I was trying to make a few remarks on this motion when the time of the adjournment arrived on the last day and it became my duty to move the adjournment of the debate. I forget a good deal of the matter that was running through my mind last week, but I know that I referred specially to the fact that this motion had been debated for a long time here and that it had been on the Order Paper for months. I think a precedent will be created in connection with it, that a longer time has been devoted to it than has been devoted to any motion that ever appeared on any Agenda Paper in any assembly, Parliamentary or otherwise. Why such a long time should be devoted to it I do not know. We did make a record here for this institution a few months ago in the longest night sitting that ever was held. We are establishing now a much bigger record in keeping this motion on the Order Paper, signed by three Deputies, for month after month, week after week, day after day——
Private Deputies' Business. - Relief of Rates on Agricultural Land.
Night after night.
Mr. Kelly
Night after night, as you say, and hour after hour. When is it going to end?
To-night, if you hurry up.
Mr. Kelly
I very seldom intervene in debates here at all. Usually ten minutes suffices for all I have to say.
A Deputy
More's the pity.
Mr. Kelly
I do not agree with that at all, because I came in here to work and not to talk. Work is necessary to be done in this country by all of us, whether we work with the brain or the hand.
What work?
Mr. Kelly
That is what brought me here. Might I remind you, Deputy MacDermot, as you may not be aware of the fact——
Chair!
Mr. Kelly
Through the Chair. Excuse me, I am not yet well up in Parliamentary manners or Parliamentary procedure.
You are long enough in the Dublin Corporation.
Mr. Kelly
I got a good training there and if the honourable member or the Deputy, as I should say, had an experience in the Dublin Corporation he would not be so fond of talking as he is now. I am reminded that it was given to me in the First Dáil, the first Parliament that ever sat here for 150 years, that I should read the democratic programme of the Dáil. That programme set out three principles to be carried out under the Republic— that work was to be provided for the people——
Hear, hear.
Mr. Kelly
——that the children were to be looked after——
Hear, hear.
Mr. Kelly
——that the poorhouses were to be wiped out, that the prison system was to be reformed and that a regular El Dorado was to be created here. Well, it did not come off but there is a chance of its coming off now. Get that into your skulls. There is a chance of its coming off now. At the last meeting my mind was a bit knocked out by the fact that at about ten minutes to ten a Cork Deputy got up to speak. He was followed by another Cork man and the two of them kept the debate going until a little after 20 minutes past ten. That left me eight minutes. I got in a good deal of what I had to say in that eight minutes but I was unable to say half of what I intended to say as the time did not give me the opportunity. I know that these Cork Deputies were speaking about a want of public morality by members of the Fianna Fáil Government. They were demanding public morality. One or the other of these Deputies referred to the fact that he had met an individual in Cork named "Honest Tim." I did not think there were two "Honest Tims." He said that "Honest Tim" sold a bull for 1/3 in the market. There was another "Honest Tim" who sold a bull for £3 and he said that John Bull would have to get £6. He was even worse off than the man who only got 1/3. It struck me that their time would be much better occupied in catching birds and sending them up to the bird market in Dublin because they would certainly get 1/3 for the birds and that was the price given for the bull. I have listened now for months to statements in regard to all the extraordinary events that have happened in this country. I have listened to the economists speaking here, to the men of finance, to the men of affairs and I wondered if it would be something new to them for me to say that there was a doctrine preached by a master mind in economics in this country, a man who, certainly I do not believe, has been equalled in that domain, Jonathan Swift, and he stated that the real riches of a country are its people. That seems to be forgotten altogether now by the economists that we have here and elsewhere.
Hear, hear.
Mr. Kelly
It is not horses, or colts, or stallions, or cows, or pigs that are the real riches of the country. It is the people and the present Government are trying to provide work for the people. The case made here is that owing to the economic war the trade with our best customer has dwindled. Some friend of mine some months ago, when I was a Parliamentary candidate, happened to slip into my hand one evening, preparatory to a meeting, an extract from the leading article in the Evening Mail of Thursday, May 20th, 1926. It is headed: “Our declining trade,” and goes on to say:—
"A return of the trade between the Free State and Great Britain and Northern Ireland during the financial year ending 31st March, last, issued by the British Board of Trade, confirms the seriousness of the decline in our trade with our best customer indicated in the monthly returns of the Department of Industry and Commerce. In the year ended March, 1925, the value of the Free State's exports to the United Kingdom was £49,961,000. During the following 12 months our exports to the United Kingdom were worth £42,494,000."
What are they now?
Mr. Kelly
I am not interested in what they are now. At present I am only interested in reading this leading article, which proceeds:—
"The decline, therefore, was equal to 15 per cent. Our imports from the United Kingdom were also less during the year ending 31st March last than they were in the 12 months preceding April, 1925, but the decline in our imports was not so great as the fall in our exports. The figures were: In 1925, £53,077,000; and in 1926, £49,468,000. Thus the value of our imports from the United Kingdom last year fell 8 per cent. It will be seen from the figures we have quoted that for every pound by which we reduced our purchases from the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland reduced their purchases from us by two pounds."
That will show us that the present position brought about by the war, as it is called, between our Government and the Government of Great Britain is not responsible for the decline in trade. The cattle trade, I believe, declined from 1926 onwards. These figures show that this decline in trade has been going on for years and that our Government are not responsible for it. There is nothing further that I can say in connection with this matter, as I was always a very bad man at economics and high finance. There is nothing that I can add to the information which has been given by members here from time to time. I will only say that I do not think this motion was put down as a genuine effort to get a pronouncement from the House. It has gone on for so long that I think it ought to end. I should like Deputy Belton to tell us when it is going to finish. I do not think it is right to keep it going on from month to month. I hope he is going to bring it to an end to-night. If he is going to speak to-night, I am afraid it will not be brought to an end—it will have to go beyond Christmas.
The amazing modesty which distinguishes the Opposition is about the only good quality they seem to possess. They are at least good and kind in the sense that they have waited until a late hour to-night to get rid of to-night's instalment of the serial story of depression which we have been having for so long and which I have no doubt they intend to continue. When I listen to those "bright young things" I wonder what it would feel to spend a wet week-end with them and see them crying down each others' backs.
Since I have been in the Dáil, and I have been here some little time now, I have never heard such a consistent series of melancholy speeches and go brónach utterances, such deep, brokenhearted, sorrow-stricken self-expression as we have had from those benches. Can they not, for Heaven's sake, cheer up some time. A sort of melancholy bug seems to have got loose upon the Rotary Club, which is now the Opposition Front Bench. “Melancholy Unlimited”—they might float themselves as a company, a sort of serial sob-story to be continued after the next election, only it will be even more melancholy and the Greek chorus will be fewer. Their leaders remind me of Macbeth's Three Witches: “When shall we meet again in the thunder and the lightning and the rain”; or if only it would rain ink. They remind me of a book written by a less-distinguished man of my own name, Victor Hugo, called Les Miserables. When you remember that they go home and that they live with one another in that mood, I wonder what their families look like. The next generation will all be born with the corners of their mouths so far down that they will trip their feet over them if that is the kind of enthusiasm and the kind of atmosphere in which they are to continue. They remind me of an undertaker's funeral. I do not know if you know what an undertaker's funeral is. It is one in which they are mourning for lack of a corpse. That is what they are really sorry about. They are really mourning because they have not got a corpse to mourn over. Somebody told me that they were like a collection of cantankerous, backbiting, sourvisaged, long-toothed old maids, but I would not say that. They are a sort of incarnate bad luck wished upon this House. Is it 47 or 46 melancholy humbugs: “Pale wraiths of the past, they flit bewildered in a world that laughs?” They have reversed that cheerful song “The More we are Together the Happier we Will be”; the more we are together, oh! the more miserable we will be able to persuade each other into being.
Deputy MacDermot wanted a new National Anthem. I shall give him one: "Oh dry those tears"; get that lump out of your throat; swallow it. "Weep no More, my Lady." They have as much animation, as much "jump," as much virility as the ghost of a ten-years-dead dead dog. There is no life in them. I have to try and stimulate them now. I am trying to act as a tonic. It is no business of mine, but we have to keep some sort of Opposition in existence until we get a decent Opposition.
Deputy Cosgrave went on one occasion to the other side of the Channel and brought back a big nought. He left it on the Front Opposition Bench. Deputy Kelly did try to cheer them up the other night. I read his speech and it cheered even me up. What I am asking is, when they come to discuss this question again, just to lift up the corners of their mouths, stick out their chests and try to be a bit cheerful about it. Even we shall get melancholy if we have to listen to them any longer and I am quite sure that we do not want to be. Their lachrymal glands have been so highly developed that they look like a biceps. There was one common property amongst all the speeches. I suggest that they go back and read them. I got held up in a fog the other night and I had to stay at a hotel on the way. I could not sleep, so I read Opposition Deputies' speeches. Every one of them started by saying "This discussion has now lasted a long time. It has covered a great many subjects and I did not want to intervene." Who told them to intervene I do not know. Nor do I know what they intervened for. Nothing in their speeches shows, either. Most of them did say: "We have diverged a little from the subject under discussion." That was after each of them had read out the motion in order to remind themselves not to diverge.
I shall just take one or two of the speeches. Deputy Anthony—what he has to do with the job I do not know —says our motto ought to be "pay no one." That he regards as an entirely dishonest condition—to pay no one. What we ought to do is to stand up to the accepted standard in the highest imperial circles. We should become ten per cent. token-payment honest men. The difference between the man who pays nothing of the thing he owes and the man who says: "I will make a ten per cent. token payment of it," is only ten per cent. When that man goes on to say: "I do not intend to continue to pay the ten per cent," then the difference between that ten per cent. token-payment honest man and a thoroughly dishonest man is nothing at all. That is, apparently, the standard of imperial honesty up to which we, little people, are to try to aspire. He spoke of the payment of bounties. Then Deputy MacDermot came in and said that if Deputy O'Higgins was represented as suggesting that he did not believe in bounties it must be a misrepresentation. Deputy Anthony says he does not believe in bounties. He says that they depress both those who give them and those who receive them. Are we going to get rid of the whole lot? When Deputies opposite come in, somewhere about 20,000 years after Tibb's Eve, when they become a Government again, are they going to get rid of the bounties?
All these men came forward and told us what honest men they were. Deputy O'Higgins told us that we had to stand up straight to the facts and get rid of all this twiddling and twirling. Let them tell us what they are going to do. Are they standing for the dishonest men who say they will not pay what they do not owe until they are sued for it in an impartial court, or do they stand with the thoroughly honest men who say that in this year they will pay only 10 per cent. of what they acknowledge they do owe and in the next year they will not pay any of it. Let these bright people who want us to be straightforward and honest say on which side they are—the honest 10 per cent. men or the dishonest men who say: "If you have a claim against me in relation to a matter, sue me for it in a court that is impartial and I shall pay." I know which I regard as the straighter of the two and which I regard as "skrimshanking."
Deputy O'Leary said we had been returned on false pretences—he was alluding to the last general election— that we had stampeded the country into a position in which they returned us on false pretences. But what had the country been doing for the whole ten years previously? At every single election and in practically every single constituency since the Free State came into being, year after year, election after election, these intelligent people had increased the vote of Fianna Fáil. Had they always done it on false pretences? Had we fooled them for ten successive years? What do you say to the people who are electing you? What sort of story is this you are letting out to the world in relation to the electorate of this whole State—that at half-a-dozen general elections, one after another, they have allowed themselves to be stampeded and fooled by Fianna Fáil into the gradual increase of their vote until, at the last general election, they allowed themselves to be stampeded into a position in which they elected Fianna Fáil with the largest vote that ever has been given for any Government in this country and elected them to the position of being a Government with a majority of its own in this Dáil. Deputy O'Leary says that we have been returned on false pretences. If that be so, what sort of electorate is it? I should not mind if there had been some sudden, sporadic changeover of the people. I should not mind if it were suggested that some new issue had been put to them. I should not mind if it were suggested that there were some peculiar circumstances favourable to us when we went to election. But that was not so. We went after ten months of being told by the bright boys opposite that we would not dare go; we went after we were told that we did not dare fight a by-election; we went after we were told that we had kept by-elections open for six months because we were afraid of them; we went after we were told we could not face four by-elections together; we went after the people had experience of all the ills that we were told were going to follow from our policy; and yet this mad, foolish, Irish people whom you say, when you are on the hustings, have a right to govern themselves, with a perfectly clear recognition of the actual circumstances of our Government, with a full knowledge of what we had done and intended to continue to do were, according to Deputy O'Leary, stampeded and fooled by false promises into returning us.
At the last general election but one, the then President during the interregnum, before we changed over, was asked to explain what had happened to him when the electors threw him out. He said the bidding was too high. Who bid highest at the last election? Who tried to cover our bid? Who came back from Naas up here in a hurry and sent us out in the early morning the statement that he would never again charge the people half of the annuities? Who did the overbidding then? Who tried to make a false promise? Whose writ did not run, whose cheque was not received by the people, whose word was not believed? The word of one of the hydra-headed organisation which we now have to face, Cumann na nGaedheal.
I notice that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney also said that the heads of the Party were reaping the benefits of their false promises; the people who are sitting on the Front Bench here were reaping, he said, a personal profit from the results of their false promises. Why did you not lick us at the election? Why, with all the evidence of our folly to put before the people, did you not beat us then? Because it was not in you. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said that no man of their Party advocated the non-payment of rates. I will read you the little passage if I can find it. It pays sometimes to spend a sleepless night. Listen to this:
"That is the view which is the official view and the view held by every single member of this Party. Putting any view to the contrary and stating that any member of this Party holds any other view is to make a statement which is false in fact."
That is the view, that it is the duty of every man to pay his rates. What are the names to this Motion? One of them is Minch.
Is that the proper way to refer to a member of this House?
I think he should be referred to as Deputy Minch.
I am merely giving the names. In case there should be any misunderstanding, I may say I was going to mention that Minch was the name of a Deputy—Deputy Minch of this House. Yet these honest men, these men who want to tell us the truth, say that putting any view to the contrary and stating that any member of their Party holds any other view is to make a statement which is false in fact. This House knows that the speech of Deputy Minch, directly contrary to that, was read out to him here and was left undenied and unchallenged by the Deputy. I am putting that statement deliberately to Deputies on the benches opposite who have any shred of decency or any remnant of honesty and I ask them if every other statement they have made is as true as that. I think it is. I am going directly to the credit of the witness. Here is a statement made by a Front Bench man of Cumann na nGaedheal, U.I.P., or whatever name it now has, which he must know is false. What amount of respect are we to pay to any other statement of any kind received either from that Deputy or from any member of his Front Bench? There is a blatant falsehood which nothing but the grossest, privative ignorance could excuse from being labelled a lie. These are the honest men, these are the men who want us to face up to facts, to get away from puerilities and subterfuges and come down to facts. The fact is that we have here a blatant lie.
The next extraordinary thing that has happened, and it has gone right through the whole debate, has been an amazing inversion of the theory of tariffs. I have heard Cumann na nGaedheal, from these benches, contend many a time and oft that the price of a tariff is added to the price of the goods. We have sometimes contended against that proposition, but we have been told by high priests like Deputy Hogan of Galway that that is ridiculous. Now we are finding right through this story the amazing thing that on all goods we import into England we pay the tariff and on all goods that England imports into this country we pay the tariff also. I think the House knows I have no very strong and violent beliefs one way or the other in the matter of tariffs. I regard them purely and simply as an expedient and, therefore, tariffs not being my child and in no sense a thing for which I have any close affection, I have been able to examine and judge them as a student. But of all the mad stories I have ever heard in economics tied up to tariffs I have never heard a doctrine so extraordinary as that. And yet such a doctrine might conceivably be true.
It can only conceivably be true in one condition, and that is that one of the countries is owned absolutely and controlled absolutely by the other. I can defend that contention, if it is contended that England economically and politically is in absolute and complete control of this country. You can then say that up to the point of actually starving people to death they can do what they like with this country. If that is the contention let us have it— that they are so completely in control of us that they can add what tariff they like to our goods without raising the price in their own market. In other words, in relation to the goods we sell them they can take out of it by a Governmental act any proportion they like. Is that the contention? That is the contention you have got to meet. Say they raise the tariff 80 per cent. more are you still contending that they have the power to make us pay the whole of it?
You will have to face facts.
I am putting it to you now. First I tried to stimulate the human faculties. I tried to raise you from the level of people who have been dead for six months and who do not mind if they remain dead for ever. I tried to raise you from that pitch into a state in which you were capable of understanding an argument. I tried to stimulate your mind. They may have brains but they keep them well hidden, but if they have the intelligence there I try to drag it out. I am simply asking the Opposition to understand their own arguments. I am coming to the two states. Your contention is that the British can put a tariff on our goods and can by that tariff extract from the total value coming to us whatever they like——
Not if you find an alternative market.
That is exactly the interruption I was trying to get from the Deputy. Now you see the intelligence developing. It is gradually coming forward. The Deputy is developing. He now knows that if a country is in the position of being our only possible market for a perishable commodity that country can, according to him if they so desire—and I call him as witness— extract from the value of our goods, whatever their quantity and whatever their quality, any amount down to the bare cost of continuing production. That is the argument the Deputy himself has seen. First let us get to the facts. Is that the contention of the United Ireland Party? Is it their contention that the present economic system is of such a character that whatever the amount of the production and whatever the quality of the production, and in whatever state it is sent to the market, you have a market which can pay you for those goods nothing more than the bare cost of continuing production? That is the subconscious argument that is behind this, because control will creep in. That is the sort of argument that is behind all the muddled speeches and muddled reasoning which has been brought into this debate from the other side.
Again I am putting it to the Deputy who is honest enough. The Deputy let his mind come to it. He saw the reaction to the argument and he made a better speech on my side in one single word than I could have done in an hour. Is not that so? Now I am to give you the other side of the argument. Your Rotary leaders are telling you, all the Rotary leaders are telling the back benchers not to interrupt. "Do not interrupt. He is asking for it." Even Deputy Belton to-night has learned to hold his tongue. I can point to whole pages of the debates which took place here. The debates were simply dialogues between Deputy Belton and any unfortunate Deputy who happens to be addressing the House.
Now as to the other side of the argument it has been put in plain English here by one of their Deputies. The Deputy says we are paying both tariffs. The other argument is that England is in a position to add to the price of any article she sends in here, any amount she likes. If the economists of the United Ireland Party are prepared to hold those doctrines I want them to state them specifically. I do not want to ride away on the specific statement of one fool or on the implicit statement of 20. I want the expert economists of the Front Bench to come out and openly stand for that proposition. That is the proposition that we are in such relation to England at the present moment that as a result of the whole of our economic history, including the last ten years, we are in the position in relation to all the goods we sell, that she can take out of them any amount that she chooses and in relation to all the goods she buys she can add to them any price she chooses.
That is economic slavery. If that is the condition in which England controls you body and soul I do not know any better definition of slavery. There used to be an old saying, "Give me the making of the Nation's songs and I do not care who makes her laws." Give me economic control of any nation to the extent that I can control the lives, the livelihood, and the condition of life of every man, woman and child in it, and I do not care who makes either her songs or her laws. That is what you are contending. But it is because we are not going to stand for that sort of thing permanently that we are doing fairly drastic things and may have to do more drastic things in the future to get out of the stranglehold in which that Deputy told the House we were.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said: "I think he must be wilfully blind because I cannot understand any man being blind without being wilfully blind." One of those subjects upon which I am prepared to bow to him. He also told us and he expressed his knowledge of agriculture, local and international, by telling us that penguins bred in the wilderness. That is the total contribution of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, but he tore passion into shreds. He performed all those tricks by which juries are supposed to be very much influenced. He did nothing outside telling us that we paid both tariffs and that the economic condition of this country vis-a-vis its opponents was of such a character that we could do nothing else. In so doing he did no service to his own cause.
Deputy Dillon comes along and gives us an extraordinary story about the virtue of people, of the courage, the uprightness, the national spirit and the patriotism of people who do not strike rates. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney gave us a column of it. His actual words take some beating:—
"When the Minister gets up here"
of course, I cannot put the emphasis and the atmosphere into it—
"and says in effect that it is a wrong thing for any citizen of this State to litigate a matter with the Government when that citizen thinks the Government has acted tyrannously and wrongly, then I say that that Minister has surely mistaken the powers and the duties of the Executive Council to the citizens of the country."
There is another half column in front of that in which he tells us about the duty of all these people to get this matter of whether or not they ought to strike the rates litigated. It is the duty, apparently, of the ordinary citizen, his right and his duty, to go into court and have it ascertained whether or not he owes certain money, and he is falling down on his job, he is turning his back upon his legitimate and proper obligations, according to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, if he does not do this, if he does not go into court and insist on having the court decide whether or not he owes money. That, amazingly enough, comes from a Front Bench that says we are a lot of embezzlers and thieves because we insist on going into an international court to have it litigated whether or not, in fact, we do owe or do not owe England £3,000,000 a year. Now which way are they going to have it, these honest men? Deputy O'Higgins—I am rather grateful to him in this respect— introduced a new simile, at any rate to me and I think to the House. He said that you cannot get a centipede standing on the wrong leg; he has got 99 other legs. Now, I want to know which leg they are standing on. Is it an obligation upon Deputy Belton, to take a specific case, to get mandamused and driven into court to litigate the question of whether or not they should strike a rate? Is that his duty? And is the nation doing wrong when it says, we do not owe money and we will not pay that money until our right to hold it is challenged in an open and international court? Now which leg are they going to stand on? I do not care which, but I want to know which one it is. I do not know if Deputies ever heard this:
" A centipede was happy quite,
Until one day for fun,
A toad said which leg comes after which?
Which worked his soul to such a pitch, pitch,
He lay distracted in a ditch,
Considering how to run."
I want the U.I.P. to tell us—possibly they are lying in a ditch—how are they going to run? Are they saying that the people have the right to litigate and that it is their duty to litigate, or are they saying that the people are embezzlers and thieves because they do litigate? Which is it? I think I shall wait a long time for an answer. According to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney no member of the Party had ever advocated the non-payment of rates, but for some strange and peculiar reason, I suppose a sort of spontaneous generation, a whole lot of county councils and a whole lot of county councillors, whichever way you like to take it, decided they would not pay rates until they were mandamused. Deputy MacDermot says that there could not have been a conspiracy against this as it would have spread throughout the country, but it was spreading throughout the country until it was stopped, and a whole lot of other things will spread throughout the country unless they are stopped and they will be stopped.
Deputy MacDermot was another of the people who did not intend to intervene, but he did intervene. He intervened to give a simple answer to a simple question. He was asked what he would do to end the economic war. He talked a lot about details and the constitutional position in relation to the economic war. He said:
"What is our plan for getting back the English market, for bringing the so-called economic war to an end? Have we not stated our plan hundreds of times?"
He stated it hundreds of times, but we do not know it even now. He tells us:
"Our plan for getting back the British market is the very simple one of acting like business men and taking the necessary steps for getting it back."
Now the mystery that was dark as death is completely exposed. When asked what his plan is, he says the very simple one of taking the necessary steps for getting it back and then he goes on:
"Now these are questions that can be settled perfectly well and perfectly honourably, and to the great advantage of the people of this country, by making up our own minds as to what we want and by going and entering into negotiations in a business-like manner."
Now the first portion of the problem is to act like business men and the next is to act in a business-like manner. That is all that he tells us. Now I have been in some business deals. I doubt if Deputy MacDermot has ever been in one, except the one in which he sold the independence of the Farmers' Party for two seats on a rotary Front Bench. I do know that a dinner lubricates business. I know that the spirit of getting together—I mean the fact that you are introduced as a jolly good fellow, that everyone realises that and all that kind of thing —is very helpful.
I have seen many—as, I have no doubt, Deputy Dockrell has seen many —a good business deal begun with a lunch, and best begun with a good lunch among good fellows who knew how to lunch. That is very much the atmosphere that would do—where we are to be all honourable men, like Brutus, and all friendly and with full belief in each other's good faith, and to sit down and have dinner or lunch and talk it over, and all the rest of it. My experience of these dinners is this —and I have had some and so has Deputy O'Neill—that there comes a very cold moment in those dinners, when a sort of cold breeze blows over the coffee and the liqueurs. There comes a moment when some gentleman says: "Well, what about it? Let us get down to brass tacks"; and the first question is: "Who are you, and what are your credentials to carry through this affair?" That is where the being businesslike and, above all, having the business manner, does not carry you an inch. It is the goods that matter and the credentials of the man as to his ability to deliver the goods.
The suggestion is that somebody shall negotiate something in an honourable way with the British. Who is going to do the negotiating? There are three possibilities on the Opposite Benches. One of them is Deputy Cosgrave. The second is his cuckoo, Deputy MacDermot. The third is Ringmaster MacDuffy—or O'Duffy—I am speaking of the MacDuffy Circus, in which General O'Duffy gave good service.
General O'Duffy was giving good service fighting for his country when you were in Liverpool. You should not speak about him in that way. He is a good Irishman.
I am going to speak of General O'Duffy and I shall speak of anyone else I damn well please.
Deputy Anthony must allow the speaker to continue.
With all respect, sir, I am not going to sit here and allow General O'Duffy to be attacked by a man who was on Salisbury Plain when General O'Duffy was fighting for his country.
You threw your wooden gun into the River Lee.
Nobody will be attacked here in a fashion that is injurious to his character while I am in the Chair.
Is it a right and proper way to speak of General O'Duffy as "Ringmaster MacDuffy?" General O'Duffy is not a member of this House.
Certain things may be said of a leader of a political party.
Is it right to speak in that way of a man who is not here to defend himself or who is not a member of this House? Deputy Flinn would not say these things in his presence.
There are certain charges which are merely political charges or epithets, and people in such positions should not have thin skins.
It is cowardly to speak in that way of General O'Duffy when he is not in the House.
Take your medicine!
It has been stated by a man in this House, who is privileged to be here, against a man who is not privileged to be here.
That is my point.
If anything were said which would reflect on General O'Duffy's character, it would not pass the Chair. No charge has been made against the personal character of General O'Duffy. If such a charge had been made I would not allow it to pass. These are epithets.
Well, they are cowardly epithets.
We would say more only for the character of the man.
He is a coward.
He would not fight for the country he was making a living from. He was a coward when he was in khaki.
I will not ask for any withdrawals.
We set no value on the man who made the statement.
As I was saying, there were three possible negotiators— Deputy Cosgrave to start with. Now, what are Deputy Cosgrave's capacities as a negotiator? Let me put to you now the best case that can be put for him. If I do not put the best case I shall be glad if anyone can improve on it. He has the complete confidence of the British—a very valuable asset in a negotiation.
So had you at one time.
Wait a moment. I am trying to praise the man and prove to you that you have somebody on your benches. I am such an insignificant piece of goods that I can hardly expect Deputy Anthony to stoop down from that Eiffel Tower height of his. I am trying to do this. Anyone can interrupt me as much as they like. They will have plenty of time. Deputy Cosgrave, as I was saying, has the complete confidence of the British.
So have you.
Why cannot you shut up?
The man does become a pure, unadulterated nuisance. Deputy Cosgrave has loyally accepted membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations. He has upheld the Treaty as a sacred and holy instrument to the extent of sending to their deaths as many men as there are Deputies on this side of the House. He has proclaimed himself as having a sincere belief in the sincerity of the people with whom he is negotiating. Put a better case than that! Can anybody state his qualifications to negotiate with the British higher than I have put them? Moreover, I believe it is all true. But, when did Deputy Cosgrave get those qualifications? He earned them in ten years. He had them at the moment in which, professing all that fealty to the Commonwealth of Nations, all that respect for the sanctity of the Treaty, all that intention to keep fully his agreement, all that belief in the essential value to Ireland of the British connection—he had all these qualifications when he went over in 1931—not ancient history —to ask, not for £3,000,000 a year, which we say we do not owe them, nor for £5,200,000 a year, which they were getting from him for ten years, but for a moratorium for three months of £250,000; and he did not get it. He had all these qualifications when he went over in 1931, and that was how he was treated.
Deputy Anthony was foolish enough to say that I was disrespectful to Deputy Cosgrave. I believe in knowing the value of my opponents. I do not mind fooling somebody else, but I do not fool myself, and if there is any party on the benches opposite that I know it is he. I have been five or six years gaining experience and I know the qualification of all the Deputies on the Front Bench opposite. If Deputy Cosgrave, with ten years of service behind him, with ten years of faithful observance of the Treaty, with ten years working in the interests of the British connection, with that mutual feeling of good faith and common belief as between the two Parties here and in Britain, was not able in 1931 to get a moratorium for three months, on £250,000, who is going to say that the British are going to give to him any concession as a negotiator? I shall tell the House why Deputy Cosgrave is no good as a negotiator. Because the British know he cannot deliver the goods. For ten years he was offering them the Free State as a gift. He said: "The love of my heart and the faith of my soul and the love and fealty of the Irish people, the elected Government here lays humbly at your feet."
The British would give a lot—a lot more than the value of some of the great coaling stations that they value so much—to any man who could say that with the authority of the Irish people. Why were they not prepared to buy the goods? Because the seller could not deliver them. They will not be prepared to buy the goods now because they know that if the seller be Deputy Cosgrave he cannot deliver them. If Deputy Cosgrave cannot do that what chance has Deputy MacDermot? If Deputy Cosgrave is asked, "Who are you?" he can say: "I have been ten years President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. I have had three or four separate majorities, got from the electorate of the Irish Free State. I am a man in whom a lot of people in the Irish Free State do believe, and are prepared to follow." But when he is put in discard what answer will Deputy MacDermot make? Ask Deputy McGilligan, ask Deputy Cosgrave's little pet wasp what he thinks of Deputy MacDermot. They are sitting on the same Front Bench. I have not got the speech here, but if anybody told me that the U.I.P. regarded Deputy MacDermot as one who could answer the first question that would be asked of him: "Who are you?" I say go back and read the buzzing of the wings of the little yellow wasp. Deputy McGilligan, not two or three years ago—we had not known much of him then—but two or three months ago, said Deputy MacDermot had no anchors to take up here, that he had no claim whatever to speak on behalf of the Irish people. Do not imagine for one moment that the people you are to negotiate with are such people as not to know what your Front Bench Deputies opposite think of each other when you send them over as negotiators.
Let us see what Deputy MacDermot is going to do when he goes over, having got a businesslike manner and acting like a businesslike man. How is he going about it when asked to come down to brass tacks? He was asked: "What actually are you going to do about it?" and he said:
"The first obstacle that confronts the Fianna Fáil Party, as regards making any sort of agreement with the English, is that they have not made up their minds which they want the more—a united Ireland, or a republic."
He also said that one of the great and most difficult things in the way of the Fianna Fáil people was that they had shown they were unable to keep agreements, in other words, there was no atmosphere of uberrima fides, so necessary for transactions of this kind and which, undoubtedly, would be present if Deputy Cosgrave was there. We could not keep a contract; we could not stand over our obligations.
What happened the other day? Mr. James Thomas—I understand it is regarded as disrespectful to call him "Jimmy" Thomas—actually made a statement in the British House of Commons in which he said there had been another flagrant and blatant repudiation of our obligations, another flagrant and blatant example of bad faith. And what was that flagrant and blatant example of that faith? It was the passing through the Dáil of three Bills, and the passing through the Seanad of three Bills, and the making of these three Bills, three Acts of Parliament, one of which abolished the Privy Council so far as we were concerned, and the second of which took away the necessity of the King, through the Governor-General, writing his signature on Bills and so on. These were the three Acts which Mr. Thomas described as blatant and flagrant violations of good faith and of the Treaty with the British. Now who passed those Acts? Who voted against them? Deputy Thrift and Deputy Good voted against one of them and against the other two no single man in this House voted or recorded his protest. Three gross and blatant violations of the Treaty; three gross acts of bad faith according to Mr. Thomas!
Is not the Parliamentary Secretary wandering away altogether from the motion which we are discussing?
I submit not. I think Deputy Kent has not read—I do not see any reason why he should and I do not think he has—the speech of Deputy McDermot in which this question is expressly raised: the question of whether or not, failing to keep or having failed to keep faith, we can negotiate. Another Deputy gave a whole speech to telling us why we cannot negotiate.
I have been listening to the Parliamentary Secretary for just three minutes. In those three minutes he has not referred to the Motion before the House. However, I am prepared to hear him develop his argument.
He has not referred to the motion once in the last hour that he has been on his feet.
Does Deputy Belton remember what he referred to?
I will refer to you when I get up. That is why the Parliamentary Secretary was put up—to talk the motion out.
I am only beginning.
It is quite obvious why he was put up.
The Deputy is an optimist. Here is what Deputy MacDermot said: "I am perfectly well aware that I am travelling outside the terms of this motion." I have said nothing like that. I have not blatantly put myself out of bounds by saying I am perfectly well aware that I am ignoring the motion. Deputy MacDermot, and one other Deputy, devoted practically his whole speech to showing why we could not negotiate. What I am putting to you is this: I have said that Deputy Cosgrave's claim to be a good negotiator is that he can claim the best of good faith; he has always upheld the Treaty.
What did you say? A good negotiator? Where did we get that accent from?
I think we must have got it from Pimlico. His difficulty, and the primary difficulty in any negotiation with the British, was the lack of the acceptance of good faith on our part. I am putting to you that any negotiator that is sent here from the Dáil, whether he is sent by Fianna Fáil, whether he is sent by Labour, whether he is sent by the U.I.P., whether he is sent by anybody except Deputy Good and Deputy Thrift, will be faced by the fact that in the opinion of Mr. Thomas, stated to the British House of Commons, every one of them is a man who has broken his faith, every one of them is a man who has broken the Treaty, every one of them is a man who is dishonest. Do you accept that? Do you accept it that you are dishonest men, that you have broken your faith, that you have proved yourselves people who cannot be trusted, and who are incapable of being trusted as negotiators because you did, in fact, unanimously pass through this House three Bills which, according to the interpretation of Mr. Thomas, were a breach of the Treaty. Are you accepting Mr. Thomas as an authentic interpreter of the Treaty? If you are not, by what authority do you label us as men who have broken faith because we also have disagreed with Mr. Thomas?
One Englishman disagreeing with another!
Mr. Thomas says Ireland is united; that we are all liars; that we are all people who have broken our faith. Oh, but there still remains another portion of the Oireachtas. There is a respectable Assembly. There is the Seanad. Could we find a negotiator from the Seanad? There are some men there whom I think Mr. Thomas would regard as of the highest possible good faith. They actually insisted on getting some of them in there. One of the subterranean conditions of the Treaty——
A discussion of the procedure under which Seanad members are appointed is not in order.
I agree. I withdraw it.
Will the Deputy get into order at all?
I think he is very much in order.
I certainly would not have introduced the motion——
I thought you would not.
——if I thought that nothing better than you was going to speak on it.
You will be sorrier before I am finished.
I did not introduce it to have a fly-boy from Liverpool discuss agriculture.
I have a series of eight interruptions written down here which I intend to get from Deputy Belton when he once gets going. They are all in order, and the answers are all written down. When I am finished I will hand it to the Chair to prove that he did it. The fact remains that neither in the Dáil nor in the Seanad, with the exception of Sir John Keane, not even in the sacred Seanad, was there one single man to lift his voice in protest against what Mr. Thomas says labels this united Irish people as a lot of scallywags who break their word and cannot keep their bond. A unanimous Dáil, a unanimous Seanad, has been labelled by Mr. Thomas, with whom Deputy MacDermot is going to negotiate, as being unfit to negotiate. Yet Deputy MacDermot says that one of the real difficulties in this matter, one of those things which cause unnecessary trouble in the development of negotiations, and which I have no doubt cause a real pain to the soul of Deputy MacDermot, is the fact that unless we can get a negotiator whom Mr. Thomas thinks is a man of good faith it is no use negotiating. However, let us assume that we have got this bright boy and we send him over. Here is what Deputy MacDermot has got to say:—
"If they made up their minds, as we have made up our minds, that what we want is the unity of Ireland and the effective freedom of Ireland as a whole; that we are quite prepared to stay as equal partners in the British Commonwealth on that basis, well then it would be easy for them, as it would be easy for us if we were in power, to go to the British and say just that—to make perfectly plain what our ideal was, and to say at the same time that in view of constitutional development in the last few years, in view of the Statute of Westminster, and in view of the general feeling throughout the Commonwealth, the time had come to remove, by mutual consent, any contractual obligation that might be thought to exist on this country to stay within the Commonwealth. In other words, to make it perfectly plain that we are absolutely free to go out of the partnership that constitutes the Commonwealth at any time the Irish people wish to do so."
What does it amount to? We are first to go into the Commonwealth, then we are to unite with the North, and having explained to the British our ideals, we are going to be perfectly free, by the vote of the people of Ireland, to come out with the North. If it means anything, that is what it means. Who told Deputy MacDermot that the British were going to negotiate on these terms? First we are to go into the Commonwealth, then we are to unite, and then we are to make it perfectly plain that we are absolutely free to go out of the partnership that constitutes the Commonwealth, at any time the Irish people wish to do so. Are we to go out bringing our family with us? By what authority does Deputy MacDermot say that any such negotiation is possible, or is likely to be carried to a successful issue? The man is simply dreaming. There are visions about. And who is the third negotiator? It has been objected that I should not refer to General O'Duffy as Ringmaster O'Duffy. Was there ever an objection by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party when, at the General Election, they issued a poster with "Dev's Circus" on it, and the names of the Cabinet as performing animals? When did we become so squeamish? That was much the sort of thing no decent man would say. Ringmaster MacDuffy.
It was said behind his back in a forum which he was not in. The Deputy would not say it outside.
Would I not?
No.
We will see. We will have one of those magnificent meetings in Cork, reports of which appear in the Cork Examiner, where 30,000 people are gathered together in the name of MacDuffy's circus. Then we will have this statement in the Cork Examiner in relation to it. “As he went through the principal streets of the city, the streets were crowded with an acclaiming people.” Then you will find photographs, actually produced and published in the Cork Examiner, showing him going through the same streets as empty as if there was a plague going through them. That actually occurred. These two statements appeared in the same paper; the photograph of the truth and the written lie. Oh no, we are not the slightest bit disturbed about meeting General MacDuffy. What is his negotiating capacity? His eloquence; trust by the British—though I do not think he would claim that himself? Perhaps it is his winning way. At the present moment I believe there is competition between the three leaders on the other side—General O'Duffy, Deputy Cosgrave, and Deputy MacDermot—to see who has the least and the fewest followers in Ireland. General O'Duffy addressed a meeting at which, I think, Deputy Desmond and Deputy O'Neill were present. For one and a quarter hours he used all the devices of eloquence, persuasion and argument which are going to make him so powerful a negotiator. All the arts of the orator were used, but down in the lobby of the hotel afterwards one of the most prominent and hitherto one of the most faithful followers of the U.I.P. was heard to say: “That is a great man we have got as leader, if only he was dumb.”
Deputy McGovern's contribution to this discussion was that he wanted a National Government. There was a National Government in England. Is that the kind he wants?
There were no failures in it.
I wonder sir, if you think I am interrupting the Deputy too much. The National Government in England consisted of a Government of backwoodsmen Tories. They called that a National Government. Is the National Government here to be a Government of the U.I.P? A sort of wet week-end doleful one, dead for 20 years, that does not care how long it remains a dead Government. Is that what they call a National Government? You must remember that one of the leaders of that Government, before he left the Party of Deputy Kent, stated that he was going to form a National Government, that he was going to compel the formation of a National Government, and that when, if ever, he was in a position to hold the balance of power, he would produce not wheat, not beet, not factories but a constitutional crisis to compel Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil to come together and to form a National Government, no doubt under his tutelage and control. What is going to happen if there is a general election?
Fianna Fáil will go out.
The Deputy made the best speech he ever made to night. He will never make a better speech as long as he lives. It was absolutely condensed wisdom. If only he could make another speech of 20 minutes' duration with the same amount of wisdom in it, the accumulated wisdom of the world would fade into insignificance.
The Parliamentary Secretary should address the Chair.
I move the adjournment of the debate.