There are certain points of similarity, Sir, between the Budget of this year and the Budget of last year and of the year before. Neither last year's Budget, nor the Budget of the year before balanced, and this Budget, drawn or explained as it is by the Minister, will not balance either. Borrowing money for the purpose of affording employment cannot be defended, and to that extent the £350,000 which the Minister proposes to borrow in respect of the relief of unemployment unbalances his Budget. Now, the difference between this Budget and the two previous Budgets is this: This Budget proposes to collect from the people £1,000,000 more than was collected last year. This might be said to be a normal year because no longer have we got the trouble which had been going on for some five or six years with Great Britain, and one would expect, in consequence, some relief to the taxpayers who had borne their share during those five or six difficult years. However, it appears that the more peace we get the more we are taxed for it, and the Minister, while complaining of the reduction in values and the consequent reduction in income during the past year, has forgotten, apparently, that a very steep rise has taken place in the value of Stock Exchange securities and, consequently, in stamps and so on, since 1932, all of which the Minister has entered into possession of, and spent.
Now, during the course of the statement to which we have just listened reference has been made to the National Debt of this country. Occasionally, one hears, from people speaking at annual demonstrations or disturbances of one kind or another which take place in Dublin during the year—banquets and so on which the Minister attends—references to the fact that our National Debt is very light. The Banking Commission did not take that view, and it compares the debt per head in this country with that of a number of other countries in Europe, somewhat similar or comparable to this country. In Denmark, with a population of 3,700,000, the debt per head of the population is £16, and the national income is £58 per year. Here, with a population of less than 3,000,000, the debt per head of the population is £24, and the national income, according to the Banking Commission, is under £50 per head. The whole of the debt of Denmark is off-set by covering assets, and 80 per cent. of the interest charges by investments in capital undertakings. The major part of the service of the debt of this country is provided from taxes. Again, Norway has a population within 150,000 of our own. The population is two-thirds rural. The State debt is £27 per head, almost wholly covered by investments in capital undertakings which provide 90 per cent. of the interest charges, and the national income is approximately £51 per head. In Sweden, which has twice the population of this country, the State debt is £20 per head, and there are no dead-weight charges for debt as receipts from productive funds more than cover the requirements. State assets considerably exceed the volume of debt and the national income is approximately £70 per head. Austria has disappeared, but, before its disappearance, the State debt was about £21 per head, the population being a little more than twice ours, and a high proportion of the interest charges covered by receipts from productive undertakings. The combined State debts of Latvia and Lithuania are less than one-tenth of that of this country. The Banking Commission, commenting on these matters, said that it would be easy to extend these references and that they should negative the contention that this country occupies a relatively favourable position in this matter, and they also said that this country was singular in the rate of increase of its debts, some of these countries having effected decreases in the past five years. They further stated that this country much exceeds any of the countries mentioned in the amount of its State tax per head of the population. This is where we are now.
If the Minister's doleful references at the end of his statement should happen to materialise, the position would be much worse. We have very little balance of income in this country upon which to put taxes. A point comes in connection with taxation at which, when the rate of tax is increased, the revenue from it decreases, I observed during the last few years that those who spend most of their time criticising our neighbours across the water are apt either to quote or to follow the example of these same people when it happens to suit. Our neighbours have at least a little balance still left to deal with an abnormal situation. Here, where the national income shows no immediate sign of expansion, we find year after year, increasing taxation, increasing local and national indebtedness.
When the Minister was introducing his Budget, some seven years ago, he said he was going to tax the rich. I watched one of these particular taxes with interest during those years. It was a tax upon a class of people for whom the ordinary citizen has little sympathy, the surtax payer. The net was widened and people were brought in who formerly were not liable to that tax. It was assessed on incomes of £1,500 to £2,000 a year and the rate was increased. Strangely enough, in no year since, has the Minister collected within £150,000 of what was collected in the year before he increased the tax. A sum of £780,000 was collected in that year and at no time since have we approached anything like that figure. It is very easy to say: tax the rich, or to say: tax anybody, but it is another thing to get the tax, and in that particular case, by reason of the increase which the Minister with his colleagues and his friends of the Labour Party who applauded him for it imposed, we have lost approximately £250,000 during the past two years and £100,000 or £150,000 in the first two or three years. Much the same thing may happen with regard to the present proposals.
This is meant to be a popular Budget, but it suffers from this defect that, although taxation is being increased to the extent of £1,174,000, it is done at a time when, as the Minister says, there is some uneasiness. My impression is that the present situation does not call for all that uneasiness and uncertainty. There are hopeful signs and the situation is not so dangerous as some of those who suffer from political hysteria would have us believe, and it is a time when the people of this country are entitled to get a constructive Budget from the Government. If we are to estimate the value of this Budget on the basis of the tables in the Financial Statement which has been issued, may I direct attention to the last page, in which it is claimed that the agricultural industry in this country is benefiting to the extent of £10,500,000 in this year. Surely somebody suffering from some sort of mania wrote out this particular instrument. Let us examine two items:—
"From ad hoc legislation for the improvement of agriculture.
Agricultural Produce (Cereals) Acts, 1933 to 1938: wheat scheme:—
(a) Value of estimated increased production of wheat for sale to millers (on basis of Australian wheat price)—£900,000.
(b) Increase in value of (a) through operation of minimum fixed prices (allowing for excess of 2/6 over minimum price per barrel as paid by millers last year) —£1,000,000."
Why, the business people of the Cities of Dublin and Cork will be holding up farmers after this Budget is passed, if that be the case. But a still greater joke than that is the following:—
"Pigs and Bacon Acts, 1935 to 1938:
"Increase in value of home produced bacon to producers as a result of Prices Orders (abated as to increased cost of foodstuffs), £1,300,000."
The word "producers" there is ambiguous. I do not know whether it refers to the curers or to the pig raisers, but even if it refers to both, it is typical of this Budget. In every respect, this provides for a decreasing income for the farmers, for fewer people on the land and for less profits for those on the land. The same reference can be made to the expenditure under the Land Commission. We are providing huge sums of money for a falling population. We are expending £600,000 more this year on education for a smaller number of children. If we concerned ourselves more with the real things that matter to the people, with making the basic industry of the country prosperous, taking from it the enormous costs which are being added to it year after year and which are making it impossible for those engaged in it to have any happiness or prosperity, then we might have some hope for the future of the country. Until this mania of expenditure has passed, until we come down to earth and realise that the prosperity of this country depends on agriculture, and that we must relieve it and help it, not by figures, but by real work, it is humbug for us to talk about 55 pages of a statement in connection with these matters that are dealt with in a manner designed to show that the agricultural industry is prospering in the country. The Government would be much better engaged in formulating a constructive policy, based upon an increase in profitable agricultural production. That policy would make farming again an attractive livelihood and would ensure much more people being employed and contented on the land.
