Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 Feb 1934

Vol. 50 No. 9

Private Deputies' Business. - Relief of Rates on Agricultural Land.

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That the Dáil condemns the action of the Government in reducing the total of the grants payable for the relief of rates on agricultural land. — (Deputies Belton, O'Higgins and Minch).

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

"I had a very hard week at the Ard-Fheis and I just came down to talk to you like this. I knew you would not take me too serious." Words taken from speech 446 delivered by the extern leader of the Opposition Party at Kanturk on Sunday last. "Don't take me too serious." I do not think anybody believes that any person in this country or any Deputy in this House takes the proceedings of the Opposition Party in relation to this or any other motion too seriously. I think that the House will remember that, on the last occasion, in the few intervals in which I was able to intersperse my remarks among the interruptions which were hurled at me from the Opposition Benches, I endeavoured to point out that since this motion was first put down in the name of Deputy Belton and of some other Deputies, whose experience of this House might have taught them to have greater regard for the time of this House, the Opposition had not taken this motion seriously. One could only come to the conclusion that the Party managers, finding, as previous associates of the Deputy had found, that it was difficult to restrain him in his wilder moments, had allowed Deputy Belton to put this motion down in order that he might blow off steam and if any proof of that conjecture were necessary, we can find it in the recorded proceedings, or at least, in such of the proceedings of the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis as appeared in the daily newspapers for February 9th. Those proceedings were full of interest because one of them, at any rate, was the last gulp which Fine Gael had made at swallowing holus-bolus the complete Fianna Fáil programme.

In that connection, I should like to remind the House that General O'Duffy, in the intervals when he is not unfolding his life story, which he tells with so fervid a fancy and so fertile an imagination, has already told us that the Fianna Fáil wheat and tillage policy is not going to be abandoned. Why? When the measures which were necessary to give effect to that policy were going through this House, they were opposed with great vehemence and great bitterness by the Opposition. When the Department of Agriculture was endeavouring to get farmers to adopt that policy, certain Deputies of this House told the farmers to have nothing to do with the Fianna Fáil wheat policy. Now, we hear that the short experience of 12 months has convinced the leaders of the Party, at any rate, that the policy is popular in the country, that the policy is beneficial to the country and that they would risk their political future, insecure and uncertain as that future is, by announcing that if they were to be returned to office, there was to be a complete right-about turn and that they would not go back to the policy which they pursued under Deputy Hogan when he was Minister for Agriculture, when he was, in the words of Deputy Belton, Minister for grass in this country. Then we have heard just this morning, I think, that the land annuities are not going ever again to be paid over to Great Britain. Why not? We have been told by one of the circulating VicePresidents of the all U.P. organisation that in keeping these annuities here, we were guilty of the foul and dishonourable crime of embezzlement. We have heard ourselves denounced as men who have no regard for the Ten Commandments. I heard Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, in his speech during the last Autumn session, calling the country to witness that Heaven will yet wreak vengeance on the Irish people because we had been guilty of a breach of the Seventh Commandment. If it is dishonourable for us to retain the annuities now, if we have no right to them, if the retention of the annuities is the cause of the economic war——

Mr. McGuire

On a point of order, is this discussion relevant? I was pulled up a few moments ago for touching on precisely the same subjects.

Mr. Cooney

You have changed over since then.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This motion seems to have left the realms of relevancy altogether. There is no question about that. It seems to have left relevancy behind completely, and the Minister is not adding to the relevancy by his remarks now.

Mr. MacEntee

I am sorry, sir, that you should have been called upon to pass that stricture upon me because I was reciting one of the elements in the Fine Gael policy and programme which have disappeared and leading up to the last retraction, one which has a particular relevancy to this particular motion. I think I am entitled to develop that aspect of the question because I am entitled to prove that this motion no longer figures as an honest motion before this House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not the least concerned with what the U.I.P. policy is. What I am concerned with is to get the House to discuss the motion on the Order Paper. Clearly the right or justice of the retention of the land annuities is scarcely relevant to this motion.

Mr. MacEntee

I submit that the retention of the land annuities has a great relevancy to this motion. We have been told that the economic war is due to the fact that we have retained the land annuities. We have been told at great length by members of the Opposition Party that we could settle the economic war. How are we to settle it? According to them, by giving over the land annuities to Great Britain. But now they tell us, never again, in the words of General O'Duffy, are the land annuities going to be paid over to Great Britain. If we do not pay them over the economic war continues, and if they do not pay over the land annuities do they think there is going to be any change in the situation? Do they think that they, any more than we, would be in a position to give effect to this motion which is:—

"That the Dáil condemns the action of the Government in reducing the total of the grants payable for the relief of rates on agricultural land"?

I would like to say this: that one of the reasons why we felt justified in reducing the grants on agricultural land was that we had reduced the annuities payable on agricultural land by 50 per cent. We have been able to do that by retaining the land annuities in this country. The whole of these matters are interrelated and cannot be separated. And with great respect, I think, I have proved that they are relevant to the motion.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Surely the Minister does not argue that it is relevant to go over the whole issue whether they were justified in withholding the land annuities or not.

Mr. MacEntee

After the statement of General O'Duffy, which I have quoted, I do not think there can be any doubt in the minds of reasonable men that we have been fully justified in withholding the land annuities.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not concerned with what General O'Duffy said or did not say. I am only concerned with what is relevant to the motion before the House.

Mr. MacEntee

Quite so, but we would be only in a position to give effect to this motion if we were entitled to retain these annuities as of right, and if the other party to the dispute acknowledged our right to so retain them. I presume that we have, at any rate, reached accord on this; both the Opposition and ourselves. It is a hopeful and a healthy sign for the future, that the economic war and the retention of the land annuities need no longer be a bone of contention between us. In the same way we were told — it is one of the reasons why we cannot afford any further relief to agricultural land at this period — that we were developing our industrial arm too hastily; that it has made considerable claims upon the attention of the Government and has imposed certain burdens upon the public funds. If we were to slow up industrial development it might be held by some that we would be in a better position to give effect to this motion, but do the Opposition wish us to slow up industrial developments? On the contrary, General O'Duffy again has told us that industrial development, if he and his party are ever returned to power in this country, is no longer to be strangled as it was in the old days of Cumann na nGaedheal. Once again, why? Because quite obviously it is in the best interests of the people of this country that our policy of industrial development should be pursued to its fulfilment, and that all sections of the community including the holders, the owners or the possessors of agricultural land should contribute something to enable us to carry through our programme in that regard. But the significant fact is that having listened 12 months ago to the speeches of Deputy Dillon, Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Mulcahy — he even yet has not resigned himself to the existing situation, as the question which he had on the Order Paper to-day testifies — the only effect of them has been to convert the back benchers of Fine Gael to the Fianna Fáil point of view, to compel them and coerce their organisation to adopt the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to industrial development.

It has also been said that the farmers would not require the additional help which the terms of this resolution condemn the Government for not giving, if it were not for the fact, as it has been said, that the economic difference with Great Britain has been complicated by political considerations. But only the other day General O'Duffy again told us that the people of this country were going to be given an opportunity to decide for themselves between a republic and a commonwealth.

Mr. Minch

On a point of order. What has General O'Duffy got to do with this motion before the House? I am one of the signatories to the motion and I have been waiting since March last to get a word in in connection with it, but I have not yet succeeded.

Mr. MacEntee

A number of Deputies succeeded in getting in a good many words between my speech though they have not added much to the order of debate. It will be welcome news to the more intelligent elements in the political life of this country to hear that General O'Duffy has got nothing to do with Deputy Minch. I understood that the real head of the Opposition is a gentleman who disdains to enter the Dáil, possibly so long as the present members of the Opposition retain their membership of this Assembly. Therefore, I must refer, in the course of this debate, to a gentleman who is not a member of this House, because I presume that none of his followers inside or outside of it would dare to say boo, much less put down a motion on the Order Paper, unless they had secured first of all the sanction of the great Pooh-Bah of their organisation. I was pointing out that it has been alleged, in the course of the debate, that an easy and advantageous settlement of this dispute regarding the land annuities might be secured if it were not that we had allowed our attitude towards Great Britain to be biassed by political considerations. What has been our attitude in this matter? We have always maintained that the people of this country have a right to determine for themselves what their international associations will be. We have always contended that their choice in that regard must be a free and a voluntary one. On every opportunity which we have had of discussing with the British Government the differences which are now at issue between us, we have asked only that, in regard to our own political future, our own political status, our own standing in the world of affairs, our people should be allowed to make a free and voluntary choice. On the last occasion on which this issue was raised between the two countries, it was raised by the President of the Executive Council asking the Secretary for Dominion Affairs in the British Government whether or not, if that issue were put to the people, the threat of war, which has hitherto hung over our heads, would be withdrawn.

I, as one who is exceedingly anxious that the relations between this country and Great Britain should be close and cordial, am very sorry to say that we were unable to get an unequivocal answer to that straight question. It is the question which General O'Duffy himself and members of the Fine Gael Party must put to some British Government and some British Minister if they are ever returned to power and if they are ever to fulfil the promises and undertakings they are now giving as members of the Opposition. General O'Duffy has said that the association of this country with Great Britain in the Commonwealth must be a free and voluntary one. If that association is to be a free and voluntary one, then the people of this country must be left free and unfettered to decide whether they will declare for an Irish Republic or whether they will declare for the maintenance of our present status, or something equivalent to that status, within the Commonwealth. We have never contended for more. We are Republicans and, if we did go to the country, we would ask the people to declare for a Republic.

Mr. McGuire

Why do you not declare it, then?

Mr. MacEntee

When the Deputy is a little older in politics, he will be able to answer that question for himself——

Mr. McGuire

Why do you not answer it?

Mr. MacEntee

——and when he has more concern for the people of this country.

Mr. McGuire

Why do you not declare a Republic?

Mr. MacEntee

Why do you not declare a dividend?

Mr. McGuire

That is rather good.

Mr. MacEntee

I am sorry. I was saying, on the point as to the free choice of the people, that there is no longer any difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. We are to have the Fianna Fáil tillage policy. We are to have the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to the land annuities. We are to have the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to industrial development. We are to have the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to the right of the people to exercise self-determination in respect to their own political status. Now, as a result of the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis, Fine Gael is going to adopt the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to derating, because the Deputy who is primarily responsible for this motion and who has carried Deputy Minch into the realms of political extravaganza in which Deputy Belton continually moves and has his being moved an amendment dealing with derating. The Deputy must be a brave man if he wants to change an iota of anything that General O'Duffy has ever written or said. It must seem to be flying in the face of Providential inspiration to differ with that great man even on such a matter as derating. At any rate, Deputy Belton moved an amendment from the County Dublin Executive that the time had come for complete derating of agricultural land. "The time has come," said Deputy Belton, "for the complete derating of agricultural land."

The time has come, the walrus said,

To talk of many things;

"Of lords," said Dick Mulcahy,

"No," Cosgrave cried, "of kings."

Of lords and ladies and other things, but not of complete derating. Deputy Belton has grown older and wiser. Four or five years ago, if any person had asked Deputy Belton to observe the pledges of Party loyalty which he had given, to be true to his written bond and Deputy Belton had another idea in his mind, he would speedily have left that political Party.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This has nothing to do with the motion.

Mr. Belton

You are drawing it mild on this occasion. I was not expelled this time.

Mr. MacEntee

I am merely emphasising that the Deputy has not left yet and has not been expelled yet but I am not prophesying that he will not before long. Deputy Belton moved, as an amendment from the County Dublin Executive, that the time had come for the complete derating of agricultural land. It was a sad day for Deputy Belton when he moved that amendment, because Deputy Cosgrave headed the cohorts of Fine Gael and routed Deputy Belton upon that motion, so that complete derating of agricultural land is no longer a plank in the Fine Gael platform. They, just as we, have realised that the most equitable way of helping the farmers is not by complete derating of agricultural land.

Mr. Kent

More nonsense.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy O'Donovan said "nonsense."

Mr. O'Donovan

I did not. If I had intended to say it, I would have said it long ago.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy Kent said "nonsense." Deputy O'Donovan is one of the people who fought that forlorn hope at the Fine Gael convention.

Mr. O'Donovan

You are one of the people who preached it and got elected on it. Now, you are going back on it. It is only one of the many things on which you went back in your time.

Mr. MacEntee

Well, at any rate, we are not like Deputy O'Donovan and his colleagues; possibly, we learn by experience.

Mr. O'Donovan

I do not think you ever will.

Mr. MacEntee

It is a good thing, in this as in other matters, that they have shown their willingness to learn — or at least have shown their willingness to learn after the people have sufficiently chastised them to make them cultivate sense and intelligence. So, we are not to have complete derating. They have swallowed wheat, the annuities, industrial development, self-determination, and now they have swallowed derating. With such a complete recantation of everything that they have professed hitherto to stand for, what reason have the Opposition for existing at all except possibly that they feel their mission in life — and look at their doleful and downcast faces! — is to make everybody look as blue as they feel blue.

A Deputy

You cannot digest blue.

Mr. MacEntee

I never heard that it was digestible. It is a colour that is usually associated with fungus and, therefore, just the colour that is most appropriate to the mildewed Mussolinis who are running around this country. In the circumstances which I have just recited, what part does the Fine Gael Party play in the political scheme of things in this country? What part are they likely to play? When I was speaking on this motion last week I referred to the activities of some of their leading members. I dealt at length with the strategic silence of Deputy Dillon on occasions and the more ill-considered statements of Deputy Belton. I think I was making the point that these people, who are asking for an increase or who are condemning the Government for reducing the grants for the relief of rates on agricultural land, were themselves suborning people not to pay their rates, and I think I referred to a statement of Deputy Belton in which he said that if the farmers of this country had some backbone none of them would pay their rates and there would be a strike against the payment of rates.

Mr. Belton

I ask the Minister for his authority for that statement or for its withdrawal. I deny the statement.

Mr. T.J. Murphy

The statement was reported in the public Press and was not contradicted.

Mr. Belton

I deny that statement.

A Deputy

Sit down.

Mr. Belton

Who said sit down? I contradict the statement. It is not true. I never made any such statement. I am not saying that the Minister has invented it, but if he has authority for making the statement I should like him to quote it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Let us be clear about this point. I did not hear the Minister mention Deputy Belton's name at all in connection with the statement, so why he should think the statement referred to him has nothing to do with the Chair.

Mr. Belton

I understood that he did, and if I were not sure of it I would not raise the point. If the Minister says that he did not mention my name in connection with it I shall take no further notice of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I cannot ask the Minister to do that. The Chair has to consider what he hears. If I had heard the Minister make the statement I would ask him to withdraw it.

Mr. Belton

But, sir, if I draw it to your notice, is not that sufficient?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

No, it is not. I must rely upon what I hear and see myself.

Mr. Clery

It is Deputy Belton's conscience that speaks.

Mr. Belton

Well, then, I take it that the Minister did not mention my name. (Interruptions). An empty can makes the most noise. I am raising this matter, sir, because there is a point in this. This has been mentioned before on this motion by Deputy Flinn. It may be interesting to the House to know that an effort is being made to build up a case against me on that statement.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If I heard the Minister specifically mention Deputy Belton I would ask him to withdraw the statement. I did not hear him specifically mention Deputy Belton, and, therefore, I cannot ask him to withdraw what I did not hear.

Mr. Belton

I should like to inform the Leas-Cheann Comhairle that Inspector McGloin of the Detective Branch is endeavouring to build up a case against me on that alleged statement.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot have the names of officers of the State mentioned in this House.

Mr. MacEntee

You have heard, sir, what Deputy Belton has said in regard to a certain officer of police. I should like to be quite candid with the House in this regard. I did begin my statement with a reference to Deputy Belton. Whether I made his name clear or not I cannot say, but I did intend to make that reference to him. Now, having said that and having listened to Deputy Belton's statement and his denial, I am sure you will understand, sir, why I must say that, in deference to the ruling of the Chair and to the rules of this House, I withdraw that charge; but I want it to be quite clear that that statement is made out of deference to the Chair and in order to fulfil the rules of the House, but that it is not to be taken as a judgment upon the activities of other people.

Mr. O'Donovan

We will take your word for it. It is not much trouble.

Mr. MacEntee

I was pointing out on the last occasion that Deputies were organising what were called farmers' defence forces; that there were other movements throughout the country, and that there had been built up an irregular organisation whose aim and purpose was to dislocate the administrative system.(Interruption by Deputy Coburn). I do not know if anyone should take notice of Deputy Coburn.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair will deal with Deputy Coburn if necessary.

Mr. MacEntee

In Irish politics, people are coming to regard members of these organisations as the sand flies of the Free State.

Mr. Coburn

Those who stand up to intimidation and bomb throwers.

Mr. MacEntee

We had youth movements, farmers' defence forces, and a widespread organisation in certain counties to intimidate, to prevent, and to discourage people from discharging their legal and moral obligations to the community. We know how widespread these activities have been. We know how they have been fomented by Deputies, and how they have incited and encouraged this illegal and immoral campaign. But, not content with organising forces to dislocate local administration, and to subvert the authority of the Government, elected by the people, to give effect to the will of the people, and to a principle for the establishment of which men were shot in cold blood in this country by Deputy Belton's present associates——

Mr. Belton

By your associates. You were too much of a coward to do it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Let us be clear on this matter. Where are we wandering? This motion is very specific in its character.

"That the Dáil condemns the action of the Government in reducing the total of the grants payable for the relief of rates on agricultural land."

That is the only relevant matter.

Mr. Davin

Have you, sir, before you the names of Deputies who have spoken in this debate, and a record of the time taken by members of the two principal Parties discussing it, a good deal of their statements having nothing whatever to do with the motion?

Mr. MacEntee

May I say that——

Mr. Coburn

I would like to raise a point of order dealing with the question of illegal organisations and with the aspersions that have been cast on the Opposition Party. As a member of that Party I resent these statements, because the members of the other Party, including the Minister, are equally guilty — or more guilty — than the members of this Party.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Coburn

I want the Chair to notice the latitude given to the Minister for Finance when he tries to insinuate, and by innuendo suggested, that members of this Party were the cause of murder. I said that they never threw a bomb——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will sit down.

Mr. Coburn

——and never endangered the lives of decent, innocent people. Who is supporting the President in the maintenance of law and order in this country, and against the cowards who throw bombs?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will sit down.

Mr. Coburn

It was supporters of mine who told the truth — because they were brought up to tell the truth.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will sit down.

Mr. Coburn

I will not stand here or in any place and listen to any supporters of mine being made little of, as far as the maintenance of order is concerned.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will sit down. No point of order whatever has been raised. The Minister should come to the motion before the House. He has rambled very far, and dealt with various matters irrelevant to the motion. He should come to the motion now and tell us whether there is any reason why the House should condemn the Government for reducing the grant, and give reasons.

Mr. Davin

There are other members of the House who have rights as private members. There are other motions on the Order Paper to be dealt with, some of them more important than this one. Members of the Minister's Party and of the Opposition have spoken in this debate, some for two hours and some for two and a half hours. I now allege that there has been a deliberate arrangement on the part of the two principal Parties in the House to carry on this debate and to hold up other motions.

Mr. Coburn

Let there be a row and a damn good row now.

Mr. MacEntee

I am entitled in a motion of this nature condemning

"the action of the Government in reducing the total of the grants payable for the relief of rates on agricultural land"

to point out that those who have made themselves responsible for it are endeavouring to keep people from paying their rates.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Minister confined himself to that I would not object. He has certainly travelled over many other fields.

Mr. MacEntee

I will keep myself strictly to that point. I should like to say, in regard to what Deputy Davin said, that we listened at great length to a debate which covered every possible field, and that when the Government Party had to put up speakers I rose when no other person offered. Certainly I have not prevented any Deputy interested in this question, which touches other motions on the Order Paper—possibly that with which Deputy Davin is associated— from speaking because, if this motion were allowed to go by default, I suggest there would not be resources at the command of the Government which would help us to give sympathetic consideration to the other ones.

Mr. Davin

Is the Minister arguing that it should take any Deputy two and a half hours to express views on a question of this kind?

Mr. MacEntee

I do not argue anything of the sort, but I would direct attention to the length of the speeches that were delivered covering a wide field, and that probably I may be the last speaker for the Government on this motion. I had to deal, necessarily, with a multitude, I do not say of irrelevancies, but with a multitude of arguments, which appear to the Opposition to have some bearing on the motion. I am disposing of them, and I am just going to refer to one other aspect of the case. Undoubtedly the economic dispute with Great Britain could have been ended, if it had not been for the comfort and the succour which the Opposition Party had given to the other parties to the quarrel. (Interruption). Am I being fairly treated? If it were not for the hopes which are being based on the activities of Deputy Belton, and those responsible for this motion, Deputy O'Higgins, Deputy Minch, and every member of the Opposition Party, who is engaged in undermining the democratic institutions in this country, that they would one day be in power, and that a settlement advantageous to Great Britain could be secured, as it had been already secured in regard to the Boundary, and other matters; as it was secured in regard to the miserable trifle of a railway debt of £800,000, for which our rights to the annuities would have been conceded by Deputy Cosgrave in 1923; if it were not for the hope that history would repeat itself, and the same pliable personalities would be entrusted with the conduct of the Irish people's affairs the British Government would long ago have come to a reasonable settlement with regard to this matter, and there would have been no necessity to have a motion — no excuse I should say, because there is not at the present moment any real necessity — there would not have been a shadow of excuse for a motion such as stands in the name of Deputy Belton on the Order Paper. We should have resources with which to give practical effect not merely to the wishes and desires of the Labour Party in regard to No. 19 on the Order Paper but to give practical effect to the considered policy of the Government in that regard. Therefore, sir, it is necessary for me to deal for just about five minutes longer with the activities of the Opposition Party in the country, activities which have prevented us from doing even more than we have done for the Irish farmer and the Irish people.

I was talking about their attempts to dislocate local services. I was talking about the conspiracy which they have engendered to prevent the people from paying rates. I was referring to statements which have appeared in the Press on the part of their leaders, their most responsible leaders. I shall just refer to one typical example out of many that might be cited. I refer to a photograph which was printed in a Dublin newspaper on November 8th last. The nature of the picture can best be imagined from the title which was given to it in the paper as follows: "Back from the fair with her cow unsold. This Tipperary woman goes home to wait for the next fair day." That appeared on November 8th and on 25th November the same newspaper published in a comparatively obscure position as compared with the prominent position given to the photograph, the following: "We are informed that the subject of the picture"—which was published with the inscription to which I have referred —"Mrs. P.J. Gardiner, Main Street, Cloughjordan, regards this description as a grievance since she was going with her cow, not to the fair, but to the pasture. We desire, therefore, to correct the wrong impression and to express our regret for any annoyance which the description may have caused Mrs. Gardiner." How mildly the editor has put it when he states that the lady concerned regards the description of the photograph as a grievance! I say it was an outrage. I say it was an outrage against the people of this State. I am not going to say in that connection that the editor of the paper which published the photograph was personally responsible. I am perfectly certain from what I know of him that he would not knowingly be guilty——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not going to discuss the editor of any newspaper. That is definite. We have travelled into many realms, but the realms of art in a newspaper is the limit reached in this motion.

Mr. MacEntee

I was only going to say that that picture was issued from a Dublin factory, one of the new factories for which this Government does not accept responsibility and that is the lie factory of the Party opposite.

Deputies

Proof.

Mr. MacEntee

When this sort of thing was going on, while we were faced with mendacious attempts of this nature to undermine the morale of the people, to get the farmers to believe that their cattle were not saleable and city people to believe that the economic life of the country was being undermined, let the Deputies who were responsible for it and who have just endorsed it by their foolish laughter, hear what the Government was doing for the farmers of this country. The value of what we have been doing can only be appraised and measured by what our predecessors did for the farmers. I said last evening that we are condemned in this motion because in 1933-34, when so much more intensive constructive work was being done for the farmers than we had been able to get under way in 1932-3, we discontinued a special emergency grant of £250,000 which had been made in 1932-33 and slightly reduced the additional supplementary agricultural grant, making the total amount allocated for the relief of rates on agricultural land £1,750,000. Now I should like in connection with that figure to draw the attention of this House to this vital and significant fact, that that £1,750,000 has not merely been voted for the relief of local authorities, but has actually been paid over to them. A fair basis of comparison, therefore, between what we are doing, what we are providing by way of relief of rates in accordance with the terms of the motion, and what our predecessors did, is the amount of money that will be paid over to the local authorities in the present year as compared with what was actually paid over by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in 1931-32. The local authorities will receive from us £1,750,000. The amount which the same authorities received from our predecessors during the last year that they were in office, when they were bidding as high as they dared for votes and found the electorate unbribeable— because no bribe or no promise would induce the Irish people to return Mr. Cosgrave to power again after having an experience of his Party for over ten years — in that year when they were bidding their highest the actual amount paid over by them to the local authorities in relief of rates on agricultural land was £1,812,000. That is just £62,000 more than we are paying in relief of agricultural rates.

Mr. Belton

On a point of order, I submit that the grant that the Minister is speaking of now in the current year and last year was and is subject to a deduction. The figure he is giving for 1931-32 was the net grant given after the deductions to make good the loss to the Guarantee Fund.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not a point of order. It is a point of explanation or elucidation.

Mr. MacEntee

It is very hard to participate in a debate of this sort when there are so many interruptions. To refrain from interruption requires a higher level of intelligence than is common on the Opposition Benches. Deputy Belton might have made that point in the course of his speech and allowed me to make my speech in my own way.

Mr. Belton

Have some regard for the truth.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy ought to have some regard for manners, and speak when he is spoken to. I would like to emphasise this, because it is the sole point of advantage the Opposition has got out of the debate, in regard to relief of rates on agricultural land that, in 1931 and 1932, when conditions were easier, and it would be much easier for the Cosgrave Government to give more, they only gave £62,000 more than we gave in 1933-1934. But we have not confined the relief we offered to the farmers merely to the relief of rates upon agricultural land. We have not distributed all our relief in the way that Deputy Belton endeavoured to convince the Fine Gael Ard Fheis that it ought to be distributed, and which the good sense of the Ard Fheis rejected, that is by way of derating relief. We have done more. We reduced the land annuities by 50 per cent., which represents a net gain to the farming community——

Mr. Keating

Does it make up for the loss of the British markets?

Mr. MacEntee

I am not yet aware that the market has been lost.

Mr. Keating

Where are we to-day in regard to our markets?

Mr. MacEntee

We have reduced the land annuities.

Mr. Keating

Oh, of course, you have.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputies must cease interrupting.

Mr. Keating

Let the Minister talk common sense. How did he reduce the land annuities?

Mr. MacEntee

By halving them.

Mr. Keating

Are we not paying them three times over?

Deputies

Order, order (and interruptions).

Mr. MacEntee

Formerly the tenant purchasers of this country used to contribute by way of annuities £4,126,000 of which no less than £2,999,000 was handed over to Great Britain. Now, for the year 1934-35 the farmers will only pay of the former land annuities £2,063,000.

Mr. Belton

And five millions to Great Britain in duties.

Deputies

Order, order.

Mr. MacEntee

It is really very difficult to proceed in face of these interruptions.

Mr. E. Donnelly

Deputy Keating is now only paying half of his annuities.

Mr. Keating

I paid more than ever you did anyway.

Mr. MacEntee

In addition to the concession afforded by the reduction of land annuities I should like to remind Deputy Keating that the Exchequer has assumed full responsibility for the payment of the interest and sinking fund upon the £30,000,000 of land bonds issued to complete the operations under the Land Act of 1923, and have undertaken in regard to future transactions under the 1932 Land Act, similarly to meet the interest and sinking fund required for the service of these bonds, and at the same time it has reduced by 50 per cent. the annuities which under the original terms of the 1923 Act will be payable by those who bought out under that Act. And this has got nothing whatever to do with the land annuities that were formerly paid to Great Britain but represents a voluntary assumption by the Exchequer of this country in order to provide additional relief to the farmers. In addition to that, we have also provided for export bounties £2,350,000 per annum. I know the farmers on the Opposition Benches will say that they do not get any benefit or advantage out of this export bounty. I know Deputy Keating will say he knows shippers who do not get any advantage conferred upon them by that. When we hear statements like that it must be obvious to everyone that the interests in this country concerned in the cattle trade are divided about that £2,350,000.

Mr. Keating

The taxpayers are paying it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy having persisted in interrupting must retire from the House forthwith.

Mr. Keating

I will retire now. Let him go on with his bluff. Let him go jazz.

The Deputy withdrew.

Mr. MacEntee

I could deal very effectively with that last interruption because I notice that most of the dances run by the Fine Gael are jazz dances. I was saying we reduced the land annuities by half, provided £2,350,000 for export bounties. Then again, we have provided £100,000 for a milk scheme most of which comes from the farmers in the home market and a large portion of which is distributed to necessitous families in poor areas. Then again, towards the development of the turf scheme we allocated £150,000 most of which is to be spent for the benefit of farmers.

Mr. O'Leary

That is not so.

Mr. Lemass

Does Deputy O'Leary deny that?

Mr. O'Leary

Yes, certainly.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Deputy go down to the bog areas of this country and make that statement?

Mr. O'Leary

Will the Minister accept my challenge to set up a Commission to inquire into this?

Mr. MacEntee

One seldom hears anything very relevant or intelligent from Deputy O'Leary. I say this in regard to the £150,000 that we provided for the turf development scheme that every penny piece of it will be spent in the agricultural areas in the country. Under the Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Act we provide in this financial year which is just closing £56,670. I think it is anticipated that we will more than double that in the next financial year. For the purposes of the Agricultural Produce (Regulation of Exports) Act we are providing £18,443. For other relief schemes for works carried out mainly in agricultural areas we are providing £250,000.

Mr. Belton

For election purposes.

Mr. MacEntee

Before there is an election we are giving the Opposition enough rope to hang themselves and they are making good use of it.

Mr. Davin

What will the rope cost?

Mr. MacEntee

Not more than three columns of General O'Duffy's speeches once a week in the newspapers — the cost of paper and printing. Under the Old Age Pensions Act, 1932, we are giving to the agricultural population by way of increased old age pensions not less than £600,000. The cost of the Act I should like to say is much more than that, but of the total amount of the increased burden which that Act has put upon the Exchequer not less than £600,000 is being spent in agricultural areas and is being paid to those who were formerly owners of substantial farms. As a result of the concession granted last year in regard to Irish tobacco we have made it possible for the farmers to reap a clear profit at the lowest computation of not less than £100,000. I suppose Deputies opposite will deny that that statement is true. I do not hear any of them getting up to controvert it, because I have the facts to prove that it is true, among them this significant one, that a certain gentleman who was arrested with General O'Duffy in Westport and subsequently released, and who is a leading member of the organisation represented on the opposite benches, cleared a sum of almost £200 out of tobacco growing during the past year. In addition to the things I have recited we have taken steps this year to establish the sugar beet industry on a national scale, with the consequence that next year out of the beet crop alone farmers and rural workers generally will get between £600,000 and £700,000. These are the solid and lasting things which we have done for the farmers. Never in his whole history has the Irish farmer had a Government that has been so solicitous for his interests as this one has been. The things that I have recited are incontrovertible. Let Deputy Belton when he replies deal if he can with any one of those statements or shake any one of those figures——

Mr. Belton

I will deal with them all and I hope you will be here.

Mr. MacEntee

And still have any regard for the truth.

Mr. Belton

I will deal with every one of them.

Mr. Davin

In two and a half hours.

Mr. Belton

I will take about five hours.

Mr. MacEntee

The things which we have done and the cost of doing them, I should like to emphasise, are over and above what was done by our predecessors. Contrast the money value of our achievement with what they did. Take their miserable £1,812,000 and contrast it with the actual funds which we have placed at the disposal of the farmers, amounting in this year to no less a sum than £8,138,000. £8,138,000 is the cost of what we are doing for the Irish farmers.

Mr. T. Kelly

What have you to say to that? That is a knock-out.

Mr. MacEntee

They say that we are doing very little for the farmers. They declare that we are doing nothing for the farmers, that we have put the farmers in the front line trenches. If we have, we are providing them with the ammunition to carry on the fight.

Mr. Norton

Who is putting them in the dance halls?

Mr. MacEntee

They say that we are doing very little. How much less did Cumann na nGaedheal do before it changed its name? We are this year providing £6,326,000 more than they did in their last year of office.

A Deputy

In ten years.

Mr. MacEntee

I would almost say more than they did in the whole of the four and a half years that preceded 1932 and those are figures upon which we stand. Not merely have we done more than our predecessors did to relieve the agriculturist, not merely have we doubled what they did or trebled it, but we have more than quadrupled it. Our achievement in that regard has been so colossal, has been done so quietly, so quickly, and so well, that people have not yet begun to realise the far-reaching changes that have been brought about. In time even that section of the farmers who are now being misled by the misstatements of the Opposition will realise that in the doctrine of economic self-sufficiency lies their only hope in this world of over-production and under-consumption.

I should like now, for a moment, to get back to the speech of Deputy Dillon. I do not know whether I am being unfair to Deputy Belton, or whether I am unduly flattering Deputy Dillon, but my speech in this debate seems to be concerned with dealing with the arguments advanced by one or other of those Deputies. I am sorry that Deputy Dillon is not here, because I am going to deal with the point which he made when he referred to taxation in this year as compared with taxation in 1928-1929. I am going to concede immediately that it is quite true that taxation this year is heavier than it was then, but I am also going to make this point, that taxation is not to be justified, nor is it to be condemned, by a consideration merely of its magnitude. The use to which taxation is put, the purpose for which the moneys collected from the people are employed — there is the real touchstone. In 1928-29 our predecessors collected £20,880,000 in tax revenue. In this year's Budget we estimated that taxation would bring in about £22,046,000. The difference about which Deputy Dillon was so doleful was £1,116,000.

The cost of the additional provisions which we are making in excess of those made by our predecessors for agricultural purposes and for purposes from which the agricultural community will derive a large share of the benefit is, as I have already indicated, £6,326,000 and of this amount only £1,225,000, representing one-half of the cost of the bounties, is being raised by borrowing. The value of the increased benefits which we provide for farmers and their dependents in this year is almost five times the amount of the additional taxation which we have imposed. Does Deputy Belton, who apparently is Deputy Dillon's understudy, or the Opposition Party, or do the farmer members of the Centre Party want us to drop the benefits and to reduce the taxation? We have increased taxation admittedly by £1,116,000, but we have provided for the farmers additional benefits over and above what was provided in 1928-29, costing £6,326,000. Which leg is Deputy Belton going to stand on? Deputy Dillon wants us to reduce taxation. If we do we have to reduce the benefits also. What does Deputy Belton want?

How have we been able to do that? It seems, and it is, in fact, a remarkable achievement and we are entitled and the people of the country are entitled to ask how has it been done. In that connection I would like again to emphasise that it is not the amount of taxation but the purpose for which it is used that counts. The Cumann na nGaedheal Government could not provide these increased benefits for the people; they could not afford to encourage wheat growing; they could not afford to induce the people to start the cultivation of tobacco; they could not provide the additional £600,000 for old age pensions going in to relieve the necessities of farmers' households; they could not afford to reduce the land annuities. They were taxing the people, not to develop the bogs, not to maintain our dairying industry, not to encourage tillage, not to raise the standard of living here, not to make our people self-supporting and self-respecting, but to provide pensions for ex-R.I.C. men, to pay the land annuities to Great Britain and to fulfil the terms of the secret agreement of 1923. There is the secret of our success. They taxed the people, taxed them admittedly for a lesser amount than we did, but of what they collected they sent a large share abroad. If we impose taxes, at any rate we spend the proceeds here.

I referred, when I was resuming my speech, to the very significant words of General O'Duffy, the leader of the Opposition, when he said: "Do not take me too seriously." I presume it is in that spirit, the spirit that at the present moment animates the Opposition Benches, that Deputy Dillon condemned us for increasing taxation, because in one breath he stated that the local rates should become a charge on the Central Fund and in the next breath he compared taxation in the present year with what it was in 1928-1929. At one moment he cries out that the burden of taxation is crushing and in the next moment, supporting this resolution, he clamours that we should increase it. I can only say that Deputy Dillon is not sincere and that he, like his leader General O'Duffy, expects the House and the country not to take him too seriously. Deputy Dillon knows pretty well that if the local rates were made a charge on the Central Fund the farmer would have to pay them by means of increased taxation. There is no way out of that dilemma.

Mr. O'Leary

Hear, hear!

Mr. MacEntee

If we make the local rates a charge upon the Central Fund the farmer will only have to take out of one pocket what at the present moment he is now taking out of the other.

Mr. O'Leary

Hear, hear! You are finding it out now.

Mr. MacEntee

If Deputy O'Leary is convinced of the truth of that, why does he ask us to tax the farmers in another way?

Mr. O'Leary

Go back to your own speeches in the House two years ago and endeavour to stand over what you said then.

Mr. MacEntee

What is the purpose, what is the real motive, behind this motion? It is not to give relief to the farmers. Deputy O'Leary has admitted it cannot do that. It is merely to throw dust in the eyes of the farmers by parading hypocritically——

Mr. O'Leary

You challenged the last Government when they put ½d. per lb. on sugar and now you have put it back again. You have robbed the farmers.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy O'Leary, just as well as Deputy Dillon, knows that if we were to give effect to the policy that is behind this motion there would be no reduction in the aggregate burden. It would simply mean that the people who could best afford to pay, the large ratepayers, would escape. The gentlemen who drive to political meetings in motor-cars, the gentlemen who, when their household goods and chattels are seized, can write a cheque for more than twice the amount of the rates which before that they were proclaiming they could not afford to pay — these are the gentlemen who would escape if effect were given to the policy that is behind Deputy Belton's motion. They would escape by having a large share of the burden, their own rightful obligation, transferred from them who are well-off to those who can less well afford to pay. That is what is behind the Deputy's motion.

Deputy Dillon must not forget that he and his colleagues represent the larger landed interests in this country, the shopkeepers who own more land than they can work, and the graziers, who will not work the land they own. They represent the leisured agriculturists who have been leading a more or less parasitic existence in this country. If the rates are to be transferred to the Central Fund this class, as I have said, would be relieved of a large part of their legitimate burden, and what they throw off would be put by Deputy Dillon and the Party opposite, if they were in power, on the backs of the smaller farmers, the farm workers, the farm labourers, in the shape of increased taxation upon the necessaries of life. Deputy Dillon's Party is the one class-conscious Party in this House. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned until Friday, 16th February.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday.