I would remind the House that, according to precedent, no stage but the Second Stage of the Central Fund Bill is discussed.
Private Business. - Central Fund Bill, 1937—Second Stage.
I move that the Central Fund Bill be now read a Second Time. As the House is aware, the specific purpose of passing this Bill is first to give statutory authority for the total of the Supplementary Grants for the current financial year, which were not covered by the Appropriation Act of 1936, and, in the second place, to provide the amount of the Vote on Account in respect of the coming financial year. It also confers, incidentally, upon the Minister for Finance the powers of borrowing and issuing securities for the purpose of providing money so voted in the current financial year. Twenty-eight Estimates, amounting to £2,235,745, were presented to Dáil Eireann and were passed. Of this amount, £2,068,924 represented the total of these Supplementary Estimates passed in the early part of the year and was included in the amount authorised to be issued out of the Central Fund by the Act of 1936.
In passing I might say that these were Estimates which were necessary to meet the cost of the additional services which were announced in the Budget statement and which were necessary also in order to cover the services the Votes for which, though not originally included in the Estimates volume when published, were mentioned by me in my speech on the Vote on Account last year. The remaining 22 Supplementary Estimates amounted to only £166,821 and are now to be similarly provided for under Section 1 of the present Bill. The House will, no doubt, recollect that the total Estimate of expenditure for Supply Services for the coming year was £29,262,000 odd, of which £10,490,000 odd has been already voted on account. Section 2 of the Central Fund Bill authorises the issue from the Central Fund of that amount. The balance, of course, will be covered by the Appropriation Act of 1937.
This particular Vote presents one of the few occasions in the course of the year when we have an opportunity of discussing in a fairly free and comprehensive manner the major elements of Government policy as far as they affect the public. There is an obligation, at times such as this, on Government Ministers and on Government spokesmen to be open frank and candid with the people, particularly in matters affecting adversely the interests of the people or disturbing the mental ease of the people. I have no quarrel with the Minister for Finance, and I do not intend my remarks to be critical of him. It is more or less natural that the Minister for Finance, introducing a Vote such as this, would deal purely with the financial aspects of the matter. But I do venture to hope that before the debate is finished we will get from some other member of the Government or spokesman of the Government, a clear indication of the Government policy in certain directions that we have not so far succeeded in getting from such spokesmen. There is a responsibility on Opposition Deputies, also, on occasions such as this to give expression to matters which they understand are agitating the public mind. Now I know of no matters that are more disturbing this country and affecting its interests, and more adversely disturbing the mental ease of the people than the attitude presented by this Government in matters of foreign affairs. I refer firstly to our relations and affiliations in what I might refer to as far-foreign affairs, and secondly to the unfortunate net, or entanglements, into which we have got ourselves with regard to matters of foreign affairs nearer home. On more than one occasion the President, acting as Minister for External Affairs, has been interrogated in this House. He has been pressed to give reasons for his attitude in regard to the Spanish situation. His reply has consistently been a determined refusal to take either Parliament or the people into his confidence. I am not going to suggest or to suppose that the Government of the Irish Free State has anything in common with the Red Government in Spain. It is because of that that I urge the advisability of the Minister for External Affairs telling the Dáil why he insists on retaining an accredited Minister to the Red Government in Spain and ignoring, or rather boycotting, the other Government in that country.
The question before the House is one of expenditure and the policy arising out of that expenditure. Questions regarding details may not be raised. In the discussion on the Vote on Account or the Central Fund, the discussion of the Estimates may not be anticipated. There have been in this House recently two decisions—one of them quite recent—regarding relations with Spain. To the Non-Intervention Bill there were two amendments. On both amendments a decision was taken in this House, and, according to the Standing Orders, these questions should not be reopened in this session. The recognition of one Government or the non-recognition of another Government in Spain does not therefore arise.
Might I submit to the Chair the special grounds in connection with which the Spanish situation was previously discussed and decided? One was a motion that the Franco Government should be recognised by the Government of the Irish Free State. That was discussed and decided upon, and I have no intention of raising it again. The Spanish situation was discussed and decided upon also on a motion that consideration of the Non-Intervention Bill should be delayed pending the taking of certain action with regard to the Caballero Government. That motion was in connection with the Non-Intervention Bill, and the discussion proceeded on that basis. I do not propose to discuss again the Non-Intervention Bill, which was an agreed Bill. One matter that was never discussed and never decided upon in this House, either in this session or in any other session, was the advisability of, as it were, implementing in reality the Non-Intervention Bill by equating the position of both Spanish fronts and withdrawing recognition from that front which we are recognising. That question has never, to my knowledge, been discussed here.
The point I was making was that when the Minister for External Affairs was interrogated as to why he continued to have a Minister attached and accredited to a régime or Government in Spain that is definitely nauseating to the ordinary person in this country, no reasons were advanced, and no explanation was given. We were met by a mass of evasions. Questions regarding the attitude of the Vatican State, the introduction of which as arguments into this Assembly I consider very far from the regions of courtesy and delicacy, were dragged in. Matters far removed from the pertinent questions put were brought in, in order to evade and avoid the giving of a reply to a simple question. I suggest that before we vote this money for the Department of External Affairs, some answer should be given, or some explanation should be offered as to why the Government of the Irish Free State has such undesirable affiliations abroad. It was hoped, when this country got its independence, and when Ireland became a member of the League of Nations, that as we could have no influence there either because of our might or because of our wealth, we would, in the course of time, build up a position of peculiar influence amongst the nations of the world, because of the upright stand we would take in the councils of the nations, and because we would hold ourselves there in a position of independence so that on every occasion on which a decision had to be taken, our decision would be on the side which appeared to be right.
I have now before me the two reasoned amendments tabled to the Spanish Non-Intervention Bill. The first amendment was:
That the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to the Spanish Civil War (Non-Intervention) Bill, 1937, until the Government have broken off diplomatic relations with the Caballero Government in Spain.
That question was decided. The second amendment was:
That the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to the Spanish Civil War (Non-Intervention) Bill, 1937, until the Government has formally recognised the Franco Government in Spain.
On that question also a decision was come to.
It is not my habit to argue or debate with the Chair, but the point I made was that the intention of the first of these amendments was to delay the passing of the Non-Intervention Bill until some action was taken with regard to the Caballero Government. The case made over there was not a case for or against being associated with the Caballero Government. The case made was the urgency of the measure —that it should be through by, I think, the following Saturday night. The only case made by the Government spokesmen was a case for non-intervention. I want a case to be made for continued association with that Government in Spain.
The questions decided were whether or not diplomatic relations should be broken off with the Caballero Government, and whether or not the Franco Government should be recognised. These two questions should not be reopened now.
On a point of order, would the Deputy not be in order in advancing reasons as to why the House should not vote money to continue the present position? That is really the net question—whether the House should vote money for this purpose for the coming financial year.
I do not know on which Vote that money is asked for. If it is in relation to the External Affairs Estimate, the question would properly arise on the Vote for that Department.
I respectfully submit that you cannot divorce that from the question of foreign policy. The Government have embarked on a certain policy. Funds are required to carry out that policy, and I respectfully submit that the Deputy is entitled to advance reasons as to why that money should not be voted.
Even though the matter has been decided by motion within six months?
The House may so decide, but the House may later decide not to vote the money.
It can do that only on the Estimates.
We are now asked to vote the money, and, as soon as this motion is passed, the money will be available.
The House has already voted a sum of £166,821. Would it not be in order to move that that sum be deducted from this total and devote the remainder according to parliamentary practice? That would be a contradiction of policy already decided.
One point I should like you, A Chinn Comhairle, to consider is that, when the motion was put down to withdraw our Minister from that particular Government, it was put down as an amendment to the Non-Intervention Bill. The matter that was discussed by the Government on that occasion was not the policy of continuing that Minister or withdrawing him. What was discussed by the Government was the urgency and the advisability of a policy of non-intervention in Spain. So far as the motion was considered at all, it was considered merely as a step to be taken before embarking on non-intervention.
Now I submit that the atmosphere is considerably clearer than it was then. The question can be discussed without any embarrassing complications, such as the urgency of non-intervention. That policy of non-intervention was, as far as I know, supported from every side in this House. What I am urging on the Government is that that policy of non-intervention would be best implemented, as far as we are concerned, by equating the position on both fronts. As long as we have a Minister accredited only to one side in Spain, and that the side that is detested by our people here, no argument will convince our people but that the sympathies of the Government are on the side where they are represented, and any action they will take here at home to prevent further intervention in Spain will be misread as the biassed action of a prejudiced Government acting in the interests of the one side that they continue to recognise in Spain. There is no question of doubt about that. I hold very strongly that Communism can be bred in any country by propaganda, and it can also be bred in any country by sympathy.
A general reference to Government policy such as the Deputy has now made is quite in order. The Chair deprecated a repetition of the long debate on recognition or non-recognition of rival governments in Spain.
I do not want to go into any details at the desire of the Chair.
The Chair is actuated solely by a desire for order and correct procedure.
Without expressing it, we can have different views on order, but I hold very strongly, and I would like to impress upon the Government, that as long as they keep up that association abroad, there will be a sneaking suspicion in the minds of the people of this country that the Government's sympathy is on that particular side. If the same people accept from their bishops and others that that particular force, or Government, or army, is a Communist force, with a Communist outlook, then they will begin to think that Communism is a much smaller crime than they considered it six or nine months ago.
I am urging this particular point of view on the Minister, because, personally, I am puzzled and mystified as to why we continue in that particular policy in regard to Spain. It cannot be merely because a different step was urged by the Opposition Party in this House. It is within the knowledge of the Minister, and of the Government, that there was no voice raised in this House until a period of time covering months and months had been given to the Government to take whatever they considered the right step. If we are to assume that they have taken, and are going to continue to take, what they consider the right step, surely it is due to themselves and to the country to give the reasons why we have failed on every occasion, when any matter was raised here, ever to get any straightforward reply or simple explanation from the President on any matter about which there was any controversy. Even the little evidence we had earlier to-day showed the absolute impossibility of the President of the Executive ever saying "yes" or "no" to any question asked him. I doubt if it is within the recollection of any Deputy in Dáil Eireann that the President of the Executive Council ever did give a "yes" or "no" reply to any question. One would think that it was something extremely unusual, something peculiarly offensive, for any Deputy to question his action on any matter of public importance. The President has his responsibilities, and so have Deputies. There is a responsibility on Deputies, when they are voting millions of money, to satisfy themselves as to the why and the wherefore that the money is being voted. If there is any policy being pursued abroad that appears peculiar to a Deputy, or startling to the country, that Deputy would not be doing his job or facing up to his responsibilities if he did not come to the Dáil and press for information. I hold that he is entitled to get that information, and that before the Dáil passes this Bill, including the money for foreign affairs, Deputies are entitled to get from some Government spokesman an explanation as to why the policy of the Irish Free State in foreign affairs is so antagonistic to the expressed desires of the people of this country.
We have in other matters every cause to complain of the behaviour of the President as Minister for External Affairs when he comes before this House. In the matter of our relations with Great Britain we have gone through five years of the most intense hardship: five years when every class in the community—farmers, labourers and traders—was called upon by members of the Government to make sacrifices in the national interest, and yet on any and every occasion when the matter came up for discussion in the Dáil there was the same denial and the same refusal to give any information as to how matters stood. On the last occasion when I happened to be discussing that particular matter in this House, I asked the President questions with regard to the provisional settlement arrived at in Ottawa and of the interviews given by his Minister both when they were in Ottawa and after their return home. Those interviews definitely implied, in very clear-cut language, that if an agreement had not actually been arrived at, one was within sight and could be expected within a few short weeks. The President took it upon himself to deny (1) that such interviews were ever given, and (2) that any tentative agreement had ever been arrived at. During the last 24 or 48 hours I was reading Mr. J.H. Thomas's book. Now it may be just an accident, but in that book he speaks very highly of the Ministers who represented Ireland at Ottawa, and he speaks very freely about his regret that the settlement arrived at was rejected by the President.
Now, if an interview is given by me, and if that interview is incorrect or untrue, I will not leave it to Deputy Cosgrave or anybody else to repudiate that interview. I will stand up and repudiate that myself. I am the only one who can do it. It is a peculiar thing, however, that the interview in question, particularly the one that was published in the Irish Independent, was an interview with the Vice-President, and that on no occasion has the Vice-President repudiated that interview. On the last occasion when it was discussed in this House it was as simple and as easy for the Vice-President to deal with the matter as for the President, but, be that as it may, the matter that I am concerned with is this: This particularly foolish tariff war has been going on for five years. We had a question within the last week by Deputy MacDermot as to the possibility or probability of arriving at a settlement, and the President's reply was something to the effect that, if a settlement meant surrender, we would never surrender. Deputy MacDermot asked with regard to the advisability of arriving at a compromise, and the President's reply was that a compromise meant surrender. Now, I submit that surrender in any type of war is when one side gets all it demands and when the other side gets nothing, and if a settlement is a surrender, then we already have had three successive surrenders.
This particular situation arose out of the withholding of the annuities. Britain demanded the annuities. The Irish Government said they would not pay them, and for the first year we had an economic war. At the end of the first year the economic war ended by the complete and abject surrender of the Irish Government, because they not only, through the Coal-Cattle Pact, guaranteed the payment of every halfpenny of the anunities, but they gave Great Britain as well a monopoly of our coal, iron and steel trade—a thing she had never looked for, a thing she had never asked for or demanded. The next year came. We had again an agreement between Governments to pay the full sum of the annuities to Great Britain and to give them, in addition, a mortgage on a great portion of the import trade of this country, and at the end of last year we repeated that procedure. If we are going to talk in terms of surrender, let us face up to facts; let us face the fact that we are surrendering year after year, and that it would be more dignified, if we have got to surrender, to surrender in an open way after frankly facing up to the enemy, and after securing what concessions we could for ourselves, than to surrender behind the scenes and to secure nothing for ourselves. It is all very cheap for a political leader to talk in terms of "We will never surrender," but it is very ungenerous to the people of the country. They are paying the piper all the time. The losses are theirs; the hardships are theirs; and we have reached a point where we have people—the best in the country— flying out of the country. We have reached a point where we are not satisfied with paying the annuities in full and with giving a mortgage on our coal, on our iron, and on our steel, but where we are to send the youth of the country in their tens of thousands over to the land and the nation that it is fashionable to refer to as our traditional enemy.
I would urge very strongly on the Government that they would have, not only more support, but far more respect, in this country if they do their business in an open, frank way. All that England was standing for was the annuities. If she got the annuities quarterly by cheque, there would be no trouble between the countries, no penal taxes, and no mortgage on our trade; but if she gets the annuities week by week, by virtue of this pact or settlement, we have all the other kind of complications as well. The whole thing is entirely unworthy, and what I would ask from the Government Minister is some clear statement as to whether any attempts are being made to remedy the matter at the present moment, or whether it is the policy of the Government that the present state of affairs should be regarded as the normal state of affairs. We have very contradictory policies preached by the Government. At one time we have them aiming at the withdrawal or the prevention of exporting any surplus agricultural produce to England. On another occasion we have the Minister for Agriculture walking in here to tell us that two-thirds of the land of Ireland would go out of cultivation if we had not the British market to export to. If that is so, if two-thirds of the land of this country will go out of cultivation if we lose the British market, surely there is a definite responsibility on Government Ministers to avail of every opportunity in order to remove any obstacles that may remain between this country and that market.
When things were not so serious, we had Government Ministers and Deputies of that Party telling the people: "Oh, do not mind. You are getting bad prices for your cattle, and you are only selling a few cattle, because John Bull is `broke'; they have no money to buy your cattle with." All that cheap kind of chatter will do in some areas for a very very short length of time, and it will just get around an awkward corner at a cross-roads, but that is entirely unworthy of people occupying the position of Government Ministers, and it is entirely unworthy of them to put cheap politics in front of the business of the State. With regard to that country, that we were told was "broke," and could not pay for our goods, it is an extraordinary thing that all our fellow-members in the Commonwealth of Nations have increased their sales to Great Britain by many millions during the period when our export sales had fallen by £12,000,000 or £14,000,000. When three members of this Government went to Ottawa some five years ago, and when, really, a new era dawned for every country of the Commonwealth, and when for the first time there was an opportunity for each of those nations to get immense material benefits for their people out of the association they belonged to, our representatives, alone amongst the whole crowd, went out there in a spirit of pique or sulk, and when business was being done, and the British market was being apportioned up and divided amongst the various members of the Commonwealth, we were the only one nation amongst the whole group that came back from that great assembly with penalties to impose on the backs of our people instead of privileges, and the explanation given by our Government Minister for the immense fall in prices and for the big drop in our export trade, was that Great Britain had no money with which to buy our goods.
At that particular date, the trade of Ireland with Great Britain was £37,000,000 a year. Since that it has dropped to £21,000,000 a year, and the explanation given was that England had not the money to pay for our goods. In that same year the export trade of Canada to Great Britain was £32,000,000 a year, much the same as ours. Since that the Canadian export trade has gone up to £75,000,000 a year, an increase of £43,000,000 a year, directly as a result of the negotiations carried out by Canadian Ministers at the Ottawa Conference. They represented their people, and they saw to it, when the opportunity offered, that they were going to bring wealth, privileges and benefits to their people. They increased their sales to the country that had no money to buy from us by the immense sum of £45,000,000 per year, while our sales dropped by £12,000,000 or £14,000,000 a year. The Australian trade with Great Britain at that time was very little more than our own—£46,000,000 a year. That has since, as a result of the ability of the Australian Ministers, gone up to £62,000,000 a year, an increase of £16,000,000. The trade of New Zealand at that time with Great Britain was exactly the same as our own, but it has since increased its trade by £8,000,000 a year. There are Commonwealth nations—the Irish Free State and four others—which enjoy equal status, each having equal influence, one of them, namely, ourselves, being thousands of miles nearer to the British market than any one of the others. We lost £12,000,000 to £14,000,000 a year in trade, while the others increased their trade by £67,000,000 a year. Is it any wonder, when Ministers take to the cross-roads of late, that there is no mention of agriculture, no mention of unemployment, no mention of trade, that the only thing mentioned is the new Constitution, which even Deputies in the Dáil have never seen?
If the new Constitution is to get a fair chance it should not have been dragged for 12 long months as a stinking red herring from one county to the other of the Irish Free State. Every time within the last 12 months on which the Government had occasion to seek votes, whether it was at local elections or at Galway or Wexford, there was no member of the Government who was prepared to stand on their record or on their achievements. There was no member of the Government that had the pluck to stand up to show what they had done. No; the only argument advanced or the only case made for support by any one of them from the President down was that they were going to introduce a new Constitution. Now, a Constitution may be a very interesting document to read. It may be a very interesting document to lawyers. It may provide certain safeguards with regard to the rights of the individual, but a Constitution, just like any other institution, will never bring wealth or prosperity to a country. Whereas Ministers may think there is a responsibility on them to proceed either to mutilate a Constitution or to construct a new one, there is also a God-sent responsibility on Ministers to see that by no act of theirs, either of commission or omission, do they jeopardise the material interests of the people or interfere with the normal rights of the people to trade on terms of equality with other neighbouring countries. I believe the whole policy of the Government in foreign affairs, both with regard to our actions as a member of the Commonwealth and with regard to our actions as a member of the League of Nations, has been absolutely anti-national. It has been nauseating in the field of foreign affairs, and has been absolutely disastrous and calamitous in the field of home affairs.
This Bill gives us an opportunity of reviewing the position of affairs in this country, reviewing the policy of the Government, and how it has affected the country. I think, no matter from what angle we look at it, we shall have to come to the conclusion that the policy of the Government has been a policy of continual blundering, blundering along with a little attempt here to remedy things, another little attempt there, but, on the whole, blundering. If we take any phase of Irish life, from farming to industry, we do not find any stable conditions at the moment. The real cause of that is that the Government, since it became a Government and before it became a Government, had committed itself to a line of policy which meant abandoning in this country the only line of production which gave us a profit, and the only line of production which gave us any chance of surviving even as an industrial nation, because unless we are able to maintain the main industry in such a position that it will produce profit and in which it will be able to maintain the purchasing power of the people, then we are going to lose all.
I am glad that my colleague, Deputy MacDermot, has come into the House, because I want to refer to a speech which he made here the other day, which, to my mind, was the most extraordinary speech I ever heard, or rather read, because I did not happen to be in the House when it was delivered. Deputy MacDermot apparently has a five-year plan in view for the education of Fianna Fáil. He thinks it is well worth while for the people of this country to suffer on in the economic war so that President de Valera and Fianna Fáil will be educated. I wonder will he go down to the Roscommon people and tell them that it is well worth their while to continue to lose £4 5s. per head on their cattle so that President de Valera and Fianna Fáil may be educated? The extraordinary thing about it is that Deputy MacDermot made this speech immediately after the President answered a question of his. The answer was tantamount to this: that we must regard the economic war as a fixture, as something normal in this country, and that, as far as the President and his Party are concerned, they are going to make no attempt to end it. It was after getting that assurance from the President that Deputy MacDermot got up in this House and said that he hoped that Fianna Fáil would be returned again and that the people would have to suffer all the effects of this peculiar situation in order that Fianna Fáil might be educated.
Another rather extraordinary statement was made by Deputy MacDermot when he said that if there was to be a settlement of this dispute it would come much better from Fianna Fáil than from anybody else. I wonder why? I would like to know what was at the back of Deputy MacDermot's mind when he made that statement. We have had previous statements by Deputy MacDermot indicating what he thought of Fianna Fáil and what he thought of the President, and I am rather inclined to this view, that Deputy MacDermot is still of opinion that the Fianna Fáil people are unscrupulous and possibly would not keep a bargain if somebody else made it. It is not a very high conception of international morality or any other type of morality when Deputy MacDermot, particularly, pretends that he would desire, if a settlement of this dispute is to be made, that it should be made by those people who, he thinks, are unscrupulous. He apparently thinks that if anybody else made it they would break it.
I think that if Deputy MacDermot enters on a matter of that sort he ought to be more careful than to make statements of that type. I am sure that if he goes down to Roscommon and tells the people there that it is his opinion that for those reasons they ought to continue to have him as their representative for another five years— apparently he has a five-years' plan at the back of his head for the education of Fianna Fáil—they will give him his answer in a very definite way. It is too bad that because of the type of policy he seems inclined to encourage the people of Roscommon are finding it difficult to carry on. Many of them at the present moment are not able to pay their way. They are not able to pay their rates or their annuities, and they find it difficult even to clothe and feed their children, notwithstanding all the assistance the Government boast so much about. So far as they are able, the county council and other local authorities are giving assistance to the more deserving cases. At the moment the county council and the other public bodies in the county are doing their best to keep the people in a way that at least they will be able to live.
No matter how we examine the position in this country, we are not given very much room for hope. The Government have put into operation various schemes for the amelioration of poverty and distress at one time or another. They have found in many cases that they could not operate these schemes very successfully, and, notwithstanding their plan for the cure of unemployment, they have not done very much in that direction. We have a most unusual position in the matter of local government. The Government compelled local authorities to contribute a sum of £825,000 towards the relief of unemployment. Of course it is characteristic of the Fianna Fáil Government to do that type of thing to the agricultural community. I do not blame them so long as the agricultural community let it go with them.
The Fianna Fáil Government came into office promising great things for the agricultural community. I remember having a copy of their famous Plan here. We were promised higher prices for our cattle, lower rates, a reduction in the Budget, complete derating, and a lot of other things. What have they done for the agricultural community? When they came into power they put the burden of land annuities, amounting to £2,900,000, on the shoulders of the farmers, and increased the imposition to £5,000,000 by way of a tax on their live stock, and, in addition, they compelled the farmers to pay half their old annuities. That was the huge load they put on the backs of the agricultural community. Now we have to bear another burden. Last year the Government promised over £2,000,000 for the relief of unemployment. How did they find that money? They found it by raiding other funds. Whatever authority they have to raid other funds, they ought not to have claimed the authority to go to the county councils and compel them to raise £825,000 so that unemployment, which at the time was being met out of Government funds, should be relieved by the local authorities.
The local authorities have a function with regard to the distressed areas and people without means. That function is exercised by the boards of health. They have to frame their estimates so as to cope with existing distress. Here we have an entirely new departure, where county councils are obliged to provide for people receiving Government assistance. All those burdens are placed on the rate-payers of this country, on people who are already harassed in an endeavour to meet their annuities, their rates and their ordinary calls. They are called upon to provide £825,000 at a time when the indebtedness of local authorities has been increased from £15,500,000 to £24,500,000. People will say, if a local authority has increased its indebtedness for housing and other matters, then it is productive. I wonder is it? I do not think it has been the experience of any local authority in Ireland. It is agreed that it is necessary to provide houses for the people, but at the same time it must be remembered that many of these housing schemes are a drain on the local authorities at all times. That has been our experience, and it was the view expressed by almost everybody in the House when the Labourers Act was going through and when the desire was indicated to sell the cottages to the labourers.
I have here some newspaper cuttings and I feel sure that if Deputies were to read them they would inevitably come to the conclusion that under the Fianna Fáil Government, local authorities are not progressing, or rather that the people who pay under the local authorities are not progressing. I will take one cutting, and I am sure Fianna Fáil people will not allege that there is here any kind of conspiracy to prevent people from paying their way or that any type of anti-government activity is responsible for the poverty of the people. This cutting comes from a newspaper published in the President's own County Clare. This is taken from the "Clare Champion" of the 13th February last. It publishes a report of a meeting of the county council. I see in it where the Clare county surveyor estimated for a sum of £116,376 5s. for the upkeep of the roads. The Clare County Council meeting was presided over by a gentleman who, I believe, is not averse from Government policy; I think he is undoubtedly 100 per cent. Fianna Fáil. He made a statement to the effect that they must have regard to the capacity of the people to pay, and that they could not pass anything like the amount which the county surveyor estimated was required for the roads. As a result of the appeal he made and the Council's decision generally, the amount was reduced to £66,641. You are going to have repercussions there on labour, and possibly the reaction will be felt through the board of health.
If the Government were merely to examine what is happening up and down the country they will immediately come to the conclusion that their policy is a failure. But the Government have been so obsessed with the creation of an industrial arm that they have entirely forgotten the main essentials. The one purpose the Government had in view was to create an industrial arm at any cost. We have in this country people who have invested money in industrial enterprise and they have legislative security to the extent of enormous tariffs. The result is that prices go up to that extent, whereas the poor unfortunate people who pay have got no security at all. We have consequently the community in general hit at both ends. We have very high tariffs with the quota system applying in this country, with the result that in most cases the price of the article goes up to the foreign price plus the amount of the tariff. In consequence of that there are many people finding it very hard to exist at present while somebody at least is making soft money. We have people in this country belonging to what I think is called the "industrial federation" who have made very serious complaints with regard to alien penetration. Deputy Moore does not think there is anything in that. Deputy Moore recently thought that I was talking through my hat when I mentioned that in this House.
I never expressed an opinion in this House on the question of alien penetration in industry.
Deputy Moore endeavoured to express some kind of an opinion on a statement that I made.
With regard to postage, which is not quite the same thing.
Not with regard to postage, but with regard to certain firms across the water having what were in effect branches of their industry here, and I stand by that. The unfortunate thing is that, while the agricultural community and the poor people in the country have to pay 33? per cent. too much for the boots and shoes which they want for their children, that profit is not going into the pockets of Irish people, and Deputy Moore knows that as well as I do. We have had evidence in another direction which shows that the Government policy is a failure. I do not want to repeat the silly, foolish, idiotic things Fianna Fáil were saying when looking for election to this House about the number of people for whom they were to get employment, about the number of people the land was going to maintain, and what they were going to do with wheat and beet. I am a farmer and I knew what wheat and beet would do for the country. It is not going to bring it more money—it is going to bring it much less money. Certainly, if anybody told Fianna Fáil that their policy would have the effect of running people out of the rural districts into the towns and villages and also across to England, he would have been laughed at. But that is what is happening.
We have a state of affairs existing at present which, outside political circles altogether, is causing much anxiety and disquiet and which the Government ought to tackle and must tackle sooner or later—that is the question of Irish girls going to England. There are perhaps many Deputies who have not had an opportunity of seeing those things like the Western Deputies have. Somebody will say that it is usual for people to go across looking for domestic service. I remember reading last week, however, where the chairman of the Connaught Council of the G.A.A. drew the attention of the meeting to the fact that they had less clubs affiliated in Galway because young men were flying to England and said that it was heartrending to see the flower of the flock crossing to England because they could not get a living here. That is not what Fianna Fáil promised. Not that I believed Fianna Fáil were going to deliver the goods at any time, because I felt their policy was wrong. But if Fianna Fáil want to go ahead with an industrial policy, I say the community ought to be protected. If the people who have gone into industrial undertakings, no matter who they are, have legislative protection, then the consumers ought to have legislative protection. Of course, nobody will seriously say that the Prices Commission is a protection, because it is the greatest farce which was ever set up in this country, and everybody knows that.
We are now being asked for a sum of money which, according to the speeches of Fianna Fáil when on this side of the House, would stagger the country if asked for at that time. Notwithstanding the sum of money which we are being asked for here, we see that the estimates of the local authorities all over the country have gone up. Why have they gone up? They have gone up for various reasons, practically none of them being an increase of social services. Almost every county council estimate we take up has gone up because the estimates for county homes have gone up, because the board of health estimates have gone up and because the asylum estimates have gone up. They have gone up because of the cost of food and clothing, etc., due to high tariffs and to the fact that there is no protection for the community while there is ample protection for other people. I maintain that, while a state of affairs like that exists, the Government at least ought to apply themselves to the reasons why these things are happening. They will not find that the people of this country have become dishonest, although one would imagine from what people on the Government Benches say that people were not paying their rates and annuities now because they have become dishonest. How did it happen that the Irish people became dishonest over-night? Is it not an extraordinary thing that this non-payment business coincided with Fianna Fáil coming into power? How is that? They cannot say that it is due to anti-Government policy, because if we take up county by county we find that the very worst offenders are the Fianna Fáil counties. If the Government will only sit down and examine their conscience they will find that there is a basis for all this and, having found it, they will try to remedy it.
I must say before I conclude that to the people of this country the most alarming thing is this—that we had the President making a statement here in this House which was tantamount to saying that he or his Government are not going to attempt to settle this dispute with Great Britain; and we had Deputy MacDermot saying that it is the right thing for this country that it should suffer for another five years under that load. These are very serious statements for the agricultural community. It will not help people to be told that we are going to have a new Constitution. I am sure that if we do get a new Constitution, and if it gives the people a continuity of the justice and of the protection which they had, they will not bother about it, they will not care, provided it does not interfere with those things. But, is it going to help the people to pay their way? As Deputy O'Higgins rightly said, it is a red herring drawn across the path of what is Government policy, and it is bringing this country down. I think the Government cannot congratulate itself, no matter from what angle it views the repercussions of its policy, and before a contribution of this magnitude is made the people should be told exactly what the position is. Government speakers keep very wide of the position. Although we may be told that we have no policy to put before the people, the extraordinary thing is the complete change that has taken place in Fianna Fáil. Apparently we do not have to get the calves killed now. The British market is good. It is there in spite of what we heard from Fianna Fáil. I remember that a pamphlet was issued by Fianna Fáil before the last election pointing to the poverty of John Bull and explaining that the reason for the fall in the price of cattle was not the economic war, but the poverty of Great Britain. Apparently that position has now been abandoned, and Fianna Fáil have realised that there is some value in live stock, and are coming around largely to our way of thinking, despite their obsession about an industrial policy. That has happened. As the returns from the country reveal, the poverty that is there is not creditable to Fianna Fáil.
This is a Bill to authorise the expenditure of £10,500,000, being portion of the larger Bill for the expenditure of £29,000,000 required during the coming year. It is peculiar that £10,500,000 almost coincides with the amount which we were told explicitly a few years ago should run this country. As the bulk of this year's expenditure must inevitably fall on the class which comprises the major portion of the population—the agricultural community—it should not be passed by this House without some comparison being made of the position of farmers now, and their position when certain Ministers stated that this country could be run for £12,000,000. In 1928, when world conditions were certainly not any better than they are now, the present Minister for Agriculture stated in this House that the real and the true remedy for the then position of agriculture was not to talk of credit loans or subsidies, or any such artificial aids, but to reduce taxation. I think he said it would be better policy for the agricultural community if the then Minister for Agriculture, instead of coming to the Dáil for a Bill such as the one which was before the House—the Agricultural Credit Bill— went to the Executive Council and tried to persuade them to reduce taxation. He said:—
"I certainly am not guilty of looking for any doles for the farmers, because I am not so absolutely ignorant of the fundamental facts as not to see that if anything is given to the farmers by this Government it is the farmers themselves who subscribe it."
He went on:—
"When we compare the taxation in England with this country we find, even on the basis suggested by the British Treasury, I think, at the time of the Ultimate Financial Settlement, that our taxation should be somewhere about £12,000,000 instead of £24,000,000."
In 1928 the House was told that our taxation should be £12,000,000 instead of £24,000,000, and here we are in the year of grace 1937, asked to vote £10,500,000 on account, to run the State for less than a third of the year, so that we are progressing. The present Minister for Agriculture made very interesting suggestions on that occasion when speaking on a Finance Bill. He said:—
"The farmer does not want doles. I think the farmer should be told plainly that the price of his freedom —such freedom as he has under this Free State Government—is that he has to pay twice as much taxation as he had in the past—than he would have to pay if he remained with Great Britain or if he remained under the Union."
The price we have to pay for our freedom under the Fianna Fáil Government has gone up to about treble the amount that the Minister considered in those days we were justifiably expected to pay. We had in the House within the past few days some interesting headlines when the question of salaries was mooted. One has to be very careful when making accusations against Ministers because one is inevitably "pulled up," so it is safer when relating this discussion to the former status of Ministers, not to rely on newspaper extracts, but on their contributions to the debates when the House was discussing finance. Speaking of salaries, I may as well go to the fountain head of the Government Party first, the President. Speaking on the Central Fund Bill in July, 1928, the President went closely into the question of salaries. He said they were altogether too high, and that £1,000 was the limit for all classes of people. At the time he was speaking on salaries of Ministers and Deputies the President was in Opposition, and perhaps it was then easier to talk on that question than now, when he is responsible for government. Fianna Fáil has learned something in the last few years. Having spoken about general expenditure and on Ministers' salaries, the President said:—
"We are told here they are worth their money. To my mind, what you are worth depends altogether on what your effectiveness to the community is and what is being done in the general interests of the community."
We might all agree with him in that. It is quite a sound proposition. He continued:
"That is not the standard we ought to take. I take it that we are here from the point of view of public duty and not from the point of view of earning our living. If we are here from that point of view pure and simple it is not the ideal that most of us on these benches anyhow stand for."
Like everything else that Fianna Fáil preached in those days their experience has taught them differently. We have departed from the days when £1,000 was an extravagant sum to pay to any man for anything in this country. It appears that, while they came in as fresh young Ministers of this House filled with a desire for economies of all kinds, five years of government and extravagant living if you like—because our Ministers were accused of that in the old days—have convinced them that £1,000 pocket-money is not a suitable sum to extend to a Minister or Parliamentary Secretary in these days. I personally will not cavil if the Executive Council raises the salaries of Ministers of this House to £3,000——
Why?
Because they are worth it.
Because I believe a good man is worth £3,000 in certain circumstances.
Have you got them?
That is a different question.
Would it not require legislation to increase Ministerial salaries? We cannot advocate legislation on this Bill.
I think the House was informed somehow the other day that it was proposed to raise the salaries of Ministers once again.
What happened was, the President made a statement that he proposed to set up a committee to consider the salaries of Ministers.
Was provision made for that in the Estimates?
I did not object to Deputy Bennett speaking of salaries in general as a matter of policy, but there is a statutory provision already regarding Ministerial salaries. It was a matter of decision in this House.
May not a man say that he approves of the salary fixed by the Statute on the ground that it was £1,300 too little?
Deputy McGilligan sees that the basis of discussion is widening?
A Deputy may surely announce his acceptance of the statutory limit because it is not big enough?
Deputy McGilligan may take it that he and I disagree on the subject.
In any case, if the discussion is not widening, salaries and expenses are certainly widening, and that is what materially affects most of us. I do not object to a Minister getting a reasonable salary, and I do not expect that for a very good Minister £1,000 or £1,500 is a good salary.
If they did not rob their employees.
I am not suggesting anything of that sort at all, but I am suggesting that, like everything else in their education, they are advancing, and they have come to believe that a moderately good Minister is worth something more than the sum, not more than which, they said a few years ago, should be paid to any individual. The Minister for Agriculture, and other Minister speaking at that particular time, said apparently that all the salvation the farmer needed was a reduction of taxation. I rather agree with them in some respects that one of the main things that could help him would be a reduction of taxation— a great reduction in central and local taxation. But the Government and the Minister have not lived up to what they told the people in no uncertain words either in this Dáil or in their speeches in the country. What they said in the country does not very much concern me, but one would certainly have expected them to live up to what they said in debates in this House. Instead of the reductions we were promised, we have, as I said a moment ago, this very great increase in taxation.
One cause of that may or may not be the war into which Government policy launched us for three or four or five years. The President said a few days ago in this House that we must either fight or surrender. I do not know whether he said "fight or surrender" or "surrender or fight." There is not very much difference in any case. We have not been fighting very much in this war. The Government, having engaged us in the war, might have made a greater effort to hold up our end of it. I do not suggest that there should be any surrender, but I do suggest that, in the middle of a war, it is not a good course to engage in a pact which means nothing. That is what we have done.
As I said in this House on one occasion, we have never had even a real armistice in this war. We never had even an attempt at a temporary cessation of hostilities. But we had a pact; we had two pacts—something for something, but nothing given away on either side. Perhaps, as regards the first pact, I am wrong in that; there was something given away, and we gave it. We gave away a very large portion of our trade and got very little for it. We gave them a monopoly of the goods and got very little quid pro quo. I admit that in the second pact there was an improvement on that, but nothing like what the people of this country expected.
Where did the improvement come in?
Under the first pact, if I recollect rightly, they did not take any extraordinary number of extra cattle. Under the second pact that was improved a bit; we got a certain amount of cattle taken off our hands— not at a very much improved price, but they took them. We could not sell them for God's sake before that.
We had to pay the same taxes.
Oh, yes.
Then where was the improvement?
The improvement was that you got rid of something that you could not possibly get rid of before.
And it suited Britain!
It suited Britain. I do not say it was any material help to the farmers, but it did give them a chance to get rid of something somehow at a rock-bottom price. Merely because we suggest that some attempt should be made to end this war if we are not prepared to fight it—and we apparently are not—we are accused of attempting to force the Government into a surrender. This war will have to come to a conclusion some day, just as all wars which were ever fought had to come to an end, and there will have to be some approach to a settlement when that end comes. One side may be pushed out of it by force. It will not be force of arms in this case; it will be diplomatic force, financial force on the other side. It will have to be ended some day by some Minister in this House or in some House which succeeds this, because we do not know whether this House will be there or not; it may have disappeared. There will have to be a settlement, and this country will have to pay for a settlement. The longer it goes on the bigger bill they will have to pay eventually. Why not face up to it now and settle it? If, in the middle of a war, you can approach your enemy through an official of some kind and make a peace pact, surely he is not such a dangerous enemy that you cannot approach him now and say: "What is the use of making piecemeal settlements? Can we not get down like decent men and settle the whole damn thing?" It can be settled and it should be settled, and, if it is not settled by the present Government, the country will ask that some other people who will settle it should be put in their shoes.
In the old days when we discussed finance in this country, there was a general cry from the Government Party, then in Opposition, about the depression which agriculture was suffering in 1928, 1929 and 1930. In those years, there was a world-wide depression and when we were on the Government Benches we did not deny the existence of that depression. Fianna Fáil, however, magnified that depression as greatly as any individuals could magnify anything. The fact was that in that particular period, when the whole world was suffering from depression, this country was suffering least of all and it was even stated, I think, in Geneva, or in some other place where governmental authorities met, that the one bright spot in the whole universe was the Saorstát. The reason given for our not suffering so much as other countries was the policy of the then Minister for Agriculture in this State. I think we suffered only 33 per cent. of the depression. We do not deny that the depression continued for long after Fianna Fáil came in and we have never denied it. We have never said that Fianna Fáil had not difficulties to face as we had, but we have always said that they did not face up to those difficulties as Ministers before them faced up to them.
We expected that the least we could anticipate was that stepping into the shoes of a Government who gave the best that was in them in the interests of the country, they would have continued that policy, or perhaps improved on it, so that when countries were creeping out of the rut of depression, we of the Saorstát would have been the first to creep out and emerge from the depression sooner than any other country. What do we find? We find from the latest statistics we can get on the subject that instead of being able to resist depression to the utmost, depression is hitting agriculturists here more than it is in any other country. There must be some reason for that and the Government must admit that there is a reason for it. To us, the sole reason appears to be the insane policy of the Government in embarking upon a war which they have never made a serious attempt either to settle or to fight.
It makes for me rather painful reading, and I do not recall it with gratification, when I go back and read what Ministers spoke unthinkingly in opposition, and when I think what little effort has been made to put into effect the glorious promises they made in this House and elsewhere on those occasions. I have quoted the President in regard to salaries. He was followed by other Ministers and by Parliamentary Secretaries. I find Deputy Little, following the President in those days, stating in reply to Deputy Cooper, when Deputy Cooper rather resisted the idea of cutting down all salaries to £1,000 a year, that "it is important from the point of view that salaries of over £1,000 per year are unnecessary in this country and really amount to a bribe." The Fianna Fáil Party, to use their own term, are apparently not above taking a bribe in this year of grace. Deputy Little went on and he was somewhat prophetic, because he spoke of flying. I suppose that in those days flying was not as far advanced as it is now. He said "We are entitled to know what is the policy of the Government on that question, whether they are going to take up a good, strong, firm Irish attitude and see that Irish flying is not going to be exploited and controlled by Imperial Airways." So far as this House has any intimation at present, we are going to be exploited and controlled by Imperial Airways.
I do not want to go into the higher issues of politics, the policy of the Government in external affairs or such matters. What really matters to me, as it really matters to the common or garden elector in this country, the plain folk Ministers used to talk of, is the amount of taxation they are asked to bear and the efforts made by the Government to equip them to bear that taxation. We hold on this side that the amount of taxation now imposed is an unnecessary burden. If Ministers are sincere, if there was any element of sincerity at all in the speeches they made four, five and six years ago, they must realise that the burden of 30 odd million pounds of taxation demanded now is an impossible burden. If there was any sincerity in the statements of Ministers when they said that this country could be run for £12,000,000, they must surely know that a burden of £29,000,000 odd, with other additions later on, is a burden which agriculture could not be expected to bear in normal circumstances and which, in the circumstances in which the Government have placed agriculture by reason of their unfortunate policy, is an absolutely impossible burden. I do not intend to take up the time of the House further except to reiterate that I hope Ministers will some day come to adopt the view of the Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Ryan, when he said that the only salvation for the agricultural industry in this country was a great reduction in the huge overhead charge of taxation.
I suppose that some day it will be my good fortune to make a speech in debate after Deputy McGilligan.
Will the Deputy let me speak now?
I will.
Mr. McGilligan rose.
There should not be this procedure. I called on Deputy MacDermot, but if he surrenders his right to Deputy McGilligan it is all right.
If I am doing anything that is not in accordance with the etiquette of the House, I will continue my speech.
The only objection the Chair has is that it is a very bad precedent to set, if, when he calls on one Deputy, that Deputy should immediately surrender his right to another Deputy.
Very well. I will continue. I was merely going to observe that I have frequently come in here, made up my mind to speak after Deputy McGilligan, but after listening to a long array of speakers on his side, my patience has given way. I have not had the patience to hold out until my time came and I have risen and I have, naturally, been attacked with great vehemence by the Deputy afterwards. I have to run that risk, such as it is, once again.
A great deal of indignation seems to have been created, judging by the speech of Deputy McGilligan a few days ago, and of Deputy Brennan to-day, among the Opposition, by my suggestion that it was on the whole in the public interest that the Fianna Fáil Government should be again returned to power. I in no way repent of having expressed that opinion. It is an opinion I sincerely hold, nor is it a singular opinion. My experience has been that for about a year past there has been a feeling growing amongst people not directly connected with politics, people even who have been in the habit of voting in the past for the Cosgrave Party, that it is desirable in the public interest that the Fianna Fáil Government should be again returned to power.
My chief interest in politics is, and always has been, the unity of Ireland. I see as a great obstacle in the way of the unity of Ireland the existence of any large Party in the Irish Free State that is separatist and anti-British in sentiment. Consequently I have stated, not only since I reverted to independence, but frequently when I was a member of the Fine Gael Party, that I could not succeed in interesting myself in the question of dismissing Fianna Fáil from power but that I was interested in their conversion. I have stated that so long as there was any large Party, even in opposition, in the Irish Free State that was separatist and anti-British, I saw no cure for partition and no hope for a united Ireland. There is no cure like office for diseases like those from which Fianna Fáil were suffering before they came into power. They have advanced a considerable way on the road to conversion since they came into power, and I think that the country as a whole is very much to be congratulated on that fact. Deputy McGilligan suggested that I had been guilty of gross inconsistency because I had on one occasion said that the President had done more harm in this country than any man since Cromwell. I have since looked up that reference in the Official Reports. If Deputy McGilligan had the least sense of candour or fairness he would have gone on and read the next sentence in that reference.
He would not be Deputy McGilligan if he did.
In the course of my speech—and the reference is 14th of July, 1933, column 2765, Volume 48— I said:
"I confess to having a weakness for the President."
Then I paid him a few compliments, and having done that, I said:
"Nevertheless, I feel obliged to say about him now what I said about him once in this House already, that I disagree with practically everything he has done in the course of his public life, and that I do not believe any man since Cromwell has inflicted more harm on this country."
I then continued:
"I said, in speaking upon the question of the election of the President, that in view of his special qualities, and in view of the hold that he undoubtedly possessed, and still possesses, though in a very much lesser degree, over the hearts of a large section of the people of this country, he was a potential asset of tremendous value. I still think so, in spite of what I think about his past actions."
That makes it plain that at that time, the very date that Deputy McGilligan alluded to in 1933, I took the view that what was needed was not to expel President de Valera into outer darkness and drive him back to what I consider to be the wrong-headed and disastrous policy that he followed before he came into office. I thought the best thing was to assist, as far as critics can assist, in his conversion, to pray for it and to work for it. Nothing can do more to aid that conversion than the hard facts that the President has to face in office. His conversion has been proceeding, and, indeed, the fact that it has been proceeding has been made the subject of jeers and reproaches from the Opposition side of the House.
Deputy McGilligan suggests that the fact that I take such a view shows a spirit of Olympian detachment entirely unworthy of a representative of the people. To quote another remark he made, I am supposed to be a person with "light moorings" who is here as a sort of adventurer and takes no real interest in the welfare of the people. If it be a crime to be in an economic position to leave this country and yet to stay in it and work for it of one's free will, I confess I am guilty of that crime. If there are no ties to be recognised except ties of economic dependence, then I confess there is no tie between me and this country. But if ties of lifelong affection count for something, if the fact that one has worked for Ireland to the best of one's ability, getting no advantage to one's self, counts for something, if it counts for something that one has an historic connection with this country going back a thousand years, then I suggest that it is less than fair to me to suggest that my moorings are light and that I am here as a sort of adventurer.
Nobody in this House has been more persistent or more emphatic than I have been in urging a settlement of the so-called economic war upon the Government. From the very moment that it broke out, as I think I have explained in this House already, my efforts have gone so far as even to be officious. In addition to speeches, I have made private representations both to our own Government and to Ministers in the British Government. I have made several concrete suggestions. If I have failed, it was not for want of interesting myself and for want of trying. But in fact it cannot be said that there is no improvement in the attitude of the Government. The Coal-Cattle Pact and Trade Agreement do mark a very great improvement. As Deputy Bennett said in one part of his speech, the Coal-Cattle Pact and Trade Agreement are of great importance and they mark a conversion to the view that the cattle trade is of tremendous importance in our economy. Where is the sense of Deputy Bennett saying that in one part of his speech and then in another part of his speech saying, under pressure from Deputy Belton, that these agreements did no good.
I said they did not improve prices.
At any rate, they prevented prices falling catastrophically as they were falling in 1934 before we made any Coal-Cattle Pact. The agreements have saved the cattle trade from destruction. In addition they indicate a valuable change of mind on the part of the Government. It seems to me to be extremely bad tactics to be constantly sneering at them.
The quarrels with Great Britain have both a political and economic side. I maintain firmly and frankly that the present Government is better fitted to settle them on both sides than any other Government would be. Let us take the economic side first. The larger part of the Opposition is handicapped in this way that according to them the money is due to Great Britain. The best the Opposition could do if they were in power to-morrow morning is to say to Great Britain "You did not pay your war debt to America and so you are not in a position to be exigent about our debt to you, even though you maintain it is a debt of a very different description, a commercial debt rather than an international debt." It does not honestly appear to me that that line of approach would be substantially more hopeful than the line that is at present being followed by the Government. If it comes to a settlement between Great Britain and Ireland, it is always better, in my opinion, to have that settlement, whether it be of an economic question or of a political question, made by the most extreme Tory Party in Great Britain, if you can get it, and the most extreme Republican Party in Ireland. That is the ideal settlement. Then you know if it will last.
Have the Govern-not been educated out of extreme republicanism?
Nevertheless, they are further in that direction than the other Party.
Why not wait for the extreme republicans?
I do not believe that there is any really extreme Republican Party in the country that matters two pins. It was shown at the elections that the I.R.A. candidates could not get anywhere. We may take it that, if the Fianna Fáil Party finds salvation and drops hostility to Great Britain, the problem of good feeling between the two countries will be practically solved and the main barrier to union with Northern Ireland will be removed. They have the manifest advantage, on the purely economic side, that they have never admitted that this money was due. I still think that it would be extremely easy for them to make a reasonable compromise and I intend to keep pegging away at them in the future, as I have kept pegging away at them in the past, to try to hustle and shame them into making a reasonable compromise. I feel as much indignation as anybody in the country can feel at President de Valera taking the line that only the unconditional surrender of the British Government can be accepted as a settlement.
As long as he does that, the hopes of a settlement are slim, but I do not believe he will go on doing that for ever. Even if he wins this general election by an increased majority, I do not believe he will go on doing that for ever. I think that the march of events is going to force his hands more than any arguments or speeches from the Opposition benches or the Independent Benches could do.
As I have said, on the economic side the Government have an advantage. On the political side they have also an advantage, because the Opposition are already, I am glad to say, frankly and fully committed to a policy of membership of the Commonwealth, even though there have been some utterances by members of the Opposition lately that I find it a little difficult to reconcile with that philosophy. Still, they are committed beyond all retreat or change to membership of the Commonwealth, and if Fine Gael were to come into power to-morrow and make a political settlement and an economic settlement with Great Britain, there is not the smallest doubt —one does not have to call them "unscrupulous," as Deputy Brennan suggests, to feel this—that the Fianna Fáil Party would be driven back upon their traditional policy of republicanism and separatism and of saying that the leaders of Fine Gael were unduly subservient to the British. I think that would be a disaster of the first magnitude. I think it is manifestly preferable that the logic of facts should drive the present Government on to make the settlements that need to be made.
Deputy O'Higgins alluded to the foreign policy of the Government, which, he said, was of such a kind as grossly to misrepresent the people of this country. In view of that remark of his, I feel obliged to turn to a speech which he delivered on Sunday at Limerick in order to ascertain what the idea of the Opposition is of a proper foreign policy for this country. I have here the fullest report of that speech that I could find —the report in the Irish Times of Monday last, March 8. Deputy O'Higgins expressed himself as follows:
"Behind the scenes, the British statesmen were smiling smugly at the legislation which accepted our position in the Commonwealth and which recognised the King. Behind the scenes, too, the British military chiefs were chuckling because Mr. de Valera had pledged Ireland's army to defend England's left flank. The British air chiefs were smiling complacently because they had secured from these wild Republicans a monopoly of the airways through Ireland and a wireless base which completed their beam system in all directions. Alongside them were the British industrialists. They, too, were quite happy. They had got a secure monopoly of Irish trade, and they could afford to grin at the envious eyes of their European rivals. But, perhaps, the most jubilant of all was Mr. Eden, the British Foreign Secretary. He would not "blow the gaff" on these bogus republicans. He, too, had got his price. Mr. de Valera might preach cheap bellicosity at home in Ireland, but Mr. Eden knew he would practise humble docility abroad. Mr. Eden knew that he could count on Mr. de Valera's help wherever he strayed in foreign fields, and even when he allied himself with Red Russia and Pink France in support of the Red régime in Spain."
Does that really represent the point of view of the Opposition as to the principles on which our foreign policy should be conducted? I leave aside the question of whether it is a fair description of what the Government have, in fact, done in the matter of alleged military arrangements, of legislation accepting the Commonwealth, of giving satisfaction to the air chiefs and of giving a monopoly of our trade to English industrialists. But is that a responsible line of argument to take for a Party which professes to stand in excelsis for good relations with Great Britain and for full membership of the Commonwealth? The last sentence I have read has to do with Mr. Eden, and it is said that Mr. Eden knows that he can count on Mr. de Valera's help when he allies himself with Red Russia and Pink France in support of the Red régime in Spain.
Mr. Daly
Hear, hear.
Surely nobody with the slightest sense of responsibility can say that the British Government have allied themselves with Red Russia and Pink France in support of the Red régime in Spain. Is that what non-intervention means? What is the evidence for that alliance in support of the Red régime in Spain?
Mr. Daly
What is the Deputy's opinion of that statement?
That it is absolutely untrue.
Mr. Daly
Every word of it is true.
Well, I do not know whether the Deputy's acquaintance with English people is larger than mine, but, speaking of my acquaintances, I can say that the great majority of the English people whom I know are not in favour of the Red régime in Spain. I have not seen a single speech by a member of the British Government to indicate that they are in favour of the Red régime in Spain.
What about the quotation from the speech made by Lord Cecil in the House of Lords which was distinctly that way?
I am not acquainted with the quotation in question, but Lord Cecil, to the best of my belief, is not a member of the British Government. I am not denying that there are some distinguished people in England in favour of the Red régime in Spain.
And, apparently, in Ireland also.
I do not know about that. I have not met any.
The Deputy who often sang "The Red Flag" apparently has.
When the creameries were being burned in Tipperary.
Would the Deputy repeat that?
They said that you sang "The Red Flag" when the creameries were being burned in Tipperary.
Deputy Allen has just made a statement which I want to characterise immediately as an absolute lie. That is a statement that has been repeated and tried to be sent through this country by the Fianna Fáil Party.
The Chair heard Deputy Allen make an interjection but did not catch what the Deputy said. I was endeavouring to listen to Deputy MacDermot. Deputy Morrissey knows that a statement such as he has just made cannot be allowed to pass—to characterise the statement of another Deputy as a lie.
May I say that while I am prepared to withdraw the word "lie," the Deputy's statement is deliberately untrue.
The Deputy knows well that to say that a statement is "deliberately untrue" is the same as saying that it is a "lie."
The statement is untrue, and with your permission I want to challenge both Deputy Allen and the Minister for Finance to repeat the statement outside this House.
Deputy MacDermot.
At any rate the British Government are constantly being attacked by the British Opposition for not being in sympathy with the Red régime in Spain. The bulk of British Opposition is in favour of the Red régime in Spain, though in their ignorance they perhaps would not admit that it was Red; but it is untrue and mischievous to tell the people of this country that the British Government are in favour of the Red régime in Spain. Deputy O'Higgins, in the speech from which I have quoted, continued:—
"Some people—frequently referred to as ex-Unionists—take exception to our demand that an Irish Government should cease to be directly linked through an accredited Minister with a Communist Government in Spain, which is responsible for sacking churches and murdering the nuns and priests of our faith. Presumably they adopt that attitude because Great Britain considers it tactically politic to continue her association with that Government. Great Britain has her own problems to face; she has her Mediterranean problem and that of shifting European military alliances; but even with all that, if the Caballero Government in Spain were making war on the Protestant religion, burning and looting Protestant churches, sacking Protestant institutions, murdering members of religious Orders and ministers of her Church, Great Britain would take the strong and determined line worthy of her traditions. This country is a Catholic country; our people's sense of justice is outraged by the treatment of our co-religionists in Spain; people of all parties here have protested. The Bishops have spoken loudly, and ex-Unionists should have sufficient broad-mindedness to sympathise with their fellow-countrymen and join with them in demanding that our Government should cease to misrepresent us abroad."
Now, is all that an attack on non-intervention? I find it awfully difficult to follow the line taken by the Opposition on non-intervention. Are they in favour of it or not?
The Chair has already ruled that the question of non-intervention or intervention is not one that can be reopened on this Bill.
The question of Spain was introduced by Deputy O'Higgins in a speech earlier this afternoon.
I listened to the greater part of Deputy O'Higgins' speech. It had to do with diplomatic relations with either of the two Governments which presume to rule in Spain. It had not to do with a discussion of the attitude of the Opposition towards intervention or non-intervention, as that is a matter that the House has already come to a decision on.
Very well then, I assume that everybody is in favour of non-intervention. Why then all this excited language from the Opposition merely because we have a representative at St. Jean de Luz, not hobnobbing with Communists and anarchists, but in a quiet, very Catholic little border town along with the representatives of almost every other country in Europe. That apparently is the ground upon which the British Government are to be accused of being allied with France and Russia in support of the Red Government in Spain, and that is the ground upon which our Government are to be held up to odium as subservient to the British Government and supporting them in a wicked and immoral alliance. I suggest that never was a mountain of prejudice built up upon so slender a foundation.
If the Opposition have any desire to promote good relations between ourselves and the people across the water, or if they have any desire at all to have a good effect in any matter upon the policy of our own Government, I suggest that they should not lend themselves to such wild misrepresentations as that. The hope of contributing anything by argument and discussion towards the conversion of the Government rests upon the Ministers of the Government paying some attention to what one says and believing that one is speaking with a certain amount of reasonableness and sincerity.
The truth of the matter is that this country is not getting what it ought to get out of the Spanish troubles. What is going on in Spain has got some very valuable lessons indeed for us, but as far as I can see the vision of what is going on in Spain is actually doing more harm than good in this country at present. That seems to me a tremendous pity. On the one side you get some of the wilder spirits among the extreme republicans imagining that in going to fight in Spain they are doing something in the cause of liberty. There never was anything so grotesque as the idea that the government of Largo Caballero stands for the cause of liberty. On the other hand, you have people, no doubt with the very best motives, in the ranks of the Christian Front and elsewhere who imagine that what is going on in Spain is an argument for suppressing liberty in this country. It is nothing of the kind. Everything that has gone on in Spain ought to make us more attached to the old principles of ordered liberty.
Now there is one economic lesson for us in what is taking place in Spain that is perhaps worth taking note of. I suggested in a speech here a few days ago that there was growing up a division in this country between urban and agricultural employment— that the tendency of the Government's legislation was to improve the conditions for urban industry and that nothing similar was being done for the agricultural industry, and that I feared that the whole agricultural industry was going to sink to a lower level altogether than the rest. I think that that did occur in Spain. As far as I can learn, the condition of the agricultural community in Spain, before these troubles, was one of the sharpest and most terrible poverty, and even though I think the people most active behind Caballero and behind the anarchists and Communists were, in fact, the urban people, who were better off, yet it remains true that Spain as a whole became much more easily the prey to political diseases because of the fact of the extreme poverty of an immense section of her people. I think that one of the lessons we ought to learn from Spain is to be determined that our agricultural population here should be raised to a far higher level of prosperity than they have hitherto enjoyed. I say that all governments should attack that problem in a crusading spirit and with an active determination to solve it with all the means at their disposal, having due regard to the difficulties of the position, because the difficulties of the problem are, of course, apparent to everybody.
Over and above that, I think that what has occurred in Spain should make us more attached than before to the principle of order and should make us realise that liberty without order is a farce: that liberty cannot exist without order; and it is the very fact that the Government that existed before General Franco's revolt was a Government unable or unwilling to enforce order and unable or unwilling to protect the innocent from murder or to protect churches and convents from being burned and individual citizens from robbery, that makes it evident that they or their successors to-day have no claim at all to be considered as protagonists in the cause of liberty.
In what fashion is all this related to expenditure?
On the matter of foreign policy.
I am sorry, Sir, if I have transgressed. I consider that my remarks arose out of the previous remarks of Deputy O'Higgins.
I should like, Sir, to ask for an expression of opinion from the Chair on this matter for the guidance of the House generally. Surely, a general discussion of the Government's foreign policy is permissible on this Vote. No question of pure administration is being called in question by Deputy MacDermot, but very clearly he is dealing with matters over which the Executive Council and the responsible Minister have jurisdiction. I understood that any subject is open for full discussion under this Bill.
It seems to me that the Deputy was discussing the policy of a recent Government in Spain——
As succeeded by another.
——that had allowed certain outrages to pass unpunished, rather than the policy of our Government in respect of expenditure.
At any rate, Sir, I hope it may be in order to congratulate the Government on this— although it is not a new act on their part, but still it perhaps becomes appropriate in view of the things that have recently happened—that they did find the courage—although, perhaps, it took them a good deal longer to find it than it ought to have taken—to put down murder by secret societies in this country and to put down the sort of lawlessness that, in fact, led to the revolt of General Franco in Spain. I think it is also in order to congratulate the Government on this: that, so far, they have shown no tendency to be intimidated by what seems to me to be the awfully stupid and shortsighted demand that, in our indignation at what is going on in Spain, we should proceed to suppress liberty in this country. Is it in order for me to say a few words on that topic, because, if it is, I should like to do so? It is being suggested again, within the last few days, in a sort of manifesto issued by Deputy Belton, that it is the duty of everybody to fall in behind him— the duty of everybody who has any regard for the principles of Christianity.
If the Deputy would relate that matter somehow to expenditure, it would be in order for him to proceed, but I cannot see how he relates it. Deputy Belton has no responsibility to the House for expenditure.
I am saying no more about Deputy Belton, Sir, but it is suggested that it is the duty of the Government to prevent the principles of Communism from being preached in this country. Is that sufficiently related to expenditure? I confess that I find the greatest difficulty in knowing just what is in order in a debate like this and what is not in order, but I came to the conclusion, from the speeches I heard to-day and on previous occasions, that most things were in order and, if it is in order, I do wish to congratulate the Government on not allowing themselves to be rushed off their feet in this matter. I have never had at any time in my life the slightest use for Communism, or even for Socialism. I am a Radical, yes, and perhaps more of an individualist in many ways than most people in politics, but Communism and Socialism I detest. I think they are all wrong, but I hope I shall never live to see the day when either Communists or Socialists will be prohibited from expressing their opinions in this country, so long as they are not inciting people to break the law or expressing themselves in a way that is scurrilous or indecent. Assuming that people have serious opinions, no matter how wrong they are, my view of liberty is that they should be allowed to express them, to express them in speeches and in writing. I think it would be a very bad day for liberty and for Christianity if a Government of the Irish Free State allowed itself to be rushed into prohibiting people from expressing Communist opinions. One philosophy of life can only be successfully fought by another philosophy of life. Fight a bad philosophy with a good philosophy, a wrong philosophy with a right philosophy, but do not attempt to fight it by penal measures. That attempt has been made all down the centuries, and it has been discredited and exploded over and over again in every part of the world, and for Heaven's sake do not let us revert to it here in this country.
It would appear from the speeches that have come from the Opposition since this debate started on Thursday that this country is in a very pathetic state. Everything is in deeay. The prospect for every national interest is as bad as can be. Agriculture is almost hopeless. The fixed capital of agriculture is decaying. The working capital of agriculture, according to Deputy Dillon, is also seriously deteriorating. Our foreign assets are being reduced. The outlook for industry—to this, I think, Deputy McGilligan must be a strong exception —is extremely bad. Local Government institutions hang by a mere thread. Rural depopulation is proceeding at an alarming rate, and altogether it would appear as if the condition of the Saorstát is extremely bad. A curious thing is that no authority has been quoted for any of these things. No speaker on the Opposition side ventured to quote any expert.
I have some experts here that I am going to quote.
I ask Deputy O'Leary, for goodness' sake, not to interrupt, because I cannot hear him. I cannot understand him, so it is quite hopeless for him to be interrupting me. You have leaders of finance in this country. You have bank chairmen, you have insurance magnates and people like that——
And you have the Bray hunger marchers.
——and we have not heard from one of these people any note of alarm. Why is it, I wonder, if the condition of things is so bad, that these people are so silent on the subject. Surely, if they see what is going on, if they see that there is a collapse about to take place, they have some duty to the public to warn them? Yet, instead of that, their speeches are entirely of the opposite kind. Their speeches are unanimously on an optimistic note. You have the leaders of transport, for instance, like the Chairman of the Great Southern Railways who spoke only last week. He should know if that big undertaking is threatened, but not a word of warning comes from him. Neither Deputy Dillon, Deputy O'Sullivan nor Deputy Mulcahy, all of whom made the same alarmist speech, had any authority to quote.
A rather curious thing I noticed while Deputy Bennett was speaking was that he did not confirm the statement made by Deputy Dillon with regard to one aspect of agriculture. Deputy Dillon in his description of the decay, announced that the cow population, for instance, was deteriorating sharply, that our best heifers had been sold and that we had now more inferior cows than some years ago. Deputy Bennett ought to know all about the quality of our cows. He comes from a county that specialises in keeping cows, and if things are so serious why did he not support Deputy Dillon's statement? I do not want to dictate to Deputy Bennett what his speech should be, but at least one would think that a matter like that would be uppermost in his mind, that Deputy Bennett would be as keen to make a case against the Government as Deputy Dillon was, and yet he had not a word to say about that aspect of the matter. When Deputy Dillon talks about a general decay in agriculture, I think it well to remind him that the Chairman of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, who should be rather more in touch with the conditions of agriculture than Deputy Dillon, who should have his ear to the ground, so to speak, to ascertain how the farmers are going on, did not sound that note of `pessimism in a speech made two or three months ago. One extract from his speech was:—
"Last year I was able to report to you an improvement in the state of our collection account, and I ventured to predict that, having regard to the factors governing the demand for our agricultural produce, there were grounds for belief that the increase in the volume of trade and the upward trend of prices would continue and that the improvement in our collection would be maintained. Your directors are gratified to be able to inform you that this improvement has been realised and that the progress which first made itself evident in July, 1935, has been steady and continuous since."
That is one authority, at all events, that does not lend support to Deputy Dillon's contention.
In the same address—I quote this relevant to Deputy Dillon's statement that farm buildings are decaying—the following statement occurs:—
"Reviews of loans approved during March and July of this year show that 51 per cent. of the amount sought was required by borrowers for works of permanent improvement such as the erection of hay barns and repairs to outoffices and to dwelling houses."
That would seem to indicate that, at all events, the farmers who applied for these loans were not in the hopeless position described by Deputy Dillon but that, on the contrary, they had such confidence that they were prepared to borrow money for the improvement of their holdings.
Which is precisely what I said.
As a matter of fact, one of the most surprising things in Deputy Dillon's speech was the allegation that there has been disimprovement, and that there is proceeding a disimprovement, in the farm dwellings throughout the country and in the condition of the out-offices attached to these dwellings, because the thing one hears of most frequently is the very great improvement that has taken place in the condition of farm dwellings. One often hears of the general desire to improve both dwellings and out-offices. I think it is hardly consistent with Deputy Dillon's argument that so many thousands of farmers throughout the country have applied for grants for reconstruction of their houses. Surely if they are in that position of despair and hopelessness, there would not be this great rush to avail of grants for reconstruction, grants which, of course, only about half cover the cost of the improvements. When Deputy Dillon was referring to that aspect of things, I wonder he did not at least give credit to the Government for the encouragement they have given to such improvements, an encouragement that has been availed of, and that is being availed of, to a very wide extent indeed.
Might I interrupt the Deputy to say that I did categorically refer to the grants made by the Government for the improvement of byres, piggeries and hen-houses. If the Deputy will refer to the text of my speech he will find that I made special reference to them.
The Deputy, at least as reported, confined his remarks to grants made under the Gaeltacht Housing Act, but the general grants for these purposes are not given under the Gaeltacht Housing Act. There are no grants, as far as I know, for the improvement of byres and other out-offices either in the Gaeltacht Housing Act or elsewhere. Another curious thing about this debate is that there was no reference to any alternative programme. There is no reference to the programme of the Fine Gael Party for meeting this crisis. Deputy Brennan practically confessed that there was no programme, and the only thing we have to go upon is the announcement made last Sunday at Limerick. It was then stated that reconstruction loans would be given to farmers at the rate of 3 per cent. That, I take it, means that loans to farmers will be sub-sidised by the Government. The one thing that strikes you about that is, that the Party which is constantly complaining that the farmers do not want subsidies or free grants, that they only want to be left alone, are now bringing this principle into a department of the farmer's life where it has not heretofore been heard of. I wonder if that 3 per cent. loan is really worth a great deal? Presumably it will be given only to solvent farmers. I take it the Government will require security if they give loans. We shall then have this position. I understand that the average loan given by the Agricultural Credit Corporation is somewhat less than £100. One of the cures offered by the Fine Gael Party for the farmer's position, then, is to give him loans at a reduction of interest which will enable him to save £2 per year.
We cannot discuss Fine Gael policy on the Central Fund Bill.
I merely mentioned this as the proposed remedy for a position which Deputy Dillon regards as grave.
It is Government policy we are discussing on this Bill.
Surely the Deputy can discuss the cure for the conditions brought about by Government policy?
The Deputy can deal with Fine Gael policy in a certain way but not in the way in which he is now dealing with it.
I thought I was at liberty to comment on the alternatives put forward. It has been stated that under Government policy a certain position has been created in this country. The members of the Opposition say: "We shall remedy that by five things," one of the five things being that I have just mentioned. I might point out that that means a saving of £2 a year for the average farmer, as judged by the experience of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, a saving of £2, less his share of the taxation that will be imposed in order to subsidise these grants. That does not seem to me a wonderful remedy. Another point in the Limerick programme——
I do not want to interfere unduly with the Deputy, but we are discussing expenditure and Government policy under this Bill and what Fine Gael propose to do, if and when they get office, is not a matter that could come under discussion at the moment.
I regret if I have transgressed the rules. Let me remark this, that if it be that farmers are in that bad position, I claim that it is at least up to those who have found them so to suggest remedies. I cannot see any evidence that farming has reached that position. I was attacked by farmers in County Wicklow very recently——
That is not surprising.
I was attacked on this ground, that the tillage policy of the Government had ruined the business of the mountain farmers. They used to send their sheep down to Kildare, Carlow and Laoighis. Now they say they can get no grazing for their sheep. When I ventured to point out that the price of sheep had so risen that they could now give a better price, I was told that not for any price could land be got in any of these counties and that the sheep farming of the Wicklow hills was in very great danger. I wonder how is that consistent with the plea of Deputy Dillon and his colleagues that farming generally all over the country, in Kildare, Laoighis and Carlow as well as other places, is in a wretched condition?
Formerly, from 1923 to 1930, when conditions were so very prosperous in this country, according to the Deputies opposite, Wicklow farmers could rent land at £3 or £3 10s. an acre, but now, under a Fianna Fáil Government, when conditions are so very bad indeed, they cannot get land at any price. I wish some farmer would endeavour to solve that. I am quite eager to get the truth on these matters. If the position as stated by Deputies opposite is so bad, I would like them to take a fact of that kind into account and explain it. Deputy Dillon described beet growing as Congo slavery.
At 37/6 per ton, delivered at the factory.
I am sorry I shall have to refer again to the Limerick programme. According to the Limerick programme, when Deputy Dillon becomes President—he is, of course, going to be President very soon—he is going to say to the people,"I admit your condition is that of Congo slaves. The hardships and sufferings of your industry are indescribable, but, all the same, you shall have to carry on." There is no mention in the Limerick programme about any increased prices. He will tell the people "All the same, you have to carry on and produce the beet, because we want it; it is part of our policy." I wonder was there ever a statesman in so curious a position as that? He is actually telling the people that the conditions under which they work are shockingly bad, that they are Congo slaves, but that he cannot help it.
I take it that the speeches last week were made quite seriously, and that when Deputies were talking about the conditions in this country they meant something and that they were not merely talking for the fun of talking. I endeavoured to ascertain what remedies they suggested, and I see that curious fact standing out, that in spite of the shocking state of things he talks about, Deputy Dillon has no remedy to offer. Again I ask this, if the conditions of these Kildare, Carlow and Laoighis farmers, who are growing beet at 37/6 a ton, are similar to those of Congo slaves, why is it that I have to relate the other fact from my own experience, that whereas these farmers were prepared at one time to set land at £3 10s. and £4 an acre, now they will not set it on any terms? Let Deputy Dillon ask Deputy Minch or any of his colleagues what is the explanation of that fact.
We have another paradox in the industrial situation, as described by different Deputies opposite. Deputy Mulcahy thinks, for instance that the market for industrial products is going to pieces, that already there is a slump in the demand for boots and shoes, furniture, candles, and a whole lot of other things, and at the same time Deputy McGilligan says it is a scandal that people should be meeting each year to preen themselves on the amount that they have been able to dig out of the consumer. These two things do not seem to fit together. If there is a declining demand for industrial products, prices surely must fall with that?
Not at all; if you are not at saturation point, surely not.
It was alleged quite recently that several of the boot and shoe factories were working on short time. Are we to take it that in such circumstances they would maintain the prices that brought them a fancy income? I do not think so; that is not the general experience. Are we to take it that the furniture people, who are engaged in a highly protected trade, will not attempt to come down by 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. when the market is falling for their goods?
Why should they?
Why should they not? We are told that the furniture people are making huge profits, and then Deputy Mulcahy suggests that the furniture market is so shattered that the demand is declining. I wish Deputy McGilligan would tell us what are the particular industries that are making these huge profits. When did he get alarmed at these high profits? There is one immense industry that has made a big dividend for years and years, a dividend at least twice that of any of the new industries, perhaps three times as large as any dividend that the new industries have made. That industry has placed itself in the position to-day that, by smashing all competition within the country, by doing away with all the small concerns, it has secured a monopoly. That concern is not registered in this country. I never heard Deputy McGilligan call attention to that scandal. Why has he suddenly got alarmed at the big profits of some industries? Will he tell us some of the industries that are making such big profits? I can recall only one. I know of one, a comparatively small concern.
What about the pencil factory at Mullingar?
Surely there is a second.
Tell us the one and we will know whether there is a second.
Was there not a bonus distribution?
There is a boot and shoe industry which declared a very big dividend for one year.
Was there not one in Dublin which declared a bonus?
I cannot recall that. I think Deputy McGilligan must have plucked Deputy Brennan's coat when he was referring to-day to alien penetration.
I did?
I think you must have, because I remember well that when the question of alien control of industry, or the starting of industries here by outsiders, was discussed some years ago when Deputy McGilligan was in office, he was very scornful of those who would oppose the starting of industries by foreigners in this country. He said it was quite desirable, that we could always control them, and he had no objection to it. Now, his colleague, Deputy Brennan, expresses his opposition to the idea, but he did not go very far on that question, and did not give us any details as to what way it could be remedied. Deputy O'Sullivan in his speech expressed his dissatisfaction at the high price of motor cars in this country. Apparently he thinks that the motoring community, too, are people who deserve his pity. His sympathies are very wide. He has, of course, great sympathy for the poor, downtrodden labourer, great sympathy for the farmer, great sympathy for the unfortunate industrialists who are finding markets disappearing from them; but he has also some sympathy to spare for those who can afford the luxury of a motor car. He is quite dissatisfied that they should have to pay such a high price for motor cars. Deputy O'Sullivan is to be envied for the vast amount of sympathy which he is able to carry around with him. I think that motorists generally are not greatly depressed at the high price they have to pay for motor cars.
If Deputy O'Sullivan wanted to speak generously on conditions here, I think he could have said with regard to the motor assembly business that it should be an undoubted gratification to the people as a whole to know that cars which are the best in the world can be assembled here so creditably that some of the magnates of the motor industry have said that they are better finished than in any other country in the world and, at the same time, in a couple of cases at least, can sell at a lower price than in Great Britain. If Deputy O'Sullivan is of that sympathetic, generous type, surely he could have paid that much tribute to the industrial policy of the Government. Deputy McGilligan said recently with regard to these industries that there was not even the satisfaction of seeing any substantial amount of money being given out in wages. Deputy O'Sullivan, if he shared that feeling of Deputy McGilligan's, should have remarked on the gratifying fact that the wages of motor mechanics in the Free State are probably the highest in the world, that they are 30 per cent. above the wages which prevail in Great Britain, and that being a trade which is found in every town and village in the country, to him it was gratifying with regard to the motor car business.
Are we to hear nothing at all with regard to the creditable state of things? Are we only to hear about what is sordid, what is regrettable, and what is unfortunate in the country? You find the question of emigration to Great Britain similarly exploited in the most partisan and party fashion. The present Government, anyhow, whatever promises they made, never promised that they would guarantee wages of £70 per year to domestic servants. If Deputies opposite think the Government should set about and do that, so that the girls would not emigrate to Great Britain, they ought to say so and tell us how it is to be done.
I well remember that the Minister for Industry and Commerce promised to employ every one in this country and bring the exiles back here from America.
There is the same wretched thing that prevails with regard to every problem. The Minister, as I said, never thought of proposing, much less promising, that domestic servants should be guaranteed £70 per year.
The young men are too poor—that is what is wrong.
With regard to male emigration, it is a very unfortunate thing in my opinion and I think it is going to be a very serious problem for this country. If wages rise and a shortage of labour ensues in Great Britain, it may soon become a most serious problem. I would remind Deputies that there was always a very considerable amount of emigration which was not due to economic causes, but which was due to a genuine desire to move, to change, to see more of the world. That prevailed both with regard to American emigration and other emigration.
Did you say that when you were in opposition?
Whether I said it or not, I was always pretty well familiar with it. I saw it from the time I could see anything. It was not people, generally speaking, who were in the worst position who emigrated, but the people who were inclined to be ambitious or discontented or adventurous. You have, however, this peculiar fact side by side with Irish emigration, that there appear in the English papers, day after day, statements—and protests in many cases— about the number of Irish who are on the unemployment roll, who are living on the rates and living on unemployment assistance in cities like Liverpool, Glasgow, and so on. You may say that they have gone there because they have thought there was a better chance, or that the unemployment assistance rates were higher. They have gone in many cases because their friends were there already. I would venture to say that the actual emigration of people who go because there is no work for them would amount to very little more than a few thousand a year. It is serious enough, but I am sure that by, the time you would segregate the people into those who, like domestic servants, go because there are undoubtedly better prospects for them; those who go because their friends are there, and they think they would rather live with their friends there; and those who go for other reasons, more or less personal—you would have cut down the figure to not more than a few thousand. I may say that only this very morning I had a letter from a woman who tells me that her son, who was actually working for the Government in a rural place at 30/- per week at forestry work, had left that work and gone to England, and that he could do nothing now to help her because he found all his wages were required for his own support.
She knew you were a simple man.
Perhaps the Deputy might be even as simple. There are lots of people in England not able to earn more than their own support. A journalist who is in Dublin at the moment, who has great experience of many countries and who belongs to a very distinguished Irish family, after spending a period in rural England during the last two months, is quite convinced that the standard of living of the rural population here is significantly higher than it is in England. Of course, that is also a heresy, because, according to the speeches made on the opposite benches, everything is so bad in this country that it is inconceivable that things could be worse in other countries.
Has the Deputy looked at the statistics of agricultural wages in England and compared them with the agricultural wages paid here? They are easily obtainable.
Discontent with the evasion of the Agricultural Wages Act is so very widespread in England that proposals have been made for amending the Act, so as to make the evasion less possible. The extraordinary feature of the speeches of the Opposition is that if conditions are so bad as they say, no suggestion was made to bring about an improvement. There is nothing in the way of a constructive suggestion except the one that Deputy Dillon has so often repeated, that we should appeal to the British to settle the economic dispute. The Deputy should bear in mind that when that appeal was made by the Deputy who is now his leader, very little attention was paid to it. Deputy Dillon might tell the House the reasons why he thinks a much better settlement could be had now, why that £250,000 and much more would be given to us, why he thinks it would now be easier to have the amount in dispute forgiven in part or in whole. The Deputy might give his reasons for thinking that the English mind is more friendly and more liberally disposed than it was then. I am afraid the Deputy has really no remedy, and that a constructive programme has not been agreed upon by those on the opposite benches. To my mind that is a regrettable feature, because I believe that in a parliamentary system it would be desirable to have an alternative programme, some touchstone for criticism of the Government when such criticism is indulged in. It is very easy to find fault with people who are trying to do things. Any fool can find fault with people trying to do constructive work. The Opposition seems to me to be in the same position, or hardly in as good a position as the currency reformers. The currency reformers, at least, keep on repeating "Why do you not print more bank notes and cure everything?" But the Opposition do not give us anything to go on. They simply say: "Look how imperfect your work is."
Look at your own past.
That is not creditable to the House, and to my mind one of the things badly wanted in this country at present is a clear coherent programme as an alternative to the programme of the present Government. If Deputy Dillon instead of making patronising appeals to the sanity of Fianna Fáil, as he so often does, would appeal to his colleagues to come and sit down and try to construct a programme that would enable us to see what differences there are between us, he would be doing a good day's work for the country; much better work than repeating the same old stuff about decay and demoralisation, of which he gives no proof and for which there is no authority.
Will Deputy Moore tell me if he thinks we should put a programme, such as Fianna Fáil put up in 1933, before the country?
Let us have the programme and we will tell you what we think of it afterwards.
I am exceedingly sorry that Deputy MacDermot was not in the House for the last demonstration of the extent to which political education and economic education has gone in this country. Deputy Moore is concerned about the economic situation. The Deputy criticised other people for not having adduced documentary evidence for their statements with regard to destruction, dismay, demoralisation and a lower standard of living. I could quote apologetic speeches of Ministers in that respect, full of excuses but admitting the facts. On the other hand, the Deputy threw in a vague hint of what certain eminent bankers, economists, and, I think, railway men, said at their meetings. I think I have read as many of these speeches as the Deputy. He quoted one which was full of hope and belief of something occuring in the future. Most of the bankers' reports we have heard are of the same type. Most of them have advanced to this point that things are not as bad this year as they expected them to be. Remember that the banks two years ago, and one year ago, had committed themselves to this statement, that the tendency observable for people to withdraw their small earnings in order to have something to live upon, was still increasing. They have not withdrawn that phrase.
Will the Deputy give his authority for that statement?
I am giving it. I will produce the speeches if necessary. They are on the records of the House, having been quoted by me.
Quote them now.
The Bank of Ireland was one and the National Bank was another. At three bank meetings it was stated that the tendency observable of people to withdraw small earnings and small deposits in order to have something to live upon was still progressing. That phrase has not been withdrawn. Deputy Moore professes to find some confusion on this side with regard to the growing of sugar beet. I do not think Deputy Dillon ever said anything about Congo slavery or made use of any picturesque adjectives about sugar beet as at present worked in this country. Is it inconsistent to say that the growing of sugar beet will be allowed to continue if there is a change of government? If it was not permitted to go on, there would be still blatherers like Deputy Moore to say it had not got a chance. Our proposal is to let the people see what this particular type of Congo slavery is, particularly when there are to be other opportunities for another type of agricultural policy. That is the beginning and end of it. If it were not that there are still so many people uneducated in regard to sugar beet, it would be possible to say: "We will have done with the accursed thing and we can save money." We would certainly save money, but it is best to let the thing wear itself out in comparison with another policy.
The experiment is already 13 years old. How many generations is it proposed to give it?
The experiment has yet to be shown up in this way: How far it depends on subsidy; how far, if at all, it can be a substitute for any other type of policy; how far that substitute had encouraged tillage instead of bringing about merely a substitution of tillage. Those things will be tried out, and it is better to let experiment go on slowly and even painfully under the eyes of the people than to have it closed down and have some other fatuous Party coming along later and exploiting this as one of their planks. I quoted before the saying of Benjamin Franklin that experience is a dear school but it is the only one fools will learn in. I want Deputy Moore to take the application of that.
Deputy Moore is also concerned about a statement I made with regard to profits. I say there is a prima facie case, if you like—that is the furthest I have ever gone—made on the returns through the Census of Production that there are exorbitant profits being extracted from the consumers in this country on a variety of commodities. I say it is possible to have that state of things existing with a decline in the consumption of those particular commodities. I notice— more people than myself have noticed it—that when certain people who are materially interested in having tariffs left on meet to pass resolutions, and a particular resolution comes up it is nearly always framed in those words: “Seeing that”—then they name a particular industry—“it is nearly at saturation point, the Government ought to be prevailed upon to close down on any further entrants into that industry.” I consider that that phraseology shows a complete lack of economic sense. It would be a different matter if the circumstances permited the resolution to be moved in this form: “Seeing that production in the country has gone to the point of being 15 per cent. over the demand, then there is necessity for the Government to do something.” But as long as people have even a 10 per cent. gap unfilled there is always room for profiteering; you can always have exorbitant prices to the consumer and exorbitant profits to the manufacturer, even though there is a decline in consumption. When the decline in consumption gets to the point when the production in the country is saturating whatever is the demand, then and then only will there be effective competition in this island.
I hold that there is a prima facie case made with regard to certain industries. I did not want to give the names of industries, but there are two which I think can easily be distinguished from the figures I have given —I have chosen them advisedly to make my point—where it can be shown from the Census of Production that there is an increase of over £500,000 a year. That increase of £500,000 has to be divided amongst the workers and manufacturers, and the division is in the proportion of about £43 to the manufacturers for every £14 that goes to the workers. If a sum of £500,000 a year is divided in such equal proportions as that, I think there is a prima facie case made that the consumer is paying too much or that the manufacturer is getting away with too much. While, certainly in one of those industries we are speaking of, the consumption is declining, in the other it cannot decline because it is a necessity of life.
The Deputy is concerned about emigration; and well he might. It was the slogan when he was in Opposition. We were told to remember the people who were flying out of the country. They were always expressed to be our bravest and best, the flower of our youth, the cream of our community. Those were the phrases which the Deputy, in common with others, used. What do we find now? With emigration numerically reversing the tendency observable in our time, we have the Deputy explaining to us here two amazing reasons for it; that they are contradictory does not seem to annoy him. One is the amazing wage of £70 a year paid for domestic service in England. Contrary to that, we appear to have in this country the highest paid mechanics in the motor trade, and as I think he extended the motor business to every town and village in the country he must mean even garage business. The Deputy's statement is that we are paying in that business the highest wages in the world. I wish we could get some of the people who go across to England to look for the highest wages in domestic service to cast their eyes upon the highest paid mechanics here and stay at home with them.
What about the farmers' sons?
The farmer, according to the Minister for Agriculture, has been reduced to the point when he is only getting £51 a year out of this country. Apparently, by sending his daughter across to domestic service in London, he can get more than he can get out of the land, and if he can only get another son into the garage business in this country he is a made man.
Does the Deputy doubt that statement about wages?
I am only pointing out what will follow from it. The Deputy made another statement. There was the poor lady who wrote to the Deputy complaining about her son who had 30/- a week in this country; he had gone to London. Apparently, men's service is not as good as domestic service for women, because that young man cannot get enough to maintain himself in England.
I did not say that.
What did the Deputy say?
I said he had nothing left; he was barely able to maintain himself.
I thought that was what I had said.
That was not what the Deputy said.
Let me then cut out what I did say previously; he is barely able to maintain himself. What wages does he get?
I do not know.
How would the Deputy divide the 29,000 or the 26,000 who went last year from this country? How many are in domestic service? The Minister for Industry and Commerce seemed to think it was all women folk that were going. Nobody who travels in these days can have that particular piece of nonsense put across him. Nobody who travels can have that belief. There are scenes in the country stations now reminiscent of the really bad emigration times. There is caoining and wailing on platforms such as has not been heard in stations for a generation. It is not young women going over to £70 a year jobs; it is young men, walking out with anything they have on them or in their pockets, and going out to get work at any price. If there were enough of those 30/- a week posts in this country to go around there would not be anything like the trail of emigration that there is across the water. I do not think Deputy Moore very seriously believes in his arguments. He was out to make a political speech. He wound up by asking somebody to put before this country a coherent plan, as an alternative to what? As an alternative to the ragged ribbon thing which we have as the Fianna Fáil plan that got them into power? Does the Deputy want someone to patch up that old document or improve on it? That plan, in any event, did this: it means that any Party that comes forward in this country with anything so nice and neat and well-trimmed as that will be derided until the memory of that particular plan has passed out.
What about the Limerick plan?
I ask the Limerick plan to be viewed as a serious attempt to put forward a policy.
Even in the face of derision?
It will not take in the people who were fooled by the Fianna Fáil plan. There is no promise of 96,000 people to be put into employment; there is no promise of those millions that would be given by increased production in agriculture; there is none of this nonsense about everybody from 16 years upwards on farms getting £16 a year—man, woman and child. The people have got to be brought down from that.
I do not know whether they will continue to believe a similar type of nonsense, but there have been five weary years in which that has been tested out. For Ministers confronted with any of those promises the best they can say is, "Why bring up that old past matter?" Deputy MacDermot puts his other phrase to it—"the Government are being educated." I think they have been getting education of a certain kind, and one of the signs of that education is that they no longer mouth those promises in the way they used to. If there is any reality in any new programme it can never be as flamboyant as the Fianna Fáil plan was. Any plan of the same type will immediately suffer by comparison with the Fianna Fáil plan in 1932 and 1933, and the scattered remnants of that plan as we know it at the moment.
Deputy MacDermot renounced to-night his thesis of the other night, part of which I should like to leave until he may appear again. In any event with regard to our foreign policy, in so far as it affects Spain, the Deputy quoted from a speech of Deputy Doctor O'Higgins, and asked whether what he said represented the policy of this Party. It is notable that he said he quoted from the paper which contained the fullest account of that speech. If he did, it was a paper which, giving the fullest account of that speech, made one notable omission and that omission I want to rectify at the moment. Dr. O'Higgins, in speaking of our attitude towards Spain, said—and this is the part which was omitted from the Irish Times:
"We, in Fine Gael, in the face of slander and unpopularity, have always accepted and treated the minority as fellow-citizens with equal rights. We have been conscious of their sentiments and susceptibilities. We have safeguarded their homes and their interests, but we have never sacrificed one whit of our independence. We stand strongly and firmly for the Irish Free State associated with the Commonwealth as a free independent State—independent in home affairs and independent in foreign affairs. Just as we used our strength and influence in home affairs to secure fair play for those at home who differed from us in religion, so we will use our strength and influence to secure fair play abroad for those belonging to our religion. People must choose to support those who stand openly and firmly for a free Ireland as a member of the Commonwealth, and those who don't know or daren't say whether their aim is to remain in or slink out of that association."
The Deputy's quotation, undoubtedly bona fide made, from the Irish Times did not, because it was not in that paper, state that part of Deputy O'Higgins's speech.
That is our attitude with regard to our co-religionists in Spain. Deputy MacDermot is anxious to know whether we who stand for a position in the Commonwealth think it is fair to finish a speech in the terms in which Deputy O'Higgins is alleged to have finished it, in which he talked about Mr. Eden, the Foreign Secretary in England, and his association with Pink France and Communist Russia in order to uphold Red Spain. The context in Deputy O'Higgins's speech for that remark was that the President, who used to talk more loudly about republican institutions at home and who was not speaking so much at all of them at this moment, has faded entirely from any position of independence in regard to foreign policy. He said that Mr. Eden would not blow the gaff on him—the Mr. Eden who was associated with Pink France and Communist Russia in aid of Red Spain. We do stand for a particular position in the British Commonwealth of Nations, but we do not, and never did, stand for having the British state what our policy in international affairs should be and at Imperial Conferences in London at times, and at meetings in Geneva, where the international matter could more appropriately be discussed, we had exactly the same attitude towards the British. We recognised an association with them; we recognised that plans should be harmonised, if harmony was possible; but the one thing certain was that there was going to be no element of dictation, or anything approaching dictation, either in so far as internal matters here were concerned or our attitude towards international matters was concerned. On both fronts we had to make our advances.
We say that at the moment, whether it be because the British like the particular type of politics that may emerge as a result of one side winning in Spain or not—and I do not believe that they do want Communism to prevail in Spain—there is a Communist Government in Spain. It is being backed by Communist Russia and by Socialist France leaning towards Communism, and the policy of those three is being followed by our leader. The fact is there. Does it disturb the relations that should prevail between members of the Commonwealth that either the President of the Executive Council here or a member of the Opposition here should say that he does not want such an association, that he is uneasy because of that association, that he thinks the mentality, the religious outlook, the whole affiliations of the people of this country, do not want that association? It should not. Relations in the British Commonwealth were never to be disturbed just because we had one outlook, with whatever our strength was going to be in inter-international matters, and the British had another. Our view all the time has been, both in relation to internal matters and external matters, that while we should have association and harmony with the people whom we meet in this association to which we belong for the good of this country, as is now admitted, we should have our own viewpoint, and that viewpoint should be based on our knowledge of the interests of our people and in a spiritual matter, an emotional matter, should be based on what we know to be the instinct and the outlook of our people.
The British have a definite outlook on this matter in Spain. The British have reasons for hoping for a particular stalemate result in Spain that we do not have. The British are concerned about a change in the balance of power in the Mediterranean. That may be a concern of ours if we decide that a strong and prosperous Britain is going to be for the advantage of this country, but in so far as our direct material interests are concerned, we do not care what happens in the Mediterranean. Britain does and France does. Russia, of course, is not concerned very much about the Mediterranean, but is concerned about the spread of a particular doctrine. We have in this country the peculiar situation that Deputy MacDermot thinks we should not take a certain course of action in Spain. He is held up by the President as the man who best speaks the correct viewpoint from the angle of international law in this country, and the President uses him as his mouthpiece; but Deputy MacDermot, although he thinks other people who take another attitude are cashing-in on religion, does not like entirely to throw away what he must describe as the religious argument. He hopes one side will win. So does the President—so he says. But both have a particular attitude with regard to the point we have urged here before and will urge again, and that is that there is no reason why this country should be misrepresented, as undoubtedly it is being misrepresented, by the presence on the borders of Spain of a representative of this Government accredited to Madrid.
I do not know what new reason will be given for having that individual where he is. We were told on one occasion that our nationals would not thank us if he were withdrawn. I asked a series of questions to find out what was the possibility of that individual helping any of our nationals. I asked where he was; whether he had an official address; whether that official address had been made known in the places in which any nationals of ours likely to require his assistance were. I asked what channel of communication had been opened between him and any of our nationals who were in Spain; what funds he had to assist these people out and what agencies he was going to operate through; and finally, what his staff was. The situation, as disclosed in answer to those questions, was that that individual, with one stenographer clerk, with an official address not made known in those places in which our nationals might be expected to be, and with no channel of communication opened as between him and any nationals of ours who might be there, was just going to remain at St. Jean de Luz and enjoy diplomatic immunities by the leave of the French. I was particularly anxious to know about the agency because it emerged here, during the course of the summer, that whatever nationals we had in Spain when the civil war broke out there, they never got any help from our Minister because our Minister was not there. They did get help from his secretary. And how? So far as one can make out from that young lady's account of her adventures in Spain when she arrived home, her business consisted of sending our nationals to the British Embassy, and we did thank the whole British Diplomatic Service and the British Navy for taking our nationals out of Spain.
I thought I might have been told that we had the same agents as before when I asked about our Minister at present in St. Jean de Luz, but I was told that he has not employed agents for the purpose of rescuing Irish nationals. Then there is that stenographer clerk and his address not known and no channel of communication between himself and our people or between our people there and any agents appointed to act for him. What good he is to any nationals of ours has yet to be explained. But he is doing this disservice to this community—that he stands there as the accredited representative to a completely Red Communist Government. He is backing that Government. He is accredited to a Government of which the Minister for Foreign Affairs has been known to be an agent of the Komintern for several years, and of which the Minister for Education is an avowed atheist who has sent to the Russian anti-God central council in Moscow an expression of his view that it was the duty of the Government of Spain to make Spain a land of militant atheists.
We are going to have this representative across the frontier with no possibility of lending aid to any of our people who may be in difficulties. It may be a coincidence, but we may have him assisting in the British policy with regard to Spain and definitely misrepresenting the people of this country so far as he is associated with a Government which has two Ministers of the type I have mentioned. If there was nothing else in this Vote on Account except the fact that it is proposed still to continue paying that Minister for so-called duties which he is expected to perform for our nationals in Spain—outside the Spanish frontier as he is— then for that reason alone this Vote should be objected to.
Deputy MacDermot is very much concerned about our attitude towards the Commonwealth of Nations as indicated in the speech of Deputy O'Higgins. As I said before, we tried to have an independent attitude taken towards the British while recognising that we had an association with them. We got to the point where that viewpoint had been accepted and where our attitude on that matter was no longer a cause of surprise to anybody who met us in council, though it may be a matter of surprise to a Deputy here meeting that point of view for the first time, and it may seem to be a peculiar defection from that standpoint that we should have so punctiliously followed what is apparently the British view of correct diplomatic procedure in this matter. The British, like ourselves, have their representative with the Madrid Government. But then, a very noticeable thing has been going on from December last. Since that time there has been some propaganda going on which recently has borne fruit in Great Britain. Many writers who went to Spain went back with stories of the immense advantages to be derived from trade with such parts of Spain as are under the General Franco Government. Very unwillingly, but still definitely enough, around about December last a statement was made by the President of the Board of Trade that inquiries would be made into that matter. That inquiry has now been concluded, and it was announced yesterday that a commercial secretary of the British Government and, possibly, another representative from the Board of Trade had arrived at Burgos for a discussion as to trade arrangements. They apparently got an assurance that any money obtained from exports to Spain would be spent in the United Kingdom and the greater part in British goods. The efficient working arrangements previously suggested are now being considered by the two British representatives at Burgos. It has been pointed out that the chief imports from Spain are sherry, fruit and minerals, and these are worth many million pounds. On a rough estimate, £40,000,000 of British capital are invested in Spain.
Where is our magnificent trade with Spain? Where are the oranges and lemons we used bring from that country in part return for the goods for which we were supposed to get such a valuable outlet in Spain? To where are these being shipped? Where are the ports in Spain at which our vessels call? Are we lagging behind the British in this? Is it still a question of calling only to ports under the Reds? Are we recognising only the area under the Red Caballero Government? Are we still to continue doing economically what we have been doing in the diplomatic way?
Does the Deputy want these questions answered?
I wish Deputy Hayes were here now. He is a member of the firm that, in fact, enjoys a monopoly trade with Spain. I wish he were here to answer. We were told some time ago that our representative in St. Jean de Luz is nearer to Burgos than to Valencia. We are apparently getting ready for a changeover in that matter. The change will be made by taking the course which all the people of this country want the Government to take.
If we withdraw the representative we now have at St. Jean de Luz there would not be a flutter in the diplomatic world. There would be no flutter, and if we announced that we would give considerable pleasure to a multitude of people whom we profess we are representing from the angle of religion. I have not yet heard any real argument against the Government taking the steps in this matter that they have been asked to take. The other argument is that suggested by Deputy MacDermot, namely, that it would be wrong for us, being a member of the Common wealth of Nations, to take a particular line of our own. If that be the reason, then the President has definitely failed to maintain the position on these external matters that had been won by very many years' endeavour in Geneva and London.
Deputy MacDermot is very anxious to see the present Government returned, for a reason that I hope will please those who like to see themselves patronised by him. He thinks that office has been a cure for a lot of their folly—for the follies of which they were guilty before they came into power. I am not sure it is office so much as this fact: that in office they got into touch with reality. They never got into touch with reality in Opposition, and some of them have not even yet got into touch with reality. I would make Deputy Moore an honourable exception to what I am saying. It is impact with reality that has brought about any change there has been. Deputy MacDermot was rather aggrieved over the fact that I, personally, had, not once but several times, suggested that the defect in his quality as a politician was that he was irresponsible, that he had a detachment none of us can get because our condition in life does not allow us to attain it. It is exactly the same thing as he alleges with regard to Ministers. If Deputy MacDermot were brought into touch with reality as Ministers have been brought into touch with reality during their years of office, he would be educated, too. He is not in touch with reality here. I am not denying that his name is an honoured one here. He did boast, I think, on one occasion of the association of his ancestors with this country over many hundreds or thousands of years. That may well be, but the fact is that he is not rooted here at the moment. If he were in the House, I should say that to his face as I have said it before. He is not getting educated by having the touch with realities that the others of us here must have. He can bid farewell to everything by walking down to the Dun Laoghaire boatside. I said that before and I mean it. I want by that phrase to have people realise that that is what annoys people who have to live here— that Deputy MacDermot can so casually talk about conducting experiments and about allowing the Government another five years of education at the expense of the people. If we were all so aloof as he, if none of us was dependent on the productivity of this country, if this Parliament were entirely composed of outsiders, we could have a sort of mass vivisection experiment here, and we need not care what happened. We would be happily above all the bad results that might flow from the experiment. One of the reasons why I do personally feel a distinct sense of irritation when Deputy MacDermot, detached and aloof as he is, talks about experimenting in this country, and, while condemning Ministers, asks that they be kept on for five years longer, is because I feel that Deputy MacDermot has no experience in his own person of what suffering means, that he does not realise the suffering that might have been avoided if better counsels had prevailed five years ago and that he does not realise the sufferings that might yet be avoided if better counsels prevailed now.
There is another reason.
What is that?
He was once your deputy-leader and you resented that.
If he had stayed with us, mixing with people who had their feet on the red soil of this country, he might have learned something. Being independent, not being in touch, he is still aloof and detached. The only chance Deputy MacDermot had of ever getting his feet properly under him in this country was by belonging to a party where he would mix with other people who had their experience founded upon realities here and from whom he could learn what the situation was and what every political move meant. That is the only way in which sense will ever be forced upon anybody—by experiencing in his own person the bad results of policy.
You swore by him once and you are swearing at him now.
I do not swear at him now nor did I ever swear by him.
Your colleagues did.
I am particularly averse from either swearing at or by people. The Deputy is in a mood of enthusiasm because he has sworn by a particular individual, not by a policy.
"I swear not at all."
You used to swear by a policy, now you swear by an individual. Let us take this other view of Deputy MacDermot. The Government have learned. He has told us that, because they started wrong and have now come right, they are likely to be better leaders than people who were right from the start.
Who are they?
That is Deputy MacDermot's peculiar thesis. If we were to continue it, it would seem that, in religion, the convert ought always to be preferred to the person born in the faith. We do know that the poacher is always considered better, not as a teacher but as a trapper, than other people because he knows the wiles but, pushing this theory to its logical conclusion, it means that if you were sufficiently bad at a particular point and make some perceptible advance in education, then you are the ideal teacher—according to Deputy MacDermot's type of mind. "Keep them on for a bit," he says, "they will get better."
If Prime Minister Caballero showed some indication of improving a little on his past record—that would be easy to do—Deputy MacDermot would, presumably, hold that he would be a better man to govern the country than the people who had fought against him, because they thought he was wrong, and who were right from the beginning. A bad record is a distinct advantage, according to this viewpoint; you can trace a man's history as having been bad and say he is not as bad now as he used to be, that there is an advance and you will presume that the advance will be continued and that he will be an ideal teacher in the end.
The Deputy thinks that the present Government, both from the angle of politics and the angle of economics, are likely to be a better Government than anything put up against them. Again, I go back to this viewpoint of his—that that is because they are being educated. The only difficulty in this country, according to Deputy MacDermot, relates to the unity of Ireland and the only thing that will prevent the unity of Ireland, he thinks, is a separatist tendency. The Government Party has, according to Deputy MacDermot, been educated out of that. There used to be a phrase about the "old school tie." Deputy MacDermot thinks that the old constitutional tie fits around the necks of Ministers. They wear it with a muffler at home but they do not object to wearing it abroad. Let them continue in office for a further few years and they will probably be what Deputy MacDermot thinks will put the finish on them—imperialists. That is his view of education. Because he has so little experience of this country, Deputy MacDermot fails to divide people properly. The people who paraded themselves as republicans have got to be divided into two classes —the people who were sincerely so and are still so, and Fianna Fáil. There is a distinct difference between the two classes. Deputy MacDermot believes that no Party could get any considerable numerical support as real republicans in this country. If that is a proper judgment, passed by a man whom I regard as an outsider, then it is such a condemnation of mass hypocrisy as has never been passed upon any other country. If he really believes that all that there was of decent republicanism in the country has gone so low that republicans could not muster any numerical strength in an election and if we have got a better educated group who were republican and who are now Fianna Fáil, it is a sad commentary on the decay, decline and demoralisation of politics in the country. There were decent republicans in the country. There are some yet but they are not over there. The people over there are people who started off with the wrong economic policies. They have partly repented of those. They started off with wrong political policies and they have partly repented of those. But they still pretend that they adhere to everything they thought in 1932, whether economic or political.
On the economic side, since we are now five years having the present Government educated, one would have thought that, in any event, we would have the ground cleared of quite a lot of the misrepresentation and the foolish talk which used to surround economic discussions in this House. After five years I would have thought it certain that we would have such statistical information that two or three things would emerge. The argument around those things might differ, but two or three points of certainty must have emerged by this time. I should have thought that after five years it would be possible to find certain evidences with regard to employment, with regard to the conditions of life, with regard to, say, the flight from the country through emigration, and with regard to the standard of living. I think there is a certainty about a variety of these things. The evidence is here, and the state of the country can be revealed from it. I have for years pursued with the Minister for Industry and Commerce investigations as to what people have been put into insurable occupation in this country over a number of years.
The Minister himself, on one occasion, stated that the best evidence was the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Whether he has gone from that point of view or not since, I do not know, but I assert that it is still the best test of occupation amongst the insurable classes in the community. The reason for it is simple. There is an Act by which it is ordained that every person who is in occupation in this country other than agriculture, horticulture, or domestic service must have a stamp affixed to a card covering the periods of work for that person. The amount of money that the stamp represents is known. There is a contribution of 1/7 per week. That is changed in certain periods, but it can be adjusted to get the calculations made comparable. There is a fund, and that fund in the end is the accumulation of the moneys put in as a result of people getting into insurable occupation, and a certain Government grant.
There is no more certain way of finding out at any time the number of people engaged in insurable occupation in the country than that of looking at the stamp fund. There is one possible defect in that particular calculation, and that is if the Act is not being complied with. I had representations made to me as to what the compliance and the non-compliance was in my time. I have asked the Minister about it several times since. There is not even 2 per cent. non-compliance with the Act, and, whatever it is, the fund is maintained more or less about the same. There is, therefore, that Act which necessitates what I have said. It is being obeyed in the main. Non-compliance will not make a difference of any more than a hundred people in the year. The results of it can be very easily seen. All that you have got to do is to take the accumulation of money in the stamp fund for a year, and, by a certain division, transmute the figures representing the money into men. Every adult who is in insurable occupation for the fifty-two weeks of the year makes a compulsory subscription of £4 to the fund. Putting that in another way, every £4 in the fund represents one man working in insurable occupation for 52 weeks in the year.
I have asked from time to time for years for certain figures, and I have figures now which I can found on. There are divergences between the Minister and myself that may make a difference of a thousand or so. I would like to know if we are to take the calendar year as the basis of calculation or the financial year. Are we to take the income of the Unemployment Fund or the value of the stamps sold? I am going to take the calendar year, and for this reason. The last year in which I had effective control of all the matters that would have aided contributions to that fund was 1931. The early part of 1932 was definitely affected, as the figures show, by the oncoming general election, and in any event I had not control of the matters that would either increase or decrease the sums flowing into that fund for a full quarter.
I am, therefore, taking the calendar year 1931 and will make a comparison between that year and other years. I am going to take the unemployment stamps sold instead of the income into the fund, and for this reason. It is quite clear that the income of the fund in any year and the money that is derived by the sale of stamps in that year may not be the same, because firms may buy stamps in bulk and may not affix them to cards in the period that would be inside a particular calendar year. Other firms may not buy stamps until after the close of a calendar year. They may purchase outside of the calendar year and affix them in respect of another year. The lag between these two amounts never varied more than from £1,000 to £100. I was amazed to find that in one year it differed, and differed considerably, and that was between the year 1931 and the year 1932. There is a difference of the enormous amount of about £24,000. Now, why the value of the stamps sold in 1931 should have been £25,000 odd more than the income of the fund in that year I do not know, but I am going to take it that the firms that buy ahead and the firms that do not buy until after the close of the year about balance: I had a calculation made in my time and found that was so, and I take it the position is still the same.
Taking the year 1931 and the year 1936, there is this difference based on the official calculations given to me. The value of the stamps sold in the year 1931 was £766,000 odd. I find from the figures I got to-day, that the value of the stamps sold in the year 1936 was £909,000, the difference between the two figures being £142,000.
Every £4 of that represents a man in full-time insurable occupation for 52 weeks in the year. That means that there were 36,000 people in full-time insurable occupation in 1936 more than the number in insurable occupation of the same character in 1931. To get the impact on industrial production of that figure, certain subtractions have to be made, and on this the Minister is the only person who has the figures. Nobody regards the present building phase as a permanent matter. Everybody knows that there are a number of people occupied at the moment in building in a way that they cannot promise themselves a continuance of. The Minister in 1934 said that the number of people who found direct employment in building in May of that year was 22,000. In order to find whether that was seasonal occupation or not, I asked a series of questions and found that the variation as between the worst part of the year and the best part was about 1,000 to 700. I take, therefore, the minimum figure for 1934 of the number employed in house-building to be, say, 20,000. I do not know whether house-building has gone on at the same rate as in that year, but I have not noticed any inclination in this House to depreciate the amount of money spent on housing and the amount of work that is being done. In the case of every person employed on housing a stamp has to be put on his card for him. Suppose we take it that there were 20,000 people employed on housing—taking that as the minimum figure for that year and that there has been no increase on it since— we have it that 20,000 people out of this figure of 36,000 found occupation in house-building.
That leaves 16,000. There is one other subtraction to be made. It has to be an estimate. I do not know how much it ought to be. There are vast sums of money being spent on relief works. Some of the employment in these relief works is in what is called insurable occupation. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance assured me on one occasion that more than 50 per cent. of the money spent on relief works was in connection with works that would come under the head of insurable occupation. What numbers are finding work in relief works in insurable occupations? I do not know the number, but if I take a calculation based on the biggest amount of money spent on relief works in my own time, there are certainly not less than 5,000 people who are getting employment in insurable occupations through the medium of relief moneys. That may continue—one cannot say whether it will continue or for how long it may continue—but at any rate nobody regards that as industrial production nor does anybody regard it as industry in the ordinary sense of the word. Neither does anybody regard the present house-building as industry in the proper sense of the word. If there are 20,000—and that figure is open to argument—engaged in house-building, and 5,000 finding occupation in relief schemes, then it would emerge that there are about 11,000 people who have gone into industrial occupation as a result of five years' work. I do not mean that the accumulation for the five years is 11,000, but in the fifth year of what is called a revolutionary era of industrial progress, you have the number of those who have gone into industrial occupation pegged at a figure somewhere at the point of about 11,000 people.
Before I leave that, may I say that it may be that there are 20,000 people who have gone into industries? I do not know. What I do know is that in the group coming under the heading of workers in insurable occupation there is not more than 11,000 extra, leaving out the two abnormal items. There may be a falling-off in commerce and trade, because they are under the heads of insurable occupation, or there may be more in industrial production, but as far as employment is concerned, the net result is a figure of somewhere about 11,000 people—and this at the end of a five-years programme, with high tariffs, with Government subsidies in a variety of ways, with Government loans and with Government credits. The figure that emerges from that calculation that I make is 11,000. The Minister used to be very happy founding himself upon the income of the Unemployment Fund. Now he takes a new figure and talks about weekly averages. He says that there is an increased weekly average of about 20,000 since 1931. If there is that increase, and if it is continuing over the whole year, then it should be represented in the bulk total of the fund. If there are only 20,000 for one week and if it falls in some other week —let us say 20,000 for a quarter of the year and less for another quarter, and so on—then there will be different calculations, but why complicate this matter by introducing weekly averages?
What was the Deputy's figure?
Full-time employment.
If everybody was employed on the 31st January, 1931?
In full-time employment.
Everybody in the country?
Everybody in insurable occupation, yes. Let me take this. I do not care what calculation is taken. Any calculation will do for me, but let us assume that the average employment in the country is only half a year. Then that 36,000 becomes 72,000 half-time employment. If you take it as quarter-time employment, then the figure becomes 144,000. I do not care what way you take it, but we will get the picture some way or another. I say, however, that the best way, so that people will understand it, is to reduce the question to terms of full-time employment If the Minister has got an enormous number of people into occupation through tariffs, will he say that the occupation given through tariffs is quarter-year employment generally, or half-year employment? Does the fact that he boasts of weekly averages mean that people are employed in these industries for two or three months in the year, and then thrown out of employment, and then employed again for another period? Will he tell us what are the conditions of employment. If we know the conditions of employment, we can get this thing more related to reality, and we can have it made more plain for the people, and it is better to do that since we will be discussing the cost to the people over the year and the wages paid over the year. I suggest that the best way to deal with all this matter is by reducing it to the basis of full-time employment for the whole 52 weeks of the year. Of course, it may be further complicated by the question of whether or not it is adult employment. If 50 per cent., say, are children, of course, as the number of children is not so many, there will be a different divisor and the figure will swell, but as the fund is built up in much the same way over a number of years, I again suggest that it is better, for the purpose of comparison and calculation, to take these 52 weeks in the year full-time employment for an adult. If the Minister can get a better case by taking children or half-time employment, let him confess to that and give us the figures, I suggest, however, that the result of that calculation which I have laboured, and which I am afraid I shall have to labour again until it is understood, is that all that Government effort to get what is called a revolution in Irish industry in this country has meant is that, in the sixth year of these attempts, there are, leaving out the two abnormal items of house building and relief works, 11,000 more people occupied in insurable occupations than previously.
I went on to another argument from that the other day, which seemed to cause the Minister a lot of amusement. I took two other figures. I took two figures revealed by the census of production, and designated the gross production in industry and the net production. I made this statement as a result of the calculation I made: that the consumer in this country was being charged an enormous price in relation to the benefit that accrued to people in the industry. The Minister, I think, slightly changed the totals that I gave, but the comparison is very much the same. I said that there had been an increase in gross production of about £12,000,000, and that in the end it came out to a net production of £2,000,000.
The Minister puts the gross production at about £13,000,000 or £14,000,000 —I do not think he gave the net production figures. I suggested that the gross production is only part of the charge on the consumer, and I think the Minister agreed with me. It is an increase. It is not the amount of the full total. Whatever was paid by the consumers five years ago, the consumers in these industries are now paying £13,500,000 more, and there is something more on to that because the way in which that is got is that you take whatever a factory produces and take the cost of those goods at the factory, and those goods sold at the factory cost £13,500,000 more than they used to cost.
The same quantity of goods?
That is not the point with which we were dealing. If we are going to go into that and make that point, I shall go through the items. I am talking about the difference in certain groups of industries, and they show an increase of £13,500,000 at the factory.
The same production?
I am taking certain industries. I think there were 23 groups. That may not be exhaustive of all Irish industries, but I say that the goods in those 23 industries used to be sold at a certain amount at the factories, and that they are now being sold at £13,500,000 more. The Minister wants to know are they the same goods.
The same quantities.
I do not know whether they are the same quantities or not, but these are the same industrial groups, and £13,500,000 more is the amount at which they are sold from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, and then the wholesaler sells to the retailer. How much goes on then? Certainly, a couple of million pounds goes on to the £13,500,000.
The same percentage as went on in 1931.
Well, what is the percentage?
The same as in 1931.
But what is it? I should say that it is at least £2,000,000. I should say that it is £5,000,000. Let us call it £5,000,000 and it is the same proportion as before, but it is the proportion. You have £13,500,000 extra. £13,500,000 added on to £5,000,000 on the passage from the wholesaler to the retailer, gives us £18,000,000. Is that sold by the retailer without profits to the consumer? By no means. Something else goes on. It will certainly go up £2,000,000. That gives us £20,000,000. That is what the consumer is paying for the cost of these industrial products more than before.
Is the Deputy serious?
I am.
I hope the Deputy will prove his assertions.
The Minister got his chance.
The argument is even more stupid than last week.
Possibly. It will require more ingenuity to meet it, but at any rate it should be met. This is undeniable, that gross production means part of the cost to the consumer and only part of it. To the gross production figure which is found by statistics, there has to be added on whatever the wholesaler gets for his share in distribution and whatever the retailer gets for his share in distribution. The £13,000,000 thus become £20,000,000, but we will leave that aside for the moment. There is a figure called net production, and the net production is supposed to be the value that is added on by manufacturing processes to raw materials. Whatever is the net figure, it has to be distributed between the manufacturer, either as remuneration on his capital or profits, and the worker. From the £13,500,000 or the £20,000,000—certainly the £13,500,000— more which the consumer pays extra, the net production is £2,500,000.
£3,500,000.
My calculation, when I take a certain group of products, is that the net production is £2,500,000. That £2,500,000 has to be divided between manufacturer and worker after the consumer pays £20,000,000 more.
For what?
When the consumer is mulcted to the tune of £20,000,000 more, the net result as between profits and wages is £2,500,000. I suggest that if that £2,500,000 is looked into, the distribution between the manufacturer and the worker is not an equal one.
The figures are given in the report.
I know they are, and I have quoted two industries in which a half-million extra has been given.
The wages have gone up by some hundreds of thousands of pounds.
They may have gone up, but there is £2,500,000 in net production, and the proportion is less than £80,000 to the workers and the rest to the manufacturers.
The total is £1,600,000.
£2,500,000 is the net production out of the £20,000,000 gross production. The Minister, the other day, thought he would meet that by saying that the £20,000,000 was spent on raw materials. I take first of all the question: who pays the £20,000,000? The consumer. There is no questioning that. The consumer pays £20,000,000 more than he used to pay.
Is that the Deputy's argument, that the cost of materials has gone up by £20,000,000?
I did not say the cost of materials by any means.
Is the Deputy's point that consumers are paying £20,000,000 more to the Irish manufacturers than they formerly paid to the foreigner?
No, it is not.
What is the point?
Patience is one of the virtues which should be practised.
I am anxious to get the Deputy clear as to the figures.
In my own way and in my own time you will get it. £20,000,000, I say, is the cost borne by the consumer, and that cannot be denied.
£20,000,000 extra?
Yes, in these industrial groups.
For the same quantity of goods?
There are two points to be looked at—the raw materials and the quantities produced.
What is the Deputy's point?
Again I want to fix the Minister's attention on the fact that £20,000,000 more is paid by the consumer. Part of the cost is in raw materials. The Minister the other day, in arguing this, said that he would take bacon and he gave me certain figures on that. Then he took sugar. Then he took grain milling—three good examples.
The first three on the list, as it happened.
They are not in an alphabetical list. I find it hard to get bacon and sugar running together.
Sugar comes under confectionery.
Is there anything between confectionery (sugar) and grain milling?
I gave distilling also.
Take bacon, sugar and grain milling. The Minister's point is that part of the £20,000,000 is the cost of the raw materials and, with a great flourish of trumpets, he said that that means £20,000,000 to Irish producers, producing grain, sugar and bacon. Let us turn to the agricultural statistics for that.
£20,000,000 is the Deputy's figure; it is not mine.
Whatever the figure is.
It is obviously less than £12,500,000.
Whatever the figure is. There was a Trade Journal produced in September, 1936, which showed us the output of agricultural production, and it is based on the prices paid. I find there that between the year 1929-30 and the year 1934-35 the value of agricultural production had dropped from £64,000,000 to £40,000,000. Apparently, in that drop is the £20,000,000 more which the consumer is paying for a variety of these industrial goods, the raw material of which is the agricultural product.
That is a serious argument !
The Minister will save his opportunity to deal with it. I suggest the gross production is the price charged at the factory for the finished goods. In these finished goods there are essential raw materials. I have got the value of the raw materials and for them somebody is paying. The consumer does. The consumer is being mulcted to the tune of £20,000,000 for certain industrial goods, and in the end the manufacturer and the worker are dividing about £2,500,000 between them in very unfair proportions. Deputy Belton on the last occasion asked a very apposite question as to how the prices were to be compared, whether it was with the world price or with the Irish Free State price. The Minister professed to be ignorant of what Deputy Belton meant, but I think he understood it well. If the prices of raw materials are based on the prices of raw materials coming into the country at world prices, we have, at any rate, some standard. If you have an enclosed area and you shoot up your prices to an absurdly high level, who pays? The consumer, in this country. Who gets the advantage if the consumers pay? Will the Minister take it from me that the agricultural table published in the Trade Journal of 1936 gives the increased cost of the raw materials accruing to Irish products.?
Quite. Does not that suit the Deputy's argument?
I want to follow it out. There is an increase in what the consumer pays. Does anybody get the benefit? If I take the Minister's argument, there were three specific points he gave me as being a general answer, and they all boil down to this—it is the agriculturist. It must be, because the productions of nature are the raw materials of industry. Whenever we are talking of the benefits accruing to the community when there is a twenty million extra expenditure, we have to look at our agricultural production. It has gone down by £24,000,000.
Since when?
Between 1929-30 and 1934-35.
The Deputy is taking the industrial basis. Why not take the agricultural basis?
I will, if the Minister gets us the figures. We are simply jumping for them, asking for them time and again. Give them to us; we want them. At the moment we have to go on the best the Government can supply. Here it is indicated that agricultural production fell in a period of five years from £64,000,000 to £40,000,000. Gross production, which is one part of the cost to the consumer, goes up by £20,000,000. The worker and the industrialist divide £2,500,000 between them. There is something wrong. That is the general conclusion arrived at. There, in any event, is the picture. The end of it all is what I started off with, that 11,000 people more have been put into occupation. That is the result after all this immense load of tariffs, this raising of the cost to the consumer and this distributing of money unequally between manufacturer and labourer. At the end of it all you have 11,000 more put into occupation following the five years experiment. That is what you parade to the country as a successful industrial revolution.
The Minister professed to believe the other day that the emigration that has been so definitely deplored amongst all sections of the community is mainly that of women. The Minister cannot have anybody travelling the roads this weather. He must know well that there is a decided change with regard to emigration. He again tried to confuse the arguments with regard to this matter by bulking numbers over a period of years. I suggest that this is the proper picture. When government in the Irish Free State started, there was not merely emigration, a continuance of emigration, but there was a tradition with regard to emigration. That has been commented upon by one of the most expert commentators in matters of population that this country has produced. In a paper read before the Statistical Society, he pointed to what he called this tradition in regard to emigration to America. He said that behind that tradition there was a thing operating in this country that operated in no other European country. He used the phrase the attraction, the pull, towards America, and he said that pull was the strongest thing known affecting changes of population anywhere, because it amounted to this, that there was money sent home to Ireland from people in good positions in America, letters sent home from persons in good positions inviting the young people here to go out. Further, there was a promise by people in good employment in America that they would secure good posts for the young people who would leave here. What he called the attraction, the pull, of money was there pulling people across right out of their homes and even out of employment here.
That tendency, that pull, was there and that tendency, at any rate, was countered to some degree between 1922 and 1931. The tendency with regard to emigration during that period was downward. In the later years that was helped by the fact that America was not as prosperous as it had been, although there was money still coming from the other side and although there were invitations to go across. There were places in a quota that were not filled, there was a definite decline and no attempt to confuse the issue by talking of the mass numbers who emigrated can get away from this point, that right along, but more particularly in the last years, the tendency with regard to emigration was diminishing until it got to the point that there were more people returning than left this country. That figure is going up again. The tendency is again reversed in the wrong direction. There is an increased tendency towards emigration and I would like the Minister to persist in saying that they are only female emigrants. The Minister professed here that it was, in the main, women who were going. That is not a fact and if the Minister persists in saying that he will soon find that the commonsense of the people who see what is happening around them will quickly readjust his outlook.
Then the men must be going out in disguise, disguised as women.
Possibly, maybe so. I merely hope the Minister will continue to say that only women are going. I would like him to say in the West of Ireland that the emigration from that area is mainly female. There was, at any rate, that very definite pull across to America, through money and the hope of good posts, the almost certain security of good posts. Now, the new tendency has to have its characteristics marked. The people are not now going to America where their friends are; they are going to England. There never was the same tradition about emigration to England, there never was the same pull in the way in which that scientific observer described it. There was never the money sent over from England here or the promises of secured posts as in the case of America. Instead, the people who go, go out in the old adventurous spirit, carrying about them, in their pockets, all that belongs to them, with no hope of work but just to see what they can get. And this is happening in relation to a country about which the Minister tried to demonstrate the other day that there was worse unemployment. He tried to convey that there was worse unemployment in Great Britain than here. That is something that requires explanation.
On the Minister's thesis, there is a much worse situation in regard to unemployment in England than here, and yet there are people leaving this country for England. And they are leaving no longer, as in the American days, with money and the promise of work to entice them; they are going apparently to see what they can do for themselves in a country worse off, more ripe and more rotten in the matter of unemployment, than this country is.
Why should people flee from this country, which the Minister says has more prosperity than England? Deputy Moore tried to say to-day that it was due to restlessness, the love of a change, the desire for a change of life. At the same time he told us the heart-rending story of the man who left a job here worth 30/- a week and who is now working in England and receiving scarcely enough to sustain him. There must be some answer to the question as to why these people of ours are going to this country, in connection with which there is not even a tradition of emigration. The fact is, if the Minister will only care to admit it, that while we here are still rolling round in a depression that could be fairly easily cured, most of the journals in other countries in which we are interested are full of articles on how to avoid the next slump. All the observers and economists believe they are moving into a boom period and they are full of anxiety as to the cycle, the phase of development, which means that there will be a slump sometime ahead following on the present boom. But there are certainly boom conditions in all these countries and they are attempting to make provision for, to have something to do in, the next slump when it comes along. They are taking long-range measures to prevent a slump following, as it naturally will and as it has done in economic history to date, a boom period. But they do believe they are in a boom.
The Minister or anybody can point very easily—it is a phenomenon in English life—to the fact that, while they do assert there is a boom in certain parts, there are also the distressed areas. With regard to them there are varying view-points accepted. They range from the lowest type of pessimism to a slight flutter of optimism. In the main, the attitude taken up with regard to the distressed areas is that they were founded upon certain types of industry, mainly coal mining, that these areas could not produce coal at an economic rate, and that the miners, if they do not adapt themselves to something else, would stay on the dole all the rest of their lives. It is possible to have that condition, together with the boom with regard to new manufactures and industries, and they in England believe that they are in such a period.
We are here with our losses in agricultural production, with our industrial production not very highly developed, with a number of people running out of the country, for apparently no explicable reason, according to the Government. There are things which require some attention. Of course, the other side of it is that, if taxes press too heavily on any community, they are going to be aimed, first of all, at the wealthy members of the community. They will rest lightly enough on the shoulders of the wealthy members of the community, because most taxes can be off-shouldered, and they go, at a slightly accelerated rate, on to the more indigent portion of the community. There has been in this country for five years past a scale of taxation unequalled, except possibly in Germany during her bad period, in any country. We did get to the point here in which it was distinctly and clearly stated by the Government that they were moving on to the taxation of necessities because the taxation of luxuries had given out. It was boasted by two members of the Government that they were going to make the working man pay, and to make him pay because he had to drink his cup of tea, because he had to have sugar in it, because he had to have bread, and butter on it, and there was a tax put on all four of these items.
Take those in the middle classes of this community. Income tax is pressing on them very hardly, and there was an attack upon what was regarded as a good social plan. Anyone who thought along lines of good social development thought one thing that ought to be done was to make as many people in this country the possessors of their own houses as possible. Plans are made on that. People are more or less hustled into becoming the owners of their own houses. Immediately that is done there is the equivalent of an extra tax of 50 per cent. put on house property in two years. There is not a thing that man needs ordinarily, needs in the way of equipment of a house, needs in the way of sustenance for himself and his family, that does not bear some taxation at present. It is on an unexampled scale and has been going on for five years.
That type of thing can go on for a bit. It would be possible in any country in a period of grave necessity, for some hard-pressed Finance Minister simply to announce one day that all taxes were doubled. There would be revenue, but not double the revenue, brought in. Supposing that spectacular thing were done, that would immediately reveal to people just what the impact of taxation was. Supposing in any year a man was so mulcted, both in direct and indirect taxation, that he had to pay double what he paid the year before. Does that mean that he can live on the same standard, or that, in order to meet the extra taxation, he can economise on something he can avoid buying? Of course it means economising. The money may be extracted in one year, but if that doubling-up process is continued for a third year, there will be a serious falling-off. So it was here with regard to income tax and a variety of other things. In the end, the Government were driven to taxation that was always avoided, the taxation of necessities, and to a point that has definitely broken in on the old standards and principles of taxation.
I said before that, no matter what schemes of taxation have been thought about, there has been always one point of exception made in it—the recognition that a man if he is unmarried, for himself, if he is married, for himself and his family, must live, must spend a certain amount on sustenance. There has always been the exception from income tax of the subsistence allowance. You can break in on that allowance by taxing one necessity, but you surely break the whole principle of taxation into smithereens when you tax not one necessity, but such four things as bread, butter, sugar and tea.
The question of taxation will arise on the Budget.
I am talking about some of the effects of the continuance of the Fianna Fáil policy. I suggest that heavy taxation and an attempt to carry out foolish schemes are part of it. I suggest that one of the events casting its shadows before them now is emigration. I am suggesting that part of the reason for that is the heavy taxation in the country. If there is a principle of taxation, to leave what a man subsists upon free, must it not be admitted, whatever excuse may be made, that the principle is broken once you tax four such necessities as those I have named? Why not face up to that boldly and say incomes of even £1 per week will be taxed, because you are taxing the £1 a week man? Not merely that, but the man getting unemployment insurance, the man getting unemployment assistance money, is being taxed.
The Deputy is going into details of taxation that surely will arise on the Budget.
I am finished with it. There is the situation as I see it. We have that publication of the Government which shows agricultural production down in this period by £24,000,000. Let us get the other statistical returns to see the improvement. We have the Minister for Agriculture telling us, on the Agricultural Wages Bill, that where the farmer used to get £93 for himself and each of his relatives out of the land, he had been reduced to getting £51 as between the years 1926 and 1934; that the labourer, who used to get £66, had been reduced, but only reduced to £55. And the labourers and the farmers between them are 51 per cent. of the gainfully occupied in this country. That reduction would be equivalent to confining half the population of Dublin to the rôle of unemployed, forbidding them to work, and insisting that they would be maintained, and leaving the rest no other income to maintain themselves but from the half that would be put out of work.
We have increased prices charged for the goods that are supposed to be bringing employment money both to manufacturers and workers. We see that, on the calculation I have made, 11,000 people, at the end of a five years' experiment, have been put into work at a very, very heavy cost to the consumer. If there are any results from the cost to the consumer showing in the statistics of agriculture, they have not done anything seriously towards stopping the drop in agricultural production in face of this fierce emigration. The numbers may not be so very heavy at the present moment, but the thing that has to be regarded is, that while the old tendency is downward, the present tendency is upward. I know the answer that will be given to that will be the one that was given before, that it is due to world depression. The Government have published the Trade and Shipping Statistics for 1935, and they show world depression in sterling values. If you take 1929 as the basic year, the year in which the depression started to have an effect economically, between that and 1931, the repercussion in this country was severe. The repercussion in the rest of the world had reduced wealth by 38 points, and in the Free State by 20 points. Between 1931 and 1935 the impact on the world reduced it by another four points, and in the Free State by another 17 points. Between 1929 and 1931 it appears that the impact of world depression was not so severe here as it was on the average in other countries, but since 1931 it has been four times as severe. There must be some answer to that. Add to that the figure reached in 1935. Most of these countries believe that there is an upward sweep at the moment, and that they are approaching a boom period. The most we can say in this country is that if people are emigrating it is because they want excitement or amusement; that it is not economic deprivation that drives them out.
Deputy MacDermot talked about education. Mind you, there has been education. I remember when the Minister for Defence went to Dundalk and told an audience there that the British would get every shilling of the annuities out of this country, as long as we had to export any cattle. He put before them his policy, that they should get this country so self-centred that there would be no necessity to send an animal out of it. His definite doctrine to the people of Dundalk was that as long as they sent cattle to the British market, so long would Britain be able to take £5,000,000 from them, and he proposed to them that a policy should be adopted, and we should so work our economy here as not to be compelled to send our live stock to Great Britain. In a debate on agricultural wages that took place in this House in November last, Deputy Corry asked if that policy could be put into effect, and he was told that it could. The Minister for Agriculture told him: "You must recognise what it will mean. It will mean that we will have to close down one third of our agricultural production; we will have to put one third of our agricultural employees out of work." There are about 750,000 people engaged in agriculture, and the policy which the Minister for Defence thought was a good one would mean adding to the unemployed list another 250,000 people. Even the brazenness of the Minister for Industry and Commerce would not like the prospect which would result in an extra 250,000 people being dislodged from agriculture. It is at any rate worth while having that lesson learned. Remember that Deputy Corry still believes in the Minister for Defence, as when he asked the Minister for Agriculture if that policy could be carried out, he was told it could, but that there was a price. The answer has been given in this debate, and it was given when the question was previously raised, that England cannot buy our goods. I do not think that policy is seriously put forward by anyone except by a back-bencher now.
Supposing it were put forward. The British, at the moment, are proposing to expend £1,500,000,000 over a period of years on armaments, but a lot of it will be paid to people who are working on them. A lot of the money will go on material and a lot on wages. The money that goes on wages will have to be spent by the people on foodstuffs, and we are in an extraordinarily good position to supply foodstuffs to England. Is there likely to be a limited boom with regard to the purchase of our goods in England in the next five years? You have only to think of the expenditure of the immense figure of £1,500,000,000 to realise what a benefit and what a change it could make in the whole economy of the country. If all that was put into armaments was eventually blown up in smoke and destruction, and if Britain was hereafter reduced, as it was reduced after the last war, to a powerless condition, we will suffer as at that time. But if we must look forward to a period, after another war, in which England will not be able to buy as much from us as we would hope, at any rate any farseeing person would say: "We will take advantage of the situation now, while it is good. If there is going to be vast expenditure on armaments, we should get our goods across to England when the demand is there for them." The difficulty is that there was one opportunity presented to the people of this country which may not occur again. In 1932 there was an Ottawa Conference, but the chance there was lost. This year there is a conference to be held about the period of the Coronation. We are keeping an attitude of detachment and protest to that Coronation. We lost the Ottawa chance. Other people are making good and have cashed in on that chance. If there are other chances going to offer, are we going to take them? We have apparently lodged ourselves in the Commonwealth, and we get what Deputy O'Higgins described as "Not Imperial preference but Imperial penalties." Can that opportunity be taken?
Remember the situation left over at Ottawa is one that has never yet been properly realised. In the early months of 1932 there came the notification that the British Government was going to do what the people of this country yearned for for years. They were going to tax foodstuffs. Up to that date the difficulty with the British market was that our goods had to go there at world prices because the whole idea of English policy was that as there had to be a free breakfast table there could be no tax on foodstuffs. For the first time in history the relations between these two countries changed when there came the cheerful news that Britain was going to tax foodstuffs. On representations made from this country, and only from this country, it was agreed that the 10 per cent. going to be put on all foodstuffs would not apply to foodstuffs from this country. That was the first gain for this country. It was afterwards extended to the rest of the Dominions on their appeal. The situation was stereotyped in the beginning of 1932 to include all foodstuffs except those from this country and members of the Commonwealth.
There would be 10 per cent. against Denmark and against the Argentine while there was a suggestion of preference by reason of the distance in the case of New Zealand and Australia. That position was kept for better handling in Ottawa in the autumn, but when our delegates went to Ottawa what they got was penal duties. The penal duties have since lasted with three attempts to get them modified. These three attempts to get them modified were made in pacts, in which we abandon the right to tariff certain goods, and gave them a monopoly in one article. Though we have done that, not merely have we not got back our 10 per cent., but we have not got equality with the rest of the Dominions and the rest of the world.
Canada has recently rearranged the Ottawa agreement more to her own benefit. Australia proposes to do it after the Coronation. We do not know whether our people are to face it with an air of detachment or whether the Government, having lodged itself in the Commonwealth, proposes to take advantage of the situation and to claim the preference that ought to be given to our people under it. If we do not get this preference it is not that there will be less emigration but there will be more. We have heard of the phenomenon that where there is a higher standard of living than in the country adjoining there is always an emptying out of proportion from the one with the lower standard to the one with the higher standard. That is what is causing emigration, and not the old pull from America, or the sentiment, or the money, or the home or security from there.
Another theory which might explain the animosity between Deputy McGilligan and Deputy MacDermot is that Deputy MacDermot once proposed that speeches should be limited to 30 minutes. I do not propose to follow Deputy McGilligan over the whole field he has covered, but I am glad of this opportunity of putting him right on a few points. If Deputy McGilligan's figures are correct his calculations about the increase of employment here would also be correct, on the assumption first, that everybody employed here was employed for 52 weeks in the year; secondly, that nobody was ever employed in house building here before 1931; thirdly, that those who got relief work got 52 weeks relief work, and fourthly, that Deputy McGilligan can carry out sums in arithmetic. Unfortunately, all those assumptions are incorrect, and therefore Deputy McGilligan's calculations are vitiated. I will agree that there was not much house building done here before 1931, but there was some. I will agree that the average spell of employment which workers insurable under the Employment Insurance Acts are now getting is somewhat longer than it was before 1931. I will agree that the provision made by the Government for relief works, and consequently the number employed on relief works, is greater now than in 1931. But even allowing for all those factors, one cannot merely talk away an increase in employment which the figures show is at least 54,000 and is probably much higher than that.
That increase is there; the people can be counted. Industry by industry, every year the number of persons employed are recorded. Those figures are published to the Dáil, and those figures show an increase which cannot be explained away by those extraordinarily fallacious calculations with which Deputy McGilligan proceeds. Even if the Deputy's figures were correct, surely he, who was Minister for Industry and Commerce for eight years, appreciates that you cannot take from one figure which represents a yearly average another figure which represents the number of persons employed on another date, and contend that the answer means anything at all? It means nothing. The number of persons employed on house building on a particular day, or in a particular week, in a particular month, or the number of persons employed on relief works at a particular time of the year, has no relation whatever to a figure which if it means anything means the average weekly number employed, and the average weekly number employed in 1936 as compared with 1931 was increased by 54,000. That is the figure. Certain persons did not get work for the whole year. Certain persons came into employment in the middle of the year, or towards the end of the year. The actual number of persons who got new employment must be greater than that, but on the average in each week of 1936, there were 54,000 more people employed than on the average in each week of 1931, and all the calculations that Deputy McGilligan makes cannot take away that fact. There is no sense in deducting from that figure the number of persons employed in house building on 1st August, 1936. The number of persons employed on house building on a particular day has no relation to that figure. The number of persons employed on relief works in February was about four or five times what it was in November, and probably at least ten times more than it was in July. The number varies from week to week, from month to month and from season to season. To take the maximum number employed in February and the maximum number employed in house building in August, and deduct those two from the average figure, and produce the result as representing the actual increase in employment in industry, is a method of argument which one would not expect from a person who was head of the statistics branch of the Department of Industry and Commerce for a number of years.
Even all those arguments and all those calculations, ridiculous and erroneous as they are, fade into insignificance beside the calculations which the Deputy made or pretended to make concerning the increase in the value of the gross output of industry. I am quite certain of this—that Deputy McGilligan was merely trying to hoodwink members of his own Party into believing they had some case to make at the coming elections, and that he did not convince himself that there was any significance in the figures which he gave. The value of the gross output of 23 industries covered by the limited census of production taken annually increased from 1931 to 1935 by a sum of £13,500,000. Incidentally, it had decreased in the previous two years— between 1929 and 1931— by £5,500,000.
Deputy McGilligan proceeds to add to that £13,500,000 certain sums which, he said, represented the profits of wholesalers, as if wholesalers took no profit before 1931, and certain other sums which he contended represented the profit of retailers, as if retailers worked for nothing before 1931; and he represented the result as the additional amount which the people of this country paid for a net value which the figures show to be £3,500,000. The figures show this: that between 1931 and 1935 a very considerable volume of goods which previously were imported and paid for by the Irish people, and on which Irish wholesalers and retailers took profits, ceased to be imported and were produced instead in Irish factories, employing 25,000 additional Irish workers and resulting in the distribution of £1,604,000 additional wages in this country. That is what the figures show, and the net value in relation to that gross value has the same relation in 1935 as it had in 1931.
What was the extra cost.?
The extra amount paid was due to the increased production. We paid £13,500,000 for a much greater quantity of goods. That is the point which Deputy McGilligan was trying to conceal.
Are we consuming more goods?
No; we are consuming about the same quantity but we are importing less. We are employing our own people to make them now, instead of employing foreigners to make them as in 1931.
Then it must be somewhere in our statistics. Where is it?
There is nothing wrong with the statistics. The only thing which is wrong is the conclusion which the Deputy has drawn.
Correct me then.
I am going to put the Deputy right on another point. Either we are consuming the same quantity of goods now as we were in 1931, or we are not. Deputy Mulcahy would say we are not, in which case those figures are more striking still. I will say that I think we are, although it is a debatable point. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the amount of bacon, sugar, boots, shoes, and so forth which we used in 1935 was the same as in 1931, the difference is due to the fact that a much greater proportion of our total requirements was met by the production of Irish factories in 1935 than in 1931. The increased production of Irish factories has been represented by the increase in the gross value of the output from £32,000,000 to £46,000,000, an increase over five years which succeeded a period of three years during which the gross value of industrial output was decreasing, during which the number of persons in industry was decreasing, and during which the wages paid to workers in industry was decreasing. If there is any contention that those figures which I have given, and which are published in the statistical abstract, do not really represent the actual increase in the volume of production here, then I am prepared to drop those figures and rely on others, namely, the figures for employment, the figures for wages distribution, and the figures for the increase in the net output. The difference in increase between net and gross output represents the amount paid for raw materials.
Ninety per cent. raw materials.
Ninety per cent. at least, and probably more. If we are now using native raw materials in our own factories and producing the industrial products required by our own people, instead of importing the completely manufactured products from abroad, surely it is to the benefit of the producers of the raw materials here. We stopped importing some half a million pounds worth of foreign bacon. The pig producers here have benefited by that fact. The value of the gross output of the bacon curing industry increased, but so also did the amount distributed to the producers of the raw material of that industry, namely, pigs. The same applies in respect of sugar, boots and shoes, or any other commodity. Deputy McGilligan comes to that point and says: "But between 1929 and 1935 there was a decrease in the value of all agricultural output, including cattle and other live stock, of £24,000,000." I asked Deputy McGilligan why he went back to 1929. He was comparing, in relation to industry, the figures for 1931 with the figures for 1935, but, in relation to agriculture, he compared the figures for 1929 with the figures for 1935. He pretended he had not got the figures. He might not have the precise figure, but he has the information which would enable him to conclude what precisely happened between 1929 and 1931 in relation to the value of agricultural output. This happened: Between 1929 and 1931, a period of two years, the value of our agricultural output fell by more, and substantially more, than it has fallen since.
But it fell on gold prices. You have paper prices since 1931.
On any prices the Deputy likes to take, it fell.
On gold prices.
On sterling or any other prices. I do not care what prices the Deputy takes.
Did not prices naturally go up when Britain went off the gold standard? Was that not their object in going off the gold standard?
In what year?
September, 1931.
Between 1929 and 1931 the agricultural price index number for the Saorstát decreased from 139 to 110, a fall of 29 points.
Of course, it did.
Between 1931 and 1935 the fall was less than that. It was 27 points. That fall has taken place but when Deputy McGilligan quotes the total decline over the whole period as £24,000,000, it is, I think, desirable that I should point out that the greater part of that reduction had taken place before the industrial production for 1931, upon which he makes his calculation, had been in fact achieved. Now what did happen? Between 1929 and 1931, the last three years during which Deputy McGilligan was Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Party opposite were in power, industrial production fell in value by £5,000,000. Industrial employment fell. The amount paid in wages through the industry fell by about £500,000.
And fell in England also.
It fell here, certainly. During the same period the value of agricultural output fell by about £12,000,000 and the number of persons employed in agriculture decreased by 23,000. We had, therefore, a decline in industrial output, a decline in industrial employment, a decline in agricultural output and in agricultural employment. Over the whole industrial field, the average weekly number of persons employed decreased by about 8,000. It was to deal with that situation that this Government came in. We had to stop that decline, a decline which had taken place during the period of friendly relations with Great Britain and before the economic war started, while all the conditions existed which Fine Gael tell us would now produce prosperity if they existed. These conditions in that period were producing that simultaneous decline all over our economic organisation. We arrested the decline and we have got since an increase over the whole field—an increase in industrial and agricultural production and an increase in industrial and agricultural employment. The facts are there. They cannot be denied and the conclusion which the people will draw from these facts is the same conclusion as I give the House now, namely, that the policy we followed since 1932 was a much better policy for this country than that which operated previous to that year.
Of course, there is emigration, and emigration is due to economic causes in the main. I am not saying that other factors do not operate, but behind all these other factors there are economic considerations, and the existence of emigration, as I said last week, is proof of the existence in our economic organisation of defects which it is our purpose, and which it should be our purpose, to eradicate. To contend that emigration started last year and that it is due to the policy of the Government, or to the economic war or to any immediate and temporary cause, is merely to attempt to mislead the members of the House and the people of this country and an attempt which cannot succeed. Total emigration in all the five years 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936, added together, was approximately 40,000. Over these five years added together, approximately 40,000 people emigrated from this country. Go back ten years to 1925; 40,000 people went out in that year alone, and yet we are told that the existence of emigration is to be brought forward as an indication of the failure of the Government's policy. I do not think we will succeed in stopping emigration entirely in the course of a year or two. Emigration did stop in 1932, and it was not very considerable in 1933, but since that year the trend has set in again, and in support of my contention here that the majority of those going are females and that the majority of those who have gone since 1926 have been females, there is the recorded fact that, between 1926 and 1936, for the first time since 1841, the male population of the Free State increased by about 11,000.
There is also the fact that during that period the employment per 1,000 of the population was the lowest recorded since 1841. These facts are all set out in the foreword to the preliminary report on the census of last year, and Deputies can find them for themselves. If we are going to stop emigration, I know of no way by which it can be done except by increasing the opportunities of employment here, and whatever policy is going to increase the opportunities of employment is the policy against emigration. I contend that the policy we followed has tended to increase employment, and to increase it considerably, as against the fact that the policy in operation from 1929 to 1931 decreased employment, and, therefore, we are much more likely to arrest, or, at any rate, to reduce, the tendency to emigrate by continuing as we are going, even though we have to intensify our activities and speed up the pace of progress, than by any other method.
Taxation, of course, has been increased. Deputy McGilligan talked about the possibility of the Minister for Finance coming in here and announcing that all taxes were to be doubled. Fortunately, we were able last year to reduce taxation, to remove a number of taxes, and as proof of the soundness of the economic organisation of the State, there is the fact that, despite the removal of certain taxes and the reduction of others, the revenue this year is greater than it was last year. Taxation was increased for stated purposes. The Dáil was asked to approve of those purposes before the various taxes were imposed and the Dáil did approve of them. The establishment of the unemployment assistance scheme, the provision of widows' and orphans' pensions, the provision of housing for the working classes, the increase in the provision for old age pensions, and certain other social services—it was for these purposes the additional revenue was required. Is there a single Deputy opposite prepared to state that it is the policy of his Party to abolish these services? There is not. They profess to stand in favour of maintaining them and, if so, the same revenue will be required, if they come into office to finance these services as is required at present. But, of course, their policy goes much further than that. They stand, I believe, for old age pensions at 65, which will involve another £3,000,000 a year; they stand for the complete derating of agricultural land—another £2,000,000; and there are certain other provisions which I saw in a most interesting document which they are circulating to prospective subscribers to their Party funds at present. If they are going to maintain existing services and, in addition, provide these new services involving an increased annual cost of £5,000,000, the amount of taxation under their régime will be so completely out of relation to what it is at present that people will think they are paying nothing now compared with what they will be paying then. They will certainly wish to get back to the conditions of low taxation now existing.
It is a rosy outlook.
When I arrived in the House Deputy McGilligan was dealing with the question of foreign policy. He was telling the House that because the policy of the Saorstát in relation to non-intervention in the Spanish war was the same as the policy of the British Government, therefore we had surrendered our independence in foreign affairs and we were accepting dictation in such matters from Great Britain. That argument seemed to impress his colleagues, though it appeared to me to be particularly silly.
It was not Deputy McGilligan said that; it was the Minister for Education said it.
The policy of non-intervention has been accepted by every nation in Europe. France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, CzechoSlovakia, Belgium, Holland, as well as Great Britain, have all accepted the policy of non-intervention. Is it not as logical to argue that we are accepting dictation from Albania and Czecho-Slovakia because we happen to agree with them on this policy of non-intervention as that we are accepting dictation from Great Britain because we happen to be in agreement with them on this policy? What is the policy of Great Britain in connection with this matter?
I did not talk about non-intervention.
I understood the Deputy to say——
Will the Minister allow me to say what I did say? I talked about withdrawing our Ambassador from the Caballero Government. That was quite clearly what I said. That is non-intervention.
And because our Ambassador to Spain has not been formally withdrawn the Deputy thinks we are accepting dictation from Great Britain. The Deputy talked about the atheistic beliefs of the Minister for Education in Spain and of the Communistic aims of the Madrid Government; he talked of the burning of churches and of the murdering of priests.
I did not mention that.
Well, the Deputy talked about a number of horrors.
I did not talk a word about horrors.
Let us even rise to the atheists——
The Minister will confine himself to what I said.
He said that we, because of our not breaking off relations with the Spanish Government, were approving of their actions. That is what he intended to convey. Well, in any event, if our action is to be regarded in any way as giving approval to the actions of the Spanish Government and the attitude of the Spanish Government, we are erring in good company.
With Russia.
With the Vatican.
I thought the Minister was coming to that.
If there is to be any presumption of approval of the Spanish Government by the Irish Government —and Deputy McGilligan intended to convey that impression—if there is to be any such presumption of our approval, then the same presumption stands in relation to our case as to that of the Vatican, because we have taken exactly the same course. Deputy McGilligan is more Catholic than the Pope.
On one occasion the Minister was more Catholic than the Pope. He knows what I mean.
The Party opposite want to make this the main point in their platform this year, because they are more concerned about the Civil War in Spain than about the coming general election. Deputy MacDermot talked about the Government being now in touch with reality. The Party opposite have established touch with reality in one respect. They have grasped the central fact that there is an election coming on this year, and they know that they have no chance unless they can parade their Catholicity and get themselves votes because of their claim that they are defenders of the Faith, and they want to convey in some way to the Irish people that the Government here are standing behind the action and the attitude of the Caballero Government in Spain. That is what the Opposition are trying to do, and that is what is behind their attitude here, and not sympathy for the Spanish Catholics.
That is a disgraceful thing for a Minister to say.
It is a disgrace to the Opposition, and when speaking of the Opposition I will include Deputy Belton with them.
The Minister will do no such thing. He is sending provisions and food-stuffs by the "Clonlara" to the Spanish Reds.
It is about time that somebody got in touch with reality.
The people of this country are with Catholic Spain and the Irish Government is against it.
And the Irish people will vote in the election this year and that is the central fact before the Deputy's mind.
It is.
If Deputy Belton cannot cease from interrupting, the Chair will be forced to take action.
The second idea that Deputy McGilligan tried to develop was that we had abandoned our independence——
On a point of order, I was suspended from this House for doing precisely what the Minister for Industry and Commerce is doing now.
That is not a point of order.
It is very much a point of order to me.
The point that was tried to be made by Deputy McGilligan is that we surrendered our independence. The only way then in which we can express our independence is by disagreeing with the British on every question whether right or wrong. We came to our decision on that matter and we found ourselves in agreement with Great Britain. But we decided the matter having regard to one consideration only and that was the best interest of the Irish people. I submit it is in the best interest of the Irish people that we should take every possible step to avoid the possibility of a general war in Europe. Why did the nations of Europe come together to implement the policy of non-intervention in Spain? They did so because they realised that the alternative was war, and nothing would lead anyone to think that a general war in Europe is in any way going to help the Irish people. If we in a small way can contribute to the maintenance of European peace it is in the interests of the Irish people that we should do so. If the Party opposite were in power they would take precisely the same line and it is because they are in opposition and because they expect to remain in opposition for the next ten years that they are adopting this policy in the faint hope that it might secure them a few more votes at the coming general election than they would otherwise secure. I do not think that in this matter the Government has very much to worry about concerning the attack made on it to-day. Nobody on these benches, or at least no member of the Executive Council is going to assert that everything is as it should be in the present state of affairs or that we have reached the maximum that we hope to achieve. It is quite the reverse. The factors which operated during the past five years reduced the results which we hoped to achieve and made them less than our anticipations. In every direction we might have done more. But generally speaking we do feel that we are pursuing a much sounder economic policy.
Industrial and agricultural activities are being carried on on a much surer basis and with much greater prospect of being able to secure prosperity in the future, and there is no alternative either in the sphere of industrial or agricultural policy to the programme now in operation. Certainly, no alternative has been offered to the Irish people. I do not say that there is no aspect of the Governments policy in relation to either matter which could not be improved and which is not subject to criticism. Possibly, there is. Possibly, if we got constructive criticism of these aspects, the whole policy in each direction could be improved. We have never got that criticism. We have got stupid misrepresentation, wild assertions, periodic parades of scare stories without foundation and consistent, persistent and blind refusal by the Opposition to produce any alternative policy they may have. If you want to get a complete example of political ineffectiveness, turn to the published election programme of Fine Gael in the matter of unemployment: "It is the policy of Fine Gael to deal effectively with unemployment."
The Minister for Industry and Commerce has gone even beyond the blasphemous remark made by the Minister for Finance here last week——
What?
The "blasphemous remark."
Is it in order to accuse a Deputy of this House of blasphemy?
Let me explain.
The term is in itself quite unparliamentary and should not be used. It is not capable of explanation in reference to any Deputy.
If you so desire, I shall withdraw it but I will explain.
Does the Deputy withdraw, without any reservation, the term he used in regard to the Minister for Finance?
I am going to explain why I used the word. I am going to explain the circumstances.
Has the Deputy withdrawn the term?
Yes. The Minister for Finance said here last week, when I was referring to alien immigration permitted by the Government and encouraged by Government policy, that "the village of Nazareth is quite as famous as the birthplace of Deputy Belton."
If the Deputy wants to make any point about that, he might, at least, quote me correctly.
I am quoting substantially the Press report of the Minister's remark.
The Deputy is good at quoting "substantially."
I did not hear the remark at the time or I should have replied. I was then referring to the undesirable Jewish immigration permitted and encouraged by this Government.
The Chosen People.
The reference of the Minister for Finance suggested, as I take it, that the first Christian—Christ Himself—was the Son of a Jew. My education taught me He was the Son of God and not the Son of a Jew.
Is this permissible?
I think the Deputy ought to pass from that as quickly as possible.
I am not going to model my line of argument or conduct according to the directions of Deputy MacDermot.
I am asking the Deputy to pass from this matter, which ought not to be referred to at all. Now that it has been referred to, it ought to be passed over as quickly as possible. I am asking the Deputy to conclude his remarks as quickly as possible on that particular subject.
The remark by the Minister for Finance, which Deputy Belton has quoted, is on record. Is that also to be passed over?
I am asking Deputy Belton to pass over his particular reference to the Founder of Christianity. That is a matter which, we all feel, should be referred to as little as possible in this House.
Would that ruling apply in reference to the remark about the village of Nazareth as well?
I am not going to argue in vacuo with the Deputy.
The remark was used and it was a very indecent observation.
The Deputy is a good judge of decency!
It will be on the records.
It is on the records.
The meaning will be understood. I wish also—I think I have some right and some authority for doing so—to repudiate the remarks of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who suggested that people in this country were trading on Catholicity and that the sympathy they had expressed with Spain was prompted more by political necessity than by love for Christianity or Catholicity. That is a disgraceful remark to have made in this House. The reports of the debates in this House are watched on the Continent, and that remark from the Minister for Industry and Commerce will be read on the Continent with mixed feelings, and will be read with mixed feelings by Catholics—and particularly by Irish Catholics and Irish Christians —the world over.
It is not what he said.
It is substantially what he said.
It is not.
Deputy MacDermot, in his opening remarks, stated, by way of apologia for the remark he made about the President three years ago, that the education of Fianna Fáil had improved. The education of Deputy MacDermot must have improved and he must now be seeking anchorage somewhere in the Fianna Fáil ranks or seeking Fianna Fáil patronage.
He will be following in good company.
I certainly resent and repudiate the remarks of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I have good grounds for doing so. The people of this country met in tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands——
Millions.
They were not sneering, as the Minister for Finance is at the present time. They came there solemnly and raised their hands in support of the resolutions sending sympathy to the Catholics of Spain in their struggle against Communism. There was no talk of politics there. There was no sign of a general election. It was honest sympathy springing from the hearts of the Irish people for the suffering Catholics of Spain. Now, that expression of sympathy must go out diluted to the Spanish people. Catholics and Christians all over the world will read, after this performance by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that nothing prompted those thousands of Irishmen who met in Dublin and throughout the country to express sympathy with the Catholics of Spain but a desire to score over political opponents. That is a disgraceful observation which should not be made by a representative person. After all, a Minister is a far more important person than an ordinary Deputy. Even a Deputy, in making a public statement like that, should not consider his own feelings on the matter but should realise that he is speaking for and on behalf of from 7,000 to 9,000 adult voters.
If the Minister in a public statement, confined to himself, makes a slip, then he brands with a similar guilt the 7,000 to 9,000 adult voters that he is speaking for at that moment. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that if the Government of this country refused to recognise the national Government of Spain that it had done so in good company; that it had done so with the Vatican. Anybody who has made any investigations into the matter knows that there are very solid reasons why the Vatican should not formally break off relations. On the evening of the 24th November that question was put in my presence to the Cardinal Primate of Spain, the question why the Vatican had not broken off relations, and the Primate's answer was that he dare not, because the Cathedral of Barcelona that was still standing would go up if he broke off relations, and that the lives of many people who were suffered to exist in Red territory would not be safe if formal relations were broken off. But there was no representative, in fact, there. There was no representative to the Red Government from the Vatican. There is a representative in Burgos accredited from the Vatican.
May I ask the Deputy a question? Has the Deputy the permission of the authority which he has quoted for the statement which he has just made to make that statement public, or is that another breach of confidence?
The Deputy knows how to keep confidences and has kept confidences.
Has the Deputy permission to make that statement?
What is the Minister's point? If the Deputy has not permission to make that statement, well, it is the Deputy's funeral.
No, it may not be.
Whether I have permission or not I will look after that.
I see. You will look after the Cathedral.
I will look after my own character and honour in the matter. Will the Minister deny that the Vatican has, in fact, no representative at the Court of Caballero? Will he deny that the Vatican has a representative at the Court of Franco? The voice to my left is silent. It was articulate a moment ago, punctuating my remarks by saying "Neither have we." I am making the positive statement now that the Vatican has a representative at the Court of Franco, and Deputy MacDermot is silent.
Because he does not know whether it is true or not.
Then the Deputy does not know much about the situation. The Deputy knows the statement has been published in the daily papers of this country, that Cardinal Gomaz is the accredited representative of the Vatican to the Burgos Government. Deputy MacDermot made the positive statement here a week ago that Portugal had not recognised the Franco Government. I said it had. The Deputy contradicted me, but apologised a day or two afterwards in the newspapers. I dare say we will see another apology from Deputy MacDermot in the next day or two. When he gets another whiff of the Roscommon air he will be brought into line.
About what?
Wait and see. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that the Vatican recognised the Caballero Government. Neither the Vatican nor anybody from it did, but we did, and if we want to march in step with the Vatican we will have no special agreements with the Caballero Government. The Vatican has none, but it has a duty there, a moral and a spiritual duty, that we have not. I should say that the Spanish Caballero Government has a consulate office that is functioning in this city at the present time. There is no office of the Vatican functioning in Madrid or in Valencia. Will any Minister get up and contradict my statement that the Spanish Red Government has still a consulate office functioning here in this city? We have continued to have special trade relations with the Red Government in Spain. We had been sending out food supplies to the Valencia Government, but it may be that we are not doing so now—that we have got the wind up because of certain happenings in the last few days. But such supplies went out no later than the 13th January. The boat, the "Clonlara," that the Minister for Industry and Commerce solemnly declared went with cattle and nothing else but cattle to the British Navy in Gibraltar——
What is the Government's responsibility in that matter?
The responsibility of the Government in that matter is the outcome of their foreign policy with regard to Spain, which they continue to pursue.
The Government is not carrying on any trade.
It has concluded a special trade agreement with the Spanish Government. It did so in 1935. It has recognised the successor to the Government in office in 1935— the administration of Caballero.
Did not the Dáil ratify that trade agreement at the time? Was it not submitted to the House for ratification?
It ratified a trade agreement with the elected Government of the Spanish people.
It is not for me to say what is the right Government in Spain, and I am not going to be put in the position of doing so. This Dáil ratified a trade agreement made by the Executive, and as such it is not open for discussion.
The point made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce was to equate the policy of our Government with regard to the Caballero Government with the policy of the Vatican to the same Government.
I do not know what trade agreements the Vatican may have with any government, but what I do know is that we concluded a trade agreement with the Government of Spain. That trade agreement was ratified by this Dáil, and as such it cannot now be reopened for discussion.
I am simply drawing attention to the statement made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce which is misleading. That statement was an attempt to equate the policy of our Government with that of the Vatican with regard to the Caballero Government, and that if we were erring we were erring in good company. The point I want to make is that we are erring in the matter of sending foodstuffs to the Caballero Government, which the Vatican is not doing. I am not questioning at the moment the policy, nor am I criticising that agreement that was concluded. I am just dealing with the bald statement made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and pointing out that it is misleading.
The Deputy said that a ship named "Clonlara" went with foodstuffs to what is generally described as the Valencia Government. He proceeded then to discuss the Government's attitude towards Spain as shown by trade agreements. That trade agreement was ratified by this House long before there was a war in Spain, and so, therefore, we cannot discuss trade relations with Spain.
For certain reasons, Sir, I did not intend to intervene in this debate at all, but as it has proceeded here to-day there has been the widest possible discussion on grounds of policy. It is not questioning the conclusion of any particular instrument that I am concerned with; it is dealing with general policy of the Government, and, as I followed the debate prior to my intervention in it, there seemed to me to be no limit to the references——
I think that is a slight exaggeration.
——and I submit that, when we are asked to vote £10,000,000 of public money, allocated to the various services on account, my understanding of those Votes in this House, in my reading of the Constitution and Standing Orders, has been that, when it is a question of money for any Department or for any public service, we, as representing the outside public, have full freedom to discuss the policy for which that money is used. I submit further that I am not going outside those terms of reference. No doubt an agreement has been come to, and I am not questioning that agreement, but in the circumstances that have arisen I am criticising the general foreign policy of our Government in continuing that agreement, because circumstances are now there that were not there, and that were not anticipated, at the time that agreement was concluded. If those circumstances had not arisen, the matter would not have been mentioned at all. There would be no point in raising it.
I am not anxious to limit the Deputy at all but, clearly, if this House ratifies an agreement, it requires legislation to undo that agreement.
Agreed, Sir, but if an agreement is ratified in this House in certain circumstances, and if then very exceptional circumstances arise and the Government still continues that agreement, I submit that when a vote of money for that particular Department comes before this House, members of the House have not only a right, but a duty to agree or disagree with or criticise that policy of continuance, because a new situation has arisen.
The Deputy has agreed that it would require new legislation to abrogate that agreement. Clearly, the Deputy is advocating new legislation, which cannot be done on this Bill.
I am rather dealing with the matter, Sir, in a negative way. The policy of the Government is to continue that agreement, and my attitude is negative to that policy of the Government and I am criticising the Government for perpetuating that policy. Now, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, while very anxious for a fight with Britain on certain matters, here in this House to-day first repudiated the suggestion that our Government accepted foreign dictation from the British Government in the matter of its policy towards Spain. Quite obviously, it is sticking out that dictation was accepted. We were not told that this country put up any case, any policy, any principle, with regard to this non-intervention. Non-intervention, standing by itself, with the special information that Governments have, is a thing against which perhaps there is not so much to be said. I am not going to discuss it now. It has been discussed here. The House has taken a decision on it. The only aspect of it that I want to touch on at all is that referred to by the Minister here to-day when he repudiated the suggestion that there was any dictation accepted by our Government from the British Government—that we acted quite freely. It is an appalling admission. It was bad enough to accept dictation from the British Government, but to say that the Government of this country accepted freely, and without any dictation, and of its own free will agreed to recognise the Caballero Government, agreed to continue its special trading relations with that Government, agreed to recognise that so-called Government that is admitted all over the world as being a Government that stands for the rule and the reign of anti-Christ in Spain, and that has been so branded by the Cardinal Primate of Spain, is a humiliating position for the Government of this overwhelmingly Catholic country to have taken up.
There could be some excuse for it, had it said that it was influenced by the threat of its big brother. We have the authority of the Minister for Industry and Commerce that they have done nothing in the matter, that whatever they did, they did in the best interests of this country and that they did it freely. So, therefore, it must be in the best interest of this country that we recognise the Government of anti-Christ in Spain and refuse to recognise the Government of Christ in Spain. That is what it comes down to. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that nobody raised any voice here on behalf of the Christian side in Spain except those who were prompted to do so for political reasons. That was the statement of one Minister speaking here to-day. He was afraid of the "Clonlara" looming up here again and he ran out the moment his speech was delivered. We had the Minister for Finance referring, in a speech that can only be described as contemptible, at Cavan a couple of weeks ago, to the men who have gone out to fight for what they believe to be the cause of Christianity in Spain, and who are at this moment in the trenches before Madrid. I have the honour to have a communication in my pocket direct from Madrid. The Minister in his speech at Cavan said these men went out there so that they might be able on coming home to set up a Fascist State in this country.
How can the Deputy relate that to expenditure by the present Government under this Bill?
I am dealing with the foreign policy of the Government.
It is not the foreign policy of the Government to send volunteers to Spain. They are not incurring any expenditure in that way.
No; but I am objecting to their foreign policy.
What foreign policy is the Deputy objecting to?
I am quoting what the Minister said in Cavan and what another Minister said here.
The Deputy is a very moving speaker. Look at the Opposition Benches.
I should like if the Deputy would confine himself somewhere reasonably near to the matters in the Central Fund Bill. Whether there are volunteers in Spain or not, the Government are not responsible for any expenditure in connection with them. This Bill is concerned with expenditure for which the Government has some responsibility.
In order that the Deputy may have an opportunity of collecting his thoughts on that matter, may I call attention to the fact that there is not a quorum?
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
The statements of both those Ministers, in addition to the statement made by the President here, are a clear indication of the mentality of the Government as regards the foreign policy they pursue. I submit, with some show of proof, that that is not the foreign policy that the people of this country would wish our Government to pursue. It is not the foreign policy for which they wish the money, which they pay in taxation, to be utilised. If they were consulted and asked what should be the foreign policy of our Government, not 1 per cent. of the people would hesitate to say that the foreign policy of our Government with regard to Spain should be completely reversed, in other words, that instead of the Government of Caballero in Valencia being recognised by this Government, and our having an accredited representative there, and that Government having an accredited representative here, we should withdraw our representative from the Caballero Government and advise them to withdraw their representative here. The people would, furthermore, say that we ought to send a duly accredited representative to the Franco Government in Burgos and invite them to send a representative here to Dublin. Those, I submit, are unquestionably the wishes of the Irish people, and those wishes, unquestionably, are not being carried out by the Government. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has just informed us that they were perfectly free to make a choice and that they did in fact make a free choice. Their free choice was to do precisely the opposite to what the people of this country wished them to do.
A year ago this House voted £2,500,000 for unemployment. It was revealed, I believe, last year in the debate on the Finance Act, that of that money £1,675,000 would be provided by the Central Fund and that the balance of £825,000 should be put up by the local authorities. I should like to know from the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Local Government, what rule was followed in apportioning that money to the various local authorities? There has been, as far as I have been able to ascertain, great inequality in the allocation of that money.
Is that not administration purely? Would that not arise on the Vote of the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Vote for the Minister for Local Government?
Yes, but there is this point which deals with policy, I submit. When the local authorities considered this matter, and I think when this House considered the matter last year, they considered it from the point of view of the practicability of the local authorities borrowing their share over the usual period of 15 years. Local authorities that I know agreed to put up this money, having a general idea that the policy relating to it, the terms of borrowing, would be the same as in the case of other large sums; but the Government have limited the period over which this money must be repaid to three years.
That also concerns administration.
The result, anyway, is the imposition of an intolerable burden. I submit that the general policy of making the local authority shoulder one-third of the cost of the relief of unemployment is entirely wrong. The local authority has no concern, no responsibility, for the national policy. It is the national authority that is responsible for national economic policy and it should find the money to relieve the product of the defects of that national economic policy. However, that is a point that will develop further on the Departmental Votes.
We are constructing alcohol factories here, and we have constructed beet factories. If we require to bring in technicians to help some industry that is new to this country, I suggest that they should be brought in under contract only for a period which would give Irishmen or women an opportunity to learn the technique of those industries.
Surely this arises on the Vote of the Department of Industry and Commerce?
I am discussing the general policy of the Government in bringing those people in and placing them—we do not know their qualifications, and I will not put it any stronger than that—in important positions in this country without any limit to their period of office. We are gathering up the scattered Jews of Europe and dumping them into these positions. I would like to know from the Minister when the steel construction was finished in Cooley.
That is purely a matter of administration. The Deputy ought to be able to distinguish between general Government policy and the administration of a particular Department. When the Minister's Vote comes on the Deputy can raise that matter. Whatever Minister is responsible for the steel construction in the particular place to which the Deputy refers, when his Vote comes under discussion, that subject can be raised and dealt with in detail, and the Deputy can ask the Minister whatever questions he wishes to ask.
Is it in order for a Deputy to engage in Jew baiting, which is all Deputy Belton is doing in this discussion?
Who is the Jew?
Deputy Norton has gone to great pains—and we were all glad to see it—to show that the Party he belongs to has no association with Communism. Everybody in this country was delighted to read Deputy Norton's declaration on that. As far as I am aware, I do not think there ever was any doubt of Deputy Norton's attitude in that regard. But Communism can only be kept out of this country by clearing the breeding grounds of Communism, and those breeding grounds are poverty, bad conditions and propagandists. I suggest that Jews have been the propagandists of Communism the world over, and we should not let them into sheltered trades and positions in this country to carry on their propaganda. Is there anything wrong in a reference of that kind? I would be surprised if Deputy Norton objects to that, after all his protestations here and outside this country that he and the Party he belongs to are not Communists. I am sure they are not. There is no Jew baiting about that.
I do not know a Communist Jew in Ireland.
I did not think the Jews would be able to pull the wool over Deputy Norton's eyes so easily as that.
Will you give me the name of one?
Now, we will have no names.
You saved the Deputy by that ruling, Sir.
Not one bit, because the Deputy was not going to give names.
The Deputy will please recollect that the Central Fund Bill is before the House.
He is showing more discretion now.
I find myself in rather strange company when I come to discuss another point, that is, the suggestion of an increase in Ministers' salaries. The Government, whose main plank in getting into office was that no man is worth more than £1,000 a year or should get more than £1,000 a year in this country, are now adopting a different attitude. It ill-becomes such people, when they get into office and find the largest section of the people—whom they deluded sufficiently to put them into office— poorer than they have ever been in the history of this country, to turn round and say: "Now, we are going to increase our salaries." This Government got into office largely by declaring that if they got in they would reduce the salaries. They now say that they must increase them. While I have a vote here I will vote against that Government increasing salaries.
I was waiting to hear some solid comparisons made here about conditions as the result of Government policy in the last few years. Deputy McGilligan made a long statement. I will say that he made a perfectly reasoned statement. The Minister for Industry and Commerce got up after him and, instead of going over the ground after Deputy McGilligan, he indulged in a lot of rhetoric and shibboleths in order to confuse the issue. He talked about the fall in the prices of produce from 1929 to 1931. The fall then in world prices, particularly in British prices, was catastrophic, so catastrophic that Great Britain could not remain on the gold standard after December, 1931. She went off the gold standard and from that time until now we have not had gold prices—we have had only paper prices.
I am not sure, at the moment, what is the gold value of sterling—it might be about 12/-. So that if we are going to compare prices for 1929 to 1931 with present prices, we must take into account the value of the unit of money.
The £1 unit that we reckoned up to, I think, 19th December, 1931, was 20/-. That unit to-day is, I think, in the neighbourhood of from 11/- to 13/- or 14/-. It is obvious that the first reaction to going off the gold standard, even if the values fundamentally remain the same, would be that prices would go up, not because of any increase in real price, but because the unit of currency was cheapened from 20/- to 13/- or 14/-. That brought a boom and was intended to bring a boom and always brings a boom in trade. Great Britain went off the gold standard in order to bring about a boom in British trade and she succeeded. If the depreciation of her currency to the first point was not sufficient—and it was not sufficient—she kept on depreciating it until she had it down to a level that she could trade with profit and sell to other nations which had a currency equal to or of more value than her own. That was deliberately done by Great Britain to depreciate the value of her money, so that she could sell in countries on the gold standard or which had a more appreciated currency than the British currency. These matters are not taken into account. How did the Minister for Industry and Commerce get out of his jam? What will people say? How will people vote? Ministers are expected to do what is right and to consider fundamentals, regardless of what the mass will do when things are misrepresented, as generally they are misrepresented by politicians.
Prices have risen since 1931. Deputy McGilligan quoted statistics to show that, while world prices fell from 1929 to 1931, they fell less in the Free State than in any other sterling country, and that from 1931 to 1935 they rose more in other countries than they did in the Free State. He said that wanted an explanation. The Minister for Industry and Commerce did not explain that, because it cannot be explained away. I challenge the Minister for Finance to explain it away. These are the matters that count. If, by false misrepresentation to the electorate, the Government got 100 per cent. of the electorate to vote for them, it would not make wrong right. I ask the Minister for Finance to explain why general prices fell less in the Free State from 1929 to 1931 than in any other sterling country, and why they rose less from 1931 to 1935 in the Free State than in any other sterling country. Then we will get down to bedrock.
We have been told, in effect, that we may take it as a normal condition of affairs here that the tariffs on our cattle and on our produce generally going into Great Britain will remain. We have been told that we have got either to fight or to surrender. We have surrendered. We have agreed to pay, and we are paying. It has become a hardy annual now to reiterate in writing, in an instrument called the Coal-Cattle Pact, that we will pay the annuities and all the other sums to Great Britain. It is not now a question of whether we will pay or not; it is a question of the form in which we will pay. The form in which the present Government agreed to pay is so much per head on every beast going into Great Britain. That is the agreement, and that has dislocated the trade of the country.
I want to direct Deputy Norton's attention to this. It has been stated here to-day that the indebtedness of local authorities in the last few years has gone up from £14,000,000 or £15,000,000 to £24,000,000. I am not going to say that all that indebtedness is non-productive; a great lot of it is productive. But with some knowledge of what I am saying, I suggest there is hardly a local authority in this country to-day which has not a large overdraft. There is no county council that has not a difficulty in getting in the rates, and has perforce to work on an overdraft. The defaulters in the payment of rates are the farmers, and the reason the farmers are defaulters is because of the general policy of the Government.
I am not one of those who object to the growing of wheat or beet, because I have been a pioneer in the growing of those two crops. I am as strongly in favour of their cultivation to-day as ever I was, provided it is done with commonsense and in a rotation of good farming. I think, when I speak of good farming, I speak on a subject which I know at least a little about. In the county in which I have the honour to be chairman of the county council, and which the Minister for Finance has the honour to represent in this House, the arrears of rates amount to £70,000 or £80,000, substantially all accumulated in the last four or five years. There is no possible chance of getting in those rates. We have investigated case after case. The Minister's colleague, Deputy Brady, is a member of the Dublin County Council and he knows what I am saying is true. We have tried means that were distasteful to some of us, yet I see great difficulty in carrying on. I want to relate that condition of things to something that will be interesting to Deputy Norton and his Party. We hear a lot about the wages that should be paid, yet within four miles of where I am standing, men have to work 60 hours a week for 25/-, and the men who are getting 25/- a week working on a farm have more out of it than the farmers have. I challenge contradiction of that statement. It is all very well to come here and talk about social conditions and about what has been done for agriculture. I grant that the Minister for Finance thinks that the overwhelming majority of the farmers voted No. 1 for him at the last election. I will not say what they will do next time, because nobody knows what they will do. I know that the farmers are quite satisfied that their position is now much worse than it was four years ago. I know that it is worse, and so does Deputy Brady.
What is the cause? The cause is that our Government in a so-called fight, but which is really a surrender, agreed to pay the British Government £5,000,000 by way of a tax on cattle going to Great Britain and at the same time they are making the farmers pay here. That cannot be done. When farmers grumbled at that state of affairs the Minister for Finance went amongst the people and said: "These farmers are trying to sabotage the State and to prevent the Government giving you the social services that it intended to give." I wonder if any Deputy thinks 25/- for a 60 hours' week a fair wage. Yet the people who have these men employed have nothing for themselves and are going deeper into debt every day. I can bring any Deputy to 100 farmers in County Dublin who are in that position. They are men who always paid their way in the past. I speak with some feeling on this question, because I know the impossible condition under which the farmers are working owing to the fact that the British Government is collecting the annuities on one hand and another £2,000,000 is being collected here, so that the farmers have to pay both sides.
I am convinced that farmers should not be asked to pay rates or annuities while they have to pay £5,000,000 to the British Government, a payment that was agreed to by President de Valera. While that is the condition of farmers, as chairman of Dublin County Council, I should point out that we have been urged by the Minister for Local Government to get in the rates, and a short time ago we had a communication from that Department stating that if two rate collectors, whose names were mentioned, did not show a better collection within a certain date they should be suspended. Farming conditions at present mean 25/- a week for a labouring man. Deputies get up in this House and pay lip service to the cause of labour. Nobody is doing any service to the cause of labour who helps in the remotest way to produce conditions in any industry which make it impossible to pay decent wages. I would be very glad if anybody with experience of agricultural conditions, who knows what it is to handle a plough, would tell me where more than 25/- a week is being paid in agricultural wages, and what return farmers are getting at the present time for the slavery that they have to put into cash crops.
There was never such slavery in agriculture as there is in the growing of beet. While I hold that beet should be grown, and that a percentage of our sugar requirements should be met in this country, I say that we cannot afford to lose on every crop. We must make a profit on some crop. The artificial price given for beet is only given because of excessive excise duties and import duties. In other circumstances, many of us would be enthusiastic about the Government's industrial policy which has been so severely criticised. I am 70 or 80 per cent. in favour of that industrial policy, but the producers of manufactured goods here which require protection must look for a market in this country and must look for a market for agriculture where every country is looking for it. If agriculture is bankrupt, and not able to pay more than 25/- a week to its workers, it is not a good potential market for our industry. Although £2 and £3 per week is insisted on for industrial workers while profits are guaranteed to industries, those can only be guaranteed by the slave conditions in agriculture.
I should like to say a word in conclusion about another matter that is piling on costs to local authorities and causing difficulties to county councils. The Land Commission is dividing farms. I presume that every county council has by-laws—our county council has anyway—governing road maintenance and road construction. We take over new roads on condition that those roads are made on a certain standard. The policy of the Land Commission has been to ignore local standards of road-making and only leave tracks.
Surely this arises on the Vote for the Land Commission.
I only wanted to deal lightly with the Land Commission general policy on that.
The House would be interested to hear Deputy Belton dealing with anything lightly.
He will not deal with the Minister lightly when it comes to the Vote for the Minister's Department; and he will not deal lightly with the Land Commission when it comes to the Vote for the Land Commission, because then he will produce specific cases where the Land Commission has failed.
We can breathe lightly now that we have heard that, because probably when those Estimates come to be dealt with the Deputy will not be here.
Has the Minister any idea where he might be? When the Minister tried conclusions with the Deputy before I know how it came off. None of us know whether he will be here or not. It is sufficient for us, when we are here, to do our job here. If the people I represent think I have not done or am not fitted to do their work here, the sooner I know that the better I like it. If that is their opinion I shall be glad to have their decision. I will have nothing to regret when that decision is taken. I am going to save money instead of losing it by absenting myself from here. I am here at great loss. I am not a professional politician, coming in here for a livelihood. I have my livelihood outside, and I am neglecting it in order to come in here and help my country according to my lights. The sneers of the Minister for Finance come very ill from a Minister. We shall meet, perhaps, on the battle ground of County Dublin in the coming election, and—well, we shall wait and see.
The Deputy should wait for Philippi and deal with the Central Fund Bill now.
The Minister's deputy, the Parliamentary Secretary, knows the condition of affairs in the County Dublin; knows the condition of unemployment in the county; knows that the county council has put up nearly pound for pound with the Minister. And the Minister has imposed conditions which work out at, I think, two guineas a week for a 47-hour week.
Surely this deals with the scheme of financing employment from the Vote.
I am dealing with the condition of unemployment in the part of Ireland that I know, and that the Minister ought to know and ought to serve. Those people will not work for that wage. I am not saying they are right or wrong, but they will not work for it. Yet all those benches there have pursued a policy, and are still pursuing a policy, that alongside where those men will not work for two guineas a week, agricultural labourers have to work for 25/-. Those are the benches responsible for that.
Talk sense sometime.
I am talking that sense.
That is nonsense.
Have the agricultural labourers of County Dublin to work for 25/- a week?
You said they have, so that is all right.
And the leader of the Labour Party cannot contradict or substantiate that? He asks me to talk sense when I state what I know to be a fact. The leader of the Labour Party cannot shirk responsibility for being a party to producing the conditions which have brought agriculture to that position.
That is a misrepresentation.
The Deputy can clear himself when he gets up.
You will not let anybody get up. You have been there for an hour and a half now.
Throughout the County Dublin conditions of unemployment are the same. The people are on the verge of starvation. The reaction of that comes to the local authorities in arrears of rent on labourers' cottages. Deputy McGilligan dealt with the reactions and repercussions of Government policy. He dealt with the matter in a scientific or academic way by taking certain figures and hypotheses and working from them. I am dealing with it from practical observation. I hope that the Deputies who represent County Dublin will be able to get up and contradict my statement as regards the conditions of employment in the county, the rates or remuneration in the county, the conditions of local finances and the general instability of conditions in County Dublin. I am quite sure they know every tick of the clock as regards political moves in the county; now let them show what they know about the economic needs of the people.
Deputy Belton, in the course of his contribution to this debate, again felt it necessary to pose as the one person not merely in this House but indeed in all Ireland who was concerned with the needs of the Catholic population in Spain. We had from Deputy Belton this evening another speech after the pattern of the previous speeches which he delivered in this House on the subject of Spain. I was not, owing to a ruling of the Chair, permitted to participate in that debate, because I felt it necessary to refute a very vile slander on the Labour Party which was uttered in this House.
By me?
Oh, no—by Deputy Anthony. Normally, I would not intervene in this debate were it not for the line which Deputy Belton has taken here this evening. It is quite clear from Deputy Belton's speeches inside and outside this House that Deputy Belton's dearest wish is that we should not pursue a non-intervention policy in Spain, but rather that we should pursue an active intervention policy there, with all the appalling consequences that an active intervention policy means for our people and for the peoples of Europe.
What about the other slanders Deputy Belton made on my people?
Sir, Deputy Briscoe has suggested that I am an ignoramus because of remarks I made.
Is the Deputy rising to a point of order?
I request his withdrawal of that.
The Chair did not hear any remarks passed by the Deputy while Deputy Norton was speaking.
Surely Deputy Briscoe will not be allowed to describe a member of this House as an ignoramus?
If interruptions are inaudible to the Chair, the Chair does not take any action.
To make the matter quite clear——
The Chair will not hear anything more about the matter.
Is it necessary to put a label on Deputy Belton, anyhow?
Notwithstanding the obviously active intervention attitude which Deputy Belton has displayed in his speeches in this House and outside on the subject of Spain and her problems, in my opinion, non-intervention is the only safe and practical policy for this country to pursue in respect of the events which are at present torturing that unhappy country.
That matter has been decided by the House recently.
I never favoured intervention.
Deputy Belton made a speech on this matter this evening in which he deplored the attitude of those who did not accept his point of view. I do not accept his point of view on this matter, and surely I am entitled to make a short statement in reply. An effort has been made by Deputy Belton and by the Opposition Party to pretend that they, and they only, have the interests of the Catholics of Spain at heart. Speeches were made from the Opposition Benches during the debate on the Non-Intervention Bill, and speeches have since been repeated by Opposition Deputies throughout the country on the question. All these speeches are based on the brazen and impudent contention by them that they, and they only, are concerned with the interests of the Catholic population of Spain. Deputy MacDermot said one thing here last week which Deputy Dillon strongly resented, namely, that the Fine Gael Party was endeavouring to cash in on Christianity, and those who heard the speeches of the Deputies in the Party opposite and those who have read the speeches subsequently delivered throughout the country will have no hesitation in appreciating the appropriateness of that remark in respect of the attitude of the Fine Gael Party.
I hope he is proud of the company in which he finds himself making it.
There was a time when he used to be proud of the same company.
He is in new company now.
It is easy to understand the attitude of the Party in this respect. Your economic policy is one that has not commended itself to the people. Your political policy has not commended itself to the people. Various devices of changing your name have not deceived the people and the only policy now left for you to adopt in order to endeavour to woo the people into giving you a new lease of political life is to pretend, and, in my opinion, it is an insolent and brazen contention, that you are the only Party in this country concerned with the interests of the Catholic population of Spain. Every member on these benches is a Catholic. I should imagine that 99 per cent, if not 100 per cent., of the Deputies on the Government Benches are Catholics, and I say that those who occupy both these benches are as much concerned with defending the interests of the Catholic Church in Spain and in Ireland as any Deputy on the Fine Gael Benches or on the Independent Benches, and probably some of them a good deal more genuinely concerned in that respect.
I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned until to-morrow.