The last speech is an argument, not merely for destroying University representation, but for wiping out Universities. The man who has talked about University education and who feels that students should be aloof from outside affairs and should not be perturbed by such matters as politics, has shown how futile University education may be. I do not know that what the Attorney-General, speaking, unfortunately, as a representative of a University in this House, has advanced would be accepted by any person who thought there was good in University education, let alone University representation. I understood that it was one of the jibes in previous discussions on this measure that University representation was supposed to give representation to the institution, and therefore to the staff, and that the staffs of our Universities were notoriously aloof from affairs. The ordinary picture that was painted here was that of the absent-minded Professor who never knew whether he was going to his work or to his bed. That was one of the jibes. The Attorney-General believes that not merely the staff but the students should be aloof. Now, I had the privilege, or the honour, or the pleasure, or whatever you like to call it, of being at the University at the same time as the Attorney-General. While we may quarrel still about the different bottles into which we have been decanted since, I think he will agree with me that that was one of the very best periods in the University—what one might call a vintage year so far as the life of the University was concerned. Yet that was a time when politics were rampant. We would have hated to be called politicians, however, because it was not politics but nationality, or so we thought. He has now the view that the students should be aloof from politics and that harm is done to Universities, in his own words, by the introduction of acrimonious political matters into them.
In that connection, I have often wondered when I would get an opportunity of saying to my two University colleagues here what I have long wanted to say to them. If there was one thing that did disgust me in University representation, it was that two persons, who had thought fit to put themselves forward as University candidates for this House, could have stooped to the particular depths in regard to an election address to which Deputy Mrs. Concannon and the Attorney-General stooped. If that were properly investigated, I think it would be enough to make people here wish to see University representation abolished, even though they may have been previously in favour of it. These two people put forward—or, at least, it was put forward on behalf of these two people—in an election address at the last two elections, what I suppose was the most perverted remark that ever came out of this House. They brought in a statement in that address that I had stated in this House that I wanted people in this State to die of starvation. They actually broke the quotation and put it in quotation marks, as if it were the full quotation. Whether either of them knew it to be a falsehood then, they certainly have had it brought home to their attention over and over again in this House since. The documents have been given to them, and yet neither of them has had the ordinary decency to stand up here in this House and withdraw that remark. On an occasion in a debate here, a Labour man having talked about the necessity for providing food for the people of this country that year, even though they might go hungry next year, I, following it up, said:
"There are certain limited funds at our disposal. People may have to die in this country and may have to die of starvation."
Then I was interrupted by a Deputy saying:
"That would solve the problem"; and I replied:
"It might solve the problem, but not in the way that I desire or that the Deputy desires."
That was what happened, but yet Deputy Mrs. Concannon allows the statement to go forward to an electorate of an educated class that I had definitely stated in this House that people should be allowed to die of starvation, and she sits quiet in this House every time that statement is brought forward although she knows it is an outrageous falsehood. Not alone does she sit silent, but she used it, or at least allowed it to be used on her behalf, in order to get into this House, and got into this House as a result of that statement, although she must recognise that it is an outrageous falsehood. Well, if that sort of thing is to be introduced into University life, possibly it would be better not to have University representation which would be spoiled by that kind of ramp. I think, however, there is a reaction from that. I have had many people come to me and say that, contrary to their views with regard to humanity, they had unwillingly accepted that that was a correct statement. I may tell you that now, when they have found out how badly abused their confidences were, it would not do any good to Deputy Mrs. Concannon or the Attorney-General if they again had to face that same electorate. That certainly was dragging in acrimonious politics. It was worse. It was stooping to a depth to which I think no other constituency stooped. I do not think that quotation was used in any election address except in the University, and the only time it was used in constituencies was in phrases. Nobody said: "This is the quotation and only this." But, on behalf of these two Deputies, it was put up inside quotation marks and with a full stop, just as if it were the full quotation. Well, I would rather have all the students of the University kept aloof and hidden away in secret from political matters rather than have them abused in that way. However, that is an abnormal matter. At any rate, it has had a healthy repercussion and I do not think that sort of thing will be tried again. If it is tried again, persons in future will know that it is necessary to verify the quotations and the verification of course would have its own implication.
The Attorney-General has dragged in this foolish old argument again that the debate has run along the lines of the University Union being represented. Nobody wants it. I say that if there is the detachment of the staff—and I do not admit that—and if it was thought desirable to get these detached people some sort of position in this House or in the Seanad, I would object to it. There is a reason for University representation, but it is at the opposite people from any argument founded on detachment. It is because the Universities are so much part of the life of the country that they are worth having. They have the added virtue—and here again I must apologise, because, speaking as a University representative, one might seem to be taking the attitude of speaking from a superior attitude—it has the added virtue that a University body is in touch with the life of the country and that the University body has gone through a certain educative process which, despite the Attorney-General's clichés, I still regard as having value. They have judgment of a particular type and they are also likely to appreciate what may not be very valuable in the life of the nation, taken in the mass, but which certainly has its value as the basic reason for the election of one or two individuals into an Assembly of 153.
You have an electorate of a particular type, an electorate still closely in touch with national affairs; not a close borough, not in any way detached. You have these people able to bring a particular judgment to bear at times—it may be very seldom, but at times able to take a different angle on the qualifications put before them of certain people who are trying to become their representatives. There is the further point that a person who sits for a University is, at any rate, in a somewhat more independent position than a Deputy elected for a constituency other than a University. I am no objector to the big Party or to Party politics but, in some attempt to leaven the particular groups massed in two or three big political Parties, it is some advantage to have one or two or three people who are not always oppressed, on any measure that comes along, by the feelings that must operate in the mind of the Deputy who sits for a constituency other than a University constituency. I think a person who sits for a constituency like that knows that he can use arguments to justify himself other than can be used in the other type of constituency. He can take a different line of action. It may be even that, although small in numbers, four or five or six people, elected in that way, and representing such a vote, may have an influence for the good. What does it matter in the long run about these people not being elected by the ordinary geographical mass constituency?
We are told by the Attorney-General that an argument has been used against the people in favour of this measure that they are too logical. I do not know who used that argument. There is no logic in this. I never heard such perverted argument as there has been. The Attorney-General told us that University representation is an anachronism. I do not want to repeat this too often but, as this has not apparently been understood by the Attorney-General and, possibly, by his followers, let me repeat it again. Can a thing be called an anachronism and an anomaly when, as late as 1918, there was to be found in favour of it in this country all of Sinn Féin, all of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the whole Bench of Irish Bishops, a very big meeting of distinguished Irish graduates, not merely National University people, all the senior graduates of the University, all of the main body representing the students— the Students' Representative Council? The Students' Representative Council and the senior graduates sent a deputation to the people then representing Sinn Féin, and they also sent a deputation to the Irish Party, and both these political groups in Ireland at the time accepted the representations, and University representation became a plank in the programme of Sinn Féin. And in this year, 1936, the Attorney-General tells us it is an anachronism and an anomaly.
We are told that it only survived by some four votes in England in 1931. The Attorney-General might have been more frank and told us what was the voting strength of the House of Commons when there was only a majority of four. How many members of the House of Commons turned up to the debate? How many people thought there was any danger of University representation being taken away in 1931?
As to the mandate, at any rate, for University representation—I shall come to the Constitution later—there is a sufficiently powerful force merely to group them as I have done—Sinn Féin, the old Irish Party, the Bishops and the University graduates and students and its older but distinguished graduates. Against that what have we? I am wondering when we are going to get some attempt to make a case for the mandate against it. The Vice-President did attempt it. He said there was a resolution passed at an Ard-Fheis of Fianna Fáil. When we queried where it was, we were told it was not published. It is apparently one of the secret agreements. Then we were told by the Vice-President that if Fianna Fáil did not openly pass a resolution about it a couple of Fianna Fáil Cumainn—we were not told the particular branches —had somewhere and in some area voted for the abolition of University representation.
Up to date there is the mandate. The Attorney-General had a crowning argument to-night. Bryce now becomes an authority on University representation. I wish he was quoted in a debate on, say, a second chamber, but he is now treated as an authority on University representation. In 1894, Bryce said that we must dismiss this relic of the Stuart Kings. Why talk about this relic of the Stuart Kings when, in 1918, on the Redistribution Bill, all the groups. I have spoken about, representing certainly all that was of political value in the country at the time, were in favour, not of the continuance of University representation, but of a new University representation in this country?
Then we come to the Constitution. The Attorney-General says it has to be remembered that the framers of the Constitution were not in favour of University representation and that it was by accident it got in. It is surely a warping of the facts to describe what happened in that way. The framers of the Constitution did not include University representation in the Dáil; they did include University representation. The Dáil met to discuss that Constitution, and the Dáil decided, and I think decided without a division, to include University representation in the Dáil. The Attorney-General says that there was no mandate for it—apparently the Attorney-General lost himself even in modern history—because the Constitution put before the country did not include University representation. I understood the way the Constitution developed was this: that a constituent Assembly sat, and in that constituent Assembly the idea of University representation in the Dáil was mooted and was accepted, and once the Constitution, with University representation in the Dáil in it, had been passed, the then Government went to the country with that as their Constitution and were returned. So far from the Attorney-General's view being mildly inaccurate about the matter, it is completely wrong. The country accepted the Constitution. I am not saying that the country's attention was riveted on what was, after all, a minor matter at that time, but so far as any Constitution went before the country and was accepted, it was the Constitution which contained University representation in the Dáil.
The Attorney-General, however, perverted the fact to this, that the Constitution put before the country had in it the extinction of University representation. There never was anybody who sat here to consider a Constitution who thought of the extinction of University representation. They had at times thought of shifting University representation from this House to the Seanad, but never until the present Dáil met did anybody promote the idea of the extinction of University representation. We are taking that step— a step beyond any that was ever contemplated by any people who ever thought of this matter.
The Attorney-General again tries to get the odour of musty old history over this matter. He said that down to 1918, in England, nobody except Conservatives were returned for Universities, and then—this is the Attorney-General's reading of modern history again—it was merely proportional representation that made the difference. The Attorney-General's researches in the 1918 period have not been very profound. A great deal more happened than the introduction of proportional representation. Representation was given to the new Universities.
If we had in this community of ours Universities of the type of Oxford and Cambridge, and only those; if we had Universities into which it was difficult for the poor man's son to get, although even in that respect openings and avenues are being made, as it is, into Oxford and Cambridge, and if it could be said of our Universities, or even the modern ones in England, that they were kept deliberately as much aloof from the ordinary life around them as Oxford and Cambridge were, and possibly to some extent are still, there might be some argument founded for this step of despoiling the Universities of their representation. But does anybody think that it is a fair comparison to speak of University representation as it was prior to 1918 and the representation that is given to the National University of Ireland? Does anybody believe that, going amongst the students of the National University of this country, you will find anybody except the sons and the daughters of the ordinary democrats of the country? Is there any close borough? Is there any question of keeping the poor man's children out? Is there any disdaining of those who come in? Is there anything, in the case of the University associations, in their clubs and societies, any body in which they meet, in which there is the slightest trace of old-time conservatism or snobbery? The person who says there is knows nothing of the University life of to-day. But it is in that type of atmosphere that we are asked to discuss this measure.
Of the National University and its students—and I think to a degree the same can be said of Trinity—this can be said: that there is no difference, as far as the class of the people is concerned, between the National University and any other constituency. I think there is a difference after they have gone through the University. Again I say, despite the sneering remarks about the advantages of University education, that I think there is a change worked, and it is not worked through study merely, and it is certainly not worked simply because there is contact remote and not too frequent between the students who come to the University and the staff. But there is a definite change, and a change for the better, and that should be preserved; there is a change worked through these students meeting together as members of the same educational establishment.
I have heard no argument in this House that could stand a moment's examination based upon the reality of the situation in the Universities to-day. I can certainly understand people being prejudiced by references to Oxford and Cambridge and the type of representation that they had 50 or 60 years ago. I can understand, possibly, people being befogged by these references to relies of antiquity, to pocket boroughs and to Bryce's representations of what James I or somebody else did. Wipe that all out when it comes to a consideration of any University at the moment. The phrase is of no application. The life that is lived now is a thing that is entirely different from what used to be lived in these days and the old pocket borough that the University was has as much disappeared from the sphere of the University of to-day as it has disappeared elsewhere in political communities. Previously Deputy Mrs. Concannon asked for an example in this House— I will repeat this as given to me by report—she asked for some proof that any University interests had been furthered in this House by University representation.