Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Mar 1934

Vol. 51 No. 2

Vote on Account—In Committee on Finance.

Mr. MacEntee

I move:—

Go ndeontar i gcuntas suim nách mó ná £10,560,900 chun no mar chabhair chun íoctha na Muirear a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1935, i gcóir seirbhísí áirithe puiblí, eadhon:—

		£
1	Teaghlachas an tSeana
	scail	750
2	An tOireachtas	37,600
3	Roinn Uachtarán na hArd Choimhairle	3,900
4	An tArd-Scrúdóir	5,000
5	Oifig an Aire Airgid	20,700
6	Oifig na gCoimisinéirí Ioncuim	241,000
7	Pinsin tSean-Aoise	1,150,000
8	Iasachtaí Aitiúla	1,400,000
9	Coimisiúin agus Fiosrú- cháin Speisialta	3,900
10	Oifig na nOibreacha Puiblí	33,300
11	Oibreacha agus Foirgintí Puiblí	229,200
12	Saotharlann Stáit	2,100
13	Coimisiún na Stát-Sheir bhíse	5,000
14	Cúiteamh i gCailliúna Maoine	37,000
15	Cúiteamh i nDíobhála Pearsanta	650
16	Aois-Liúntaisí agus Liún taisí Fágála	165,000
17	Rátaí ar Mhaoin an Rialtais	32,700
18	An tSeirbhís Sheicreídeach	8,500
19	Coimisiún na nDleacht	1,580
20	Costaisí fén Acht Timpeal Toghachán, agus fé Acht na nGiúirithe	Nil
21	Costaisí Ilghnéitheacha	2,200
22	Páipéarachas agus Clódóir eacht	43,000
23	Measadóireacht agus Suir bhéireacht Teorann	9,900
24	Suirbhéireacht an Ordo náis	11,600
25	Deontas Breise Talmh aíochta	450,500
26	Dlí-Mhuirearacha	19,000
27	Longlann Inis Sionnach	1,800
28	Príomh-Scoileanna agus Coláistí	79,150
29	Forbairt Bhaiterí Leictreachais	5,400
30	Oifig an tSaor-Chíosa	1,390
31	Luach Saothair chun costais bhainistí Stoc Rialtais	13,330
32	Oifig an Aire Dlí agus Cirt	11,530
33	Gárda Síochána	628,000
34	Príosúin	24,000
35	Cúirt Dúithche	13,000
36	Cúirt Uachtarach agus Ard-Chúirt an Bhreith iúnais	16,500
37	Oifig Chlárathachta na Talmhan agus Oifig Chlárathachta na nDin tiúirí	15,400
38	An Chúirt Chuarda	18,000
39	Oifig na nAnnálacha Puiblí	1,560
40	Tabhartaisí agus Tiomanta Déirciúla	1,000
41	Rialtas Aitiúil agus Sláinte Puiblí	280,000
42	Oifig an Ard-Chlárathóra	4,450
43	Gealtlann Dúndroma	5,000
44	Arachas Sláinte Náisiúnta	102,596
——
45	Oifig an Aire Oideachais	55,240
46	Bun-Oideachas	1,420,000
47	Meadhon-Oideachas	122,810
48	Ceárd-Oideachas	67,550
49	Eolaíocht agus Ealadha	12,740
50	Scoileanna Ceartúcháin agus Saothair	61,000
51	An Gailerí Náisiúnta	1,960
——
52	Talmhaíocht	205,300
53	Iascach	19,000
——
54	Seirbhísí na Gaeltachta	40,000
55	Foraoiseacht	40,600
56	Coimisiún na Talmhan	487,000
57	Tionnscal agus Tráchtáil	93,000
58	Bóithre Iarainn	10,400
59	An Bínse Bóthair Iarainn	1,300
60	Muir-Sheirbhís	3,570
61	Arachas Díomhaointis agus Congnamh Díomhaointis	465,000
62	Oifig Chlárathachta Mhaoine Tionnscail agus Tráchtála	5,000
——
63	Puist agus Telegrafa	690,000
64	Foirleatha Nea-shrangach	13,000
——
65	An tArm	492,244
66	Arm-Phinsin	102,500
67	Gnóthaí Coigríche	27,000
——
68	Cumann na Náisiún	7,500
69	Scéimeanna Fóirithinte	175,000
70	Deolchairí agus Conganta Airgid um Easportáil	800,000
71	Iasachtaí Coigríche Dháil Eireann d'Aisíoc	6,000
	An tIomlán	£10,560,900

That a sum not exceeding £10,560,900 be granted on account for or towards defraying the Charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, for certain public services, namely:—

		£
1	Governor-General's Estab
	lishment	750
2	Oireachtas	37,600
3	Department of the Presi dent of the Executive Council	3,900
4	Comptroller and Auditor General	5,000
5	Office of the Minister for Finance	20,700
6	Office of the Revenue Commissioners	241,000
7	Old Age Pensions	1,150,000
8	Local Loans	1,400,000
9	Commissions and Special Inquiries	3,900
10	Office of Public Works	33,300
11	Public Works and Build ings	229,200
12	State Laboratory	2,100
13	Civil Service Commission	5,000
14	Property Losses Com pensation	37,000
15	Personal Injuries Com pensation	650
16	Superannuation and Re tired Allowances	165,000
17	Rates on Government Property	32,700
18	Secret Service	8,500
19	Tariff Commission	1,580
20	Expenses under the Electoral Act and the Juries Act	Nil
21	Miscellaneous Expenses	2,200
22	Stationery and Printing	43,000
23	Valuation and Boundary Survey	9,900
24	Ordnance Survey	11,600
25	Supplementary Agricul tural Grant	450,500
26	Law Charges	19,000
27	Haulbowline Dockyard	1,800
28	Universities and Colleges	79,150
29	Electrical Battery De velopment	5,400
30	Quit Rent Office	1,390
31	Remuneration for cost of management of Govern ment Stocks	13,330
32	Office of the Minister for Justice	11,530
33	Gárda Síochána	628,000
34	Prisons	24,000
35	District Court	13,000
36	Supreme Court and High Court of Justice	16,500
37	Land Registry and Re gistry of Deeds	15,400
38	Circuit Court	18,000
39	Public Record Office	1,560
40	Charitable Donations and Bequests	1,000
41	Local Government and Public Health	280,000
42	General Register Office	4,450
43	Dundrum Asylum	5,000
44	National Health Insur ance	102,596
——
45	Office of the Minister for Education	55,240
46	Primary Education	1,420,000
47	Secondary Education	122,810
48	Technical Instruction	67,550
49	Science and Art	12,740
50	Reformatory and Indus trial Schools	61,000
51	National Gallery	1,960
——
52	Agriculture	205,300
53	Fisheries	19,000
——
54	Gaeltacht Services	40,000
55	Forestry	40,600
56	Land Commission	487,000
——
57	Industry and Commerce	93,000
58	Railways	10,400
59	Railway Tribunal	1,300
60	Marine Service	3,570
61	Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment As sistance	465,000
62	Industrial and Commercial Property Registration Office	5,000
——
63	Posts and Telegraphs	690,000
64	Wireless Broadcasting	13,000
——
65	Army	492,244
66	Army Pensions	102,500
——
67	External Affairs	27,000
——
68	League of Nations	7,500
69	Relief Schemes	175,000
70	Export Bounties and Subsidies	800,000
71	Repayment of Dáil Eireann External Loan	6,000
	Total	£10,560,900

Mr. MacDermot

Surely the Minister is going to say something on the Vote?

Mr. MacEntee

Could we not have the debate on the report of the Resolution?

An Ceann Comhairle

The main debate on the Vote on Account has usually taken place in Committee on Finance.

Mr. MacEntee

If we had it on report would it not satisfy Deputies?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is in Committee on Finance that the main debate has taken place in the past. Before the Minister rises, I wish to reply briefly to questions put privately to the Chair by two Deputies, as to the scope of discussion on this Vote. On the positive side, questions of expenditure and administration may be discussed. The question of taxation does not arise, nor variation in taxation. Legislation, passed or pending, may not be discussed. It is not permissible to analyse detailed items of the Vote—to discuss the incidence of a specific tariff, for instance. Matters raised should have a general bearing, and the Opposition Parties usually indicate in advance what matters they intend to raise. I understand that two subjects have been selected on this occasion. In the main, the debate is confined to the question of expenditure. The time-honoured question, "where is the money to be got?" may be neither asked nor answered on this Vote.

Mr. MacDermot

I take it, Sir, that the question: "can we in general afford it?" is a proper matter for discussion?

An Ceann Comhairle

That would be of course more relevant to the Budget when the House has both sides of the balance sheet before it.

Mr. Belton

We knew that one before to-day.

Mr. MacDermot

I observe that last year an extraordinarily wide series of questions was discussed, and that on some objection being made to the procedure, you yourself, Sir, made the pregnant remark that on a Vote on Account Deputies had very great latitude.

Mr. MacEntee

In speaking to the motion, I should say that the total estimate for the Supply Services for the year 1934-35 is £29,709,107. It is usual on the first Vote on Account for the year to ask for approximately one-third of the total amount required for the annual supply. In the present instance we are, as may be seen from the Order Paper, asking for £10,560,900, which is something more than one-third of the total Supply Estimate. The excess Vote over this fraction is occasioned by the fact that on certain Votes more than one-third of the total amount to be provided must be expended in the earlier portions of the year. I wish to make a detailed reference to some of the more important of these. On Vote No. 25, which is for the Supplementary Agricultural Grant, one half of the total provision set out in the Volume of Estimates is asked for now. That is because one morety of each of the grants there detailed becomes payable from the 31st July. Similarly in the case of Vote No. 28, for Universities and Colleges, the grants to be provided out of this Vote are paid quarterly to the University Colleges of Cork, Dublin and Galway, and half-yearly to Trinity College, Dublin. As one half of the total Vote thus becomes payable about the 1st July that amount is asked for in this Vote on Account. In the case of Vote No. 56, Land Commission, the amount asked for is substantially greater than the normal one-third. The explanation there is that one-half of the provision under sub-heads K, H and T, which together account for £684,140 of the total estimate, will have to be paid into the Land Bond Fund in June next. In the case of Vote No. 69 for Relief Schemes, the estimate here includes the sum of £130,000 for the completion of schemes commenced in the current financial year, and the sum of £100,000 for the drainage of bogs, etc., in connection with the commercial development of peat. It is probable that the bulk of the expenditure under the foregoing heads will have to be met in the early part of this financial year. Accordingly in this case, as in the case of the other Votes, half the total provision is required on account.

In connection with Vote No. 14, I should like at this stage to draw the particular attention of the House to a certain provision which will be covered by that Vote. Deputies will perhaps remember that during the progress of the Damage to Property (Compensation) (Amendment) Bill of last year through the Seanad I made a statement, in reply to a question addressed to me by Colonel Moore, on the subject of compensation claims for damage to property in Northern Ireland. It will be remembered that our predecessors paid compensation in certain cases of damage in the pre-Truce period, where applications to the Northern Courts had been refused on the grounds that the property was damaged as a matter of military necessity. I indicated in the Seanad that the Government were prepared to consider similar claims in respect of the post-Truce period, that is between 12th July, 1921, and the 20th June, 1922. Since then two cases have come under my notice, which, while not strictly within the letter of the category laid down, are certainly within its spirit. In both of those cases the damage which was done was very considerable, and was done by Crown Forces within the stated period. In one case, however, the application for compensation, amounting to £2,067, was dismissed by the Northern County Court on the ground that the premises were used as a place where I.R.A. ammunition was kept, and that they burned of their own accord as an act of spontaneous combustion. In the other case a decree for £1,070 by the County Court was reversed on appeal, on the ground that accident had not been negatived. Both cases present features of special hardship, and after careful consideration of all the facts and circumstances I have reached the conclusion that we could not equitably refuse to extend to those cases the same treatment that has been given in the cases dismissed by the courts on the grounds of military necessity. Pending investigation as to the actual damage done, and the cost of reinstatement, it is not possible to state with accuracy what compensation would be fair and reasonable, but on the information available it is not likely that the aggregate payments in the two cases will be more than £2,000. Any payment that may be made will, as in the other Northern Ireland claims coming strictly within the category which I have outlined in the Seanad, be met from this Vote.

I have already referred to the fact that the total Estimate for the Supply Services for the year 1934-35 is £29,709,107, and Deputies are no doubt aware that the provision to be made by way of annual Vote for the Supply Services represents only part of the expenditure which the Government has to face during any financial year. In addition, provision has also to be made for the expenditure arising out of Services chargeable upon the Central Fund. At the moment I am not in a position to say exactly what additional amount will thus be required to make full provision for the coming financial year, but it may be taken to be about £5,700,000. Reverting to the Estimates for Supply, it has already been remarked that they represent a substantial increase over the Estimates for last year.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

Mr. MacEntee

I am glad to see that the obvious is apparent to Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Dillon

The incredible is apparent to me.

Mr. MacEntee

The principal Votes on which increases occur are Vote No. 7, Old Age Pensions, where there is an increase of over £125,000; the Vote for the Local Loans Fund, which shows an increase of £2,050,000; the Vote for Public Works and Buildings, which accounts for an increase of over £113,000, almost half of which is represented by an increased provision for new schools and colleges; the Vote for the Department of Agriculture, which shows an increase of £127,000, of which £90,000 is in respect of a new purchase scheme for oats; the Vote for Primary Education, on which there is an increase of £98,000, largely occasioned by an increase of £294,000 in the amount required for the pensions of national teachers, offset, however, by a decrease of £226,000 in the amount to be provided for their salaries; and the Vote for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance, where there is an increase of £1,203,000, the result of providing a sum of £1,500,000 required for the purposes of the Unemployment Assistance Act of 1933, offset, to some extent, by increased Appropriations-in-Aid. In the Vote for £350,000 for Relief Schemes, there is an apparent decrease, as compared with last year, of £200,000, but, in fact, there is a substantial increase of £200,000 over the initial provision made last year. Deputies will recollect that in the original Estimate, which was before the Dáil this time last year, the amount provided was £150,000, and this was subsequently increased by two Supplementary Estimates to £550,000. In the Land Commission Vote there is an apparent decrease of £1,526,000 due mainly to the elimination of the two items—£795,000 and £1,403,000—which were provided from the Central Fund last year to enable certain payments to be made to the Land Bond Fund and to relieve the Guarantee Fund in respect of the deficiency in the amount of annuities collected. These items between them total, approximately, £2,200,000. After making allowance for their elimination from the total of last year's Estimate, there is a substantial increase of over £671,000 in the provision which is being made for the Land Commission.

In order to avoid misunderstanding, it will possibly be advisable to point out at this stage that, over and above what was provided last year for the relief of rates on agricultural land, an additional £220,000 will be granted, making the total amount to be provided in the coming financial year for the relief of such rates £1,970,000, and this is to be compared with a gross sum of £1,948,000 provided for that object by Deputy Cosgrave's Government in 1931-32. No Vote for this additional amount appears in the Estimates as, like the £250,000 which was provided last year and which will again be provided this year, the provision can be made only by way of a Supplementary Estimate which will be introduced after the Oireachtas has passed the necessary legislation enabling the grant to be made. These are the principal items which account for the increase in the estimated cost of the Supply Services for next year. The Estimates are up, undoubtedly, by £1,790,000 as compared with the total of the original and the Supplementary Estimates last year, and up by no less than £6,779,475 as compared with the total of the original and Supplementary Estimates introduced in the year 1931-32 by the Government of our predecessors. I know that Deputy Dillon——

Mr. Dillon

L'audace, toujours l'audace!

Mr. MacEntee

——is already be ginning to look a little like a splash headline in the Independent, but I should like to remind the Deputy that it is not the amount which is spent which primarily determines whether or not expenditure is beneficial or advantageous but the purposes to which the money is devoted. Virtually, every penny piece required for the Supply Services next year will be spent in this country on Irish people, promoting Irish industries, fostering Irish agriculture and providing employment for the workless and relief for the destitute. Of the £21,921,000 which our predecessors required for Supply in 1931-32, over £2,000,000 were sent to Great Britain, as the Independent admits in a leader this morning, as was an additional amount of, roughly, £3,000,000 collected by way of land annuities. The whole of this £2,000,000 and more, which formerly appeared in the Supply Estimates for payment to Great Britain, is now to be distributed in our own country, to our own people in the form of increased old age pensions, accounting for some £700,000, and increased unemployment assistance, accounting for £1,500,000.

Mr. Dillon

And export bounties.

Mr. MacEntee

Similarly, under every other head, it will be found that the expenditure which is being undertaken is being undertaken either for constructive or ameliorative purposes. Thus this year, in addition to reserving for our farmers such portion of the grain market as they are willing to supply, we are providing, as a further encouragement to tillage, a wheat bounty of £120,000 and are initiating an oat purchasing scheme which will require, as I have already said, a further £90,000.

Mr. Belton

What will you do with it when you have purchased it?

Mr. MacEntee

Eat it.

Mr. Belton

And slaughter the cattle. It is a great thing to be an optimist.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister will eat the oats and Dr. Ryan will drink the milk and prosperity will flow through the land.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputies might hear the Minister on that question.

Mr. Dillon

I hope we may, Sir.

Mr. MacEntee

Not only have we this year embarked on a scheme for the production of our own sugar from home grown beet, which will result in an annual expenditure of, approximately, £360,000 in agricultural wages alone, but we are making provision to lay down, at a cost of £102,000, an experimental plant for the manufacture of industrial alcohol. If that experiment succeeds, we shall have initiated a very far-reaching development indeed in agricultural production. Our predecessors did not spend one penny in this reproductive way, although they found millions to send out of the country.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan

White elephants!

Mr. MacEntee

Yes; we are making them work. Before, they used only to eat.

Mr. Belton

You painted them—is that it?

Mr. MacEntee

Similarly, for the reafforestation of the country and for the purpose of establishing a native timber industry, which will provide a large mass of employment for our rural population, particularly in the more congested and less fertile districts, we are providing, merely as an initial step, almost £122,000 as compared with £64,000 provided by our predecessors in 1931-32. Again, in regard to public health works, and through a scheme for the development of our peat resources, for the purpose of giving employment as contrasted with unearned assistance, we are providing £350,000 as against £140,000 provided in 1931-32.

My general contention is true also in respect of education, and it is truest of all in respect of housing. In 1931-32 our predecessors, by way of free grants under the Housing Acts, provided £212,000. This year we are providing £400,000 for the same purpose. In addition, under the Local Loans Fund, we are providing for loans for the housing of the working classes £850,000 as against £200,000 provided by our predecessors.

Mr. Belton

At what rate of interest?

Mr. MacEntee

For loans for the acquisition of houses under the Small Dwellings Acts we are providing £466,000 as against no provision formerly. Under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts for the provision of houses in rural districts we are providing £2,765,000, once more against no previous provisions by our predecessors. All these sums make a total provision for these and other purposes of the enormous sum of £4,539,000 as against £730,000 which was provided by the Cosgrave Government in 1931-1932. As I have said already, it is not the amount of money which is spent, but it is the purpose on which you spend it, that counts.

It will be realised that this expenditure upon housing and services of an ancillary and dual purpose, provides, first of all, a considerable amount of employment, so considerable, in fact, that I believe I would not exaggerate if I were to say that, at the moment, unemployment is virtually nonexistent in the building and associated trades in the Free State. Secondly, and more important from every social and Christian aspect, we are removing the monstrous evil the prolonged existence of which has been a disgrace to our Government and people. Not merely has this Government and its supporters recognised that, but those who, on political grounds, are most strongly opposed to us have recognised that also.

One of the leading Opposition journals in exposing the housing conditions that exist in our slum areas has done very good work. Many readers of that journal have banded themselves together with other good citizens and they demand that these conditions should no longer be tolerated and that everything that the Government could do, within the limits of its resources, should be done to end those bad housing conditions. We, in the Government, have the same conviction. Moved by that conviction and as an indication of our sincerity we are asking the Dáil to provide the funds that are required if any significant advance is to be made with this problem. I am sure that no section, inside or outside the Dáil, no citizen who has not a vested interest in the maintenance of the existing housing system will dare criticise us for that.

What we are doing in regard to houses we are doing in the other social services. The condition of the farmer has been and will be referred to in the course of this debate. This Estimate provides for an increase amounting to £700,000 for old age pensions. Fully five-sixths of that amount is finding its way into rural homes. The Estimates continue the grant for the provision for free milk for necessitous children that has been given in previous years. The Estimates make further provision, already indicated, for the expansion of our industries and particularly for the establishment of new industries relating to agriculture here. We are an expanding community with an expanding business. This country is a going concern.

Mr. Belton

Going certainly.

Mr. MacEntee

It is a prosperous concern and we are asking the Irish people not to skimp us in funds for expansions and extensions of this character to provide worthily for the purpose of, not merely carrying on, but developing this increase.

Mr. Dillon

Damning with faint praise.

Mr. MacDermot

The speech to which we have just listened is couched in a tone highly unusual as coming from the custodian of the public purse. Ministers for Finance in other countries make an effort, at least, to give the impression that they are interested in keeping down expenditure and lightening the burden on the taxpayers as far as they can. But our Minister for Finance speaks as if he were representing all the spending Departments rolled into one. While some of the expenditure which has been advocated may be laudable and justifiable, particularly in view of the conditions that the present Government has created in this country, I must say that I should feel happier about the situation and about the financial prospects of the Irish Free State if we had as custodian of the public purse somebody who gave a little evidence of an interest in economy.

The Minister for Finance simply cannot get away with it. He cannot get away with the impression which he has tried to create that the expenditure to which the House is now asked to assent is something in accord with, and in actual development of, the general policy of the Fianna Fáil Party before it came into office. No political party in any country ever promised economies with more emphasis and with more of an air of reality than did the Fianna Fáil Party. They not merely promised it in general terms but they gave the country to understand that they had a watertight plan ready for bringing it about. They were going, of course, to save the Irish farmer from paying the land annuities. They were going to prevent money from going out of this country which they maintained ought not to go out of it. But all that was to be left in the pockets of the people who were paying it or it was to be applied for their benefit. They were not relying upon that money in any way for the accomplishment of the general promise of reducing the taxation of the country. There was a definite undertaking given, as emphatically as an undertaking could be given, that large economies had been planned and were to be accomplished when they came into office. I am not going to take up the time of the House by quoting once again the election speeches, election leaflets and election posters that have been quoted here many times before. Neither am I going into a discussion, which the Ceann Comhairle has indicated would be inappropriate at this stage, of the various heads in detail that are included in this Vote. But I just want to make it plain that on this side of the House, at any rate, we are not in the least deceived or dazzled by the line which the Minister for Finance has had the audacity to take in recommending this Vote to us.

What I do propose to do in the brief remarks that I wish to address to the House is to come down to some of the matters that are at the root of these Estimates. The Minister for Finance has prided himself on the fact that he has prevented money from going out of this country. Has he ever asked himself how much money he has prevented from coming into this country? Is not that a material question to ask? Every item in this list here, he says, is for expenditure of a reproductive kind in our native land. I see a little item of £2,450,000 for export bounties and subsidies; for trying to buy our way into the despised British market. Is that really quite covered by his description that everything in this Vote is to be expended reproductively in our native land? A week or two ago we had a couple of remarkable speeches made in this House—remarkable for their length, remarkable in some other respects—by the Minister for Finance and his Parliamentary Secretary—the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the Fianna Fáil Party—two chips of the same block——

Mr. Belton

Two blocks of the same chip.

Mr. MacDermot

——who manage to combine the aspect of peace and plenty with a certain tendency to have a rush of blood to the head whenever they are making a political speech. Both of the speakers laid enormous stress upon recent declarations by English Ministers, particularly by the English Minister of Agriculture, to the effect that the latest restrictions imposed upon our produce going into England had been imposed, not with the desire to injure us, but because they suited the English people themselves. I am not surprised that the Minister for Finance and other members of the Government were rather startled by that, but I am surprised that they should have expected us to be startled by it. It was not we on this side of the House who predicted that the British could not manage to do without Irish agricultural products. We predicted the contrary. Unfortunately the majority of the people believed the members opposite and not us. Nor was it we who predicted at the last general election that if the Irish people renewed the authority previously given to the Government, an immediate settlement with England was almost certain. It is the people who made statements of that sort that have got to do a bit of explaining away—it is not we who have to do the explaining away—when you find British Ministers saying that some of the restrictions on Irish produce are now put on because it suits them to put them on. Of course, that is so. That was to be anticipated. We knew only too well that vested interests would grow up in England that would be suited by the economic war which the Government chose to provoke.

It is inferred apparently by the members of the Government that the fact that those vested interests have grown up, and the fact that the British have embarked upon a policy of protecting their own farmers against competition from overseas, are conclusive against the possibility of a settlement being reached even now. Whether they are sincere in that inference or not I find difficulty in deciding, especially as at the very moment that they are making such statements I find, through reading the Press, especially the local Press, that members of their Party are still going about saying that what they call a victory in the economic war could be gained at any moment but for the unpatriotic conduct of the members of the Opposition. I confess to having very great difficulty in understanding how they can reconcile such statements as that, which they continue to make, with the emphasis they also lay on the fact that it is no use ever hoping to get back the British market, because the British interests are now suited by keeping us out of the British market.

This House and this country cannot too often be reminded of one simple basic fact and that is, that we need never have put ourselves in the position of an overseas supplier to the British market at all; that we were regarded and treated, for all practical purposes, as home suppliers of a home market; and that there was no reason, other than the folly of the Government, a folly, as I truly believe, arising mainly out of Party bitterness which blinded them to realities, why we should ever have been stirred out of the unassailed position which we held, a position that was exactly the same for us as it was for the farmers in Northern Ireland, and the farmers in Great Britain. In that case, everything that this British Government or any future British Government might do to protect the home farmers from competition, so far from being something that we would have to regret or fear, would be exactly what suited us best. Instead of devoting so much time to making flamboyant speeches, instead of committing themselves every day to fresh expenditure of one kind or another; expenditure of which a great deal seems to me only productive in the sense that they hope it will be productive of votes in support of their Party; expenditure which often takes the form of attempting to buy off people who are making themselves troublesome or inconvenient to them; I think that even now they would be far better employed in applying their minds to the problem of bringing to an end a state of affairs which is ruining Irish agriculture. That it is perfectly practicable to bring it to an end, I am absolutely convinced. That it would involve no dishonour to us to bring it to an end, I am equally convinced.

The Government are obsessed with the fear that they would be accused of surrender if they took the sensible course and the course that is in the interests of the Irish people. To my mind, the policy they have adopted in the past has been a policy of surrender, a surrender of Irish interests and, I regret to say, a surrender of Irish honour.

I do not think that they have anything to fear from the verdict of history with regard to any action they may now take to remedy the situation they have created. They often point to the situation with regard to the British debt to America, and they draw a parallel, which seems to afford them great satisfaction, with the debt to Great Britain covered by the Cosgrave Financial Agreements. Now, not much has been said about that in this House, and especially not much has been said on this side of the House about it; but I think it is, perhaps, desirable that a word should be said about it, because I see that it is a matter which has been rather actively revived in the recent past in the course of controversy in the country on the subject of what we ought to do about our financial relations with Great Britain. I do not think that the parallel is one from which the Government can derive any comfort whatsoever. I want to recommend to them a consideration, from the business point of view, of the advantages of the course which Great Britain adopted as compared with the course which we have adopted. Great Britain had a perfectly plausible case— I shall not say a good case or an overwhelming case, but a plausible case— for repudiating her war debt to America. Consider the case for a moment. In the first place, it was borrowed, not in the shape of money but in the shape of credits whereby purchases were made at high prices in America during the war. In the second place, the obligation need never have been incurred at all but for the fact that Great Britain was making far bigger loans to her European Allies, and that America declined, until she actually came into the war herself and, I think, for some time even after that, to make such loans to any of the Allied Powers except Great Britain. Added to those circumstances was the case which the French have always exerted themselves to make, for binding up the question of war debts with the question of reparations. Added to that was the fact that after the war Allied nations, beginning with Russia, defaulted to Great Britain to a larger extent than the extent of Great Britain's debt to America, although it is worth remarking that Russia, alone of all the nations of the world, took the course of complete repudiation which has recommended itself to the Executive Council of the Irish Free State.

Mr. Jordan

More Communism.

Mr. MacDermot

Finally, there was this situation, that by universal consent of economists no nation has a business to be a creditor nation at all unless it will allow goods to be imported whereby debts owing to it can be paid; and America, as we all know, has pursued since the war a policy of sky-high tariffs which has made it an economic impossibility for her debtors in Europe to meet their obligations, however much they might wish to do so. In view of all those things, the British would have had a very plausible case for repudiating their debt to America, and, of course, that course was urged by some sections in Great Britain. They did not do it. Why? I will not put it on the ground of a high conception of honour, but on the lowest of the various grounds which actually caused the line of conduct they did take. The lowest, and, I would say, probably the most powerful motive was that the British, as a nation with long business experience, had realised that repudiation is bad business, and that whatever you try to do in the way of readjusting the financial relations existing between you and another country that are to your disadvantage and, perhaps, beyond your ability to cope with, you should not resort to a system of repudiation. They have not done so to this day, and there is not the slightest doubt that it has paid them not to do so.

Similarly, here now, there is not a man in the country that would not have supported the Government, and that would not now support them in trying to get the best financial relations with England that possibly could be got. We told the Government, and we were right, that the course they insisted on pursuing, blinded by party bitterness, of maintaining that Deputy Cosgrave and his colleagues were a gang of traitors and the British a gang of swindlers, and that the agreements made between those traitors and those swindlers should simply be treated as null and void, could lead to no profitable results, and, God knows, we have been more than justified. It is not too late for them to retrace their footsteps. They can still approach the British in a different spirit. They can approach them with a view to arbitration, if they like, or if they have more courage, they can approach them with a view to settling this matter by some businesslike offer without anybody having to place themselves on the stool of repentance. If they make such a businesslike offer they can bring the thing to an end as a matter of good business. If they want fair arbitration they know very well they can get it. I myself can think readily of various individuals who would make chairmen of such an arbitration, whose impartiality and whose ability could not be doubted for a single moment. One of the most distinguished of the English judges at the present time is Lord Russell of Killowen, a most patriotic Irishman, and the son of a most patriotic and distinguished Irishman, and yet a man in whose judicial impartiality the English, I am sure, would have perfect confidence. He occurs to me as one. Other members of the Irish race throughout the Commonwealth might be considered also as possibilities, or French Canadians or Dutch South Africans. Assuming that our own representatives were Irish citizens, and that the British representatives were British citizens, I can see no difficulty at all, if we approach this matter in a businesslike manner, about getting a chairman whose impartiality and ability would be above reproach.

Alternatively, if the arbitration method was not the one to be followed, I maintain it is the duty of the Government to do what they can along the other line, to see whether the will for peace on the other side of the water is not such that they will be prepared to consider some very reasonable and satisfactory settlement of the financial differences between us. I appeal to the Government to think very seriously before rejecting this plea. Expenditure is going up and up. The main industry of this country would go completely out of existence to-morrow, if it were not for subsidies from the Government in one form or another. How long can we expect to go on artificially maintaining our main industry? You can artificially maintain small industries, and growing industries, but, if the fundamental industry is in a totally unsound condition, and only kept alive by repeated stimulation by the Government; by doses of Government subsidies and bounties, what are the prospects of this country being able to continue meeting expenditure on this scale? I confess that for my part I cannot take an optimistic view of the future, if we are going to proceed along these lines. The Government may shut their eyes to the distresses of the farming community. These distresses, none the less, exist. No candid man going down the country could deny that they exist; and no candid man could deny that hope and enterprise are being strangled in the farmers.

When it would be so easy, so sensible, so generally welcomed to make a step towards peace why not make that step? We are all hopeful about the various infant industries that are being started. Personally I would hate to see the economic fate of this country such that it would be only a sort of immense grazing ranch. I want something more than that for this country. I want to see a love of beauty developed; a love of making beautiful things. I want variety of occupations. I want to see the creation of an industrial tradition and of industrial habits. We have a name for being lazy and inefficient. We are not lazy and not inefficient. When we go abroad and work elsewhere we show that we are not lazy or inefficient. There is some justification for such reproaches if one looks within the shores of Ireland alone. But that is because we are a people of quick intelligence and one of the main woes from which we suffer is boredom; lack of interest, owing to the fact that we have not got enough creative and productive activities to be interested in. I am 100 per cent. with the Government in trying to bring such things in here, in trying to add variety to employment, and in trying to add to the skill and the enthusiasm of the workers. But it cannot be done if as a first step you are going to ruin the fundamental industry.

It is a most extraordinary fallacy to suppose that there is something incompatible between zeal for agriculture as the fundamental industry and zeal for the creation of other industries, subsidiary to agriculture or unconnected with agriculture. The members on the opposite side are too fond of assuming that our minds are closed to ambitions that appeal to their enthusiasm. Our minds are not closed to those ambitions, but we cannot help feeling that the minds of members on the opposite side are closed to such considerations as I have been alluding to, in connection with the fundamental industry of this country, and I beg the Government once again to take the only path that can lead to peace and to progress.

Mr. Bennett

This is a stupendous bill to present to the people of this small State. In introducing the Vote the Minister attempted, as far as he could, to camouflage his extravagance and his inefficiency. He has attempted, if I may so describe it, to be eloquently ambidextrous. On the one hand we had his statement that we are an expanding community, with an expanding business, and, on the other hand, he alluded to the increasing relief that this Government had provided for labour, for agriculture, and for industry. If we have such an expanding business in this expanding community, why should there be an increasing demand for the relief of unemployment? One wonders how far this country can go on bearing this ever-increasing expenditure of this wilfully extravagant Ministry, a Ministry which is bleeding the heart's blood from the people of the State. They have almost made it prospectively impossible for any succeeding Government to arrange for a transfusion of new blood. This is a bill for £30,000,000, if we include the £250,000 of the Agricultural Grant that the Ministry left out. There is, in addition, nearly £6,000,000 for Central Fund Charges. The complete bill is £36,000,000, an amount that no section ever expected would have to be introduced, because that is a sum that no section can bear.

The Minister attempted to describe this State as being fairly prosperous. One would like to refer to the prosperity that there has been during the last 17 or 18 months, and to picture in particular the position of agriculture, the chief industry here. We had it from a responsible Minister lately that he intended to bring in a measure for the limitation of the number of cattle. The export of cattle is perhaps our chief industry, and in this country of expanding business we are about to resort to the experiment of cutting down the production of the principal part of that industry. We have resorted to a number of experiments in the last 15 or 16 months, all of which have landed us in this position, that an Estimate of £21,000,000 in 1931-32 has grown to about £30,000,000 for 1934-35, or an increase of some £8,000,000 in two years.

I note that the Minister for Agriculture is absent to-day. I wish that he were here instead of the Minister for Finance, because when one is discussing this Vote one must necessarily make allusions to the agricultural industry. I am told the Minister is at the Royal Dublin Show inspecting cattle. What he is inspecting cattle for I do not know. He proposes shortly to diminish the number of cattle and yet he is out to-day viewing stock at the Dublin Show. I suppose he is congratulating certain exhibitors that they have got the progenitors of good and useful stock for this country. It is almost an insult to those exhibitors that the Minister should even have attempted to go anywhere in their vicinity to-day, judging by his expressions in the House within the last couple of months. Even the exhibits might get excited at the Minister's proximity. Deputy Corry seems amused at that. When the Deputy is amused he generally assents to what one is saying. If he disagrees he is in a very aggressive mood.

Mr. Jordan

If I might interrupt the Deputy——

Mr. Bennett

Do not do anything but sit down. Deputy Corry evidently agrees with the statement I made that the exhibits at the Show are excited, if not insulted, at the proximity of the Minister. I am not surprised that they are.

Mr. Jordan

If the Deputy will give way, perhaps I may be allowed to explain. Deputy Corry was not laughing at anything Deputy Bennett said. He was laughing at a joke of mine. In justice to Deputy Corry I want to say that.

Mr. Bennett

The Minister who has been for the last 18 months vivisecting the Irish farmer without an anaesthetic is at the Dublin Show to-day. There is very little prospect for the poor, mutilated agriculturist, even if he survives a few more of the Minister's experiments. In the Irish Times to-day there is a definition of “Staggering Bob.” Within the last few weeks I made certain allusions to that term. I do not know that many of the younger members of the House are familiar with what “Staggering Bob” really means.

Mr. Curran

I suppose he is a farmer.

Mr. Bennett

There was a period in the last century when male calves were not very profitable and the farmers took the hide off the calf and then sold him for a bob and the expression became quite common, "Staggering Bob." The Minister for Agriculture, who, no doubt, is compelled to do it through the manipulations of the Minister for Finance and other members of the Government, is bringing us back to the same bad days. It will not be any comfort to the farmers, even those whom Deputy Corry represents, to get back to the days of "Staggering Bob." We would much prefer to get back to the days of 1931 when the farmer could raise his calves in comfort with the definite certainty of getting £4 or £5 each for them at the end of four or five months. All that is to be altered under the expanding prosperity of this Government.

The Minister for Finance, in the course of his camouflaging statement, made some reference to the amount they were spending on oats and wheat. The amount spent on oats last year did not bring any grist to the farmers' mill. The Minister for Agriculture said oats were practically all used up. It is not a source of comfort to the farmer who sold oats last November to know that oats are now used up when he got only 4/- a barrel for them. That amount did not suffice to cover the cost of putting the oats into the land not to mind taking them out of it. I should like the Minister for Finance to take a trip through the country and interview farmers in the southern, eastern and western counties. Let him have a heart to heart talk with them just as he had a heart to heart talk with a few business men who, he told us, had found last year a year in which they collected their accounts easier than in any of the preceding years. I do not know where the Minister discovered those shopkeepers, but, following the Minister's statement, I made it my business to interview 70 or 80 shopkeepers around my own district and I have not found one shopkeeper prepared to verify the Minister's statement. In fact the almost universal reply of the shopkeepers I spoke to was that it was almost impossible to get money in now. One likes to accept a statement made by a Minister and I can only say that the shopkeepers from whom he got his information must have been definitely pulling his leg. I cannot conceive of any shopkeeper making such a statement. There may, perhaps, have been some of the new-found manufacturers who are propped up by the Minister's tariffs and who are making money at the public expense, who would make a statement of that sort, but certainly no retail shopkeeper in the country would be responsible for such a ridiculous utterance.

There were questions asked in the House at various times recently that illustrate the condition of agriculture. To-day a Deputy from Wexford asked what the Ministry propose to do with the second moiety—not of the annuities —of the stall-fed cattle in Wexford and other places. Part of the first moiety is provided for by licence. They can go into the despised British market in order to sell some of this stock. They can sell 42 per cent. if they are lucky enough to get a licence. The unfortunate farmers in Wexford, who have more of this type of stock than farmers in other parts of the country, will have the remaining 58 per cent. on their hands. When the Deputy asked the Minister what they were to do with their stock and if he could offer any hope for them, there was no reply. And this is the prosperous agricultural state of Ireland! One does not know whether the present restrictions applying to stall-fed cattle are going to be continued after the end of March, during the summer, and applied to grass-fed beef. If they do I can definitely assure the Minister that the livestock business for the farmers will be killed and the Minister's hope expressed some years ago that the live-stock industry was useless and should be substituted by a grain policy will largely have been brought into effect. If a similar restriction is continued during the summer it will amount to the practical cessation of any livestock business, other than the production of butter, in this State.

The production of butter would even become impossible if we had not our livestock. I mentioned the word "butter." When one is talking about agriculture, one cannot get away from the dairying end. The livestock end has been injured, almost beyond repair. The damage that has been done will take years to set right. Ministers have, however, told us that the bright spot in the farming industry is dairying. I hope that Deputy Corry is listening to me now, because he issued a challenge a week or two ago to the Opposition to prove that the dairy farmers were not prosperous. He made the case, as the Minister for Agriculture made the case before him, that the Dairy Produce Act, brought in last year, saved the dairying industry; that it put the dairying industry in a position which it could not possibly have reached under the Cosgrave Administration. I was one of the Deputies on this side who voted for the Dairy Produce Bill. Deputy Corry said that I was compelled to vote for it. I voted for that Bill, as I stated at the time, in the hope rather than in the expectation that it would do good. When we were finishing the debate on that measure, I asked the Minister for Agriculture, across the floor of the House, if the Bill gave the farmers any power beyond the power they already had if they liked to avail of it. He said "no"—that it gave them nothing beyond what they already had under legislation provided by the Cosgrave Government. That measure did not, as Deputy Corry and others claimed, produce any decided improvement. What did produce the extra price for milk were the subsequent manipulations of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Agriculture. They made other arrangements, when the Dairy Produce Act failed to have the effect desired, to maintain the price of milk at about 4d. per gallon, which is not at all a paying price. They said they paid the creamery farmer 102/- per cwt. for his butter. To provide a price of 102/- per cwt. they had to resort to a series of manipulations. They had to levy under the Dairy Produce Act, on the farmer, 4d. per lb. for his butter. That was, of course, passed on to the community. They had themselves to come to the rescue with a bonus out of the Central Fund of 30/- per cwt. It was not always up to 30/-. Sometimes it was 27/- and sometimes 28/-. They had to charge the consumer 5d. per lb. more for his butter than he would have paid if they had not engaged in all these manipulations. The sum total of the three expedients was that they made the price of butter 102/- per cwt. at the creamery, or roughly 4d. per gallon for milk. The price of milk under the Cosgrave Government was always over 4d. per gallon.

Mr. O Briain

It would not have been if they had stayed here.

Mr. Bennett

Granted. It might not have been 4d. but, if we had not had an economic war with England, the price of milk would have been very much more than 3d., although last year was the worst year for many years for the butter trade all over the world. The average price of milk would have been 3d. or over——

Mr. Corry

Question. Will the Deputy wait for a moment?

Mr. Bennett

The Deputy can reply to me when I am finished. The price would have been definitely 3d.

Mr. O Briain

68/- a cwt.

Mr. Bennett

We could have made the price of milk 4d. if we had had no economic war, with a direct subsidy of about 20/- a cwt. on butter. That would tide the farmer over this particular period. It cost this Government a direct subsidy of 30/- and an imposition on the ordinary consumer of 5d. per lb.

Mr. Corry

Your Party voted for it.

Mr. Bennett

We could have done this for 20/- a cwt., if we have continued in power. I shall even satisfy Deputy O'Brien before I am finished. Deputies opposite say that they have maintained the price of milk to the farmer at 4d. per gallon. Deputy Corry forgot the calf, when making his challenge, just as the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, forgot the calf in dealing with this matter at Newcastle West and elsewhere. I suppose the Minister for Finance also forgot that there was such a thing as a calf in the dairy farmer's business. If they had secured 4d. a gallon for the milk and left the calf as it was, we might not have said anything. But, by their experiments and their manipulations, they reduced the value of the calf by, at least, £4. Even Deputy Corry will not get up and deny that. A difference of £4 in the price of a calf represents the equivalent of 2d. per gallon in the price of milk.

Mr. Corry

When did you see £4 for a calf?

Mr. Bennett

There is a £4 drop in the price of a calf, and Deputy O'Brien knows that.

Mr. O'Brien

I know nothing of the sort.

Mr. Bennett

That is the equivalent of 2d. per gallon in the price of milk, so that the result of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party is that the farmer is getting 4d. per gallon for milk, minus the equivalent of 2d. per gallon lost in the price of his calf, so that he is really getting 2d. per gallon for his milk.

Mr. Corry

You are hopeless.

Mr. Bennett

When I am finished Deputy Corry can contradict my arguments. The dairy farmer is getting, roughly, the equivalent of 2d. per gallon for milk, and the Minister for Agriculture stated in this House a couple of years ago that no lesser price than 5½d. would cover the cost of production for the dairy farmer. That is the position in which this Government of huge promises has placed the dairy farmer in the course of two years. We all know the position in which they have placed the live-stock farmer. If they have added any grist to the mill of the tillage farmer, I, for one, am not aware of it. Now, everybody knows that if you interfere with the chief industry of the country you interfere with every subsidiary industry, and, above all, you interfere with the working people of the country. Except for doles and assistance schemes and turf schemes and other such schemes which the Government has brought in to assist the labourers, they would be in the position, at the present moment, that no one would like to envisage. But how long can the Government go on supplying this assistance and those doles when we find the Minister for Finance to-day presenting us with a bill for £30,000,000 odd, and which will be increased by another £6,000,000 for Central Fund charges? Even Labour Deputies know that this country cannot sustain a bill for £36,000,000 a year, and they must know that in another year the position of the labouring people in this country will be impossible. There is a limit to what the taxpayers can bear.

The Minister for Finance himself made a very eloquent statement in this House a few years ago in regard to taxation generally. He said the incidence of taxation is very rarely restricted to those upon whom it first falls, because it is passed down and down the social scale until eventually it reaches the people on the lowest rung of the ladder—the working people. The Minister was speaking the truth there. He was putting into other words the old saying: "You cannot tax the rich without robbing the poor." This bill for £36,000,000, which the taxpaying people will have to face, will eventually be passed down and down the social scale until finally it will fall upon the shoulders of the workers and the agricultural labourers and the urban labourers. This enormous taxation bill comes from a Ministry by whom £21,000,000 was regarded as monstrous taxation, scarcely describable in words. One wonders what additions there may be to this huge bill as it stands now, before the end of the current year. If we take the example of last year, we find that the original Estimate was added to by millions for Supplementary Estimates, and that before we are finished with this year's Estimate we may find it will not be £30,000,000 that will be the figure reached but £35,000,000, or even £40,000,000, if we include Central Fund charges. There is no guarantee that the total may not reach from £35,000,000 to £40,000,000, but the fact is that the people in the country will not be able to bear it. The people have endured more from this Government than they ever endured before, but even the worm will turn, and if the people are given a chance they will do——

Mr. O Briain

As they did before.

Mr. Bennett

If the people are given a chance Deputy O Briain may find that his Government have done nothing for his future political security judging by the taxation they are inflicting as shown here to-day. We all hope that this Government, having failed in efficiency and in economy, and in everything else, will take the course that all Governments of its kind should take, namely, appeal to the people at an early date to pronounce judgment on their policy.

Mr. Keyes

Deputy Bennett, in a very long and able speech, has expounded very clearly his views as to the feelings of the country. He has brought into his survey the lowest stratum of the labouring people so that they may be able to appreciate the condition of things in the country. He told us that the agricultural industry, which is the main industry in the country, has definitely faded out owing to the action of the present Ministry. He went into details about the dairy section and the cattle raising section and the tillage section of that industry, and even rambled on the shopkeeping section of the community. If what he says is perfectly true, I wonder where the Minister for Finance is going to get this money from that he talks about. If everybody is bankrupt already it will be perfectly safe to vote for this now, as we will have the definite assurance that the Minister cannot get any money at all.

I come from the same constituency as Deputy Bennett. I have the fortune or misfortune of not being a farmer. If the Deputy has met some shopkeepers who have been pulling his leg, I also have got other sources of information in that direction. I take a serious interest in my constituency, and I try to find out from the people how things are going on. I have long since abandoned getting anything from the farmer except the same old dismal jeremiads that we have got from Deputy Bennett. I have met shopkeepers in Limerick who told me that the times were pretty good. I challenge anybody who knows Limerick to deny what I am now saying. I have been told by shopkeepers—the owners of drapery houses and provision merchants, and various other types of people—that last Christmas was the best Christmas they had in the last ten years in ready cash transactions. While Limerick is a city, it is really only an overgrown provincial town, depending on the hinterland which, according to Deputy Bennett, has been so bady hit in recent years, and it is these people who come into Limerick City as the customers of the shopkeepers. I can produce evidence to bear out what I say, and I can produce the men who gave these reports.

Mr. Bennett

That was in regard to the Christmas trade.

Mr. Keyes

The Deputy mentioned the fact that the Minister for Agriculture instead of being here is wasting his time at Ballsbridge. There are other people apparently wasting their time at Ballsbridge or else they must be attending a show there, as they did for many years. Are we to assume that all the people attending that show came up from the country to waste their time at Ballsbridge? If so, they must be bigger fools than we gave them credit for. Surely the people at Ballsbridge are not holding this show for the fun of it. I think it will be found that there are a great lot of people as well as the Minister wasting their time at Ballsbridge. There was a question put this afternoon by a Deputy from Wexford. Deputy Belton, I think, put the matter very fully in a statement to the Minister for Defence and the Minister, acting for the Minister for Agriculture, promised that fuller information would be given when the matter was inquired into. Deputy Bennett made the Minister's absence a cause of complaint in this matter. I think the show at Ballsbridge to-day is evidence that agriculture is not completely washed out. We heard to-day in answer to a question put by Deputy Burke, of Clare, in connection with the building of cottages that the board of health were abandoning a scheme there, because the Minister would not sanction the payment of from £80 to £130 per acre for the acquisition of land required for the building of labourers' cottages. I wonder were there very valuable mineral resources under that land, considering the price that was asked for it. In the County Limerick we had no difficulty in securing cottage sites for the building of 1,000 cottages. The fact that the owners are looking for prices ranging from £80 to £130 an acre for their land does not square very well with the black picture that is being painted here from the benches opposite.

I am supporting the Vote and I am going to let the Minister find the money. On behalf of the people I represent. I say that we are getting a fair and square deal. At the present time our people cannot leave the country as they used to do in years gone by. We have a larger population to maintain now. I am glad to say that our people are going to be maintained, and on a higher standard, particularly the poorer classes, than they used to be some years ago.

Provision is made in the Vote for an additional sum for old age pensions. A considerable share of that is going to go to the agricultural community. Provision is also made for the support of able-bodied unemployed whose treatment up to recently was a positive scandal, especially in the country districts. Poor decrepit old men were put in the position of having to carry on a struggle with the boards of health to get a few shillings outdoor relief. The removal of that kind of thing is a matter for congratulation to all of us. These old people are our own and are entitled to kind and generous treatment.

The programme outlined by the Minister, in my opinion, amply justifies the increased expenditure proposed. I believe that wise spending is the highest form of economy. It is the only means whereby you can have any prosperity in the country. The Government have embarked on a new policy and we are going to back it with confidence and hope. The House, I suggest, should have no hesitation in giving that policy the necessary financial backing. I believe it is a policy that is going to come up trumps and that we shall evidence its wisdom in a short time. On the other side we have nothing but dismal Jeremiahs.

Mr. T. Kelly

Hear, hear. That was was well done.

Mr. Brennan

I happen to be one of the dismal Jeremiahs Deputy Keyes has been speaking about.

Mr. T. Kelly

You need not tell us that.

Mr. Brennan

I am afraid Deputy Tom Kelly will not be pleased with the things that I have to say.

Mr. Kelly

I am afraid not.

Mr. Brennan

However, I have got to say them. I am very glad to see that there is somebody else as well as the Minister for Finance optimistic. Deputy Keyes appears to be quite optimistic. But only 12 months ago the Minister for Finance was applauded by his Party when he stated in this House that property and industry could not bear one penny piece more in taxation. But to-day the Minister is asking for £6,000,000 more than he asked for last year, and he is applauded by at least Deputy Concannon. When we on this side made an appeal to the Minister to increase the agricultural grant last year that was his reply; that property and industry could not bear one penny piece more in taxation. Therefore, on that basis there is only one thing that will justify an increase in taxation this year and that is increased prosperity. We have two Ministers in the House who believe that this country is enjoying increased prosperity: the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce. A few weeks ago the Minister for Finance stated here that everything was prosperous: that there was absolutely no need for a reduction in wages all over the country, and that whatever reductions had taken place were due to a ramp on the part of the Opposition.

Mr. MacEntee

Hear, hear.

Mr. Brennan

Exactly, hear, hear. But yesterday evening an extraordinary thing occurred when the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, in referring to the deplorable state to which farmers have been reduced, said that it was necessary the salaries of doctors, veterinary surgeons and other local officials throughout the country should be brought down to meet that situation.

Mr. MacEntee

They are not wages.

Mr. Brennan

Deputy Victory from Longford got quite indignant yesterday because some of us on this side moved amendments the effect of which, if passed, would be to exempt dispensary doctors and veterinary surgeons from the cuts proposed in their salaries. We pointed out that their emoluments, so far as they were derived from private practice, had really disappeared. They have gone, in the case of the veterinary surgeons, because of the conditions of the livestock market. Under present conditions there is no use in bringing a vet to see cattle. Deputy Victory said that everyone must bear their share of the economic war, but the Minister for Finance does not seem to think there is an economic war on at all. Notwithstanding the fact that our trade has diminished so much as to be almost practically gone the Minister comes in to-day—I will not say that he is really as good an optimist as he is a bluffer—to bluff us with a proposal for £6,000,000 more than he asked for last year. It would hardly be fair to the Minister for Finance to refer him to the speeches he made when in opposition. I think if he were to be reminded of some of the things he said then he would be amazed himself. There are a few things, however, that I desire to refer to, to remind the Minister of the situation that the Opposition at the time thought existed in this country. I am referring to the year 1929-30. Deputy de Valera, the Leader of the Opposition at that time, said:—

"Before we consider raising our social services to the level of those in Great Britain, let us compare our taxable capacity with that of Great Britain."

I wonder would the Minister for Finance be agreeable, on the basis then laid down by Deputy de Valera, to compare his suggested taxation this year with the taxation of Great Britain. I am sure if that were done the Minister for Finance would be really ashamed of his figures. Deputy de Valera, as he then was, pointed out that if we were to take our taxable capacity at 1.5 per cent. "it would mean taxation in the Twenty-Six Counties of about £12,000,000." He was then comparing our taxable capacity with that of Great Britain, and on that basis he estimated in 1929-30 that the limit of our taxation should be £12,000,000. He went on to say:

"What have we here? We have over £21,000,000 for the Supply Services. We cannot afford that. I think the Labour Deputies will admit that there is a limit to which we can go even in the social services, and if we go beyond that limit we are going to do damage to the community as a whole."

That was when we had a £21,000,000 Budget for the Supply Services as against £30,000,000 to-day, and that is only four years ago. Further, he said:

"Whilst I say that, no reduction in existing social services should be brought about except after the most careful examination, and reduction rather in the administration of the services than in the benefits to individuals."

Deputy de Valera also said at that time and in the same debate:

"We were laughed at last year when we said there was the possibility of reducing the total taxation by £3,000,000."

In other words, to reduce it from £22,000,000 as it then was. He was then in opposition, and he is now President of the State. Continuing, he said:

"The Minister for Finance has reduced it now, and in the way we want it; while they laughed at us last year, he is going to reduce it this year. He might say in reply that some of the items would naturally reduce because they lapsed during the period. That is quite true, but looking ahead and bringing in a type of legislation which would diminish the cost of the two Houses of the Oireachtas, which would get rid of the burthen of the Govern-General and by legislation or administrative action which would diminish our expenditure further on the Army and the Civic Guards, I believe that the figure we mentioned in last year's Estimate would be within reason. I believe there is room still on nonsocial services for a reduction of another £1,000,000."

The expenditure on both the Army and Civic Guards is being increased this year by President de Valera's Government. In face of all that I think the Minister ought really to feel ashamed of the figures that he brought before the House to-day. When we saw the figures published in this morning's newspapers well, I will not say that there was very much of an element of surprise in them, because really this Government has all the essentials of prodigality as far as spending is concerned. It is a matter of spend, spend, spend with it. How the country is going to stand the spending that is going on by this Government does not appear to appeal to Fianna Fáil at all.

Now let us see exactly whether this country is able to bear a greater burden this year than last year. I have been listening to Deputy Keyes speaking about the agricultural industry. I certainly was surprised to hear his statement, and I shall be surprised if there are to be found in any part of the country shopkeepers who can do a better trade now than they did before. Apart from anything that may be said with regard to politics, what is or is not good politics, we ought to consider what is the earning capacity of the people at the present time. Surely people who were getting, say, £15 or £16 for a cow last year cannot have the same purchasing power this year when they are only getting £9 or £10. Nobody can deny that. Further, people who got 10/-, 12/- and 15/- per barrel for their oats last year cannot have the same purchasing power when they are only getting 7/- or 8/- per barrel for their oats this year. Therefore, somebody must be wrong. All these palliatives of trying to enrich agriculture by bounties and subsidies are bound eventually to end in failure. They cannot go on. As pointed out by Deputy MacDermot, you may for a time carry on by subsidising your second or third industries but you cannot carry on your main industry in that way. At the present time you have cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, poultry, eggs, butter, oats, wheat and beet, subsidised by the Government. You cannot carry on an agricultural industry in an agricultural country in that way.

The main industry, which in this country is agriculture, is bound to determine the purchasing power of the people eventually. The more you try to keep the main industry going with bounties and subsidies, particularly if these bounties and subsidies are being supplied through borrowing—and the Minister for Finance told us last year in his Budget statement he was about to supply them through borrowing— the more you place burdens on that industry. The Minister for Finance stated here last year that he was going to borrow on the assets created by the retention of the annuities and apply that money to bounties and subsidies. But if you borrow for the purpose of keeping going the main industry of the country, that borrowing will eventually mean a burden on the main industry. It is bound to. You cannot subsidise it in that way except for a very limited period. If we can afford £6,000,000 in taxation more than last year, our trade ought to show it in some shape or form. The Minister for Finance said that every penny he was budgeting for was going to be spent in this country or that it was being kept in the country. That is not so. As Deputy MacDermot pointed out, the bounties and subsidies are not being kept in the country or anything like it.

The Minister for Finance very carefully avoided, as Deputy MacDermot pointed out, the question of the amount of money he has kept out of the country. According to the figures which were published in the end of 1933 and taking the figures for 1931 as against those for 1933, our exports declined by £17,000,000 and our imports declined by £14,000,000. If that £14,000,000 meant that in this country were being manufactured the requirements of the people to that extent, then there would not probably be so much cause for alarm, but that is not so. It definitely is not so, because the Minister for Industry and Commerce will admit that we are still not in a position to provide all the necessaries which are purchased by the people or anything like it. We had a decrease of £14,000,000 in imports and a decrease of £17,000,000 in exports. Our adverse balance was increased by £2,750,000. Before that happened the Minister for Finance told us that we were not able to pay one penny more taxation than was imposed at that time. He comes in to-day, in the situation which now exists, and says that we are well able to bear a further £6,000,000. There are other figures in regard to the agricultural surplus in this country which I should like to quote. In 1931 we exported produce to the value of £27,800,000. In 1933 we exported £13,100,000 worth. That was a decrease of £14,000,000. The Minister for Finance did not tell us anything about that. Surely, no matter what Deputy Keyes, the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Finance may say, that must reflect itself in the condition of this country. We got into the country £14,600,000 less than we did in 1931. Calculating the number of cattle that we exported that year, as against the number exported last year, and getting an average price for each, we find that the average price in 1931 was £16 11s. 0d. For last year we get an average price of £10 6s. 0d. for a lesser number of cattle. That must again be reflected in the condition of the country.

Let us again turn to the only figures that I have available to see if our production is increasing. Some people, of course, think that cattle are anti-national in this country, that they should not be here at all except to a very limited extent, but rearing pigs is a national industry. Let us see how far we have progressed in the pig industry. Last year there were bought in the Free State 903,305 pigs for bacon curing and for export. In 1931, before the Fianna Fáil Government came into power—I am not saying that you are responsible for the decline, mind you; I am just giving you the figures—there were purchased in this country 1,104,999 pigs. There was a falling off of 201,634 pigs last year as against 1931. Yet this is the year that we are able to bear £6,000,000 more in taxation. Somebody may say that the reason these pigs were not bought is that England did not want them as England is now developing her own pig industry and her own bacon industry, but the extraordinary thing about it is that while that decline is shown in our pig industry, there was an increase shown in Northern Ireland. In 1933 there were bought in Northern Ireland 433,396 pigs as against 416,121 pigs in 1931. There was, therefore, an increase of 17,300 in the number of pigs bought.

Mr. Lemass

At what price?

Mr. Brennan

I am talking now about production.

Mr. Lemass

The value of production.

Mr. Brennan

I am talking about production. The boast of Fianna Fáil is that they have assisted production irrespective of price. We have further figures here which are, I am afraid, not reassuring either. I am very glad that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is here, just to hear one thing I have to say. He said here the other night that there were at least 30 new factories within a two-mile redius of this House, each employing an average of 200 hands. I hope there are. We are all very anxious to believe there are, but I certainly have not much faith in the unemployment figures, and I am glad the Minister for Industry and Commerce is coming to my way of thinking about them, as he is. He definitely stated here a week or two ago that registration really represented nothing more than expectation of work. That is quite right, but there are figures which I am afraid are a very sure tell-tale of the position, and a very sure tell-tale of the distress which exists; those are the home assistance figures. Home assistance is certainly something that is not administered on a political basis or anything of that kind.

Mr. Lemass

Question.

Mr. Brennan

Well, I hope so in any case. I have never known it to be administered on a political basis. In the case of Dublin, in a certain week in February there were 11,085 more people on the list in 1933 than there were in 1931, after all those factories which the Minister has established in Dublin. We have been very anxious to see those factories, but we always did come to the conclusion that if they were in the country at all they were in Dublin. It is a very strange and sad commentary on the Minister's own figures that there were 11,085 more people on the list which my friend, Deputy Kelly, deals with in connection with the administration of home assistance——

Mr. Lemass

Might I correct the Deputy? He referred to the list dealt with by Deputy Kelly. On the contrary, it is dealt with exclusively by a Cumann na nGaedheal committee. Note the "exclusively."

Mr. Brennan

Then I am sure it is fairly dealt with.

Mr. Lemass

I question that.

Mr. Brennan

I am thankful to the Minister. I have much more confidence in the figures now. In any case, those are the figures for the City of Dublin.

Mr. Belton

Is the Minister suggesting that that Committee is acting extravagantly?

Mr. Lemass

I draw attention to the fact that the Corporation decided this week to hold an inquiry into the working of the Committee.

Mr. Belton

Is the suggestion that it is giving out money extravagantly?

Mr. Lemass

I am just saying that the matter is the subject of an inquiry.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Brennan to resume.

Mr. Brennan

Does not the Minister admit that it is a very strange commentary on his practice that the home assistance bill is going up week by week and month by month? It is an extraordinary thing, is it not? This, mind you, is the time that the Minister for Finance chooses to put a further burden of £6,000,000 on the people of this country. I am sorry the Minister was not here when I quoted what the President—when he was Deputy de Valera—stated from these benches in 1929-30, that this country was definitely not able to bear a higher rate of taxation than £12,000,000. He did not qualify it, as the Minister for Finance tried to qualify his Budget to-night, by suggesting that it was not a question of spending; it was how you spent that mattered. There is one thing, in any case, which this Vote will do, and it is probably well that it was done at last; that is, it will expose the sham. It is all a sham. As I said, the people were not surprised this morning when they saw the bill they were going to be asked to pay. As far as I know the people in business, particularly people in the farming business, they are in the grip of despair at the present time. It is not, perhaps, the very best thing to be pessimistic. I do not want to be a pessimist. I should like to be an optimist. I should like to be even as big an optimist as the Minister for Finance or Deputy Keyes, but it is very hard to be that way. We have the Minister for Industry and Commerce telling us that there is evidence of prosperity everywhere in this country, and the Minister for Local Government comes in the following night, and says that salaries must be reduced because the country is not able to bear them. I heard the Minister for Industry and Commerce alleging at one time that there was no agreement on these benches. In wonder when they will get agreement over there. The Minister for Industry and Commerce says he knows the farming community is very badly off, and has testified to that by getting bounties for the various activities of the farmers; yet the Minister for Industry and Commerce says that everything is glorious, and that there is every evidence of prosperity. The sooner the Government—no matter what Government is in this country—get it into their heads that the main industry must be put in such a position that it will be able to show a profit, the sooner they will get into a position to solve the difficulties which confront them. We have beet, wheat, industrial alcohol, tobacco, oats——

Mr. Lemass

And rhubarb.

Mr. Brennan

Those are the matters mentioned by the Minister for Finance to-night. The Minister for Industry and Commerce thinks that this is a great joke. It is not such a joke to the country. It is not such a joke to people who attend the fair of Roscommon and nine-tenths of whom have to take home their cattle. It is no joke when the rate collector of the county council calls on them the following day. When four or five of them meet him and say: "We are not going to pay our rates because we have not got the money to pay them" the Minister for Industry and Commerce asserts that that is a campaign against the payment of rates. "That is a No Rates Campaign" the President would say. It is not a joke at all. If the Government think that by subsidising beet, by subsidising wheat, by subsidising oats, or by subsidising industrial alcohol, they are going to make the main industry prosperous, well they have not started to think yet. They ought to think, and they ought to grow up, or try to grow up. That is too childish. If the main industry of the country is going to be subsidised who is going to subsidise it? It must be put into a position of prosperity. If must be able to show a profit itself. That is number one. Until the Government gets that into its head it cannot get anywhere.

Mr. Lemass

In what country is that happening?

Mr. Belton

America, Germany and France.

Mr. Lemass

Are there no subsidies in those countries?

Mr. Belton

Not to the main industry.

Mr. Brennan

Not to every department of the main industry. You may subsidise cattle, if sheep, pigs, etc. are paying, but can the Minister point to any single agricultural activity that is giving a profit to-day? Any activity that is connected with the land is a losing proposition to-day. The Minister knows that perfectly well. Does the Minister propose to pay a subsidy to those out of his new factories? If he does, his factories will not live. You must provide your factories with a purchasing public.

Mr. Morrissey

Naas!

Mr. Brennan

That is number one. The main industry of the country is going to provide that purchasing public, or it is not going to be provided. That is a thing which the Fianna Fáil Government has not got as far as yet. They were never able to consider what would be the reactions of their own policy. The Minister for Agriculture, and the President particularly, said that "The British market is gone, thank God." He says it is a blessing in disguise. I think he can at least claim to be the first leader of any Parliament in the world who has thanked God that the export trade of his country has gone. He can have all the honour and credit for it. Nobody will try to take them from him. He never realised that when he was saying that he was killing his own policy of more tillage. There was the reaction of his policy. If we are not going to have livestock in this country we are not going to have tillage. We had tillage last year at a bad price, but it is nothing to the bad price which I am afraid there will be next year, if the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in conjunction with the Minister for Agriculture, starts slaughtering cattle. Possibly of course, the Minister for Industry and Commerce may find an outlet for those slaughtered cattle in this way——

Mr. Dillon

He can make glue of them.

Mr. Brennan

There was an amendment moved yesterday to another Bill, which provides certain specific rules for merchandise coming in here. If the Minister could get boats to call here and give them ballast of the slaughtered animals he would have found a good way to get rid of them. But who is going to pay for them? As was said here recently, so far as the British market and our anxiety to hold that market were concerned, we were endeavouring to get the British to pay for the stock but if the Minister for Agriculture starts to slaughter the stock and if they have to be paid for, it will not be the British who will pay for them. Who will pay for them? There is nobody to pay for them but the agricultural community all the time. The whole thing is a vicious circle. If the agricultural community is all that even Fianna Fáil says it is—at least, at election times, I know what they say in my own county; we increase, as a matter of fact, from 70 to 85 per cent. of the burden bearers of the country at election times—but whether we are 70 per cent. or 85 per cent., or even a lesser percentage, we have to carry the burden all the time and if the Minister for Industry and Commerce thinks he can afford to subsidise every department of that industry, he is making the biggest mistake he ever made in his life and he has a whole lot to learn.

The Minister for Agriculture says he wants more tillage for more livestock. He said that in this House not six months ago while the Minister for Industry and Commerce says that he will probably be driven to slaughtering them. It is very hard to find common sense between them all and it is certainly very hard to see how this country is going to get out of the situation into which Fianna Fáil has driven it. There is one other thing here to which I should like to refer. There was a speech delivered in this House on the Vote on Account in 1929, when the demand was not £29,000,000 but £21,000,000. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, then Deputy Lemass, found very grave and very serious fault with the members of the Government Party who remained silent while that huge sum of money was being voted, while that huge sum of money was being placed in the hands of people who did not know what to do with it and while the people were being bled white. He implored of the back benchers of Cumann na nGaedheal to justify their existence as Deputies in this House and he informed them that their constituents down the country would not be satisfied with their silence while this huge sum of money was being voted. Another gentleman made a similar speech— Deputy Hugo Flinn—and while I think it would be an affliction which the House would scarcely endure if I were to quote his speech, there is one bit in it that it would be a pity not to refer to because I would like to refer it directly to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Deputy Hugo Flinn, on that occasion, said:

"The sooner they get on with the job of bringing the expenditure of this country within the limits of its capacity to bear, the better for the country and the better for the cleanness of their reputation when they have gone."

Is that not very appealing? Would the Minister like to hear that to-day? Even though it does come from Deputy Flinn, I very strongly recommend it to the Front Bench of Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Belton

The Minister for Finance, in winding up his little speech and putting this proposal before the House said: "We are a country with an expanding business; give us the wherewithal to carry it on." The Minister sat down then. He had thrown out such a mouthful that it was nearly time for him to sit down. He has gone now, I suppose, to have some little refreshment and he has left the Minister for Industry and Commerce here to deputise for him. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is a man who is very keen on the development of industry. In fact, he has arrogated to himself the powers of a pocket edition of Mussolini in controlling industry and imposing tariffs at will. I have no fault to find with either his policy in that respect or his powers as a pocket edition of Mussolini, but I have fault to find with his total disregard for the very industries that he is protecting, in view of the fact that he forgets the most important end of industrial development—the purchasing power of the public. Any fool at all can make an article but the real skill is in selling an article, and no skill will sell an article if there is not the purchaser to buy it; and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, while endeavouring to develop industry, is conspiring, at the same time, to kill the purchasing power of the community there to buy it. He is very fond of quoting for us statistics and signs of our prosperity. I hope he will speak on this and that he will indicate to the House one sign of our prosperity at the present time.

Mr. Lemass

The Royal Dublin Society's auction sales to-day.

Mr. Belton

What about a quid a head for cattle? Were there good prices at the auction sales?

Mr. Lemass

Excellent prices.

Mr. F. Lynch

Twenty guineas to-day and 80 guineas two years ago.

Mr. Belton

Why, then, did the Minister suggest that we would have to slaughter cattle and, presumably, turn them into artificial manure? Are they all going to be knackered in Keeffe's? Apparently, the Minister has changed his mind since the last wire he got from Ballsbridge. I should like to refer the Minister to the indications in respect of which it is suggested that the welkin would ring in this House, if they would only read in the way the Minister would like them to read, or, at least—we would all like them to read in that direction—in the way that would suit his book, but, unfortunately, no matter how the figures are manipulated now, they cannot be made to read that way. We will take one unfortunate incident that occurred this year, and the Minister waxed eloquent on this. He is not usually dishonest and he does not usually misrepresent things but, when he is in a corner, he will get out of it by any means. He was in a corner here one day and I remember how dexterously he worked himself out, and when he thought himself safely out, he cleared out of the House.

Mr. Curran

Better a good run out than a bad stand.

Mr. Belton

He believes in running away so that he may live to fight another day. However, we floated the Fourth National Loan. That is a great barometer as to the financial condition of the country. We floated that loan on terms very favourable, everything considered. I was going to say considering something, but it would give the Minister a key, and as he is taking a note now I will not give him that key. I know what is in the Minister's mind —that the Fourth National Loan was floated at 3½ per cent. It was not subscribed, unfortunately. The previous National Loan was issued at 4½ per cent., and it was subscribed. I am sure the Minister will say: "If we only offered it at 4½ per cent. we would have got ten times the money we asked for."

Mr. Lemass

That is not what I was going to say at all.

Mr. Belton

That is what the Minister said the other day. However, whatever the Minister is going to say, I will have a reply to him another time, but I thought I was killing two birds with one stone. Perhaps the Minister changed his mind since he got the wire from Ballsbridge. The Third National Loan in, I think, 1927, was issued at 4½ per cent., at the time when the Bank of England rate was 4½ per cent., and it was subscribed.

Mr. Lemass

There was nothing else to do with the money then.

Mr. Belton

Does the Minister suggest that since his Party came into office all the money has cleared away? What happened all the money that was there since?

Mr. Lemass

We put it into industry.

Mr. Belton

We will come to that in a minute and we will find whether the industry is there and where it is. The late loan of £6,000,000 was floated at 3½ per cent. at a time when the bank rate in London was 2 per cent., that is to say, it was nearly 100 per cent. more than the bank rate in London and it was not subscribed. When the Cosgrave Government issued a loan five or six years ago they issued it at practically the bank rate in London and the loan was fully subscribed. Is that any reflection or does it reflect in any way on the comparative economic strength of this country at those two periods? Does it reflect the confidence that the people with money had in the respective Governments? If there is no variation in the confidence then there must obviously be less money about and less money for the Government to carry on all this great work that has been elaborated by the Minister for Finance. There is either no money about or else the people with a free will to exercise that free will in the investment of their own money had not sufficient confidence to give it to the Government recently even though they were offered much better encouragement than what was offered at the time of the Third National Loan and what was offered in the case of the other National Loans. The other National Loans were issued and offered to the public at practically the ruling bank rate of interest, but the late loan was offered at 80 per cent or 90 per cent. above the bank rate and it failed. In that condition of the country the Minister and the Government come along and increase taxation. They bring in increased Estimates. The Minister for Finance, in dealing with another matter here, quoted a reputable journal. He gave us a history of that. I accept the prestige of the journal, but it was very unfair to this House that he quoted the extracts that suited him and left out the extracts that did not suit him. What that very article that the Minister quoted disclosed was that the bank clearances in the last year were down as compared with the previous year. Does the Minister deny that? I will give him the highest financial authority on it. Even though we had an adverse trade balance in other years the invisible income balanced that. But for the first time since this State was set up, the flow of money into this country is less than the outflow. I am sure the Minister will not deny that?

Mr. Lemass

Of course I will. The statement is ridiculous.

Mr. Belton

Then, notwithstanding the fact that the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Finance, who, of course, is the last word on finance in this country——

Mr. S. Jordan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Belton

——did not put himself up here as a greater authority than the journal from which he quoted. I quoted, not only from the journal but from the particular paragraph from which the Minister quoted, that is, the bank supplement of the Economist of 14th October last. With all respect to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that is a little better authority than the Minister for Finance. On finance I want to say that we paid out more than we got in. That article referred to the strong financial position of our banks. The Minister will easily admit that no matter how strong the financial position of a country is, and no matter how strong its banking is, once there is more going out than there is coming in, the prosperity of the country will come to an end. Notwithstanding all the industrial activity we hear so much about, there are less notes in circulation now than a year ago. The Minister will not deny that?

Mr. Lemass

There are more bank notes in circulation now than ever there were.

Mr. Belton

More notes in circulation now than ever! Again the Economist must be wrong. Last year our exports declined. Our imports also declined but our exports declined far more than our imports. Will the Minister deny that? I will give him some figures and these are from an authority equally as good as the Economist. They are from the Statist, dated 17th February:—“Heavy declines are recorded in both the import and export branches for the Free State for the year 1933. The imports have fallen to £35,000,000 from £42,000,000 in 1932, or a decline of 15.9 per cent. The exports have declined to £19,000,000 from £26,000,000, or a decline of 27.1 per cent.” Now, where is the industrial activity?

Mr. Lemass

Do not those figures prove it?

Mr. Belton

What provides it?

Mr. Lemass

The figures the Deputy has just read out.

Mr. Belton

How much longer does the Minister want that game to go on? Does he want it to go on until we are wiped out altogether?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy and the Minister might remember that this is not a cross-examination. If the Minister would refrain from replying to rhetorical questions and collate his ideas in the speech which he will have an opportunity of making, the debate would be more orderly.

Mr. Belton

Though perhaps we are technically out of order, we are not in disorder anyway.

An Ceann Comhairle

On the border line.

Mr. Belton

Another important indication which I do not want to labour is that money has frozen up, as is shown by our bank returns. It is going into fixed securities and into deposits. It is going out of the country. There is less money deposited to the credit of our banks in the Free State now than a year ago. Our banks are carrying more external deposits than we had a year ago, while the discounts and advances to their customers have declined by some millions. In those discounts and advances, which are small proportionately to the banks' strength, there is a very big chunk of frozen assets or frozen debts—you can have it nearly any way you like—which accumulated in years gone by. They accumulated at a time when there was comparative prosperity here, and when cattle, comparable with the famous, Clonmel cattle which were sold at 50/- apiece, would fetch £25 or £30 apiece. At that time those frozen debts were incurred.

Mr. Lemass

Why?

Mr. Belton

Because business was expanding then.

Mr. Lemass

That is why the debts froze!

Mr. Belton

Surely a Minister for Industry and Commerce knows this practical principle of finance, that when business is expanding, business people are contracting debts and borrowing money to expand their business. That is why liquid capital flows into business away from fixed securities, and the price of fixed securities goes down relative to industrial securities.

Mr. Lemass

Those debts were not liquid—they froze.

Mr. Belton

They froze afterwards. They are mummified since the Minister and his Government came in.

Mr. S. Jordan

Wait for the thaw.

Mr. Belton

Nothing will thaw them now, not even the sunny smile of the Minister for Industry and Commerce or his colleague the Minister for Finance. It is doubtful whether these are assets, and these paper assets are counted in the banks' returns of discounts and advances to customers. We have the Government's own experience in endeavouring to float a loan on good terms. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that they were unfavourable terms, that the terms should have been better, and then they would have got the loan. I want to make the point that the terms offered were better comparatively than the terms of any preceding loans and by comparatively I mean by comparing the general bank rate of interest ruling now and the rate of interest when the other loans were floated. The Minister made a strong point in that.

It is an extraordinary thing that a representative of labour here should congratulate the Minister on the provision he is making for public assistance and so on. While we have people idle, of course, they must be fed. Bouquets, however, should not be thrown at the Government merely because they are taxing one section of the people and handing the money to another section. The only way they can earn bouquets is by putting the people to work. Unemployment is going up here. The published figures indicate that. The Minister for Industry and Commerce asked where any staple industry was paying now. Unemployment figures are going down in Germany, in the United States and in Great Britain. President de Valera recently sent a message to the President of the United States congratulating him on the anniversary of his taking up office. Our President has had two anniversaries since he took up office. but he has not been able to show what President Roosevelt is able to show— the number of unemployed that he has put to work; the general arrest of the rot in the economic life of the United States, and the hope that he has given to the people owing to the measures he took to stop the downward march.

The Minister told us all that they were doing for agriculture and industry. We are told of their policy of finding new markets. Last year we bought nearly £11,000,000 worth of goods in markets outside Great Britain. A good deal of these goods were bought in Germany. Our distinguished Ministers for Finance and Industry and Commerce should apply themselves to the practical problems of international trade. Germany buys very little from us. When we get a chance we have to sell to Great Britain at a very low price, and even the pounds we get from Great Britain are only worth about 12/6—gold parity. The Minister proposes to open up international trade with Germany, which is on gold, and pay 20/- in the £1.

Mr. Lemass

We do not pay for the goods we send out; we get paid for them.

Mr. Belton

Do you get the goods on credit?

Mr. Lemass

We get paid in gold for the goods we send out.

Mr. Belton

We imported, as I say, nearly £11,000,000 worth of goods last year. Do we send goods to those countries to pay for goods? Of course, we do not. We had to send money or bills. We were told yesterday that the Minister for Industry and Commerce must get powers to see that the goods do not touch English soil. That is in effect what he was after. I challenge the Minister to say that a penny piece of that £11,000,000 was paid direct to those foreign countries. It had all to go through British acceptance houses. Without the British imprimatur on the bills of exchange we would not get one pound's worth into this country or into any foreign country. The Minister will not shake his head at that. It is just the visible things that can be seen.

A ship can be seen loading or unloading in England and then striking out for the Free State, but the collection of bills and the sale of bills in the London Bill Market is not seen here, and there is more commission paid on these bills than would be paid for warehousing goods coming here via England. We are told about all the money and all the wages that we are going to have out of this sugar beet scheme. I saw here where £550,000 was paid for unemployment relief last year. I suppose that about £400,000 of that would be for wages. The Minister might as well say that the £400,000 for relief schemes has been paid out for wages. He could not stand over his proposal, when he introduced the Sugar Beet Bill, as being an economic proposition in itself. The 80,000 tons of sugar that the four new factories will produce, when going, will cost this country annually a loss of about £1,000,000. I would not say that that money would be badly spent if there was anything else paying; but when everything else is losing what are we going to pull up on? Take the grocery store man. He is handling butter; he is handling bacon; he is handling sugar. On those things there is no profit. There is generally a loss, but he has to carry these items. Other items will give him a profit that, spread over the lot, will give him a net profit on the whole transaction. Going over the whole gamut of agricultural economy in this country no items can be picked out on which anybody can say that there is a profit to the nation. Are we to pull up for what we are losing on home-grown sugar beet with potatoes? The Minister, if he ever grew potatoes, would know that industrial alcohol that will provide a market at 35/- a ton for potatoes will not pull up for any loss on any other item. We have a loss of 7/- a barrel on wheat, for which there is a bounty, and even without that, the basic price of wheat here is higher than that at which we can import it. Looking at all the items, there is nothing on which we are making a profit sufficient to pull up for the losses we are admittedly sustaining on the others.

Then we come to industrial products —the Minister's special preserve. We will be told here in this House that these factories are paying their way. They are paying their way, but inside a high tariff wall. If that tariff wall were pulled down, down would go the industries; but that tariff wall is kept up, and the industries inside that wall, that have to be subsidised in order to be kept going, have to provide the money to buy the produce of these tariffed industries. It would be only a waste of time to labour all these points, because the Government themselves know it just as well as we do, or just as well as any people outside or inside this House know it. I could quote speeches of all the present Ministers when they were in Opposition, shedding crocodile tears about the burden that was upon agriculture and industry, and saying that that burden was too great for industry to bear. Yet, the burden that is put on agriculture and industry this year is more than 60 per cent. above what it was in the years when the Votes were criticised.

There is just one point more to which I should like to refer. We were told about £100,000 for draining bogs. It is a pity that some of those who are devising these schemes were not put to drain the bogs. There is also £150,000 for free milk and £700,000 for an increase in old age pensions, and so on; but we are saving the £5,000,000 that heretofore went to England. Surely there is no medium-sized baby in this country who believes that tripe now. Has not Mr. Thomas given the answer to that? He has got all the money he went out to get. Whom has he got it from? He has got it from this country. Not only are we paying them to England, but we are paying the cost of collection as well, which is over and above what had to be paid before the present Government came into office. I am not attributing to the present Government all the depression in agriculture or the increased depression since Fianna Fáil took office, because there has been increased world depression since Fianna Fáil took office —not, of course, because Fianna Fáil took office——

Mr. Lemass

Thanks.

Mr. Belton

——but there has been superimposed on that the artificial depression here of the economic war. Now, in that state of affairs we are asked to bear increased taxation and less prices, even without the economic war, than obtained two years ago. The Minister, probably, is aware that prices are a bit better in England than they were two years ago, and that they are considerably better in the United States of America. The secret of President's Roosevelt's success was that he set out on the deliberate policy of raising prices. He did that for two reasons. One reason was that the farmers of the States were suffering from what many farmers here have been and are suffering from, frozen debts, because they incurred those debts at a time when, let us say, a bullock was worth £30, and the price of a bullock is now only £10. In order to liquidate a debt incurred for one bullock three years ago, he would have to provide three bullocks now. President Roosevelt set out on that policy of raising prices in order to help the farmer to liquidate those debts. Nothing analogous to that has been done here, nor has it been attempted or even thought of. Nothing has been thought of except to shovel out doles and tax people to provide the doles. We have a Labour Deputy congratulating our Government on having no more imagination nor ingenuity than taxing Peter to pay Paul for doing nothing— subsidising new-fangled notions of industry and agriculture. At a time when the agricultural and industrial economy, which we had been practising and which we were proficient in, was not paying, we set about introducing new-fangled notions here, and we start trying to learn and develop and practise for a profit something that we know practically nothing about. The best way that our Government can congratulate the American Government is, not by sending high-sounding cablegrams, but, by copying the methods that have been successful there, and that have been successful in Great Britain, in Germany, in France and in Italy. When I suggest Germany and Italy, I am not suggesting that the Minister should change his shirt.

Mr. S. Jordan

But the Minister suggested the Deputy should change his.

Mr. Belton

We are getting a transfer of £200,000 to the bounties. Personally, I wish the Minister would transfer the whole of the bounties in that direction, and bring them down to the source of production. Lighten the cost at the source of production, because when the initial cost is light, industry has a chance of expanding. If you add too great a load to an industry at its source you cripple that industry. Instead of throwing little presents here and there to help the export of a few cattle, sheep, pigs, butter or other things, if the money were given to lighten the cost of production at the source, it would be far more beneficial ultimately for industry generally.

Mr. Lemass

I am feeling somewhat depressed and despondent to-night, because it has become quite clear, after spending many days at it, that I have not succeeded in teaching Deputies opposite the elements of political economy. On the occasion of a number of debates of this kind I have tried, at very great pains, to teach Deputy Belton, Deputy Brennan, Deputy MacDermot and other members of the Party opposite how to read the economic statistics made available by my Department. Despite that they proceed to misunderstand them, and to draw from them conclusions which they are not capable of supporting. I am going to try again. I admit that it will probably be wasted labour but, in a good cause, one can afford to spend a little time. I may succeed on this occasion in getting some Deputies opposite to grasp some elementary truths about the economic situation in this country. At the beginning let me put myself right on one point. It appears to be the practice of Deputies opposite, and of leader writers in the newspapers that support their policy, to assume that everybody should represent conditions in this country to be deplorable and the outlook for the future to be as blue as Deputy O'Neill's shirt. If anybody has the foolhardiness to attempt to suggest that things are not quite as bad as Deputies opposite represent them, he is immediately open to precisely the type of misrepresentation that we had to-day from the Deputies, and in this morning's leading article in the Irish Independent. If I venture to offer the opinion that although conditions may not be as good as we would like to see them, nevertheless they are not as bad as Deputies opposite represent, and are improving, the leader writer of the Irish Independent, like Deputy Brennan and Deputy Belton, will represent me as saying that the country is “wallowing in prosperity.” That was the phrase the Irish Independent used this morning. Deputy Brennan represented me as saying that the country was so prosperous that people did not know what to do with their money.

Mr. Belton

I did not say that.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Belton assumes that any remarks made on the subject were directed towards proving that conditions were satisfactory. They are not.

Mr. Belton

In this Vote?

Mr. Lemass

I will deal with that later. Conditions in this country are not satisfactory. They are not satisfactory in any country. What I am suggesting to Deputies opposite is that conditions are not as bad as they represent them to be, and that they are improving. The main point I want Deputies to grasp is that conditions are improving.

Mr. Belton

Prove it.

Mr. Lemass

I am going to do so, not by quoting some obscure article in The Economist or The Statist, but by giving such an array of statistics from the official publications of this State that even the Deputy will not have the hardihood to contradict my conclusions. Deputies assumed that the increase in the Estimate for Supply Services must necessarily involve an increase in taxation. I will deal with that later. On that assumption, however, they proceeded to ask: “Can the country bear increased taxation?” They endeavoured to prove that it could not even bear the existing taxation, because it was stated that the purchasing power of the people was diminishing. That is the first thing we have got to get clear. Is the purchasing power of the country diminishing or not? How are we to find that out. Obviously the most satisfactory way of finding out whether that assertion is true or not is to ascertain if the people are in fact purchasing less.

Mr. Belton

Money in circulation.

Mr. Lemass

Money in circulation. In 1933 the people purchased more than they purchased in 1932. That fact is ascertainable from various sources, but particularly from the Trade and Shipping Statistics that Deputy Belton so frequently misunderstands. The latest of these returns is for January, 1934, and was published only last week. It contains the latest information relating to economic activities that are covered by our export and import trades. How are we to ascertain whether the purchasing power of the people is diminishing or not? Let us look at the figures for imports, leaving out of account those classes of goods which are being produced here, and in respect of which we have not got corresponding production figures. Taking into account only those classes of goods, the imports of which fluctuate with consumption, we will find out whether the purchasing power of the country is diminishing or not. Tea, sugar and tobacco are three fairly safe guides.

Mr. Belton

No. I suggest they are not.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy questions that. What does he regard as safe guides?

Mr. Belton

I will give reasons for saying "No." It is a well-known fact in the City of Dublin that when the working classes hit a hard time, their purchases of meat and vegetables go down, but purchases of tea, sugar and bread go up, because a tea dinner is cheaper than the ordinary dinner.

Mr. Lemass

What happens when the purchases of meat, vegetables, tea and sugar go up at the same time?

Mr. Belton

The Minister only suggested three things which I say are not a fair test. If he includes the others, with tea and sugar, it would be a fair test.

Mr. Lemass

The consumption of meat and vegetables has gone up quite considerably. I do not think that is contradicted. The purchases of tea and sugar have also gone up very considerably.

Mr. Jordan

Hard luck on the light beer!

Mr. Lemass

The purchases of tobacco have gone up. If there is any single commodity the sales of which are bound to fluctuate corresponding to any rise or fall in the purchasing power, it is tobacco.

Mr. Belton

A man will always have a smoke.

Mr. Lemass

He is having more smokes now than ever he had.

Mr. Belton

He is trying to while away his grievances that way.

Mr. Lemass

Not merely have tea, sugar and tobacco been consumed in greater quantities during the last 12 months than in the preceding year, but there are other items in the list which give some indication of what is happening. The imports of coal have increased. The imports of cement have increased by almost 33 1/3 per cent. over the preceding 12 months. The imports of asphalt and bitumen have also increased, though by a smaller percentage.

Mr. O'Neill

The people do not eat these things.

Mr. Lemass

No, but they work them and the fact that these goods are coming in is an indication that there is more work requiring those goods.

Mr. Belton

They are building materials.

Mr. Lemass

Well, if the Deputy likes we will get off them.

Mr. Belton

Keep on them now.

Mr. Lemass

Very well, here is more information for the Deputy. The imports of timber have considerably increased; the imports of structural steel have increased.

Mr. Belton

Sure. That is great.

Mr. Lemass

Is the Deputy satisfied?

Mr. Belton

Yes.

Mr. Lemass

Most of the other building materials we are making for ourselves for the first time, and we expect to be making all classes in due course. The imports of machinery have increased and that is an indication of industrial activity. Now, there is a particular item and I think Deputy Belton will hardly be able to make any misrepresentation about it. The imports of motor cars have gone up considerably. I suppose the Dublin workingman in hard times stops eating meat and buys a motor-car instead. The imports of wine have gone up. The sales of boots, shoes and cloth of all kinds have also increased considerably. I know that Deputy Belton, Deputy Dillon or Deputy MacDermot will stand up soon and say that I have been representing the country as wallowing in prosperity. The fact is we have not even fairly begun our task of reconstruction—when one takes regard of all the field that has to be covered. We have made considerable progress. Things are getting better, but we have a long way to go before we will be satisfied. It would appear from the activities of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government that very little satisfied them. Like other Deputies over there, Deputy Belton always paid undue attention to the figures of our external trade. He and Deputy Brennan have quoted figures to show that the value of our external trade has diminished by so many millions since 1931. It has. There are, however, two facts in connection with that, that I want to impress on Deputy Belton. The first is that our external trade has decreased less proportionately than that of the majority of countries. It has decreased by a lesser percentage than the total of world trade has diminished. Secondly, the decrease in our external trade is a natural result of economic development at home.

Mr. Belton

Might I point out that the decrease in exports is greater than the decrease in imports? Is that an indication of home development?

Mr. Lemass

Professor Johnston of Trinity College, an eminent economist, and one who can claim to speak with some authority on economic questions, in a recent lecture suggested to the Government that they should prohibit exports. He said it was unnecessary for this country to maintain exports so long as it had available abroad to purchase the goods required nearly £200,000,000 and over a number of years if we prohibited exports that capital would be repatriated for us here in a very effective manner. That is an impractical suggestion from the political point of view, but it draws attention to one fact. We are bringing back into this country for utilisation here capital formerly invested abroad. Men are realising their holdings in British Government securities or other foreign securities and are bringing back the money to set up factories in this country. They do not bring back that money in the form of bills of exchange, but in the form of goods imported into the country and the more of it that comes back the greater will be the divergence between the total value of our imports and the total value of our exports and the gap that exists, in so far as it is not covered by invisible items, represents capital repatriated for us in this country.

Mr. Belton

If that is so, how is it that more money left the country in the last year than has come into it?

Mr. Lemass

The position was quite the reverse.

Mr. Belton

I can quote for you the banking statements of the Economist.

Mr. Lemass

I am quite certain no writer for the Economist, no matter how foolish, could state that.

Mr. Belton

I have not the authority here, but I will show it to the Minister before I leave the House.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy must have misread the extract.

Mr. Belton

The Deputy does not misread things. I am more careful than the Minister for Finance.

Mr. Lemass

Even if we are to take the stand of Deputies opposite and regard the figures for our external trade as the sole test of national prosperity, I again say that things are improving. I have here the latest available statistics, those for January, 1934, and I observe that as compared with the same month in the previous year there was an increase in the export of cattle, an increase in the export of sheep and an increase in the export of horses.

Mr. Dillon

Perhaps the Minister will indicate the respective values.

Mr. Lemass

The number of pigs exported decreased, but that is something to be glad about because it is offset by a substantial increase in the exports of bacon and hams. There was an increased export of condensed milk and butter, an increased export of biscuits, porter, beer and spirits. Now, as regards the industrial products, there was an increased export in macadam and gravel, linen piece goods, woollen and worsted tissues and jute goods. There are minor items that I do not wish to mention. I think I have covered all the main classes of goods in the exportation of which there has been an increase. Our exports definitely have shown an increase.

Mr. Dillon

Is the Minister making a comparison with last year?

Mr. Lemass

Yes, 1933 and 1934. I submit that proves that conditions are improving. But I am not prepared to take that as a standard. We do not export goods for any other reason except to pay for the goods we import. We are deliberately diminishing the total volume of imports in consequence of our efforts to increase home production. As the President of the Cork Chamber of Commerce said last week, if we were to discover in this country a coal mine capable of yielding 3,000,000 tons a year we would stop importing that quantity of coal, and because we would stop importing that quantity of coal, we could stop exporting goods to the same value that are now going out to pay for the coal that we import. The result would be that our external trade would have diminished by £6,000,000, but this country would have been £6,000,000 richer in consequence of the exchange.

Mr. Belton

Extraordinary economics.

Mr. Lemass

We have not found a coal mine, but we are producing precisely the same result in every other direction. If Deputy Belton repeats these three words "Wheat, beet and peat" at least ten times every morning before breakfast——

Mr. Dillon

He will go to Grangegorman.

Mr. Lemass

——he will have a keener appreciation of what is happening in this country than his speech appeared to convey.

Mr. Belton

Many a day I had to repeat them when I was working at them.

Mr. Lemass

Again, to avoid misrepresentation, I want to say that things in this country are not satisfactory. All the energy of every officer of every Department of this State is being concentrated on improving them. They are succeeding in improving them. But, again, I want to say that we have a long way to go before I, at any rate, will be satisfied that we can afford to rest on our oars and "take things easy," as our predecessors did. We are getting going. The position of the farmer has been frequently referred to. We had from Deputy Brennan the extraordinary assertion that a sure index to the failure of the Government's economic policy and the rotten economic condition of this State was that we had to support agriculture by protection and subsidies. I interjected a question, which produced a rebuke from the Chair. I was not entitled to put the question then, but I am entitled to put the question now: What country in the world is not protecting agriculture by protection and subsidies at the present time? I want some Deputy opposite to tell me that.

Mr. Morrissey

"Support" is a relative term.

Mr. Lemass

The subsidy we are giving for wheat in this country is less than the subsidy that is being given in Great Britain. The subsidy we are giving for beet is less than the subsidy that is being given in Great Britain.

Mr. Morrissey

Question.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy questions that because he does not want to put himself to the trouble of looking up the facts. If he takes that trouble, he will find that the facts are as I state.

Mr. Jordan

Will Deputy Morrissey say what the subsidy is in England?

Mr. Morrissey

The beet factories here are "white elephants," according to the Minister for Finance.

Mr. Lemass

We have got to support agriculture under the abnormal conditions of world depression, as every other country has to do.

Mr. Belton

Out of what?

Mr. Lemass

Out of the total resources of the community, which are more than adequate for the purpose.

Mr. Belton

What is paying in this country?

Mr. Lemass

Out of increased production. Conditions are improving. Our efforts to support agriculture are having the desired result. I gave certain figures here, I think the week before last, in another discussion of this kind, similar to the figures I am going to give now. The only difference is that the figures I am going to give now are more up-to-date and show the improvement effected since I last spoke. The price of bacon pigs last week was 63/3 per cwt., as compared with 46/9 in the corresponding week of the previous year. Porkers were 61/-, as compared with 48/3 in the corresponding week of last year. The price of creamery butter was 136/-, as against 124/- for the corresponding week of last year. Farmers' butter was 11¼d. per lb. as compared with 10½d. in the corresponding week of last year.

Mr. Lynch

What about the year before?

Mr. Lemass

Deputies opposite are trying to run away from their contentions. That is the trouble with Cumann na nGaedheal. They remind me of the thimble-rigger.

Mr. Lynch

Surely, there is no thimble-rigging. The fair comparison would be with the prices two years ago and not last year.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy knows, as I know, the trick of the man with the three thimbles. He asks you under which thimble the pea is and, no matter which one you choose, you are always wrong. When one tries to get the line of argument of the Party opposite, one is always wrong. The contention made here was that things are getting worse——

Mr. Lynch

Quote the figures for two, three, four, five or even ten years ago.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy is putting the pea under another thimble now.

Mr. Lynch

There are a dozen thimbles as against the one the Minister wants to select.

Mr. Lemass

The assertion made by Deputy Brennan, Deputy MacDermot and Deputy Belton was that things are getting worse.

Mr. Morrissey

Yes.

Mr. Lemass

I am showing the position last week as compared with that week 12 months ago and there is an improvement.

Mr. Lynch

Why not show the position for the same week in 1932?

Mr. Lemass

Why should I? I am showing that there has been an improvement since last year.

Mr. Keating

What is the price of stall-fed cattle to-day as compared with this day 12 months?

Mr. Lemass

I shall reach that in due course.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister must be allowed to make his own speech and not the speech that Deputies desire to have made.

Mr. Keating

He interrupted here himself.

Mr. Lemass

The price of potatoes last week was 3/4 per cwt. as compared with 2/8 per cwt. in the corresponding week last year.

Mr. Belton

Because there is a smaller quantity grown.

Mr. Lemass

The price of fat sheep was 35/- a cwt., as compared with 34/9 in the corresponding week of last year. Wool was 6¾d. per lb. last week and there was no quotation for the corresponding week of last year. I am sure that no Deputy will contradict the statement that the price of wool very considerably increased during the year.

Mr. Lynch

Put the price against that of two or three years ago.

Mr. Morrissey

What about cattle?

Mr. Lemass

The price of wool is higher than it was three years ago. The price of cattle has fallen.

Mr. Morrissey

Quote the prices and be fair.

Mr. Lemass

The price on 22nd February was 25/9 as compared with 28/9 on March 2, 1933. There has been a fall in the price of cattle, due very largely to the operation of the British quota system. There is no use in denying that. It is an additional problem which has got to be solved. It is a problem which arises not only for us but for the Danes, the Dutch and the Canadians, all of whom are trying to solve the problem at the present time and are being less successful in their efforts than we have proved to be. Although the prices I have quoted are better than the prices that obtained this time last year, they are not good prices. Some of them hardly pay the cost of production.

Mr. Morrissey

"Hardly."

Mr. Lemass

I am not denying that. We have got to maintain the improvement before we can be satisfied with the position. But things are improving. Some of these prices—particularly the prices for pigs—are higher than they were in 1931.

Mr. O'Donovan

What is the comparison in the cost of production?

Mr. Lemass

It is much lower now.

Mr. O'Donovan

In the production of bacon?

Mr. Lemass

Yes.

Mr. O'Donovan

I wish the Minister were producing pigs on the unfortunate mixture.

Mr. Lemass

Can we get any Deputy opposite to say that that scheme should be abolished?

Mr. McGovern

Compare the prices with those in Northern Ireland.

Mr. T. Kelly

The Minister should be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. Lemass

"Our unfortunate mixture"—that is the phrase used by the Deputy. Deputies opposite have been inquiring what we are going to do to increase the production of oats, barley, and other cereal crops. That is what we are doing, and it is being very successful.

Mr. O'Donovan

It takes a month longer to fatten a pig now than it did before the mixture.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy can ask the members of his own Party whether or not they are prepared to vote with him for the abolition of that scheme. I do not want to produce another division in that Party. That might be avoided by having the discussion within closed doors instead of having it here in the Dáil. It has been asserted continually that unemployment here has got worse. I most emphatically deny that.

Mr. Morrissey

The Minister would deny anything.

Mr. Lemass

Even Deputy McGilligan who tried to base his case upon the narrow figure relating to the yield from the sale of unemployment insurance stamps admitted there were 14,000 more people in insurable employment in 1933 than in 1931. The exact figure was nearer to 16,000, and that was an estimate for whole-time employment for 52 weeks of the year. In modern industrial conditions there are many workers who do not get whole-time employment, and the real number of additional hands taken into employment in that year was substantially higher than 16,000. If one included the number of insurance books turned over, or exchanged, it will be found that the number was 45,000 higher in 1933 than in 1931. I assert, therefore, that there was a much larger number of people in insurable employment in 1933 than at any time previous since the Free State was established.

The population of this country has, of course, increased in the last couple of years for the first time in a century, and that has aggravated the unemployment problem that we have to deal with. Deputies, of course, can make whatever case they think suits their policy upon this basis. The fact is that if emigration took place in 1933 and five years previous to that on the same basis that it actually did occur in the year 1926, there would be 100,000 fewer people in this country. Emigration has stopped. The position has been reversed. Immigrants have exceeded emigrants and our population has increased consequently fairly rapidly. This has produced an unemployment problem which it is not going to be easy to solve, because the great majority of those who might have gone, and are now remaining at home, are living in districts in which it is very hard to absorb them into industrial pursuits. Most Deputies are aware of that. A great number of these emigrants came from the western seaboard and in those districts it is not easy to find industries capable of absorbing them.

Mr. O'Donovan

Where they can grow neither wheat nor beet.

Mr. Lemass

Nevertheless that third string to that bow is of some interest——

Mr. Belton

The Minister challenged my figures about the banking clearances.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is not giving way.

Mr. Belton

He challenged my figures and it is not playing the game not to hear me. I have the figures here in the Economist.

Mr. Lemass

The bank clearances for 1933 showed a substantial increase upon 1932. The year 1932 showed an increase on 1931. In 1932, the bank clearances were abnormally inflated by the transactions in connection with the conversion of the British loan, and consequently, 1932 is an abnormal year. But taking 1933 as against 1932, a substantial increase is shown, and that increase is emphasised by a similar increase in the value of the currency notes in circulation in mid-December.

Mr. Belton

When?

Mr. Lemass

At the end of 1933 as compared with 1932.

Mr. Belton

Does the Minister mean the notes in circulation?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is in possession.

Mr. Belton

He contradicted my figures and now he will not give me a chance of proving them.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is said that one could prove anything by statistics. Deputies differ in their interpretation of certain statistical indices, and neither the Chair nor anybody else could reconcile them.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy will be a lot wiser when I have finished my speech. The unemployment problem is the biggest one we have to solve and Deputies opposite are not helping, but are trying to increase the difficulties in this direction. I have always taken the view that no sound plan for dealing with unemployment can be provided unless you know the exact details, the exact numbers of unemployed, and the classes into which they can be divided, having regard to their degrees of technical skill, their situations and so forth.

Mr. Morrissey

What about the Fianna Fáil plan of 1932?

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputies should not interrupt, especially those with experience.

Mr. Morrissey

With the Minister's permission, may I ask him what became of the famous plan that Fianna Fáil had in 1932?

Mr. Lemass

It is in course of successful operation.

Mr. Morrissey

84,601 to be absorbed in six months?

Mr. Lemass

There was no suggestion about six months. It is being solved. We have absorbed 45,000 in a few years, which is not bad, having regard to the fact that our predecessors put more out of employment in a shorter period.

Mr. Jordan

Have you got your answer now?

Mr. Lemass

I also said, in regard to unemployment, that we could not possibly devise any plan that would be so automatic in its working that we could provide work for every man immediately he wanted it in the locality in which he resided. Consequently, it was necessary to put behind the industrial plan a scheme of public works, and behind the scheme of public works a third line of defence against destitution in the form of the Unemployment Assistance Act, which Deputies opposite appear to be very strongly opposed to. I might, in that connection, draw their attention to the statement occasionally made concerning that scheme by the Leader of the Party opposite. If I insult anybody by calling him the Leader, I apologise, but he calls himself the Leader. Deputy Belton tried to make some point about the recent National Loan. Later on, in his remarks, he did give some evidence of having read some elementary text books on economics, because he said that in time of business activity people do not lock up their money in gilt-edged securities. They do not. Nobody invests in gilt-edged securities bearing fixed interest if he can find a more profitable use for his money elsewhere.

Mr. Belton

The Minister is now bringing the matter down to a debating society point.

Mr. Lemass

Nobody would be satisfied with 3½ per cent. interest on his money——

Mr. Dillon

If he could get ten per cent. in a sausage factory.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Dillon might serve a useful purpose by offering himself as raw material for such a factory. It is recognised by all economists that in time of business stagnation and depression the price of gilt-edged securities rises. People in these circumstances try to get their money into a safe investment and out of industry. In times of business activity and development prices of gilt-edged securities fall because people are taking their money out of them, and are putting them into industrial investments. What is happening here is that new opportunities for investment in industry are offering to the owners of capital every day, and I am glad to say that they are showing no hesitation in availing of them.

Let us consider these accounts for a while. Deputies either do not understand these figures or they are deliberately trying to create some false impressions on the strength of them. These figures show an increase in the requirements for the Supply Services of £1,800,000. But there is included in that figure the Estimate for Local Loans which shows an increase of over £2,000,000.

Mr. Belton

At what rate?

Mr. Lemass

The fact I want Deputies to appreciate is that the increase in the total of all the Estimates is more than off-set by the increase in the Local Loans Vote alone. If we took out of these accounts, as I think was the practice one time, the local loans figure, the figure for the Supply Services for this year would show a reduction on last year. In any event, in so far as these local loans are concerned, they are repayable by the local authorities at interest, so that Deputies need not worry on that account.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister knows that is not true.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy was trying to make some point.

Mr. Dillon

I am saying that the Minister is deliberately twisting the figures. He knows the figures he has given are not true.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy says that some figure I have given is not true, but he surely admits that the Estimate for Local Loans is increased by over £2,000,000.

Mr. Dillon

The original Estimate last year was £22,039,951, and the original Estimate this year is £29,709,107.

Mr. MacEntee

Does not the Deputy remember that five weeks were spent on an election last year, and that, therefore, the figures were necessarily incomplete when presented to the Dáil?

Mr. Dillon

I will make my own speech later.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy is completely ignoring one single item which accounts, and more than accounts, for the total difference between the Estimate for last year and the Estimate for this year. In conclusion, I will stress the point that I started with: that things in this country are not as satisfactory as we would like to see them but they are improving, and they are improving despite the efforts of the Deputies opposite to prevent an improvement. I wonder what idea had Deputy Brennan in his mind when he said that the price of oats and barley last year was bad, and that this year it was likely to be worse. I suppose he hopes that, as a result of making that statement, he will be able to prevent people entering into forms of production that are nationally useful. The price of oats and barley will not be worse. The Government is determined to see that they will not be worse, and that whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the full amount of these commodities that we require will be produced and sold by the farmers at a price that will be remunerative to the farmers, will be taken just as we have taken steps against the opposition of the Party opposite to achieve the same result in relation to butter and to other products. It is not always easy, in relation to a complicated industry like agriculture, to find a simple method of achieving one's ends, but we are covering the field bit by bit and devising a machine which is going to secure to the farmers what we promised to secure for them: a position in the home market from which they cannot be driven and a market for the increased production of a large variety of products at guaranteed prices, prices which we would undertake would be in excess of the cost of production.

Mr. McGovern

What about the surplus?

Mr. Lemass

Is the Deputy talking about the surplus in the Budget or about surplus cattle?

Mr. Dillon

Surplus agricultural products.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy will in due course, if he keeps at it, begin to understand our trade and shipping statistics.

Mr. Dillon

I will read them for the Minister in a minute.

Mr. Lemass

I hope that when the Deputy speaks he will, at least, try to be intelligible. The point that I want to stress, however, is that in so far as the agricultural field has been covered and a plan devised to deal with the particular problems offered in that field, that plan is working out successfully. In due course we will cover the whole field and carry out the Fianna Fáil plan in relation to agriculture 100 per cent. just as we are carrying it out 100 per cent. in relation to industry. Deputies opposite have failed to produce any plan. In their criticism of this Vote on Account they have been remarkably deficient in the suggestions they had to make concerning the manner in which the ends they profess to desire could be achieved. When Deputy Dillon—or preferably some member of the Party capable of dealing with its policy— comes to speak I want him to point out the particular items in the Vote on Account that he wants deleted for the benefit of the income taxpayers.

Mr. Brennan

On a point of personal explanation. The Minister accused me of making a statement that was tantamount to advising a curtailment in agricultural production. With regard to the price of oats, I based my figures simply on the fate that has bafallen the fat cattle industry in this country and the fate that apparently lies before it next year. I said that there cannot be any price for oats this year.

Mr. Lemass

But the price for oats is going up now.

Mr. F. Lynch

What I have to say on this Vote on Account will perhaps differ a good deal from what has been said on this side of the House earlier. In view of the boasts made by the Fianna Fáil Party in the past, my criticism will be directed largely to the reductions in certain Estimates. Before dealing with that I cannot allow the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to pass without some comment: the statement that their efforts to support agriculture have had desirable results. I hope every farmer in the Fianna Fáil Party is satisfied with the results that have been achieved. I happen to have been at the fair in Caherciveen on the 5th of January last. I remember a man buying two nice Kerry cattle there. He went home very pleased with himself. He could afford to keep them until they grew antlers. They were two nice cattle. Somebody asked him what he paid for them—I knew—and he replied: "50/- for the pair." I will leave that particular incident at that. I was not going to go into the general question at all except for the Minister's statement that their efforts to support agriculture have had desirable results. I wonder if that was a desirable result for the person who sold this nice pair of Kerry cattle to that particular buyer?

My comments will be rather directed to the reductions, strange as it may appear, because the reductions are in Departments in regard to which every promise that Fianna Fáil ever made, was in the opposite direction. During the year, of course, they have divided the Department of Lands and Fisheries. I believe the Fisheries section is now to be under the Department of Agriculture and Forestry is taken from the Department of Agriculture and is to be placed with Gaeltacht Services. The taking of Forestry into the Department of Gaeltacht Services may be quite right but certainly, in my opinion, it is quite wrong to take Fisheries away from the Gaeltacht Services. Our idea in 1927 when Lands and Fisheries were brought into the same Department as Gaeltacht Services, was that every service connected with the Gaeltacht should be brought under one head so that the whole problem might be dealt with as one problem, looking at it from all of these angles. If not a better arrangement, it was the next best thing to having a Commissioner entirely in charge of services in the Gaeltacht. I thought myself then that that arrangement was the ideal arrangement, when you had a Minister who at the same time had control over the division of land in the Gaeltacht and fishery control, which enabled him to provide for the supply of boats for the half-farmer, half-fisherman of the Gaeltacht. You had all these activities under the one head. We must realise the fact that in the Gaeltacht the greater portion of the economy is half-fisherman, half-farmer. No efforts of ours, probably, will ever make such a man a whole-time farmer or a whole-time fisherman. Our best efforts should, therefore, be directed towards making him a better farmer in so far as he is farming and a better fisherman in so far as he is fishing.

I regret to see that the estimate in the Book of Estimates, apart from the Vote on Account, shows a very serious reduction in two big items of expenditure in the Gaeltacht, kelp and carrageen. Deputies on the opposite benches, while they made every political use of these items in the past, used to sneer at them, but these things were, in fact, of real value in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. The Dáil deliberately voted a considerable amount of money towards the development of the kelp and carrageen industry in the Gaeltacht. We were getting very good results because a number of persons were being employed in both of these industries during a long period of the summer-time—from the time the May weed came in as far as kelp was concerned, and during the whole summer as far as carrageen was concerned.

This industry was of real benefit to what I might call the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and to the persons who most needed it in the Gaeltacht, because unfortunately our Fíor-Ghaeltacht is confined almost entirely to persons who are most in need. Every halfpenny is cut off in these Estimates in the expenditure for kelp, and carrageen is taken from the persons in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht who need it most. Any expenditure in Gaeltacht services, all your money expended on so much per person in each house who speaks Irish, will not have anything like the same result that you could get from these particular items of expenditure. I believe moneys are to be expended in houses in the Gaeltacht where Irish is spoken and that so much will be given for the children in the house who speak Irish by way of bounty for them. That is quite a good thing, but it also applies to the Breac-Ghaeltacht. It is all very good, but of no real benefit to the persons who want assistance most and to the persons who deserve it most because of their own hard work. Every penny, every pound of it is hard-earned money and that is its virtue. There is no pauperisation, and there never was, about it. The people who got it never felt that a halfpenny of the money they got in that way was in the nature of home assistance or anything of that kind. They felt that they were earning the money when they went out into the sea to cut the weed and so on. That is the scandal I see about any reduction in this direction.

I will not talk about what has happened the Gaeltacht housing schemes since the Government came into office. Everybody in the House knows very well what has happened especially Deputies representing the Gaeltacht. The Gaeltacht housing stood for a great deal, mind you, even greater than any industrial development there was. What we were doing on behalf of the man living in a cabin to provide him with a decent house for his family, to provide him with a chance of development in the way of poultry or pig-rearing, to provide him with a room in which he might have a loom to carry on industry in the Gaeltacht, represented some progress. These are the things that make me sick when I come in to discuss a Vote of this kind. These are the things about which Deputies on the opposite benches, when they were on these benches, used to castigate us. I always felt sick when I was not able to do more. They always did make me feel sick when I could not do more but they make me far more sick now when I see a Government that were supposed to be the champions of the Gaeltacht coming along now to provide far less than we provided for the Gaeltacht. I do not know how they will stand over their promises, their promises were so widespread in every direction. Mind you, they were cute in that way. They made such widespread promises that even the most industrious person, by necessity, would have to forget about 98 per cent. of them. They made promises in so many directions that their promises on behalf of the Gaeltacht are forgotten. The persons on the opposite benches who used to criticise my Estimate here every time it came up are very silent now when a Vote is being brought in which is far less than the Vote we brought in for expenditure in the Gaeltacht. I wonder to God they are not ashamed of themselves.

Mr. Dillon

Has the Minister any intention of closuring the debate?

Mr. MacEntee

It will have to conclude shortly. We shall have to conclude about ten past ten in order that we may get the Ways and Means Resolution and the First Reading of the Central Fund Bill to-night. That is on the assumption, which is not ill-founded, that the Opposition will divide on the Vote.

Mr. Dillon

I do not confirm the Minister's assumption in any sense. The only thing I respectfully submit is that in the event of its being necessary to closure this debate to-night, members of the Opposition should be given a fair chance and members of the Government side of the House should give scope to the Opposition.

Mr. Corry

The members of the Opposition have been moaning all night. We had the same old wail to-night that we here have become so well accustomed to during the past 12 months. We have the same manipulation of figures—wrong figures; figures that they know are wrong—walloped away with the same old gusto from the Opposition. Deputy Bennett here to-night started off first of all with the cattle; then he went on to the calves. He said we had forgotten all about the calves. I endeavoured to correct him at the time, but he would not give way. He said that he was replying to a challenge I gave. The challenge was given in this House at least six times within the last seven months; the challenge was given on two occasions by me, in connection with the figures for a 40 acre farmer. I proved on the figures I gave that the 40 acre farmer was at least £40 better off to-day under the Fianna Fáil Government than he would have been if Cumann na nGaedheal continued in office. I have challenged contradiction on that and nobody has contradicted it because he could not do so.

Mr. Finlay

He must have the farm idle like yourself. He must not be working it if he is £40 better off.

Mr. Corry

Pigs always grunt. Deputy Bennett has told us that we forgot all about the calves. Deputy Bennett told us about the calves he used to sell in County Limerick every year. He said he lost £4 apiece on his calves. The average price of calves in 1931 was £2 17s. 3d. How Deputy Bennett could manage to lose £4 on a £2 17s. 3d. calf I cannot imagine.

Mr. Finlay

They must be Kerry calves you are referring to—the £2 17s. 3d. ones.

Mr. Corry

That is the kind of stuff we always get from them. He even tried to make us believe that the milk farmer of the County Limerick would be as well off under the benevolent rule of Cumann na nGaedheal, despite the fact that Cumann na nGaedheal last year endeavoured to compel that farmer to sell his milk at 1½d a gallon. They got up here and opposed our Bill for the stabilisation of the price of butter, and walked brazenly into the lobby to compel the farmer to sell his milk for 1½d. a gallon. I wonder how many cows would we have in County Limerick supplying milk to Deputy Bennett's co-operative creameries had Cumann na nGaedheal succeeded that night in defeating the Bill for the stabilisation of butter prices, and in compelling the County Limerick farmer to sell his milk for 1½d. a gallon. That would have been the result of the defeat. Deputy Bennett, to give him his due, would not agree with Cumann na nGaedheal that night. Deputy Bennett became a convert for the night, because he dare not go back to his County Limerick farmers after voting against it. He was led along by the nose here after Fianna Fáil to vote for the Bill, after all the advice he got from Deputy Cosgrave and the rest of them. The late Farmers' Party came along also, and trotted into the lobby after us to vote for it. They were also converts for the night to the policy of Fianna Fáil. Then we heard their wailings about the cattle. I wonder when will Deputies opposite realise that as far as cattle are concerned, in this or in any other country, their day is gone—in this or in any other European country, anyway.

Mr. McMenamin

Vegetarians!

Mr. Corry

Last year the Danes imported into Germany 250,000 head of cattle. This year the total number of cattle allowed to be imported into Germany from Denmark is 25,000. They can take the other 200,000 head and supply the wailers of Cumann na nGaedheal if they want more bullocks. As a matter of fact, during the last 12 months they had to slaughter 100,000 head of them. It is an extraordinary condition of affairs certainly. but they had not any economic war with Germany that I am aware of. Those are rather peculiar facts, but they stick out. We have the same thing happening in practically every other European country. England has at last taken the lesson that we preached from those benches opposite, and that we are now carrying out. England is learning the very same lesson now. I remember when we endeavoured to get the late Government to give some inducement to the Irish farmer to produce wheat, the reply was that the climate would not allow you to grow wheat in this country; you could not grow it; it should not be grown; we can get it over from Canada or the Argentine for so much per ton; therefore, we should bring it across; the wheat-growing farmer of this country should be left to pay the rate demanded on the high valuation and find it where he could. That day has gone. The Irish farmer to-day knows when he is ploughing his field and putting in his wheat that he is going to get a remunerative price for his crop. On the day he sets it he knows what he is going to get for it. In 1918 and on to 1926 I grew wheat every year. In 1926 I sold wheat in Cork at £6 a ton to the miller. I stopped then. I saw that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government wanted bullocks, not wheat. Out of eight acres of wheat this year I got £105. Then they tell us that the farming community are finished. The farmer who followed the advice of the Fianna Fáil Government, and took advantage of every assistance that was given to him by Fianna Fáil, is better off this year than he was any year Cumann na nGaedheal was in office— at least from 1928 on. He is better off. I grew something less than three-quarters of an acre of tobacco this year and got £180 for it. How many bullocks would Deputy Finlay keep for that?

Mr. Finlay

You must be a sort of millionaire then. You can retire from public life any day you like.

Mr. Corry

I am not moaning anyway.

Mr. Finlay

It was well you got planted in Cork by your forefathers.

Mr. Corry

There is no doubt but you were planted from somewhere bad. In 1931 my balance-sheet showed a profit of £890. In 1933 I made £1,070. I can show my books to any Deputy who wants to see them. What is the moaning and the groaning about? Just because we put an end to the policy that was turning this country into grass and driving the labourers out on the roadside.

Mr. Finlay

You put an end to the country and that was worse.

Mr. Corry

Oh, shut up! Do not always be grumbling. We had an amount of complaint here in connection with the Estimates this year. What does the Estimate provide for? We had Ministers on these benches a few years ago stating that it was not their business to provide employment for the people and that men might have to die of starvation in this country and that it was not the business of the Government to see that they did not. We are going to see that nobody dies of starvation in this country and we are providing for that in this Estimate. I would tell those who are looking for relief in rates that owing to the provision made here for unemployment relief, we were able to reduce our estimate for rates in the South Cork area by 1/- in the £. That is 1/- in the £ off the backs of the moaning ratepayers about whom we hear so much from Deputies opposite. The same thing applies to everything else, and I cannot see what the moaning and groaning is about. The farmers of this country have one great thing to be thankful for. It is that Fianna Fáil came into office at the particular period at which they did come in; that Fianna Fáil came into office before this quota system was started by Britain. Deputy Lynch, a few minutes ago, wanted to know the figures for 1931 and 1933 and not the figures for 1931-32 and 1932-33, but any Deputy in this House who compares the figures for 1929 with the figures for 1931—and those were the two years in which the farmers enjoyed a benevolent prosperity under Cumann na nGaedheal—will find that, in 1931, we exported more agricultural produce to Britain than in 1929 and got £13,000,000 less from Britain for it, and in order to hold that most useful market we paid John Bull £5,000,000. Those are the facts and those are the facts that Deputies opposite ought to consider. I did not hear any Deputy opposite saying that the price of cattle had improved in Britain since 1931 or that the price of any kind of agricultural produce had increased in Britain since 1931.

Mr. Finlay

How many millions are you paying John Bull now to keep that market?

Mr. Corry

For goodness' sake, will somebody take that bull out?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That expression must be withdrawn.

Mr. Corry

I withdraw.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Finlay will have to conduct himself. He has repeatedly interrupted Deputy Corry. If he wants to contribute to the debate he can make a speech, but in no other way will I allow him to contribute in future to this debate.

Mr. Corry

I am not going to say that the farmer is well off——

Mr. Finlay

Hear, hear! That is a change.

Mr. Corry

I am not going to say that the farmer is as well off as I should like to see him, speaking as a farmer and as a representative of the farmers.

Mr. Curran

I wonder.

Mr. Corry

But I will say this much, that the farmer is far better off in having a Fianna Fáil Government in office than he would be if he had the same muddling and useless people that he had for nine or ten years—a Government that was prepared to do nothing for him. The only view they ever held was: "You cannot get any market for any produce you produce here; you cannot get any protection whatever. So long as we can get anything cheaper in any country in the world, it is going to come in and you are going to be knocked out." The Irish farmer has a protected market and he is as well entitled to protection as any industrialist. If I had my way, instead of giving a bounty on wheat, I would fix the price of wheat at 30/- a barrel and compel the millers to pay that.

Mr. McMenamin

And the poor to pay it in the bread.

Mr. Corry

Yes; we had the same wail about butter. Deputy Bennett told us that the consumer had to pay 5d. a lb. more for butter. What if he had? Is the farmer entitled to his cost of production?

Mr. Curran

He is not getting it in butter.

Mr. Corry

If the Deputies opposite had their way, he would not get half what he is getting for butter now. The price of butter, Free State or Danish, on the English market for the last 12 months has been round about 70/- a cwt., and that is without any tariff. That is the price that the Irish farmer would get for his butter were Cumann na nGaedheal sitting here. If they were sitting here, he would get 70/- a cwt. instead of 136/-. Those are facts that Deputies opposite like to close their eyes to. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot have the consumer, as they call him, buying farm produce at less than the cost of production and at the same time have protection given to industries here. The farmer is just as much entitled to protection as the industrialist and so far as we are concerned, he has got to get it. I do not wish to delay the House too long. Deputy Belton, apparently, is becoming a little converted, if I might put it that way. He was not so sure as he was a few months ago, nor is he so noisy. The trouble that we are faced with at present is that we have a Party over there who are so mixed up that none of them is responsible for the sins of the Party that was there before them. They will accept no responsibility. Deputy Belton says: "I am not responsible for the sins of Cumann na nGaedheal; I only joined them last month." Deputy Dillon comes along and says: "I am not responsible for the sins of Cumann na nGaedheal; I was elected as a Centre Party man and I only joined them a few months ago." It is the same with the rest of them and we cannot get any Deputy to stand up there and say that they are accepting responsibility for the hardships that Cumann na nGaedheal inflicted on the country during the ten years they were in office.

Mr. Curran

What has this to do with the Estimate?

Mr. Corry

That is our main difficulty and trouble that we cannot get anybody on the opposite benches to stand up and say, "Well, I joined them; I knew their policy; I knew what it was, but I am not accepting any responsibility for it." We cannot get the Deputies opposite to settle down to any one policy. Are the Deputies opposite prepared to vote against the sum in the Estimate providing for unemployment relief? Are they prepared to go into the lobby and vote against that? Do they want to see the policy continued that was ably enunciated here by Deputy McGilligan a few years ago—"men may die of starvation in this country; the Government are not bound to provide employment for them"?

Mr. Dillon

That statement which Deputy Corry has attributed to Deputy McGilligan has been contradicted conclusively four times in this House, and, to my own recollection, twice in the presence of Deputy Corry. Deputies have been forced to apologise for attributing that statement, wrongly attributing it, to Deputy McGilligan. Now, Deputy Corry attempts to make the statement again. He has tried again to drag it in by a back-door. I repeat that the allegation is false.

Mr. Briscoe

I have on several occasions read those extracts from the speech of Deputy McGilligan from the Official Debates of the House, and I never withdrew them privately or publicly, and I stand over what Deputy Corry has stated.

Mr. Dillon

The statement is absolutely false, and Deputy Briscoe was compelled on one occasion when he read that extract to read the words following:

"Some people might say that, but the Deputy and I are agreed that is not a doctrine to which we could subscribe."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is nothing to prevent Deputies from construing in their own fashion what any other Deputy says.

Mr. Corry

I have on repeated occasions——

Mr. McGuire

Misquoted.

Mr. Corry

——studied very carefully those words and I have quoted them exactly as they appear in the Official Report.

Mr. Briscoe

Better get away from that now.

Mr. Corry

I neither withdraw nor apologise for them. That was then the policy that went on. Are Deputies prepared to stand over that policy to-day? No. You are converted now and therefore you are not prepared to vote against the sum provided here for the relief of unemployment. You are not prepared to vote against that estimate. We are providing employment for our people in this country. Our policy is going ahead as fast as we can force it ahead, and thanks to John Bull it is going ahead faster than we expected it. There is not a week that I come up here that I have not at least one or two or three proposals which are providing extra employment or extra work for my people. If Deputies opposite would only give a little assistance in that line instead of being over there moaning and groaning and wailing in a regular house of tears from morning until night it would be better. When one sees one of these fellows getting up one is forced to walk out. I am not naturally depressed but when listening to so many of these people one wonders. It takes a lot to depress me but when one hears speeches from those opposite one gets half mournful even though one knows they do not mean a word of what they say——

Mr. O'Leary

Deputy Corry is judging them by himself.

Mr. Corry

I know that as far as Deputy O'Leary is concerned he does not mean one single word of what he says.

Mr. O'Leary

The people of North Cork are not of that opinion. I challenge Deputy Corry or any member of his Party to meet me anywhere in North Cork any time and to thresh it out.

Mr. Corry

Deputy O'Leary had an opportunity 12 months ago of testing the views of the people of North Cork and the people of North Cork sent in two Fianna Fáil Deputies here and one Deputy O'Leary.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is not a word about North Cork in this Estimate.

Mr. Corry

I regret I have to answer these interruptions. We cannot test the feelings of the people every week according to the anticipations of the Deputies opposite, but they have got the result. As far as this Estimate is concerned I have to say this, that if Deputies opposite can pick out any portion of it to which they object, let them pick it out and let us hear about it. I have singled out one of the largest items in the Estimate and I asked them if they objected to that, but they are prepared to spend that much extra now. They are prepared to do what the Cumann na nGaedheal Government would not do. Having converted them to the extent of agreeing to provide something to help the unemployed, I think I may say that we have gone a long way towards converting them and I am sure that in four or five years' time they will have gone the rest of the way towards their conversion. I would say from what I see of him that Deputy Belton is the most intelligent one of them over there. Bad as the best of them. I think from the appearance of Deputy Belton that he has been converted a long part of the road and I am sure we will have the rest of them later on. I am very pleased to support the Estimate here. If Deputies opposite would say what portion of the Estimates they object to, we might be able to go part of the way to meet them.

Mr. Dillon

I love listening to Deputy Corry. I hope he will take it as no disrespect to him to say that I regard him as the Fianna Fáil cat. He is always getting out of the bag and some of his colleagues are struggling to get him back again into the bag. Last night I saw Deputy O'Dowd getting up and saying that a statement made by Deputy Corry was a most monstrous and scurrilous one. That was what the Deputy said of the statement made by Deputy Corry. An effort was made to put that cat back into the bag. It was not put into the bag without a great deal of struggling, mewing and scratching and I am sure there will be a lot more scratching when Deputy O'Dowd comes back and finds that Deputy Corry has said that so far as Fianna Fáil is concerned the cattle industry is done for. I wonder what Deputy Victory will say to that when he goes back to Longford and tells the farmers of that part of the country that the cattle industry is done for.

Mr. Victory

The farmers will listen to Deputy Victory.

Mr. Dillon

I wonder what the farmers in his constituency could think when they are told that their cattle industry is dead and gone. Will Deputy Corry go down there and tell them that? Deputy Corry is a muscular man. But will he deliver that message? He is a man who can run fast, but it would be well for him to have that gift when he has made that communication to the small farmers of Connaught. It is interesting to know now that the Fianna Fáil Party has definitely decided that the cattle industry of this country is to be wiped out. That is now on record and every honest Fianna Fáil Deputy should go down to his constituency this week-end and tell them that the Government has decided that the cattle industry is to be wiped out. Even Deputy Gibbons may have some difficulty in persuading the farmers of Kilkenny to swallow that.

Mr. Gibbons

Deputy Dillon's solitude for Deputy Gibbons is extremely touching.

Mr. Dillon

I expected a cordial reaction from the Deputy. I want to say a word with reference to the mention which Deputy Corry made to a speech which he alleged Deputy McGilligan, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, made in this House. He implied that Deputy McGilligan stated that it was not a part of the duty of the Government to provide work and that if men could not get work they could starve as far as the Government were concerned. The statement, of course, is patently false. He never made any such allegation. He said, in the course of his speech, that it was not part of the duty of the Government to provide work for everybody. Somebody interjected: "Then you would let them starve." I think Deputy McGilligan replied: "If you cannot provide work, they must starve. Some people might say that but the Deputy and I are agreed that that is a doctrine to which we could not subscribe." That is what Deputy McGilligan said and the endeavour has been made time and time again to place a different construction on his words. It is nearly time that that cheap fraudulent libel should be dropped because nobody believes it and it only reflects discredit on the Deputies who try to revive it.

Mr. Briscoe

Why not get the volume and read it yourself?

Mr. Dillon

Get it yourself. Deputy Corry and the Minister for Industry and Commerce wound up with a flourish: "Indicate to us," they say, "something in those Estimates which you desire to have reduced." There is one particularly striking item in No. 18. I remember the edification with which I used to read the speeches of Deputy MacEntee, as he then was. When the annual Estimate for the secret service came up Deputy MacEntee, as he then was, used to say: "£10,000 for spying on our fellow countrymen; Oh, noisome bribe; oh, horrible thought." That was a hardy annual. He used to get up and wring tears out of his handkerchief at the horrible demoralisation to which Cumann na nGaedheal had brought this country when they spent £10,000 per year spying on their fellow countrymen. The last year Cumann na nGaedheal was in office, hey actually spent £2,700 of the annual appropriation of £10,000 on the secret service. This year Fianna Fáil proposes to appropriate two and a half times as much money for the secret service as Cumann na nGaedheal ever did. What do they want it for? Is it for spying on their fellow countrymen? Is it for discovering plots amongst Waterford farmers to withhold rates?

Mr. Morrissey

Glasgow.

Mr. Dillon

Is it for an endeavour to find arms in 23, St. Stephen's Green, or is it to pay compensation to people who are prepared to say that they found arms in St. Stephen's Green?

Mr. Briscoe

That is a gentlemanly suggestion.

Mr. Dillon

After all, when somebody says to another, "You planted arms here," if that allegation were false, it is sedition. Somebody was charged with having stated that, and a competent court of jurisdiction in this country said it was no sedition to have said so. I wonder is there a part of that £25,000 going to soothe the ruffled feelings of the individual to whom that remark was addressed. £25,000 for Fianna Fáil secret service! Whom are they going to spy upon? Whom do they want to spy upon? We all know they have got their spies. We all know they have their spies in the ranks of our organisation. They are welcome to them. If the poor spies can turn an honest penny spying in our offices they are heartily welcome. They will have a soft job, except in one particular—that their ingenuity will be tested compiling information in order to ensure their retention in the service of the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Finance. Because a spy will not get his money if he does not carry stories, and if there are no stories to be carried, the spy will lose his job. So, when there are no stories to carry, when everything is open and above board, the spy invents stories. And when you have an hysterical Government in office, supported by an hysterical Party, the paid spy can get his invented stories believed, and you have prosecutions and proclamations and Coercion Bills and all the rest of the paraphernalia of the poor old bewildered British Government in this country. You have President de Valera and the present Minister for Finance following solemnly in the weary footsteps of the Marquis of Salisbury and "Buckshot" Forster, dragged by the nose by the lineal descendants of the same people who dragged by Salisbury and "Buckshot" Forster into the morass of Irish coercion and paid spies. They are paying their spies with our money. They are paying their spices with the proceeds of the Local Services (Temporary Economies) Bill which is passing through the House at present. That is one item which I suggest to Deputy Corry is capable of reduction and I have no doubt he agrees with me.

Now, I will tell him another item. There is an item here of £2,250,000 for bounties. That item can be got rid of in the morning. If President de Valera wants to settle the economic war he can settle it as well as, or better, than any other man who can sit in that seat. He can settle it without compromising the honour of this country by a hair's breadth. He can settle it without yielding a single item in the rights of this country. He can settle it with honour and he can recover the despised British market for our products, free of penal duties. That will provide for another £2,250,000.

Mr. Briscoe

How could he settle it?

Mr. Dillon

He can settle it in many ways. He can settle it by the exercise of common sense. He can settle it if he sits down for one hour and exercises a quality that a lot of us thought he had at one time and that a lot of us are beginning to suspect now that he has not, after listening to him for two and a half hours last Thursday and Friday. If he has not common sense, I have no doubt the Minister for Finance will intervene to provide that material. Far be it from me to say in his courteous presence that he is bereft of common sense. He has so many other attractive qualities that we will assume that that is constructively present without going any further.

I want to say a special word about another reduction that Deputy Corry could make in the Estimates. Did he look at No. 57 where there is an increase of £104,000 in the Estimate for Industry and Commerce? Why? Because the country is crawling with inspectors. In the words of the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, they are creating hordes of them every month and the Deputy knows it. There were never more inspectors, there were never more junior civil servants in this country than there are now. They are swelling the ranks every week. The Deputy remembers the time when he was making the welkin ring in East Cork about the extravagance of Cumann na nGaedheal in having hordes of inspectors swarming all over the country that we did not want. There is no comparison between the regiment of inspectors of Cumann na nGaedheal and the army corps of Fianna Fáil. Where there were hundreds before there are thousands now. At the same time that we are appointing extra men we are reducing their salaries. And the Deputy asks me how are we going to reduce these Estimates!

I pass now from the Deputy and perhaps I was not wise to spend so much time on him. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, I have no hesitation in saying, without the slightest desire to be offensive, has the most brazen exterior of any man in the public life of this country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce would say anything, anywhere, any time, if it suited his purpose.

Mr. Corry

You would lead the Minister a whole length.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister flourished the Estimates to-day, and he said that the Estimates last year were £27,918,000. This year they are £29,000,000 odd. He said that that is only an increase of about £1,700,000; but, he said: "We are going to provide £4,000,000 for local loans, £1,500,000 for unemployment relief, and we have increased the Estimates under a number of other benevolent heads," which, he says, more than offsets the increases. In fact, he says, these Estimates are lower than those of our predecessors or those of last year. Now the Minister knows, and the Minister for Finance knows, that to say that is a deliberate perversion of the facts. It is worse, because it is a half-truth. It is the kind of equivocation calculated to deceive the more innocent of President de Valera's supporters. Last year, when the Estimates were published, in a leaflet similar to that circulated last night, there appeared on the cover, under the heading of the total Estimate for 1933-34 the figure of £22,039,951.

Mr. MacEntee

Last night!

Mr. Dillon

No, last year. In round figures it was about £22,000,000 or £23,000,000. This year, when the same document is circulated, there appears in the same place the sum of £29,709,000. That represents an increase of £7,000,000 on the Estimates. I do not deny that it is only right to offset the £4,000,000 for Local Loans, because that, undoubtedly, is an item of capital expenditure which will be coming back to us in time. Nevertheless, you must keep these things in fair comparison. The fact of it is that the same Estimates this year stand at £29,000,000 odd that stood at £22,000,000 or £23,000,000 last year. To this Estimate of expenditure must be added the Central Fund expenditure which amounts to £6,000,000.

Mr. MacEntee

£5,700,000.

Mr. Dillon

To that must be added any Supplementary Estimates the Minister may introduce during the year, and it must be remembered that last year he introduced Supplementary Estimates to the tune of £5,000,000.

Mr. MacEntee

Which explains the discrepancy.

Mr. Dillon

That is just a typical Fianna Fáil fallacy. They say: "We will employ 84,000 men if you give us a chance." We give them the chance and then they say: "Ah, there was a slight discrepancy. You thought we were going to do it at once, but we mean to do it in the course of a lifetime." Now we are told that the £5,000,000 is all really included in the Estimates this year, and I have no doubt that the Minister, if he had time to look up his speech of last year, would find that he said something of a similar nature then. I know he is shocked when I suggest that there is anything in the nature of deception in the attitude he adopted. Nevertheless, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that last year the Estimate was £23,000,000 odd and this year it is £29,000,000 odd. We do not know what Supplementary Estimates he will present during the year. If they are on the same scale as last year, that Supply Services Estimate will be £34,000,000.

Mr. T. Kelly

The more the merrier.

Mr. Dillon

Wait a minute. That is another cat in the Fianna Fáil bag. He hops out of the bag sometimes too. The Estimate, as I say, will be £34,000,000 and, with the Central Fund added to it, you will find that it will be £39,000,000, and Deputy Tom Kelly, the second Fianna Fáil cat who leaps out of the bag every now and again, says: "The more the merrier."

Mr. T. Kelly

Sure.

Mr. Dillon

And this country is expected to stand it. This country is expected to accept that from an Administration that got into office on the representation that they were going to reduce national expenditure by at least £2,000,000 a year without interfering with social services or reducing the salaries of anybody.

Mr. Briscoe

They got in twice.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, is it not astonishing? I quite agree.

Mr. Corry

You will be more astonished the next time.

Mr. Dillon

Is it not amazing—the courage and the audacity of the members of that Party, who can go down to the country, after wrapping the Fianna Fáil programme around them of employing 84,000 men in six months and reducing national expenditure by £2,000,000—that they can go back and with one hand lay down 100,000 unemployed and with the other hand lay down a national expenditure of £39,000,000?

Mr. Briscoe

£34,000,000.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, if you have no Supplementary Estimates this year. You said that you were going to employ 84,000 men—84,601 to be precise—I do not know where the "one" comes in; I suppose that is the one that has been left in charge of the Naas factory.

Mr. Briscoe

I will deal with that afterwards, and I will deal with Deputy Dillon's tea.

Mr. Dillon

Right enough, he is in a job. He is a caretaker, or is he an operative worker? I hope that Deputy Corish will take care of him in the Operative Workers' Union. As I was saying, is it not amazing what they have got away with so far? For how long, I wonder? That disposes of the Estimates position, and the House will understand me when I say that, if they accept the Minister's undertaking that there will be no Supplementary Estimates comparable with the Supplementary Estimates of last year, my idea is that the total expenditure is going to be in the nature of £34,000,000 or £35,000,000. If, as I suggested, it is quite possible that there will be large Supplementary Estimates brought in under various heads, as there may be, we may be face to face with a Bill at the end of this year of something in the nature of £39,000,000. That would not be so bad if you did not turn to the trade returns which the Minister for Industry and Commerce quoted so eloquently and at such great length to-day. Let us deal with them. The trade of this country consists of imports and exports—that is its external trade—and we remember when the external trade of this country was over £100,000,000 and when the adverse trade balance was about £11,000,000. At that juncture, Deputy MacEntee, as he then was, got up and said that sometimes his heart stood still in contemplation of the disaster which was just around the corner, and that if this business went on it would inevitably mean that we would be driven straight on to the rocks and that the ship of State would founder. Our external trade to-day has fallen to a figure of little more than £56,000,000 a year, if it is that much, and our adverse trade balance is £16,000,000 That was the last figure published. When that figure of £16,000,000 of an adverse trade balance was published, the total exports for the same 12 months were £19,000,000, so that when our export trade was £48,000,000, and our adverse trade balance £11,000,000, the Minister's heart nearly stopped. But, when our export trade dropped to £19,000,000, and our adverse trade balance had risen to £16,000,000, apparently the only effect it has on the Minister is to make him hysterical. He has lost all regard for trade now, and what in the past was a presage of disaster, we are now told by his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is an indication of prosperity; so that with our trade practically gone, our exports falling steadily, and our adverse trade balance rising steadily, our expenditure is going to rise at the same time. Yet Deputy Corry gets up and says: "It is all grand"; and Deputy T. Kelly says: "The more the merrier;" but the Minister for Finance smiles rather sourly through it all. The Minister for Industry and Commerce undertook to instruct us all to-night in political economy and in national economics.

"I want to tell the House," he said,

"that if we could find a coal mine in this country that would produce £3,000,000 worth of coal, we could reduce our exports of agricultural produce by £3,000,000, because we could dig up the coal and we would be £6,000,000 richer."

Is not that lovely economics? Is it not magnificent economics?

Mr. Lemass

What is wrong with them?

Mr. Dillon

It reminds me of the economics that dictated the Fianna Fáil policy on land annuities.

Mr. Lemass

What is wrong with them?

Mr. Dillon

We told the people we were going to save them the land annuities, but between one thing and another, the retention of the land annuities has cost about £8,000,000 yearly, so that we are left with the consoling problem of substracting eight from five and the answer is Fianna Fáil prosperity. It is like the riddle about the travelling train; when you have made out all the calculations you are asked the colour of the engine driver's beard. In this case we are told that if we raised our £3,000,000 worth of coal from the ground and if we did not export £3,000,000 worth of agricultural produce, we would be £6,000,000 the richer. Does Deputy Briscoe believe that?

Mr. Briscoe

I will tell the Deputy afterwards. I will prove it.

Mr. Dillon

I now want to deal with perhaps the most daring escapade of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He got the trade statistics and fervently prayed that no one else had got them. He read them. But some one was good enough to go out and bring them in to me. When the Minister for Industry and Commerce saw them arrive, he dropped trade statistics and took up Estimates. I want to prove, he said, that the situation is getting better and better, that in January this country was much better in exports of cattle, horses and butter than in January, 1933. I want Deputies to pay very careful attention to this, because it is most illuminating. Our Exports of cattle in January, 1933, were 35,832 head, and in 1934 41,902 head. In 1933 we received £446,366 for cattle and for 6,000 head more in 1934 we received £368,022, so that we received £80,000 less in 1934 for 6,000 more cattle. Is not that great evidence of increasing prosperity? Now we turn to horses. In the same month in 1933 we exported 297 horses, for which we received £47,000, and in 1934 we exported 551 horses, for which we received £75,000. We find that there is a small drop in the quantity of butter, but prices were approximately the same. There is a very material decrease in the export of eggs. In fact, if you go down the lists you will find, compared with last year even, that there is a very material decrease.

Let us go back to find out what were the conditions the month before we had the blessing of a Fianna Fáil Government; the last month that we lived deprived of that extraordinary blessing. Our trade in January, 1934, was £4,432,000 and the adverse trade balance was £1,650,000 in that month. In January, 1932, the adverse trade balance was £1,203,000, so that our adverse trade balance for one month was increased by £450,000. Our trade in that particular month is reduced by about £150,000. Our exports in that particular month are down by about £1,000,000. If you chose to go back month after month you will find that each month, during the last 12 months, as compared with the previous 12 months Cumann na nGaedheal was in office, it is down in some cases in one month by £2,000,000. Is it not a glorious record? Is it not striking evidence of the increasing prosperity of this country? Yet the Minister for Industry and Commerce had the effrontery to get up and tell us that things are getting better. He asked: What are the indications of improving trade? Greater consumption of tea, greater consumption of sugar, greater consumption of tobacco, greater consumption of motors. He stated every one of these things with his tongue in his cheek. No man knows better than the Minister for Industry and Commerce that, while there is a larger quantity of tea coming into the country, it is of very inferior quality. The average cost of tea coming into the country during the past year has fallen by about 1/7.

Mr. MacEntee

Has not the average price of tea fallen?

Mr. Dillon

Yes.

Mr. MacEntee

The world over.

Mr. Dillon

Certainly not. What is happening is that lower-grade tea is being consumed. The trend of the tea market for the past six months has been strongly upward. The trend of Irish tea consumption has been steadily falling from grade to grade. There was a time when the tea buyers of Mincing Lane used to say when they found that good tea came forward in the sale: "That is Irish tea. We could not buy it for consumption in England at all. They always want the best tea in Ireland." Tip-top tea came to be known in Mincing Lane as "Irish tea." Now, the Irish people have been reduced to drinking the same quality of tea that is sold in the poorer quarters of London. It may be argued that they are consuming more tea. They probably are. It takes more tea at 1/8 or 1/6 per lb. to make a pot of tea than it does of tea at 3/4 or 3/8 per lb. The Minister said that the consumption of sugar is going up. I do not know where he gets his figures. I am not prepared to contest them. His statement may be true, but I do not know what it indicates. All I can say is that sugar is, perhaps, one of the cheapest of foods. It is not going to be the cheapest in future, when the Minister has put his penny per lb. on it in order to float the four white elephants he brought into the world. His activity as an accoucheur of elephants is going to be a very expensive business for this country. There was a time when sugar was one of the cheapest foods the poor could buy. One would expect that, in times of stress and anxiety, the consumption of sugar would rise.

As regards tobacco, everybody knows that unemployment is the best friend the tobacco manufacturers have. An idle man will smoke far more than an employed man. He has more time to do it. That is well known. If the Minister will look at the speech of the chairman of the Imperial Tobacco Company, about two years ago, he will find that he commented on the fact, where you have unemployed men hanging about, they will smoke more——

Mr. MacEntee

Unemployed men with plenty of money.

Mr. Dillon

Nobody will grudge them the consolation of a smoke if they are standing at a street corner or waiting in a labour exchange queue to get a job. How they get the tobacco, I am not concerned to inquire. It is a source of satisfaction to the Minister and to everybody else that, under modern social conditions, we are in a position to make trifling comforts of that kind available to them. No one is more ready than I to acknowledge this, with appreciation, the principle underlying the Unemployment Relief Bill. The first time mention of that principle was heard in this House was on the motion introduced by Deputy Morrissey calling for work or maintenance for the unemployed. I stand for that principle. The Minister stands for it. It is a pleasure to have found common ground. Out of that position and such social services as we have the unemployed did get tobacco. Wherever you have men suffering under great mental stress the consumption of tobacco will arise. Where is there a farmer, large or small, in this country who is not suffering great mental stress? Consequently, the consumption of tobacco rises. These are no indications of rising prosperity.

The Minister went on to say that the importation of motor cars has increased. Nobody knows better than the Minister why that is so. He changed the duty on motor cars three times in the year 1932. There was a new motor car duty on every time we came into the House. No man knew whether, if he bought a motor car on Monday, the Minister for Finance would not take £50 off the price on Tuesday or whether if he placed his order for a car there might not be £75 put on to the price before delivery. The result was that you had a great number of orders held back and that you had a large number of motor cars purchased in 1933 which would normally have been purchased in 1932. You have an abnormal importation of motor cars in 1933 but it is trifling with the intelligence of Deputies who are living in the country and moving amongst the people, attending fairs week after week.

Mr. MacEntee

I shall give the Deputy another example. The import of clocks and watches has increased considerably. What is the significance of that?

Mr. Dillon

I suppose no Party in this country has ever thumped the tub more about red tape, the civil service mind and the Merrion Street outlook than the Fianna Fáil Party. Is not that the Merrion Street outlook? Imagine going up to a farmer who has brought two bullocks to the fair and is offered £7 for the pair, striking him on the back and saying, "My dear fellow, make no mistake, you are much better off than you were last year. You have been importing more clocks and watches." That is the perfect Merrion Street mind.

Mr. MacEntee

He is able to pay for them out of his two bullocks.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister shuts his eyes to the condition of his own neighbours, as they can be seen if he goes down the country any day. Then he tosses off an observation about the importation of clocks and watches. Is that not enough to show how completely remote from reality this Government is? They have become so absorbed in their figures, statistics, calculations, schemes, and plans that do not come off that they have entirely forgotten the ruin and destruction that is coming on the country while they are planning and scheming. Another jewel was contributed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He said: "There are some ignorant Deputies who imagine that increased estimates mean increased taxation. Not at all. We shall borrow." That is like the man who longed for a cheque book so that he might write cheques and hand them out among all his friends. He noticed that all the rich fellows had cheques and that they could hand them out ad nausea. Unfortunately, he discovered, when he stole his neighbour's cheque book and started writing cheques, that they all came back. The Minister says: “We shall go out and borrow.” Sometimes it is not easy to borrow. The Government tried to borrow £6,000,000 and all they got was a couple of hundred thousand.

Mr. MacEntee

Not at all.

Mr. Dillon

After great whipping and gouging, they got £1,000,000. After going throught the law courts and every place in which they could put their hands on sixpence, they screwed the figure up to £3,000,000. Then, they went to the banks and said: "You have got to put up the rest."

Mr. Moore

The price of the loan is 99½.

Mr. Dillon

Let us not go into that.

Mr. MacEntee

Of course not.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy wants me to go into that. There is a little item here under the heading of "Remuneration for the cost of the management of Government stocks." Did the Deputy ever hear of the various operations that can be carried on under the head of "Management of Government stocks"?

Mr. MacEntee

It has nothing to do with that, good, bad or indifferent.

Mr. Dillon

It may not be done under that Estimate.

Mr. MacEntee

It is not done under any estimate.

Mr. Dillon

I do not want to disparage the Minister's credit. The Government's credit is on the hazard, and the value is put upon it——

Mr. MacEntee

It stands higher than ever.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister will agree that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is mistaken when he imagines you can go out, straight away, and raise money by borrowing, and that he is doubly mistaken when he says that borrowing money does not increase taxation. It does; and the taxes will have to be paid by the Irish people; the Irish farmers will have to pay them. Sooner or later these moneys must be paid—the interest on the loan, quite apart from the capital. Every penny borrowed will have to be paid. Let no Deputy think that in authorising the Government to plunge into this sea of expenditure there is an easy way out by borrowing. There is not. You have to pay for your borrowed money and that will add to the taxation of the country for years to come. I want to say one last word upon this Estimate. Does anybody remember what the President said when he was talking about the capacity of this country to bear taxation? He then said we are practically sending £5,000,000 a year to England. For every £1 Ireland can afford England can afford £66. That is a proportion of 66 to one. That means that we have to send to England the equivalent of £349,000,000 per annum. I ask Deputies on the Government Benches to multiply that £349,000,000 by 66 and they will find that this assumes the amount of an annual burden of taxation, taking the President's figures, amounting to something like £2,310,000,000 per annum—an amount equal to the entire British national debt, and Deputy Tom Kelly says "the more the merrier."

Deputy Corry says the farmers of this country are much better off under Fianna Fáil than they would be in any other country, and Deputy Corish and the Labour Party sit back quite futile. I cannot but think that sometimes they wonder, scratch their heads and say: "It is nice to take part in spending a sum which is equivalent to £2,310,000,000. But it cannot go on for ever. Yet, let us be merry while we may." If the members of that Party were less abstemious than I know them to be, I might remind them of the unpleasant consequences of the morning after the night before. You cannot be merry, I think, where you pay so terrible a price, and this country is going to have a very bad morning after the night before if it goes on spending on a basis of £2,310,000,000 per annum. That is the situation with which this country is face to face and it is well that we should consider it.

I want to ask two or three questions. Why does the Minister for Finance find it necessary to increase the Secret Service Vote? He has got the money. I know he will not answer my question. But I feel there are scrupulous Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party who hate to think of the employment of men to spy upon their fellow men and who will insist on knowing who has got this money. Somebody has got it. I see there is an increase in the Gárda Síochána Vote. If every new member taken into the Gárda Síochána is as good as the members of the rank and file which they have come to join, I have no complaint. But I want to make this complaint: The Minister for Justice has put it across me in the last three months by posting a policeman behind every door in this Dáil. I object to that. It is now three months since this House began to crawl with members of the Civic Guard—plain clothes and uniformed men, and so with other buildings. What they are doing there God only knows. I think they would be much more usefully employed somewhere else.

I will not refer to the Circuit Courts now, because that will more properly arise on the Estimates themselves. But I join with Deputy F. Lynch in protesting against the reduction in the Gaeltacht Services under every head. It is a public scandal, considering the housing activities of the Minister, that when there are hundreds of applications from people in the Gaeltacht there is no money to go on with building operations there. We are told the Government is straining at the leash to give out money and here is a place where they could profitably employ thousands of pounds and instead of that the Gaeltacht Services are cut. Yet we are told that this Government is solicitous for the promotion of the Irish language and for the protection of the Gaeltacht. It is a public scandal in this state of affairs that we should have an increased Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce of £104,000 this year. That arises from the creation of the licensing system which at present prevails in that Department and which I have had to deal with on more than one occasion. But I feel it would be unworthy of the occasion now to go into that matter in the absence of the Minister. I hope, later on, to open up the whole question and to examine it carefully. I propose to say no more now in regard to that or in regard to the inflated Estimate for the Minister's Department.

We have an increase of £240,000 for the Army. We heard to-day what it was for. We often heard in years past, Deputy MacEntee as he then was, telling members of the Fianna Fáil Party that the expenditure on the Army was due to extravagance in the administration of the Army. Now the Government have the administration of the Army in their own hands; they are determined to make the most of it. If they were spending it on our own National Army for its own development and increasing its perfection it could be defended, but they are not. I see there is provision made for the repayment of the Dáil Eireann External Loan, but the provision is only £12,000. Surely there is more of the Loan outstanding than £12,000.

Mr. MacEntee

This is not a Supply Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

There is provision made for the repayment of Dáil Eireann External Loan. Will that be borne on the Central Fund?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes, it is a Central Fund service.

Mr. Dillon

I see. It is a little nest-egg. The Central Fund will be swollen by that amount.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy will have to wait and see. I regret to say that after two years' experience of the House he has not yet appreciated that fact.

Mr. Dillon

I quite well appreciate the procedure but it might be interesting to the House to know what this £12,000 is going to be spent on at present.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy will have to wait for the information.

Mr. Dillon

A little in advance would be worth having.

Mr. MacEntee

It would not be in order.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister observes the rules of order with scrupulous care on an occasion like this. I want to finish on one note. I think that every Deputy on those benches ought to carry this home and consider it well: remember that it is not only treason but heresy to contest the truth of anything that President de Valera said says. Begin with that. Remember this: that President de Valera said that for every pound of taxation that our people can bear the British people can bear £66. Beware of treason and beware of heresy, and remember that the Budget of the gentleman who used to be the economical Deputy MacEntee, the man who was going to reduce public expenditure by £2,000,000 per annum in this country—by the equivalent of £132,000,000—is going to introduce a Budget this year to finance national expenditure which, on President de Valera's own computation, is the equivalent of £2,310,000,000. Take that home, think it over and go down and ask your constituents what do they think of Fianna Fáil promises.

Mr. MacEntee

I move: That the question be now put.

Mr. Keating rose.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am accepting that motion.

Mr. Keating

I want to reply to some of the statements made this evening by the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Mr. MacEntee

May I suggest to the Deputy that he will have ample opportunity of doing so to-morrow on the Second Stage of the Central Fund Bill?

An Ceann Comhairle

Is it agreed that the main question be now put?

Agreed.

Question put and agreed to.

Mr. T. Kelly

It is passed now and not a word out of them.

Mr. Anthony

Because we wanted to facilitate the Minister.

Mr. Dillon

I think that Deputy Kelly's interjection is very uncalled for.

An Ceann Comhairle

I did not hear it.

Mr. Dillon

We made an arrangement with the Minister, and would not depart from it.