the Government are now sheltering.
I have noticed, despite the number of speakers I heard from the Opposition Benches—and they have referred to several instances, recently, where they complain of the Government's inactivity—that they have carefully refrained from referring to one matter. I should like, if the deputy leader of the Opposition in the House is in a position to tell the House what his running orders are without getting in touch with those outside, if he would intimate to the House what attitude he is going to adopt if a similar situation to that which I am going to refer to now arises again. Deputies on the opposite benches have been mouthing about law and order and about the duty of maintaining law and order. We have had an hysterical outburst from Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, but he carefully avoided referring to the incidents which took place recently in the pound at Prussia Street. I have been waiting—I see Deputy Vincent Rice impatient to get up——
Mr. Rice
Yes, I should like to follow you.
The Attorney-General
I should like to ask him some questions about it. We have had from the Opposition last night, and in several debates during this session, its profession of allegiance to law and order. Why one wonders, when incidents such as I am going to refer to in some detail occurred, were they so careful not to refer to them in the Dáil or in public? The facts in connection with the Clonmel case I suppose are fairly familiar to most members of the House, but shortly they are these: that a gentleman living near Clonmel owed a certain amount of money for rates and estate duty. He was a fairly comfortable farmer, at least he had several head of cattle on his land, and the sheriff went and seized these cattle. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney laughs as if the sheriff is not entitled to go and seize what he could find on the land for rates and estate duty.
If it will ease the Attorney-General's mind, I was not laughing at what he said at all.
The Attorney-General
These cattle were taken to Clonmel and brought into the pound there and the sheriff announced a certain date for the sale. On the day appointed for the sale about 700 farmers, mostly members of Deputy MacDermot's late Party, marched into Clonmel in strength and took possession of the pound. They were quite peaceful and orderly; did not intend to interfere with the sale; 700 of them and not one bidder!
Why did you not send Killeen there?
The Attorney-General
When the auctioneer had failed to elicit a bid, they went off and held a victory meeting in another part of Clonmel. The local newspaper, The Nationalist, gave an account of the whole proceedings:
"Arrived at the pound at 3 o'clock, the hour fixed for the sale, the crowd waited for the opening of the gates. At about 3.20 a representative of Mr. Colbert, County Registrar for Waterford, arrived to conduct the sale.... No bid was forthcoming and the sale was then adjourned to next Wednesday at 1 o'clock. There was a large force of Guards and a number of armed detectives on duty at the pound, but everything was peaceful and orderly."
The legitimate demand of the Minister for Finance for estate duty was, of course, not to be paid. Nobody was to be allowed to bid. Nobody was to be allowed to open his mouth at the sale. But everything was peaceful and orderly!
Nobody was shot.
The Attorney-General
The newspaper report goes on to state:
"The farmers, whose numbers were now estimated at 700, marched back to Hearn's Hotel, where a public meeting was addressed."
That meeting was addressed by Mr. Nicholas Ryan, a prominent member of Deputy MacDermot's organisation. I suppose he is a member of the new organisation now. He said that the farmers "had turned up like men, had won the first round, and had won it hands down," and so on. He apologised for the absence of Mr. R. Curran, T.D., who was engaged at an important meeting in Dublin. Then the meeting was addressed by another leader of the Party, Mr. O'Dwyer. I am not going to weary the House by reading all he said. He wound up by saying:
"They had acted like men that day. The cattle were put up for sale and were not disposed of in spite of the large number of buyers present."
That is the attitude of the Farmers' Party towards law and order in Tipperary. It is their attitude when it is a question of having rates and estate duty due to the Minister for Finance paid. I might mention incidentally that the rates were not even this year's rates, but last year's rates. Deputy Wall also congratulated the farmers on their orderly conduct. That, of course, has been the device adopted by the Opposition to cover up actions such as this with a gloss of law and order.
Were there any arrests?
The Attorney-General
No arrests.
There was no illegality?
The Attorney-General
There were no arrests. I heard a lot of complaints because there were no arrests in Tralee. I suggest that this whole business was illegal. Because no arrests were made and because we were determined to see if we could not defeat the conspiracy in another way, is it the Deputy's complaint that there were no arrests, that we were too lenient?
Are we to take it that there was more discrimination; that you got the right men in Prussia Street?
The Attorney-General
That is a very clever answer.
That is a question.
The Attorney-General
That is a very clever question. I shall come to Prussia Street in a moment. I say that it was stretching our patience very far to have to put up with that kind of thing when we could have arrested some of the members of the Party opposite and have them charged in connection with that.
Were they politically mixed in Clonmel?
The Attorney-General
The facts are that 700 men organised by the Farmers' and Ratepayers' League turned up to prevent the sale of these cattle in order to prevent the collection of rates and yet we hear it stated by Deputy MacDermot that there is no campaign, no conspiracy. He told myself the other day that there was no conspiracy against the payment of rates. Then a second attempt was made by the registrar to sell the cattle and an auction was called for a later date. On that occasion over 1,000 farmers turned up to prevent the sale of the six cattle. I have not the report of that particular meeting here, but I think it was Deputy Curran who stated that they would follow the cattle wherever they went and that shortly they would become the six most famous cattle in Irish history.
So they are.
There is law and order!
The Attorney-General
Now we see the enthusiasm for law and order. The story does not end there. The registrar brought the cattle to Dublin. The staff work in connection with the boycott of this sale, I must say, was excellent; so excellent that it smelt very much of military organisation. The registrar consigned the cattle to a well known firm of cattle shippers in Dublin without intimating that they were these particular six cattle. When they arrived at the station they were met by a gentleman who kept a particularly close eye upon them and, whether that particular man or some other man was responsible, by the time the cattle arrived at this woman's yard she would not take them in. She told the man in charge of the cattle that it would ruin her business. Very effective, undoubtedly; very good staff work; Deputy Curran's threat being well carried out. The cattle were then taken to the Pound.
It appeared to us that this conspiracy to defeat the sale of these cattle and thus defeat the collection of rates all over the country was going to succeed. That was the position in which we found ourselves. Gentlemen stated that there was no conspiracy against the payment of rates. Here they were straining every nerve to defeat the sale of these six cattle in order to break the attempt of the Government to collect rates or annuities or anything else. In the difficulty in which we were I cast about for somebody who would give us some idea how this particular conspiracy could be met. I am sure that Deputy MacDermot knows it, I am sure that the leaders of the opposite benches know it, that word was sent to every cattle dealer in Dublin that he was not to take these cattle. When we attempted to get a cattle dealer in Dublin to buy we could not get one to do it. I took the view, and so did other members of the Government take the view, that while we might have arrested these men down in Clonmel— Deputy O'Higgins says we did not arrest them from discrimination—and might have charged them with conspiracy, our real business was to defeat the attempt to prevent the sale of the cattle and to sell the cattle in spite of these fellows, no matter how it was managed. For that purpose I was responsible for getting a man who had the pluck to come up and defy the ring and the boycott.
Mr. Brown.
The Attorney-General
Yet we had Deputy Vincent Rice a couple of days afterwards putting down a question about "John Brown" and complaining—I suppose he is going to repeat it—that we sent a police officer to the sale. They ought to be ashamed of themselves that they had reduced things to such a pass that when the sheriff gave notice on the Tuesday that the cattle were to be sold on the following day the Irish Independent in a middle page carried a notice the next day, lest it might escape the attention of the people down the country, that the cattle were to be sold, and so successfully was it advertised and so successful was the organisation, although only one day elapsed before the sale took place, that everybody knows what happened. Over one thousand people turned up. Much as we anticipated trouble at that sale, I certainly confess that I did not imagine that the organisation of this conspiracy would have been so effective, and again I say it smells of military organisation. Where did the people come from? All over the country. It came out in evidence that Mr. Barton, one of the defendants, was present at a Convention of Mr. MacDermot's Party in Kildare, where the one hundred delegates present pledged themselves to turn up at the sale in Prussia Street. And yet we are told there is no conspiracy against the payment of rates, that we are to have law and order, that the Government is to be allowed to govern and that the rates are to be allowed to be collected. Mr. Barton turned up for the sale but left it to go down to the Kildare Street Club to luncheon. When he came out he went to find where the cattle had gone, to follow them, as he said in evidence, wherever they went. There has been a lot of talk about Tralee and about the position the police were in. But look at the position the police were in in Prussia Street with some members of the Party opposite and their followers there. They came to jeer at the sale and to frighten anybody from opening their mouths. Yet, we have Deputy Rice wanting to know why a police officer should be employed to go there and bid. Was it not a very fortunate thing that he did go there and bid and that the man who did pluckily offer to make a bid was not there? It had to be called out that it was a police officer who made the bid in order that he might escape with his life. A question that I want to ask Deputy MacDermot is this: Is this kind of thing going to continue? We know that they are to have victory meetings to-night in the case of the Waterford farmers who have been acquitted. I am not going to complain in the slightest degree about their acquittal. I gave them a fair trial.
Mr. Rice
The court gave them a fair trial.
The Attorney-General
I gave them a fair trial. I gave them more than a fair trial. Anybody who has been in the court has no right to complain of the trial they got in the court.
You kept them in Mountjoy.
The Attorney-General
That is another matter. That is not my business.
As others were kept in Arbour Hill.
The Attorney-General
I repeat that I gave them more than a fair trial. Statements that were taken from them after their arrest were not put in evidence.
Mr. Rice
The court gave them a fair trial.
The Attorney-General
I did not suggest that the court had not given them a fair trial. The prosecution prosecuted fairly, and all I have to say in connection with it is that we put forward the evidence which we had got and which we believed amounted to conspiracy, which we believed showed that there was a movement on foot to promote and encourage the non-payment of rates. Upon that the court held that a prima facie case was established. These men were allowed to answer it and they answered it effectively and have been acquitted.
But the State kept them in jail as if they were murderers.
The Attorney-General
I only want to say this in connection with it. Some speakers have said, because of the acquittal of the Waterford men, that there is not a conspiracy against the payment of rates. I am only pointing to the fact that there was. They have staring them in the face the facts, all of which are known publicly. In their own newspaper the Party opposite published rhymes about "John Brown" showing that they were proud of the performance in Prussia Street. Look at the yell of rage and disappointment which arose when it was discovered that the cattle had actually been sold. We sold the cattle and we will sell every beast that is put up for the non-payment of rates, no matter what the gentlemen opposite do. The gentlemen opposite are very voluble and vehement about law and order. Well, the maintenance of the public services is a matter of very great importance, and I think we are entitled to get from those on the opposite benches an assurance that scenes such as we had in connection with the sale of these cattle will not occur again; that if cattle are put up again for sale people who come to bid for them will not have their lives endangered, and that we will not have this elaborate machined conspiracy of people coming from all over the country to prevent the effective sale of such cattle.
Mr. Rice
Before the Attorney-General concludes, may I put him this question? Does he suggest that the people who came to Prussia Street were guilty of conspiracy? He has said so, but does he mean it?
The Attorney-General
I do not understand what the Deputy refers to. I think everybody understands precisely what I mean. I mean that the gathering in Prussia Street was elaborately and carefully organised; that the members of the opposite Party arranged that the moment the sale was announced signals would be sent all over the country and that in response to those signals men would come up from Tipperary, Kildare, Waterford and other places.
Mr. Rice
Does the Attorney-General——
The Attorney-General
Would the Deputy allow me to answer the question he asked?
Mr. Rice
The Attorney-General is not answering the question. He is making a speech.
The Attorney-General was in possession when interrupted.
The Attorney-General
What I mean is that the whole business was a disgrace to the Party opposite, and I want to say this: that on their public platforms they have not by a single reference expressed regret for it. When they are so critical of the Government I think they might at least have had the decency to go and tell the people that that kind of thing should not go on.
Hear, hear!
The Attorney-General
Apparently someone on the opposite benches has sufficient shame in him to say "hear, hear," to that. Before the debate concludes I hope that we will have some such expression from the people opposite. I would like to point this out to Deputy MacDermot, who seems to think that he can cover over with some appearance of legality acts that his followers do. I do not want to make any charge against the Deputy, because I really believe that he is anxious to see that things should be carried out in a fair and reasonable way. I believe that he is being ill-advised, that the advice he is getting is not honest and that things are being done in the name of his Party which are bound to lead to trouble. I have here a copy of a resolution which was put forward at Kildare. First of all, I see that Kildare has started a campaign against anybody who will buy stock that we have. The Guards found in one of the towns of Kildare the other day a notice to this effect: "Warning. No John Browns will be allowed to buy or sell stock in this county. Action will be taken against all who handle tainted goods, and traitors spreading false reports. Signed: Vigilance Committee, No. 13." Then we have a resolution from the Standing Committee. It begins with the preamble that in its opinion it voices the views of the majority of farmers in the county, and after the usual introductory paragraph to give, as I have said, colourable legality to what follows and to the action taken it goes on: "We, the undersigned members of the Farmers' and Ratepayers' League, finding ourselves in a position of not being able to pay the coming rates and annuities under present conditions hereby undertake to prevent by every means in our power the victimisation of any of our members by resisting any attempt of the collectors to enforce by seizure or otherwise the collection of those charges."
I would like to know what is the meaning of that. Apparently these resolutions were proposed by a political party. Is there any justification for preventing collectors seizing where they find goods to seize? Has any political party, or any members of the Kildare Farmers' and Ratepayers' Association a right to say whether collectors shall or shall not seize anywhere they are able to do so? Is it not an arrogation by these gentlemen of a right which they have not got, to say when collectors are to execute decrees? That is the scheme apparently. I may be overestimating information which I have. Possibly I may be exaggerating the conspiracy but, from what happened in Clonmel, I feel that I am not. I believe, unless the thing is dealt with firmly, that when the next sale of cattle takes place, after a seizure, we are going to have the same business all over again. They ask: "Why do you not prove all these things?" Everybody who knows anything about a conspiracy knows that it is a most difficult thing to prove, that in this country, in particular, it is possible to have the most elaborate conspiracy arranged in such a way that no trace of it can be found. For instance, I referred to what I described as Deputy Rice's objection to the word "conspiracy" in connection with the sale in Prussia Street. We have been unable to get evidence, although on the facts supplied to me the arrangements must have been elaborate. Elaborate arrangements can be made in every county and we will not be able to prove them. Not a single person in great parts of the country is deceived by the statement that a no rates campaign does not exist. I do believe that a no rates campaign does exist in certain parts. I suggest that that will be clearly proved very shortly as a result of the collections. Here we have something designed to encourage people not to pay rates. Such a thing is very difficult to cope with and the gentlemen who are so anxious to see law and order prevail might direct their attention towards trying to get order in their own house, and to prevent things developing, which seem to me to be developing.
I had intended to speak briefly at a somewhat later stage in this debate but, in view of the Attorney-General's allusions to me, I feel that I ought to intervene at once. The first thing we ought to remind ourselves of in connection with the Attorney-General's speech is the character of the people whom he has been attacking, even assuming that the facts of what has occurred were exactly as he stated—which I am not admitting. The men in question are men who have led the lives of honest, hard-working, respectable citizens who made their living by farming. They believe, whether we consider it a well-founded belief, as I do, or an ill-founded belief, as no doubt the Attorney-General would, that their livelihood has been taken from them by the folly and rashness of the Government, and there is among Irish farmers a tradition of co-operation and support for each other when they find themselves in a tight place as a result of Government action. Naturally it takes a little time to teach people to distinguish as clearly as they ought to distinguish, between a native Irish Government and a British Government, and it would not be a case for harsh denunciation, even if it were true, that men placed in the situation that these men were placed in had offended to some extent against the law. I am not acquainted with the facts about the sales. It so happens that I was out of the country when all that took place. But the suggestion that anyone who bid at such a sale would have his life endangered is, I submit, absolute nonsense. These were not the type of men to take away a man's life. I do not know why that remark provokes amusement, or pretended amusement, amongst any Deputies on the opposite benches. These men were not in any sense a criminal type, or a wild type, and, in point of fact, in the scene at the cattle market in Dublin the worst that was done was to take a man's trousers off, which I have known done many a time by undergraduates at a university.
The Attorney-General
They tried to pull him down amongst them.
The Attorney-General is not right in assuming that the man would have been seriously injured or injured at all, much less killed.
An undergraduate scene at the cattle market.
At any rate we are interested more—I am sure the Attorney-General will agree—in the future than in the past, and what he wants to know is, whether we on this side of the House will co-operate in preventing illegalities, even illegalities on the part of men who are suffering acutely as a result of the President's private war? On behalf of the Opposition, emphatically, my answer is yes. We will do anything we can to discourage illegality. We are not rate collectors, and the Government cannot expect us to go out and get in the rates for them. We believe that there is a vast number of people who genuinely cannot pay as a result of the Government's policy, but we have over and over again—I am now speaking especially for Deputy Dillon and myself as we were connected with the Centre Party— stretching over a period of 12 months, expressed ourselves as being entirely opposed to any no-rates movement. We intend to press that view very strongly on every occasion that it is fruitful or useful to express it.
The Attorney-General referred to the fact that there was probably a victory celebration going on in Waterford this evening to celebrate the acquittal of the farmers. I am sure there is. I understand also that Deputy Dillon is speaking at that celebration, and if the Attorney-General will look up to-morrow's newspapers I think he will see that Deputy Dillon has once again taken advantage of the opportunity to make our position plain on the subject of illegalities.
The President was very much affronted a few minutes ago, when Deputy Desmond Fitzgerald suggested his complicity in some sort of conspiracy of a criminal character. But I suggest that the President acted with very much more levity, and with very much less consideration of what was fair and just, when he rushed into an accusation of conniving at conspiracy against Deputy Dillon and myself in his speech at Dundalk. It would have been extremely easy to go back over the newspaper files, to go back over the records of this House, to find utterances of Deputy Dillon and myself in direct conflict with any conspiracy for non-payment of rates. I am not a legal authority, and I do not know to what limit it is legitimate for people to go, in order to show their sympathy with men who have suffered severe losses, and who are being harassed by the Government for payments which they consider they are unable to make. I know that one frequently passes a Dublin shop and sees a number of men parading outside the shop and exhibiting notices telling the public not to go in and deal in that shop because suitable wages are not paid there, because there is a strike on, or for some other reason of that nature; and I conceive, though not speaking as a legal authority, that there would be no real reason why farmers should not take steps to show that they felt a dislike for people who facilitated the Government in the task of penalising men who, they considered, were genuinely unable to pay.
Majority rule!
As I say, I am not a legal authority and I do not know how far it is legitimate to go; but we have said, while standing against any campaign for non-payment of rates, that it is our desire and intention to help, so far as we legally can, against victimisation persons who are genuinely unable to pay.
So much for the question of rates. I venture to suggest that that is something of very minor proportions and very minor seriousness as compared with the issues of violence and intimidation that we have been raising. Now, I am going to make the Government a present of one admission. Allusion has been made from this bench to the fact of the legality of wearing blue shirts. I once heard the Attorney-General say, or, at any rate, imply—I think he explicitly said it in this House—that nobody could blame you for doing anything that you were legally entitled to do. That is a doctrine to which I do not assent and, even if it were legally, perfectly proper for an organisation to clothe itself in blue shirts, if, in fact, it had the effect of damaging the general conditions of peace and order in this country, I should be against their doing it. But the truth of the matter is that the Blue Shirt organisation is not the cause of the conditions of violence and intimidation of which we are complaining but, on the contrary, is the result of those conditions. Those conditions are conditions of which I have had personal experience back at the last election and before it in districts where a Blue Shirt had never been seen; and the reason that young men feel called upon to come together and give themselves a certain corporate spirit by adopting such a costume as a blue shirt is that they feel the necessity of coping with that state of things: that they feel that the Civic Guards by themselves are not in a position to create conditions of true liberty in this country. It is not merely a question of preventing free speech. That is very bad, but there is something in addition to that. There is the prevention even of attendance at meetings. I have been told by people in a great many parts of the country that they did not like to come to meetings and that they stayed away because they were afraid of being penalised and attacked if they went. There is not a Deputy in this House who could not confirm the truth of that by any sincere inquiries in his constituency.
Notwithstanding the fact that they were provided with free buses.
That is a valuable interruption.
The Deputy knows all about that game.
It is no good shutting our eyes to the fact that intimidation is a very serious problem in this country. I do not believe it is an insoluble problem. We have had rather a turbulent history in this country and, perhaps, we Irish are rather a turbulent people, but if we are, we are a goodhearted people at the same time and I do not believe that the violence and intimidation of which we complain are a necessary concomitant of political life in this country. If there were no question of so-called war with England, if there was not a resuscitation of the so-called national issue which always poisons anything in the nature of charity and commonsense in this country, I do not believe that intimidation in this country would get anywhere. There may be sinister forces in this country that would like to see general anarchy followed by Communism. There may be, at any rate, forces that are more interested in seeing people who have any property despoiled of that property than they are in anything else; but I do not believe that such forces would succeed even for a short time in this country except under the cloak of patriotism. What I deplore is that it is made so easy for them to succeed under the cloak of patriotism, and it is made easy for them by the policy of the present Government. Mind you, what occurred at Tralee the other day is already having a very bad effect outside Tralee. In other parts of the country—at Castlebar, at Limerick—the shouts that I heard of "Up Dev" were mingled with shouts of "Up Tralee" and "Up Kerry." It is all becoming part of the gospel of the true Fianna Fáiler, that all that is good—that it goes together. None of the Ministers sitting over there can afford to allow that sort of thing to go on if they have any patriotism in them.
The root of the whole matter is that what is called the national policy of the Government does not make one scrap of sense.
That is the Deputy's opinion, not the people's.
Well, it will be the people's. Now, I can understand a policy which consists of going all out for a Thirty-Two-County Republic. If that is the policy there is only one way to try to implement it and that is to have conscription, preceded, I suppose, by universal military training—to have conscription, to declare war and to fight for it. The chances of success might be small, but, at any rate, it would be a try and it would be the only way to try. The prospect of getting a Republic for the 32 counties in any other way is absolutely non-existent. Your policy, on the other hand, may be to have a Twenty-Six-County Republic in view of the fact that the Thirty-Two-County Republic is unattainable. If that is so, for Heaven's sake go ahead and declare your Republic and take it, and then it will not be possible for blackguards to go about the country disguising their blackguardism under the name of patriotism. Perhaps that may be a necessary step towards the ultimate destiny of this country. I am quite certain what that destiny is. I am certain that Partition is not going on forever, but that it is artificial and founded on artificial passions. I am perfectly certain that, sooner or later, the people of this country will realise that it is worth while to conciliate the feelings of a quarter of our people, and to accept free and equal partnership with Great Britain, Canada, Australia and South Africa, but it may take a long time, and it may be that experience of the Twenty-Six-County Republic is necessary first. It is hard for me to judge. Of course, I should much rather cut out that departure from the straight road to national unity, but, at any rate, if the Twenty-Six-County Republic were brought in, it would go a long, long way towards solving this problem of disorder and intimidation, because where that sort of thing flourishes is amongst the worst elements of the community who manage to disguise themselves as patriots, and to whom a certain number of people who are genuinely excited about the national issue, but who are unbalanced and hysterical, attach themselves. I said last night that I wished to Heaven that we could have co-operation among all Parties in this House in putting down violence and intimidation and interference with the free exercise of citizenship, and I meant that from my heart. Any co-operation that we could give in that direction we certainly would give. I only wish that co-operation in that matter could be a prelude to a larger co-operation, for I often feel that all the strife and contention in this country are absolutely stupid and unnecessary. I often feel that at bottom we are all out for the same things, and if we could only get together, believing in each other's good faith, in each other's goodwill and in each other's patriotism, we could achieve more for this country in our lifetime than any one of us can hope will be achieved under present conditions.
It is a pity you did not cross the Channel years before you did.
I should have thought that a Government would regard it as a healthy thing to have a criticism at the end of a session and before an adjournment, of their policy and their work during the previous period, and that certainly would be true about a Government that was doing its work honestly and fearlessly and governing the country, but we had an attempt here to-night by the President to prevent any discussion on this adjournment. It was an attempt to prevent it because he does not want to face up to an exposure of the recent happenings that are a disgrace to the Government sitting on those benches. The technique has been adopted recently by this Government of sitting there and looking like a crowd of dummies and refusing to answer speakers from these benches, but the new policy adopted this evening of trying to prevent any discussion at all is the best policy of the Government. The Minister for Education was the first speaker from those benches, and he did not attempt to deal with any single charge in the grave and serious indictment of the Government that was put forward by Deputy O'Sullivan. Instead, he adopts the usual policy of attempting to make an attack on the Opposition Party. He told us that the Opposition Party have no policy. I should have thought that if the Minister is too busy to read the newspapers himself, some of the secret service aides of the Government would have brought under his notice the fact that there was a preliminary statement of policy published by this Party, some months ago. For the information of the members of the Government who seem not to have read it, I should like to call their attention to one or two items in it. It says:—
"The United Ireland Party stands for the voluntary reunion of the Irish nation as the paramount constitutional issue in Irish politics and considers that to achieve this end the first essential is solidarity of purpose amongst the citizens of the Free State."
That is the first item in the programme of this Party. The next one is this:—
"It maintains the fundamental right of the Irish people to decide for themselves at all times their own constitutional status. It rejects as fatal to Irish unity and in every way disastrous, the Government's double-faced policy of retaining the present constitutional position and at the same time discarding its advantages. The people are being brought to beggary and defrauded of all hope of getting rid of partition by a sham Republicanism which only uses the name Republic as a pretext for self-glorification, for claiming a monopoly of patriotism and for perpetuating disorder."
I say that if the Government were doing their job honestly and fearlessly and governing the country, giving even-handed justice to every section of the people, they would not be ashamed to face this discussion here to-night as apparently they have been. Their President tried to run away from this discussion to-night. Why is that? Because he is not administering even-handed justice between the different sections of the people. A lot of nonsense is talked from the Government Benches about people wearing blue shirts. What is wrong with people wearing blue shirts? What is illegal in it? You have your Attorney-General there to advise you if he thinks it is illegal and why not prosecute for it? The reason you do not do it is because you know that there is nothing illegal in it. We hear nonsense talked by Ministers, both inside this House and outside it, about provocative displays in the country and about people wearing blue shirts. What is wrong with it? Is it wrong for people to wear blue shirts who have no arms and is it right for other people to go around with guns in their pockets, breaking up meetings, because one section are the pets of the Government and the other people are not?
(Interruption).
I do not want to be interrupted by any Deputy of the calibre of Deputy Cooney, who is one of the drones in the hive opposite and who never makes any useful contribution to debate in this House.
Will the Deputy answer a question?
Deputies
Order, order!
What would the Deputy call a shirt without arms?
Mr. Rice
If the Government think that there is anything illegal in the wearing of blue shirts, let them prosecute people who wear them. The Government are carrying on the government of this country, such as it is, for the benefit of one section of the people only and I should like to remind them, and the Attorney-General, who is a learned lawyer, of course, of a principle of government stated fifty years ago by a great thinker. I should like to commend it to his attention and he might bring it under the notice of his Government. It is:—
"If any Government should be tempted to neglect, even for a moment, its function of compelling obedience to law, if a democracy, for example, were to allow a portion of the multitude of which it consists to set some law at defiance which it happens to dislike, it would be guilty of a crime which hardly any other virtue could relieve and which century upon century might fail to repair."
That is what the Government of this country are doing at the present time. They are condoning crime on the part of a section of the people and they are trying to impute crime to other people who are law-abiding and decent. The President, from the formation of this new Party, and the junction up of the different elements of opposition who want to save the country from the disorder into which it is being pushed now, has gone through the country, again and again, on an orgy of tom-tom beating and Deputy Norton goes into another district and plays the little kettle-drum at the same time, and says: "O'Duffy and the rest of them ought to be put in jail because they are breaking the law." What law are we breaking, and what item in the policy of this Party is there that is against the law? This Party stands for obedience to the law and, however grossly maladministered the law may be, this Party does respect and has respected, and will respect, the law. We have never stood for the non-payment of rates. Deputy MacDermot, as he told you to-night, has always stood for the payment of rates and for obedience to the law. Deputy Dillon has done the same thing and every member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, as it was, has stood for the same thing.
General O'Duffy, when speaking in Castlebar—I hope that none of the Deputies present at the moment will object to my calling him "General;" some of them did the other night object to that term being applied to him but I do not know why—advised the people there that they should, and must, pay their rates. Deputy MacDermot was present at that meeting, too. That is the policy of this Party—to obey the law—and we are not going to have it put out to the country by imputation such as the Attorney-General tried to make here to-night, that there is any connivance at or encouragement to a breach of the law on our part. I was surprised, indeed, that the Attorney-General drew my name into the discussion. He said I was "bobbing up again and again." I pass over the expression. It is not English but we understand what it means. I did get up but I had not the Attorney-General in mind at all. He is only an item in the issues that have to be dealt with to-night. He did call my attention to Prussia Street and the incidents that led up to it. I wish to say this about it—that, as regards the finding of any court in this State, I have no criticism to make, whether it be the court that tried the Prussia Street case or any other court. Whether people are found guilty or innocent, I respect the verdicts of the courts of this country. Whether a verdict be given by the Military Tribunal or any other court, I adopt it as an honest verdict, given as the result of honest belief. I was amazed to hear the Attorney-General talking about "this conspiracy" in Prussia Street and speaking of the people tried there as having been guilty of conspiracy. Does he forget the counts on which he himself indicted them? Is he ignorant of the fact that, having charged these men with conspiracy, they were found not guilty of conspiracy by the court? It is an amazing thing for the Attorney-General to get up and make these charges against those who stood their trial like men and suffered the consequences like men.
The Attorney-General
On a point of order, I do not think that the Deputy is representing me correctly. I did not for a moment intend to suggest that the four men acquitted of the charge of conspiracy were guilty of conspiracy. The conspiracy I referred to I described. I referred to the conspiracy which, I believe, existed from the date when, in Clonmel, these cattle were taken up to the date of the attempt in Prussia Street to prevent the cattle being sold.
Mr. Rice
You referred to the conspiracy——
There was no conspiracy but his and Killeen's.
You paid the rates anyway, Paddy.
I can pay them and I do not squeal about it.
Mr. Rice
The Attorney-General referred to the men tried in connection with the Prussia Street incident and to "the conspiracy". When he says he did not mean that, I accept it.
The Attorney-General
I do not think I referred to it as a conspiracy.
Mr. Rice
I accept the Attorney-General's statement that he did not mean that. He has invited me to discuss this question of Prussia Street and I am going to do that. I put down a question in this House as to who was the person who paid for the cattle and who was behind him; who was the purchaser and who was supplying the money. It was obvious to everybody that the auction was a bogus auction, so far as it was held. But it was with pain and surprise that I learned afterwards what the truth was. The Minister for Justice, with his usual cleverness and discretion, refused to answer my question. He said it was not in the public interest to give the information I sought. It was certainly not in the public interest to have revealed to the people of this country that the Attorney-General, in his own office, arranged a mock auction in this sordid manner and arranged for a secret bidder to be procured and a police officer to be sent to the auction disguised in plain clothes and calling himself "John Brown." He was to say that he was the purchaser. There is a law dealing with bogus bids at auctions and the Attorney-General sailed very near a breach of the law in the performance he arranged in his own office. It pains me as a member of an honourable profession to find that a member of my profession holding that office should take part in a performance of that kind.
The Attorney-General
The Deputy has charged me with having arranged a mock auction.
It was sworn in court.
Your oath was not believed in court, so you had better shut up.
The Attorney-General
The evidence as to what happened in my office was given in court. I think that it is an extraordinary thing that the Deputy should charge me with what would be a criminal offence—practically arranging a bogus auction. There was no such finding by the court.
Mr. Rice
I read the published evidence, and the same attempt was made at the Military Tribunal, under your instructions, to prevent the public from knowing about this bogus auction as the Government made here. I was refused information in this House as to the circumstances of this auction on the ground that it would be against the public interest. The same point was made before the Tribunal by the Attorney-General's counsel. When that question was put on behalf of the accused to "John Brown," privilege was claimed, but the court overruled that plea and ordered the question to be answered.
The Attorney-General
On a point of order, the Deputy has now gone away from the first charge, which I repudiated. I think it was most improper for the Deputy to make that charge and to persist in that charge. He has now made a second charge, that I objected to this evidence being given. That is absolutely incorrect. I gave direct instructions to everybody concerned in the case—personal instructions—to tell the court everything that happened. When the question was raised, we said to the Tribunal that, though we could have claimed privilege, we preferred that everything should be stated to the court.
Privilege was claimed and overruled by the President of the court. I challenge contradiction of that by Deputy Geoghegan.
On the point of order, Deputy Rice is, I am sure, unintentionally inaccurate. I should like, therefore, to draw his attention to the actual facts—that the police officer in question pointed out to the court that his regulations prevented him from giving this evidence and sought a release from the regulations by the court. That court granted the release, and counsel did not intervene except to intimate that the prosecution desired that every fact should be made public.
Mr. Rice
I want to contradict——
The Attorney-General
Will the Deputy withdraw the charge he has made against me?
If he does, I will repeat it when I get up.
Mr. Rice
Deputy Geoghegan, who acted as counsel, has stated that he personally did not claim privilege and, of course, I accept that.
The Attorney-General
I have stated my instructions.
Mr. Rice
I said and I repeat that privilege was claimed by a person employed by you. The police officer claimed privilege. I read the report of the evidence and it stated that privilege was claimed.
By the police officer.
Mr. Rice
And the report stated that the claim of privilege was overruled by the court.
The Attorney-General rose.
The Attorney-General has made a statement regarding his action in this matter. The Deputy distinctly stated that the Attorney-General claimed privilege or had suggested the claiming of privilege. The Attorney-General has denied this.
Mr. Rice
When an officer of the Attorney-General, whether he is his counsel or a police officer sent there by him, claims privilege, it is claimed by the Attorney-General. That is the point I wish to make.
The Attorney-General
You do not know what you are talking about.
Deputy Geoghegan has stated that the officer in question explained that he was bound under his regulations to claim privilege and that he sought a release from those regulations.
Did Deputy Geoghegan tell him to answer when he claimed privilege?
Does Deputy Rice withdraw the statement?
The Attorney-General
I do not care whether he withdraws or not. Nobody pays any attention to him.
Mr. Rice
That is a remark which is quite unworthy of anybody holding a responsible position in this House. It is a very foolish observation——
The Attorney-General
It was very foolish of you to make the observations you did.
Mr. Rice
Not quite as foolish as the action of the Attorney-General in arranging a bogus auction. Even if it were not part of the policy of the Government, the Attorney-General, seeing what happened in the disastrous bogus auction, perhaps will explain to me why the answer to my question on the subject was refused in this House and privilege claimed on the grounds of public interest. I have said that the Government are not governing this country——
The Attorney-General has made it clear that he did not arrange a bogus auction.
Mr. Rice
I do not know whether the Attorney-General is differing with me as to what is meant by "bogus auction" or not. I explained that what is meant by a bogus auction is that the Attorney-General brings persons into his office, gets a secret bidder, gets his name and then arranges for a police officer to bid at that auction in a bogus name—it is a matter of opinion as to what is a bogus auction.
Might I suggest to Deputy Rice and other Deputies that we might get away now from Waterford and these other matters and deal with something of more importance to the country. We have unemployment, two armies and two police forces. Let us deal with them and not mind the bogus auctions.
What does the Deputy know about armies?
You would not be taken in any army, not even in the County Down Militia.
Mr. Rice
I have said that the Government are not governing the country in an even-handed way——
I want to get this clear. My slight knowledge of law leads me to believe that to arrange a bogus auction is criminal. That charge has been made against the Attorney-General by Deputy Rice. I want to know whether Deputy Rice persists in the charge.
Mr. Rice
I described the incidents that happened in the office of the Attorney-General as arranging a bogus auction—namely, procuring a secret bidder, sending a police officer there to bid. That is a bogus auction. If the Attorney-General agrees that the incidents that I have described happened in his office I will not quarrel with him as to the description of that auction. A man was sent to bid at that auction, and told to give a false name.
The Attorney-General
I had nothing to do with arranging that the police officer be sent there, and that was stated in evidence.
Mr. Rice
The only thing I saw was that it was stated by court witnesses that this arrangement was made in the Attorney-General's office, and I accepted their evidence.
Does the Attorney-General deny that he sent for Mr. Killeen?
Have you paid your fine yet?
Never mind. I am able to pay it. I am paying my way as a farmer, and not paying my way as the son of a British spy.
The less Deputy Belton says about spying the better.
I did not miss my train anyway——
And you were not at Ashbourne either in 1916.
I was, and you suspended the man who saved my life on coming out of the Viceregal Lodge after having been sent there by James Connolly to get certain information.
You were not there.
Where were you?
Mr. Rice
I stated that the Government were not administering even-handed justice to the people of the country. I stated that they were favouring sections of the country. The most flagrant example of that is now in force in the one-sided administration of the Constitution (Amendment) Act No. 17, or the Public Safety Act. That measure, when it was introduced in this House, was introduced for the purpose of stopping murders. There can be no controversy about that. It was extremely unpopular with the Party opposite who are now the Government, and who are now using that Act. The Minister who is in the main responsible for enforcing its provisions, described it not as a Public Safety Act, but as a Public Provocation Act. That was the view the Minister took of it in those days. He has changed his views many times on various matters in the last 15 or 16 years.
Who is speaking now?
Mr. Rice
I am. The Minister for Justice in 1916 placed it on record that the proper policy for the people of this country was to stand by the Empire.
That is untrue.
Mr. Rice
It is published in the official records, in the Irish Law Times.
I have denied it twice already. I say it is untrue, and the Deputy knows it is untrue.
Mr. Rice
I have never heard it said that it was untrue. I have never heard it was denied.
If the Deputy was as keen in reading the truth about misrepresentations as he was in reading the misrepresentations he would have seen that I denied that twice.
Mr. Rice
I have never seen the Minister's contradiction. I have seen the statement on the official records.
Bring the report here at any time and I will point it out to you.
Mr. Rice
I hope I will be able to procure a copy of the Minister's address and I can show him the words.
I can supply you with it.
Mr. Rice
The Minister, who is responsible now for the enforcement of this Act, described it, when it was introduced here, not as a Public Safety Bill but as a Public Provocation Bill. I am sorry that the Minister for Finance has run out of the House now, because I wanted to quote one of his gems in a speech made in reference to the Tribunal established under that measure. The reputation of the Minister for Finance depends, I think, on the choiceness of his language and his extreme moderation. In the debate on the Public Safety Act, as reported in column 170 of volume 40 of the Dáil reports, we have his words. In the course of that debate, with all the choice moderation of language which distinguishes him, he referred to the five officers who were appointed to act on the Military Tribunal as judges as "five bloodhounds."
These were the remarks made at that time by the Ministers, who are now sitting on the Government Benches. These were their remarks on the Public Safety Act. Deputy de Valera, as he then was, the present President, on that occasion took the view that there was no need whatever for anything beyond the then existing powers. He took the view that the Executive Council had no need of further powers. Murders were being committed, but the ordinary law was sufficient to deal with them, quite sufficient. Later on he said that the Government preferred to imitate the activities of Hamar Greenwood. This was the criticism of a Government who were bringing in a Bill to stop murder. Now that Act is in force.
Who are the people who are now brought before the Military Tribunal? A number of farmers charged with conspiracy and so on in connection with the non-payment of their rates. Was there ever a greater travesty of justice than we have here? The people who now form the Government stated at that time these powers were unnecessary even for stopping murders. We have these people now putting that Act into force and applying it to the cases of these men from Waterford and not applying it to grave and serious disorders. There is grave and serious disorder in the country now. There is an increasing campaign to prevent free speech. I am sorry to say that recent indications suggest that the police are not able to cope with it whatever the cause may be. We had an incident referred to by Deputy MacDermot yesterday evening in which men actually arrested and brought to the barracks are released because a crowd of hooligans and rowdies assembled outside the barracks and shouted for their release.
I say that police officers who act in that way are not carrying out their duty, whatever may be the explanation of their not doing so. That Bill was criticised in that way by the members of the present Government and the attitude of the Labour Party was, of course, somewhat similar. They could not see any occasion for it at all. Deputy Davin said he was not a dummy Deputy and he was not going to walk into the Lobby behind the President to vote for it unless he could see good cause for it, and he would not do the same for Mr. de Valera if he were President. While I do not admire Deputy Davin's courage, I must express a modified approval of his conscience, because he certainly did not appear here last week. He was here the day before the vote on the censure motion was taken, but he was not here the day the vote was actually taken. I should be sorry if he were ill, but I am sure he is not ill. The only thing he is suffering from, to my mind, is the shock his nervous system received when he found his colleagues intended to vote in favour of the enforcement of an Act that they repudiated so strongly when it was introduced two years ago.
There is only one other incident to which I will refer before I conclude, and that is the shameful charge that was made last week against a distinguished member of this House who sits on these benches by no less a person than the President. A number of members on these benches, when the President on a later occasion withdrew that charge, when he apologised in unqualified terms, then accepting the apology as sincere, applauded him. He promised, and he reiterated his promise, that a tribunal would be set up to inquire into the disgraceful charge. Why is that tribunal refused now? Why is that promise withdrawn? When the President makes a promise in this House only for very grave and serious reasons should he go back on it, and those grave and serious reasons should be judged not by him, but by the House. He has given the House no reason whatever for withdrawing the undertaking to have an inquiry.
It has been stated here to-night that he is shielding a criminal in refusing to set up an inquiry which will bring to light the author of this foul charge. In the previous Pigott case a court was set up with full power to compel the attendance of witnesses, to compel the attendance of people like the Pigott in this case. Any Deputy who likes to look back on the report of the Pigott case will observe a peculiar parallel between that case and the present one. The people who accepted Pigott's statement that he had letters written by Parnell never inquired into the truth or otherwise of the statement, and that was because they were so anxious to believe that the statement was true. The same applies to the President in this case. He was so anxious to believe anything that would besmirch the reputation of a distinguished Irishman who is on these benches that possibly he never inquired into its truth until after he had lodged this foul charge in the House. Then he made and repeated a promise that he would set up an inquiry.
Deputy Coburn seemed to have a better appreciation of the President's mentality than others of us here, because when Deputy Mulcahy asked (Parliamentary Debates, vol. 49, col. 1929) “Can I have the President's assurance to this House that he will do that?”—that is, to set up a tribunal—the President replied “I am delighted—more delighted than I can say.” Deputy Hogan of Galway asked “What about the assurance?” and the President said: “I shall speak in my own way and I will not be dictated to by Deputy Hogan or anybody else. I am delighted more than I can say——.” Deputy Coburn then said: “Do not wriggle. Give the assurance. You are always wriggling.” Deputy Coburn, even in the midst of the general enthusiasm, had a better appreciation of the situation than many of us. That assurance was given and reiterated by the President, but there was one Deputy who had, at any rate, the sense not to believe it and that was Deputy Coburn. Deputy Coburn has been justified in the view that he took by the course taken by the President yesterday when, without any excuse or explanation, he refused to set up the only tribunal that would have a right to compel the attendance of the person who made the foul statement. The President has gone back on the undertaking he gave the House. The inquiry has been refused and the charge would never have been made if the President had not adopted the same attitude as the people who bought the Pigott letters years ago. He was just anxious to believe that it was true.
I was rather disappointed to-day by the President's opposition to the idea of giving any opportunity, before the adjournment, to the Opposition to discuss things which, at any rate, appeared to be of importance to them, arising out of the present situation in the country. At all events, as long as I have been a member of this House it was always the custom that, before the Dáil closed down for a lengthy period, the Opposition got an opportunity, a full and adequate opportunity, of raising any questions which appeared to them to be of major importance. The reason for such a course is that during the normal session, in order that the work of the country will go on, practically all the time is at the disposal of the Government and there is little or no time at the disposal of the Opposition.
Heretofore, a general debate on the adjournment of the Dáil was always around the question of unemployment and, if the debate to-night does not particularly revolve around the question of unemployment, it is not because unemployment has lessened and it is not because the unemployment situation is not more serious than ever it was at any former adjournment. In the words of the leader of the Labour Party, we are passing at the moment through an unemployment crisis unparalleled in living memory. Again, he tells us that the number of unemployed in this country is considerably in excess of 90,000 men. If the debate from this side of the House this evening has directed attention to other questions than that of unemployment, it is not because unemployment has lessened but because, evil and all as unemployment is, serious and all as it is, there are bigger questions and more serious questions menacing and threatening the life of this country at the present moment than even widespread, general and increasing unemployment.
The gravest question and the gravest matter that is active throughout this nation at the moment is a general, rapidly-increasing drift towards mob law instead of ordinary parliamentary or democratic law. The people who shriek most about dictatorships and the crime of even mentioning the word "dictatorship" are those who are primarily and secondarily responsible for this increasing mob law throughout the country. Although I am opposed to any form of dictatorship, I would rather by far have a responsible dictator in the country than an irresponsible mob dictating to a weak Government in the country. We have every and ample evidence of the mob gradually getting out of hand, out of your hand, and getting into the saddle and driving you little by little. We have ample evidence in their references, 18 months' evidence, that when a thing is demanded this week in the journal, An Phoblacht, within one or two months that demand becomes a Government act. The thing has happened, as we have seen, in the removal of the Governor-General from office, in the removal of the Commissioner of Police from office, in the removal of the head of the Detective Department from office, in the Pensions Act and in the bludgeoning of the Government's political opponents. It has happened too often to be merely a coincidence. There are one or two explanations. Either these people rule or they have advance information of the Government's policy. The position is either that they rule the Government or that knowledge of Government action is given in advance to that organ of that illegal organisation which was banned by this Parliament and by the Church in this country. It has got to be one thing or the other, and we have got to know whether it is one way or the other, and we have to know to what extent there is cooperation and understanding as between this Government, the army of the Irish Republic outside, and the mob which has become the militia of that Army and Party.
We have the mob moving. We have every and ample evidence of it in connection with political meetings. We have that mob on the move; and we have an organisation that grew up in this country primarily to oppose the mob—we have that organisation being bludgeoned with all the power of a vindictive Government. We have every politician opposite from the President down slandering the members of that organisation, distorting their very phrases, and abusing them to the minds of the public. That action is being taken in order to bludgeon the members of an organisation which stands up against the mob and, further infuriating the mob against those who stand up for law and order. We have this drift towards mob law as a direct result of Ministerial utterances made in public and circulated through the Press of the world, calling upon the mob to prevent those who stand against Government policy being heard in this country. We have direct incitement out of the mouths of Ministers. We have the humiliating position in this country of the people being told that those who stand for what we stand for should not be allowed to speak openly and publicly before the people. As a result of these utterances, as a result of a statement by the Minister for Finance publicly made, that the Leader of the Opposition is a man who should be spat upon and similar utterances and incitements by other Ministers, the mob began to move. And when there is an effort made to stand between people on public platforms and the ferocity of an incited mob we have the demand made from the organs of the mob to suppress the organisation that stands between them and the speakers on public platforms. We have Government action accordingly; we have had it for the last 18 months inside and outside this House. I could produce weekly publications demanding that course, and I could make a fortune by betting even money that each week the demand made would be complied with. The highest people in the land, and the highest officers in the State, have been thrown out of their positions in response to those demands. Now when for the first time this country has thrown up an organisation to preach that it was decent to live a life within the law, and that it was decent to see fair play amongst the politicians within the Free State, against the policy of surrender to the mob, and the work of the mob, we have that organisation bludgeoned up and down the country. When that organisation, in response to that attitude, makes one great effort after another even in reply to unjust laws or through the misapplication of the law still to continue within the law they must be bludgeoned because of the very colour of the clothes they wear.
I consider that no matter how serious unemployment is, no matter how grave the whole labour situation may be in this country, incitements of that kind are still worse. We have had them this evening when the only Minister who intervened in this debate made a speech that was a deliberate incitement to mob fury to continue. He told us from the Government Front Bench that if a certain coloured shirt were worn in connection with particular meetings then we must expect a continuation of such episodes as occurred in Tralee. It was more scandalous than the hysterical vapourings of the Minister for Finance which started the whole thing. It was more disgraceful than the statement of that Minister that the Leader of the Opposition should be spat upon. We have had lectures from the Attorney-General on misbehaviour in Prussia Street, and on the assembly of 700 men in Clonmel. At any rate there was no life endangered on those occasions by missiles hurled and blows struck. There was only good humour but according to him there was interference with the law. Let us admit that. Is it that type of mild, and what I might call semi-constitutional breaches of the law that is agitating the minds of the Government and the journals that support them? Look at what is happening Sunday after Sunday in the country. You are starting up a demon in the country. Just think what will happen if it gets out of hand. That demon was brought into being through the mind and utterances of persons responsible for the Government of the country. The whole thing has been sinful from beginning to end. The whole thing has been most un-Irish, most un-national and most unnatural from beginning to end. The minds of the Government even at this late stage should be directed towards curbing a position which they have enloosed in the country rather than bludgeoning those people who, urged by their convictions, whether you agree with them or not, have, Sunday after Sunday, tried to meet that kind of thing.
Remember we are living in times where one shot might produce 20,000 shots within a night. We are a people, you might say, just emerging from a revolution, just emerging from a civil war, with arms—as the President knows—dumped up and down the country, arms not under the control of the State. I do not mind who has those arms; they are obtainable. Any man with a mob charging his platform, or with a mob attacking his leader until he is left with blood spurting from his head, knows that any one Sunday one shot may start a state of affairs in this country which everyone of us will regret but which none of us will be able to stop once it is started. I say that there is a responsibility on all sections of this House to agree and join together at least on this much— that we will all set our faces against that kind of thing, that we will all stand up against the mob whether that mob supports you or supports me, and that we will all join together in condemning any interference with any public man. There was a challenge thrown out from that side to-night, perhaps politically awkward to accept. A challenge was thrown out from the Government to the Opposition as to whether the Opposition would join in aiding the Government in seeing that certain sides of the law are respected throughout this land. The response was prompt; there had to be no putting of heads together before answering. The acting Leader of the Party answered there and then, and his answer was "yes." Now there is a counter-suggestion, that members of all Parties—but particularly the leaders of Fianna Fáil— should condemn this kind of thing and stand against it, use all their influence honestly against it and do it in really clear, expressive, and explicit language.
We do not want the kind of thing that happened before, the kind of Presidential utterances to the effect that he regrets that that kind of thing is going on but he cannot make any speaker popular. It is the "buts" that do the harm. The statement without the "but" would be milk and water, but it would not be harmful. It is those afterthoughts that are the curse of this country. It is that kind of speech we listened to from Deputy Derrig, Minister for Education, to-night. It is that kind of double shuffle—one foot in Parliament and one foot with the mob—that is doing the harm. Whatever the consequences are they will all be traced back to that kind of thing. I will leave the Minister for Finance out of it. When he is on his feet I never regard him as being a person responsible for his own utterances, but we have other types of men in the Government; we have men who, no matter how heated they are, are able to come out with considered phrases. It is those men I want to do a bit of thinking. It is those men I want to do a bit of leading, because, although we may get the beating, although we may be the first in the dust when the mob goes just a shade further than it has gone, it is the Government will pay the penalty, and it is the Government will have to clean up the mess. When they clean us up, or what is left of us, they have then got to face that same mob, blooded and encouraged by having their opponents in the dust. I would suggest this to the people opposite, that they are not doing that by tinhats and tanks. That is merely a display. That is merely playing up more to the mob, by giving the impression that but for those tinhats and but for those tanks, those men are so hated throughout the country that they could not be here. That is merely play-acting. Use your verbal and vocal influence and it will be far more powerful with the mob than tinhats and tanks.
I am not talking in any Party spirit when I raise those matters on the adjournment. I believe the responsibility is definitely there. The organ An Phoblacht claimed even last week that in their various actions against the law, in their Bass raids, in their interference with property and in their looting of shops, they are merely doing what was done ten years ago; that President de Valera told them he never changed in the last ten years; that neither did they; that they were merely acting in the same way as they acted ten years ago. They further point out in that statement that it was they put him in. I believe it, but that is no reason why they should be boss. As citizens with a vote they put in that Government, but that is no reason why that Government should be their tool. Governments should be masters; governments, above all, should be manly. This half-hearted jack-acting and playing up to the crowd, and then putting a face on things by rumbling out a tank, is not facing up to the responsibilities of office. One clear-cut statement from the President, and from each one of his Ministers, condemning that kind of thing as really blackguardly and cowardly, as it is, would do more than all the tanks you had in Cork. Remember the people that have been banned because of their attempt to stand against that kind of thing, the people who are still bullied because they continue to stand against it, have so far been going right and left, up a street or down a street, even at the request of one policeman, and even when they give the impression that they are running away from a mob, they are doing that under the policy of the man at the helm, which is that they will continue to keep within the law, no matter how difficult it is made; but that will not always hold. I said before that young blood is hot blood, and one of those days an episode will occur which will start a situation in this country that you cannot control.
What about the prominent members of your Party who are going around the towns brandishing revolvers and using filthy language to the decent citizens? What about the prominent chairman of your meetings in Thurles?
It is because there are revolvers in every county in this country, not under responsible control, that I am making this appeal to-night. I see no glory attached to a gun; I see no heroism attached to a gun. Any heroism that was ever attached to a gun depended on how the gun was used and against whom. There is no glory or heroism, either for people on your side or people on my side, in using guns in a dirty dog fight. Such heroism as I saw was displayed after the echoes of the rifle shots had ceased. When you see faces being patched together in order to try and find out who they once were, that kind of thing would make anybody pause and dread that they would ever see such a situation cropping up again in this country. We are very near it, and every Sunday is bringing us nearer to it—the mob being incited by such statements as we heard here to-night, the mob being incited by such statements as the Minister for Finance has repeatedly uttered, and the mob not being discouraged by the kind of statements which we have had so far from the President with regard to the situation. All that is going to have serious consequences if it is not stopped. My only reason for intervening in this debate here to-night is to ask this; will we all agree to this pact on the eve of the adjournment, that any attempt to break up or interfere with or start a riot at any public meeting, whether it is Fianna Fáil or Labour or United Ireland Party, will be condemned by everyone of us in clear language; that the people engaging in that will be called enemies of Ireland, traitors and a menace to this new Irish State; that we will call a spade a spade and that we will call them cowardly blackguards, every one of us? One week of a Party campaign on that particular subject would finish for all time in public life the necessity for bringing out armoured cars, either to protect a meeting or to prevent a riot when the cars are withdrawn.
For the first time since the debate began I am beginning to think that there is, perhaps, some value in having speeches on this adjournment motion. I objected at the beginning of this debate because it is only a couple of weeks since the Dáil came back. We had an adjournment debate on the Dáil ending its ordinary summer session. We had a "no confidence," or censure motion when we came back. We have had two or three debates in a period of two or three weeks on the particular matters that are being raised now. This adjournment simply means that we are keeping away until business is ready. It might have been an adjournment for one week or two, but I found out from the Departments that we could not have sufficient legislative proposals to keep the Dáil engaged before the expiration of three weeks at least. I regarded this adjournment debate as the ordinary adjournment debate we have been accustomed to. My understanding, this morning at any rate, was that after the business was completed, if there was to be an adjournment debate, it would be the ordinary half hour's debate. However, perhaps, as I say, there is some good in it and if it brings to the Deputies on the opposite side a realisation of what I have realised all the time, that it is very easy to unloose passions in this country, but very difficult to curb them when unloosed, we shall have done good work. Several times in the Dáil, in the past, I explained to Deputies what the Government policy was in regard to restoring peace in this country, genuine peace. We pursued that policy with patience for a period of over a year and I believe that the results justified the policy. Everything was not at all right, everything was not perfect, I admit, but it was heaven in comparison with the situation we had been passing through for years before. That is my opinion.
We were getting along in that situation. We had to stand attacks from the Opposition week after week and to me it appeared that the Opposition were really sorry that our policy was being so successful, that it was possible for us by pursuing that policy to bring about a state of peace that every good citizen must desire, because without it there can be no progress. It does not matter what direction we are going. If there is disorder in this country, if there is anything, such as has been suggested, such as mob law, then it is the end of all of us and the end of all the efforts of the nation.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
Everybody must recognise that that was the considered policy of the Government. The very organisation that put us into office, the Fianna Fáil organisation, was founded on the principles that we were going to bring back again the people who had been, unfortunately, from the national point of view, divided as a result of differences on the Treaty policy, and giving them an opportunity of coming together, so that as far as possible all the old differences would be forgotten. That was a policy of permitting every Nationalist, who had any aspirations for the independence of the country, to pursue these aspirations in a peaceable way, in a way in which he could settle his differences with his neighbour by the only rule of order that human beings have been able to discover. I have been attacked for want of consistency. It has been suggested that my devotion to majority rule is quite a new thing. I deny that. There is absolute, positive, documentary evidence in the last ten or 12 years since these differences began that I recognised the fact that every sensible person must recognise that either we have got to settle our political differences by force or settle them by some rule of order.
I never suggested that there was in majority rule anything more than a rule of order, but that it was a precious rule of order I have held at all times, and the greater part of the efforts we made immediately after the Treaty to get a proper register, the efforts we made in the Pact to have the Constitution put before the people before they voted, the efforts we made when the "cease fire" order was issued, in which we made an offer to the Government of the day that once it were made possible to be represented in the national assembly, no matter what views one held, that then it followed that the Party that got a majority should be the Government and that that Party should be in effective control of lethal weapons—all that was a natural corollary. There is documentary evidence to that effect. Not merely were those principles accepted by us who were in command at the time, but the principles that we offered in the "cease fire" order were accepted by the whole of those who were at the time in the Republican ranks. At least, there was no protest against them. We were proceeding along those lines that that was the only principle that should be accepted as a rule of order.
It is not human that we should all think alike. It is not human no matter how sincere we may be in advancing the country's interests, that we should all have the same methods of trying to secure the country's interests. We are bound to differ, and as we are bound to differ it is necessary to have in the general interests this rule of order. We wanted to get it, and we founded the Fianna Fáil organisation in order to secure it. We were satisfied that if we could get rid of the Oath we would have 99 per cent. of those who stood against the Treaty at the time of the Treaty debates, with us in the future. We were succeeding. We were succeeding even beyond my hopes, and I had hopes that we would succeed, but Deputies on the other side, apparently, wanted to create friction by suggesting that we were simply the tools of some people outside, as Deputy O'Higgins has suggested just now. It is not true, and it never was true. We went on our own policy. A number of them supported us in the elections, I have no doubt whatever, because though they did not agree with us in policy generally, they considered the line of policy we were adopting was more in the direction of national interest as they conceived it. When we became a Government we made clear to everybody that we intended to be a Government and not to be the puppets or the tools of anybody, as somebody has suggested. I think General O'Duffy suggested that I went round the country—I am not quite sure of his words, it is perhaps doubtful if I am quoting him correctly —but my impression of what he said was that I went round organising a secret society. I never had anything to do with the organisation of a secret society. I refused from the first day I was elected as a public representative to have anything to do with a secret society, because I would not be the tool of any secret people. That is on record and it is known. Since we became a Government we have acted on our own view as to what was best in the national interest. In indicating what the Government policy was, I said that we wanted to be patient, but there were certain things we would regard as really dangerous, the beginning of a situation in which we would have to take immediate and direct control, and that was anything like a parade of armed or uniformed people in the streets. Immediately, when a man, who should have known something about the dangers of disorder, began to take a political part directly, the first thing he did was to associate himself with a certain organisation, and if he has been misrepresented it is he who has been at pains to misrepresent himself. If this was intended to be a peaceful political organisation he went an extraordinarily strange way about conveying that impression. We have been accustomed to politics in this country. Why did not General O'Duffy, if he wanted to take part in politics, take part like the ordinary political parties? He associated himself with a military movement. Is not that a fact?
A joke.
It may become a joke in the end. I sincerely hope it will. I hope the statements made by the deputy Leader of the Opposition and the statements made even more powerfully by Deputy Hogan a short time ago will teach these people sense; that they will give up play-acting; and if they want to become a Government that they will go about it in the ordinary way. The suggestion has been made that they are being forced into this line because it is necessary to supplement the ordinary forces of the State in order to keep order. I know perfectly well how difficult it is, if meetings are held at the one time all over the country, to have any special force that can cope with them. I can quite understand that. But, in the circumstances of this country, does any sane person think that the way to do it was to go and put on blue shirts, to put on a sort of semi-military garb and come out with the proclamations and statements made by General O'Duffy which were intended to usurp power here? Was that the way to do it? The proper way to do it was this: to give every support that could be given to the Government and the forces at their command to keep order.
Hear, hear!
How will support be given? Not by usurpation of their authority, not by irresponsible people, irresponsible in the sense that they had no responsibility, taking action. The proper way to do it was this: to say to the Government: "If you have not got the ordinary forces and are not capable of keeping order it is your duty to organise the whole citizenry if necessary in order to keep order." We would have done that if it were necessary to keep order and to guarantee under this system we are working that people with different political views to ours should have an opportunity of freely expressing these views. If it were necessary, in order to guarantee that, to enrol half the citizenry of the country we would have done it and we would have got a force which would be definitely under control, definitely responsible, and that would have guaranteed that. You cannot guarantee it in a partisan way. You cannot guarantee it if the Opposition tries to use its organisation to usurp the functions of government. What I say to the Opposition is this: Give up this nonsense of blue shirts. It can lead to nothing but damage and disorder over the country. It is going to unloose things that you will not be able to control and that it will be difficult for us, even with the whole citizenry, to end. If these extreme means are going to bring this country into discredit, damage and danger, by Heavens, we will come out and ask the sane people of the country to knock the heads of both parties together. That is what we will do if we have to do it. We will be well able to do it. The sane people of the country would be well able to knock the heads of both parties together if they continue with this nonsense.
The sane people will soon organise themselves.
They will. This sort of thing makes it impossible for anybody to make progress. I am asked to talk without "buts." The deputy Leader of the Opposition had many "buts" in his speech and I hope he will study his own speech carefully when he sees it in print, and the next time he talks to Ministers here about qualifying statements he will understand what I mean. He put as many "buts" in the case of the no-rates campaign as ever I put. I do say that the present situation is one in which we will have to be very careful about our "buts," no matter what side we are talking about. We want, and we assure the public that every force at our command will be used, to keep order. At the first meeting which I addressed recently, I said that the one thing I feared for the future of the country was disorder and that anybody who created disorder, no matter what side he was on, was really an enemy of the country. I said that. I did not have to be prompted to say it. It was one of the first things I said, because I was looking ahead and realised that we were not very far off from the time of the civil war; that most of us were fairly young men, that we are still not too old, that our memories are pretty lively and our feelings pretty hot, and that it was very unwise, when the country was such a short distance from the civil war, to stir up passions such as have been stirred up recently. There is no use in casting recriminations across the floor of the House. I am accused of unloosing them. In my opinion, and I say it honestly, that was the main damage that was being done by the Opposition recently when they were unloosing these things. It would tax us all to the utmost once they were unloosed to curb them. I was delighted to hear the speech of Deputy O'Higgins. It was the most hopeful thing I have heard for a long time. The other hopeful thing was the speech I heard from Deputy Hogan recently, although it was interlarded with a good deal of personal attack. I hope the members of the Party opposite will follow the lead Deputy Hogan and Deputy O'Higgins have given in this matter and that they themselves will act honestly in accordance with it and will not set out and tax the resources of the Government in maintaining order.
I do not think there is much use in speaking any further on the matter. My mind is clearly known upon the matter. The attitude and mind of the Government are known upon the matter. We want to maintain order and we pledge ourselves to use all the resources that the community can give us to maintain order, provided that other people in the community, who ought to be as interested in keeping order as we are, do not set out deliberately to create conditions which we cannot control or which will tax us beyond what is reasonable. What are the forces at our command? We have got the Army and we have the Guards. What is the attitude of Deputies on the benches opposite with regard to the Guards? There is scarcely a speech that they make that they do not attempt to undermine the morale of the Guards. The influence of the Government with the country is attempted to be undermined by statements like Deputy O'Higgins made to-night, that we are the puppets of people outside. What if some newspaper does happen to anticipate things which anybody who knew what our programme was could have anticipated once he saw the circumstances? Was it not quite obvious that the moves we were going to make with regard to the Governor-General and so on were in line with our programme? Did it require a wonderful acquaintance with Government policy or any influence over the Government to be able to anticipate that the Bills which we passed through the House to-day would be brought in? What is the use of pretending that we are under the influence of certain people because they, happening to understand what our policy is, are able to say that such and such a thing should be done? Do not Deputies know well that that is one of the political methods of trying to get credit for things by trying to anticipate what other people are going to do and to suggest that they are doing them because the pressure is being brought to bear upon them? It is perfectly obvious that anybody who knew our programme and saw the conditions would be able to anticipate a number of things. The suggestion is that, through a demand like that, we dispensed with the services of General O'Duffy when he was Commissioner of Police. Nothing of the sort. We held him for a year and odd months and dispensed with him only when we felt that there was a situation in which it was essential that the person in charge should have the full confidence, the absolute confidence, of the Government. I think that some of his actions recently at least ought to show people that there was a certain amount of justification anyhow for the feeling that we could not have complete confidence in that position in General O'Duffy. Now we have to be the judges. We may not have been the best judges. I suppose Deputies opposite differ from us, but we acted in accordance with our own judgement of the situation. We acted, we believe, in the best interests of the country, and I believe that in that regard anyhow subsequent events have proved that we were not unwise.
But coming back to the Guards, what is the use in Deputies opposite suggesting that if the Guards do their duty, as we ask them to do their duty and to do it impartially, that they are going to be penalised by us? There is not the slightest shadow of justification for any such charge. When General O'Duffy was in charge and when the elections were coming on I brought him to my own room and said: "We want to guarantee freedom of speech and we want to guarantee freedom of public meeting to our opponents. The whole forces of the State are at your command to do that." Was there any evidence there that we were not prepared to put all the resources of the State, such as we had immediately at our disposal, or to get more if they were required, in order to guarantee these things? There is not the slightest justification for any such suggestion that we do not want the police to carry out their duty. We do. I have guaranteed before in public and I say it now to every single Guard throughout the country, of high rank or low, that if they do their duty they will have the complete support of this Government. It is necessary for them to have the support of the Government. They have a difficult task to do, and it is not fair and is not in the best interests of the community and of the country as a whole that Deputies on the Opposition Benches should be suggesting that the Guards who have a very difficult task to do, a task that requires plucky men to perform very often, if they do their duty will not have the full support of the Government. They will have it.
As I have said, there are many things that could be said in this debate that I do not think it is necessary to go into now. There is one thing that I hope everybody will realise and it is that we are in a serious position. There is a serious position in this country and we will require the help of all right-minded citizens, of everybody who has a sane view of what is best for the country—the assistance of all on both sides in this House and of those outside who take a different side in politics— in order to pass through this situation unscathed. It is a dangerous situation and could develop to be very dangerous. It was because of that that we brought in the Public Safety Act at the start. We felt that it was sufficiently dangerous to see that the necessary steps were taken to maintain the authority of the Government and that the position did not get out of hand.
There is one other matter that I want to refer to before I sit down: that is the question referred to by several Deputies about Deputy Mulcahy. Giving the information which I honestly had and giving it as I did in front of Deputy Mulcahy when he was in a position immediately to deny it if untrue was, in my opinion, the fairest way in which that could be done. There are other people who would go round as I well know in a whispering campaign. I knew that the thing was talked of elsewhere and I gave Deputy Mulcahy an opportunity of denying it. I would have taken his denial at once. When he asked for a tribunal my understanding of it was that he was afraid that his denial would not be accepted by others as it would have been accepted by me.
Yes, exactly. That is so and every honest-minded person in the House will believe me when I say it: that what Deputy Mulcahy really wanted the tribunal for was that he feared that his denial would not take with it full conviction.
And why not the tribunal?
I offered it then to give him the chance of making it clear that he did not do this thing.
What are you going to do about Pigott?
Then afterwards when I set about the tribunal I found that there was not evidence forthcoming that would justify the setting up of the tribunal.
Oh!
I did not have to wait until now to make that statement. The moment that I gave the promise to the Dáil I set about it to see that everything would be ready for the tribunal and that there would be no delay. Then I found that the person who gave the information was not going to come forward, that he admitted that a portion of his statement, a vital part of it, was not true. The moment I got that I came to the Dáil. I gave the facts to the Dáil which completely exonerated Deputy Mulcahy, and there is not one in the country at the present time who has the slightest doubt about the matter. Therefore, there was no need whatever for an inquiry.
You told the lie all the same.
I told no lie. I am not in the habit of telling lies.
I think we might justifiably ask the President why he did not make the very small amount of inquiry that was needed before instead of after giving publicity to that statement.
That is a fair question. There was a fair amount, what I consider a fair amount, of inquiry. As the Deputy well knows I did not charge or suggest that I believed it further than that there were circumstances to be taken into account.
Oh!
Go and read what I said. The Deputy's interruption is just the same as Deputy MacDermot's the other day when he talked about gall and wormwood. He will not take the pains to see the connection. It is very easy to take one part out of a statement.
I do not know why the President should refer to me at all.
I am referring to him because it is the same sort of thing. I suggest that if anybody reads the statement that I made, the circumstances and the way in which I said it, it is quite clear that I gave Deputy Mulcahy an opportunity there and then of denying it. I did not charge him with doing anything. I said that information came to the Government —came to me, that was a fact. Everybody who has ever had anything to do with getting evidence knows that very often you get people who will satisfy you up to a certain stage. They are prepared to give evidence and then when put to the absolute test they will fail.
I did not say that the President made a charge, and I do not know why he thinks I said it. What occurred, as well as I recollect, was that the President said that was one of the reasons which induced him to apply the Public Safety Act. Then there were two or three mysterious allegations, one by the President himself and one by the Minister for Finance before the statement was actually made at all about an Austin car in Glasgow which bewildered Deputy Mulcahy.
As a matter of fact I might not have made the statement at all were it not for the fact that Deputy Mulcahy in a most wanton way started again talking about firing from behind hedges in Kerry or something like that.
He did not talk about firing.
Well, what was it— ambushing?
He said lying behind a hedge. Use the exact words as you so often tell us to do.
Well, if lying behind a hedge does not suggest ambushing or firing I do not know what it suggests. At any rate, I believe that any due amends that were required were made and were made not ungenerously, and that Deputy Mulcahy does not labour under any grievance in regard to the matter. All that can be said or even be suggested about the whole thing was that I should have gone further, as suggested by Deputy MacDermot just now, before I made the statement by having it substantiated and verified. I had it substantiated and verified to the extent that I said while these happenings, which were reported and which were a danger, were going on, I had, at the same time, information that was adduced as truth. I do not propose to say anything more about that. I say that so far as it was possible to do the thing honourably and straight, and to make amends, if there was any harm done to Deputy Mulcahy, I made them. Of course, the people on the opposite benches do not care a thraneen about the thing. All they want to do, if they can, is to make some political capital out of it. Is not that obvious here, and is it not obvious to the people in the country as well? The people know just as well as we do how to set a value on these sort of manæuvres—the sensible people who can be organised, if needs be, to knock the heads of people creating this together. I have dealt with the various matters that were raised, although in my opinion this one was not strictly in accordance with precedent. At the same time, it has not, perhaps, done any harm.
I move: "That the question be now put."
I do not know if I would be in order in correcting one statement that the President made. He said I had accused him of having qualified his condemnation of disorder. I am not saying that such an accusation would not be justified, but, in point of fact, I never made it. He said that I had qualified my condemnation of a no rates campaign.
What else did the Deputy do?
I wish to deny absolutely that I in any way qualified my condemnation of a no rates campaign.
I am accepting the motion.
Might I ask a question by way of a change from what we have had? Some time ago, the Minister for Agriculture told farmers to hold the oat crop and that they would get a good price—a better price for it——
I have accepted the motion.
I would like to know if the Minister has made arrangements to enable the farmers to get that price, in view of the fact that the farmers have the oats ready for sale. I think the Minister for Defence also told the farmers of Louth to hold the oats and that they would get 14/- instead of selling at 7/- a barrel. This is an important matter, as it affects the welfare of the farmers.
The President has made a remarkable——
I have accepted the motion.
Question put and declared carried.
Main question put and carried.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.5 p.m. until Wednesday, 15th November, 1933.