I move that the Constitution (Amendment No. 23) Bill do now pass.
Constitution (Amendment No. 23) Bill, 1934—Fifth Stage.
I must assume that the Vice-President will give us some better reasons for the Bill at the close of this debate than he has given up to the present. I am not referring to the ones given to-day though they are quite as good as the ones given up to the present and I have a vague idea that the Vice-President feels that himself. Strange that the man whose name is to the back of this Bill has not appeared once in this debate. Though his absence from the debate was referred to again and again, he has not appeared. I wonder does he feel also that the Bill is a bad Bill and lacks justification? Is he leaving the dirty work to others? Is that the explanation, or is it because of extreme delicacy that the Chancellor of the University in his other capacity does not appear here to justify a Bill introduced in his own name and for which he is responsible. The modesty which characterises the Chancellor of the University in that respect extends also to the Fianna Fáil Deputies who represent the University. They have not come forward to justify the measure.
They voted for it.
Their presence in the lobby may be a justification for it. Only by their presence have they justified it.
They voted for it.
I am quite in agreement with the Vice-President that he has a voting machine.
And quite a good one.
Will the little jack-in-the-box sit down a moment even though he has his voting machine?
It is quite a good one.
Yes, one that is quite prepared to take its reasons from the Government.
Would the Deputy come to the Bill now?
I am coming to the Bill. I am coming to the fact that the man whose name is at the back of the Bill has not come here to justify it. He has not come here up to the Fifth Stage to justify it, and neither has it been justified by the Fianna Fáil Deputies who represent the University here. I have been interrupted on several occasions by the Vice-President and I submit that any loss of time there has been is due to his interruptions. I must say it is an extraordinary thing that we have been presented with this Bill. As I say, the President of the Executive Council in the matter of the Constitution (Amendment No. 23) Bill has chosen the part of silence. Does he believe in the Bill? He votes for it. We are aware of that. Will he pretend that it was forced upon him by other members of the Party? Will he adopt the attitude that was adopted on another Bill by the Vice-President, that really he was against the Bill, but he had to do it and he was sorry that he had to sponsor it? Is that the attitude of the President towards this Bill? We should have expected a really solid case for this Bill. One argument and one argument only was put forward that merits anything in the nature of comment. It was a purely mathematical conception of democracy, combined with the idea that you can only have one form of constituency in a democratic constitution. Where members of the Government or members of the Fianna Fáil Party got that idea from I cannot say. Possibly in this matter as in most other matters, as I have had occasion to point out, they are obsessed by the institutions just beyond the Channel. There is nothing in the nature of democracy which compels us to have constituencies defined and delimited on purely territorial grounds, and that is the sole justification for this Bill—that combined with what I may call purely an attempt at very simple mathematics. Mere arithmetic—even very elementary arithmetic —is all we get. They do not go beyond that. That apparently is the rule so far as any real argument is being put forward.
It was pointed out that there was undue representation here if you look at the numbers. One would imagine from the speeches which are made in favour of this Bill that the Government stood for absolute mathematical and arithmetical accuracy so far as representation is concerned, and yet at the very time that this Bill is going through the House that same Government is responsible for piloting and pushing through this House another measure dealing with constituencies, in which that same principle is violated by the unnecessary creation of a large number of three and four-member constituencies. As the House must know, if they have thought for a moment over the principles of proportional representation, and as the Vice-President must also know, you throw away from you as far as you possibly can the principle of anything like mathematical equality in connection with representation when you have a large number of three or four-member constituencies. They make very little difference, if any, between a 50 per cent. vote and a 75 per cent. vote. That was one of the Bills they were piloting through while at the same time protesting that their desire for equality in this matter compelled them to push this measure through the House. The Vice-President on a previous occasion in dealing with an amendment to this Bill confessed that there was no mandate. He said that Convocation—there are generally about 30 present I think—passed a resolution in favour of it. He is not asking anybody who knows the institutions that we are dealing with to take that as representative of the body as a whole? It could not be so. Mere numbers would show him that, but even if he did seek any mandate or something approaching a mandate, if he did want to find out what the views of the University graduates in this matter are, I suggest that the proper place for that would have been at the election of the University candidates. Did they promise as a gift to those who elected them that after this Parliament was out they would no longer represent them or would not allow anybody else to represent them? If it was sought to get the views of the graduates of the University on that question, that was a more appropriate way of doing it. The Minister conveyed that a couple of Fianna Fáil clubs passed resolutions or discussed the matter. Surely he is not suggesting that that makes it an issue before the country? The matter was never raised so far as the country is concerned. It was never raised so far as either of the Universities is concerned. There was an opportunity of raising it, and if the Minister had any doubt about the sentiments of the graduates of the University in that matter he could have accepted the amendment, and allowed the two representatives of the Universities on those benches opposite—so eloquent by their silence on this matter—to put before the electorate as one of their attractive pieces of policy, the abolition of the constituency.
None of those things has been done. Many of us had an uneasy feeling when this Bill was introduced, and that feeling has been by no means allayed by the conduct and by the arguments put forward from the Government Benches during the passage of the Bill through this House, namely, that the whole thing reduces itself to a sort of calculation as to how many seats they would win in the event of a general election. For that, they are doing away with what has been an advantage, I suggest, not merely to the House but to the country, and also they are doing away with two constituencies which if you look at them from the point of view of the country have certainly justified their existence. Furthermore, the only charge that can really be made against those constituencies is that they fail to support whole-heartedly the policy of the Minister. It is impossible to get away from the belief that this measure has been brought forward merely to gain, on a balance, a couple of seats for the Government. I suggest that that is not a satisfactory reason. At the very best, it is taking a very short-sighted view of the matter. When the Constitution was being framed, and this idea was introduced, the state of Parties in this country was such that it would be clear to anybody that such petty political considerations played no part. If anybody has any doubt about that, he can read the debates on that particular occasion. The Government left the matter to a completely free vote of the House. It was by a vote of this House entirely untrammelled by Party considerations, a vote of this House when nobody could say to what Party's advantage the creation of those constituencies would work out, that this clause was put into the Constitution. Now, in the midst of Party strife, with equal balancing of Parties and sordid calculation of practically every seat, it is proposed to interfere with the Constitution. I suggest that it is unwise to do so. That is not the time to make a change of this kind, and I think that the Government will be making a mistake if they take such a short-sighted view.
I am sorry, from another point of view, that the Government has seen fit to take this step. Not merely have the constituencies justified themselves, and amply justified themselves, so far as the service of this House and the country is concerned, but the creation of that particular type of constituency was a tribute, and I know no country in which a practical tribute is more necessary, to the learning and scholarship of this country. In no way did it cut across the principles of democracy. As everybody knows, those who voted at the Universities could not vote in any other constituency, and there is, therefore, no question of a double vote. The very most that could be said was that there was a disproportion as to the numbers. In itself, I do not think that is sufficient reason for even interfering. It certainly does not come well from a Government who, as I say, have deliberately and unnecessarily created a large number of three and four-member constituencies throughout the country, but even if there were something in that particular argument, the abolition of the constituency is certainly not the way to meet it. The way to meet it would be by way of a diminution.
At a time when I fear, all over the world, there is a tendency, a regrettable and a dangerous tendency, to elevate the uneducated man as the ideal, even of culture, because that is an ideal which is rapidly spreading in some countries, I think it is regrettable that the Government are taking the steps they are taking. The only pretence of a justification, as I say, is some extraordinary idea of uniformity—that you must have the same kind of constituency. That may be a passion on the part of the Ministers, but they need not think that because they have that particular outlook it has anything to do with democracy or with the principles of democracy. I have no doubt that the Vice-President will once more be justified, that his Party will vote for him and that once more we shall see this House reduced, as it rapidly is being reduced, to a mere registration machine—and, if the Seanad goes, Parliament being reduced to a mere registration machine—to give almost a passive approval to ill-considered measures of the Government. I would ask the House, therefore, even at this late hour, not to give an assent to this Bill. Certainly none of the reasons put forward by the Minister on this or any of the previous stages of the Bill will justify the House in passing a measure of this kind. It is not now a question of creating these constituencies for the first time. It is interfering with actually existing institutions, and it is the duty of the Government to show sufficient and compelling reasons why these institutions now in existence should be interfered with before they are destroyed.
I know that there are members of the Government Party in favour of this measure because they are under the belief that a certain class of the community, supposed to be the wealthier class of the community, in one of the constituencies are strongly represented. I am not going into the merits of that particular case but even supposing there was truth in that and considering merely the number of people in that particular class, I wonder does the Vice-President hold that, even from the point of view of numbers, they are over represented in this House? Let him count up how many there are in this House and let him ask himself whether, taking the country as a whole, county constituencies and University constituencies, that particular class that arouses the ire of some of the members of his Party are represented. As I say, the House ought not to pass this Bill. If they do they are certainly doing a thing that is purely short sighted. They are not taking anything like a long view of the matter and it is a mistake for passing Party considerations and calculations to pass a measure of this kind. Once more, we can only express surprise that the President of the Executive Council, who introduced this Bill and who is Chancellor of one of the Universities, has not seen fit to make his appearance during the whole passage of this Bill through the House.
I rise to make a protest against the passing of this Bill. I do not propose to recapitulate the arguments which have been put forward on previous stages of the Bill against it. It is quite obvious that argument is wasted and that it is not a matter for argument. That is quite obvious from the complete absence of argument for the Bill so far as the Vice-President and any of his supporters are concerned. I quite feel for the Vice-President in this matter because I do not think he has any real heart for the Bill. He has done the best he could for it, but, in my recollection, there never was a Bill went through this House with such slender attempt at argument in its favour. Many Bills have been passed of which I strongly disapprove but I venture to say that in respect of every one of them, I could at least appreciate something in the point of view of its advocates and the reasons which led them to bring it forward. But for this Bill, I can fix on nothing except the one thing to which the Vice-President himself gave expression at the termination of our last debate on it.
It is quite true that the Bill was introduced under the plea that democracy required, as far as possible, equal values for all votes, but the underlying fallacy in that was exploded almost immediately and it was shown most demonstrably that democracy does not require any such thing. Apart, however, from the democratic argument to which Deputy O'Sullivan has just given expression, there is one simple fact which shows how utterly impossible anything of that kind is of realisation in a country with proportional representation like ours, and, as Deputy O'Sullivan went on to point out most strongly, the other Bill which accompanied this in its passage through the House went definitely and directly on the lines of making that discrepancy between the values of individual votes more marked than it had been before.
The Vice-President knows perfectly well that in almost every constituency in our State there are hundreds, if not thousands, of votes which are of no value at all; which utterly fail to succeed in getting any representation whatever for the point of view held by the minorities in these constituencies. The result is that in their particular constituency hundreds remain without having any say in the selection of representatives for this Parliament. He tries to compare the ratio of the numbers of voters in University constituencies required to obtain a representative, with the number in other constituencies, and gets out a certain mathematical relation. It is possible to express the ratio between two numbers, but it is not possible to express the ratio between zero and a finite number. He is trying to get a ratio between the two, but it is impossible to get a ratio between nothing and something. The fact is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, whose votes have no value whatever. University representation was a reasonable attempt to give that minority some representation, which, I hold, might correspond with its weight in numbers and value.
The only attempt, to my mind, that the Minister made to approach anything like an argument was when he proceeded to consider what was done in the discussions in this House before, and at previous Departmental discussions on the question. Not designedly I am sure, but he did omit to point out that in any of these discussions the question was not whether Universities should be disfranchised or not, but whether Universities should be entitled to a voice here or to a voice in the Oireachtas. I venture to say that since this State was founded there was never a question of disfranchising Universities altogether. That argument was completely vitiated by the fact that the Government has just put through a Bill designed to bring to an end the other part of the Oireachtas, and to leave the Dáil as the sole constituent of the Oireachtas. There is no question then as to whether University representation should be effected through the Seanad or through the Dáil. With the abolition of the Seanad, this Bill means that they will be completely disfranchised in the management of the State. Therefore I say that that attempted argument was completely unsound. I regret to say that I am forced eventually to the view that Fianna Fáil are suffering from a Party outlook merely. They cannot see the difference between a Party outlook and a national outlook. To them they are the same thing. But they are not, and there is a definite distinction between them, and Party should not be the first thing. Country should be first, and a time will come when Fianna Fáil will recognise that. I regret to say that the Vice-President admitted that this was a Party measure, that it was done for Party purposes. I do not attribute those words to him, but his admission could only mean that. It is a regrettable thing for the country that the question of University representation has been put upon a Party platform. Fianna Fáil declared that they were going to remove it. The Chief Opposition Party say that they will restore it. Instead of that being a question which the country as a whole could decide, as a country, it is going to be decided by whatever Party is in control at the moment.
That is no platform on which to put the big question, as to whether or not Universities are to take a vital part in the life of the country and have some weight in that matter. They do not concern themselves with Parties. It is for the country they are anxious; the country's vitality and the country's good. I take it from that, that it is sad and a pity that the outlook of Fianna Fáil is limited to such Party considerations, and that they cannot see—I do not say that they will not see —that this is a question which involves the whole country, not the Twenty-Six Counties, not Fianna Fáil, but the whole of Ireland. By this measure and other such measures they are condemning the Twenty-Six Counties to isolation from the Six Counties, a position which it might have been in their power to end. Wider outlook and wider vision as to what Ireland wanted and not what Fianna Fáil wanted would have avoided the drift asunder which is becoming plainer and more irrevocable day by day.
I did not intend to intervene in this debate, partly from a feeling of delicacy—my own interests being concerned—partly from the conviction that questions involving major issues of our Party's policy are best left to be defined and defended by our Front Bench. But when the Bill was in Committee, Deputy McGilligan gave me such a cordial invitation—which was repeated to-day by Deputy O'Sullivan—to take part in the discussion that I had not the heart to turn it down. It is true that the Deputy always likes to heighten the flavour of his cordials from the cayenne pepper castor, rather than with the other ingredients of the spice box. But, doubtless, that only makes them the more stimulating and piquant to a Northern palate. The Deputy and I, if not Arcadians both—Arcades ambo—are the next best thing. We were both born in County Derry, and the pacifists, for that reason, nearly all belong to the company of which Deputy Dillon is a sworn brother:
"We don't want to fight
But, by Jingo, if we do—"
Deputy McGilligan has made a serious charge against me. He has accused me in the third person plural of having "almost abolished myself by my performance in this House." As that amounts to a charge of having failed in my duty to my constituents. I repeat that I look on it as a serious charge, especially as it comes from one of the most valued of them. I must admit that my conception of the duties and functions of a University representative does not, possibly, coincide with that of the Deputy. I do not conceive it to be my function, as an Irish University representative, at a time when there is so much work to be done to put the country on its feet, to take up the time of the House with long speeches, carefully denuded of any constructive idea, and apparently designed only to obstruct progress. I do not conceive it to be my function as a National University representative, at a time when my nation is engaged in a vital struggle with another nation, to chuck bolts into the wheels of the machine, and watch out, with the impish glee of an irresponsible urchin, for a possible breakdown.
I do not conceive it to be my duty as a University representative to fill my speech with personalities, and to make offensive references to the origins of my opponents. On the contrary, I hope that when the period of my political life shall have been ended by the maturing of this Bill, I shall pass from the life of the House to the outer darkness with this to my credit, that the recording angel, whether on the floor of the House or elsewhere, shall have had no word to set down against me that might add to the bitterness that is all too prevalent in Irish public life to-day. Therefore, I speak, not as a University representative but as a woman. Deputy McGilligan has challenged me, by innuendo at least to show what I did for the University. I might, as one of the Deputy's constituents, address the same challenge to him. I have listened patiently while the Deputy addressed the House on many topics. My friend Deputy Tom Kelly and I are the most patient listeners in this Assembly, and we both agreed that we could "stand" more of the Deputy than any other of the long distance athletes of the oratorical course. He keeps us awake and amused. But I do not recollect ever having heard the Deputy defend any University interest. I do not blame him. There has been little necessity, for he has reason to be convinced that the interests of the National University are safe in the hands of a paternal Government. All the University representatives must be convinced of the same thing for when the Vote for Universities and Colleges was before this House, the only University representatives present were the two Fianna Fáil Deputies.
And, now, having proclaimed what I conceive my functions as a University representative not to be, perhaps it is time for me to declare what I conceive them to be—in other words, what I feel my constituents expected from me when they sent me here. In the first place—and transcending all else—they sent me here to show the world that the majority of the graduates of the National University were behind Eamon de Valera in the fight he is making for the rights of the Irish people. It will be remembered that it was the "change over" in the National University electorate that gave the President his absolute majority. Indeed, I might call myself the President's "absolute majority." And I think I have always behaved as a well brought-up absolute majority should—winning the hearts of my Party's Whips by never missing a day's Parliamentary attendance and rarely a division. In other respects too, I have comported myself as befits my responsible position. The Chair has never had to "name" me. I have answered my constituents' letters promptly and kept their interests well to the fore with Ministers and Departments. It has not always been easy to be the model "absolute majority." It has meant coming up from Galway each week and often breaking off at an interesting point in my work on two important books which I am concerned to make as good as I can, for the honour of the University of which I am a representative, and the honour of this House of which I am a member. But it has been worth while and, so, like Deputy Professor Thrift, I too, have something to thank God for —good reason to mingle with my Nune Dimittis a Deo Gratias. I have to thank God that in this House, which our opponents have chosen to make the battle-front in the present war with England, the National University of Ireland, through the majority of its representatives, has shown itself unshakeably behind Eamon de Valera.
I shall not take upon myself the task or the duty, which Deputy McGilligan would I am sure be delighted to undertake, of arguing with Deputy Mrs Concannon whom I am delighted to see here taking part in this debate. She has made her apologia. She has been able to reconcile it with her University and political conscience to disfranchise the University of which she is a representative. I could not discover what mandate she has got from the University for that. I presume it was the mandate of Convocation but I think that mandate has been torn to pieces by Deputy McGilligan. I think, however, it is rather a family dispute and it would be an impertinence for me to interfere in it. I should like to bring the debate back to the main issue—the disfranchisement of the Universities and the abolition of University representation. I feel that anything I may say is useless. There is no argument that I could bring forward now which could soften the hard heart of our soft-spoken Vice-President. It would be simply arguing against the inevitable. The deed was done long before this Bill came to the Dáil. The Vice-President himself admitted frankly that he had no direct mandate from the country. He tried to indicate that he had some kind of indirect direction from the country, that his Party had undertaken to reduce the expenses of administration and that this disfranchisement of the University was looked upon as an economy measure.
Furthermore, he urged it was their duty to revise the constituencies and he regarded the enforced withdrawal of six University representatives from the Dáil as a good step in the direction of economy. Nobody knows better than the Vice-President that that argument is completely fallacious. He is a very logical man and he knows that he might as well have argued that, in the interests of economy and fortified by their duty to revise the constituencies, they might have "revised" out of existence the representation of any particular constituency—Cork, for instance. There are some Corkmen here. What a great economy that would be! Or they could go a little further and wipe out all Parliamentary representation in the name of economy. Think how much that would contribute to the expedition of administration! They could rush through 20 Bills in an hour. Passing from absurdity, because many of the arguments put forward in support of this Bill were absurd, to facts, this measure was decided on before it ever came into the Dáil. The Universities or University representation was arraigned, tried and sentenced in camera, in camera obscura, if you like. None of the accused was summoned as a witness but sentence was passed and this Bill now before us is simply an expression of that sentence.
I do not know whether the Government ever considered the question of University representation as such, on its merits, whether they ever thought of what should be the relations between the State and its Universities in an ideal community. Possibly they did. I wonder if they ever thought of what democracy is. The ostensible reason for wiping out University representation is that it is contrary to the principle of democracy. I ask what were the methods by which this Bill was produced. Would one, speaking frankly, call them democratic? I suppose the connotation of democracy differs somewhat to all of us but I think that every man who thinks reasonably about the matter will admit that that connotation contains the notion of justice, fair play and openness. Were any of these elements present when this decision was arrived at? Would one call the procedure democratic? I cannot, I call it autocratic, and I think I could call it tyrannical. No democratic action could be inspired by motives such as were admitted and confessed in the course of the debates in this House. Perhaps the most respectable of these motives was that of political expediency. There are others that are not so respectable, not so decent. I am sorry that this Bill must pass, inevitably pass. The majority will roll up, walk into the Lobbies, and through it goes. I am sorry on many grounds, extremely sorry.
Speaking for my own University at the moment, I know that we are conservative, and that, perhaps, our feelings are not shared by everybody in this House, but we are proud of our University and its traditions; and we are particularly proud of the right, or, perhaps, if you object to the word right, then of the privilege or of the honour by which we were enabled more than 300 years ago—1613—to send two burgesses to the Irish Parliament. I do not say that our lives or our existence in all these centuries since were stainless or sinless. A man lives but one generation, and in that short space there are few that are sinless. Trinity has lived for centuries, and she does not claim to have always been without sin, but her sins are such as one might now easily forget.
In the early days of the University there was a very close connection between the University and the Parliament. One of our first representatives was the Provost of the day. Provost Bedell was the second, and down through the whole list, before the Union, which the representatives of Trinity College bitterly opposed, they were conspicuous figures in the Irish Parliament. One was mentioned the other night by Deputy Tom Kelly, namely William Molyneux, a very strong representative in his day. The list of Trinity representatives in the Irish Parliament is a long one and not a completely dishonourable or dishonoured one. In the days when I was a student, some of us thought that we would again have our Parliament in Dublin. Some of my friends thought that we, in Trinity, would suffer. I thought our University, at any rate, would have a voice in that House. I did not believe that an Irish Parliament in Ireland would pay us less respect or do us less honour than was done by the Parliament of Henry Grattan. However, like many prophets, I am scorned, I am afraid, and the views and the beliefs that I held have been shattered. I regret, for other reasons, the action that has been taken in this matter; I regret it for the sake of the Fianna Fáil Party itself, for they have some ideals which I share, although they might find it difficult to believe that I do. I hoped we might work some day on common lines, and that some of us, if not all of us, might see the breaking down of the barriers, and the filling in of the gulfs, that at present divide us in Ireland. I am afraid, however, this last action of the Government, in depriving the Universities of their representation, will create wider gulfs and will break down, certainly, one bridge that exists at present. I do not know that those names that are honoured in the world, great names in our tradition, are also honoured by members of the Government Party; the list is a long one. I was gratified some time ago when the President, at Athlone, paid tribute to the work of men whose names are enshrined in Trinity. Speaking at Athlone in February, 1933, he paid this tribute. It is true he used the word "Anglo-Irish," which, I must say, I hardly understood. I do hate this hyphenated nationalism; but he said:—
"Anglo-Irish literature, though far less characteristic of the nation than that produced in the Irish language, includes much that is of lasting worth. Ireland has produced in Dean Swift probably the greatest satirist in the English language, in Edmund Burke probably the greatest writer on politics; in William Carleton a novelist of the first rank; in Oliver Goldsmith a poet of rare merit. Henry Grattan was one of the most eloquent orators of his time—the golden age of oratory in the English language. Theobald Wolfe Tone has left us one of the most delightful autobiographies in literature."
All these men mentioned, except one, were Trinity men, and as far as I know they were all men that were proud of their college, and their college was proud of them. I was glad to think that the President, and the Fianna Fáil Party through him, claimed to be the heirs of such men. I think that was a good speech and a wise speech and would be read by Trinity men all over the world with great interest. But that dream has been shattered. How can anyone reconcile the present Bill with those fair words?
There are Trinity men out of sympathy with the Government's policy and with the Government Party. But this action of the Government will create a feeling of dismay amongst them. There are others, perhaps, more distant from the Government, in their views, but who are Irish, and not Anglo-Irish, though they do not see eye to eye with the Fianna Fáil Party in its work. But even they might very easily be won. But this is not the way to win them. What the Government are doing now, or what they have done (because the whole thing is inevitable), is something that will create suspicion and mistrust. This short Bill will, I fear, have far-reaching and destructive consequences. These consequences I deplore, and shall continue to deplore. I have spoken, perhaps, with more vehemence than I should, because I feel rather bitterly about the unwisdom of this Bill. I would not like the Dáil to think that this bitterness is of a personal character. Though I feel resentful, it is not resentment towards any individual member of the Dáil; I have received too many acts of courtesy and kindness from members of all Parties to have any such feeling as that. But I do resent this Bill which drives the University, of which I am an unworthy representative, out of the Irish fold and ostracises us from the vital stream of national life.
I expected to hear some reason from Deputies opposite as to why the Bill now before the House should not pass. I have heard none. I have heard some talk about democratic rights. I wonder where do democratic rights come in here. Deputies have been sent in here on a quota of 900 votes as compared with other Deputies who came in on a quota of 9,000 or 10,000 votes. Is there any reason why any individual in this State should have ten times the voting power of another individual? If there is any such reason, I should like to hear it. When we come to examine the list of those who have ten times the voting strength of ordinary individuals, we wonder still more, and with good reason. We are told that a great number of these University graduates have sprung from the soil. Take the case of the ordinary farmer, with three or four sons. He has not room for all of them on the farm. The eldest son, Jack, takes charge of the farm and works it, while Michael is sent to college. Jack has to work, not alone to keep his father and mother and the rest of the family in comfort, but he has to work from morning to night to keep Michael in college in plus fours and with polished shoes. After Jack has worked for five or six years to pay the fees of Michael, that young man comes out of college. Unfortunately, 70 per cent. of the Michaels who come out of college are duds. Jack has to come along and clap him into some rural dispensary or somewhere else. If not, he goes abroad. Taking the, I hope, isolated case of the really bad egg who comes out and goes abroad to India, South Africa or some other foreign country, we find that he has ten times the voting power of the man who remains at home earning his livelihood by working a farm and paying the rates and taxes due to the State. From South Africa or India, this gentleman can exercise ten times the voting power of the man at home who is paying rent, rates and taxes. That is the democracy we have so much noise about to-day. That is the class of democracy to which this Bill is going to put an end, and it is high time we had a bit of levelling up in that regard. I should like to hear from some Deputy opposite the reasons by which they urge that an individual living in Ceylon or some other foreign centre should be able to send his vote back here, and that that vote should have ten times the power of the vote of the ordinary man at home. I do not agree with that kind of democracy.
Deputy Thrift referred to politics. I am sorry that Deputy Thrift and those associated with him did not think of that during the last seven or eight years. They came in here and used their power to dragoon the unfortunate individuals outside. In respect of every kind of coercion Bill introduced here during the last ten years, they were in the forefront of the voting line. I am glad that there is an end to that once and for all. We have had this matter threshed out several times already. I had no desire to give a silent vote on it. I wanted to state my views clearly and honestly, and I should still like to be informed why an individual living outside this State should possess a vote of ten times greater power than that of the man living and working at home, and paying his rates and taxes.
The Vice-President proposed this motion in the very briefest form of words that he could have chosen. He said, "I move." That seemed to me characteristic of the attitude behind the promulgation of this Bill. On all the stages through which it has passed in this House, there has been an admitted absence of stated reasons why the Bill should pass and become law. It is true that the Vice-President made a more pertinent observation a couple of minutes afterwards while Deputy O'Sullivan was on his feet. I took that observation to be his excuse for not giving reasons to the House for the introduction of the Bill. He said that the House was "a good voting machine." I myself should not like, with my short experience of the House, to have spoken of it in such contemptuous terms, nor do I think that such a contemptuous description is true. Even if it were true, it would be a very uncomplimentary way of asking the House to pass a Bill which was being put before it. It is, however, from a practical point of view, probably a complete justification of the attitude of the Vice-President and his colleagues in regard to the presentation of this Bill. Not once during the several debates that have taken place have I heard any statement from the Government Benches devoted to showing that abolition of university representation was a desirable thing. I have heard many arguments put forward—I do not say convincing arguments—by several members of the Government and their supporters, one of whom has just sat down, to establish a different thesis —that the universities are over-represented. But I have not yet heard any argument devoted to the question which constitutes the principle of this Bill, that the universities should have no representation at all. Deputy Corry asks us to give reasons why this Bill should not be passed. He asks us to give reasons for something which is not contained in the Bill. He asks us to give reasons to justify a certain proportion of representation. The only arguments put up for the Bill have dealt with the proportion of representation and not with the fact of representation.
The Minister has, frankly enough, admitted that there was no mandate for this Bill. He has admitted that, though the Bill alters the Constitution, the country has had no opportunity of considering it. He might have admitted—I do not think that the question was put to him—that there has been no public demand for this Bill. It is curious, though, perhaps, natural, having regard to the absence of reasons, that there has been almost complete silence on the part of the members of the Government and their supporters on this matter also.
I do not profess to have made a complete search of the Press during the last few months. I have only lighted on one article, in the leading organ which supports the Government, which was devoted to supposed arguments in favour of this Bill. Most of the argument in that article is on the same lines as we have heard in this House: that the Universities are over-represented. The leading article which appeared in the Irish Press on the morning after the Bill was introduced was headed “Privileged Voters.” Any argument that is in that article relates to the proportion of voters who return University members as compared with the number of voters who return members in the ordinary territorial constituency. Perhaps I am unjust to this paper in saying that because it has gone one better than the Government spokesmen in this House. It has invented a number of statements which have no relation to fact but which are put forward to give justification for this Government measure. I do not think that in a short newspaper article I have ever seen more closely packed mis-statements of fact than were put forward by this organ. Having made the point that “each graduate's vote was more than eight times as effective as the vote of the ordinary Irish man or woman,” it went on to say:
"In Trinity College three Independent Unionists were returned unopposed in each of the two recent elections."
The only statement that is true in that is that three Deputies were returned unopposed. No Independent Unionist has ever been returned from Trinity College to this House. No Unionist has been returned from Trinity College to this House. Since this State was established no institution in the country—no group of voters in this country, has been more loyal to the State than the voters that are assembled in the constituency of Dublin University. That is a fact well known and must have been well known to the writer of this article. As regards the present representatives of Trinity College it is untrue of two of them to say that they have been Unionists for very many years. It is probable that they have been for as long Nationalists in this country as many of the members on the Government side of the House. But even if this statement were true, what has it to do with the case? Even if there was an Independent Unionist returned and if there are enough Independent Unionists—I do not know if there are any left—to elect a representative to this House, surely they are entitled to have their voices heard. But it is necessary to invent statements like this in order to support a measure for which there was no popular demand and to get some popularity behind it. I find that it is further stated in the article:
"The clause reserving six seats in the Dáil for University representation was inserted in London at the instance of the British."
It must have been well known to members of the Dáil, if not to the readers of the Irish Press, that the clause giving six seats in the Dáil to University representation was not inserted in London at all, but was inserted in this House. What was present in the Constitution as put before the Constituent Assembly provided for seats for University members in the Seanad. But we are told again, in order to discredit University representation and to beat up a demand in favour of this Bill that the six members representing the Universities have their rights here by some favour granted in London. We find this in the article:
"It is not hard to guess why it was inserted, for experience had shown that the only University in Ireland which had the power to elect M.P.s always returned the opponents of Home Rule."
That again is untrue and should be untrue to the knowledge of those who published that statement. It is well known that one of the members who represented Dublin University at Westminster at the time the Treaty was signed had entered Parliament as an Irish Home Ruler and that he retained those convictions. It is well know, too, that his services in the House of Commons were of considerable help in producing the condition of affairs which led to the possibility of the Truce and the signing of the Treaty. We also find this in the article:—
"The University provisions inserted in the Free State draft were, therefore, but another effort of Britain to increase the political strength of those hostile to the mass of Irish Nationalists. It has, of course, failed to fulfil this purpose so far as the National University of Ireland is concerned."
There again we have an attempt, by introducing an untrue political stigma against those who represent the Universities, a stigma which has no basis in fact, to endeavour to pretend to the public that there is some justification for the measure that the Government have put before the House and that they now ask us to pass. Listening to all the arguments that have been put forward in the House it has been admitted by every speaker from the Government Benches that what he has devoted his attention to is not the question of the abolition of University representation but the disproportionate weight that is said to be given to it. The Minister for Industry and Commerce put it in the clearest way. He said:—
"The question which this House has got to answer is: why a graduate of one of our Universities, whether he lives in this country or outside it, whether he pays his taxes to our Exchequer or some foreign Exchequer, should have the same rights of representation in this House as ten persons who are not graduates?"
The Minister said that in the opening part of his Second Reading speech on the Bill, and repeated it in almost the same words at the end:
"University representation.... introduces into the political life of this country an undesirable situation, in so far as it means that a limited number of individuals are given special powers and privileges which the average voter does not enjoy."
That is the plea that Deputy Corry has just put forward. Of course, Deputy Corry made the additional argument that 70 per cent. of University graduates are "duds," and that the other sons of a farmer are hardworking and intelligent statesmen. But it is possible that there are some intelligent people even among University graduates, and it is also possible that there are some "duds" even among farmers' sons, whether they are University graduates or not.
Not in the Fianna Fáil Party.
The same argument was put forward by Deputy Donnelly in his speech on the Committee Stage on Deputy McGilligan's amendment. Much of the argument from the Government Benches has been devoted to the particular case of Dublin University of which I happen to be one of the representatives. Certain advice was given to Dublin University in what, I hope, was a kindly spirit. We were told that:—
"It would receive much more support from the mass of the people if it were made clear that its sole function in this country was an educational function and that it had no part whatever, as a University, in relation to politics."
I dare say that something could be said in favour of that. It is advice which has been given to Dublin University before and has been refused before. It was given in this House a couple of weeks ago by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. It was given 140 years ago by a man of equal note in his time, John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare, and it was not accepted. Among those graduates of Dublin University at that time who did not accept the advice of John Fitzgibbon was Wolfe Tone. Amongst others who heard the words of John Fitzgibbon was Robert Emmet, and he did not accept the advice either. Fifty years later Thomas Davis and John Mitchel did not accept it. Isaac Butt did not accept it. It has been a tradition of Dublin University that it should be interested in politics as well as in other affairs that concern the interests of the State. Why should John Fitzgibbon have given the advice and why does Deputy Lemass give the advice? Because they find that at a particular moment there are certain opinions held which are not favourable to them personally, which are not held by them and which are hostile to their own opinions, and then they give the advice. The advice will be neglected now as it was 140 years ago by the University of Dublin: the advice that a University should not interest itself in politics.
John Fitzgibbon would have been quite willing that the University should have been altogether on the side of his political outlook. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has offered his advice only to Dublin University and not to the National University. The National University has, however, shown more difference of opinion amongst those who represent her here than Dublin University. Is there anything in the advice at all? There is nothing but the personal attitude of the man who is giving it in each case.
It has been said, and said, I know, in all kindness, by Deputy Thomas Kelly, that those who left Dublin University, those who are concerned with her, "have lost their influence in this country because you gave of your best to the building up of the British Empire and neglected your own country." Deputy Kelly has disproved his own words out of his own mouth, because a few minutes before he had read out names to this House which showed that Dublin University had not neglected this country. I am not going to repeat any of the names great in literature or science that he mentioned, but amongst those who were great in politics he mentioned Molyneux, Swift, Berkeley, Burke, Grattan, Curran, Tone, Emmet, Moore, Butt, and Thomas Davis. He might have mentioned John Mitchel and John Redmond. That list disproves his criticism that Dublin University has neglected her own country. Those names I have mentioned are a fine contribution by any one institution to the national life of the country in which it is situated.
We have been advised again, with special reference to Dublin University, that it has nothing to fear from the State or the public of Ireland. No suggestion has been made, no plea has been made, that Dublin University has anything to fear. That is not the claim that we who speak to-day for Dublin University make for the University. The University made it clear 20 years ago that she did not want any safeguard against the will of the Irish people as regards her future life. She made that clear in an expression which caused an alteration in the Bill then before the Westminster Parliament dealing with the future government of this country. She does not make any demand, now that she is in need of protection, that she needs any safeguard. What she does demand is that her sons should be free to give service to the country in every way in which they can do so, and one of those ways in which they believe they can be of service is by taking part in the political life of the country. We do not ask for protection or for any favour except the favour to be allowed to work for our country in the best way we believe we can. We believe that we represent certain classes which would otherwise find it difficult to obtain representation in a popular assembly such as this. These classes have something useful to contribute to the life of the country. I am not suggesting for a moment that these classes need any special protection against their fellow-countrymen, but they have an outlook and an ability which they are willing to bring to the service of the country and they ask that the channel should be left open by which it can be brought into the life of the country.
We are told, and I think told in all sincerity, by a Deputy on the Government side that graduates of the Universities will be very welcome as candidates for ordinary constituencies; that the fact of being a graduate of a University would add to a man's claim in offering himself as a candidate. That expression of opinion came from Deputy Donnelly. It did not, of course, come from Deputy Corry, with whom the fact that a man was a graduate would go to prove, at any rate, that he was a "dud" and, therefore, of course, unsuitable as a candidate for the Dáil. What Deputy Donnelly said is probably quite true, but I think he overlooked one point, that though certain graduates might have their claims increased by the fact that they were graduates, there are many who may be chosen for University constituencies who will give useful service to the country, who will add to the value of the debates here, but who will not be chosen or have any chance of being chosen for an ordinary territorial constituency. I shall make no reference to those who are still University representatives or members of the House, but anyone who reads the history of this country for the last 14 years must recognise that in the framing of the Constitution and in the working of government in the early years certain University members gave most valuable service in the setting up of the State. Nobody who reads the debates on the Constitution could fail to realise that two University members, who no longer represent the University, gave most valuable service—one a broad scholar with a thorough knowledge of constitutionalism, the other a trained practical constitutional lawyer. Nobody can read the Constitution without seeing the marks of their minds and hands on the framing of the Constitution. Of another who is gone from amongst us— my immediate predecessor—I have heard Deputies from all parts of the House speak in the highest terms of appreciation of the services he rendered here. I am not claiming that University members have given more valuable service than others. What I want to suggest is that of such men as I have suggested hardly one would have any chance of being chosen as a candidate for any ordinary constituency and, even if he had been chosen, hardly one would have any chance of being returned. They came here by another channel and they gave useful service.
It has been assumed—I suppose rightly—that this Bill is going to pass the Dáil, and to many it will seem a waste of time that those who are opposed to that measure should have thought it necessary to speak on the matter at this late stage. I think it is important that, however weak our arguments, however weak our words may be, we should put our convictions on record that the Dáil is about to take a step which will diminish its value as a debating and legislative assembly, which will decrease its reputation throughout the world, and, perhaps more important than either, will take away the last link in the unity of Ireland.
I heard Deputy Corry speaking in this debate. He is opposed to University representation; that is what one would expect. Lenin was opposed to University representation; that is what one would expect. But Lenin would, at least, support his case with a certain amount of sensible argument and a marked absence of slander of his political opponents, yet in the speeches made from the Government Benches in support of this defiance of all mandates we have the old cheap political confusion of religion and politics. We have a vindictive attempt to mix up the religion of an individual with the politics of an individual, or to confuse the politics of an individual with the politics of his forefathers. I should like this country to judge the people who sit on these benches and on the Independent Benches by past generations, even by the recently past generation, with the Deputy Corries and the people who sit opposite. Then we might know what is the real stock or where sits the real stock of those who not only stood for and advocated, but defended the union of this country with Great Britain. I think the time has come when it would be well for all Parties and politicians on all sides to forget at least the divisions of the past if they cannot forget the divisions of the moment and to discard terms which have long since ceased to have any meaning in the public life of this country. To charge a man, because his religion differs from that of the majority, with being a Unionist, knowing the meaning of Unionist—union between this country and Great Britain and the denial even of Home Rule to this country—is not fair to those of the minority religion in this country. Is it assumed that Fianna Fáil alone have the right to receive and accept into their Party and to utilise the services of those whose religion differs from the majority and that those who serve Fianna Fáil will be immune from that type of slander, but that those of the minority religion who oppose Fianna Fáil will always be open to that type of slander? It is not fair and it is not in accordance with the spirit of fair play. Honest men opposite know that is not fair in politics.
If there is a case to be made for the denial of University representation to University graduates, let it be honestly made and let it be unassociated with slander of that type. No case has been made, no case was made here, and you did not dare even to hint at the making of a case when you went before the people for support, and particularly you dared not hint at your intentions when you circularised University graduates at home and abroad for their support. When the graduates of one University, in blinkers, supported Fianna Fáil by a vote of 2 to 1, do the representatives of that University think that they are obeying a mandate or that they are in any way honest in view of the support they got from priests, doctors and engineers all over the world? Do you think it is fair play that, having got their votes, you can callously walk into this House and sneer at the man in Ceylon having any voice in the affairs of this country? Do you sneer at the dollars of the man in New York when you want a newspaper subsidised in this country? The man in Ceylon has as much right to have a voice in the affairs of this country as the man in New York has to subsidise propaganda in this country.
If we are going to be quit of outside influence of any kind, let us be fair about it and get rid of all kinds of outside influence. The young priest abroad, or the doctor or the mug, according to Deputy Corry, the University mug, who went to preach Christianity in China or Africa, has no right to have any link with the old sod of turf at home, even the link of a postal vote that may never arrive. He is to be a pariah, an outcast. Not only are we to make permanent the partition which we have inside this little island of ours at the moment, but we are to throw up further barriers between the people of our race at home and the people of our race abroad. We have frequently heard the proud cry that we are not just a little country; that we are a motherland, and we are the home-place of a mighty broad-flung race. Deputy Corry tells us we must disown all these who went abroad, whether to civilise the world, to preach Christianity, to extend the teachings of science, or to extend further the respect for the good name of this little island in which we live. They are all to be outcasts, aliens and foreigners. Is it not enough to have that threat thrown at us from abroad without people like Deputy Corry getting up to throw it at us here at home?
I think if University electors are sold and cheated by any people in this Assembly, it is not so much the Deputy Corrys. We can attribute what he says to pump politics and ignorance. They are sold particularly by the direct representatives of University graduates. If there was a suggestion in this House that Galway would be disfranchised, or Clare or Kerry, what would happen? You saw it within the last month. Fianna Fáil, Labour and Fine Gael, the elected representatives of the threatened county, in spite of whips and bosses, would all combine together, and the combined strength of those representatives would save the threatened county. But when it is a case of a University, when it is a case of the educated and the intelligent, the very diploma gives them the right to renage. The very diploma gives them the right to sneak away from all their vote-given responsibilities. The very diploma gives them a right to do what a more humble person would be ashamed to do. If there is any argument in favour of disfranchising Universities, it is the behaviour of two of the representatives of the National University in this House.
I had not the advantage of listening to Deputy Corry speaking on two very suitable subjects, thugs and mugs. I gather he did say that there were some University people who might be regarded as mugs, because they went abroad to teach Christianity. I am not so sure if some of those people, when they get the Deputy's speech, might not be inclined to say that there is room for some of them at home, if there could be an increase of the private chaplain system, in order that they might teach some people here what Christianity is.
They would want to teach you.
Not Christianity or justice.
You never knew either one or the other.
Let us take one point on which there might be teaching given. If there is one man in this House who ought to forget the politics of his forefathers, he is very particularly and specially Deputy Corry.
My forefathers were decenter men than yours. I knew them, anyhow, and who knew yours?
Your forefathers were known undoubtedly.
How does this personal history arise?
They were known and respected, what yours were not.
I admit the knowledge; we will quarrel with the respect. The knowledge is well founded.
All this is quite irrelevant.
It is not the first time that that hound has hurled it across the House at me and it was hurled back in his teeth, the dying mongrel.
Apparently it goes home. I do not mind leaving it there to be resumed on another occasion when it will be in order.
It is not in order to discuss any Deputy's ancestors.
If the Deputy makes certain observations I am at least entitled to counter them.
This has been introduced more than once. So far as my parents are concerned, they were respected everywhere.
If the Deputy is going to speak on this matter I will counter him.
They were respected everywhere and the Deputy dare not repeat what he has said outside.
I will recite it for the Deputy. This is to be either on both sides or not at all.
The Chair objects to any violation of the rules of order. The Deputy has been told that personalities are not in order. It is not the Deputy's first time to indulge in them. Deputy Corry did not in his speech on this Bill introduce personalities.
Deputy Corry has been indulging in nothing else but personalities for the last three minutes and he has not been called to order.
Deputy Corry's ancestors were discussed by the Deputy who has now sat down. Deputy Corry made no personal reference to any Deputy. Indulgence in personalities leads inevitably to similar retort and possible scenes.
Did not Deputy Corry call me a mongrel, and is not that a personality?
The Deputy began his speech with an irrelevant reference to Deputy Corry's antecedents.
Has he been called to order for his remark?
The remarks of both Deputies are equally out of order.
Why was the Deputy not called to order?
He certainly was. But I might remind the Deputy that the Chair may not be questioned. If a Deputy indulges in personalities, he may expect to get a retort in kind.
Deputy McGilligan rose.
The Deputy will sit down. The easiest way to avoid such scenes as this is not to indulge in personalities. The Deputy himself started it, and it is not his first offence.
If it is not the first time I have indulged in personalities, Sir, neither is it the first time that I have been attacked, and so long as such attacks are made on me I shall continue to answer them irrespective of what may happen.
We have had another defence of this Bill from a University representative here—a voice from the grave at last. I gathered that Deputy Mrs. Concannon is not in favour of destruction. What is this Bill? Is it construction? Is it not the destruction of what was in the Constitution—a constitutional amendment—the destruction of certain rights given to certain people with regard to the franchise in this country —a separate electorate for the purpose of electing certain people? But Deputy Mrs. Concannon says that she is not in favour of destruction. What Deputy Mrs. Concannon spoke to to-day, I do not know, if it was not for this Bill; and if she spoke to this Bill it was certainly in favour of destruction. We have discovered mandates for many things before. I should like to hear Deputy Mrs. Concannon say that she had a mandate for voting for this. Did she say, in her electoral address to the electors of the National University, that her view was in favour of the destruction of this electorate and the destruction of the people who were to represent the National University? Must she not admit, as she has admitted up to to-day by her silence and as her colleague has admitted by his continued absence during all the stages of the discussion on this Bill, that they did not dare before to put it to the electors whose franchises they were seeking, that one of their objects was—if it was their object at that time —to destroy the special franchise created for University people? Does Deputy Mrs. Concannon accept the view put forward, in passing the Second Reading of this measure, by the Vice-President who handles it, that unless there is evidence that the particular interests voting have a peculiar national importance, then there is no case against the Bill? Would she have said to the electors, when going before them on the last two occasions, that she went before them seeking their votes although she believed that they were of no national importance, that they were rather a privileged class and that the privilege ought to be taken away from them? Did she agree that the franchise was an education franchise, as it was facetiously described by the Vice-President, or would she agree that it was not so much the subjects they learned but the inter-action of University life on certain people that made them good citizens and did give them importance? Would the Deputy deny that and have said that she did not believe in that and that the franchise was a useless one that should be done away with? What is the good of my asking had she ever put this before the electors of the University? The election addresses were full of promises, full of all the magnificent things to be done for the University— the entire Gaelicisation of the University and all the rest of it— which were somehow to be engineered by voting for her and her colleague. What step was to be taken in regard to anything they promised?
Deputy Mrs. Concannon got no instructions, from the people who were putting her forward for election, to insult those people, for that is what it would be regarded as at that time, by telling them that she would, if she could, have answered the arguments of the Vice-President in passing the Second Reading of this Bill. Why should she put herself about to claim that she has a mandate from the electors of the University? We have the definite statement at last here on the Committee Stage from the Vice-President in charge of the measure, when the question of a mandate or lack of a mandate was raised, that:
"The question of a mandate has been emphasised. I want to say that I do not claim or attempt to claim that we have any mandate for this."
Let us repeat that: "I want to say that I do not claim or attempt to claim that we have any mandate for this." and look at what we are up against— a constitutional amendment. The two people who represent the National University in this House, or at least two out of the three who represent the National University, do not allege that they asked the electors to vote for them with this in the back of their heads. The Vice-President further said that his Party or the Government as a whole do not assert that they have any mandate for this. Against that, there are the facts I recited before and that I think fit to put before the House again now; that the late Archbishop of Dublin started the agitation for the representation of the National University; that he called on the people of the country to meet and agitate for the purpose of getting University representation for the National University included in a certain measure which was then before the British Parliament; that, inspired by his words, a group of distinguished graduates of the National University met and passed resolutions; that the students of the University met through their Students' Representative Council and sent a deputation to the leaders of Sinn Féin and from those leaders, as was admitted during the last stage by Deputy Donnelly, they got a definite statement that University representation was to be a plank in the Sinn Féin platform; and that, in the meantime, when the Irish Party were fighting the measure then before the British House of Commons, this particular matter was brought before them and they agreed to force a Speaker's Conference on the Re-Distribution Bill or the Suffrage Bill, or whatever it was called, and eventually there emerged from that the placing of the Universities into that measure.
I say, again, that you had then, in the years 1917-18, a definite and specific mandate from anybody who spoke authoritatively for University matters in favour of University representation. You had the then Archbishop of Dublin, the graduates of the National University, the students of the National University, the Sinn Féin Party and the Irish Party, all in favour of University representation. From that day to this nobody has dared to go before the people and say that it was time that this University representation was done away with. There was no Party found from that day to this having the brazenness to allege what the Vice-President thought fit to allege here, during the Second Reading of this measure, that it is a privileged franchise, that the people who enjoy it were not of sufficient national importance to have this privilege attached to them, that it was a so-called education franchise, and that, therefore, it ought to be abolished. From 1917-1918, when this first became a serious subject of controversy—and it only became a matter of controversy when it was in process of being raised —since that time it became a matter of settled policy for every Party in the country, and no political Party since that time has dared to say that they were against it. It is in the Constitution, but although it is in the Constitution and although not a University representative can be found to speak for it, and although the Vice-President says that there is no mandate for it, we are going to pass it.
They tell the House that they are doing it in the interests of democracy and because it is an educational franchise, but that it does not go far enough. It is only a so-called educational franchise. In any event, we know the real reason now. It came out at the end of the last day's debate when the Vice-President said it would have been well if "Deputies Thrift and Alton had thought of it at an earlier date. They ought not to have waited to have something come along here that strikes home to themselves in a particular way before these thoughts of further consideration and postponement entered their heads." What that really means is: if they voted oftener with Fianna Fáil. If they representatives of Trinity College, Dublin, had voted oftener with Fianna Fáil there would be no question of challenging the educational franchise or the privileges of a class and no question of whether there was a mandate or not. That is the real reason—that they did not vote oftener with Fianna Fáil. There is not a mandate claimed for that measure. It is not even asserted that Fianna Fáil definitely put this before the electors. There it was pointed out that the Trinity College representatives only voted—we can imagine the phrase used—against the national interests. Now, having got their power through the medium of their promises about economy and the reduction of taxation, the saving of the annuities and better times for everybody, they come along to enforce their will upon unfortunate people like Deputy Mrs. Concannon.
Thank you.
I repeat the word "unfortunate." It is a desperate thing to have to vote about a matter in favour of which one cannot say one word or in support of which one cannot use one argument. It is a desperate thing for anybody, even the most remote back-bencher, to have to do it. It is all the more desperate that the representative of the so-called educated classes has the face to come here and confess that she has no argument in favour of the adoption of this measure. But the Party Whip was cracked. The Trinity College Deputies have voted too often against Fianna Fáil. No matter whether there is a mandate in its favour or not, or whether there was, in the memory of the oldest of those connected with the University, a meeting in its favour, there is one thing that stands out, and that is that Trinity College voted too often against the Government and, therefore, the National University has got to lose this privilege so recently fought for and so recently established. It was definitely established with the good-will of everybody who represented the educated classes of people in this country. That was established so late as 1917-18. And this is what we are going to do now. Sacrifices have been called for. There is no argument. Nobody has attempted to take up the running in this form— that there is an Article in the Constitution that gives certain people certain rights with regard to voting for their representatives. It is there in the Constitution, written into the Constitution. Faced with that situation— that the present Government are taking the initiative against something in the Constitution—one would think they would take the initiative in some other way and that they would advance their own arguments as to why this measure should pass. Deputies know what the Vice-President said on the Second Reading Stage. I leave it to him. One thing of substance was dragged out of him in the Committee Stage—there is no mandate; and it is not disputed that the Constitution is going to be hacked. Behind the backs of the University electors, their rights, even if you like to use the word, their privileges, are to be taken away from them. And two of the votes cast for taking away those privileges are the votes bestowed on the people who rode into this House on the backs of the electors of the National University. Did those representatives come in openly and honestly saying they would wipe out this representation? Instead of that they said they would benefit the University in a variety of ways. Is this one of their ways of benefiting the University?
Just one last remark. Deputy Professor Alton—and I think he was joined by the other representatives of Trinity College—said in reply to the Vice-President, on the Second Reading, that he believed that the University of Dublin had nothing to fear from the consequences of being deprived of University representation. The three Deputies said they have no fears. It is wise and well that they should say that. We have, at any rate, established here that state of things. When I use the word "we," I use it not as representing the present Government. What I mean is that one section of this community has made it clear to the minds of the three Trinity College Deputies here that they have nothing to fear from the general mass of the Irish people; that they have nothing to fear through losing their separate representation for the Dublin University. But I say this now, that if left to the mercy of some of the people who spoke in this debate I wonder whether they would have their fears resurrected. The only thing they have said is that the Trinity representatives are sound as regards their ideas of the Irish people. I believe the University has nothing to fear from the general mass of the Irish people. Deputy Mrs. Concannon refrained from asking whether they wanted that privilege removed. If that question had been put to the Irish people, her Party would have got their answer. I think that the Trinity College view of what the people might have said is a sounder view than the view on which Deputy Mrs. Concannon and the Vice-President have acted. I do not think that Trinity College has anything to fear from the mass of the people—if the mass of the people are asked what it is they want done. But they have a lot to fear from people who got in on certain promises which have not been fulfilled. They have a lot to fear when the Fianna Fáil Party operate, not along the lines of those promises, but along different lines which they refrained from indicating when they were looking for the votes of the Irish people.
If there is one person in this House who could not speak or pretend to speak on behalf of the mass of the people in this country it is Deputy McGilligan, the gentleman who has just sat down, for he has never stood before the people, and has never been elected to any position or office of honour in this country. Having stood before the University electors on a very restricted franchise, let us say roughly 3,000 people, and got elected, he is not entitled to come here and speak for the mass of the people of this country. That did not entitle him to do so, nor to speak on behalf of his Party. If there is anybody who can speak on behalf of the mass of the people in this country it is the people now sitting on these benches, who have for a good number of years—as long as the Deputy can recollect at any rate—stood before the people and got elected and re-elected in the last few years especially by a vast majority, a bigger majority than Deputy McGilligan and his Party ever had or ever will have in this country. I am speaking on behalf of the mass of the people, and I have a right to speak for them, and the Deputy knows it. With the one possible exception of Deputy Cosgrave, there is no man in this House who has been longer before the electors than I have been. I am possibly a year or so longer than Deputy Cosgrave. I have been elected and re-elected, and I have fought every fight. I therefore say that I can speak here on behalf of the people of Ireland, having faced the electorate repeatedly, and never having been defeated. I can say with truth to the Deputies for Trinity College and to the people they represent in this country, "Go to the people. Stand up to the people, tell them what your views are; do not work for any class distinction nor in furtherance of any institution that wants to shut itself up in a class distinct from the mass of the people. Go to the people." I am satisfied that the people will not refuse to hear those who come to them in that way. Those who go to them and tell them frankly their minds and their purposes and seek their suffrage on that basis need have no fear. I say that it is not one like Deputy McGilligan who can speak on the matter, but one who has gone again and again to the people, and not on a selected franchise. The only argument of Deputy O'Sullivan, who opened this debate on behalf of the Opposition, was that the two Deputies representing University College had not spoken in the debate. That was all he had to say in favour of his idea that this Bill should not pass. Well, Deputy Mrs. Concannon did speak afterwards in favour of the motion "that this Bill do now pass." I do not see that it matters. Those Deputies had given their views. Their views have been heard. I am here at any rate as one spokesman of the Party to speak the views of the Party, to speak the views of the country, and to speak them with authority. It does not matter what individual member of the Party the Deputies opposite may think important or unimportant. If they wish to do so, they are free to speak. There is no prohibition against anybody speaking, but they know that there are people here who will express their views. They know there are people here who have authority to express their views, and who have all the mandate that is necessary from the country and from the Government of the day to voice the views of the vast majority of the people of this country who have elected this Government with a greater majority than that with which any Government Party was elected in this country since the establishment of the Free State. There was not a measure that was introduced by Deputy Cosgrave or by Deputy McGilligan, when they were members of the Government here, that had the same mandate behind it as this measure or any other measure that this Government has introduced, because they never spoke for a majority of this House. They never at any time had behind them, as a Party, a majority of this House. They had to scrape up and pick up votes wherever they could in this House. They never once had a majority; we have. We can speak for a majority of the House and for a majority of the country. I do not know what mandate more than that is necessary. I said and I repeat that we had not a direct man- date. At the general election we did not put this before the people as one of the primary issues. That is admitted. If there is any weight —I do not think there is much in the tu quoque argument I wonder whether Deputy Cosgrave and his colleagues on the Front Bench had put before the people at the general election any one of the 17 Constitutional amendments which they passed, and asked for a mandate. On not one solitary amendment of that kind which they introduced did they ask for a mandate from the people of this country when they were a minority Party. That knocks the bottom out of any argument of Deputy McGilligan as to the weight to be attached to a direct mandate for this particular measure. Deputy Maguire, the Attorney-General, and Deputy Mrs. Concannon can say, as I have said before, that Convocation of the National University has asked that this measure be passed. Convocation of the National University represents the vast majority of the graduates of the University. When a meeting is held, Deputy McGilligan knows better than I do that a copy of the agenda with the resolutions to be proposed is sent to every member of Convocation. They are asked to attend and they are asked to vote. If they do not please to vote, then a resolution of this kind asking for abolition of University representation is one which does not excite much enthusiasm or much interest. The Deputy's argument is that they do not attend——
You have stated it correctly; a resolution of this kind excites no enthusiasm.
If they do not attend, they do not think it is worth while turning up to vote on a measure of this kind. Convocation speaks for the graduates of the National University. If they had attached importance to it they would have turned up and voted against the resolution. Those who did think about it turned up in sufficient numbers to pass the resolution, and there is a fixed number for a quorum. That in itself is a mandate at any rate to the members for the University who sit in this House.
The whole 20 of them probably turned up!
More than 20; I think 40 is the quorum.
It used to be.
I do not know how many were present, but there certainly was more than a quorum, and if the members felt as keenly on the matter as Deputy McGilligan would like us to imagine, they certainly would have turned up in larger numbers and voted against the resolution proposed. I think the Deputy has not much of a case——
Most people would rather go to a hippodrome than to Convocation.
That reminds me of one correction which I thought the Deputy would make when he was speaking. He said here on the last day when this question was being discussed that a unanimous resolution was passed by the Senate of the National University against this Bill. He must know that that is not true, because he said he had the minutes. I was rung up next day by somebody who had read the minutes. The Deputy said he had the minutes and would show them. He had not brought them.
I was wrong in that.
I should have expected to hear the Deputy make the correction.
I would have done so if I thought it was material. I was quite wrong.
The Deputy insisted that it was a unanimous resolution, and insisted that the Chancellor of the National University had voted in favour of that resolution. He now admits that he was wrong, but I should have preferred if the admission had come from himself.
It was passed by a majority.
You ought to have said that.
That is the fact. I apologise for not having said so.
I do not believe— and I ought to know something about it—that there was any question of calculating how many seats Fianna Fáil was likely to win. We are in that happy position that we do not need to calculate. We are not in the position of Deputy Cosgrave or Deputy McGilligan. We have a majority that is sufficient, and that is going to continue to be sufficient. One seat or two need not worry us, and are not likely to worry us in the future. That was never the position of Deputy Cosgrave or his Government or his Party and never will be. And well they know it. We have a clear majority, and a majority the like of which they never knew and never will know, so we need not worry about a seat or two.
"The like of which" is good.
The like of whose numbers you will never see.
"The like of which" you said.
If the Deputy is referring to personal appearance I think the least said on the subject the better. We can show a gallery at any rate. Perhaps I cannot say much about the empty benches over there.
Empty here, they radiate as much intelligence as full there.
The people have declared on whose side the intelligence is.
I wonder.
They have declared that more than once, and thereby shown their intelligence too, and their commonsense and their education.
That is also right!
I was amused to hear that according to Deputy Thrift— I think it was Deputy Thrift—the Universities do not concern themselves with Parties.
Quite true.
That is not my experience in this place. You have heard Deputy McGilligan to-day, and you heard Deputy O'Sullivan to-day. They are very distinguished members, one a professor, and the other an ex-member of the staff of a University, and Deputy McGilligan, a representative of a University as well. Is there any keener Party politician in this country than either one or the other? Deputy McGilligan speaks as one of the representatives of National University, and there is not a keener Party politician speaking for his Party and working for his Party than he, and there is no better seconder, and there has not been any better seconder, to that Party than Deputy Thrift in this House.
But, in that capacity, he is acting for his University.
Deputy Thrift is elected here by a University and, searching my recollection, I have never known him to be on any side of an argument but one.
The Minister is wrong.
If I am, I should like to be reminded of it.
You do not give me much chance.
I will give it now if the Deputy likes.
That is the sort of chance you do get.
I am afraid it is not a very weighty argument to say that Deputies of Universities do not concern themselves with Parties. I do not say that all the representatives of Universities have been Party politicians but I would not say that of Deputy Thrift. I personally would not feel like saying it.
Has the Minister wound up by saying that Deputy Thrift is a Party politician or that Deputy Thrift is not a Party politician?
I will leave the House to make up its mind on that issue.
I am quite unable to do so, and I have listened to the Minister.
I am sorry for my want of clarity. I do not know that I need say any more. The question of University representation is one that has been debated, and frequently debated, in many countries. It is regarded as a question of principle, and it was as a question of principle that it was decided to introduce this measure. We had it debated, I know, in our own circles. I think it was Deputy Alton who asked whether the point of view of those who are in favour of University representation was heard. I assure him it was, and if I am not mistaken, it was put forward by a graduate of his own University.
Was that graduate authorised?
No; he was quite unauthorised.
A secret agreement.
It was debated and all sides were heard, I believe, and on principle, and not on personalities and not on the question of for or against Trinity College, was the decision to bring in this measure taken, so far as this Party and this Government are concerned. While on the subject of Trinity College, I may say that I endorse what my colleague and namesake, Deputy Kelly, said with regard to Trinity College and Dublin University. I stand in the same position as he, and I have honour and respect for what has been done by graduates of Trinity College to help national feeling and national sentiment, and to bring honour and credit to this country. All that has been done in that direction by men whom we all know and all sides, whatever their views may have been with regard to these men in the past, honour them to-day. Trinity College, being the alma mater of these men, naturally shares in the glory and honour that attaches to these men, although I do not agree that it was because of the inspiration of Trinity College or Dublin University that these men were as national or as patriotic as their lives showed them to be afterwards. All honour and glory to the college that produced them, and let credit be given to the college for whatever share is due to the teachings that made them such decent and patriotic Irishmen as they were.
Yet you do not want to hear what the University thinks on questions of the day.
I certainly am not against any graduate of Trinity College being in this institution, but it is not a question of for or against University representation. That is a very distinct question, and I think we were entitled——
The Minister misses the point. A graduate goes out as a graduate, but when he goes out from a University, he speaks for the University. There is just that difference.
When he comes here, he speaks as a graduate?
When he goes out of the college, he goes out as a person.
When a graduate comes in here, he comes in as an individual? Is that it?
He comes in to represent his University, and he is not thinking of himself at all, but of what his University would like him to do.
That may or may not be so. But let us take it that a representative of the National or Dublin Universities coming in here speaks, whenever he does speak, for his University. I certainly would not like to think that every vote that has been given by the representatives of Dublin University in this House during my time has been given on behalf of Dublin University.
I am quite ready to admit that they may be wrong, but that is the leading light, such as it is.
I should like to see the graduates of both Universities free and I believe they are free. There is no restriction on them in regard to giving service to the country in any manner which they think right or proper, but both National and Dublin Universities, taking their spokesmen to be Deputy McGilligan on one side, and Deputy Thrift and his colleagues on the other, are asking for exceptional treatment and I do not think that in this country, taking affairs as we find them, exceptional treatment is called for. I think both Universities are safe in the hands of the mass of the people and are not likely to be injured, one or the other. I think that is all I have to say. I have referred already to the question of the special committee that was set up by the late Government to examine this question. That committee decided to recommend that University representation in this House should not continue.
That is not frank.
That is my recollection of it.
And to do something else.
Yes.
Why not say it?
And, as far as I remember, that there should be University representation in the Seanad. I mentioned that before, when I spoke on the Committee Stage, and I want, by reminding Deputies of that now, to show that this question of University representation cannot be said to be a matter of purely Party politics, and that there were as many people on the Front Bench of the Party opposite who believed in ending University representation in this House, as there are——
Surely there is a difference between abolishing University representation and changing it from one House to another?
At any rate, they decided that it should be abolished in this House.
They did not decide that simply.
Not simply. It was a matter for argument in that Party and there were people strongly in favour, so far as this House is concerned, of the representation——
Being changed.
So far as this House is concerned.
You are ending it, not changing it.
I do not know if the Deputy looks upon it as a compliment to himself and his Party, but we are adopting in one respect, at any rate, what they recommended; what Kevin O'Higgins and the Attorney-General in his Government, and some other distinguished members of the Party recommended.
They did not recommend.
They recommended, as far as this House is concerned, that representation should be changed, but, so far as the Oireachtas is concerned, that it should not.
They wanted a change of representation.
That is the way the Deputy is putting it.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 51; Níl, 29.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Flynn, John.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Carty, Frank.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Doherty, Joseph.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Alton, Ernest Henry.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Curran, Richard.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Keating, John.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James Edward.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.