Lung power is the only power the Deputy possesses. In his own speech on this particular motion— this man who objects to vulgar exhibitions of buffoonery and bad taste— when he can misinterpret the speeches of a Minister and a Deputy so as to make them seem to conflict, he does not ask which of them is right. He asks which is the rogue. He asks us to have a little straightforwardness and less shiftiness. He speaks of the reckless breaking of promises, and the amount of treachery and shiftiness that is associated with the actions of this Government. It is unmanly, it is contemptible and really deplorable, it is evidence of a conspiracy to cod the ratepayers. This is Lord Chesterfield Deputy Colonel Dr. O'Higgins. Then he goes on. This is the first time he comes near the subject of discussion. "The tragedy of the whole thing"—of course, he has to use a Chesterfieldian expression—"and the humbug of the whole thing is that the taxes imposed by Great Britain on Irish produce landed in Great Britain are paid by the Irish people, and the taxes imposed by the Government on British produce landed in Irish ports are again paid by the Irish people." Somebody told me that nobody could be a big enough fool to say that.
Is it contended opposite by the experts in high economics that the whole of the taxes that are paid by the British on tariffed articles coming into them from Ireland are paid by the Irish? Is it contended that there is no increase of price due to those taxes? If it is not contended, then Deputy Chesterfield is entirely wrong in saying that the whole of the taxes imposed by Great Britain on Irish produce landed in Great Britain are paid by the Irish people, but he is perfectly correct in describing his own statement as humbug. If anyone will take the trouble to graph—I wish it became a habit in this House to graph something—the prices outside and the prices inside of any tariffed article going into England they will find that inevitably and invariably some proportion must be paid. How much has to be paid depends very largely on the political relations of the people, upon their bargaining power, and upon the question as to whether or not the operation of ordinary economic laws can be overset by action of that kind. Anyone who is going to put forward the amazingly foolish proposition of Deputy O'Higgins is certainly going to find himself dead up against the facts.
He goes on to speak of the political shiftiness, the political trickiness, the buying of political support with public money. Then he goes on to say that to play politics at a time when the farming industry is going down, to withdraw finance from that industry— finance which could at the moment save it—in order to buy, say, tens of thousands of votes around the country is not playing the game straight. Well, this is not the only Government under which it has been alleged in this House that the farmers were grievously suffering. There was a speech delivered here by Deputy MacDermot's predecessor in the kingship of the evanescent farmers' party quite a number of years ago, in which he preached exactly the same Jeremiad that is being preached on the benches opposite, not merely here but at every chapel gate in the country. What did Deputy Cosgrave say to Deputy MacDermot's predecessor for saying that? He said he was bankrupt of intelligence, bankrupt of initiative, bankrupt of everything of use or value to Ireland. I say without any hesitation that Deputy MacDermot is in direct lineal succession. I want to get back to the man who told us we must not play politics when the country was suffering.
At the present moment the whole trade of the country is disappearing. It is like one of the conjuring tricks for which in every way we get littler and littler, almost Hitler and Hitler, not quite. I am dealing with the charge. To play politics, when the farming industry is going down in order to buy hundreds and thousands of votes around the country is not playing the game straight. In 1929, the total exports were £48,870,000; in 1930, £45,745,000; in 1931, £37,070,000 and in 1932, £26,940,000. Who was playing politics in 1929, 1930 and 1931? Who was buying votes? Who, at the end of the General Election, said that he did not win the General Election because he did not bid high enough?
It is the habit of the new economists opposite, in order to get at the revenue of the country, to add their expenses and their receipts together? It is an amazing proposition but it is done. What we do is we add our imports and our exports and say that we have lost £14,000,000. We had £7,000,000 and we got £7,000,000 and we say we lost £14,000,000. Let us see what the story is. The imports In 1929 were £61,300,000. In 1930, they had gone down from £61,300,000 to £56,776,000. Who was playing politics then? In 1931, they had gone down from £56,776,000 to £50,460,000 and in 1932, they had fallen to £42,574,000. I want the House to see what Deputy O'Higgins means when he says playing politics at a time when the farming industry is going down and withdrawing finances from that industry, finances that could at the moment save it. What were they doing with their finances then? Buying tens and thousands of votes around the country is not playing the game straight even though you did not bid high enough to buy the count.
That is Deputy O'Higgins's contribution to this proposal. This is the man who is objecting to our exhibition of bad taste—the man who says that his own Government when it was doing that was dishonest. He is the man who when he wants really to get classical in the way of argument says that "every brat in Denmark is crying ‘Up de Valera.'" That is a nice way to talk about your international associates. "Every brat in Denmark is crying ‘Up de Valera'." It is not the brats in Ireland who are calling "Up Duffy." Mrs. Redmond, T.D. and Mr. Wall, T.D. also spoke. On the platform were Major-General Sir Guy Beatty, President of the Waterford Branch of the British Legion; the Marchioness of Waterford and Lady Anderson. It is not the brats who are crying "Up Duffy" in Ireland. It is the brats in Denmark who are crying "Up de Valera" and this is the person who speaks of a vulgar speech. Perhaps we had better leave him for a few minutes. We will come back to him again.
There was a Deputy Brennan—I want to get the reference. It is columns 2194 and 2187. He is another high economist. He is one of the economists who are telling us that we ought to alter the system of finance we have to the extent of somewhere about £450,000. I only just want to give you a sample of the amount of intelligence which is behind those putting forward a proposition of this kind, people who attempt to fool about with finance. Here is what Deputy Brennan says:—"There is absolutely no industry in this country at the present time living on the profits of its own undertaking."—That is in column 2194.—"The position is that the country is living absolutely and entirely on its capital."
That is Deputy Brennan's contribution to the debate. If that was true we would certainly be up against a position of considerable seriousness but we would also be up against a proposition which would be selfevident. The total income of this country is the total income of its industries, and therefore, if any industry in this country is living on its profits, and if we are living wholly and entirely upon capital, then there must have been withdrawn in the last year from the total visible capital values of this country an amount equal to the total income of the country. There is no getting out of that. There are various estimates of the income of this country. Some people think that it is not worth finding out. I think that it is. The most important figures of the estimate vary from £126,000,000 to £160,000,000. I will give you your choice. You can take whichever figure you like. This statement of Deputy Brennan is not made merely once in this document but four times. It is not being made without premeditation. It is a thought-out misstatement or it is true, one or the other. If Deputy Brennan's statement is true then at least £120,000,000 must have been visibly withdrawn from the resources of this country and where is the sign of it? Is there £120,000,000 drop in the deposits in the bank? There is not. The deposits in the bank this year are about £4,000,000 less than last year but they are about £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 more than in 1931. There is no sign of a fall. Where has it come from? Where have these mythical millions gone? It may be shown in the utter breakdown of the whole trading position of the country. Well, if it is it would be shown in the figure known as bank clearances.
Now there ought to be a fall if the total capital value of £120,000,000 had disappeared in this year. According to the statement of Deputy Brennan there must have been an absolutely catastrophic fall in the bank clearances. They are down .19 of 1 per cent.; and that in a year in which there were only 52 weeks as against 53 weeks in the previous year. I know there are some people on the other side of the House who, though they do not know anything about economy, profess to know something about highbrow economics. I do not know how many people in the House know how the bank clearances are made up. I put it now to the few experts. It is perfectly clear and obvious that if there had been the same amount of trade done in the country, with a larger proportion of home trade, there would have been a considerable fall in the bank clearances. If the trade was completely an Irish trade, a completely home trade, and it was the same total trade as previously existed, under our present methods, the collected bank clearance figure—the fall in bank clearances—would be very marked. But they have not fallen, and, therefore, the evidence is that not merely has the total trade remained the same but the total trade must have been considerably increased. I am putting it now to the highbrow economists to check out upon that side. But there are other indications.
We were told by Deputy Anthony that he cannot go home without finding a whole queue of people waiting outside his door for employment. We are told that the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Cork is bankrupt and that its bankruptcy is due to this cause, and to the distress that exists. What are the facts? Let us take St. Anthony to start with. I shall put another witness in the box—the Bishop of Cork. The Bishop of Cork, at a meeting of St. Vincent de Paul Society, said there is no case, in the present conditions, for a special appeal in Cork this year —that is, compared with last year. As far as unemployment is concerned, you all know we changed over to a different system of registering last year. A perfectly artificial rise in reference to the old method of numeration took place. I shall give one example. In Mayo, the registration rose from 300 to 11,000. But to make a long story short, for one reason or another, we drove up the figure last year and we settled down to improve. Some day I propose to put up a graph in the House showing what has been going on for two years. It is well that we should examine these things upon the facts.
The numeration register rose last year but only hit the maximum on 12th December. It hit the maximum again on 12th December this year, and in every day and week and month from June on though there was less unemployment registered in this country this year than there was last year. I know what they have been doing at the chapel gates and men may have been ignorant enough to do it. I am prepared to admit that people can be ignorant enough of the actual cycle of unemployment to make the statements they made. But if they were ignorant enough to make them honestly then they were not fit to be in representative positions. Week after week, this ordinary cycle of unemployment took place. They said, look at the unemployment figure. It has risen to 4,000, from 2,000; the proposals of the Government to remove unemployment are being broken. Every week the figures are rising. They might just as well have said: "This country would be suitable for wheat growing if the average temperature was 62 but now it has gone down to 45 in the middle of December." I repeat, that in every day of every week of every month from June on the unemployment register has been lower than it was in the previous year. Yet we have Deputy Anthony saying that the position is worse than it was 12 months ago.
Is there any man who knows the kind of Christmas that there has been in Ireland this year who is prepared to say that? We know that, whatever the reason is, and that is a question which I think the best brains in this House might well be put to investigate. I do not know what the reason is. I cannot put it into definite words. We are making an investigation into it and I invite the co-operation of every right-minded man in order to find out what the reason for it is. But the fact is that this Christmas has been a happy and prosperous Christmas in Ireland relative to what it was before; and everyone knows it. We have not had from any side of the House, or from any section of the country, these demands which we have had the previous year. With much smaller resources we have been able to meet the demand. But that is not the only thing. Take the national securities. We had always been told "look at the price of National Loan," but no one tells us to look at the price of the National Loan for the last two years. Yet it is staring us in the face. What has happened to the price of National Loan? I am not going to say now what I never said when I was in opposition that the position in regard to gilt-edged securities is the position of the country. But those people opposite did. Now they have been turning their back very carefully on the price of National Loan for the last two years. "Oh," but they say, "that wise, well-known economist, Hugo Flinn, expressed on various occasions such disrespectful opinions about gilt-edged securities."
Let us try some other securities about which no one has said a disrespectful word. I asked a stockbroker to get out for me a list of typical Irish securities — manufacturing securities and distributive securities. I did not ask him what they were. I have the list here and I shall give them to the House at any time the House wants them. I had nothing to do with the collection of them. I said to him "For the last three years give me the index value of manufacturing industrial securities in Ireland." Here are the results: in January, 1932, 83; in January, 1933, 89; in January, 1934, 111. There is nothing in the intervening page to wreck the argument from those figures. But they will say, "Yes, you have got your gilt-edged securities and your manufacturing securities but the shopkeepers and all those people are ruined." We have got hold of some distributive securities. In January, 1932, the index figure was 90; in January, 1933, the figure was 97; in January, 1934, the figure was 106—and the country going to the dogs completely! The index value of manufacturing securities has gone up from 83 to 111 and of distributive securities from 90 to 106. Yet Deputy Brennan says that there is not a single industry in the country that is making a profit and that every single industry is living on its capital. Now what do you think of Deputy Brennan? I think nobody ought to say because there are limits to Parliamentary language.
Then Deputy MacEoin comes along and he said he would not pay because he could not and that it was due to Fianna Fáil. I shall leave that because it may not be as strictly orderly as I should like it to be. There are, however, some figures which we can take. This country is going to the dogs and, therefore, all the children must be going to the dogs. I am dealing with the statement that there is not a single industry in the country that is making a profit and that every single man, woman and child is living on capital. If that were so the children would be rather badly off. You might be getting back to Dean Swift's day. But there is a malnutrition figure for the schools. Inspectors go round and examine typical bodies of children all over the country, up to something like 20,000 or 30,000 children—I do not remember the figure. They try and make an honest test. What do they say? In a year the proportion of children suffering from malnutrition in this country that is going to the dogs has fallen from 12.5 per cent.—a legacy we received from Cumann na nGaedheal—to 5.4 per cent.
What is happening to savings certificates, post office deposits, and other things of that kind? The post office deposits and the savings certificates I may say work astraddle. When one goes up the other goes down, due to the interest rates. Is anybody going to say that, taking savings certificates and post office deposits, there is any indication that there is not a solitary soul able to make a living? That is what Deputy Brennan says and he is the chairman of a county council. Amazing things happen in county councils. Then real wages have risen in this country in which everything is going to the dogs. During the last election I happened to be in a shop. I do not think I was canvassing on the occasion, but I was talking to somebody there, and I overheard the end of a conversation between the woman selling the goods and the woman buying them. This is what I heard the woman who was buying the goods say, "Glory be to God, look at what I am getting in my basket for my money." Her basket was full. Her wages could buy something. Real wages have risen—does anybody deny it?—in this country which is going to the dogs.
Then the country was going to be bankrupt; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, June, July, August, September, 1932, 1933, 1934, it was going to be bankrupt. But the people even could not go bankrupt. There are fewer bankrupts in this country now than there were under the beneficent wing of the Cumann na nGaedheal predecessor of a Farmers' Party turned into a U.I.P., National Guard, Young Ireland, Fine Gael. Fine Gael! A nice kind of wind that is blowing in Ireland. There has been nothing like it since the big wind for doing destruction. When it disappears it will be remembered with just the same amount of gratitude. Fine Gael! Bankruptcy! The people even will not go bankrupt in a country in which there is not a single industry making a profit. I had better read the statement again. I can hardly believe it myself. I have to read Cumann na nGeadheal speeches three or four times to convince myself that they really were made. The statement is: "The position is that the country is living absolutely and entirely on its capital." In case there might be any loophole in that he stops it by saying, "There is absolutely no industry in this country which at the present time is living on the profits of its own undertaking." It cannot live on the profits of any other undertaking because there is no other undertaking making a profit. Then in this country in which no existing industry is making anything and in which all existing companies are dying out, behold other companies are actually forming themselves. There were no companies formed under Cumann na nGaedheal—they were not wanted. Activities of that kind were an outrage on the economic principles of "Pope" Hogan. But in this bankrupt country new companies are being formed. Does anybody deny any of these facts?
Of course, all this stuff about increased employment is nonsense; it is one of those dishonest fakes worked off by a Government that buys votes. That is why the sale of unemployment stamps is rising. Is that the reason? Can you fit in this body of facts with Deputy Brennan's amazing story that there is not a single industry in this country that is making its living and that every man, woman and child in this country to the extent of an income of £120,000,000 to £160,000,000 has been, during the last year, living out of capital. What sort of witnesses have you got? Would you hang a yellow dog on the whole of the evidence? There is a jury of nearly twelve over there. Would they hang a yellow dog on the evidence of the whole of these people? I do not think they would.
I hope that when Deputy Anthony reads his speeches again he will not say that he had not heard one word refuting the statements made by Deputies on the other side of the House. Will he still say that the position is infinitely worse than it was last year? Let me call a really respectable witness into the box, someone that Fine Gael, U.I.P., Cumann na nGaedheal, the Farmers' Party, or whatever you like to call them, will at any rate regard as not inclined to perjure himself for the benefit of Fianna Fáil. "It is very reassuring to find that the things people were saying would happen did not happen and the indications are far more hopeful than many of us feared and some of us expected." That is not a Fianna Fáil Deputy at a chapel-gate meeting; it is not one of the brats in Denmark. It is a very respectable person. It is the director of a most respectable bank, the Bank of Ireland. I refer to Senator Sir John Keane. I am speaking of him in his capacity of a bank director. He is not speaking just of what he saw on the street; he is not speaking of what somebody told him; he is speaking with, behind him, the evidence of every bank account in the Bank of Ireland and he says that it is very reassuring.
Now, I wonder if I will be considered hard-hearted, vulgar and unkind if I ask you to smile, to lift up the corners of your lips and be happy a little bit when Senator Sir John Keane says it is very reassuring to find that the things people were saying would happen did not happen, and the indications are far more hopeful than many of us feared and some of us expected. I am going so far as to say that the things people on the opposite side of this House have in this House solemnly said did happen have not happened. They know it, and they ought to have the honesty to admit it and not deliberately misrepresent the position, not deliberately try to weaken the morale of this country in the face of a test of this kind. Deputy Anthony is annoyed with us because we say that England intends very late in the day to develop her own agriculture, and as far as she can to send her people back to the land. Imagine Deputy Anthony minimising the ability and strength of mind of England. He says England never can make even a feeble attempt to feed one-fourth of her population. What you are up against is the fact that she is not going to make a feeble attempt to do it; she is going to make a strong attempt, and she has told you so.
What did the Minister for Agriculture in England say in relation to the matter in December of last year? I want you to have a little background in this matter. You must remember there are a lot of scoundrels over here, people who purloined other people's money. We were called murderers, thieves, looters and embezzlers. I knew there was one nice respectable word, a word you would get 14 years for after being tried by a High Court Judge and jury. We were embezzlers, we were people who could not keep our word, and, as a result, we got into bother with some very respectable and nice people on the other side of the water. As a result of that, not for any reason of economics, not because they wanted to protect their industries, but merely to teach us to be good boys, they put on, at the direct instigation of the Party opposite, a tariff of 20 per cent. upon our cattle. When the promises that were held out to them by the Opposition that light and gentle expostulation of that character would have an immediate effect in an improvement of our conduct had proved not to be correct, they put on another 20 per cent., and then they put on some other percentages. They found we were very obstinate in our embezzling capacity. Our reaction to the Ten Commandments as preached by the Defender of the Faith was not particularly good and they gradually put on some other taxes. In fact, they put on so many taxes that people began to think they had gone as far as ever they could. And they did the whole of that, according to the gentleman opposite, for political purposes.
They did it all to teach us the Ten Commandments, to make us Christian moralists, to make us keep our word. Brick by brick, stone by stone, storey by storey, they built an edifice of repression on the ground of politics, and they brought that up to a date in December. Then an amazing thing happened. Major Elliot, in the British House of Commons, a very good man for his own people, introduced a quota system. All the things that had been done up to that time were not sufficient; they were not effective; they had not starved us into surrender, if that was the purpose. He put on a quota reducing our exports of cattle to 50 per cent. After he had done his damnedest in the way of tariffs, after he had taken the advice of the people opposite to the very limit, he found it was not sufficient and he put on a quota system. Somebody in the House of Commons said: "Are you not going a bit too far? It is not good enough to do this sort of thing for political purposes in Ireland." What did Major Elliot say? He said: "There is not an ounce or scrap of politics in this; there is not any political purpose of any sort or kind in this." He said: "This is a purely economic expedient to protect our own agriculture, to protect what we regard as the basis of our agriculture, the meat producing trade." He may know more about his own agriculture than I do, but that is what he said. He added: "We have done our damnedest in the name of political repression, but we find it is not sufficient for the permanent purpose of our economic self-preservation." He said: "This is not the end. Whatever else may be required for the purpose of economic self-preservation, we will do," and when the Ottawa Agreements come to be revised in June of this year they will be revised in the light of that declaration and that policy.
Now where are we? What does it matter for what purpose you build the lower part of the house if the roof is put on for another purpose? What does it matter for what reason you put pounds and cwts. in the scale if, when it is not sufficient for another purpose, you put in and are prepared to put in tons? You say that we can get rid of all this trouble, that you can be businesslike, that you can be a businessman, that you can have a business atmosphere about it, that you can put your cards on the tables, that you can do all these strange and wonderful things that a man who never did a bit of business in his life thinks is business, and you think that by that means you can get rid of the tariffs and the self-protection and the quotas which the British have put on for the purpose of their self-protection. What price are you going to pay for it? There was a Party here whose organ said that every man has his price. What is your price? What are you going to offer him to take off the quota that he put on for purely economic purposes, that he put on purely to protect his own industry? What are you going to give him to prevent his doing all these and other things, whatever they may be, that are necessary? What are you going to do? What price are you going to pay him, so that he will give you a preference over Canada, South Africa and Australia and not apply to you the law of self-preservation which he is prepared to apply to himself? A settlement? Mr. Thomas at various times has said some things which were to help, assist, to bring succour and comfort to the people on the benches opposite, but God help you with Major Elliot. What is there left of your argument? The Minister for Agriculture in England says that everything Thomas did for political purposes he will continue, and what he has now done for non-political purposes he will continue. What are you going to say? We are asked to come down to brass tacks, to come down to facts. But Major Elliot has not any illusions about what he is going to do with you.
Now we turn to another of those people, an artist in asseveration—I think that is the only note I have made about him—Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's objection is not to our economics at all; it is to our morality. He said our morality may vary, but it never agreed with the teaching of religion, and by that he means the Christian religion. Deputy Belton will now withdraw from the House for the rest of the session. We are not Christians! He does not like our religion, our morals! Well, I think after all, he had better go and have a talk with Deputy Dillon. Deputy Dillon the other day was talking about a sort of brass-hat Communist in England pinning the badge of Communism on the breast of Eamonn de Valera, but he did not always say that. He did not even recently say that. He said: "Mr. de Valera and his colleagues, though I have no regard for them, are not Communists. They are good Christain gentlemen." Now, imagine that! Deputy Dillon says that the Party on this side led by Mr. de Valera are good Christain gentlemen, and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney says that the one thing that he disagrees with is that we are Christians. We are neither Christians nor gentlemen! It must be very consoling to us, it almost moves me to emotion, almost overcomes me when I think of it.
You know what it has been, some of you, to be through a very bad storm and suddenly to come into shelter. You know what it is to feel when you are in a hard and bitter world, and then suddenly to come into the protection and soft, safe lenity of affection and love. You know what it is to be sorrowful and to have your sorrows wiped away. Well, we have been accustomed, as I have reminded the House, to be called liars and thieves, looters, murderers, embezzlers, faith-breakers and the rest of it. Some of us, having regard to the fact that we thought it was quite possible that there might be some decent men among the Opposition, and having regard to the fact that these decent men had not protested against expressions of this kind, were examining our consciences lately and wondering what was going to happen to us, what was going to happen to us when Deputy Belton ceased to blow his own trumpet and the archangels blew theirs. Imagine us climbing slowly up the narrow way to the pearly gates, and some hardvisaged saint—there are such things— saying: "Oh, yes, looters, murderers and embezzlers, faith-breakers, begone !" And some wiser man saying: "Oh, no, it is not so; these men have a certificate. These men have a certificate from one having authority. These men have a guarantee that cannot be challenged even here. They have the word of Deputy Dillon that they are good Christians." And you can imagine some junior executive officer sort of looking up the books and saying: "Dillon! Dillon! where in hell is Dillon?"
