Before moving amendment No. 2a I should like to begin by addressing to the Government Benches the question which I asked before, namely, is there not enough undetected crime and are there not enough criminals in this country already without this Parliament of ours being engaged, day after day, in the attempt to create a new class of crime and inviting at least the creation of a new set of criminals in this country? I put down this amendment asking for exemption of the blue shirt or blouse of the Fine Gael organisation, the organisation that carries out the teachings of Fine Gael. I put down this amendment asking for the exemption of the blue shirt or blouse, not in any hope that it would be granted, not in any hope that a majority of this House would be found in favour of that amendment, but in order to bring out quite clearly the intention in this Bill, that it is a Bill designed for the simple purpose of victimising political opponents and impeding the political machinery of the Opposition Party in this country. The Minister for Justice, in introducing this Bill, to an extent told us that. He told us that, in fact, this Bill was aimed at the Blue Shirts; that it was framed and introduced for the purpose of making illegal the wearing of blue shirts. I say that the reason why that is done is not because the Blue Shirt organisation is militarily dangerous but because the Blue Shirt organisation is politically successful and that this Bill is introduced not to save the State but to save the Fianna Fáil Party from political extermination.
There was some little chance last September when the first lash of the Government whip fell on the backs of the members of that organisation. There was some little hope then that the general public, that the decent men or women outside politics and looking on impartially, might be satisfied that there was some real reason, that there was some military method, that there was some menace to the State in this organisation. But the months and the days which have come and gone since have clearly proved to any impartial man, to any decent man or woman that there is nothing menacing to the State in the Blue Shirt organisation; that, on the contrary, one of the factors of which this State could be proud—no matter what Government sits over there —is the fibre and mentality of the types that go to make up the Blue Shirt organisation. Many months have passed since the first Government ban was placed on that organisation and since the first Government bogey was started throughout the country. Propaganda to the effect that we were contemplating a coup d'état, that we were a military organisation with ex-soldiers and young civilians, importing arms and distributing arms and with the intention of putting over there, by the aid of arms, a Government for this country. At the time we could only emphatically contradict that and emphatically deny that. But now we are in the position not only of denying that but we are in the position of pointing to our records, pointing to our teachings and challenging the Minister over there to produce a single utterance, one statement, one line of print to justify that assertion so recklessly advanced last September. Every document, every letter written, every instruction issued, every pamphlet sent from the organisation is in the custody of the Minister for Justice. Every document, every letter was taken over by his agents in the course of the various raids that took place on our premises. I might suggest to the Minister for Justice that there was no necessity for any of these raids. There was no necessity for any of this panic-mongering. On the very first day that the Army Comrades' Association was established we invited the police to come to every meeting. We invited them to come into the office day after day. We invited them to go through our files. We invited them to see the letters in and the letters out every day. We stated clearly that the one thing we aimed at was publicity, and that whatever we did, whether it was popular or unpopular, would be done in the light of God's sunshine, that whatever we did, whether legal or illegal, would be done openly and that the documents would be there to see what we were standing over. There was no necessity for raiding, either by day or by night. All the material that entered that office, or went out from that office, from the first day the organisation came into being, is in the custody of the Minister for Justice. What material did he get to justify the coup d'état talk of last September? What material did he get to justify the false statement that was hurled at us, that we were plotting an armed revolt in this country? The ammunition he got to justify that was exhibited in his few mumbling sentences to-day, when he had not a word to say in defence of this guillotined motion, when he had no material to produce, and not one scrap of evidence to justify all the slander that was hurled at us last September.
Does not every Deputy know, whether sitting on these benches or on the benches opposite, that if he had got one little scrap of justification for the slander hurled at us last September, no man in this House would be more pleased to get up and hurl it than the present Minister for Justice? We must take his failure to produce any tittle of evidence in support of these charges as an admission of the fact that there was no evidence; that what we said last September was correct, and that what he said was false. So we arrive at the point where, in addition to the Public Safety Act, we must have more legislation. Is it to make the country safe? More legislation to make the country more unsafe, more legislation calculated to succeed where bans failed, more legislation calculated to succeed in driving numbers of the Blue Shirt organisation into conflict with servants of the State. From the very first ban, from the calling off of the Cenotaph Parade, every evil attempt has been made to drive the Blue Shirts into conflict with the authorities, to try to provoke the Blue Shirt organisation into open defiance of the law, to force us to follow in their own footsteps.
Thank God, thanks to the courage of those in control, and thanks to the real spirit of democracy that flows in their veins, up to this you have failed, and failed dismally, and the failure to provoke the Blue Shirt organisation into revolt has brought tens of thousands flocking to our standard. Now, because of that success, because of rapidly increasing political strength, we are to have another Bill to make the shirts on our backs illegal. The Bill is introduced and is accompanied by the same old bogies, that it is a militaristic movement, that it is a movement along military lines, and that there is something dangerous, something anti-State about the whole thing. Alongside of that organisation we have another organisation that declares openly and, I must say, honestly and courageously, its intention to overthrow this State by force of arms. It declares in very clear and simple language in its publication, which can be bought for twopence, that the aims it intends to use are—
(1) force of arms, (2) to organise, train and equip the manhood of Ireland as an efficient military force, (3) to assist, as directed by the army authorities, all organisations working for the same object.
We have no legislation aimed at that organisation, and we have no bogey created with regard to State instability or the danger of the use of arms. But when we have an organisation to wean the people away from the other type of organisation, to show them that there is something grand and noble in standing for their own State, no matter who rules it, that, after all, it is the only country any of us have, that we may as well be proud of it as ashamed of it, that we may as well build it up as tear it down, when we have, for the first time, an organisation preaching service to the State, pride in our own State, and opposition to anything aimed as a menace to the State, we have all the bitterness, and all the penalties that should apply to a criminal organisation. We have all the ferocity of the Government machine levelled at us, to try to provoke us to take the path of crime, to take the path opposed to the State.
We have all that going on under the government of a man who invites us to put on the brown habit of St. Francis. I hate humbug at any time. I detest humbug when it is associated with the name of a saint. Instead of inviting us to put on the brown habit of St. Francis, it would be well if those on the benches opposite would cultivate the mentality of St. Francis, and have a little Christianity and a little charity, when dealing with those even politically opposed to them. We have all these utterances about the brown garb of St. Francis intermixed with a slander that was never uttered by any member of the Fine Gael organisation, and that I think none of us ever heard even whispered about the country. When we had that emotional opposition to slander, or whispered propaganda, in the same speech, we had levelled at the leader of the Fine Gael organisation, the old slander, the old lie, the old libel, that he stood for the establishment of a dictatorship in this country. If we are going to have no slander in public life, let us have that on all sides. Do not let one side claim the right of exemption from slander, and, in the same statement proceed to hurl a false slander at the leader of the political organisation opposed to them. Is it not about time that particular slander was worn out? Is it not about time to manufacture something else, or to think of some other slander? Wolf, wolf! That particular cock will not fight now. It served its purpose last September. It is worn out now, and the Minister has not much powers of mental manufacture if he cannot think of something more original than that played out old hare that was run across this Assembly last September.
We have all this talk of militarism in politics. We have talk about an attempt to establish a dictatorship and of an organisation aimed at the overthrow of this State. Might I ask what is the background of the organisation? What is its history? What are its offences since it came into being? What have you got? You have democracy expressed in every publication and in every utterance. You have democracy expressed in every action. You have support for the State, respect for and obedience to the law exhibited in every utterance and in every action, even though that respect for the State, and that obedience to the law, meant the most abject form of humiliation on the part of the members of that organisation. Not once, not twice, but three times in public and with every taunt thrown at them, the members of what is called the Blue Shirt organisation showed that they were not only democrats but that they were democrats of a particularly obedient and law-abiding type. One would think that with all that record, with that public demonstration of their pacific intentions, and repeated exhibitions of their desire, at all events, to live their life within the law, no matter who made that law, this political vindictiveness would cease and that they would be given a chance, as citizens, to live their life within the law. They lived their life within the law—the ordinary law and the extraordinary law, as expressed by the Public Safety Act. But even that will not do. There has to be more legislation. It has got to be made harder for them. They have to be further humiliated. The very shirts are to be torn off their backs, the very banners out of their hands, and the very badges off their coats. For what? Is it because those banners are menacing the State? Is it because those shirts are indicative of armed revolt? While that shirt is being pulled off their backs, while that banner is being taken out of their hands, others are free to march and to parade, to go the road with guns in their pockets. That is the act of an impartial Government! That is the act of a Government which is hypocritical enough to bleat about democracy and freedom while they are putting this type of legislation through the House. The only sign of shame about the whole legislation and its introduction was the silence of the Minister for Justice, his failure to make any attempt even to justify the measure and his anxiety to guillotine it through the House. It would have been decenter if the thing had been done by proclamation. It would have been decenter if it had been done by Order. It is only a humbug to claim a democratic mandate, or Parliamentary sanction for legislation of this kind, introduced into this House and put through by a guillotine motion.
This Bill, as I have said, is likely to have one or two results and it is better to face up to them before it becomes law. Many of you, or all of you, have, like myself, some knowledge of Irish history. Remember that the impulses of a person depend, to a very great extent, on his traditions. Our traditions are traditions of struggle against Government. All our traditions, all our history, are built up of unconstitutional opposition to Government, of armed opposition to Government, at times overboard, at times under the surface. That was necessary when an outsider was framing the laws of this country but that tradition remains and those impulses remain underneath the skin of every one of us. You are dealing with material that it is far easier to throw up into active revolt than it is to lead in a disciplined way behind Government. You should be very careful in a country of people with those traditions what type of legislation you enact. Yet we have this Bill interfering with the moral constitutional opposition. The only result of the Bill will be, or, at least, one of the big dangers of the Bill is, that you will drive a constitutional opposition into unconstitutional paths; not only that, but that you will drive an organisation whose desire and ambition it was to live above ground and to take what action they took in the broad light of day—that you will drive that organisation underground and that you will create, throughout the country, the most widely-flung secret organisation that ever existed here. I am one of those who hold that no matter what the object, no matter how clean and above board the aims that initiated a secret society, in the long run that society, that was driven underground, became a menace. I regard secret societies as a curse and a thing that should not be encouraged in this country of ours. One of the obvious results of this type of legislation is to drive a clean movement underground. Would the members of the Government not think of that as a reasonable and logical result of this kind of legislation? Would the members of the Government not reckon that, even though the Fianna Fáil Party gain momentarily by this type of legislation, the State loses in the long run and the nation loses and that what we have got to do is to wean our people, young and old, away from secret societies, away from working in the dark and so educate them that whatever they have got to do, they will say or do in the broad light of day.
I would feel happier if I were coming in here to stand for a Bill not making shirts or badges or emblems illegal—I should feel happier and feel that you were doing a better day's work if you introduced a Bill compelling all organisations to wear some shirt or some badge. This country would be healthier if every organisation came out in the open, wearing its membership badge—whether it be a Communist, an I.R.A., a Fianna Fáil or a Fine Gael organisation. We should all know where we stood then.
