Banking Commission Report and State Finances—Motion.

Debate resumed on the following motion and amendment:—

Motion:

That the Dáil is of opinion that in view of the contents of the Majority Report of the Banking Commission steps should at once be taken—

(1) to reduce the burden of direct and indirect taxation;

(2) restrict the creation of further dead-weight public debt;

(3) and so order the administration of public finance and policy as to stimulate profitable production and abolish poverty within the State.

—(Deputies Dillon and Mulcahy.)

Amendment:

To delete all the words after "that" where it first occurs and substitute:—

"in view of the serious depression in agriculture, the existence of widespread unemployment and the impoverished condition of large masses of the people as disclosed in the reports of the Banking Commission, Dáil Eireann requests the Government to submit to the Dáil at once proposals for the better development of agriculture and industry, the utilisation of the credit of the nation to stimulate such development and the absorption of the unemployed workers in productive employment at adequate rates of wages."

—(Deputies Norton, Keyes and Davin.)

The Taoiseach

A Chinn Comhairle, as I said, this whole debate is, in fact, an examination of our whole economic and financial position. The trouble is that the subject is so wide that stress is laid, now on one aspect, and now on another aspect, without any comprehensive view of the whole, and unless we do take a comprehensive view of the whole, we are bound to arrive at wrong conclusions. In speaking last night about external assets and their value, and the inferences that might be drawn from an apparent reduction in them; about the policy of trying to produce for the foreign market and policy of production at home for home consumption, I pointed out that as far as the Government were concerned, at any rate, we are unrepentant advocates of the pursuit of the policy we have been adopting and which was the old policy of Sinn Féin. We are trying to develop the resources of this country for the benefit of the people in this country: to employ the natural resources we have, and to employ, amongst these resources, the brains and brawn of our people to produce the material necessities of life and to provide for our people the amenities which are, as I said, necessary for decent living.

Now, there has been a good deal of sneers at "a plan," and people have been asking where is the plan. There has been pursued constantly a definite plan, and it is only in relation to that plan that you can estimate whether we are going on the right road or not. The plan has been this: We tried to catalogue the material necessities of our lives here. We took the fundamental necessities—of food, clothing, shelter, fuel both for domestic purposes and for power, and so on—and we saw, in the statistics of our imports, the import of large quantities of materials to meet these needs, materials that we believed we could produce here at home. We took the biggest items—I am talking in general now, because there have been exceptions to this general statement—we took the biggest items in our imports, and if possible the most unnatural items in them, and we set out definitely to cut these out. The biggest ones, and the most unnatural ones, were the ones which related to the most fundamental of our necessities. We started with food and said that, since we were an agricultural country it was ridiculous that we should not avail of the home market to the full for the produce of our farms, and that we should not be importing American bacon or a number of other things that we could produce here ourselves.

We set out, therefore, to produce these things and to limit the imports of things such as agricultural products which we could get here, such as bacon, and we said that that need not prevent us, in general, from taking any advantage we could of any external market which was open to us. You can see the result of that policy in what is happening in agriculture. We took one of the most fundamental necessaries, wheat. We said: "Though it is true that you can get wheat from the prairie lands of Canada, the United States and elsewhere, and dump it here at lower prices than our farmers can produce it, nevertheless it is good economy to produce as much of our own wheat as we can." If there is a crisis—a war, or anything else of that nature—we shall have, at least, a substantial element of our food here at home. To the extent that our farmers are producing wheat, and to the extent that we can give them an assured market here, we are giving them a thing which is safer than an external market, of which they may be deprived at any moment. We pursued that policy, and the result of pursuing it in respect of that single item has been to increase the area under wheat tenfold. There is still considerable room for improvement, and, in my opinion, we should move along the line we have been moving on in regard to the production of wheat. About three times the amount we are producing at present would be required to satisfy all our needs. We should not be content until we have got, at least, half-way, and when we have got half-way, I think the argument I am now using will still hold in respect of a considerable portion of the remainder. There is no doubt that we have a sufficiency of suitable wheat land for our purposes.

Then, there is the question of cereal foodstuffs for animals. We are in a certain difficulty there. The difficulty arises, perhaps, in more intensified form in that case than it does in regard to wheat and other things because, undoubtedly, we cannot produce these cereals at the price at which we can get them from outside. We must try to strike a balance. We cannot produce our wheat exactly at the price at which we can obtain it from outside. At certain stages, we may produce it just as cheaply as they do outside. I think that there was a period when we were able to produce it almost as cheaply as it could have been obtained from outside. If there is a war, we shall be able to produce it more cheaply than it can be purchased in the world market. However, I think it is true in general that we shall be able to purchase more cheaply outside than we can produce these foodstuffs and, if we are going to lose a certain amount in that way, will there, on balance, be a gain or a loss? Free traders will say that there is a loss, that we should concentrate on the particular products we can best produce, sell them in an external market and, with the produce of their sale, buy the things we need. That policy has been tried over a long period in Ireland and it was, obviously, a disastrous policy. The more there is increased production in other countries of agricultural produce for the English market, the worse it will be for our producers. The British market is really the principal market, if not the only market. The English might endeavour to protect their own industry and they might discriminate as regards supplies. They are as much at liberty to discriminate against Canada, Australia and these other countries as they are to discriminate against us. That will be the case no matter what position we may occupy in their regard politically. They are quite free to put up tariffs against us if they want to develop their own agriculture or to let in other countries. They can, in that way, make production here unprofitable unless we approximate somewhat to the prairie areas where they are able, with a very small population and by the use of mechanical methods, to produce food. That is the fundamental difference between free trade and the economy of self-sufficiency or protection.

We know that we cannot have it both ways. We cannot have the advantage of imported cheap food if we want to develop our industries and protect our own agriculture. Which is it to be? I know that economists have been divided on these things. If the world were one unit, if there were free passage not only of goods and capital, but of persons between all nations, then, in all probability, the free trade policy, as a world policy, would be the best policy. But that is not the world in which we are living. For that reason, whether wise or unwise, we are convinced that the policy of protecting our industries, in order to produce for ourselves the things we require, is good national policy. We have fought elections on that basis, and we have been returned. We are as convinced of that to-day—at least, I am and I think the other members of the Government—as we were at any time. I am not for a moment trying to pretend that, if we adopt a policy of that kind, we can give the farmer his bread at as low a price as if we were to import the flour from outside, but the community as a whole, which is our interest and not one section, is benefiting by the general plan we have pursued. When we talk about foodstuffs, we must not lose sight of the critical aspect. It is true that bread, clothes and boots must be regarded as items in the farmer's cost of production. To the extent that we protect our industries, it is quite true—I have to admit this—that we shall, in all probability, have some increase in price until we are able to produce as efficiently here as they produce elsewhere. I believe that we ought to set out to produce as efficiently here as they can produce elsewhere—with one limitation, that whereas we have only 3,000,000 of a population, other countries have a population of 30,000,000 or 80,000,000. That is the only limit there should be to our efficiency as compared with the efficiency of people outside. I am willing to admit to the farmer that his costs of production go up in regard to the things he has to buy. We try to give him a balance and, if he is dissatisfied, we have to say: "Though you are a most important section of the community, you are not the community as a whole, and you are going to benefit by the existence, side by side with you, of an industrial community." I am trying to argue these things as objectively as I can, without making Party capital out of them. I am endeavouring to argue them as if I were examining them quietly in my own room. The question becomes one of balance.

A critical point arises when the commodities are not food, clothes or boots, but the raw materials of the things which the farmer is producing and selling. Take, for example, the question of cereals—whether we should import maize or not. You have a really difficult question there, and one of your difficulties arises from the fact that our country—small as it is, relatively— is not uniform, that there are certain areas suitable for the production of cereals and certain areas that are not suitable. We have to consider the economic needs of the places that are not suitable. The ideal thing would be for our farmers, as far as possible, to produce the raw materials for themselves and not buy them from outside. But that question at the moment is a serious one. We recognised always that it was an important and serious question. It is engaging the attention of the Minister for Agriculture at the moment. There is a Bill to enable him to suspend the present arrangement. I will be greatly dissatisfied personally if it is not possible to find some method by which we will not have to import for the raw material things which we can substitute at home. I would regard it as a great loss. I recognise the vital part that animal food stuffs play in our economy, in view of the fact that agriculture is our principal industry. We are trying to produce food at home. I have mentioned wheat. Take sugar: sugar is a food necessity. Deputy Dillon will say you cannot produce it at the cost at which you could get it formerly from outside countries. I agree that you probably cannot get it at the cost at which it was being dumped formerly, at any rate when they were trying to get rid of agricultural produce at any time. I say that the growing of beet and the manufacture of it in our factories into sugar is a useful thing from the point of view of general economy. It gives work to the farmer; it gives him alternative crops. It is much better in any case not to have all our eggs in one basket. The farmer is getting fixed prices that he knows in advance, practically with certainty, except in so far as weather conditions may upset things completely. All agriculture is subject to vicissitudes arising from the weather, and I think much of the talk that we hear about the state of agriculture is mainly due to the bad harvest last year which was owing to weather conditions. You see what we are doing in regard to food. We are trying to produce the raw material from the land, whether it be wheat or sugar beet. We have been pursuing that policy definitely. We are trying to manufacture our requirements here at home. Our flour mills, before we came into office, were only half employed, and some of them were closed down. We were producing only about 50 per cent. of our requirements. Now, we are producing the whole of our requirements, and if we had the raw material in wheat, as far as that principal food is concerned, we could say that we do not care, in that regard, as far as war is concerned; we are not going to be short.

The same applies to sugar. We are in a position that if there were some crisis we need not go short. In regard to sugar there are two elements to be considered, the price which the farmer gets and the price which the consumer has to pay. It is a balance between those two. The farmer very naturally wants to get the most he can for his labour. The Government, looking after the interests of the community as a whole, has to ask what is the price which the community ought to give the farmer for the service which he is rendering the community in producing that food. There will always be a certain amount of conflict between the two, but they will settle themselves, on the one hand, by the desire of the community to get its sugar and, on the other, by the desire of the farmer to grow a profitable crop. If there was an attempt on the part of one section to profiteer at the expense of the other, then the Government would have to seek a remedy, and the remedy it would seek in a case like that would be to say to the farmer: "Very well; you have been given an opportunity of producing at a reasonable price. You want to exceed that price. We will open the door and allow sugar to be imported." That is the only weapon that the Government ultimately has at its disposal in order to prevent one section of the community from getting undue profit and undue reward for its service at the expense of the rest. I say that generally we could do that and that we are in a position to exercise control generally if we wanted to do so. I have shown that we are pursuing a definite plan in trying to get our food produced at home.

Let us consider clothing. A large quantity of clothing was being imported which we felt could be produced at home. If you look at the reduction in imports of wearing apparel and the increase in our industrial production you will see at once that we have made very rapid progress along that line. I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking some time ago, indicated that there was some £20,000,000 worth of imports which he felt could be substituted by home-made goods. Our progress along that line can be shown by the fact that there are 900 workshops and factories employing some tens of thousands of people producing goods which were formerly coming in from outside. I think last night I gave the figure as 800. It is really 900. It was an older figure I gave last night. Some people will say that these are foolish, mushroom industries. They are not mushroom industries. Do not tell me that the production of boots and of clothing are mushroom industries. There is always a demand here for these things. We cannot produce some of them at the rate at which they could be produced in Japan or at the price at which they could be obtained if we opened the ports and let in Japanese goods or goods from other countries. If we let goods in from other countries, undoubtedly our own industries would become mushroom industries, but there is no reason whatever for thinking that industries established for the purpose of meeting fundamental needs are mushroom industries.

We were told that the promoters of these industries are making undue profits, that the Government is not exercising proper care. The very people who are talking about undue profits talk about the agreement which we made and say that is going to cause our industries to close down. We made an agreement to take in on certain conditions industrial goods that we require, in return for the export to Britain of our agricultural produce. But we safeguarded our industries. We made it clear that a Prices Commission of Irishmen would look into the matter, would consider the relative costings here and abroad, and would fix the tariffs at such a level as would allow our home industries, having regard to our circumstances, our smaller numbers, and so on, to be carried on at a reasonable profit. We knew in accepting that that we were only accepting a certain check on profits, so that they would be examined. When we originally accepted the general plan of protection, we knew that when industries were established it would be necessary to have some machinery for examining prices and seeing that undue profits were not made under the shelter which we were providing. People have been talking about tariffs. We do not regard tariffs as of any value except as a shelter to enable our industries to carry on behind them and be saved from the attack of unfair competition from outside. We do not recognise any other particular virtue in tariffs. They do help the Minister for Finance, indirectly, to help the Exchequer, but that is not our purpose in it. That is not the aim of our tariffs, and the lower these tariffs are the better, we know, for the community. When I say the lower they are I mean whilst they are effective, because there is no point in putting up a wall if the wall is not high enough to afford the protection required. There is a difference of view as to what exactly is the height that is necessary in order to afford adequate protection.

As long as we have an individualistic economy, as long as we recognise the rights of private property, we must give the individual incentive to produce. The individual's incentive to produce is reasonable profit or return for what he is doing. It should be reasonable, and the business of the Government, in the matter of safeguarding the general welfare, is to see in so far as it can that that particular incentive is not contrary to the general welfare or to the common good.

We have got to watch over it from that point of view, but our views about private property are the views which are expressed in our Constitution. We acknowledge and recognise the right of private property, but we also recognise the right of the Government, as the guardian of the common good, to regulate the use that is to be made of that private property so that it will be in the general interest.

Now, I have referred to food and clothing. You have to look at the results, and you can see the progress that has been made in accordance with that plan. I repeat there is a plan, and that it has been pursued. The next thing of fundamental importance is that our people should be properly housed. We came in here and saw a terrible situation facing the people. In this city we saw one quarter of the people, roughly, housed with only one room as a home. That was a disgraceful condition from the human point of view, and from the economic point of view a completely unsatisfactory situation. We set out to try to remedy it. The result of our work in trying to remedy the situation about housing through the country as a whole has been that in our time some 100,000 houses have been either reconstructed or erected. You have only to go for a short motor drive through the country to see the results of that policy. We have not finished the job by any means. It is a fundamental job which we set ourselves to accomplish, and we are, by hook or by crook, going to see it pursued and finished, if possible. There is a rate of progress beyond which you cannot go. We have here our cement factories to produce the material required both for housing and for road construction.

Unfortunately, we have not one fundamental material, namely, timber. In the pursuit of our general economic ideal, it is our purpose to try to produce timber, to see that those generations which come after us—because unfortunately, timber cannot be produced overnight—will, at any rate, have that fundamental material here at home: that they will have their own home-grown timber. We have people who think that there is some special virtue in that particular line of afforestation. There is not, except in producing what we require—a fundamental raw material. Look at the progress that has been made. We have now gone up to the point at which about 8,000 acres are being planted every year. It is estimated that the planting of about 20,000 acres would meet our needs. We expect in a very short time to get up to 10,000 acres. There is a lot of fallacy talked about this whole question of afforestation.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

The Taoiseach

There is a lot of nonsense talked about it. I think nobody could have pressed harder than I have for the speeding up of afforestation. I pressed every successive Minister who has been in charge of that Department to speed it up for the simple reason that it is fundamental in the pursuit of this general plan which I have indicated. It was said that some officials were totally opposed to it: that they had some bias, and so on. I said, if that is so, then you are to try to get other people. I said that we should get the best advice—to go through the world for experts and get them. They have got an expert. I have asked him to make a survey: to give me his views as to the total amount of plantable land. When I say plantable land I do not mean that you are going to go into the lands of Meath and plant forests in them. What I mean by plantable land is land that, in his opinion, would be useful, and that is available for afforestation. He has given me an estimate. I want that estimate checked. I want to check the land that is good for afforestation and that would also be good for agricultural purposes.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear!

The Taoiseach

We have to ask ourselves a very common-sense question, keeping in mind that we are trying to be as self-sufficient as we can—because here, as in other things, it is again a question of balance—what should we do, for instance, about some mountain side? It is a sheep range at the moment. What is the annual value of it as a sheep range? How many people does it give a living to? If you put it under forestry what is going to be the return from it, estimate it any way you like? It has a certain economic value at the present time. What economic value will that land have if it is put under afforestation? How do the two figures compare? I am not going to give you the figures at the moment, because I want those things checked. They are not by any means easy figures to arrive at, but I can say that, looking at this from the cold economic point of view, afforestation is not nearly as attractive per acre as the devotees of afforestation will claim. I have seen absolutely absurd figures given about the value of afforestation. I want to be understood correctly on this, because I believe that every acre that can be more profitably used for planting should be so used. Timber is a fundamental product, and by hook or by crook we ought to try to plant as much as will supply our own internal needs and save us from the risk which we are facing at the moment if there should be war: the risk of being cut short of a fundamental material.

In any case, what we are doing there is in accordance with the whole general line of our policy, and so I want to tell the advocates of more afforestation that we are going ahead with it as rapidly as we can. In the matter of afforestation you cannot have that rapid development and production which you can look for, say, in the case of the pig industry. It takes time and there has to be a good deal of preparation. The preparation is slow. We are developing it as quickly as we can. If we go too fast there is bound to be more loss than if we go at a reasonable rate.

Someone may ask me "Are you satisfied with the present rate"? I am not satisfied. I am not satisfied about any of these things. I am anxious to push them faster. I suppose that, as human beings, we are not ever going to be satisfied. We all think that things could be done better, and we are all striving to perfect and improve as far as it is possible. I have dealt with food, clothing and shelter. I have spoken of the cement factories. Another very important thing is steel. There has been a considerable disappointment with regard to some of our explorations. We had hopes at one time with regard to Arigna. Employment was very badly needed there. We have had it examined and we find that there is no possibility of developing either coal or iron products. We would be very glad to develop them if there was any possibility of doing so. If we cannot get the primary, we hope at least to develop some secondary steel industries, and we are making a start in a certain sense at the moment.

The next fundamental thing that we come to is fuel. We are trying at the moment to make use of the native fuel supplies as quickly as possible. There is a difficulty about certain coal deposits. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has been for a long time anxious to get some of those deposits used. There has been difficulty at the moment but I hope that difficulty will soon be removed.

It is mainly in our bogs that we have a great fuel supply. We are developing those bogs and that raw material as quickly and as economically as we can without great losses. Take Clonsast bog, for instance: in about two years' time we will be capable of turning out 150,000 tons of fuel from that bog, and we hope to see an electrical power plant erected on that bog. We are developing these resources according to a definite plan, and we are trying to get these fundamental native fuels used at home.

I have heard talk about reclamation. When the fuel is cut off these big bog lands, there will be land left. The land can be reclaimed and, in all probability, will be useful for certain agricultural purposes. We have seen reclaimed bog used all over the country. There may be a quantity of land like that which can be brought into cultivation, and we are seeking it. The Department of Agriculture and the Department of Industry and Commerce will try between them to deal with that, and try to get it brought into cultivation. We have, of course, to consider costs and the relative value of the final result.

We have been told about drainage. Now, we are pursuing a plan in regard to drainage. We have seen absurd drainage schemes pursued in the past, we have seen the upper reaches of rivers drained without any consideration as to whether the main channel could carry the extra water or not, where the draining of one part means the flooding of another part. Clearly we should not pursue a plan in that particular way. Apart from the legal entanglements with regard to maintenance and the burden of cost falling upon the people who are benefiting, there is also the question of a proper engineering survey. A commission has been set up in order to deal with drainage, so that we may start on the work in a comprehensive fashion. I hope that, in a short time, we will have ready a scheme which will enable us to proceed systematically with the drainage of the country and, by draining, the making of the land more profitable for our people.

Let people then not sneer when they talk about a plan. We are pursuing that definite plan which I am outlining and doing it "within the system" (to use a phrase which I have used already). The criticism we are receiving from the Opposition is, that the pursuit of this plan does not lead ultimately to the welfare of our people. There we divide with them: the issue is knit between us on that point. We believe the plan does lead ultimately to prosperity. If the country thinks otherwise, they can take the Opposition and put them in as a Government, to pursue whatever plan they put before the people. As far as we are concerned, we believe in this: we believe in it, even if we were to go out to-morrow. The position even then would be that the evils resulting from the Opposition policy would be so great and so apparent that the country would revert back to this policy of ours.

No policy is going to give perfection: there is going to be a certain amount of evil attached to every policy and it is a question of the balance of advantages and evils and the taking of the best from the national point of view. As I have said, the criticism is that it is costing too much. It is said that our principal industry, agriculture, is not going to be as flourishing as it would be if the Opposition ideas of economy were in operation. As far as the requirements of the farmer are concerned, his requirements are not very much different from the requirements of the people in the urban areas. The Opposition say it will not be as profitable for him if those requirements are met from inside, as if we open the ports and allow his requirements to be met from outside. I can only say to the farmer: "It is true you may have to pay for certain things a little more, but the people who are producing those things for you are a better market for you." They said they wanted to make a market for Pat Murphy. The idea, I take it, was that they wanted to make here at home a market for our own people, a market for the produce of our own people's labour. The farmer has a market in the men who produce his industrial goods, his clothes, boots, and so on. The industrialist is a market for the man who produces the fuel—if he is not in a position where he can use all the turbary on his own farm. The industrialist or urban dweller is a market for the farmer, and a better and surer market than the industrialist who is working in England and who is a market for the food which is being exported by us.

Mr. Belton

If he had any money.

The Taoiseach

Money is got by production. Money is only a claim on goods or on services, and it is the goods and the services that mean money. The man who is able to perform services—if he is let—for his neighbours, has money. If he is able to perform services for his neighbour, that neighbour must give him in return something for it. I will come to that subject, I hope, in the course of this talk.

I am concerned at the moment only in indicating the general economic policy pursued by the Government. I am admitting that one cannot have it both ways: if we go in for efficient production, the principal drawback is that we have not as big a market as people in other countries and therefore we cannot produce per unit as efficiently as they can. However, we have the brains and the skill to produce for ourselves. I remember a former Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking from one of these benches, said that because we had not got efficient management we could not produce boots. That is utter nonsense. We have the brain and the skill, and I do hope that we will be able to get here the desire for work, the desire to produce and to do things actively to keep ourselves.

I am not touching on the Labour Party motion yet, but I will come to it in due time. At the moment I am concerned rather with the difference between ourselves and the Opposition. Fundamentally the Opposition policy is a free trade policy, whilst ours is not. Theirs, if you like, is one that leans in that direction: it can neither be said to be completely free trade nor completely protectionist. The Opposition policy leans on the free trade side whilst our policy leans on the side of self-sufficiency. We believe that we are right and that that will be proved. If there should be a change of Government the principal thing about it is that it would be a test. We believe that there has been a test over a long period of years and it has shown results. We are pursuing a policy which is producing the results which we said it would of necessity produce. We have never denied that. We saw the disadvantages and yet we said that the disadvantages were worth while for the sake of the advantages. We do not mind if the commission reveals those disadvantages: we knew that they would exist. What we say is that the commission was only set up to examine the situation existing at the time at which the examination was made. We say that if we want to have a comparison, there must be an examination of what the results might have been under the other system.

It is a comparison of the two systems, and not merely revealing the evils, that matters. By all means, let us try to correct these evils, if we can, and I will come to some of them later, but, again, I say that the Opposition attitude is that these things are costing too much.

We went out also on the general principles that we had a duty to a section of the community, those who, under the existing system and in the existing circumstances, were not able to work and to maintain themselves, and we developed certain social services for that reason. These services have added to the cost. They have to be paid for. From what? From the wealth that exists, from the pockets of those who have and who are able to make that contribution to the welfare of the community as a whole. These things have to be met, but we still believe that these social services, notwithstanding the fact that they are, to the extent to which contributions have to be made by the individual in the way of taxes and so on, a burden— and they are a certain burden—constitute a burden which we ought to carry, which I believe we can carry and which I believe it is our duty to carry. Certain of the costs then—in fact, all of them—are due to the fact that we are to a certain extent interfering in the economic life of the country. We have to interfere in it because, if you adopt the old laissez faire policy, it is only certain sections who will be able to survive. The laissez faire policy, the free trade policy, and so on, are all of a part, and we have definitely turned our backs on them. In doing so, I know that we are sacrificing certain advantages and undertaking certain burdens.

By all means, it is the duty of the Opposition to examine expenditure, to criticise it, to try to keep it down. We do that, too. Let nobody think that we undertake new expenditure without a certain amount of heartburning, because we know that that expenditure is going to reveal itself ultimately, even from the narrow political point of view, in the imposition of burdens which the people will resent to a certain extent. No expenditure is decided on by the Government, or proposed to the Dáil after consideration by the Government, without the most careful examination to see whether it is worth while. Are we paying too much for our whistle at any particular stage, is a question which is naturally asked. The Minister for Finance, with his Department, is the principal watchdog in that regard.

As I am talking about this planning in general to those members of the House who may not understand the machinery, who have not had the advantage of being in a former Government, I want to point out to them that it is a mistake to think that one Department goes off on one road, while another Department goes off on another, and that there is no centralisation or no plan being followed. That is not true. When a proposal is put forward by one Department, the proposal, and the reasons for it, are circulated to all Departments concerned, and, if any Department is affected, the proposal is criticised from the point of view of that Department, and always before proposals of that sort are originated, the Government, as a whole, considers whether such a project can be undertaken, whether it is in the national interest that it should be undertaken, what is it going to cost and so on, and then there is a sort of general agreement. We will let that go ahead. The moment the general idea is agreed, the originating Department puts down its proposals, which are criticised from the point of view of their effect on the other Departments.

Every single proposal is examined carefully and minutely by the Department of Finance. Every other Department, naturally is, then, more or less antagonistic to the Department of Finance, because there is a desire, on the one hand, to do something, while, on the other, there is the check of what it is going to cost. One Department leans unduly on one side and the other Department unduly on the other, and sometimes it is very hard to know who is right and whether, in fact, the service is going to be worth the price, and at a time like the present, if there is any doubt, it simply is dropped. If there is, in fact, a doubt that it is really worth while, that the cost is worth while, it will not be proceeded with. There are hundreds or thousands of projects upon which we could to-morrow embark, were it not for the consideration of what it is going to cost.

Mr. Belton

That is the trouble with us all.

The Taoiseach

Exactly. That is the trouble with everybody, and, in the long run, public finance is not very much different from private finance, and the welfare of the community as a whole, and how its welfare is to be brought about, is not very much different, except that it is on a larger scale, from a very big family with a reasonably good estate to manage. The fundamental principles are not very much different, in my opinion, and perhaps when we come to consider questions of credit, illustrations of that kind may help us. It is a question of whether it is worth it, whether the benefit you think you are going to confer on the community represents value for the burden which that benefit is going to impose on any section of the community. As a rule, that is what it all works down to. Yesterday, for example, Deputy Dillon, notwithstanding that we are "burst," without hesitation, voted here for an increase—I think it is going to mean about £5,000 ultimately on public funds—in respect of the cost of representation in Canada. He even wanted us to go to Australia.

Mr. Dillon

I think it is a very good thing.

The Taoiseach

I am merely pointing out to Deputy Dillon the very important point of whether he thinks it worth while.

General Mulcahy

Is it part of the self-sufficiency policy?

The Taoiseach

It is a question of whether it is worth while. It is a part of our self sufficiency as a nation, and I am not blaming Deputy Dillon for voting for it. I voted for it myself. What I want to point out is that, although Deputy Dillon comes in here and says that this nation is burst, although he says that we are on the verge of a precipice, and although he thinks that we are going bankrupt, and that we have to go hat in hand to John Bull and ask him, "For God's sake, take us over as you took over Newfoundland"——

Mr. Davin

You would need to take over a tall hat, though.

The Taoiseach:-

when I introduced a proposal for expenditure here, because he likes it and thinks it would be good, he says it is worth while. The difference between ourselves and the Opposition in this particular matter is that we think the things that we are doing worth while and worth the burdens they are imposing. We are not denying for a moment that they are imposing certain burdens.

Mr. Dillon

I resist the temptation to interrupt.

The Taoiseach

The Deputy will have every chance. Deputy Dillon proclaimed that he was not an obscurantist when it came to a question of expenditure in the neighbourhood of £5,000. Why? Because he thought it was going to be in the national interest that that expenditure should be incurred. I say that when the Government, notwithstanding the objections which will always be raised by Finance, because of the burdens which any new project is going to put on the country, decide that it is going to be undertaken, the Government have done what Deputy Dillon did in that precise instance to which I am referring—they have said that it is worth while. The country as a whole is going to benefit by it.

The social services which we have increased, the expenditure which we have urged upon Parliament to undertake and to place upon the country have been decided on and carried out after due deliberation and after due balancing of the advantages and disadvantages. We are only human. It may happen that our estimate is wrong. It may happen that Deputy Dillon and myself may be quite wrong in thinking that that expenditure of £5,000 is for the benefit of the country. We may be quite wrong in that. I am sure that I could find Deputies in all parts of the House who would tell me, if I had them out in the corridor, that that expenditure was quite foolish. There are Deputies on all sides of the House who would say that it was foolish. Yet Deputy Dillon and I, in our judgment, consider that it is worth while to put that burden upon the people in order to get the advantages, not immediately material advantages, but other advantages which if we come to examine them we would find would have material significance too. In the same way, we had a Vote on the League of Nations. There are people in this House who would say, "What is the use of Geneva now?" I see Deputy Belton over there——

Mr. Belton

Geneva has done all the damage it can.

The Taoiseach

Yes, people will say: "Why, in the name of goodness, keep it up any longer, to do more damage, after spending the sum of money that is being spent at present in being a part of that institution?" Deputy Belton has his view. The people on the Opposition Front Bench, because they are not obscurantists in that particular matter, consented, and I am glad that I was supported by the Front Bench in proposing that we continue representation at Geneva.

Hear, hear!

The Taoiseach

Our credit is as good as the credit of any nation in the world.

Mr. Hickey

Then use it.

The Taoiseach

We are using it. I will get my time at the Labour side in a minute. At the moment I am only interested in the issue between ourselves and the main Opposition, and I think I am saying what is fair when I say that we, supervising these things, are as anxious about this expenditure as is the main Opposition.

We say that the services on which the money is expended are worth while. Does the Opposition want to cut down the cost of the services or to get the services more efficiently managed? If the Opposition says: "We want to get the services more efficiently managed", I am at one with them in that. If there are three people in an office and two could do the work as efficiently as three, by all means cut the office down to two. There is nobody who has been more anxious about the growth in the numbers in the public service than I have been. I believe it is possible to get the work done with fewer people. It is one thing to believe that but it is quite another thing to be able to effect it and to get the work done by fewer people.

We wanted to increase the rate at which land was being divided. In order to do that we had to get extra inspectors. The training of these inspectors slowed down the work for a time. We have asked ourselves whether we will increase the rate at which the work is to be done or not. Somebody asked the other day what about the cost of the administration of the Land Commission. It is very high. It is so high that I would think myself that one of the things we ought to aim at is to try as soon as possible to get the work done more quickly so as to reduce the cost of administration.

The remarks that have been made lead Deputies on to side issues; there is the danger of getting away from the main facts. There is first of all this question of the credit of farmers. There is this statement that the farmer's credit is impaired through the danger that his property may be taken from him. Now, there is no property taken from the farmer without compensation and without a definite public reason for the taking of that property. The people who are likely to be interfered with know perfectly well the reason why land may be taken from them. No person who is attending to and working his land properly is in any danger of his land being taken from him. We have, however, the duty of seeing that the land should be properly employed and used to the best advantage for the country. When there is no other land for the relief of congestion and to repair that condition which has been the result of the past social economic system—a system which mainly persisted because of the existence of a foreign Government—then, in order to remedy that position, land that is not properly used must be taken. We have to relieve congestion and to do that we try to induce people with large holdings in congested areas to leave. It is as much a question of inducing them to leave as of compelling them to leave. But, ultimately, we want the power of compulsion. The Land Commission in these matters is proceeding with all due care.

If I were asked why the farmer's credit is not as good as it was, I would say that the farmers are a large section of the community, and there is the feeling that the farmer is not to be sold out because he cannot pay his debts. It is because the land cannot be sold in the public market for the mortgagee that the credit of the farmer from that point of view is diminishing. If you give your house as security for a loan, you give it on the understanding that if the loan is not paid, then the property which is given in pledge against that loan would be available to the lender. That is not so in the case of land. It is mainly because of that difficulty, and not because of the reasons stated in the debate, that it is difficult for some farmers to get credit. But, on the whole, that matter is exaggerated, just as other things are exaggerated. On the whole farmers are getting a reasonable amount of credit, and, perhaps, it is just as well for particular farmers that they cannot get credit too easily. Getting into debt and borrowing is not a thing that anybody should undertake too easily, because it is going to be a terrible burden to the farmer later on. If a farmer mortgages his land, it is no longer his own. The less the farmer mortgages and pledges his land, the better. Now, lest I be regarded as an obscurantist by the Labour Party, I just want to speak of that in passing. Most of these statements by the Opposition are only partial statements of certain things.

Well then, I say to the Opposition, we are doing as well as we can. We are doing the things that you want to have done, namely, the curtailment of unnecessary expenditure, the curtailment of unprofitable expenditure and we are attempting to get the administration of whatever public services we have carried out as economically as possible. That is our business. If you can prove to the country that we have failed, the country can have its alternative, but, if the country wants an alternative, I tell the people of the country that they will find that, while people may say it is easy to cut down expenditure, you can only cut it down substantially by cutting out important services. The Opposition were very eloquent in pointing out that some of the burdens entailed by these services would fall on the weaker sections of the community.

I say that these curtailments which the Opposition have called for will inevitably affect mostly the weaker sections of the community. The only way I can see to bring about a diminution of expenses is to get after the administration and to have the administration made more economic. When I say "administration" I mean administration in its narrow sense, the actual doing of the services. We can try to have these done as economically and efficiently as possible. I have been urging that on various Departments and Ministers, and if anything can be done in that direction we shall have it done, but these economies are not going to make very significant changes in the present position.

With regard to defence, we had statements in regard to the cost of defence, and if I were to go into them, again they would take me on a side issue. What I say in regard to defence is that it is very little use for us to be doing other things now if we are not going to put ourselves in a position in which we shall be able to maintain whatever liberties we have got. It is ridiculous for people to talk about "bombers" as if they were to be used for attack alone. They know perfectly well that they are not used for attack alone. They can be used for other purposes. Bombing machines can also be used as reconnaissance machines and they can be used for defensive purposes. To try to make out that we have some ideas about advancing to attack other people with those machines is all nonsense. Of course, weapons that are capable of being used in defence can also be used for attack. They would be very little use in defence if they were not equally available for attack. The sums we are spending compared with the sums other nations are spending on these services are very small.

Mr. Davin

Where are you getting all the money?

The Taoiseach

We are getting the money from the same source as we are getting all the other money spent on public services.

Mr. Davin

All of it?

The Taoiseach

Most of it. All of it in the sense that it has to be repaid. We are getting it from sections of the community who are in possession of most of the existing wealth of the nation. We are getting it because we have the credit of the nation behind us, the power of taxation behind us, the power to get from those who have, some of what they have. That is where we are getting it. As we go along, we can see whether there is any other way in which we can get it. However, I shall leave the Opposition side of the question. The issue is knit between us. We say we are doing the things that they want to do. We are not going to change our policy. The pursuit of that policy involves certain consequences. We think, on balance, that the consequences of that policy are better than would be the consequences of the opposite policy.

Before I leave that matter, I want to say that it is nonsense to suggest that we are facing an immediate catastrophe from the economic point of view. There may be a catastrophe but it will not be caused by our economic situation. There may be a catastrophe caused by a world war, a catastrophe which will bring danger and burdens to our people far beyond anything that was ever spoken of at the time of the economic war, but that is another matter. That is not the matter we are discussing in this motion. We are discussing the question on this motion as to whether the economic position of the country is such as Deputy Dillon describes it—I forget whether he used the remark himself but I heard it imputed to him—that we are "bust". We are nothing of the kind.

Mr. Dillon

I did not use that observation.

The Taoiseach

I only heard somebody impute it to the Deputy. We are not, in fact, facing a catastrophe in the economic sense. We are not facing a crisis. There are difficulties no doubt. We do not fight a war, even an economic war, without losses but, again, there were losses and gains. There was a demand for £5,000,000 a year which would continue for another generation at least. You would have to be sending out £5,000,000 worth of cattle and other native products annually in order to pay that money. We felt that it was not due. We fought to retain it and the settlement, leaving out the items, meant that we settled at £10,000,000 a claim of £100,000,000. That is what the economic war ended in.

There have been losses, and no doubt, these losses added to the losses which the farmers were suffering as a result of the depression in agriculture. It is true to say that to the extent to which our farmers suffered losses during this period we did our best to recoup them in other ways. I think if you look at what was done you will find that it was not a question of all losses and no gains whatever. There was a gain in the stabilisation of butter prices far above the world market price, in the halving of the annuities and in our schemes for wheat and beet. These did give back something to the farmer in return for what he was losing, but he did lose. I am not going to say that he did not lose.

I am not going to attack the general proposition made here that it was the poorer sections of the community suffered most, but I do say that there has been an exaggeration of the whole thing. It is true to say that the farmers would be able to take advantage of the improvement which has taken place if their farms were better stocked and if they got more capital. There is a commission sitting at the moment to inquire into the whole agricultural position and with a view to making recommendations which may benefit that particular industry, having in view all the time the general welfare of the country as a whole. When that commission reports, and when we have examined their recommendations, we shall see in fact whether we can agree with them and whether their recommendations will benefit that particular section of the community or will benefit the community as a whole. People have been talking about derating and about providing unlimited credit at low rates of interest. The members of the commission are doing work which could not be done in any Department. They may not have power to initiate a proposal as the Department of Agriculture would have, but they have power at least to consider something about the the cost of these schemes. We believed that, in making available the assistance that we promised, it would be very much better to have that made available by way of halving the annuities than by simple derating.

However, as I have said, there is a commission inquiring into the agricultural situation. I hope they will be able to bring forward proposals which it will be possible for us to accept, having regard to the general state of the community.

Mr. Davin

When?

The Minister for Finance and I, and other members of the Government, would like very much to know definitely from the Labour Party what is their programme in regard to these matters. I will come to the Labour Party's programme in a moment. Let me finish by saying that there is no indication that we are going into a crisis. We are coming out of a crisis, obviously. All the indications show that, and we are having increased production. Our industrial output, comparing 1931 and 1937—I have been given, I think, the latest figures that are available——

General Mulcahy

The 1938 figures, published in the Trade Journal of June last, are worth looking at, too.

An Ceann Comhairle

I think this debate is regarded by the whole House as of major importance, and it should be conducted with the calm deliberation that it merits. Interruptions and the raising of side issues disturb the theme of the debate, and will not make for a debate worthy of the motion.

The Taoiseach

The net figure was £25.6 millions in 1931, while in 1937 it was nearly £34.4 millions—an increase of £8.8 millions. In those figures there is no evidence of a diminution in production. There is increased production. I am not saying it is as much as we could get. By all means, press forward for more. Good luck to everybody who presses on for more production. I am delighted to see it. If people press on for more and harder work I will not object to it. Unfortunately, I think there is not enough.

I am talking of those who are in a position to produce more. I am not satisfied by any means that any of us is working half as hard as it would be good for us to work. With regard to agriculture, I have here the figures of production for 1936-37 and for 1934-35. In 1934-35 it was nearly £39,000,000— it was £38.9 millions—and in 1936-37 it was £47.3 millions. There is, again, a substantial increase in agricultural production. If you take our exports —I think the Minister for Finance pointed to this—in 1935, when we were obviously at the bottom of the depression, the agricultural exports were £13.8 millions. In 1938 they were £19.6 millions. Those who are interested in our exports, therefore, will see that there is an increase in exports.

What about the rates of exchange?

The Taoiseach

There are difficulties of various kinds in regard to that. They had the idea that when the young man came into possession of the land the old pair repaired to the neighbouring village, near the Chapel, and they got their vegetables, and so on, every Sunday, brought to them by the young man who succeeded to the farm. A single example like that shows how certain things are operating. Whether that was a complete picture or not, I do not know, but I do know that there would be difficulties in getting into a practice of that kind here. We have these evils in regard to the land, we have certain hardships, we have a low marriage rate, and we have the problem of unemployment.

To my mind, the question to which we should primarily address ourselves, as one which we ought to remedy, is the question of unemployment. It is the most baffling problem with which we have to deal. So far as I am concerned, I can say that I had hopes that the development of our industries would absorb most of the people who were unemployed and were prepared to work. I do not think we have got a true picture of the unemployment situation as it is. The Labour Party would say to us, "You do not know it; you have not got a true picture; your picture is not as bad as the reality." On the other hand, I am told that our figure, our picture, is worse than the reality; that the reality is not so bad as is represented by our statistics. I am just giving you what I am told by people who have gone into the matter, that our statistics include a large number of people who are not unemployed in the ordinary sense, that they are people who, like most people in business, could be employed to a fuller extent.

I am told that the unemployed, in the proper sense, do not form as large a number as is given in our statistics and that the statistics exaggerate the situation. Even making deductions for that, it is still a position which we ought to try to remedy. We had hopes that we would get a remedy through industrial production, through a better market for the farmers. We had hopes that there would be more employment on the land to supply our industrial population and that there would be more work for our industrial population in supplying the rest of the community with commodities formerly brought from outside countries. That was a reasonable hope and our figures have not proved, in effect, to be far wrong. The number in increased employment does correspond to the number who were stated to be unemployed when we came into office.

But other things have gone on at the same time, and we have still with us an unemployment problem. I do not think that even the Labour Party will say it is relatively worse with us than it is in other countries, but at the same time I admit it is a serious problem which we ought to try to solve. Mind you, if I could see a real solution for it, I would not mind saying to the rest of the community that they should bear the burdens which would enable us to get the solution within a reasonable time. The moment these people are put into productive employment, if we can find it for them, they will be the makers of wealth and not merely the consumers of it.

As far as our social aims are concerned, we are at one with the Labour Party. When I say our social aims, or our social objectives, I mean our effort to find for every member of the community as high a standard of material comfort as it is possible for us to get, as it is possible for the resources of our country to give. I said some time ago that I believed in the social principles, or the social objectives, which were indicated in some of the minority reports, and I mentioned particularly the Third Minority Report.

I read that report carefully, so far as the social objectives are concerned, and I think I could subscribe to practically everyone of them. In fact, I think in every speech which I have made in regard to the aims of Fianna Fáil and the purposes we have in mind, you will find them almost parallel in that report. Ours may not be so elegantly phrased, or so definitely expressed, but if you read over the speeches we made as to our economic policy you will find that the social objectives were practically the same as those contained in that report.

A difficulty arises in regard to how we are trying to achieve these objectives. We have been trying to achieve our aims by using the national credit —and when I call it the national credit I mean the resources of the country— in order to bring about the conditions that we require. We have been doing it in the social services and the development services—and we have been developing, in many directions. If there are large schemes of productive work that can be done—and by productive work I mean that what comes out as a result of the labour is more than goes in, and even if it came out equal we would be happy-we will endeavour to undertake them. But if you are putting into work more than comes out of it, if the value of the goods consumed by the workers in doing the work is more than the value of what is produced, then it is not productive.

Mr. Davin

Does that kind of argument apply to pensions and defence?

The Taoiseach

I am talking of productive work.

Mr. Davin

But you are spending money on pensions?

The Taoiseach

I did not say pensions were productive and I did not say defence was, and neither did the Minister for Finance. I think there was a misrepresentation or a misunderstanding of what he said, so far as I could read in the report. We are talking about productive work. If there is productive work to be got, that is, work the fruits of which will be greater than the amount of existing wealth consumed in the production, we will undertake it. If the results are equal to what has been put into it, it is not unproductive, but if they are less, then it seems to me the existing wealth of the community is being diminished.

I am only saying if it is true. I asked somebody—an official—the question and I got this answer, and I am having it examined, but I do say that I have heard reports of all sorts about the same kind of thing, and I have heard reports even from farmers to the effect that people will not work for the farmers if they can get money from the State, and that even though the money is relatively small they prefer to do other work rather than work on the farms, or to take whatever they can get on what is called the dole. As I say, the trouble there is to separate the sheep from the goats. I know that the Labour Party does not want, and that no Party wants, to help those who do not want to work if they can get out of it. Of course, I know that the Labour Party may not agree with us on the question of whether a wage is remunerative of not, just as—Deputy Davin mentioned —the farmers may differ with us about the price of beet. That is natural, but there is one thing that the community does not want to do, and that we as a Government do not want to force the community to do, and that is to support people, for whom work is available, and who will not work, if there are any such people.

Now, the ideal type of work within our economy—I am talking now of individual economy and not purely collectivist economy—is work in which a person gives labour in return for the services and goods which he gets back. If we could achieve that, that is the ideal type of work, and our industries are valuable in helping to provide that type of work. If you could provide that, the difficulties would regulate themselves, but in providing State work you have to consider whether you are making the community richer in terms of wealth or whether, by giving that work, you are only providing amenities and luxuries and leading to a situation in which we may be living beyond our means.

Now, I may be wrong in regard to my way of looking at certain economic questions. I have been in the habit of eliminating money in my economic speculations. I know, of course, that you cannot do that, and that it is a partial view, but no matter what view you take, I can only see this ultimately in it: that money is an equivalent for what it can get, namely, an equivalent for goods and services. Therefore, if you eliminate money for the moment and think in terms of goods and services, no matter what money you have or what you do with it, in the long run, it is only to be regarded from the point of view of its effect on the volume of goods and services. The limits of our resources are the existing wealth of the community. That wealth is in various forms, and includes, for instance, our external assets—that is, their equivalent in goods.

Here in the City of Dublin houses are badly needed. Can they not, by seeing there are at least 2,000 houses produced every year, recognise an advantage to the workers in giving them continuous employment, an advantage to the contractors in that there will be a number of workers regularly employed at a definite task for which they will be able to equip themselves in advance, and an advantage to the builders' providers, too, who will know that they will have to supply material for regular periods and that they will not be either over-stocked or understocked?

We ask these sections of the community to get together and, in their own interest and in the common interest, to direct their efforts towards the provision of houses at prices which may not be as severe and as uneconomic as they are at the present time. To the extent to which they are uneconomic the community as a whole is bearing the burden; and the Banking Commission says we should not bear that burden or burdens of that sort. I say that we have the choice—either to allow the evil to continue or to use the whole national resources to remedy it. I am for using those resources, but I want it remedied with the least burden on the community. That is our duty. We are not going to stop doing it, but we are going to see that the work will be carried out as economically as possible.

There is a social duty devolving upon us to undertake that work and we are not hesitating to undertake it. We are adding to the rents that will be paid by the occupiers of these houses with a view to trying to make them economic. If we could make them economic through the rents alone, without addition, that would be the ideal situation, but we have to choose between not building these houses and using our national resources to build them. We have chosen to build and we do not propose to stop doing it—no more than we propose to stop land division or such other things, until we have finished the job. We are not going to blind the public and pretend that we are doing that without cost. We know that it is costly and the Banking Commission reveals that cost. We say, notwithstanding that fact, we will continue. We will do our best to make those costs as light as possible, but that is not going to deter us from continuing.

I hope that Deputies generally will realise that they are not muzzled when they leave the precincts of this House, and that there is many a spot in the country where the things that are said here should be re-echoed time and time again. I sympathise with Deputy Alderman Byrne on the question of the length of speeches, but I only sympathise with him from one particular point of view. I welcome, from another point of view, the length of the speeches that we have had on this subject; and I would welcome longer time to be able to discuss it, if that were possible. The type of speech that has been made on this debate from the Government Benches indicates to me that nothing very serious will be lost if this debate does conclude to-day.

The Taoiseach says that the motion on the Order Paper by Deputy Dillon and myself is a motion of want of confidence in the Government. The motion was put down on the offer of the Taoiseach that Government time would be made available to discuss certain aspects of the Banking Commission Report. The motion was put down for nothing but to provide the opportunity which the Taoiseach indicated he was ready to make available. The debate was opened on Wednesday, and no Government spokesman got into the debate until the last speaker at night. The contribution made by the one Government speaker to the debate on Wednesday was such that he had two hours more of his contribution to carry over until the next day, and, in so far as a reasonable, systematic and thoughtful discussion of the points raised in the motion is concerned, the Minister for Finance, and now the Taoiseach, have made it utterly impossible for the House to face up systematically to it. The motion was put down to have a reasonable and closely-argued discussion, and for no other reason. In the circumstances disclosed by the Minister for Finance and by the Taoiseach, certainly so far as I am concerned, this motion is, and the division which will be taken on this motion will be intended to be, a vote of very definite want of confidence in the Government.

What did we hear from the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach? The Minister for Finance, in discussing the report and the indications of conditions generally in the country found in some of the facts recorded there, said, "The condition is not so grave as it may have appeared," that is, to the members of the Banking Commission, and that the situation had changed. The Taoiseach said: "There is nothing worse in the position than is in these reports." The Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach implied that, when, in this month of 1939, we are discussing the effect of overtaxation, the effect of debt, the want of suitable productivity in the country, and the creation of poverty and unemployment and of a lowering standard of living here, the situation is not worse now than it was when the Banking Commission reviewed the situation and made their report. It is a very astonishing comment.

The Taoiseach indicated that what is wanted is the broad view, a fundamental consideration of the whole situation and he indicated that, very often, these things are done in the quiet of his own room. That is just what is wrong apparently. The Taoiseach may have his fundamental consideration, he may have his broad plan, but, inevitably, the broad plan operates on the individual man and woman trying to earn a livelihood here and trying to bring up their families. There obviously has been too much of the retiring to the quiet of Ministers rooms to consider the situation. So far from the situation being no worse, to say the least of it, than it was in 1937, the situation in nearly every respect of economic life that one can review here is substantially worse.

The Taoiseach, for the purpose of pointing his argument, indicated that there was a substantial improvement within the last few years, that the Banking Commission Report showed the worst of the picture, and he was apparently consoling himself, that the economic war having passed, a position had been established now in which we have access to the British market—as a matter of fact, it is now boasted that we have a better position in the British market than we ever had before—and in which agricultural exports are rising. The Couéism which the Government have brought to bear on their own actions, and which they try to bring to bear on the people, is still operating on them, and they think that because they quote a few figures showing that agricultural exports have improved, everything else is all right. In some instances, the Taoiseach compares 1931 with the present day.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present—

General Mulcahy

Both the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach apparently adopt the attitude that because the futilities of the Government in the last few years have been stopped, in regard to a dispute over moneys with Great Britain, a dispute in the settlement of which it is very questionable on whose side the financial advantage lies, and a little more money is coming in now for agricultural produce, everything is bound to be all right. They have carried Couéism which has been one of their principal arms of construction in the country to the extent of saying that the situation is no worse now than it was two years ago. I wonder what do they mean?

The Taoiseach boasted, as one of the signs that things were bound to be better in the future, that we had a greater increase in crops than in 1931. But during the last two years the ploughed land in this country has declined by 52,000 acres. During the last two years the number of men, 18 years of age and over, employed on the land has fallen by 23,000; and in an attempted glossing over of the fact that there was a fall in the number of agricultural labourers, the Taoiseach indicated that we were dividing the land at a very substantial rate and more people were employed necessarily as farmers because of that division. But the facts during the last two years are that the number of farmers and the number of farmers' families employed on the land has decreased by 6,767; the number of permanent agricultural labourers has decreased by 8,874 and the number of temporary agricultural labourers by 6,626. That is the improvement that is supposed to be going on in the country so far as agriculture is concerned. There was a fall of 52,000 acres in the area under the plough and 22,267 less male adult people were employed on the land during the last two years.

During these two years hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent on dividing the land and this is the result. We complain of the huge taxation both direct and private that is creating that position on the land. While the Executive Council tell us through their spokesmen that things are better here, emigration in the last two years was up by 61,000 persons. The population fell by 30,000 in the last two years. During these two years the home assistance authorities throughout the country, not to talk of the unemployment assistance authorities, have been catering for an increasing number of unemployed men. Let us take the City of Dublin. During every single month this year there was a substantial number of persons unemployed over the number unemployed last year and over the number of persons unemployed the previous year. There is a substantial number of men receiving unemployment assistance over the number receiving unemployment assistance last year and very much more than the year before. The figures for May show that 4,964 more men had to be paid unemployment assistance than in the year 1937, and that 2,981 had to get unemployment assistance more than in the year 1938.

The Taoiseach indicated that things had developed in industry and he compared 1937 with 1931. I suggest to him that the figures in the Trade Journal for June which is now available to Deputies are worth examination. In the year 1938 there were eight different industries showing a substantial decline in their net output. But the total increase in the net output between 1931 and 1937 was £8,780,000 in the eight industries of which I spoke. There was a fall of £809,000 in the value of the net output in 1938 as compared with 1937. In all 16 industries had been reported on in the Trade Journal. We have the figures of their production for 1938. In some of them there have been increases and in some decreases but the net reduction in output in the whole 16 industries is £643,000. The net reduction in employment in the 16 industries is 2,301 persons. When the Taoiseach speaks of increased industrial production here, he speaks of the gross increase in industrial production between 1931 and 1937 of £33,000,000, but the actual working out which is the real definite production in the country on which wages arise, is £8,780,000. More than £600,000 of that figure disappeared last year.

The £33,000,000 means nothing but the accumulated raw materials that have been imported from outside and have been used here and the duplication of raw materials that have been supplied within the country. Every scrap of additional taxation as affecting raw materials is included in it. A million pounds worth of tobacco, and the excise duties on it, are wrapped up in the £33,000,000 the Taoiseach speaks about and which is used simply as a part of the Coué system.

When we were recording that in 1937 there was a net increase of £8,787,000 in industrial production here, the farmers were recording that £14,000,000 was the decrease in the value of agricultural production. Not only during this last year has there been recorded a substantial fall in the acreage under the plough, a substantial fall in the number of men employed in the area under agriculture, but there has been an increase in the number of men receiving home assistance and a substantial increase—in Dublin particularly, but Dublin conditions are only a reflex of the conditions in the country—in the number of persons unemployed and in receipt of unemployment assistance. There has been a substantial reduction within the past year in the numbers employed in industries here and a substantial decrease in the amount of our industrial output. There has been a reduction in the number employed in the brewing industry of 201, in bacon curing of 95, in shirt-making of 101, in hosiery of 280, in woollen and worsteds of 423, in boots and shoes of 183, in assembly and construction of motor vehicles of 476, and in railways and tramways of 487.

Some of the industries which deal with the necessaries of life, the natural industries for this country that the Taoiseach speaks about, also show a fall in the employment given. Not only has there been a fall in industries of a general character but also in the industries which the Taoiseach said he desired should produce things for the ordinary consumption of the people, such as the necessaries of life. He instanced bacon and bread. He wanted to develop the bacon industry, the production of pigs and the production of wheat. Bacon consumption, as already indicated, has been substantially reduced as the result of the price of bacon here.

The consumption of bacon had gone down by 255,000 cwts. in 1937 and, for the smaller amount of bacon consumed, the people had to pay £1,000,000 more than they had to pay for the larger quantity. In 1938 there was a further substantial reduction in the amount of bacon consumed by our people. To the 255,000 cwts. taken out of the mouths of the people as the result of overtaxation, there was an addition of 38,000 cwts. in the fall in bacon consumption last year. As regards bread, the people at the present time are consuming 13,000,000 2 lb. loaves less than they were getting before the Fianna Fáil Party started to look after the provision of bread for the people. In every aspect of life, there are indications to-day that the situation is worse than it was 12 months ago.

Our complaint is that down on top of that situation, a huge additional burden of taxation is being imposed. At a time when taxation should be lightened in order to give the people a chance of more profitably expending the moneys they are earning, a substantial increase in taxation is being imposed upon them. We had some very wide flung social and economic discussions in the four hours' talk by the Minister for Finance and the three and a half hours' talk by the Taoiseach. Out of the remarks of the Minister for Finance and of the Taoiseach, there does come the idea that they do now regard the amount that this country can get from exporting its agricultural produce as a matter of very vital concern to the people of the country. That is something, but they are not doing anything that would show that they realise the importance of it. In every part of the world, quickening steps are being taken to improve the technique of agricultural production and to improve the methods of marketing agricultural produce. Members of the Government know that during the last seven years, not only has every opportunity that offered to increase our agricultural exports been lost, but a situation has been created here under which nothing could be done to improve either the technique of our agricultural production or the organisation of our agricultural marketing. Everything that should have been done to maintain the market in Great Britain, in which, traditionally, and because of circumstances of the past, we had a right to expect preferential treatment, was simply left undone.

One would imagine, having regard to the claim of the Government, that we have now a better position in the British market than we ever had before, that something would be done to help our farming community to struggle out of the unfortunate position into which they have been forced during the last seven years and that some attempt would have been made to take advantage of the alleged better condition in which we are on that market.

What is the position? The farmers have been crippled. Their production has been interfered with. They were told that their type of production should be changed. Now, the British market has to be sought for exactly the same type of production as that for which our farmers organised themselves in the past, because they found it was the best paying type of production. There is no change in the views of the Government as to the type of agricultural produce should go into the British market. No attempt is being made to enable our farmers to take advantage of the condition of affairs that exists there. Why? Because the great majority of the people running individual farms in this country are reduced to a position in which they cannot run them on an efficient scale. Agricultural credit has been sought in order that, in the changed circumstances now, the farmers may put themselves in a position to send again to the British market the quantity and the type of products which they sent there in the past.

While we are told here and in the Seanad that nothing can be done to give the farmers special credit at the present time, there is money available for representation in Canada, which would have been more valuable if it could have been got in 1934; there is money to be made available for a school of theoretical physics, when what is wanted in this country is a school which would make it possible for political and economic arithmetic to be understood without being twisted in one way or another by the political Couéism of any particular Party in the country; there is money available to make it possible to promise us that our peat will be turned into electricity; there is money available for tourist development, but there is no consideration at all as to what credit could be given to the farmers to-day either without loss to the State, or, if there were any problematical loss possible in it, at a loss that would be no greater than the amount of money which had been scattered on schemes that certainly are most unproductive. Additional money has been promised to-day.

During the last few years £504,000 have been spent on turf. What is the result of it? The only result is that about 1 per cent.—not even 1 per cent. —more turf has been cut in the country than there was in 1931. But, after spending on turf in the last three or four years the sum of £504,000, none of which will in my opinion ever come back, the last two years have shown us a fall in the amount of turf that has been provided, but an increase in the alleged value of it. One of the economic circumstances is that in 1935 there were 3,659,000 tons of turf cut in the country, and the value placed on it was 17/- a ton. In the last year for which we have information, that is 1937, there were 70,000 less tons of turf cut in the country, but the value of the turf was 19/3 a ton, or 2/3 extra per ton. For the smaller amount of turf we had in the country we had to pay £346,000 more. That is what we got from Government expenditure.

Even if the Government were satisfied that during the next five years there would be a loss of £500,000 in the odd bad debts that might arise from giving the farmers credit to get themselves over their present position, and to seize the old position that they had in the British market, we would get something for that money. All we have got for an expenditure of £540,000 on turf is an increase in the cost of the turf which has been cut, and a diminution in the quantity in the last couple of years. We were able to spend £444,000 on industrial alcohol in the last three years. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in answer to a question the other day, gave particulars of the working of the factories during the last potato season. During the last potato season the sum of £444,000 was spent on the production of industrial alcohol. What happened? The industry paid £3,425 in wages, and £18,949 worth of potatoes were bought. That is the result of an expenditure of £444,000 on industrial alcohol. Now, when the economic and financial and political futility of the economic war has passed, and when some recognition should be given to the losses suffered by the farming community during that time, they are simply told: "You have a better position in the British market now than ever you had, and nothing else is to be done."

An Agricultural Commission is investigating the matter. Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party have themselves indicated what they think is going to come from the Agricultural Commission. Whatever is going to come from it, a period of time must elapse, and there is no time to let elapse in the face of the economic factors of the present position. It will take some time after the restoration of the agricultural industry before anything really substantial can be done to improve the unemployment situation in the City of Dublin. It will take some time after the restoration of the agricultural industry to get back to work on Irish land the 43,000 men whom the last four years have put off it. When talking of the value of the home market, Ministers must know that the only possible way of improving the position of the Irish farmer in the next year or two is to export more. The conditions brought about here have shown that while the industrial side can be developed here, and while the Pat Murphys of the town can be turned into a market for the Irish farmer inside tariff and quota walls, unless the earning capacity is there in the country they will be eating less bread and using less clothing.

What is the position in which we stand to-day when the statement is made that we are in a better position than ever in the British market? The figures for 1938, which have been quoted with approbation by the Minister for Finance as showing an improved position, indicate that on fat cattle, calves, sheep and pigs the Irish farmer is still losing £5,000,000 that he got before Fianna Fáil came into office. The present Government came into office in 1932, when the previous Government had decided to sit down with the British Government and see how the effects of the depression of 1929 and 1930 could be got over, and how the agricultural output of this country to Great Britain could be restored. It was the position of the farmer in 1931, when his income had been lowered, that induced the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce at that time to go to Great Britain in the beginning of 1932 and to come back with a preferential 10 per cent. protection for our produce in the British market against the Dutch and against the Danes. It was in order to better the 1931 position that we had arranged that Ministers representing this State would go to Ottawa to discuss with the British, with the Canadians, with the South Africans, with the Australians, and with the New Zealanders, how best to improve mutually our economic position.

When I say that the Irish farmer to-day is getting £5,000,000 less than he was getting in a particular year, I am relating it to the year in which things were so bad that we had to undertake special discussions. Those special discussions did not come to anything. The 10 per cent. preference went waste. The discussions at Ottawa did nothing except the reverse of what we might have anticipated.

The economic war was embarked on, although the chief representative of the Irish Government, when he returned from Ottawa and stood on the pier at Dun Laoghaire, told the people of this country that things were practically settled. Instead of things being practically settled, we have had five years of loss and futility. Now, when it is all over, the position is that in live animals alone our farmers are getting £5,000,000 less than they were getting in 1931. But there is a more serious side to it. The exports of fat cattle are down by £2,715,000. We have lost half of our fat cattle trade. Eight hundred factories have been established in this country, according to the Taoiseach yesterday; 900 have been established, according to the Taoiseach to-day.

How many factories does the wiping out of our finished cattle industry to the extent of one half represent? In calves we are done £500,000; in sheep, £796,000; and in pigs we are down nearly £2,000,000. Let not the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Education say that the reason we are down in pigs is because we are now sending more bacon to the British market. We are exporting £1,041,000 more of bacon, but we are exporting £1,060,000 less of pork. So that we can wipe out, as a book-keeping item in this particular argument, the increase in bacon as against the fall in pork, and we can say definitely that the losses of our farmers, as compared with 1931, even with last year's improved position, amount to £2,000,000 in the export of pigs and, between dead poultry and eggs, £1¼ million.

It would be easy for our farmers to get that position back if the statement of the Minister for Finance is true; that we are in a better position in the British market now as the result of the negotiations with Great Britain than ever we were. But has any consideration been given to the position of the Irish farmer with regard to the credit that he wants to enable his industry to be efficient? The man who has a ten-cow farm and who, as a result of the wastages of the last few years, is now left with six or seven cows, must get back to the ten-cow position before he can be efficient. The same applies in dozens of other directions. The farmer is also hit by the fact that £2,482,000 is being lost through the fall in the exports of beer. We did not hear anything in this debate as to what is being done to restore our fat cattle industry. Is it the position that our fat cattle industry is gone for ever in the way in which Ministers used to think of it before? What is being done to restore our fat cattle industry, the £2,000,000 we are losing on pigs, the £1¼ million we are losing on poultry? Is there any chance of doing something so to reverse the policy of the Government that we will get back some of the £2½ million we have lost in the export of beer?

The only interpretation that can be put on the long rambling speeches of the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach is that they want to keep away from these definite points because nothing is going to be done. It is because nothing is going to be done in respect of these that we say that the burden must be taken off the backs of our agricultural community in some way, and they must be allowed to do their work without interference. It is quite right in modern circumstances that the Government here should concern themselves with the general wellbeing of the community and the relief and assistance of those people who cannot provide for themselves in the present economic circumstances. But, no scheme, however well planned, for social services, for relief of any kind, or even for the carrying on of the ordinary machinery of Government here, can be maintained except in relation to the value of the production in the country. We can help to make firmer the foundations on which both the social and Governmental structure is reared by assisting agriculture at present; but that is the one thing for which we are told there can be no assistance by way of credit at present. There can be State concern for industry. One of the things that is sticking out particularly at present is the Government's concern for industry. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking on a Financial Resolution in connection with the Budget said:

"A great part of our future development depends on the willingness of the people of this country to entrust to the State their savings or their capital for expenditure on capital undertakings."

Here we have a position in which, during the last seven years, about £34,000,000 has been spent by the Government more than they would have spent if they had kept to the 1931-32 position. Who would think, after a review of some of the things I have mentioned as showing the bad trend of things in 1938, that we are at the end of a period in which the Government, thinking nobody can spend money better than themselves, had collected or borrowed in one way or another and distributed through this country £34,000,000 above the expenditure of seven years before?

Now we are told that unless savings are accumulated and entrusted to the State for further development, development here will be checked. The Taoiseach smiled the other day when Deputy Cosgrave mentioned the fall in the contributions for Savings Certificates and in savings banks last year, as showing, in the nature of things, that the position was getting worse. The amount of money put into the savings banks last year fell from £900,000 the year before to £500,000. The Taoiseach denied that Deputy Dillon was right when he said that in the beginning of last year bank directors had complained that the farming community were living on savings. Speaking in January, 1938, according to a report in the Irish Press, the Governor of the Bank of Ireland said:—

"I must confess to a measure of misgiving with regard to the shrinkage which occurred last year, and, indeed, during the years immediately preceding it, more particularly at our country offices, in the smaller deposits of over £2,000 in amount.

While, no doubt, the amounts withdrawn have been devoted to restocking lands in some cases, I find it difficult to resist the general conclusion that those who live on the land have not yet been able to adjust themselves completely to the altered conditions in agriculture, and have found themselves obliged to make inroads upon savings accumulated during better times."

At a time when a farmer is deprived of the necessary capital, and when the urban population have their standard of living reduced, when less bread is consumed, less bacon consumed, and less money put into savings that the ordinary people tend to put them into, the Minister for Industry and Commerce tells us that substantial savings must be put into the hands of the Government by the people in order to carry on capital development. Is it the Government is going to run industry here? Agriculture is thrown aside. It has to look after itself, except in so far as it might be interfered with by the Government. Apparently on the industrial side the Government is going to take a directing hand. Before they further injure the credit of this country, we ask the Government to indicate the steps they are going to take. If they are going to handle such savings of the people as they can lay hands on, one way or another, to bolster up industrial development in the unnatural way in which they have done it on recent occasions, we ask them to review some of the industries that they have been responsible for setting up here. In every country technical efficiency is being aimed at in industry and in agriculture. It would be time enough for the Government to threaten to take capital for industrial development when they had assured themselves that some of the industries that had been established here had, either by Government assistance or otherwise, been made technically efficient.

We had industries before the present industrial development, and they were able to export without subsidies or assistance of any kind. When we look at an industry like woollen tissues we find that not only is there a very substantial fall in the quantity exported now as against 1931, but the tendency to fall still further is there. Exports in 1931 amounted to £110,000, but these figures have fallen to £51,000. In 1931 we exported apparel value for £159,000 but it is down now to £26,000. Exports of shirts fell from £83,000 to £3,000, and the export of newspapers and books fell from £224,000 to £98,000. We were also able to export polishes and pictures. When will some of the newer industries that have been established be brought to the efficiency of the older ones, and when will they be able to check themselves with world prices? Unless we have efficiency in agriculture and efficiency in industry we cannot carry on our social services or the additional high class learning that is being provided for in the new institute of which we heard yesterday; we cannot be a credit either to the nationalism or the nationality that we boast we have, nor can we bring any credit to ourselves in relation to the duties we owe as a country, in trying to work out machinery, under which the social principles of the encyclicals, so much talked of here, must be worked out.

We have command of all the resources of the country, the brawn and intelligence. The brawn that the Taoiseach spoke of is there to be used. The brains of the country have been interfered with by the political and economic policy of members of the present Government for the last 17 years. The brawn has been interfered with too. We had remarks from the Minister for Finance and from the Taoiseach which show that they wanted to avoid this discussion. They said it was a vote of censure on them, and they applied to the vote of censure the kind of political dope and rambling from China to Peru, to New Zealand and to the United States, to which we have been treated. We are concerned with conditions in this country, to see them clearly and objectively, and to take definite action, either to help the people to develop their industries or to stand aside and let them help themselves. Nobody is going to solve the agricultural problem but Irish farmers standing over their farms and doing their own work. Nobody is going to build up Irish industries but Irish industrial organisers and Irish workers. There is going to be no chance for farmers or industrialists to make progress as long as they are crushed down by the weight of taxation that is there at present. A burden is falling on our people in the matter of debt, and the more that burden is increased, the more taxation will ultimately fall upon people later on, taxation during which there will be no production.

We had Deputies speaking of the position in other countries with regard to debts, where they complained that these debts were piled up in the past, and that there were suggestions that they should be repudiated. We should be careful to know whether we are leaving for people in ten or 16 years' time a burden of debt about which they may say to themselves: "This debt was created by futile, wasteful people who laid their hands on this country ten or 16 years ago, and we have no moral responsibility for repaying it." It is not so easy for us to face a situation like that, or to get away from it, and with a view to the possibility of improving the present situation or securing that there will be an improvement, it is for the Government to open its eyes to the trend of things and not to sit back in the calm way in which their spokesmen in this debate suggested when they said that things are no worse than they were in 1937. Things are worse in every way that can be imagined; more unemployment, more emigration, less production, less tillage, less employment on the land, falling production in our essential industry and falling employment there. As we said in the early days of the economic war, it is because the things that were bound to happen did happen that we intend to keep pointing out to-day the essential facts of the people's lives, and the essential difficulties that are confronting them.

The Executive Council shut their eyes in the past, and even at the present day they turn a kind of poker face to the difficulties that surround them. They seem to be paralysed, in so far as any type of real, effective action that will help the situation, is concerned. The situation cannot last. The unemployment position, the number of people in Dublin living on home assistance, cannot continue to remain as they are without serious difficulties being created for the Government. The people cannot melt out of this country and they cannot melt off the land without very serious difficulties arising here. That is why we say that one thing that requires to be done is to relieve the country of some of the burden of taxation that has been piled on it this year and that was piled on it last year. Stop the system by which private taxation imposes on bacon, flour, wheat and butter alone, £5,000,000 a year. That is the taxation that is going into private pockets, and I ask you to stop that.

Review the position in which debt is being piled on here, and in my opinion, it would be better to cease for a year both house building and land division and apply some of the savings towards assisting agriculture. If money is not spent on agriculture to-day to give the farmers the credit they require to get on their feet, then the people who will live in the houses that will be built to-morrow will not have anything to keep them there. There is no use in dividing land and putting people on the land when the situation of the agricultural industry generally is that it is only capable of giving less employment. Putting more people on farms means putting other agriculturists out of work and means putting people on farms at a time when they cannot make a success of their farms.

Dr. Hannigan

It was not my intention to participate in this debate except in the capacity of a patient listener. I was going to leave it to my betters, to the intellectuals, the industrialists, the political economists and the experts on high finance. Into none of these realms did I feel fit to intrude. I must confess, however, that we on the back benches have had very few pearls of wisdom cast before us. Very little of a constructive nature has emerged from this debate, which has been carried on quite obviously in an atmosphere of unreality and insincerity.

If the Banking Commission Report brought anything home to the minds and hearts of the ruling classes here, it should have been that this country is perilously near economic and financial ruin. It should have made them realise that agriculture is our major industry and, as such, it needs careful nursing and treatment. The lion's share of our national income is derived from agriculture, and yet what are the characteristic features of our national life? Drift from the land, emigration, a low birth and marriage rate, extensive unemployment and last, but by no means least, the concentration of the masses of the people in the cities and towns. Look at Dublin, the capital city of our country. Its principal employing units are the Sweepstakes, Guinness's Brewery and the Civil Service. Yet we have one-sixth of the population of this country concentrated in the City of Dublin.

I have no hesitation in saying that there was never such distress, that poverty was never so widespread or rampant in the City of Dublin, with the possible exception of the years following the Act of Union and, later, the Famine. We are rapidly, in this city, approaching a state of affairs simulating that which existed in Vienna at the termination of the Great War. Vienna could be likened to an unfortunate, malformed child, a monstrosity, whose head was too heavy for its body. What have we got here? The Opposition cry is "What are you going to do?" and the Government retort "Show us the way." The Opposition say "Reduce taxation," and the Government retort "Would you have us reduce taxation by curtailing the social services?", and so on ad nauseam.

Recently we had the bland spectacle of the Minister for Finance, in this House, blaming every Deputy outside the Government Benches for the depressing state of the country. I would like to hear from the Government, seeing that they have attached responsibility to the Opposition and to all Deputies outside their own Party, on what occasion have they ever consulted any member of the Opposition with regard to impending legislation?

Have they on any occasion, in any political or economic crisis in this country, called the Leader of the Opposition or the Leader of the Labour Party and asked his advice, his opinion or his cooperation? Has the Prime Minister on any such occasion ever done that? The facts are that the Government, like their predecessors, just before they relinquished office, have lost the common touch.

My suggestion to restore our national economic equilibrium is a simple one. Put agriculture on a paying basis. I may well be asked how is that to be done. Well, it is very simple, in my opinion. Next door to us, at gun's range from us, throbs the heart of the British Empire. Great Britain, with its teeming millions, stands at the crossroads, faced with the gaunt spectre of famine in the event of what now seems to be the inevitable greater war. England will want food in quantities beyond all our dreams. The British Navy will be faced with the difficulty— the impossible difficulty to my mind—of fighting in five or six seas and oceans. It will be impossible for the British Navy, in those circumstances, to defend the long sea route. Here is our opportunity to step in. The British pocket is long and deep. I recognise the fact— I believe the fact that we have not sufficient capital here to restock our farms and to stimulate intensive agricultural activity, but I repeat that the British pocket is long and deep, and our slogan should be: England's difficulty is Ireland's economic opportunity.

Mr. Keyes

In the course of his very lengthy and eloquent speech, the Taoiseach, both last evening and to-day, gave expression to such very sound policy, principles and aims, that I think it would be difficult for anyone of good will to quarrel with his speech. He pointed out that the policy of the Government is aimed, has been aimed, and will continue to be aimed at the creation of greater social improvement for the vast majority of the people in this State. He said that it was the intention and determination of his Government to continue to utilise all the natural resources of this State for that purpose. These are certainly laudable ideals and very laudable aims, and I am accepting at once that the movers of the motion and of the amendment, and in fact all Parties in this House have at least one thing in common, and that is that they are all honestly and earnestly desirous of doing the best thing possible for the people of this country. The previous Government, I am sure, were in their time equally imbued with an equally honest desire to do the best they could for the people of this country. That brings us, then, in the short summary which I propose to make in the course of my brief remarks, to inquire how far, in the course of 17 years in which two Governments, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil, both equally zealous and determined to try to secure, as far as in them lay, the best possible results for the people of the country, these Governments have succeeded in their aims. We have got to ask ourselves whether or not they have, cumulatively or separately, succeeded in their aims for the betterment of the people of this country, or if we have reached a stage in which we can be satisfied that the efforts made by the two native Governments, to produce the best results for the people, have been successful.

Listening to the discussions here, one would be inclined to feel a little mixed as to what the condition of our country is. According to the Minister for Finance, he is satisfied that everything in the garden is lovely, that we are prospering, and that there is no room for a motion or an amendment of this kind, since everything is going so well. The Taoiseach tells us that 1934 was unquestionably the peak—or rather, the lowest point—in the depression, both internationally and, particularly, here when, at that time, we were engaged in the economic war; and that, when founding his Banking Commission, he was not unmindful of the fact that we were then at the lowest ebb, and the Taoiseach gave very excellent reasons for the choosing of the personnel of that tribunal.

That personnel was such, he said, that no stone could be flung, at the Government which appointed them, by anybody from the point of view of showing up the worst that they could find, and he said, in effect, that he was satisfied to know that the worst that could be said of our position had been said, in the hope of doing better in the future. He said that, in setting up the commission, the Government were anxious to get as close an examination of the financial and economic position as they could get by people who were not likely to have any particular Party point of view. That was a very laudable aim and ideal, and, presumably, the Taoiseach should be admired for appointing the personnel in that particular form, but there is another aspect of their appointment since they were going to report in accordance with the old financial standards to which it is to be presumed they were loyal devotees, and their standards must be taken that Ireland was at a low ebb in the financial world judged by these old, antiquated rules and measures. The Banking Commission made their report according to the old financial framework that has held this country in enslavement in the past, and we are told that the aim and object of the commission, as a result of their report, was to put the nation into financial health, but I am afraid that the result of their report will not be to put the nation's stomachs into good health— certainly, not if the practices prescribed by the Banking Commission were to be adopted. Luckily, however, as the Taoiseach said, the Government is not bound to accept the findings of that commission, and I trust that they are not likely to accept the findings, because, if they do, it only means going back to the old tale of trying to do something inside a ring where, no matter what you do, you are bound in advance to fail. The acid test that I am trying to apply, if we accept the view, as I am sure we all do, that both the previous Government and the present Government have been and are doing their best for the betterment of the people of this country, is: whether or not we are satisfied that we have achieved a measure of prosperity commensurate with the efforts made by native Governments in the last 17 years.

I think it should be unnecessary for me, at this late stage of the debate, to start recapitulating all the evidence that has been put forward as to the mass of unemployment, the mass of emigration, the numbers of our people on home help, and the depression in agriculture. That welter of evidence cannot be challenged or denied, irrespective of all the figures that may be read out by the Minister for Finance as to the increase in the export values which he gave us here last night. Those figures, when divorced from the facts relating to them, are capable of playing old Harry with the truth, because I think that a short examination of the success alleged by the Minister would show that, apart from the tariffs, the actual fact is that the volume has decreased and that the volume of our agricultural produce has decreased and appears to be decreasing.

Now, I am more conversant with the position of the working classes and with the unemployment problem generally, and I am sure that neither the Taoiseach nor the Government nor any member of the Government can express satisfaction with the position as it exists to-day. Giving them credit for the very best intentions, I think it will have to be admitted that they have failed to solve the unemployment problem, and is it not time that they should examine carefully and impartially the statement that the Taoiseach himself made some time ago when he said that, if he could not find a solution inside the present system, he would not hesitate to go outside the present system? He said that, if necessary, he was prepared to go outside the present system to find a solution, but does he think that it is too early yet until they had tried out the present methods? Now, there may be differences and disagreements between the Fine Gael Party and the Fianna Fáil Party on the question of quotas and bounties, free trade, protection, tariff reform, and all that sort of thing, but I contend that, no matter whether it be a Fine Gael Government, a Fianna Fáil Government or any other Government that might be set up, it will be impossible to achieve the measure of success that is desired by all citizens of goodwill inside the present financial system.

The Fianna Fáil Government is being reduced to a state in which they are not distinguishable from their predecessors. Having got caught up inside the same ring, they are chasing around after the fashion of the interesting but fatuous pastime of the dog which chases his own tail. We were told by speakers on both benches that the experiment as regards public credit was being made by a country analogous in many ways to our country. The Minister for Finance cuts that analogy very short. Speaking in the precincts of this House the other day, he said that the analogy held practically in only one respect— that we had a common market. That is a very short and insufficient picture of the analogy obtaining between this country and New Zealand, with its small population of 1,500,000 as against our 3,000,000, with a climate similar to ours and with the same market that we have, save that they are 12,000 miles removed from it. Surely what is good for New Zealand should be worthy of careful, sympathetic analysis by this country with a view to seeing whether it could be utilised for our benefit. There is no use in shouting that the experiment in New Zealand is "bust". It seems to be the habit of many people who are tied slavishly to the old system to strain their eyes and necks looking for the collapse of the New Zealand experiment. Thank God, there is no sign of that collapse yet. The Standard of Friday, July 7, has the following:—

"His Grace, the Archbishop of Wellington, assuring Mr. Savage, New Zealand's Labour Prime Minister, of his goodwill, on the eve of that country's last general election, told him:—`You have done more to raise up the masses and improve the lot of the working man's family than any previous Government of New Zealand.' This was recounted to a Standard Special Representative in Dublin on Tuesday evening last by the Hon. Walter Nash, New Zealand's Finance Minister.”

Mr. Nash was our guest in this city. He has given of his best to his country and he explained what has been done by his Government so that it might be emulated by us and get us out of difficulties similar to those which he experienced when he came into office in 1935. The Standard says:—

"He explained the monetary and economic policy which enabled New Zealand to abolish unemployment and is now enabling that British Dominion to build decent houses for every family and achieve internal social stability and family security. They have been told New Zealand is `bust.' New Zealand is not `bust,' nor won't be in spite of the English financiers' efforts to `bust' her. Unemployment can be totally abolished. New Zealand has proved it. Homes can be built and food grown for every family in the country. New Zealand has proved that also. Asked why New Zealand had embarked upon a national monetary policy separated from that of Britain and took over control of currency and credit. Mr. Nash said: `New Zealand left parity with sterling in order to make sure that the standard of living of the people would be maintained. On the production of the country and with every rise in the volume of production—that is, with every increase in the amount of food or goods produced by New Zealanders—the standard of living of every worker in the country would be raised.' Asked whether it was true that New Zealand had to restrict her imports from England; if so, how that affected the standard of living, Mr. Nash declared emphatically that every family in New Zealand had sufficient. Every sort of food and clothing needed by the people was produced in plenty in New Zealand. New Zealand had to restrict her imports from Britain in order to pay the interest and other charges on the enormous debt borrowed on the London market by previous administrations."

New Zealand Government's predecessors had borrowed £89,000,000 in 12 years in London. The Labour Government has borrowed no money outside the country. Their 4 per cent. loan of £4,500,000 at £98 for ten years and at £99 for 20 years was oversubscribed. That is a good picture. New Zealand is not so remote that we cannot check up and obtain details of what the position there really is. The Government came into office in a country laden with heavy debt. One of the reasons we were told why that country was not analogous to our own was that they were a debtor nation whereas we were a creditor nation. If the difference between a debtor and creditor nation is, on the part of the creditor nation, poverty, unemployment, emigration and misery and, on the part of the debtor nation, teeming prosperity and abundant employment, then I should not object to a transfer and the label of the bottle would not appreciably affect me.

I was glad to notice the tone of the speech of the Taoiseach to-day and I trust that he will take his courage in his hands and deal with this question. I believe him to be a man of goodwill and if he is satisfied, as he ought to be satisfied, that the present situation calls for desperate remedies, then I suggest to him that breaking from the financial system, while it might be unique, would not be in any way desperate. We have got a lead from the hardy pioneers of New Zealand, with a small population. The Government were guided by only one idea and one instinct when they came into office. Their country was practically on the rocks. They said, in effect, "We have in the soil of this country, given to us so prolifically by God, the necessary means to produce a full and fruitful life for our population. It is our job to provide for our people and we are going to do it irrespective of how our efforts square with the financial system." They took office in 1935 and they were re-elected in 1938. They introduced the Social Security Act on top of what they undertook to do in 1935. They increased the standard of pensions for the blind, for widows and orphans, for the infirm and for others, and they ended unemployment. They had, as a matter of fact, to withdraw some of their men from development schemes in order to put them to work in the factories, as Mr. Nash explained in an interview. They had to transfer the men to the factories in order to manufacture the things which they had been previously importing from Great Britain. We cannot ignore the fact that there is a strong analogy between the position in New Zealand and the position in this country. Why should we be so slavishly wedded to the system which has been the cause of our subjugation up to now? Why hesitate any longer? Why should we have all this carping criticism and all these attempts to bore holes in a system which has given proof of its capacity to do the job we want to do?

I suggest that the motion tabled in the names of Deputy Dillon and Deputy Mulcahy does not make any attempt to rescue us from the old, vicious circle. They want to give effect to the advice contained in the Majority Report of the Banking Commission. That advice, if taken, may lead us back to the type of financial health which they envisage but that is a type of health from which I should like to get away. In the amendment by Deputy Norton, Deputy Davin and myself, we are asking the Government to take their courage in their hands and follow the example set by New Zealand—an example profitably used in Sweden and other countries. I am not so concerned with the places mentioned by the Minister for Finance who dealt at great length with the position in Germany, Italy and Russia. I want to point to countries similar to our own such as Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand. The time for hesitation is long past. The Government should make up their mind and it will have the backing and support of every man of goodwill if they say that the soil of Ireland is the wealth of Ireland and that we are not going to be slavishly tied to this old fetish—the old financial system—but that we will do what New Zealand has done. Within three or four years of taking up that position, I am sure that Ireland will be in as happy a situation as New Zealand is able to boast to-day.

Mr. Coburn

I have been saying that at every election and I am still here.

They have said the same thing in the deceptive English language.

Mr. Coburn

Deputy Hugo Flinn stated the same thing last night, that no more houses were to be built or land divided according to the report of the Banking Commission. I want the Deputy to read out what the Banking Commission said in giving their views on that.

Professor O'Sullivan

I would appeal to Deputy Coburn not to interrupt the Deputy but to allow him to continue. He may misrepresent the Banking Commission Report or he may represent it. That is his lookout. I suggest to Deputy Coburn that he cannot interrupt the Deputy because he may think, and firmly believe that the Deputy who was speaking is misrepresenting the report. He should allow Deputy O'Loghlen to proceed.

Mr. Walsh

Chair!

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will the Chair be allowed to rule on the point of order that was raised? I want to tell Deputy Coburn that it was not a point of order, and I must ask him to allow Deputy O'Loghlen to proceed without further interruption.

Mr. Coburn

With all respect I want to say that, when a Deputy purports to give the opinions of the Banking Commission, he should read its report dealing with the specific things that he refers to in order to prove that what he says is correct.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is within the province of a Deputy to quote what he wishes from a report, and it is the province of the Chair to decide whether what he says is in order or not.

Mr. O'Loghlen

Thanks. I have said that the third recommendation in the Banking Commission Report was that the housing operations of the Government should cease. The report does not say, in so many words, that housing should be discontinued. It says the same thing in what I have called the deceptive English language because it says to the Government: "You can only proceed with that housing which you can finance from revenue" which would mean nothing. In other words, the removal of the slum dwellers from their insanitary houses in the cities, towns and villages of the country is not to be undertaken. They are to remain where they are. What reason do the Banking Commission give for that recommendation? That the Government are to wait until we get what they describe as sound money conditions. What is to happen to the dweller of an insanitary house in a slum area? He is to be crucified on the cross of British sterling.

The fourth recommendation is that compulsory land purchase should cease. In that part of the country that I come from there are thousands of acres of land owned by men who reside 40 and 50 miles away from it. The sons of local small farmers have been waiting for some of that land for years, patiently hoping that the Land Commission would see to the division of it. If the fourth recommendation in the report of the Banking Commission is to be given effect to, what will it mean? That those men who have been waiting for some of that land will be driven across St. George's Channel. There you have, in all their nakedness, what the findings of the Majority Report amount to. I submit that the adoption of the Majority Report of the Banking Commission by the Government should mean the repeal of Article 45, Section 2, of the Constitution. It lays down:—

The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing

i. That the citizens (all of whom, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood) may through their occupations find the means of making reasonable provision for their domestic needs.

ii. That the ownership and control of the material resources of the community may be so distributed amongst private individuals and the various classes as best to subserve the common good.

iv. That in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim shall be welfare of the people as a whole.

v. That there may be established on the land in economic security as many families as in the circumstances shall be practicable.

If you take the Majority Report of the Banking Commission and place it beside Article 45, Section 2, of the Constitution you will clearly see that the two cannot live together. It would be as reasonable to expect that fire and water would live in the same container.

It is not my intention to travel over the social, economic or financial fields which have been traversed by a number of Deputies who have spoken in this debate from both sides of the House. I shall confine myself to pointing out what, in my opinion, are the abnormalities that prevail in this country: abnormalities that do not exist in any of those countries that were quoted by the Minister for Finance or by other Deputies. We have abnormalities here that do not exist in any of those countries with which a comparison has been made. In the first place, we in this country export more human beings in proportion to our population than any other country in the world. We have the lowest marriage rate of any white race in the world.

Mr. Coburn

Why?

Mr. O'Loghlen

Notwithstanding that mass emigration of our people, we also have somewhere about 100,000 unemployed.

Mr. Coburn

Why?

Mr. O'Loghlen

Now, these are abnormalities that do not prevail in most other countries. They are abnormalities that are certainly an evil growth. They are abnormalities that, in my opinion, have within them a germ which, if allowed to grow unchecked, may easily cause the decay, if not the death, of this nation. We are in one respect more favourably situated than most other countries in proceeding to remove these abnormalities. In most other countries where they have a huge unemployed roll, we find that they are highly specialised industrial countries. Even if they have the machinery, the men and the raw material they cannot put their people into employment unless they are assured of a market for the products of their factories.

With us, 90 per cent. of our emigration would be from the rural areas. Somewhat the same percentage— slightly less—of our unemployed would exist in those same areas. We have in the areas where the unemployed and the emigrants come from works waiting to be carried out and works—not-withstanding anything that has been said to the contrary—of a reproductive character. Commissions—perhaps I should say, to make it more pleasant to Deputy Dillon's ear, Royal Commissions—sat in this country and made reports on questions of afforestation and drainage. The report that is available said that in this country we have millions of acres of marginal land that could be used for afforestation. That report also said that our climate and soil are suitable for the growing of wood. It is rather amazing since the time those experts examined that problem, that the soil and climate of Ireland should have changed or that the land should have disappeared. We are told by experts here to-day that wood cannot grow in this country. When I hear the word "expert" I always become suspicious, as one hears people say "I have consulted an expert". We hear about experts who have reported on matters of forestry, but we have not heard who they were. It would be reasonable to ask these experts what was the position of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries in so far as the growing of timber was concerned. How did it grow then? How did our extensive forests come to exist and what has happened to make a change in the meantime?

I am reminded of what occurred when British experts were sent to report on the possibility of constructing the Suez Canal. They came back and reported that it could not be done. French experts went out and did it and the Suez Canal is there to-day. I am very much afraid that the experts who are reporting against the possibility of planting timber in this country are to a large degree of the same type as the British experts who were sent out in connection with the construction of the Suez Canal.

We have the men in this country— the men and the work are there. In other countries there are cries of "Back to the land," and in other countries they are failing to induce the people to go back to the land. We have our people on the land to-day and our first purpose should be to endeavour to keep them there. Rural Ireland is the foundation on which the cities and the towns rest, and if that foundation disappears it will only be a short time until the cities and the towns must crumble.

Mr. Coburn

We are all saying that for the last ten or 12 years—at every election.

Mr. O'Loghlen

In addition to afforestation, we have vast tracts of land waiting to be drained. We have the finest land in the world under water from January to December, awaiting the completion of main drainage schemes. These two works alone—apart from reclamation—would absorb every unemployed man, and they are works of a reproductive character. Can anybody show that they are not? If we bring the people back to the land and reclaim the land that is now under water, do we not increase the productivity of the country? If we plant our marginal lands with timber, is it not real wealth that is being produced in the country? If it were done 30 years ago there would be no need for us to be importing timber to-day.

Most of the reasonable people we talk to will admit that we have the work to give the unemployed to do. The men are there, the work is there; but then we reach the cry: "Where is the money to come from?" That is the controlling factor in bringing together these two elements in the life of this country—the work and the worker. Let us be honest with ourselves. It is because of the fact that we have not got the money that we cannot bring these two elements together. Under the Currency Act of 1927 our unit of value here is on a parity with the British pound. Our pound is on a parity with the British pound. There are a few facts in connection with that which I want to state as clearly as I may. In the first place, we are the only country in the world whose unit of value is on a pound-for-pound parity with the British. The British unit of value was determined without consultation with us: they determine their unit of value to suit themselves. Their law was made to suit England.

I can recollect hearing the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Cosgrave, speak in the elections of 1917, 1918, 1919, and he always conveyed to the people the advisability of placing their trust in Sinn Féin and electing a Parliament here at home to make laws for this country. He always dwelt on the unsuitability of laws made by the British Parliament for this country. As he said, England is an industrialised country and we are agricultural, and the law that is made at St. Stephen's in Westminster is wholly unsuitable for our country. It is quite extraordinary that whilst he favoured that change and obtained authority to do it, the most important of all laws operative here is still the law made at St. Stephen's in Westminster. Orthodox countries that we hear so much about—Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal—are on a sterling basis, but their relation to sterling is decided and determined by themselves. They did not blindly switch their parity or their currency on to the currency of England or the British pound. They determined their own currency in relation to sterling and did that in the interests of their own internal economy.

The placing of our pound on a parity with the British pound has other implications. This is a major one, that, if our Government to-morrow decided to finance an undertaking, involving the expenditure of say, £1,000,000, they must satisfy themselves beforehand that they are in a position to deposit sterling assets with the Bank of England to meet that outgoing expenditure, and, unless they can do that, they must call a halt to that expenditure. From that, it is obvious that the operations of any Government in this country, in the matter of financial expenditure, are governed by an institution foreign to this country. In that connection, let me quote, as clearly as I remember, a contribution made by one of the distinguished signatories to the Majority Report of the Banking Commission, Professor Gregory. Writing in the London Daily Telegraph in July, 1935, he set down that

"we must not ignore the fact that it would be difficult to conceive the United States of America or France being willing to subordinate their domestic currency to the views of either the Bank of England or the British Treasury, for that is what association with the sterling group means."

Those were the words of Professor Gregory in 1935, but, in signing the Majority Report of the Banking Commission, in 1938, he had no hesitation in ignoring a fact which he said should not be ignored then.

Mr. Coburn

He had more sense then.

Mr. O'Loghlen

I have no hesitation in asserting that this country at present has not financial freedom. I care not whom it offends. We have the means of obtaining that freedom, if we make use of it, and I remind the House that this Dáil, for the first time, has the opportunity of doing that, and that if it fails to make use of the opportunity, it may never come its way again. Deputy Dillon threw up his hands in despair and said: "If you part company with sterling, you ruin this country and you are burst." Other countries have done it as I pointed out—Sweden and Norway, Denmark, Portugal and New Zealand. These have all parted from parity with the British pound, and they have done it in their own interests, mind you. Since that is the considered judgment of the Ministers for Finance and the Governments of these countries, although I have a very high estimation of the Minister for Finance in our Government, and of the Cabinet associated with him, I think that the balance of opinion, taking all these countries on one side, would go to show that their pooled financial wisdom must be somewhat more convincing than the wisdom of one Cabinet in one country.

Apply a simple test to the position as it exists at present. If any Deputy in this Assembly had power to issue currency and credit to finance his undertakings, would he go to his neighbour for authority to do it and place a burden on the shoulders of his family? Would he not do it himself? In like manner, this authority, which surely is the prerogative of the State, under the present monetary system is passed over to a purely private profit-seeking institution to be used by them as they think right in their own interests and in the interests of their depositors. Again, I want to say that I make no complaint whatever about the commercial banks of this country. I want to allow nobody the opportunity to say that I said anything detrimental to these institutions. They are there, and they have a useful function to discharge in the commercial life of the country, and in financing the other undertakings that exist there, but it is not the duty of the banks to solve the social or economic problems of this country. It is the duty of the State. Until the State clothes itself with authority to take control of the currency and credit of the country, the State cannot discharge the duties that are expected from it. That control does not aim at inflation as has been suggested here, but it aims at and certainly can achieve, by wise direction full employment and full economic activity. We have proceeded along the lines of solving the unemployment problem by the payment of doles, unemployment assistance. If that were a solution of the problem, these other countries would long since have solved their problems. Other countries tried that before there was a Government formed here, and they have that same evil with them still, and it will prove no solution here. One forecast I make, that, while we endeavour to proceed to solve our social and economic difficulties, to discharge our obligations within the social sphere, upon the foundation of interest-bearing, we are never going to succeed.

We have had attempts made to establish analogies between this country and other countries. I think I have given the House to understand that the analogies were not correct, and that, in making those analogies, and in seeking to establish them, for the purpose of stampeding people away from any movement in this country to reorganise the monetary system of the country, the picture against these countries was overdrawn by Deputies and by the Minister for Finance last night. We were already told about conditions in New Zealand. Deputy Dillon had already described New Zealand in this House on two occasions as being "bust". I will not characterise the opinions he expressed by his own fishy word. I will pass it over. But in that condemnation of other countries other Deputies joined. During the debate on practically this same subject at a previous meeting of the Dáil, Deputy Childers joined in, and he showed that the efforts of the President of the United States to solve this problem were unavailing. He described these efforts as pump priming. Then he moved across to France. Last night the Minister for Finance dealt for a considerable time with the position of New Zealand. In dealing with the figures, he showed that one item alone in the exports from New Zealand had fallen considerably last year. I think he could have reasonably told the House that one item of exports, namely, wool, from New Zealand had dropped in value by £7,000,000. One can easily understand how much that upset the exports from New Zealand. There was one other item which I think he might have given to the House in connection with New Zealand. That was the figure of unemployment in New Zealand. Now, the number of unemployed persons in New Zealand at the end of December, 1938, was 1,200. Only 1,200 people were receiving relief through unemployment channels. On the basis of our population our figure for unemployment should stand at 2,400, that is taking our population as double that of New Zealand. I think that was a comparison that he should not have excluded from the other comparisons he made.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy would also want to exclude the comparison in wealth and resources with New Zealand.

Mr. O'Loghlen

In dealing with this country we should in reason first of all be able to keep to the problem of our own people in the country. It is highly undesirable that other countries should be attacked solely because it may suit the purpose of those who are promoting a particular viewpoint on this matter. As I have told the House Deputy Dillon attacked New Zealand, Deputy Childers attacked America and France and the Minister for Finance——

Mr. Gorey

Attacked them all.

Mr. O'Loghlen

The Minister for Finance attacked New Zealand also. Is it not a pity that those Deputies, who have got so much wisdom that they can coolly proceed to direct the President of the United States of America, the President of France and Mr. Savage, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, would not pool their wisdom and use it for dealing with the problem confronting them here, that of dealing with the 3,500,000 people in this country?

While I do not agree with everything that has been said by Deputy O'Loghlen, I am glad to live and see the day and be a member of the Dáil when a speech like the one just delivered has been given to this House. What is freedom? Deputy O'Loghlen defined it in his closing remarks. I said myself a few weeks ago here that this House is nothing better than a talking shop if the control of money and credit in this country is vested in the Bank of England. I do regret that this Banking Commission Report comes up here as a kind of side wind to a motion. It should not have been brought up in this matter. I agree with the Taoiseach when he said yesterday that this Banking Commission was appointed to investigate various aspects of our economic life, but that there was no assurance and no undertaking given that this House was going to accept that report. But the Dáil should have got an opportunity before now of considering it, not on a side wind but as a main question brought before the House. Now, I understand that an agreement has been come to that many more Deputies will not speak except the mover of the motion, who has a right to reply. Others, therefore, will be debarred from participating in this debate. That is very unfair in connection with a matter like this, and I would suggest to the Taoiseach that within the next three months during which we are going to retire into private life that a day would be fixed and the Dáil assembled to debate this Report of the Banking Commission until nobody has any more to say about it.

Mr. Aiken

What a long debate it would be.

Mr. Belton

Yes, it would be a long debate, but to the Minister for Defence I would put this view—that it is a long, weary road for the man out of work looking for a job. Here is material which, if properly arranged, could solve the unemployment problem. There is no other road to its solution. I was surprised at previous speakers dragging in conditions in New Zealand here. They need not drag in anybody. Take September, 1931, when we had world-wide depression and when all countries that were on the gold standard found themselves in the position that they were not able to sell their goods. Great Britain was up against the greatest depression in her life. Great Britain had plenty of gold in the gold reserves in the Bank of England. It was not want of gold that made England go off the gold standard on the 15th September, 1931, but the necessity to depreciate her currency so as to enable her to reduce costs and sell her goods in the world market.

Deputy O'Loghlen suggested something that to my mind bordered on social credit. I am not a believer in social credit. I just take the stand with regard to finance that I took in regard to nationality when this was a crown colony. Let us get control of whatever type of currency we think best for the country and let us adopt that. If it is in the best interests of the country to remain hitched to sterling, let those who are the Government, and who have means and sources of information that Deputies have not got, keep hitched to sterling and good luck to them but let them control credit. It would be very interesting to examine the amount of currency in circulation in this country during the war years. Remember, it is the amount of currency that affects prices. Increased prices mean an increase in the money value of goods and diminished prices a reduction in the money value of goods. During the Great War and around the years 1918 to 1920, we had circulating in what is roughly the Free State now about £21,000,000. At that time Britain had something over £500,000,000 in circulation. To-day Great Britain has over £500,000,000 circulating but we have not £10,000,000 circulating.

The question of credit arises on this motion and on the Report of the Banking Commission. It is admitted that there is a shortage of credit here, but, as a businessman. I agree with the Press report which I read of Deputy Dowdall's speech on this motion. He said substantially that, as a businessman, he found the banks of this country always accommodating for a sound business proposition. As one who has borrowed largely from banks, and paid them back, I can endorse what Deputy Dowdall has said. I can repeat here what I said before the Banking Commission a couple of years ago, that I have never been refused accommodation by my bank when the accommodation was good for me. I have been refused. That is a cryptic way of putting it but where I have been refused I have found afterwards that, as things worked out, the banks saw better into the future than I did.

I should like to put this to the Taoiseach. The British Government made representations to the Japanese Government about their trading in China produced by the depreciation of the yen. Has the Taoiseach, either as Taoiseach or as Minister for External Affairs, made any representations to the British Government to give Irish agriculture a preference that would equate with the advantages that our competitors are getting in the British market, because of their working on currencies depreciated in relation to sterling while we are hitched on to sterling?

I would be very slow to approve of juggling with our currency. There was a time when we could have made millions by adopting a national currency. At one time we could have taken £20,000,000 worth of paper and placed it on the counter of the Bank of England and, by the law of England, we are entitled to get £20,000,000 in bullion for it. We did not do that. The currency was backed as to one-third by gold and as to two-thirds by paper, and we exchanged our paper money, for which prior to then we could have got bullion, for that paper. Now, after fighting an economic war—whether we won or lost it is immaterial—the credit position of this country is so poor that in this city the housing of the working classes and private speculative building, which formerly got that help from the State, are brought to a standstill. Some weeks ago 300 carpenters went over to jobs in Great Britain and had their fares paid for them by British trade unions operating here, because they were refused benefit, if they did not take jobs that were available in England. The work is here to be done. The Dublin Corporation have about 400 acres of land developed for building but they have no money to build.

What is the use of "codding" ourselves by saying that we have credit? If we have credit why do we not borrow? The Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government will not sanction borrowing. They have refused to sanction it. How, then, can the Taoiseach tell us we have credit and tell us about the houses built, and so on? We know that. Thanks to the co-operation of the local authorities and the Government—and, to do him justice, the Minister for Local Government has always shared the thanks between the local bodies and the Government—that has been done. It was owing to that co-operation, and the drive of the last few years, that the houses were built. But we are brought to a stand-still now, at a time when we are considering credit and the financial position. With full knowledge of the position, I say that we are up against a national financial question when the City of Dublin cannot borrow money to build houses. There are representatives of the corporation in this House, and I challenge any of them to contradict that statement. I wonder will the Taoiseach, or any members of his Party who may intervene in the debate, tell us where our credit stands high? Is it not time to look around and to consider the proposals outlined in the motion and the amendment. Progress can be made if either of them are considered. The motion asks that steps should be taken to reduce the burden of direct and indirect taxation.

If we remain hitched to sterling there is no alternative but to reduce direct and indirect taxation. It is for the Government to decide what services will have to be curtailed. That cannot be suggested from this side of the House. The difficulty of getting finance to run the country will be a compelling force on the Government to reduce taxation. The Taoiseach studied his economics well lately, which shows that the situation is compelling the Government to look closer into things with which they previously went straight ahead. In effect, the Taoiseach said that if it cost £2 a week to put a man to work, and if what he produced was worth only 35/-, that was no relief of unemployment. I agree. The problem before the Taoiseach and the Government is not to have that man idle but to have him absorbed into our ordinary economic life.

The claim was also made that 45,000 people had been put into employment as a result of tariffs and the present industrial policy. But there are still 100,000 unemployed. There is something wrong when 100,000 people cannot be absorbed into our ordinary industrial, commercial, and agricultural life. It is costing the State a good deal to keep these people, and to give them temporary relief in the way of three days work now and then. The loss to the country, by not having them at work, means further economic loss, because of the fact that they are being rendered useless, as far as full utility value goes, for production in future. Another problem concerns the thousands of young people, many of them approaching manhood and womanhood, who have never worked and who are passing on to the dole or to some kind of home assistance. The Taoiseach wrings his hands and sheds tears about the low marriage rate and birth rate. He does not agree with what the Labour representatives suggested—that the low marriage rate is an economic question. I believe it is an economic question.

The Taoiseach

How can the Deputy say that when well off people do not get married?

Mr. Belton

You find people who are well off who never get married. I am not talking of the exceptions or the freaks. I am talking about ordinary people. The Taoiseach like myself got married early in life. When I got married my ambition—and I suppose it was his—was to have enough to keep us. Tastes were moderate in those days.

Mr. Gorey

They have grown very big since then.

Mr. Belton

If they had developed many people would not get married as early as they did. I am sure the Taoiseach would not advocate marriages between young people who are on the dole. When young people cannot get married because of the economic situation the remedy is to bring about a situation on which they can afford to get married. The alternative is to let young people get married on the dole or be brought up on poor law relief. Would it not be better for the country not to have people existing under such conditions? No matter how the Government attempts to get out of it, the responsibility is theirs. The hard facts are staring them in the face. A case has been made here that if the currency must be inflated in order to create work, the effect would be to depreciate the savings of the people. I agree with that view. That is a fact. Remember that rentiers who had money on deposit found that their savings were greatly depreciated during the years of deflation. I have a fair amount of fixed property and if inflation started, it would devalue that property. I am prepared to have it devalued, because the inflation of the currency means, in effect, devaluation of fixed assets. What I would lose on the swing boats I would gain on the roundabouts. I do not think there is anything in the point about the currency being inflated. I must not be taken as advocating inflation or deflation, but I am a strong advocate in this respect, that if we want freedom, or consider that we should have a free choice, we ought not only have the right to freedom, but should exercise it. We have not financial freedom, but we have the power to be financially free. This is all I advocate, and I am in a miscellaneous collection, so to speak, who advocate it. It is a good thing to see Party barriers of all kinds broken down on this common platform.

In conclusion, may I say I reciprocate what my old friend, Deputy Dowdall, said here. I hope there will be a union of all forces in this House, and outside it, a union of the forces of goodwill, a union that will lead to the establishment of a national force that will help to bring the country out of its present terrible plight, that will rehabilitate its credit and help to relieve unemployment, and not only to have the will to be free, but to be actually free. We have the whole mechanism of freedom. Nobody is keeping us from enjoying the full fruits of freedom but ourselves, and we should not stand in the way any longer. I would be glad if an opportunity could be given for a full-dress debate on this Banking Commission report. I think the motion around which the whole discussion should gather should be a motion asking this House to give its authority for the taking over of the control of credit and banking in this country. By that I am not to be taken —although I have read pretty well everything that has been written on social credit—as an advocate of social credit. I advocate taking control of our currency and banking, just as England has control of it in England, just as France has control of it in France, America in America, and so on. Whatever is the best machinery for that control, when we have got it, let us adopt that machinery, but we will only know what is best when we have taken control and when we have tried to work it.

Mr. Hickey

I am not going to take up much time, because I think the Taoiseach has already got an indication from our side of the House as to what we mean in our motion. I expect it will take some time before the Government will be prepared to do anything in connection with the findings of the Banking Commission, but I think in the meantime the Taoiseach should try to get something done with regard to the question of giving credit for the building of houses. I listened with interest to what Deputy Belton said about the Dublin situation. The Cork situation is no better. The building of houses for the workers in Cork City has not cost the ratepayers in Cork a penny so far. For the number of houses built in Cork City during the past five years there is a sum of £19,000 to the good side of the rates instead of there being any burden on the rates in Cork.

We asked for a loan of £250,000 last November and we issued a 4 per cent. loan 15 months previously at £99. The loan was more than doubly subscribed on that occasion. Fifteen months later we asked for £250,000, and the bank that offered us £20,000 on the earlier occasion, and the insurance company that offered us £8,000 on the same occasion, did not subscribe. Strange to say, three of the directors of the bank were also directors in the insurance company. Out of the £8,000 offered by the insurance company we were able to give them only £2,600. After 15 months not as much as a solitary £ was offered by these two corporations for the building of houses, even though we offered 4 per cent. on the money. I am quite satisfied that that was due to the Majority Report of the Banking Commission. Such is the position that has been created, that we are not able to proceed with the building of houses because we cannot find the money, even though we are offering 4 per cent. for it. I submit that offering 4 per cent. for money to-day for the purpose of building houses is not asking money for nothing.

It is because of these facts that we have indicated to the Government that they should be in a position to control the credit and currency of the country. It would be better to have a position like that rather than have our people rotting in slums. Who can estimate properly the dreadful conditions in which people are living to-day? I am glad to be able to say that I very much appreciated the spirit in which the Taoiseach discussed the matter this morning. I feel that he is inclined to do the right thing. I hope that it will not be very long until he submits proposals here to take over the control of credit and currency in this country. I submit that there is not a Government anywhere in the world that is in a more favourable position to tackle this problem and relieve the evils from which we suffer. You have the backing of the masses of the people, you have the backing of the Church, and the support of anybody who is worth anything in the country. They are all with you, 100 per cent., in dealing with the social evils with which we are confronted.

The Taoiseach asked to-day what did we mean by saying that the Government should utilise the credit of the nation. To-day we have not alone the need for houses, but we have thousands of people on the verge of starvation. I took some trouble recently to find out the weekly income of 709 families living in 709 houses built by the Cork Corporation. I ascertained that 163 families were living on an income of 20/- a week; 110 were living on sums ranging from £1 to 30/-, and 83 were living on amounts ranging from £2 to £2 10s. In the 709 houses the average number in each family was six. We discovered in the course of that inquiry that there were over 2,500 persons living on 4/- a week per person. That was the amount they had for food and clothing and to give the warmth necessary for life.

These are matters I am very concerned about. This is a Christian country and I suggest to our leaders, and I do not mind on which side of the House they are, that that sort of thing should not be allowed to continue for 24 hours. I am not trying to make Party capital out of this. I am speaking as one who witnessed the grim realities of the situation. I could, if I wished, talk about things that would stir the heart of anybody. We are not worthy of being called semi-statesmen while that type of thing is allowed to continue. I trust that when we reassemble in October we will have some proposal from the Government to deal with such pressing problems as I have outlined.

Mr. Cogan

In view of what I consider the unreasonable amount of time monopolised by the Taoiseach, and as there are other Deputies anxious to express their views on this most important matter, I think the agreement which was entered into between the leaders of the big Parties should not be strictly adhered to. As it is unlikely that we shall have, for some time at least, the opportunity which Deputy Belton suggested of debating this question further, I think any Deputies who desire to speak on this matter should be permitted to do so, at least briefly. I do not think it is quite proper that there should be any attempt to restrict the debate on a question so important as this.

We know that in this country at the present time feeling is becoming very hostile to Parliamentary institutions. In a recent election in Dublin we saw it demonstrated that over 50 per cent. of the people abstained from voting. Why was that? It was because the people came to the conclusion that the Parliamentary institutions in this country are not being used to serve the best advantage of the people, but are being used simply for Party purposes. I cannot be accused of having any Party interest in this matter, as I am not attached to any political Party, and I think that, if the leaders and the members of both political Parties in this House realise the gravity of this problem, they will come together and seek a solution of the tremendous financial and economic difficulties which face this country and which members of the Government, in common with members of th Opposition Party, agree are absolutely desperate.

Mr. A. Byrne

I want to join with the protest that has just been made, Sir. Several times during the course of this debate I wanted to talk about the conditions in Dublin, and I think that we ought to be permitted to have a few words to say, in regard to Dublin, on this important question. The conditions outside are awful.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

A direction was made by the House this morning, and, as it was a direction made by the House, the Chair has no discretion in the matter.

Mr. A. Byrne

Yes, but the Minister for Finance took four hours of our precious time, and we did not get five minutes.

Mr. Dillon

I have no doubt that the House will give a further opportunity to Deputies to discuss this matter, and I think I observed the Taoiseach noding his head to Deputy Belton when Deputy Belton suggested that another opportunity should be given.

The Taoiseach

I think it is quite clear that we shall have to deal with this whole question of the recommendations, in one form or another, at a later stage.

Mr. Dillon

Quite, and therefore I hope that Deputies will not assume that any attempt is being made to prevent them from taking part in this discussion, but I am sure it will be agreed that debates must come to an end some time. However, I must say that I have sympathy with Deputy Byrne when he comments on the fact that the Minister for Finance addressed the House for three and a half hours, to be followed, I think, by the Taoiseach, for about four hours. I appreciate very much the Taoiseach's desire to cover the ground in the most comprehensive way, and if he had occupied his four hours in applying his mind acutely and closely to the economic problems confronting this country, I would have listened to him with respect—as, indeed, I always do—for two and a half hours, but when he began to talk about the practice of gavelkind in the State of Saskatchewan in Canada, I must confess that my interest began to flag. Then, much as I have enjoyed in the past the pleasure of a chat with the Taoiseach in his informal moments, when he began to brood on his childhood, and on his neighbours, the tailor and the blacksmith, at home although, as I say, I enjoyed it, since the Taoiseach is ever a gracious companion and a charming speaker—when he took up the limited time at our disposal in discussing these weighty matters, I am afraid that I thought that that charming reminiscence might have been postponed to another day. I cannot help thinking that, on reflection, the Taoiseach will come to feel that to-day he was rather in the mood of the Right Honourable Stanley Baldwin, under an umbrageous English oak, dwelling on the characteristics of the Irish nation and his reactions to livelihood here.

Although Deputy Hickey seemed to like listening to the Taoiseach, I frankly felt—and I listened as closely as I could—that the more I listened, the more befogged and bemused we were becoming. Now, I do not want anything from the Taoiseach but to inform me as to what they propose to do, but when the Taoiseach took up the position of the foolish crowd who looked at the Chinese Emperor and admired his clothes, it seemed to me that Deputy Dowdall played the role of the child who got up and said that the Emperor had no clothes at all and that it was time to cover his nakedness. There is no use in the Taoiseach telling us that this nation is arrayed in the golden vesture of national solvency when the fact is that it is nearly naked, and I think it is time for the Taoiseach to consult the seamstress in order to devise some raiment, however simple, to cover its nakedness.

I dwell on what the Taoiseach said because, in fact, his was the only contribution from the Government Benches that had any significance at all. The contributions of Deputy O'Loghlen and Deputy Dowdall, when stripped of the verbiage and passion and the claim to speak on behalf of the Encyclicals, simply amount to this: Let us turn the handle of the printing press and produce whatever money we require. Now, that experiment has been tried in every country in the world. Two thousand years B.C. that experiment was tried in China, and you have got a classical example of the terrible consequences of resorting to that expedient in the history of China at that period, and all through the history of the world, from the dawn of time until to-day, you will find muddleheaded and woolly-minded people breaking down under the stress of public life in difficult times and trying to find an easy way out by resorting to such methods and then sinking deeper into the bog and morass of insolvency than they were before and then clamouring to those whom they denounce as the bankers' friends to pull them out of the mess into which they have got us all. Let us, for Heaven's sake, while bearing no ill-will against those well-meaning and warm-hearted men, which, no doubt, they are, tell them that while they are free—because this is a free country— to talk their silly minds as much as they like in public, they are not going to drag us down to the misery and destitution that the course they advocate would bring them, just because they are wrong. We know they are wrong, and we are not going to have our people harrowed and afflicted just in order to satisfy Deputy O'Loghlen's mind that he has made some economic error in the calculations to which he has been addressing his mind for the past two or three years.

I have only a few moments left. The Opposition as conducted by this Party since this Parliament sat has been one, so far as I am aware, both within Party councils and in this House, designed to do one thing only and that is to serve the best interests of this country. Everybody knows that we are confronted by a grave financial crisis and I said with the full authority of the Party for which I speak, at the opening of this debate, that anything we can do to help the Government to protect the country from the consequences of that disaster we will be glad to do. That has been interpreted in certain circles as an invitation from us for a coalition. It is not. People who think of coalitions often indulge in wishful thinking. They imagine that if you take men whose political outlooks are completely different, and put them around a table a miracle occurs and they all start to agree. There can be no coalition between honest public men unless there is identity of purpose amongst them. This is a democratic country. We went to the country with our policy and the Taoiseach went with his and he won. He has the right and his colleagues have the right to form the Government of this country and to maintain it until they go to the country again and the people pass judgment upon them.

They sought the suffrage of the people and they got it. Very well. There is no Party in this House that desires to interfere with the constitutional right they have to form and maintain the Government of this country. But, while they may enjoy the privilege of forming the Government of this country, they are bound by solemn duty to accept responsibilities at the same time. They have no right to let this country drift along the path leading to her destruction, to drift along the path which brings honest and well-intentioned men into this House to advocate the turning of the handle of the printing press. Their duty is to safeguard the economy and the wealth of this country in such a way as to prevent developments of that kind, because, if those developments once get under way and are put in practice, neither that Government nor any Government this House can put up will be strong enough to stop them.

We have presented the views of the minority. We have made it clear that we are prepared to do all we can to help the Government to take the requisite steps to meet this situation and overcome it. It is not our job and it is not our right to dictate to the Government the policy that they are to pursue. Our duty is to point out to the Government where their policy goes wrong. Our duty and our privilege is to lay before the people our policy and that we shall continue to do. We put our policy before the people at the last election. It was rejected. The policy of the Government was accepted instead. Let the Government now meet the crisis that they have brought upon this country with some policy and, if they are not prepared to do it, let them go out and tell the country that we will present a policy to the country and ask the country's suffrage to give us authority to do what Fianna Fáil has not the courage to do.

This is the last word. There has grown up in this country recently a practice among certain guttersnipes to refer to those in public life in terms of contumely and insult, to fling mud and suggest that no man enters in public life in this country except for private profit or gain. If that thing continues a day will dawn in this country, as it has elsewhere, when those who are not prepared to submit to that beslobbering with dirt by those who have not the courage to undertake responsibility themselves, will get out of public life. There is no man sitting on these benches who could not make at his own profession far more than this State will ever offer him for his services. It would be very easy for most of the people on these benches to quit public life and leave it to those who would be prepared to take such rewards as it has to offer in exchange for the abuse and misrepresentation and slanders that are heaped upon them by certain irresponsible individuals at the present time. I would be sorry to see that happen in this country but, if it is not to happen, then those who sympathise with me should realise that, totally as we may disagree with one another in public affairs, we have a bounden duty at least to recognise the dignities of one another and jointly to resent encroachment upon the personal honour or integrity of those who are asked to do the nation's business. It is time that was said because I have seen democracies in this continent and in another in which that kind of scurrilous abuse which I was sorry to hear Deputy Cogan for Wicklow refer to in words of apparent approval to-day——

Mr. Cogan

I did not approve of it.

Mr. Dillon

I am glad the Deputy considers with me that scurrilous abuse of Parliamentary institutions and public men can destroy democracy in the country in which it is allowed to go unchecked. It ought to stop, because whatever Parliament the people have got is the Parliament they themselves chose. If it is not good enough for them let them get a better one. If it is good it will not be long before they get a worse one. I think this fairly represents our belief, and I am not ashamed of it. If the critics do not like it let them produce something better. We have got a big job before us. I do not expect the Prime Minister to get up in sack cloth and ashes and confess that he made a mistake and that he made a mess of it all. That would be more than human nature could expect, and I am not sure that even if he were swept with an unprecedented humility it would be a wise thing to do. I do not so much despair as Deputy Belton of the good this debate may have done. While it may not have been exhaustive, it made the Taoiseach talk for four hours to prove he was right, and when you hear a man talking for four hours to prove he is right it is a very good sign that there is some little something stirring in his mind. It made him pursue a course which resulted in certain individual Deputies of his Party being left in a sickly silence. That would suggest to me that something was stirring in the minds of others. If that be so, thank God for it.

Let me conclude on this note. Let him rest assured that if during the three months before us he will cogitate the motion we have discussed to-day and finds that he has difficult things to do in the service of this State, he need not be one bit afraid of this Opposition. They will help him. That does not mean that they abandon the principles for which they stand. He fairly described them as on our side, leaning slightly towards free trade, on his, leaning wildly to protection. I misrepresent him only just so much as tried to misrepresent us. We will maintain those positions. We will argue them before the people, and I think we will ultimately convince the people that we are right. But in the meantime there is urgent work to be done and I think it may be work which will require the co-operation of us all. If it is wanted, that Government or any other Government the Irish people will put in will get it from the members of this Party. I only hope and pray that that Government will have the moral courage to face their responsibility and save our people both here and scattered all over the world as they are from an unprecedented humiliation in the eyes of their enemies.

An Ceann Comhairle

To the motion on the Order Paper there is an amendment in the name of three Labour Deputies to delete certain words from the motion. I am putting the question: "That the words proposed to be deleted, stand".

The Dáil divided:—Tá, 94; Níl, 8.

Tá

Aiken Frank.
Allen, Denis.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George C.
Brasier, Brooke.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Brennan, Martin.
Brennan, Michael.
Breslin, Cormac.
Briscoe, Robert.
Broderick, William J.
Brodrick, Seán.
Browne, Patrick.
Buckley, Seán.
Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
Carty, Frank.
Childers, Erskine H.
Coburn, James.
Cooney, Eamonn.
Corry, Martin J.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John A.
Crowley, Fred Hugh.
Curran, Richard.
Daly, Patrick.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Dillon, James M.
Dockrell, Henry M.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Esmonde, John L.
Fagan, Charles.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Flinn, Hugo V.
Flynn, John.
Flynn, Stephen.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Fogarty, Patrick J.
Friel, John.
Giles, Patrick.
Gorey, Denis J.
Gorry, Patrick J.
Harris, Thomas.
Hogan, Daniel.
Benson, Ernest E.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Dan.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Hughes, James.
Keating, John.
Kelly, James P.
Kennedy, Michael J.
Killilea, Mark.
Kissane, Eamon.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick J.
Loughman, Francis.
McCann, John.
McDevitt, Henry A.
MacEoin, Seán.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGovern, Patrick.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Maguire, Ben.
Meaney, Cornelius.
Moylan, Seán.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Munnelly, John.
Nally, Martin.
O Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Higgins, Thomas F.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
O'Sullivan, John.
O'Sullivan, Ted.
Redmond, Bridget M.
Reynolds, Mary.
Rogers, Patrick J.
Ruttledge, Patrick J.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Jeremiah.
Ryan, Martin.
Sheridan, Michael.
Smith, Patrick.
Traynor, Oscar.
Victory, James.
Walsh, Laurence J.
Walsh, Richard.
Ward, Conn.

Níl

Corish, Richard.
Hickey, James.
Hurley, Jeremiah.
Keyes, Michael.
Murphy, Timothy J.
Norton, William.
O'Loghlen, Peter J.
Pattison, James P.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett; Níl, Deputies Corish and Hickey.

Question declared carried.

Motion put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 38; Níl, 67.

Tá

Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George C.
Benson, Ernest E.
Brasier, Brooke.
Brennan, Michael.
Broderick, William J.
Brodrick, Seán.
Browne, Patrick.
Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
Coburn, James.
Cogan, Patrick.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John A.
Curran, Richard.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Nally, Martin.
O'Higgins, Thomas F.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
Daly, Patrick.
Dillon, James M.
Dockrell, Henry M.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Esmonde, John L.
Fagan, Charles.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Giles, Patrick.
Gorey, Denis J.
Hughes, James.
Keating, John.
MacEoin, Seán.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGovern, Patrick.
O'Sullivan, John.
Redmond, Bridget M.
Reynolds, Mary.
Rogers, Patrick J.
Ryan, Jeremiah.

Níl

Aiken, Frank.
Allen, Denis.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Dan.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Brennan, Martin.
Breslin, Cormac.
Briscoe, Robert.
Buckley, Seán.
Carty, Frank.
Childers, Erskine H.
Cooney, Eamonn.
Corish, Richard.
Corry, Martin J.
Crowley, Fred Hugh.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Flinn, Hugo V.
Flynn, John.
Flynn, Stephen.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Fogarty, Patrick J.
Friel, John.
Gorry, Patrick J.
Harris, Thomas.
Hickey, James.
Hogan, Daniel.
Hurley, Jeremiah.
Kelly, James P.
Kennedy, Michael J.
Keyes, Michael.
Killilea, Mark.
Kissane, Eamon.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick J.
Loughman, Francis.
McCann, John.
McDevitt, Henry A.
Maguire, Ben.
Meaney, Cornelius.
Moore, Sáamus.
Moylan, Seán.
Munnelly, John.
Murphy, Timothy J.
Norton, William.
O Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Loghlen, Peter J.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
O'Sullivan, Ted.
Pattison, James P.
Ruttledge, Patrick J.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Martin.
Ryan, Robert.
Sheridan, Michael.
Smith, Patrick.
Traynor, Oscar.
Victory, James.
Walsh, Laurence J.
Walsh, Richard.
Ward, Cenn.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett; Níl, Deputies Little and Smith.

Motion declared lost.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.25 p.m. until Wednesday, 18th October, 1939, at 3 p.m.

Dáil Éireann debate - Friday, 7 Jul 1939

Banking Commission Report and State Finances—Motion.

Mr. Brennan

Mr. Byrne

Mr. Byrne

Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 7 Jul 1939