To an extent the question of defence has been discussed this year in connection with External Affairs. To a very great extent that was helpful, but to a certain extent, so far as I am concerned, it led to mental confusion. We have had this evening two rather contradictory statements. Taken in conjunction with the Budget statement, we had a third. The whole Budget debate, so far as it referred to the new Vote of £600,000, both from the Government and these benches, implied that that expenditure was in one manner or another connected with the taking over of the forts, their equipment and their modernisation. That was a perfectly reasonable point of view. It was not contradicted. In fact, I think some Government speakers justified it on the grounds of modernising the forts.
This evening we had a statement from the Taoiseach that the £600,000 asked for had nothing to do with the ports, that it was an ordinary development of our defence forces. We are entitled to know from the Minister for Defence which way it is. I admit that when this specific Supplementary Estimate comes up we will probably get a fuller statement. But, even at this stage, in discussing our defence policy we are entitled to know whether that sum is making provision for new conditions or whether it is normal development. If it is normal development and unconnected with the ports then it should be indicated here in the normal Estimate. There are apparently, either different points of view between the Taoiseach and the Minister for Defence, or there is no joint consultative effort. I do not care which way it is. If it is normal development, it should be here. If it is new expenditure in connection with the ports, there is nothing either to be ashamed of or afraid of in making that statement. But Deputies, who are asked as representatives of the people to vote the money, are certainly entitled to know what it is for.
The Taoiseach, further, in his statement to-night told us that there was an obligation on all Governments to make adequate provision for defences within their means, and the more critical the conditions were the more ample the defence should be and the more money should be expended for that purpose. That certainly is a sound statement. But it is a strong indictment of the Minister for Defence on the Government for the last six years. Things have changed this year. For the last six years we were regarding Great Britain as our enemy... She is now our friend. I welcome that. It is a big improvement in the atmosphere. It makes our existence less critical. During the last six years, England and Italy were on the point of war. Europe was like a dynamite heap with a lot of children running round with lighted matches. Peace has more or less been made between these two great countries. The position of Europe, so far as we can see it, is less critical now, by far, than it was during the last five or six years.
But let us return to the Taoiseach's dictum, that when things are critical then our defence must be most complete and we must spend more money. Apparently, our policy is this: that we begin to spend big money when things get less critical, that we begin to spend more money when the relations between ourselves and a powerful neighbour are relations of peace rather than the bitter relations of war. We are further told that our new expenditure is connected in no way whatsoever with the recent Pact and understanding with Great Britain. Nevertheless, because the European state of affairs is more pacific, because we have made peace with an ancient enemy, because our neighbourly relations are better, we are asked to spend considerably more money. That is nonsense. So much is it nonsense, that I do not believe that either the Taoiseach or the Minister would have that stuff believed by any Deputy sitting behind him.
If our new expenditure on the forts and the further development and expansion of our Army arise out of facing up to our national obligations and are developments arising out of our new relations with Great Britain and the Government's acceptance of the Commonwealth position and Commonwealth responsibility, then I welcome it.
But if we are to spend enormous sums of money merely because the position is less critical, and there is no other case made, then that demand should not be made on the pockets of the people. If this country is to stand alone as a tiny isolated unit in a warmad world every sane man knows this, that it does not matter whether you spend £600,000 more or £6,000,000 more you cannot defend this country as a tiny isolated unit with a population of 3,500,000 people, and you might as well save your money and enjoy life as long as you are here. European Powers are spending, each of them, hundreds of millions of pounds annually on defence. You cannot defend any point from any country in Europe by a defence expenditure of two, three or six million pounds, or compete in an armament race or in a defensive war with nations that spend hundreds of millions. If our policy is that we are going to stand alone, and absolutely alone, the most reasonable defence policy for us is absolute disarmament, relying, perhaps, on such a bent reed as the League of Nations and our own helplessness rather than on a defence force that can be produced by an expenditure of, say, £2,000,000 a year. If, on the other hand, arising out of the recent Pact, the new atmosphere and the new recognition of the trading interdependence of this country with the neighbouring island, there is a joint idea of keeping the road open, of defending the trade routes—if there is a facing up to the fact that, no matter what the position was in 1908, in 1938 one of the two neighbouring islands cannot be regarded as a unit for the purpose of defence—that is all to the good. Two neighbouring islands nowadays are one unit for the purposes of defence.
Everybody knows, even people not conversant with military men or military minds, that two little islands lying side by side nowadays have got to be regarded as one for the purposes of defence. The peoples of both countries have to realise and face up to that. We had from the Taoiseach this evening a kind of desire to face up to facts, a kind of desire or a half-desire to be frank with the Dáil, but we had it limited and curbed all the time by that kind of characteristic reluctance to face up to any words: to things that are sentimentally objectionable. It is sentimentally objectionable to people in this country, to every nationalist in it irrespective of Party badge, to find ourselves, even in the defensive sense, operating our army with their navy, or our army with the British army. But, because it is sentimentally objectionable, is no reason why we should shirk facing facts. The position of the Government is this: that they are facing the facts but they are ashamed to state it. They are doing the thing but they are ashamed to give it a name. They are in the position of the man who eats an onion but objects to the smell off his breath. If you eat the onion you have got to have the smell.
I believe that the defence of countries and the security of peoples are of the utmost importance to all nowadays, and no matter whom you have got to co-operate or ally yourself with, you first of all have to take into consideration common interests, and trading interests of interdependence. I am not dealing with political matters such as membership of the Commonwealth or anything like that. We are depending on England for many things. She is depending on us for food. We are relying on England for the raw materials for our industries and on her to a great extent for manufactured goods. If her trade routes are blocked our lines of supply are cut. If we are to look after the security of the people in this country, then we have got to do it in co-operation with some country that has a navy. The Minister for Defence knows this much: that an island without a navy, in terms of defence, is a joke. Switzerland might as well have a navy and no army—a purely inland country—as for any island to talk in terms of defence with an army, no matter how big, and no navy. The first and obvious line, and the only sensible line for defending an island is from the first point of attack at sea—to keep the invader away. You may make it expensive and dear for an invader to land or after he has landed, but to rely on an army to defend an island is so much nonsense. If things were otherwise in 1921 than they were, and if we could afford to spend one, two or three million pounds, common sense would have dictated that the first one, two or three million pounds would have gone on some form of coastal defence rather than on an army. Internal conditions directed that we should first establish an army.
An army is important and valuable. It is important to make it expensive for a force to go further after landing or to remain after landing, but that is merely the second phase in any sensible defence policy for an island. The first is a navy, and if we cannot have both an adequate navy and army, then the obvious thing is to make arrangements with some country that has a navy: with some country that has common interests with ours, that is relying on us for something that is vital, and whose interest it would be to continue to get that something that is vital. Great Britain wants our food in times of peace. She wants it more so in times of war. Food from this country is practically vital to Great Britain in time of war. Her navy is there, and the obvious thing is to use it. If we are going to use it, then co-operate with them and make the use of it speedy, efficient and harmonious.
Now, I am perfectly satisfied that the Minister is doing that; that that is the plan, the policy and intention of the Government. If it is, why be afraid to say it? We are not modernising ports and increasing the efficiency of forts for the sake of having soldiers potting at seagulls. Everyone of us knows that an odd fortified fort, here and there, at four or five points of an island, is worthless from the point of view of land defence and worthless from the point of view of an army on land. If you are going to rely on that type of coastal defence, co-operating only with an army inland, then you have got to fortify the coastline all round, as some countries have to do—not just a spot here and a spot there. If our coastal defence policy is based on co-operation with a fleet at sea, co-operation with a navy, then the obvious and the commonsense thing is to fortify the stronger harbours because you have a navy with which to co-operate. That is what we are doing but we are either afraid or ashamed to say so.
There are pleas about co-operation between Parties. If there is ever to be co-operation, the first thing there should be co-operation on is the security of the State and the safety of its people. But you cannot have co-operation based on evasion. You cannot have co-operation in blinkers. Nationally, the line which I am suggesting the Government is taking is just as objectionable to the nationalists on this side as it is to the nationalists on that side. Away back through the pages of history, our fathers and grandfathers suffered just as much at the hands of the British as any Deputy opposite. If we allowed the liver to guide our actions, we should be bellowing hatred for Britain for the rest of our lives. If we made our passions subordinate to our common sense, we should be doing that. But we believe that, as Deputies, we have got to face facts and we propose to face up to these facts.
The Minister is coming here asking for money. The Taoiseach says that that money is for one purpose. The Minister for Finance says it is for another purpose. The Minister for Defence says "mum." He merely told us that we should be informed later what the money was for. That money is voted already. It was voted then on a case made, that case being that it was new expenditure in connection with the forts.
The Taoiseach to-night indicated that there is no connection between it and the forts. Is the position that we were asked to vote the money without the Government knowing what the money was for? The Taoiseach was put a clear-cut question: "Are you or are you not going to co-operate with the British navy in the defence of this country in the event of war?" He answered, with characteristic evasiveness: "When, and if, that war comes along, then we will decide." No child over seven years of age would accept that as a satisfactory answer from a child of eight years. We are supposed to take that as a satisfactory answer from the head of the Government. If that be the mind of the Government, what is it that they are proposing to do? They are proposing that they will spend this money first, that they will drive their hand deep into the trousers pocket of everybody, that they will expend all the money on armaments designed for co-operation with a navy, but that they will not even decide that that is their policy, or admit that that is their plan, until the bombs of war are bursting over our cities and towns. Does not the Minister know, whether the Taoiseach said that or not, that every sane defence department in the world makes its plans years in advance, formulates its policy, possibly, decades in advance, and that the country that waits to make its plan and formulate its policy until the big guns are belching death—that that country goes under quickly and deserves no better end? I had hoped that, with the new international atmosphere between this country and Great Britain, with the representatives of both Governments and both armies joining in toasts, with certain types of speeches being made in certain constituencies where the imperialist vote was strong, that, at last, the Government was coming to reason, at last, they were facing up to facts. But they are neither facing up to facts nor coming to a state of reason if they think that even a docile majority in this House is so thoroughly irresponsible, so thoroughly reckless of their responsibility to their constituents, that they are going to vote hundreds of thousands of pounds without knowing what the money is for. That is too much to expect even of the docile followers of the Government. I have used many hard words with regard to them. I have brought many a charge against them, but I would not charge them with being so thoroughly irresponsible, so capable of disregarding their responsibilities to their constituents that they would walk in here in response to the crack of the whip and vote away hundreds of thousands of pounds of the people's money without knowing what it was for. It is the pig-in-the-poke policy—"Give us the money now and in a few years we shall let you know what it was for."
It is at least excusable that the Taoiseach, in dealing with the Vote for External Affairs, would not, or could not, go fully into even the broad outlines of defence expenditure, but it is equally apparent that that obligation is on the Minister. According to the Taoiseach, we propose this year to increase our defence expenditure by £600,000, and, according to him, if I understood him properly, that has no connection with the ports or the forts. Why are we doing it so? Are we in a more critical position than when our relations with Great Britain were bitter? I will repeat what I have said in case I misunderstood the Taoiseach. I understood the Taoiseach in his remarks this evening to say that the £600,000, which it is proposed to raise according to the Budget, had no connection with new liabilities in relation to the forts or the ports, that it was for the expansion of our defence forces generally, and not a sum required arising specifically out of the Agreement and the taking over of the ports. I was proceeding to argue from that that if there was no connection between the £600,000 and the taking over of the ports, there must be some other reason for increasing our expenditure this year.
