I move: "That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration." This Estimate presents to the Dáil a much greater opportunity than merely discussing the items embodied in the Estimates. It brings under review by the Dáil the main items of Government policy which affect the country and the first of those in magnitude and importance is the Government's mishandling of the dispute with Great Britain. For a long time we have been hearing about their prospects of winning the war. We were told in the early stages of this conflict that it was already won. Later the victory was postponed for a little while and now, after very nearly two years of the operation of this conflict, we are presented with some tangible results which appear, on the face of them and taken at their money value, to suggest a far greater possibility of victory to those who are in conflict with us than a victory to ourselves.
Practically the whole of the Government propaganda in connection with this dispute from the beginning was prefaced by the statement that they were going to hold sums payable, and having been paid for a number of years, to Great Britain of £5,250,000. I presume that the Government will not deny having paid £250,000 each year since they came into office. In so far as the £250,000 of the £5,250,000 is concerned, it is still being paid and the sum, then, that falls for consideration is £5,000,000 annually. That £5,000,000 was not a perpetual annual charge. It had a life, a limited life. In so far as the land annuities are concerned, amounting to something round about £3,000,000, the annual life of the loan ran from 40 up to 60 years. It is unlikely that any of it would be paid in 60 years' time. In so far as the Local Loans, which amount to £600,000 a year, are concerned, the last payment would fall to be made in about 12 years' time. Pensions, amounting to something over £1,000,000, would gradually drop out and as far as those two items are concerned, the Minister for Finance has capitalised them at a value something like £16,000,000.
The land annuities, which represent the larger item, have been variously estimated. They represent, I think, something like £76,000,000 of land stock and taking a price which, I think, is a fair stock exchange price of £86 per cent., that particular sum amounts to about £65,000,000 in cash. We can assess then the value of the sums in dispute in this particular instance as about £80,000,000. Last year the British Government, although they placed a limitation upon certain exports from this country, was able to secure, according to their own published returns, £4,552,000 and our £80,000,000 debt is then paying an interest charge of something like 5½ per cent. In these days of cheap money it is a very high rate of interest. While the charge, which was there before the Government interfered with it, had a limited life, this particular method of liquidating the liability has a life in perpetuity. This is a conflict between two countries, or, to speak more correctly, a conflict between the Governments of two countries. If one were in the position of being an outsider looking on at the conflict between the two of them, one would find it hard to congratulate either of them on the statesmanship they have shown in connection with the handling of this particular dispute. This very instrument which is issued by the British Government has, on one of its pages, a record of its own capital liabilities. There are also inserted the liabilities which are due to the British Government by other countries. They are very considerable sums, including, on page six, war loans to Dominions and Colonies totalling £113,815,000. In the third last item on the page, item No. 2, the first list of debts that are not funded, there is: "Capital sums owing on the 31st March, 1934—Allied war debts: Russia, £1,181,394,000." There is not one penny interest paid on that money. There is, I believe, what amounts to repudiation. I know nothing about the circumstances, except what one reads in the newspapers. At any rate, there is a sum of money owed by one country to Great Britain, in respect of which there is no accommodation, and perhaps no immediate likelihood of accommodation. From the newspapers we learn that there is no tariff war between those two countries. Whatever their dispute, they are leaving it to time, and perhaps to different men, and perhaps to saner methods, to solve it. On the top of the page we see: "Australia, £79,794,000." For two years past, although the annual arrangement for funding that particular liability amounts to about £5,000,000, not one penny has been paid, but there is no tariff war between those two countries. Australia is in the same position as we are in this country—a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
From the point of view of ordinary statesmanship what particular reason was there for the two Governments in question to place the two countries in a tariff competition one with the other? Was there a particular desire on the part of the two Governments to precipitate a conflict which can do credit to neither one nor the other of them, which has been injuring the trade and industry of both, and which in the long run will be settled, if not with the aid of either of the two Governments, in spite of them? In the meantime, just as in all conflicts which take place between the strong and those that are less strong, the hard knocks have got to be borne by those perhaps least able to bear them. The fault that we find, and that we find apart altogether from any question of politics whatever, is that the Government of Saorstát Eireann appears not to be satisfied with the imposts that there are upon the agricultural industry of this country, which are recorded there in that White Paper as amounting to £4,500,000. It looks as if that were not enough to place on the back of the agricultural industry of this country, but they must add to it. They are adding to it in the way I described here yesterday, when discussing the Vote for the Department of Agriculture. In the first place they have saddled them with £3,000,000 Land Commission annuities; £1,000,000 last November or December—half the normal charge— and the full charge for May and June. They may tell us it is funded. So it is; it is funded in any case in which the annuitant wished, at 4½ per cent. and ½ per cent. sinking fund, while the Government is borrowing money at 3½ per cent. This is the time that the British Government is collecting more in the shape of rent, if we like to call it that. That was the time selected by the Government to deduct from the Agricultural Grant £448,000, making a total charge on the agricultural industry of £8,000,000 in a single year.
That is the statesmanlike proposition that the country is presented with by this Government, which has failed in its diplomatic representations to a country alongside it, and got terms less favourable than Russia and less favourable than Australia. During the last two years, although Australia has not paid one penny interest on that war debt of £79,000,000, which bears a very close approximation to our £80,000,000 odd, Australia has increased her trade with Great Britain, her exports to Great Britain have increased, and her prices have improved. All this time those who are standing for the Irish Government go from one end of the country to the other telling the people that this is a conflict. It is a conflict of which the farmers of the country have to bear the brunt, while the Government does the talking. It is neither statesmanship nor even good politics. As a political proposition, it is bound, in the long run, to defeat itself. I am not concerned here with the politics of it. It does not matter twopence to the ordinary man on the street what the Government is. What does matter is the administration of the Government; how it makes it possible for him to carry on his business; how it develops the trade of the country; how it improves its economic position; how many persons it puts into gainful employment in the State, and generally what it does towards improving the people's conditions. This is a situation which calls for statesmanship and courage. There is a dispute with Great Britain. Is the Government nervous of approaching the British Government and talking business to them, because it is business and not politics that ought to be the concern of the Government in this case? What is it that keeps back a sound and sensible consideration of this particular dispute? Do not tell us that it is because one side insists upon one particular arbitrator or another. The ordinary man on the street does not care a straw what means are devised to solve this particular problem. What he is concerned with is the speed with which it is solved, and the advantages which would accrue to the country from its solution.
If we can discuss this question free from politics, much more important than the settlement of the dispute as regards the £80,000,000 is the trade agreement that should be effected between the two countries. We were in a position, or would be in a position within a few short years, to perhaps double our exports of agricultural products out of this country. If we are in a position to double our exports and get in £34,000,000 worth instead of £17,000,000 worth, taking it from the pure accountancy point of view, the settlement of whatever the impost would be is less important than getting an advantageous trade agreement. It is no compliment that one should look for to the British Government in connection with this matter. There is no country in the world which appreciates the advantage of expanding trade more than Britain. There is no country that has learned, and must have learned during the last two years, how much damage is done to her industry, commerce, trade and prestige by this quarrel or this dispute or this conflict that is going on within 60 miles of her shores. She has vast world possessions. She has great responsibility for the peace of the world. She certainly must stand before other countries at a discount while this conflict is going on here. From the point of view of economics and finance the position of the British Government in connection with this dispute is one in which it is even more incumbent upon them to have a settlement effected than it is upon us. With us, whether we like it or not, it is a dire necessity.
It is nonsense to say that there is a conspiracy against or political disaffection towards the Government in connection with the difficulty which farmers find in paying either annuities or rates. I wonder if the President has ever consulted the Land Commission in connection with the collection of annuities in the coming year, and if he asks the officers of the Land Commission associated with the collection of annuities for the last ten years, if it is likely that they are going to collect during the next 12 months the 50 per cent. of the annuities placed upon the people, if he will not get from them an explanation and a presentation of the facts of the case, in so far as they affect the farmers? These questions which deal with economics and finance should be, and ought to be, and will eventually, whether we like it or not, be discussed and considered and decided by the people of the country free from politics. Political considerations ought not to be allowed to obtrude themselves into matters of this sort. Anyone with whom I am acquainted, any of the contacts I have throughout the country tell me that the position of the farmers, from one end of the country to the other, with rare exceptions, is worse than it was in living memory. Why should it not be? I gave the House yesterday and to-day the figure that agriculture is asked to bear in the shape of rent. Not since 1881 has there been such a high charge placed upon it in respect of rent as there has been during the last 12 months. If it required the mobilisation of all the national forces in the country 52 or 53 years ago to get a reduction of the rent charged on the agricultural community, why should we not have action taken now when we have admissions from members of the Ministry, and from everybody else to whom one speaks throughout the country, that prices for agricultural produce were never lower than they have been during the last 12 months or two years?
These are sufficient and compelling reasons why we should object to this Vote. Nobody on this side of the House cares a straw what Government is in power if that matter were settled. It is more important than any other consideration at present before the country, because unless that main industry is put in a prosperous condition you can put what label you like upon this country, but there is no hope for it until it is done. I am not one who considers for a moment that there is any ultimate danger in connection with this matter. It is simply putting back the clock with regard to a settlement, because a settlement must come. It is a necessity for both countries. It is not to the credit of either of the two Governments that this matter has not been solved before this. The question upon which we are in dispute with the British Government mainly is that they take a stand purely and simply on the legal case they have got. The last two years ought to have shown them the undesirability of resting exclusively upon legal advice. We will say no more than that about it. There are other cases. There is the equity case; there are the changed conditions; there are arguments which have been used all over the world. Two years ago at Lausanne the various nations there assembled were unanimous in subscribing to one particular formula that the scale of international obligations should be on the basis of ability to pay. That is looking for no compliment; that is appealing for no consideration. It is placing it upon a basis separate and distinct from anything that up to that time had been under consideration. For 12 years these nations had been under the mistaken impression that they could get from Germany, a defeated nation, huge sums of money. Time has shown that they had made a mistake. Time will show that there is a mistake in not having this question resolved at an earlier date. There is no statesman living who will not regret in five or ten years' time that these international complications which are at present arresting the resumption of some sort of economic equilibrium in the world, were not removed at an earlier date.
We say, as we have said all through, that fighting this matter to a finish may be all right in politics, but we must remember that, even if there was a prospect of victory, the damage that might ensue as a result of a continuation of this conflict for a single day longer than it might or should be allowed to continue cannot be repaired. The lives that are interrupted, the suffering that is inflicted upon those unable to help themselves, the bankruptcies that are inevitable and which must occur, and the lack of hope that people are bound to experience as a result of seeing their property dwindling day after day and week after week—all these things will not be repaired by a money settlement. So much for that.
There is one statement that I will invite the Government to make. A case has recently been tried in court, and evidence was given by a police officer that the standard of conduct on the part of a policeman was different from the standard of a grocer. In other words, his conception of his duty as a police officer was that he was to get information how, or in what way, or by what deceit he possibly could. I hope for the sake of the Gárda Síochána that we shall have a pronouncement from the Ministry that they do not agree with that conduct on the part of a police officer; that that is not their interpretation of a police officer's duty. I formally move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.
