They are not gone out of it because the President wants some excuse for not being able to bring about the material wellbeing of this country, for not developing the spiritual welfare of the country that he talks so much about. However it came about, there did pass providentially from this country the terror and the tyranny and the alien laws that our people had suffered under for generations until 1922. The Minister for Local Government visited Canada in 1932 and when leaving Canada he said at the final meeting there:—
"Nothing can ever make us forget our debt to Canada and whatever changes the future may bring about one very certain result of the conferences as far as the delegation of the Irish Free State is concerned is a determination to do everything in our power to cement more closely the bonds of friendship between the Irish and the Canadian people."
What was the debt that the Vice-President was thanking the Canadian people for? Was it that they had stood him a couple of luncheons or dinners or had enabled him to attend at a few State functions or a few balls? What was the debt? Was it that he had made a satisfactory trade agreement with them? We know it was not, because our trade with Canada has suffered since. But we here on these benches have an appreciation of what our debt to Canada is and the Vice-President, if he were speaking his mind, would know something about it too.
At the time we had the old tyranny attempting to conscript our people in 1918, at the time when we had the old tyranny trampling our people under the feet of the Black-and-Tans in 1920-1921, there was rising up in the world a spirit of nationality. Young nations were growing up throughout the world, young nations, many of them having their foundations inspired by a spirit of freedom, a spirit of courage and a spirit of determination brought to these countries by the young men and women and the old men and old women who were forced out of our country by the tyranny that ruled in it up to then. Canada was rising as a young nation during the war years; so also were Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Part of the providential circumstances that enabled us to get rid of the tyranny that trampled this country under its feet for so many generations was the rise of these young nations. When we swept from the face of this country the terror and the disgrace of war made upon it by Great Britain and when we sat down in council with Great Britain to argue out the problems that then remained between us, we found that, having been providentially assisted in our progress to the council table to argue out our problems with Britain, we had the representatives of the rising nation of Canada on our right hand side, South Africa on our left hand side, Australia in front and New Zealand beside them. And when, as Collins truly foresaw and foretold, we were round that council table we were arguing their fight for nationality as well as our own and we had their assistance in arguing our fight. So that after the few years of negotiation and argument had passed, we found that, together, we had reduced Great Britain to a state of declaring and administering her own laws; that we were co-equal in status with them, as there was also co-equality between them and ourselves—Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. There was no subordination in any one towards any other in the aspect of their internal affairs.
Then came a time to discuss our economics when the Vice-President and the Minister for Industry and Commerce went to Canada. When they came home from Canada the Vice-President told us that they had laid the foundations of an agreement with Great Britain, but nothing has been raised upon these foundations; he praised Canada for the debt we owed Canada. So well he might, but the only tragedy is that he did not praise Canada for the debt that we owed them in different circumstances. The people of this country, by their efforts, and by the efforts and the work of their leaders, put the President into the position in which he is, as head of the Executive Council here, with sovereign powers over all this State of the Twenty-Six Counties. It would be better still if we had more intelligence shown on the part of other members of this House even this year in regard to these matters if not as long ago as 1922. At any rate, such as it is, he has all the resources of this State of Twenty-Six Counties at his command as a result of their efforts and of their work.
He sat as President over the League of Nations Assembly, a year or two ago, and he presided in that position in the name of this State. It is an assembly consisting of all the biggest nations in the world. Then he comes here, and when challenged to give details of his administration here, and the result of his policy here, he says: "I am not a politician, I belong to the statesman class, and I can only work in a free state." It would have been a poor day for this country if its leaders in the past had been that class of statesman or politician. If they had been, he would not have been President of the Executive Council in this country to-day and he would not have been able to occupy the privileged and powerful position that this people placed him in as President of the League of Nations. He would never have occupied that position if there had not been different leaders from him in the past. He tells us now that our agriculture is destroyed and depression falling upon the whole spirit of our people. But he tells us that what is really wrong is the absence of freedom. He tells us that this country is threatened by invasion in the same way as it was in the past. He tells us that the British military are in our ports, that threats of war are made against our people; that we are in danger of being dragged into foreign wars, and that we are not allowed to pursue our foreign development without Britain taking steps that will prevent our future agricultural or industrial development. These bogeys are paraded before the eyes of our people for the purpose of blinding them exactly to what has happened in this country; for the purpose of preventing them raising their heads in the manner that the manhood of the Irish people did in the past when they followed leaders who would not be hindered from going ahead with their work by any bogeys or threat of trade interruption. Some of our old stories contain many objects with morals for our people. There was one thing enshrined in our country but historians never sought traces of it in our people.
When Alexander was going into the East on one occasion on his campaigns he found occasion to terrorise people living near the rock of Narsinga. But when his policy necessitated it he withdrew his army but the people of the villages, hearing horns blowing in the Castle in the morning and in the evening, still hung their heads in terror. They were afraid to look out on the mountains even when the horns did not blow lest they should start again. When the young people did not understand why they could not look over their mountains and walk over them the people said to them: "Alexander is on the mountains with his army. The horns tell us he is there." But the boys went up to the mountain and they found big stones with holes in them. Birds' nests were built in the holes and when the nests were taken out and the wind blew through the holes they sounded like the blowing of horns. That was the position of President de Valera in 1922, that there were bogeys on the mountains in our country. But some of the birds' nests were taken out of the rocks since 1922, and it is an astounding thing that we should have young men in our country to-day and that, sitting behind the President and Vice-President, we should find Deputies capable of listening to the particular kind of stuff that is preached to them about these bogeys. What is the freedom that is lacking to a man who can sit as President of the Executive Council here, and who can take from the pockets of the people of this country the amount of additional money that he has taken out of their pockets? What is lacking in freedom to a man who can go and preside over an assembly like the League of Nations in Geneva, as President of this State, but who will come back and say that the reason why he cannot get on with the work in this country is because of the internal affairs of this country and talks of war and the British sitting round our shores, and says that until we get rid of them the people of this country are not capable of getting on with their work? As I say, it is astounding that we have in this country, at this hour, people who can take that kind of stuff from the President in the way that Deputies opposite take it. No wonder then that we have the situation that we have in this country, and that we have people who can be ruthless in the matter of taxation, but regardless of the interests of the people who provide the foundations of our prosperity, the farmers. In these circumstances it is no wonder that we have the conditions we have. But would the President forget his bogeys for a bit and tell us exactly what he wants to do in this country. The position of the country is that we get generalities in philosophy from the President, descriptive of the dangers and difficulties that lie around our people, but not one clear scrap of description as to what he wants to do with the people of this country or how he wants to do it.
We would have no progress in this country, no development of economic life and no development of social life if our leaders in the past talked airily of Irish freedom and did nothing to objectivise it in any way or took the steps which were from day to day necessary to progress along the path both to freedom and economic development here. The President does not accept the step-by-step idea. The person in our country's history, one whose life has left the biggest tradition as builder and whose name is synonymous with building had as his motto "cloch ar dha cloich agus dha cloich ar aon cloch," or "one stone on two stones and two stones on one stone." He was the man who had the reputation for shortening the road with song and story-telling. That was the great builder, the Gobán Sáor. The President is providing the country with a long-drawn-out agony of waiting for one big leap to victory, and in the days while they are waiting he is talking about peace for the people of this country. In October last he told a meeting at Ballaghaderreen, "I do not say that the goal will be easily reached but we have already reached things that our forefathers thought difficult."
What is the goal? The President is sitting in a position and occupying a position to-day in which he has acquired all the resources of men and all the resources of money and all the power of law in his own hands. And what progress are we making? His excuse is that the "aim of the Opposition was to break down the morale of the people and that they wanted to organise so that they would be in a position to seize power by force if they got a chance." Truth! Truth in the News! Truth in the President's mouth! Every line of this on its face shows that it is untrue. He cannot point to a single section of the people of this country except a bit of his own tail that would show that in working their salvation, political or economic or in any other way, there is anybody in this country who wants to seize from the people power by force, except, as I have already said, a small section amongst his own tail and in respect of that we know from the speech of the Minister for Justice the other day that that situation is well in hand. Where does the President stand? The President told us in his address to the Ard-Fheis at the Mansion House on the 9th November last "some people say we have accepted the Treaty. Like soldiers we have appreciated the position. We have made our calculations as to how the nation, from the position in which we are now is going to advance. We have accepted nothing."
The President has accepted something. He has accepted the power. He has accepted the control of the resources of the nation and he has accepted the emoluments of his position and of his office in Government Buildings. He has accepted all that but he has not accepted the responsibilities of the position and, as behind his old wall of glass, he takes his ground on the position and has driven the unfortunate farmers into the fight in front without telling them in any way what they are to fight for and what is the goal. "In one of my first dispatches to Mr. Thomas," he tells us, "I pointed out that the Treaty was forced upon the Irish people and could not be accepted as having any moral value. According to the strength of the people we propose to advance so as to secure for our people everything that is theirs." What are the things to which we are going to advance? How are we going to advance to them? The President gives his own answer. He went on to refer to the economic war and said that "‘war' was an unfortunate word" because it brought to the people's mind a line of action which was not going to win the fight. Many people did not understand the line they were pursuing. He put it to them that if a city were besieged with a strong besieging party outside with a policy of starving the people into surrender it might be a good policy to take the people from manning the walls to producing food. The man who would help in winning this war would be the one who could show them how to change their economy. If they meant to win this fight they had got to put petty things aside; to lose would be disaster to the nation." The man who would help in winning this war would be the one who could show them how to change their economy!! And so the President is sitting down inside his screen protection wall and the people throughout the country are suffering in this economic war in which he tells them he fired the first shot and he tells them now "no surrender.""All we want" he says, "is the man who will help in winning this war by changing their economy." Are we then in the position that the President—standing as far as this State is concerned of being co-equal in status with Great Britain, in no way subordinate in any way or in any aspect of our internal or external affairs—knows well that he is not going to look the British straight in the eyes, and is not going to sit down around the Council table that others of our people have provided for him? What are the difficulties with Great Britain and what agreements can be come to to secure a solution of those difficulties? In facing up to a situation like that, not only has the President power, in terms of the man power of this country, but of the Truceliers of 1921, and he has even the people who threw their influence against us when we were arguing for constitutional co-equality with Britain in 1921. He has people then on the British side to help in negotiations with Britain, people who were against us in 1921 and he has with him all the people who were with us—the representatives of the rising nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.
Consider how progress was made in the past. Standish O'Grady in one of his essays used to liken the position of the Irish in the struggle with Britain under the old régime to that of a chessplayer playing chess with a veiled player, and every time when the veiled player's king was in danger of being mated, his hand swept all the pieces off the board so that there could be no successful conclusion to his adversary's game. The man whom the President repudiated in 1922 has provided a board that no hand can sweep the pieces off, and with sound argument, logical position and moral strength can find their true places there untouched by force. Are we to have it that, with that provided, the President is not going to sit down to list our difficulties and to argue them out? As I say, some of the British themselves who were against us when we were arguing towards constitutional co-equality are with the President and his colleagues now and tell them how the argument was carried on in the old days. I think that the President and his associates had something to do with the recent publication of a certain pamphlet dealing with the Anglo-Irish dispute, with an introduction by Henry Harrison and some letters by Mr. Berriedale Keith. On page 14 of the pamphlet Mr. Keith says in one of his letters:—
"In the Free State, Mr. Cosgrave, with the co-operation of successive British Governments, and most notably of Mr. Thomas, deprived the King of every vestige of legal influence and all legal power. There is not an act of external or internal affairs on which His Majesty can do otherwise than as bidden by the Executive Council of the State. He cannot refuse advice, he cannot dismiss a Ministry with a majority in the Dáil. All his functions, now of the most limited kind in internal matters under the Constitution, are performed by a servant of the Ministry, who could not legally receive or obey an instruction from the King."
On page 16 of the same pamphlet Mr. Keith again writes:—
"Despite these facts, Mr. Thomas in his dispatch, of December 5, wrote: ‘The period which elapsed between 1921 and 1932 was marked by the progressive development of friendly relations and co-operation between the two countries'."
Mr. Keith on page 15 is of opinion that:—
"What is urgently needed is an effort by all parties in the country, with the aid of the Dominions, to work out a position which may preserve unity in essentials with the gratification of Irish aspirations, however needless we here may think them."
We want to know from the President: does he accept the position that this State stands a co-equal in status with Great Britain, that we are in no way subordinate to Great Britain in any aspect of our affairs, and has he Irish manliness enough, with that ground under his feet, to go and argue out the position, or is he going to sulk behind the old wall of glass and leave the people to go down in the degradation of spirit and the material misery that they are going down in day by day? The head of this State has to disseminate throughout the country a cloud of the most appalling falsehoods that it is possible to have uttered in order to cover up the situation that is here, to distract the attention of our people, and to serve out that kind of excuse for his inability not only to carry out the things he promised but to prevent the economic condition of the people worsening.
You have an example of what the President's line is when he deals with the question of partition. In August of last year, when speaking to a British journalist on the question of partition, he said that
"Any proposition must come from Britain or from Northern Ireland, but that we cannot take any practical steps ourselves."
Apparently in no matter can the President take any practical steps himself. He must sit down in the quiet and security of his own position and let the people outside suffer. This country wants to have its economic condition improved. With our own Legislature which Davis, whom the President now begins to quote, characterised as "the foundation of all freedom and the foundation of all power," we want to use it to improve both the industrial and the agricultural condition of our people. To discuss only the material side, the President knows that we found this country in this position: that the market we had of necessity in Great Britain for our agricultural produce was three times the market that our farmers had here. The Minister for Finance rather corrects Deputy Fitzgerald for his exaggerating the importance of the agricultural position in this country. He took him to task over certain figures of his the other night. The Minister for Finance can find out for himself if he refers to the Official Reports, page 786 of volume 29, for April 24, 1929. He will find that Fianna Fáil then held a different opinion with regard to the importance of the agricultural position of the country, because the President on that occasion said, when speaking in a debate on a Financial Resolution:—
"We know, of course, that agriculture is our principal industry and that seven out of every nine engaged on productive industries are engaged on the land; also that two-thirds of the wealth of the country is produced from agriculture, and, moreover, that the greater part of the remaining one-third is produced from industries ancillary to farming, such as baconcuring, butter-making, brewing, distilling, and so forth."
That is to say, that seven out of nine were engaged on agriculture with an external market three times the market that we had here arising out of the historical circumstances affecting the country in which it was governed from Great Britain. It was in circumstances like those that the President, again speaking to an English journalist, said:—
"We do not ask for any special advantages. We do not expect them any more than any other country, France or Denmark for example, would."
We do demand more from Great Britain than Denmark or France or any other country in the world is entitled to demand, and we believe that the way that demand can be made effective is to talk straight into the faces of British Ministers and British representatives. It is utterly impossible to assume in any way the conception of his responsibilities that the President has when he would make a statement like that.
The President, by his general action, has been driven to take up the attitude that there is not any longer a British market, while a very big publicity campaign is being developed by his Press around the position between New Zealand and Great Britain. An attempt is being made to persuade the people of this country that even countries as dear to the heart of Great Britain as New Zealand cannot get their goods on to the British market to-day. There is not a single country in the British Commonwealth that, as a result of the Ottawa Conference, has not increased the benefits it previously derived from the British market. New Zealand, that the President is using as a subject for propaganda to show that there is no British market, increased the value of its exports in the first four months of 1934, as compared with the first four months of 1932, between the Ottawa Conference year, from £11,530,000 to £12,536,000; increased the total amount of its exports to Great Britain by £1,000,000, and increased its favourable balance of trade when dealing with Great Britain by £1,866,000. Canada increased its exports to the British market from £8,359,000 to £10,673,000 in the same four months. The total increase of trade was £2,312,000 and the total increase in its favourable trade balance was £1,820,000. Australia increased its exports to Great Britain for the same period of four months from £13,775,000 to £15,822,000. Its total exports to Great Britain were increased in value by £1,647,000, and the increase in its favourable trade balance with Great Britain was £1,075,000. In the case of South Africa that country increased its exports to Great Britain from £4,047,000 to £4,157,000. Its trade in the reverse direction increased from £4,142,000 to £6,833,000. As between the two the total trade was increased from £8,500,000 to £11,000,000.
As far as one of the principal items in which this country is interested in the British market, is concerned, so far from the British market being gone, the imports of meat to that market for the first four months of 1932 were valued at £26,783,000; in 1933, £25,375,000; and in 1934, £26,846,000. That was what the meat imports to Great Britain—into a vanishing market—represented in the first four months of this year—the market that has vanished for us.
