Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 22 Nov 1939

Vol. 78 No. 1

Finance (No. 2) Bill, 1939—Second Stage.

Minister for Finance (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

In moving the Second Reading of this Bill I propose to recapitulate briefly the reasons for imposing the taxation covered by the Bill and also to reply to some of the points and questions put by Deputies during the debate on the Financial Resolutions, so far as I have not already done so during that debate. Following an exhaustive review of the Exchequer position since the outbreak of war, it was concluded that revenue will, owing to the effects of the war, shrink under several heads, principally those relating to customs, so that it is expected that the total yield will be approximately £1,620,000 less than was estimated after the introduction of the original Budget for the current financial year on the 10th May. To make up this deficit, three courses were open to us: first to impose additional taxation, second to effect economies in expenditure, and third to adopt a combination of the first and second courses. The Government chose to follow the third course. With more than half the current financial year already gone and with commitments entered into for incurring expenditure under various services, it would be almost impossible to effect economies at this stage to the amount of £1,620,000.

The adoption of the recommendations of the Economy Committee will, it is estimated, produce economies amounting to £400,000 over the remainder of the current year and amounting to a proportionately greater sum in a full year. Most of the Deputies who have opposed the imposition of the additional taxation involved have recommended that we should effect economies instead, but quite a number of the same Deputies have objected to a reduction of expenditure under the services which we propose to cut, namely, the Land Commission, Unemployment Assistance —the saving on which, I might, mention, will be comparatively small— Employment Schemes and Local Loans Grants. If we do not economise on these services, where may I ask can we turn? Deputies who press for economies must remember that the Votes which have shown substantial increases in recent years are, subject to one big exception, principally those which I have just mentioned, as well as the Votes relating to social services. To effect substantial economies we would of necessity be compelled to cut down expenditure on social services. But no Deputy of all those who advocated economies will support a proposal to reduce the provision for social services. Deputy Norton, has, during the Budget debate, advocated an increase in social services. I might mention, for the benefit of those Deputies who object to the acceptance of the recommendations of the Economy Committee, that the committee considered that any labour displaced in rural areas through the acceptance of the recommendations would, in great measure, be absorbed by reason of the coming tillage drive. Special consideration will be given to urban areas so as to minimise any ill-effects resulting from economies in the services named.

Deputy Cosgrave singled out for special attention the Departments of Industry and Commerce and Education and advocated that retrenchments could be effected in both these Departments, especially as regards staffs. It gives me great pleasure to inform the House that the Government had already anticipated the Deputy in this matter. It was decided that so far as possible any emergency Departments set up would be staffed from existing Departments so as to obviate the recruitment of additional officials. In pursuing this, the staffs of the new Department of Supplies and the Censorship Office have been drawn accordingly from other Departments and among those that have made the biggest contributions are the Departments of Industry and Commerce and Education, which between them have released about 140 officials. These substantial retrenchments took effect before the Economy Committee was itself established.

I have just mentioned that there is one big exception where a Vote other than the Votes for social services has shown a substantial increase in recent times. That is the Army Vote. The adoption of a policy of neutrality does not, unfortunately, remove the necessity for maintaining an Army commensurate with our size and situation. Placed as we are in the position of controlling the western approaches of one of the belligerents in the present war and with a naval warfare in progress round about us, the possession of any of our ports would afford substantial advantages to a belligerent. Apart from the question of a direct attack on this State, there would be a strong temptation for the belligerents to indulge in occasional breaches of our neutrality to suit their convenience. To meet all these contingencies, the Government has been compelled to increase the personnel of the Army, to purchase additional fighting equipment and materials, to establish a coast watching service and a censorship for overseas correspondence, and to incur expenditure on A.R.P. The Government has entered into these various additional commitments only after mature consideration and with a grave sense of responsibility. I might add that the cost of A.R.P. is at present forming the subject of a close scrutiny by the Government in the light of the additional information available on this matter since the outbreak of war and in the light of the new decision about black-out arrangements. In regard to expenditure on the Army and equipment, a constant scrutiny is being maintained with a view to securing all possible economies, and at the present time an inquiry is in progress as to whether it would be possible to reduce the emergency establishment of the Army personnel.

The Government is therefore keenly alive to the need for, and has thoroughly explored the possibility of, economies in every direction, effecting all those which were practicable to adopt before turning to the question of imposing additional taxation. In approaching this latter question the Government had to bear in mind a number of important considerations: the distributing of the burden of additional taxation as fairly and evenly as possible over the different sections of the community, always having regard to their relative capacity to pay; the need for selecting taxes which can be relied upon to produce definite yields and which can be collected at a minimum cost. The first tax considered was income-tax, which is theoretically the fairest of taxes, being a progressive tax levied on incomes over a certain minimum limit and providing for various personal and other allowances. It was found, however, that to increase income-tax by a further amount on top of the extra 1/- imposed by the original Budget for this year would at this stage involve considerable confusion and hardship. Income-tax accordingly remains undisturbed for the remainder of the current year, but will be increased by an extra 1/- in the £ for the year beginning on the 6th April, 1940. Section 1 of the Bill accordingly makes provision for charging the increased rate for next year.

The next tax to be considered by the Government was Estate duty, and it was decided to increase the rate chargeable on estates of a value exceeding £10,000 in the case of persons dying after the 8th November, 1939—the date of the introduction of the Supplementary Budget. Section 8 of the Bill provides accordingly. Attention was then turned to taxes on commodities and to the possibility of increasing existing taxes rather than imposing new ones. The advantages of this course are that comparatively firm estimates can be made of the yield therefrom with the assurance that the amount will be realised and that no additional expense is involved in collecting the taxes. First in order of consideration were taxes on luxuries and semi-luxuries, and under these heads came beer, spirits and tobacco. It was decided to increase the duties on these to the extent provided in Sections 4 to 7 of the Bill. Owing, however, to the luxury and semi-luxury nature of these commodities, there is always a danger that consumption will contract if the duties on them become too heavy. The question of taxing a more essential commodity then arose, and sugar was selected. As the pros and cons of this have already been argued at length, I do not propose at this moment to develop them any further. The total additional yield to be derived from the various taxes mentioned is estimated to amount to £603,000 over the remainder of the current financial year.

There is another matter which is not strictly related to the Bill but which was commented upon by a number of Deputies during the debate on the Financial Resolutions, and that is the question of the new loan which is to be floated. Some Deputies, in referring to the interest rate, passed strictures on the banks, and I think it was Deputy Norton who spoke about our paying a high ransom on the demand of the banks. This and other references of a similar tone are to be deplored. The Government has always found the Irish banks willing to co-operate in meeting its financial requirements, but it is only natural that as they are commercial institutions they should seek remuneration for their services on a commercial basis, and this cannot be denied them. At the same time, it is to be recognised that they have a special duty in helping to protect and promote the national credit. It is often claimed that they enjoy exceptional privileges, but this is not so. One of the privileges they have is that they are amongst the heaviest taxpayers in the country. They have a right of note issue, but only up to a maximum of £6,000,000, on which they have to pay a tax of 2½ per cent. per annum, and this leaves them with little or no profit. The aggregate profits of our banks have been falling for a number of years and this in itself is sufficient refutation of the vague charges made against them by some Deputies during the course of the debate on the Budget.

Mr. Dillon

Evidently, the poacher has turned game-keeper.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I got as much as I could out of the Government, and often through the banks, for housing, and I never attacked them.

Mr. Dillon

Oh!

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I never attacked them.

Mr. Dillon

I hope the Minister will have a clear conscience when he reflects on that statement.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I think I have. At any rate, I never attacked them. There are one or two other matters to which I should like to refer. In the course of the discussion here on the Budget there was a good deal of talk about a statement I made in the course of my introductory speech on the Budget, about the expected increases in prices of commodities bringing about a rise in salaries, wages, and profits. I said that the Government would view a big increase in these matters very seriously and that it would have to set its face against any continuance of what might be described, and what has been described in some cases, as a vicious circle or spiral increase arising out of increased cost of living and, following that, increases in salaries and wages, thus giving rise to still further increases in cost of living and further increases in salaries, wages and so on. I think that the members of the Labour Benches, or some of them at any rate, treated my remarks as if I had made an attack on labour in general and labour organisations in particular. I certainly did not do so. Although I think I need not quote what I said, perhaps it would be better to quote the words I actually used, although they are known to everybody. I said:

"The Government feels that it has a duty to do everything in its power to avert such a development, and is determined to set its face against the efforts of any class to obtain compensation for the rise in prices at the expense of the community. Action to the same end is in contemplation with regard to all classes of public servants, and if the war continues for a long time, the Government may be forced to adopt more drastic measures."

And so on. There is certainly nothing there, so far as my interpretation of my own words goes—I may have expressed it badly—that could be read as being an attack on organised labour. I think Deputy Keyes was one of those who suggested that it was a definite attack on organised labour. That was not so, so far as I was concerned. I said, speaking in the debate on Friday last, that I had always been a friend of organised labour. That is true. I always have been, and I have been regarded as such, and I hope I will continue to be so. I stand, and I have always stood, for the recognition of such trade union organisations and professional organisations, and I would like to see such organisations in both cases, but I would stand, as far as I could—and I know that it is also the Government's view—against the enormous increases and the vicious circle of increases in the cost of living, thereby giving rise naturally to the demands for increases in salaries, wages, costs and profits that occurred during the last war, and the disastrous results that followed later on. We are determined to make an effort, at any rate, to stop that. It is probably expecting too much to think that we will be able to succeed in that effort, but at any rate we are going to try to keep prices down as much as we can so as to keep the cost of living down and, therefore, to keep down the demands that naturally arise when the cost of living soars as it did during the last war.

What I said in my statement referred definitely to all classes of the community. Probably, the Labour representatives here, for reasons of their own, took it as a challenge to organised workers. It was not, any more than it was a challenge to any other class of the community. I certainly, as I have already said, believe in trade unionism. I have been an advocate of it and a supporter of it, and I have helped to get it recognised in places where I had any influence or power, and I hope to continue doing so. The Government, as I have said, is determined to try, so far as it is reasonable to do so, to keep down prices and, thereby, prevent the cost of living going up and obviate the demands that, naturally, arise, when the cost of living increases, for increases in salaries, wages and profits.

There is one other matter to which I would like to refer—that is, the speech made by Deputy Mulcahy on Friday. I, certainly, appreciated the tone of that speech very much. It stood out on its own so far as the speeches of the Opposition in general were concerned. The Minister for Supplies said, in the course of his speech on the Budget, that the speeches he had listened to from the Opposition were merely Party propaganda. I think that that was true of many of the speeches made on the Budget from the Opposition Benches.

General Mulcahy

What about the speeches made from the Government side?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Deputy Mulcahy's speech was far from being Party propaganda. It impressed me as a reasonable speech. It was a critical speech. I do not object to that. I thought his criticisms were reasonable. In the course of his speech, he held out the hand and asked that it should be accepted on this side. He said that his Party would give co-operation and would be glad to help the Government through the emergency. The spirit of that speech was the same spirit that got us through the first discussion we had here when powers of a very wide kind were granted to the Government by way of emergency legislation. During those first days, the spirit that permeated Deputy Mulcahy's speech on Friday was very much in evidence. I do not say that every member of the Opposition who spoke during the course of the debate was engaging in Party propaganda but, generally, the tone of the discussion on the Budget was far removed from the tone of the speech made by Deputy Mulcahy, and it was far removed from the tone of the discussion during the first few days of the emergency. So far as I am concerned—I think I can speak for the Government as a whole—I want the co-operation that Deputy Mulcahy spoke of and would be very glad to receive it.

General Mulcahy

The Minister misses the significance and the intention of my speech, if he does not realise that it is lack of co-operation on the part of the Government and refusal to disclose such information as will enable the House to understand the situation and come to a conclusion, that constitute the difficulty.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not think that anything in reason was asked for that the Government was not prepared to give. I disclosed, as far as I could, the financial position, when introducing the Supplementary Budget. I do not think that any Deputy has asked for any figure which is available which I have not given. So far as such figures relate to the finances of the State, they are properly asked for and will be given, so far as I am concerned. Any figures which it is proper to disclose will, certainly, be given, so far as I am concerned and so far as the Government as a whole is concerned, having regard, of course, to the public interest. So long as we bear the public interest in mind, any figures available with regard to the work of the State, financially or otherwise, will be at the disposal of any Deputy who asks for them.

Professor O'Sullivan

I hope that no remarks of mine will throw the apple of discord into this newly-cemented alliance of the Minister for Finance and the Labour Party and I hope, likewise, that they will not affect the offer of co-operation. It is two months since that offer of co-operation was made. Reference has been made to speeches on the Budget. But the Opposition has been given no information on any important subject except what has been stated in this House. Is that co-operation? Reference was made last day by the Minister's predecessor as to information in the hands of the Government which would justify certain defence measures taken by them. Was there any hint to this House or to any responsible Party as to what that information was? Does the Government think that that was co-operation? We are quite willing to meet the Government in a spirit of co-operation if they will give us information, if they will make an attempt with any plausibility to justify the main items of expenditure that we singled out, and have singled out for the past 12 months, as requiring revision and calling for explanation. In the absence of explanation, these items are giving rise to criticism outside. The speech made by the Minister for Finance to-day is, I am glad to say, different in tone—perhaps he is not aware of it—from the speech he made the last day in introducing his Budget and from that long chaos which might be called a speech, on Friday afternoon, when he "took the floor" in battle array. He had an opportunity, then, to answer the criticism which had been advanced. If the effort is not too great, I suggest he should read over his remarks on that occasion and see whether he gave any information in reply to the points made. Was information given in public, or even in private, on any important matter? I want to make quite clear that we, of the Opposition, have no information that is not available to the House and to the Press.

Since I last had the honour of addressing the House, we have had speeches from three Minister—two from the Minister himself, one from his predecessor and one from the Minister for Supplies. In any of these speeches or in any speech made during the past 12 months—I put this in all seriousness to the Government because the country is concerned about the matter as well as I am—has any reasonable attempt been made to show that the calling up of additional men to the Army has served any of the purposes mentioned by the Minister—preservation of our neutrality or our independence? I will come to that subsequently, as it is a very important matter when dealing with taxation of the kind now before us. Powers, great powers, were granted to the Government in the hope and with the confidence that the House would be met by the Government in the same spirit that the House met the Government. I appreciate the tone of the Minister's speech to-day, but would ask him to look back over those two months and say whether the House—either Opposition Party in the House—or the country was fairly treated by the Government during those two months. I will avoid referring to the tone of some of the speeches made here by the Minister's colleagues, and even by himself, as I feel that no useful purpose would be served by animadverting on it. Possibly that is the most serious criticism I could make of that tone. Does the Minister think that the tone adopted by his colleagues, and the attitude adopted by his colleagues, is helping on the cause of national harmony, of which he spoke so touchingly to-day? Was there not therein displayed a complete absence of co-operation? Was there not irritation when the Minister was asked to give information? Look at it in any way you like, was there not a refusal to give information—even reasonable information—to the House, information the giving of which could in no way endanger either the liberty of this country or the policy of neutrality for which the whole House stands? The Ministers cannot get away from giving reasonable information by the mere reiteration of a statement that that will affect the policy of neutrality, unless some attempt be made to show that that is the case.

The Minister in his statement to-day said that there were three courses open to the Government: new taxation, economies, and a combination of those two. He said he would take the third, that he would reduce expenditure. When reference was made to the heads under which it was proposed to effect economies, we had before us then the only information that the Government deigned to give us. That was in the speech of the Minister himself, and those were the only economies referred to in the speech, and—am I not correct?—when information was asked for as to what were the savings under each of those heads, you will recollect that he refused to give them.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I told the Deputy I could not give them.

Professor O'Sullivan

I asked the Minister whether he could not or would not, and he said his answer was clear, that he would not.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Oh, no.

Professor O'Sullivan

I do not want to misrepresent the Minister and I withdraw.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I could not give the information asked for on that day. The Government received two reports from the Economy Commission: one had been discussed by the Government before I spoke, the second one had only just reached the hands of the Government. There are recommendations made in both of those reports, some of which I felt would be adopted, some would not. I was not in a position to say definitely to the Deputy or to the House what the amounts would be.

Professor O'Sullivan

I asked the question then and I put it to the Minister now. He expects to save £400,000 under five heads. That may be a pure guess, but it does not excuse him from stating the amount under each head.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That was a guess of my own, and, while I felt it was a fairly good one, something might crop up, so I could not in the name of the Government give a pledge as to definite amounts, since the Government had not discussed the second report of the Economy Commission.

Professor O'Sullivan

I do not know where he gets the £400,000, then. Whether it was a guess or not, it was estimated by the Minister and he must have got that figure by estimating what would be saved under each head. I did not ask him to commit himself further.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Perhaps I would be misleading the House and the Deputy if I gave that information. We might not have been able to effect the economies under the separate heads and I would have been giving figures which I might have had to go back on later.

Professor O'Sullivan

I leave that little problem in mathematics to the Minister and the Taoiseach. He had no objection to telling the House that there would be a saving of £400,000 even though he did not know how it was going to be made up.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I would not give a guarantee to the House which I could not stand over.

Professor O'Sullivan

We have pressed for economies from this side of the House, not for the first time, and so it is no answer—taking the matter as seriously as we can—for the Minister for Finance to say, as he glibly said: "We have heard that plea for them before from the Leader of the Opposition." That is portion of the strength of our case: that, in less troubled times, taxation was piled on, Government expenditure was undertaken, Department after Department was swollen, and there were large increases in the Administration expenses. Deputy Cosgrave did not make the suggestion only recently; he made it—as the Minister quite readily points out—as far back as last June, and even still further back he made the general statement. Yet, the last day, in his reply the Minister had no answer to these things. To-day he indicates that in at least two Departments savings will be effected—by transfer! That is, at least, a beginning; and we accept it as a beginning. I put it to the Minister that he might have given that slight earnest of the policy of the Government on the last occasion. He might have given it on Friday. He chose to talk on an entirely different line. Can he blame the Opposition— or anybody in the country—for assuming that the Government had deliberately banged the door so far as economies in the Administration were concerned. There was information at his disposal, for he tells us now that the policy was already in being, already in execution, and yet he failed to give the information to the House.

We put this question—and we have been putting it for the last 12 months —in the vain hope of getting a reply from the Government showing us reasons why the recent particular form of increased expenditure on defence was necessary. This was not a policy that was decided on last September. This is a policy that was decided almost 12 months previous to last September. Surely there was plenty of time for the Government to think out a case to justify that expenditure and to put it before the House. There was no war then, there were no secrets that had to be kept quiet. What did the Government expect? What in the way of attack did they expect 12 months ago when they determined to go in for this policy of increased man-power in the Army? What do they expect even now? I would ask the Minister at his leisure to read over his own statement the last day and that which he has made to-day. He speaks, for instance, of violation of our neutrality by one of the belligerent Powers. Take that down to the concrete. For illustration take one side: suppose Germany violates our neutrality by anchoring some of her submarines in one of our inlets. What other way does the Minister expect her to violate it? Is it by flying over our territory? What other case is there? How does the increase of the man-power of the Army help to prevent either of these events? What are the events envisaged by the Minister that justify such an increase? Surely there is no secret—or can be no secret —about them; surely the revelation of those dangers—hypothetical dangers— is not fatal to the interests of the State? What violation of our neutrality has he in mind that an increase in the personnel of the Army will enable him to cope with? We have asked for that information, and the country has asked us for it. I have been accused again and again by friends of mine outside that we have never asked the Government what is the necessity for this increased expenditure. I can only point out that we have done it time and again, but failed to get any response from the Government. That is our difficulty. Neither in public, nor in private, have we been told why this increased expenditure is necessary.

The Minister's colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, spoke here on the Budget debate. I am sorry he took the line he did in regard to some matters, especially in view of the exact occasion on which the speech was made, but I will deal merely with the actual bald facts of the situation. He gave two reasons for the increased expenditure. One was the policy of neutrality and the defence of that policy. If the expenditure was necessary, or if an attempt was made to show that it was necessary, to preserve our neutrality, the Minister's colleague would have a case, but I put it to the Government that not once have they made that case in any way that could convince any reasonable man. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that an attack on the Budget was an attack on the policy of neutrality. I presume that is not a Party statement! It is a purely objective and calm statement coming from the Minister's colleague! Are we to be told that? What we have asked the Government to do is to show us how it is so, and how indulging in expense —I use the word "indulging" more or less deliberately—involving increase in the man-power of the Army safeguards our neutrality. How does the black-out, for instance, and the expense involved in it, safeguard our neutrality? Has there been any answer to these questions?

The Minister's colleague referred to another matter. The second excuse was that as a result of this expense incurred by the Government in increasing the Army and the Guards, Deputies could go home and sleep safely in their beds, that there was internal trouble to be faced. That was one of the justifications for the increased expenditure put forward by the Minister's colleague. I am not going into the other aspects of how he dealt with that matter, but does the increase in the Army enable us to cope better than the old, smaller Army would have done with internal disturbance? Does the increase in the Guards enable us to cope better with internal disturbance, and what precisely is the extent of the danger in that respect? I can see in that case a certain ground for reticence on the part of the Government which I cannot see in the other case, but at least responsible people should be given an intimation that there was a real danger. I am not aware that we have got any such intimation from any quarter, and certainly the country has not got it. I wish the Government would appreciate our difficulty. Immense power has been given into the hands of the Government, but so far as we have been able to get information, could anybody pretend to be satisfied with the way these powers have been used, leaving aside altogether this question of defence on which, I hope, at least some clear and definite statement will be made sometime, so that we can say to the people: "Well, the Government put up a case, at all events, for it", and that we shall not continually have to meet the charge of not asking what is the necessity for this increased expenditure in military affairs and in the Guards.

We have, with a considerable amount of difficulty, I think the Minister will admit, tried in public here for several weeks past to get information from the Minister for Supplies. It has been extremely difficult to get it. What is his defence? I will take him at his word and not treat his statements too seriously. I am not going to quote passages out of his statements. I will admit that I can follow his own advice and not take his statements too seriously and leave it at that. But does it create confidence to be told, as we are now practically told, that the Minister, who, 12 months ago, seeing this situation coming on, set up in his own Department a special branch to deal with supplies, finds us in the exact situation in which we should have been if there had been no crisis whatever. The Minister pointed out that the question of sugar has been dealt with. Let me point out that all that was done, according to the Minister, as a result of 12 months' labour was to give us sufficient supplies to the 1st November. Is that not what would have happened had there been no crisis? That was the result of 12 months' cogitation on the part of the Minister and his special branch.

The other matter on which we did get a little information was maize, and we had the same story there. What were the difficulties, and why were we not told them, which prevented a proper suply of these commodities from coming into the country? The country is asked to face heavy taxes at a time when food for man and beast has risen to extraordinary heights, and is made to go higher by reason of taxation. It was only last week that the Minister for Supplies dealt with the question of maize. I ask the Minister for Finance to read his short statement and to make out whether the Minister for Supplies was speaking from information he had, or whether he was imagining things, because he gave two different explanations of the situation in the North of Ireland. One was that there was no maize meal there, and the other, that there was, but that there was a subsidy to back it up. When he said that there was no maize meal for sale in the North of Ireland, did he base that statement on information or not?

It is exceedingly difficult, the Minister will admit, to take seriously statements of that kind. We have seen the Government, despite our protests, not now raised for the first time, indulging in an expenditure for which we honestly could see no case whatever, but when we turn to real problems which they had to face, we find the Minister for Supplies falling down completely on his task. What are we to do? No information is vouchsafed to the country, or to either of the two opposition Parties, and yet our co-operation is asked for in the cooing accents which the Minister has adopted to-day. Will the Minister not realise the extraordinary obstacles which his colleagues have put in the way of this co-operation? We have a serious situation. Is it being seriously dealt with by the Government? With all the goodwill in the world, can a person elected to a responsible position in this House shut his eyes to the way the Government have been carrying on?

The Minister referred to certain expenses that were necessary in connection with the black-out policy. There was, as the Minister knows, a Bill going through the House some time ago and we tried to get information from the then Minister for Defence. We failed and I myself had to call the attention of the Chair to the fact that the Minister refused to give us information of any kind. The Ceann Comhairle pointed out quite naturally that he could not compel him to do so. I take it that the policy of the black-out is typical of a lot of what is going on. The Minister may have been here at the meeting of the Dáil, towards the end of September, I think, when certain questions on that policy were addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary. Did he gather from the replies given by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary that there was any policy whatsoever? Is not that precisely our difficulty? We are told there is a serious situation and I should be delighted to think that it was being seriously or competently dealt with. The attitude taken up towards the House, I would say, has been grossly unfair and I put it to the Minister that that is not a wise policy in the long run. The attitude, speeches and actions of the Government are precisely such as would make it incumbent on any Opposition to question much more closely than we have done, the whole policy of the Government. We learned to-day that economies are to be attempted in the Services. I am glad to hear that a beginning, at least, has been made and if we have at last impressed the need for that on the Ministry something has been done for the good both of the Ministry and of the country. But we have no idea of the extent of it, no hint even of the extent of it.

You have that peculiar attitude on the two subjects I mentioned. You chose, or the House chose, to put a tax on sugar at a time when I suggest with all respect, largely owing to the remissness of the Minister in charge, there was an inadequate supply of sugar in the country. Owing to that fact, the price of sugar had gone up, and that was not the time, therefore, to choose that article for taxation. The Minister responsible for supplies started off his justification for that in the debate on the Budget Resolution by pointing to the price of sugar in Northern Ireland, his idea apparently being that we must keep the price as high as in Northern Ireland and that, therefore, we must tax it. But when the price of another important commodity in Northern Ireland, namely maize, is drawn to his attention, does he propose to reduce the price of maize here to the same level as in Northern Ireland?

No, he simply says that there is no maize in Northern Ireland. He gives two explanations, one of which means that there is maize in Northern Ireland and the other of which means that there is not. To show our spirit of co-operation, we are expected to swallow nonsense of that kind. It is difficult, much as we would like to co-operate, and keen as we are to avoid anything that is controversial. I suggest that the Government could give us some assistance in that particular matter. I regret to say that up to the present, during my presence in the House, I have noticed very little of it. This obstinate refusal to answer reasonable questions is not helpful. It does not promote the spirit of co-operation which the Minister now recommends to us once more. For 12 months, for more than 12 months according to themselves, the Government have had the likelihood of this crisis before them. All I can say is that their stewardship for that 12 months was particularly bad if this is the situation we are asked to meet to-day.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce says that this is a neutrality Budget, but what particular items of the expenditure contribute to the maintenance of that neutrality? It is a costly neutrality. This is more like a small war Budget, but where you are to get your small war, I am not quite clear. If we were to have a small war, the increased Army expenditure might be justified, but the Minister, in his opening statement, said that you are going to get nothing of the kind. The Minister for Finance quite rightly pointed out in his opening statement that we were not in a position to withstand an attack by a first-class Power. But his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, justified the increased expenditure on the assumption that we were. He did not take into account what the Minister for Finance hinted—that the preservation of our neutrality and our freedom from attack were not altogether dependent on our own resources. He assumed that it was. The Minister, speaking on that piebald Friday debate we had here, and to the colours of which he so contributed, said that we have argued this question in and out, but he made no effort to answer the important questions raised by the Opposition, nor to give any justification for the expenditure. He has not done so to-day. He contents himself with reiterating the statement that in order to preserve our independence and neutrality, an increased Army is necessary, but he has not attempted to show that that is so. The Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, when he was Minister for Defence, did not attempt to show it.

I am not aware that even a partially convincing statement, even one-tenth partially convincing, has come from the Government Benches. I think the country would appreciate it if it did, made calmly without any spirit of Party gain or disadvantage to which the Minister referred this evening. The country wants a statement of that kind. We have asked the Government, again and again, to make that statement and to show why these expenses were necessary. They have not done so. The Minister's colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, spoke of information at the disposal of the Government that compelled them to this policy, but no hint of it was given. At times we were left to deduce that this policy, which has been 12 months in existence, was not based on any information in their possession. At other times, it is quite obvious from the same Minister's speech, the Government did not know what was going to happen, but they thought that they might as well mobilise the Army. I put it to the Minister that that is the only conclusion to be drawn from his colleague's speech, and that there is no information which the Government had in their possession that would justify this increased expenditure, that they acted in the dark. After a certain amount of time they found they were in the dark, and they tried to mend their hand, but not sufficiently.

I put it to the House, and to the Minister, to study his colleagues' speeches. They are most illuminating. I think they will explain why there is dissatisfaction on the part of the Opposition with the line that the Government have thought fit to pursue from the time that they got the trust of this House in these emergency powers. There was to be give and take. Co-operation did not mean, as I am afraid the Ministers were inclined to interpret it, that the Opposition and responsible people on all benches in this House were to sit quiet and be satisfied, not even to ask questions or even insist on an answer to them, but that they were just simply to sit quiet and say "hear, hear" to every policy, no matter how foolish it seemed to them, that was sponsored and put forward by the Government.

I put it to the Minister, and especially to some of his colleagues, that propaganda is very useful for certain purposes. Now, to make a wide general statement, you cannot win a war altogether by propaganda, as some people on the Continent of Europe think, and you cannot settle the economic situation of this country by propaganda. Something more solid is required than that, and if the Minister can see anything in the speeches of his two colleagues, made in the course of these Budget debates, except propaganda, he has great insight, certainly more than he shows in the finances of the country. But, he is new to that, and, therefore, we hope that his insight will grow.

The Minister referred to the paragraph—I wonder whether he would now regard it as unfortunate: he would not, of course, but other people may think it was unfortunate—in his Budget statement which he explained here to-day. He amplified it—I want to be quite fair to him —in the speech he made on the following Friday, when he tilted against the high standard of living in this country, and apparently envisaged it as the proper policy of the Government that that standard should be lowered. I cannot interpret his Friday speech in any other sense than that. That brings me back to the days before the Government assumed power when a similar policy went by a rather different name. I think it was called the "hair-shirt policy". Whatever the name, it smells the same. A call for the lowering of the standard of living may be inevitable. It may be a task that has to be faced, but the heavy taxation put on by the Government at all periods from 1932 to now, is in no small degree responsible for such an eventuality. Whether you call it a lowering of the standard of living, or adopting the "hair-shirt" policy, that is the eventuality that has to be faced by the nation now.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister for Finance inevitably gave a certain direction to this debate by his reference to the desire of the Government for co-operation, and the welcome they felt for Deputy Mulcahy's speech, which I listened to, and in which I found no very striking difference from any other speech that Deputy Mulcahy has ever made in this House. Some people suffer from deafness and are liable to mistake the notes of the orchestra for cacophony until they buy a hearing aid, and when they put on the hearing aid they then, and only then, discover the particular symphony that the orchestra is playing. I suggest to the Minister for Finance that, as his feet have grown cold, by contemplating the crisis which confronts him, his hearing has grown acute, and he is at last beginning to discover that from this side of the House there is a genuine readiness to help the Government in difficulties which we think would challenge the ability of any Government, and which we are quite certain are overwhelming to the present occupants of high office in this country.

I do not think it is any breach of confidence to say that at the earliest stage we did meet the Government. The Minister for Finance himself has referred to that incident. Deputy Mulcahy and I, at the request of the Taoiseach, met the Minister and the Taoiseach for an exchange of views in the first week of the crisis. We used certain language then, very clearly indicating our desire to give the Government any help that lay in our power for the common good, and we meant it. We mean it now, but I think the Minister for Finance interprets that to mean that he has now a free licence to come in here and recommend many of the old heresies of the Fianna Fáil policy, and that in the new situation we must disclaim all that we have already said and pronounce ourselves converts to what we know to be wrong. That is not co-operation. That would be to destroy parliamentary institutions in this country, and would be abdicating the solemn duty that we have to discharge which, after all, is as solemn and as grave as that which devolves on the Government itself. If that is what the Government want they will not get it so long as we are on these benches, and if that is what the people of the country want they must put us out and put other men here to take our places. But if the Government meant that they are quite prepared to meet our view on the condition that we are prepared to lay by certain of our prejudices for the time being, during the period of the emergency created by the world war, then they need not have the slightest hesitation in approaching us in those terms. That we will gladly and willingly do. We would be glad to postpone, to the end of this crisis, the discussions that have engaged much of our time during the last five years as to the merits of certain Fianna Fáil plans. Certain of them we are prepared to tolerate though we question their ultimate soundness. We will gladly do that provided that, in other matters, the Government are prepared to meet what we regard as the indispensable essentials for protecting the economic and political security of the country.

There are very few things that I envy in the Taoiseach's make-up or reputation, but I confess that he acquired, in the course of his public life, one quality which I am not ashamed to confess that I envied, and that was, that the poor looked upon him as their friend. Whether we like it or not, the poor believed that de Valera would always be their champion against the vested interests of those concerned to exploit them. I envied him that. I think this Budget betrays the poor, and I think there devolves upon the Taoiseach the duty to answer to those who trusted him for selling them to the vested interests now. Those who are unorganised, those who, by the very nature of their lives, are unable to combine in their own defence, depend most absolutely on those whom they trust.

The big combine, the rich, trust none but themselves. They combine in their own defence. They bring pressure to bear where their interests are at stake and they have many devious means of making themselves felt. But the poor are easily exploited. They find it hard to unravel the complexities of modern life. Very frequently they find it difficult to understand the source of their afflictions. Their natural safeguard is to turn to somebody with trust and confidence, to name him their champion and to leave it to him to protect them against those who exploit and rob them as they have been exploited and robbed in this country.

I think this Budget delivers the poor into the hands of those who exploit them and rob them and I think there devolves on the Prime Minister a very special duty to give an account of his stewardship to those who trusted him implicitly as many of the poor in this country trusted him. Now, I want to say this. I do not believe that either the Minister for Finance or the Prime Minister would deliberately or corruptly surrender the interests of the poor of this country to the vested interests for some ulterior motive. But I believe that this Budget has resulted in that betrayal because in their desire to abide by financial rectitude the Government were unable to meet the deficiencies that confronted them except by imposinng taxation instead of borrowing. So far as they have the courage to do that all honour to them. But the mistake they made was their belief that their only alternative was to borrow or tax. They did not try to consider the other alternative, the alternative of saving on existing expenditure. The Minister for Finance has on more than one occasion said that he has been disappointed that certain persons on this side of the House did not seem to realise the magnitude of the crisis with that sense of responsibility that one would look for from public men in this country. The Minister for Finance himself has never really realised that we are in a peculiar financial situation at the moment which requires the recasting of our whole outlook. The Minister and his colleagues have never had the courage to face up to that. I put this question to the Minister for Finance on three occasions and he never answered it: will he justify to this House or to any individual his Government asking a man with 27/- a week to pay 6d. more for a quarter stone of sugar in order to provide money for industrial alcohol, for beet or for wheat subsidies? When you are constrained to put unbearable burdens on the poor you should carefully consider your position. I quite realise that once you get the leave of the people you are entitled to try out your theories.

But remember when you have a deficit to make up and you are considering the alternatives of taxation or economising, every economy you refuse to make becomes a service in respect to which you are putting on additional taxation. Now, you are not putting on taxation for national defence. You are not putting on taxation for some highfalutin purpose to preserve the neutrality of this country; you are putting it on to indulge yourselves in retaining an extravagant item in your Budget that you felt entitled to retain while there was a surplus of money knocking about, but you no longer have any right to retain that item when it must be financed out of the foodstuffs for which the poor have to pay. I recognise that it is good politics for the Minister for Finance and his predecessor to say: "Show us the items that you want reduced."

The Taoiseach

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, the old dog for the hard road. That still is the Prime Minister's political sense and as usual in these matters he is infallible. No disciple of Machiavelli, such as he is, would fail to spot his chance. Make the other fellow put up his case so that you can throw rocks at him.

The Taoiseach

Deputy Dillon is in that position.

Mr. Dillon

No, I am sick of politics and I accept the Prime Minister's challenge. And I accept the vulnerability of the position. It is time that those responsible for the running of the country would face up to their responsibility if this country is to survive. I invite the Minister for Finance to go through the weighty book of Estimates and find out what are the essential services in it—find out what he regards as the services essential to maintain a reasonable standard of existence for our people and to maintain political integrity—and to add to them the services which are made indispensable by the emergency, give us the reason honestly why any additional expense is made necessary by this emergency and then present his bill. Now if that bill represents a substantial excess of our present income I ask him to take it back and see if he is not prepared, in order to avoid taxation of the poor, to waive for the duration of the emergency at least, the more extravagant experiments for which the Government is responsible.

Without going into the merits of these schemes in the long view, without determining now whether these schemes are good for a term of years, I ask him to say during this emergency: "We cannot continue to expend initial costs necessary to establish these schemes in the hope of their continuing indefinitely in the future; we must postpone during the crisis the further laying of the foundation of these schemes." If the Minister will examine the milling industry he will find that there is a charge of £3,000,000 on the consumers of this country, and that £3,000,000 is being divided between the mill owners and the wheat growers. I put it to the Minister that he should go in and take over the milling industry if that is necessary. I detest anything that savours of State socialism because I regard it as a futile way of running any State. But if I have a choice between that State socialism and maintaining the ruthless exploiting of the poor by a monopoly such as the milling industry, I am in favour of going in and strangling that monopoly and taking over for the State the running of the milling industry in order to protect the people from any further exploitation. No human man can watch the poor who cannot meet, out of their weekly wages, their weekly requirements, the poor who are buying food on the instalment plan, paying 6/- a cwt. extra for flour in order to make the millers of this country wealthy men. We can tolerate that as long as there is any surplus there, but when sugar, flour, bacon, and everything they buy is rising at the one time, in my opinion the time has come when the backs of the people of this country can no longer bear that burden. There must be an end put to this increase in taxation, and I am quite prepared to say to the Minister: "Let us suspend judgment on the merits of the wheat scheme as a permanent part of our economy until the end of this crisis. Let us all get together at the end of the crisis and thrash it out. If needs be let us pledge ourselves to give the wheat scheme a full trial when this crisis has passed, but let us take off the backs of the poor now the burden that they are being required to bear in order to keep that system in existence at the present time. Let us restore to profitable production the land at present used for that crop, so as further to contribute to the national income, out of which the whole community must ultimately live." I tell the Minister solemnly that I believe that, if he will do that, there will be a saving of £2,000,000. That £2,000,000 can be brought to the relief of the Exchequer to-morrow morning if the Minister will take his courage in his hands and do that, and there is no man in this House represents more poor people than he does. That can be done.

Now, I do not want to conceal anything; that may mean closing up certain inefficient units in the milling industry. It may mean hardships in certain areas, which we can all combine to alleviate in one way or another. Take those who lose their employment in the small mills up to Dublin, Cork, Limerick, or any of those port mills, and guarantee them employment, or pension them if needs be. You have no right to make the mass of the people suffer an intolerable injustice in order to save the face either of the Minister who was responsible for the scheme in the past, or of a gang of gentlemen who I believe have only one interest in this country, and that is to exploit the consumers of bread and flour, as they have been doing for the last five years. I believe that, if we entered into negotiation with the British Government, we could get from them refined crystallised sugar for 8/- to 10/- per cwt. cheaper than we can produce it in this country. If the beet scheme were suspended for the duration of the war—it is costing us at present £1,400,000 a year to operate— every acre of that land could be put under barley and oats. Every acre of that land could be made to feed pigs or fowl, or other live stock for profitable export. It could be made to produce national income to increase our wealth, and we could save the Exchequer a sum, I believe, of not less than £750,000 or possibly more. It may seem inconsistent to say that a scheme is costing £1,400,000 and that if it is suspended it will only produce a saving of £750,000. That is not so inconsistent as it sounds, because it may not be possible overnight to end all the expenses of a scheme of that kind once it has been set on foot; but, while in the long run I have no doubt that we could reach the full saving of the present charge, we are thinking not in terms of ten, 15 or 20 years: we are thinking in terms of this emergency, and of finding alternative methods of meeting the charges that fall to be paid in this emergency, rather than taxing the foodstuffs and the semi-luxuries—as the Minister has described them—of the poor.

On page 273 of the Book of Estimates we find the provision that is made for the peat scheme in this year. In addition to the money spent on it in years gone by, a sum of £91,000 is to be spent on the development of Lyracrompane, Clonsast, general development, and administration of the Turf Development Board. Does anyone seriously say here that, for the purposes of schemes of that kind, we should call upon those who are hungry in this country to go hungrier still? Does the Minister for Finance know what is happening in connection with the industrial alcohol scheme? We have increased the cost of petrol 2d. per gallon in order to allow for incorporation in it of the output of the industrial alcohol factories, and we are drawing in to those alcohol factories at the present time potatoes from the farmers in the areas adjoining them, every cwt. of which is worth about 5/- as pig feeding, if you compare the price of potatoes with the current price of maize meal.

We are actually consuming potatoes for the purpose of producing industrial alcohol, the production cost of which is 3/6 per gallon, to take the place of petrol which could be bought on Dublin Quay at about 6d. per gallon, allowing for the increased costs created by the crisis, when those potatoes, every lb. of them, could be used in the production of pigs and live stock for export at a profitable price. Does the Minister realise that it is literally economically true that if each one of those alcohol factories were to-day blown up, and all the machinery in it destroyed, within 12 months we would be more than recouped the cost of the operation? They are being used at present for the consumption of valuable feeding stuffs which would take the place of a substantial quantity of maize that we are constrained to import from the Argentine at the present time, when we can get it, and use sterling balances which are extremely difficult to use outside the sterling area, for the purpose of providing a substitute for material which we are burning up in the industrial alcohol factories and asking the people of this country to apy 6d. per 1/4st. of sugar in order to keep them going.

I appreciate the Minister's difficulty. There is in this country, as there is in China, an institution known as "face", and you have to save the face. Nobody wants to throw the Minister for Supplies overboard and say: "Well, that was Lemass's folly, and we can no longer afford to maintain it". I will give the Minister an undertaking. Not one syllable will be uttered on the subject of industrial alcohol in this House if he will blow up the whole six factories. His face can be saved as much as the Minister likes. In fact the Minister can get up and make a moving speech about his foresight in providing a safe place wherein to blow up any arms or ammunition which the Minister collects from the I.R.A. in the course of the next few weeks. Let him convert all those factories into stores for that purpose, and then have an accidental explosion. We will even sympathise with the Minister for Supplies on the appalling catastrophe which blew away this invaluable Irish industry. I am putting it to the Minister that those economies can be made.

Now, I want to say this quite clearly. I say it without the authority of my colleagues in my Party. I know perfectly well it will bring down upon my head a storm of fury, but I believe it ought to be said, and somebody has got to say it. The dole for unmarried men in rural Ireland is a curse. It is demoralising; it is ruining decent young men in the country, and it is a dissipation of public money over which no honest Government could stand. I want to differentiate most clearly between an unmarried man and a married man who is living at home with his wife and family, and the integrity of whose family it is all-important to preserve. I would gladly help that man over any interval when he could not get employment, because I know that 99 out of every 100 married men with family responsibilities want work and are looking for work, and it would be a cruel thing if such a person had to break up his home and go away, when he did not want to do it, simply because the community would not tide him over a difficult period until work could be provided for him within a reasonable distance of his home.

I say deliberately, and I have watched it, and every Deputy in this House who knows the facts as I know them in his heart agrees with me, that to be doling out what is commonly described as the dole in rural Ireland to young unmarried men is demoralising to them, and is a scandalous misuse of public money. I have seen respectable boys marching in, Tuesday after Tuesday, lounging about the police barracks, waiting for the miserable 6/-, dissipating the money in town before they go home, and then sailing home not one fluke better off. And all that for these paltry few shillings that they collected for doing nothing! I believe many of these young fellows are not collecting their money honestly. I believe they are working, and more honour to those who do a bit of work, on their fathers' land. They collect the dole because they are nominally not employed by a public authority or in receipt of wages as it would be understood by the terms of the Act.

I believe there are some parts of the country where young fellows do not want to get casual work for wages, lest they fall off the dole and are long-delayed in getting back to it. There is that complaint in rural Ireland, that if you offer a young fellow casual work, he does not want to take it because he feels that in order to re-qualify for the dole there is too long a wait, indeed, so long a wait in getting back on it that he loses more in getting back to the point where he would receive the dole than he would get by way of wages for casual employment. I expect there will be many criticisms directed towards me for saying that. I am bound to indicate that in saying it I have not consulted my Party. I do not profess to speak for other members of the Party. I would not know their views on the matter without first ascertaining them. I speak solely for myself. It would not be honest, when I am attacking the Government for failing in their duty, if I failed in doing what I believe to be my duty. I say deliberately that that is the position. I believe that to be a scandal and to be demoralising the people in rural Ireland, and it is a wicked misuse of public money. Steps ought to be taken now to put an end to it.

I put it to the Minister that, if he did suspend the beet scheme and the wheat scheme, every acre of that land could be profitably sown in barley and oats. Every acre of that land could be used for producing barley to take the place of maize meal, which consumes our sterling balance at the present time outside the sterling area which, as the Minister knows, is giving rise to very substantial difficulties. I believe all the cereals and roots which could be produced on this land could be profitably fed to the live stock which England most urgently needs and is prepared generoulsy to pay for, not out of any goodness of heart, but because she urgently wants the stuff. I believe we can serve not only the passing purpose of earning profits now, but, by supplying that market in ever-increasing abundance, we can restore the position of Irish produce in that market which, unfortunately, we did so much to lose during the last seven years. I believe from every point of view, not only from that of economy, but of recovering the natural market for our agricultural output, the suggestions I have made in regard to the suspension of these schemes are to be commended.

There is no use pretending that farmers are going to produce stuff if they cannot make a profit upon it. Men have to live, and no matter how much they sympathise with the cause for which Great Britain and France and other democracies stand at present and glad as they may be to co-operate in the most effective way, they have to live just as the British farmer has to live. In the current issue of the "Farmer's Weekly" you will see angry articles by English farmers declaring that production at the prices at present being offered is impossible. Mr. C.T. Joice is quoted as saying that the Government cannot expect increased production at these prices. The farmers of this country, just the same as the farmers of Great Britain, want reasonable profits for the work they do. That can be contributed to in two ways. One is by the British consumer being pre pared to give a fair and equitable price, and I have no doubt the pressure of the British farmer may force him to do that very soon. But a high figure is no good in England if the cost of production in Ireland rises faster than the prices in England—and that is what is happening.

British prices in regard to maize meal are at the level of £7 a ton. A friend of mine went to Derry the day before yesterday. He wrote to me to say that he could buy the meal in Derry at 7/- a cwt. The price of meal in Ballaghaderreen is 11/9, and in small retail quantities it is 12/3. I could go down through a long list of raw materials and equipment of the agricultural industry in this country, and compare the prices here with prices in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and I could convince the Minister that our costs are 20 to 40 per cent. higher. That represents a proportionate decrease in the margin of profit our people can earn in agriculture. I therefore say that for the duration of this crisis the Minister ought to meet our views by taking the tariffs and restrictions off the raw materials and the equipment of the agricultural industry. Could we not make a deal on that? The Government know that they are more protectionist and have a deeper confidence in high tariffs and quotas than we have. If we accept their view on the industrial line for the duration of the crisis, will they not accept ours on the agricultural side, and give at least to the agricultural industry all essential supplies and vital equipment, free of the tariffs and quotas which at present encumber them? If we do that, we can use the increased cereal crops, economically produced, to stimulate not only pigs and fowl, but cattle, milk, milk products, and calves as well.

Our view is that at least for the duration of this crisis all our energies should be directed towards increasing profitable agricultural production as opposed to subsidised crops. We should throw all our emphasis on those products of our land which will yield not only to the individual farmer who grows them, but to the community as well, a real profit, and leave aside for the present those crops primarily designed to give the individual farmer who grows them a profit, although the production of those crops involves the community in a substantial loss. Let us abandon that type of farming, for the present in any case, and concentrate our whole minds on the other. If we do that, we get the resources wherewith to close the gap that is at present being made the justification for the appalling taxation burden which it is proposed to put on our people, and we relieve our people of that burden.

We do something more. We have got to make up our minds now that we are going to deal not only with the crisis which confronts us at the moment but also with the crisis which is going to confront us when this war is over. People talk of unemployment now. How many Deputies have asked themselves what is the employment going to be in the debacle that will ensue on the inflation that is at present going on, whether we like it or not. I put it to the Minister that, unless we plan now, that debacle is going to overwhelm us no matter how successfully we get through the present crisis. How are we to plan? Is it enough to have blue prints ready of schemes and works upon which the unemployed ought to be occupied? What good are schemes and blue prints if we have no money to pay for them? I put it to the Minister that during this period the object of the Government should be to contract public expenditure to the minimum and persuade people to engage more and more and more in the profitable employments which the demand for agricultural products in Great Britain makes available.

I am not advocating, as I think some of my colleagues think I should advocate, a stern reduction in taxation. I am asking you to take taxation off the poor who cannot stand it, but I think you would be wise, within limits, during a period of boom, if the present inflation continues, if you did take a little more money from the public purse than you propose annually to spend and laid it by so that when this crisis was over you could combine that bit of saving with your blue prints which you had prepared and cushion the impact of the deflation that must ensue. I would suggest the drawing back out of public works now, conserving your resources, gathering your savings, so that when the impact of the deflation comes upon us the Government can return into the labour market with a full and comprehensive scheme which would tide the whole community over the three or four years of suffering which certainly await us unless a precaution of that kind is taken. That seems to me to be a constructive kind of finance and to be real appreciation and understanding of the problems that lie ahead.

Whether we like it or not, no matter what pious sentiments are included in the Minister's Budget speech, no matter how he subsequently amplifies them, we are bound to experience inflation so long as this crisis goes on and we cannot get out of it. We are tied to sterling and to sterling we must stay tied, and neither Great Britain nor any other country in the world can spend £2,000,000,000 sterling per annum on armaments and the war, without inflating. There are some amateur economists in this House and outside it who imagine that the solution of all our ills is to cut adrift from sterling. I would like to see their faces if we did. They are thinking of the halcyon days when to cut adrift from sterling was to cut adrift from a deflationary currency and to zoom away in glorious outpourings of paper money. In about five years' time it would begin to dawn on them that cutting away from an inflationary currency, as Dr. Salzar has done in Portugal, has a very different result.

Whether we like it or not, we are tied to sterling, and the only way we could escape from that bond at the present time would be to smash down the standard of living of every person in this country lower than it has ever been before. We are tied to sterling and we have got to face that fact, because it is inescapable, no matter what Government is in office, and we ought to plan accordingly. I submit that the suggestions that I have made to the Minister to-day, with the risk I have taken in putting up suggestions to have them pelted by the Government, present a scheme to the Government which will obviate the necessity for cruel taxation at the present time, which will increase the national income, which will remove abuses that are known to all of us, and which will provide the Minister with the means of accumulating a fund to relieve the impact of a disaster, the deflation disaster, after this war, which he is quite powerless to prevent. I believe it is a sane scheme. I can well imagine the Minister might want help in the form of agreement in carrying such a scheme through. I believe he will get it if he asks for it. I know that in a democratic country, particularly in this country, it is very hard to do unpopular things if you are liable to be criticised mercilessly in doing them. They are very often complex, difficult things to explain, but very simple to attack. If the Minister wants help I think he is entitled to say: "Those are the things that are necessary to be done; I know all the arguments I could use if I was trying to pull down the Government that was doing them; it is up to the Opposition to say whether they are going to attempt that or not; if they are, we cannot attempt the reforms; they simply cannot be carried." There could arise a situation in which the Minister saw the right course to take, but knew that it was politically impossible and that the only effect of trying to take it would be to destroy his own Government and make way for critics who, by their criticism, were committed to a different and fatal course. If the Minister has the same conception of patriotism as we have, I think he is quite entitled to say: "That is the situation; that is the course; it is the right course, and you know it is the right course. If you are going to attack it on those lines we will simply have to drop it like a hot potato, because we know we could not carry it, but, if you are honest and if you mean to co-operate, and if you want to save this State from bankruptcy and ruin, which we cannot prevent without these measures, it is the duty of the Opposition to get up and cover our flank, come to our aid when some of our less reflecting supporters go gunning for us in the country." If the Minister really faced this crisis in that spirit he would be astonished at the help he would get.

Does the Minister imagine for a single moment that I think he will? Not likely. Those of us who know the Prime Minister as long as we do fully realise that that is not his idea of co-operation. I know what the Prime Minister's idea of co-operation is. His idea is to deceive you with his unfailing charm, to say that there are a few matters he wants to explain to you, that he fully sympathises with your incapacity to understand but he has no doubt that at the end of half an hour's explanation the thing will be clear as crystal. He then draws out his pet scheme. You say you do not agree with that and then the charm fades off his face like a fog before a tempest and he says that he understood you approached this question in a spirit of co-operation, that, of course, if cheap politics are to control the interview, there is no use wasting any more time, that he appreciates the spirit in which you approached it and only regrets that that spirit did not survive to the end of the interview; he understands the difficulties of transactions of this kind and, of course, he has always avoided this kind of contacts because they result in misrepresentation and misunderstanding afterwards and that he regrets nothing can be done—the fact being that the Prime Minister has never allowed anybody who had any mind of his own to co-operate with him and never will. And never will, because, if he did, he would be a different man. He would not be the queen bee that he is at the present time. The Prime Minister will live and die, if I may say so, with great respect to the Minister for Finance, the queen bee in a hive of drones because the moment anybody approaches him who dares to indulge in the heresy of having a mind of his own that person becomes an irreconcilable and deadly enemy to the queen bee. It is a great pity. If the Prime Minister had the quality of working with other men great good could be done. But he has not and he will not have it. I do not believe that anybody who has the daring to have a mind of his own and retain that mind of his own will ever be allowed to work with him. That is the country's loss.

As the Leader of the Opposition said recently, we never agreed and we never will to co-operate with the Government in putting into operation the Fíanna Fáil policy, because we do not think it is a national policy but an anti-national policy. But we will be quite prepared to put aside the controversial elements in that policy and to meet on middle ground in order to carry the country over a period of crisis and difficulty, in the certainty that at the end of that period we will revert to our previous positions and carry on before the people the discussions they are entitled to hear with a view to the ultimate verdict that they may pass between us. I believe that what I have outlined here to-day, adjusted reasonably to meet the views of the Government Party would save the situation in this country. I believe that the Government in following its present line is going to ruin us all—I am convinced of it. I suppose I can claim to be moved by some sentiment of patriotism, but I do not want to go into that now. I am moved by the fact that everything I have got is in this country, that if this country is ruined, I am ruined and all I have got is gone.

I make no apology for desiring to avoid that situation. Very few men in this House are of an age or have the equipment to start all over again. If you ruin this country, those of us in this House who have anything in this country are going to have to start all over again, and in a very difficult kind of world and a very barren kind of country. That is the reason I am so concerned to get something done now which will prevent that happening. I am aware that in this country nothing can be done if the Government are not prepared to put the task in hand. If they do not, they will have to answer to posterity for it. Anything we can do to help, we are ready to do it. If we love this country at all, let us not allow misunderstanding, reluctance to trust one another, result in a debacle which will make Ireland a by-word before the world.

I have spoken three or four times of the horrible possibility that our people scattered all over the world, who have always looked back to this country for inspiration, have always held their heads high, and have always drawn together to resist aspersions on Ireland and what she has stood for, should ever be reduced to the position that they would be ashamed to admit they were Irish. Remember, any country that fights for 700 years to get free, and, having got free, destroys itself by its own ineptitude in 17 years, is a by-word and a joke the world over. The Irish have never been that. They had many jibes and insults thrown at them, but no one ever dared to laugh at them yet. God forbid that our incompetence should bring about the day when the traditional enemies of our country would not only slander us, abuse us, and traduce us, but laugh at us just as well.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Dillon gives me the impression this evening of a Salvation Army orator in a city, standing on a soap box singing psalms and trying to save souls. Deputy Dillon has had a special pair of blinkers made for himself, and does not wish to see anything that is happening. Deputy Dillon spent the last three or four years in this House attacking the policy of feeding barley and oats to pigs and fowl. Morning, noon, and night we have heard of the evils of the admixture scheme, and of how it was robbing the country. We heard it until we got sick of hearing it. As a result of Deputy Dillon's preaching, the farmers dropped this year some 60,000 acres of barley and oats, leaving the pig feeders and the poultry feeders of the country dependent on maize meal from the Argentine, which Deputy Dillon says they may or may not get.

One would think Deputy Dillon would be satisfied with having done that much harm in a very short period. But now he wants barley and oats grown again, for the purpose of providing poultry, bacon, and beef for the British market. The British farmers, according to the statement he read out, are not satisfied with the prices they are getting, although they are getting maize meal, he says, at £7 per ton. If it does not pay the British farmer to fatten for the British market on maize meal at £7 per ton, what price is the Irish farmer going to get for the barley and oats to fatten animals to be sold at a lesser price, a controlled price, in the British market? Deputy Dillon does not think of that. Not being satisfied with starving out the pigs and fowl, he wants to starve out the Irish people now. That is Deputy Dillon's new policy. He is not satisfied with starving out the pigs and the fowl, and depriving us of 60,000 acres of feeding stuffs which would be here only for his preaching and the unfortunate people who gave into it, but now he wants to abolish the wheat scheme. He says: "Do away with the wheat scheme and the British will send you all the flour you want." That is Deputy Dillon's new policy—leave the people here without any flour, and England will send all the flour you want. England, which is at present rationed, and, judging by appearances during the past week, will have to tighten its belt a lot during the next month or two, will send over all they have to spare.

The Irish farmers this season got about £3,000,000 from wheat in a guaranteed market at a guaranteed price. Deputy Dillon said that that is no use to the Irish farmer. The Irish farmer in the coming season, if my judgment is any way correct, will draw about £5,000,000 from wheat alone. But that is no use to him, no good at all, and the flour will be no use to the Irish people. Deputies here, I am sure, are old enough to remember the kind of flour we got from Great Britain in 1918. We had black oats, hulls and all, served as flour, for which we had to pay in blood and money. Deputy Dillon would like to see us getting back to that position. We do not want to see that occurring again. Could anything be more ridiculous than the agricultural policy put forward by the Deputy this evening, despite the lessons he has got concerning the shortage of both barley and oats this year?

Deputies are about sick of hearing this question discussed, especially in connection with sugar during the past week. Irish farmers supplied two-thirds of our sugar requirements this year, and the balance had to be imported and it cost £700,000 more than need have been paid to the Irish farmers. Despite that lesson, Deputy Dillon says: "Blow up the beet factories and England will give you all the sugar you require." England gave us sugar during the last war but, at a cost of £125 a ton. It cost 1/2½d. a lb. here. Deputy Dillon thinks that the agricultural labourer could get fat on the sale of pigs and poultry to the British, at the British controlled price, and that he would then be able to buy any amount of sugar for his wife and family at 1/2½d. a lb. to be supplied by Great Britain, despite the fact that on pre-war contracts made with the Irish Sugar Company, the price was increased at the outbreak of war by 100 per cent. Despite all that Deputy Dillon wants the Irish people to depend for the future on the crumbs that will fall from Great Britain's table. Was there ever a more ridiculous policy preached? One would expect some common sense from a lawyer on the front Opposition Bench, and especially from a Deputy who pretends to know everything. The Deputy having, so to speak, attempted to achieve by constant preaching a policy of starvation amongst the pig and poultry population now wants to starve out the Irish people as well. I cannot understand Deputy Dillon's reasoning at all.

Sugar is rationed in England at present and, I am thinking, judging by appearances of late, there will be a great deal more rationing in the next few months. Mr. Hitler does not seem to have been very idle during the past week. The idea of the farmers in this country giving up their guaranteed market in wheat and beet, and growing barley and oats, to enter into competition with English farmers, who complain, according to what Deputy Dillon read from the British agricultural journal in which he gets his information, that they are not being paid, even with the controlled price for the bacon, poultry and eggs that they produce. is strange. In England he told us the farmers get maize meal at £7 a ton but, according to him they are not able to make their industry pay. I wonder what price Irish farmers would get for barley and oats they are advised to grow in competition with English farmers for the fattening of cattle? Deputy Dillon has been listening to this question discussed for the past five years, and he has been preaching almost weekly that it was impossible for Irish farmers to fatten pigs and poultry on Irish barley and oats. The Deputy has now turned the tables and is all in favour of growing barley and oats.

The Deputy even went further and said that it was an outrage and a shame to see young men on the dole. He followed up that statement by advising the Minister for Finance to conserve his resources, so that he would have them for the period after the war; that he should withdraw expenditure from public works that at least were relieving some of the unemployed. He advised the Minister to draw in his money bags now so that funds would be available after the war. The Deputy's contention was that it was a shame to see people on the dole, but his other suggestion would put many more on the dole. Deputy Dillon should give a special entertainment at the Abbey Theatre. If he delivered there the sermon that he preached here to-night I guarantee an overflowing house as his humour would be appreciated. England is paying £9,000,000 by way of subsidies to wheat growers this year. England is going to put that amount into the crop to ensure that she will have some flour for her people. Deputy Dillon wants us to get rid of our home supplies of flour and to depend for supplies on what John Bull would have to spare. Of course the Deputy could not leave it at that. He had to have another attack on the millers and talked about ruthless exploitation.

I do not like repeating figures in this House. I gave them on at least three occasions, dealing with the period prior to 1933, regarding the price of imported wheat and flour, as well as the price of imported flour. I gave also the price of imported wheat and the price of home manufactured flour for a period of three years. The figures were altogether in favour of the home milled flour. What I said was that if the millers are profiteering to-day, the British millers, when they had the game in their own hands, should have been able to retire as millionaires after 12 months out of what they made from the Irish market alone. Despite that Deputy Dillon wants to bring us back to that position. I went carefully into the figures and if Deputies wish to verify them they will see them in the library. For anyone who wishes to speak with any semblance of truth the figures are there for inspection. Without bringing forward any evidence to prove his facts, Deputy Dillon got up and condemned the millers as a pack of thieves and robbers. If that is all we can get from the new leader of the Fine Gael Party——

Mr. Brennan

What did the Prices Commission say?

Mr. Corry

If that is the kind of co-operation Deputy Dillon offers, then I, for one, will not have any of it. The co-operation that we are to get from Deputy Dillon is to be co-operation at the price of leaving the people of this country hungry and of starving them out, of leaving the people of this nation dependent on Britain for our necessary supplies of bread and sugar. If that is to be the price of co-operation, I want none of it, and I do not think the people of this country want any of it.

Mr. Hickey

Do you mean to say that you are getting co-operation from the flour millers?

Mr. Corry

I have made a statement here.

Mr. Brennan

What about the Prices Commission? That was a commission you set up yourselves. What did they say about the flour millers?

Mr. Corry

Deputy Brennan should read the famous report in that connection that was brought into this House when the Deputy's Party were over here on these benches. I would advise the Deputy to read that again.

Mr. Brennan

Read the report that the Prices Commission brought in.

Mr. Corry

Read the one I am referring to again. That is my advice to the Deputy, and I challenge him now to stand up here in this House and say that he agrees with Deputy Dillon's policy. He has been sitting there beside him.

Mr. Brennan

The Deputy is keeping away from the Prices Commission.

Mr. Corry

I am giving Deputy Brennan an open and a fair challenge. I challenge him to do one of two things: either to stand up here now and stand over Deputy Dillon's policy, or else disown him. Let the Deputy do one thing or the other, and let us see which Deputy Brennan will do when he stands up here to speak. Let us hear Deputy Brennan on that matter. I know that the Deputy likes to talk, just as Deputy Dillon likes to talk, and Deputy Brennan has been known in this House, during all the years since he came into it, as a Deputy whom you cannot pin down to anything, and I challenge Deputy Brennan to stand up here now and say that, at the end of two or three months of war, this country should now abandon wheat growing and that the people of this country should be left depending on Britain for our flour supplies. Let him stand up here also and say, after the lessons we have learned recently, that this country ought to give up beet growing also, and that our people should be left dependent for their supplies of sugar on Britain.

That is a fair challenge to Deputy Brennan. I go further even than the case of Deputy Brennan in that connection—I embrace his whole Party in the challenge. Let any of the members of his Party get up here now and say that they will stand by Deputy Dillon's policy. You may have Deputy Dillon preaching to the townspeople of Dublin, who would not exactly understand what is being aimed at, and the rest of the Party preaching to the people around the country, but let us have it out one way or the other. I should like Deputy Brennan to get up here now, when I am finished, and tell us which of the two lines he is going to take: whether he believes, with Deputy Dillon, that the admixture scheme was a failure and should have been abandoned long ago, and whether he now agrees with Deputy Dillon in the complete change that Deputy has made to-night when he said that we ought to grow barley and oats now and feed our pigs on them and sell them in competition on the British market, with the maize meal at £7 a ton. Let us have it out, and I shall certainly enjoy the next speaker from that Party who gets up and speaks on that matter.

Mr. Cogan

In connection with this Bill we are going to face greatly increased taxation, and the first point that strikes every citizen in this country is why we should be called upon to bear this burden. There are two alternatives open to the Government, as the Minister has said, and as has been repeated by almost every Minister: either to tax or to borrow; but every citizen in this State realises—and if the Minister were to get into touch with the plain people of this country he would hear it also—that there is another alternative, and that is to reduce public expenditure. There is absolutely no justification whatever for the increases which have taken place in public expenditure during the past year. There is no justification whatever for the increase which has taken place in Army expenditure. The mobilisation of the Army for the preservation of our neutrality serves no useful purpose, and one might say, perhaps, that it would be cheaper for this country to be engaged in war than to be maintaining neutrality. Neither is there any justification whatever for the expenditure which we have had on lighting restrictions, air-raid precautions, and matters of that kind; nor is there any justification either for the expenditure we have had on the censorship of all publications in this country. Surely, a nation that is not engaged in war does not require to have a censor sitting in every newspaper office to see what is being published or what is being withheld from publication. I think that no citizen in this country can defend the expenditure of public money which has taken place during the past week in order to secure that the farmers' case would not be presented to the people of this country, and in order to ensure that no light whatever would be thrown upon the just demands which the farmers are making, and to secure which the farmers are now prepared to make tremendous sacrifices. Surely, the Government must be completely out of touch with the people of this country if they do not realise or do not understnad the extent to which discontent, unrest and dissatisfaction prevail throughout the length and breadth of the country. Why should not that dissatisfaction and discontent prevail when we realise the extent to which the necessaries of life, the foodstuffs which the ordinary farmer and the agricultural worker require, have been increased in price?

I have said that there should be no increases whatever in taxation, and Ministers may challenge Deputies of this House to state what services should be reduced. I do not think there is any service—any public service— which could not be reduced at the present time. I would not even exclude the Department of Agriculture. That particular service has been increased enormously during the past few years, and what result have we obtained? We have obtained a reduction in almost every branch of the agricultural industry—even in tillage. We have a reduction in the acreage under potatoes, the one crop, perhaps, that is more suited than any other crop to the climate of this country. We have that crop reduced in acreage to one-third of what it was 70 years ago, long before the Department of Agriculture was ever heard of, and as a result of that reduction in the acreage under potatoes, we have a reduction in our output of pigs and poultry, and various other exportable products which would enable this country to survive and which would enable the people to pay the revenue required to run the national services of this State. Even in this case we have had complete failure, and even the Department of Agriculture has not justified its increased expenditure and its increased demands on the taxpayer.

Why, also, when a decision was taken to impose taxation, did the Government decide to concentrate upon an absolutely essential foodstuff, a foodstuff which has been greatly increased in price? When we, farmers, were asking for an increased price for our beet, and when we asked that, if there were no other means of providing an increased price, the Government should agree to an increased impost on sugar, that demand was completely turned down. Yet we have the Government to-day lightly imposing a duty of ¾d. per lb. on sugar, and thereby showing clearly that there was no sincerity or justification for their continued refusal to meet the farmer's demands for increased prices for his beet in the past. Attempts are being made by the Government to misrepresent the position, to make it appear that there is a certain amount of profiteering in the sale of sugar, and that sugar could be sold to the ordinary consumer at 4½d. per lb. Nobody who knows anything about the trade will accept that statement. The Minister knows perfectly well that retailers are at present paying almost 4½d. per lb. for their sugar.

An Ceann Comhairle

The price of sugar has already been fully debated on an express motion. The Deputy must, therefore, confine himself to the financial aspect of the matter.

Mr. Cogan

I am simply trying to explain that no reasonable attempt has been made to justify this increase in the price of sugar—no attempt save by false and misleading statements. Neither has any attempt been made to justify the increased taxation of tobacco. As a result of these increases on the things which the working farmer in the fields and the working labourer require, we have widespread dissatisfaction and a condition of affairs in rural Ireland in which all activity has been brought to a complete standstill. The Minister must realise that there is dissatisfaction when not one fair is held throughout the length and breadth of the country. He must realise that this dissatisfaction has reached such a stage that the Government must sit up and take notice. Before the people of Ireland lose faith in democratic institutions and Parliamentary government, it is the duty of the Minister to find out how expenditure can be reduced—and quickly reduced. Suggestions have been made to the Minister from all sides of the House. I have no hesitation in saying that the Minister will not pay the slightest attention to any of those suggestions. It is about time that the attitude adopted by the Government should be changed and that there should be an earnest and intensive effort by the Government to reduce expenditure and not only to reduce expenditure but to secure an adequate return for the public money at present being expended.

Deputy Corry dealt with the contention that farmers have been driven out of the production of barley and oats as a result of their taking the advice of the Opposition. Whatever reduction took place last year in the acreage under barley and oats Deputy Corry must know was directly due to the statement of the Minister for Agriculture that he was not prepared to guarantee a price for these crops. Farmers had to concentrate on wheat. When you have such a policy as that and when you have contradictory statements made from time to time which tend to turn farmers away from any constructive or consistent line of production, you come to think that it would be a very good saving of public money to abolish the Department of Agriculture completely. What useful purpose has that Department served? Have all its activities not been directed to curtailing the output of the agricultural industry and disorganising that industry? What useful purpose will it serve to drive the milk producers in Dublin area out of production and depend on irregular supplies from the South of Ireland?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may not pursue that line any further.

Mr. Cogan

Surely it would be a very useful saving of public money to get rid of that Department completely —a Department which is simply obstructing the farmers in their endeavour to carry on their own industry in their own way. The Minister has asked for co-operation from all sections of the House. The Government should try and co-operate with representatives of all sections of the community. They should meet the representatives of the workers, the farmers and the political Parties and endeavour, in consultation with them, to work out a sound economic and financial policy that will carry them through the difficulties in which they find themselves. There has been no attempt to do anything of the kind, no attempt to get the views of those engaged in agriculture.

As Deputy Corry has pointed out, farmers in Great Britain are unable to carry on production while buying imported maize at £7 per ton. Farmers in this country are expected to accept reduced prices for everything, even milk, notwithstanding that the cost of their feeding stuffs has been doubled. Ministers have a heavy responsibility and they should face up to the needs of the present situation and realise that the people are not in a mood to tolerate a continuance of their present wasteful and destructive policy. They should take counsel with the people who are trying to live in spite of that policy, the traders of the towns who are financing the agricultural industry to a greater extent than either the banks or the Agricultural Credit Corporation, the people engaged in agriculture and the workers. If they consulted these people, I think they would find that their advice would be much sounder than the advice of the millers, the bankers, the chamber of commerce and people of that type upon whom the Government seem to rely entirely for their financial policy.

General MacEoin

I think that this is a Bill to which the House should not give approval. There are many reasons why that approval should not be given. One is that it is imposing a very grave burden upon an already heavily taxed people and, as already has been pointed out by several speakers on this side of the House, the money could be got in some other way. Two ways have been suggested. Deputy McGilligan pointed out that certain moneys were available: there has been, as he declared, money looted from the public pockets by certain business elements—flour millers and others. An appeal was made to the Minister that, before he imposes this taxation on the people, he should see what could be got in that direction.

I am opposed to this Bill because it contains the sugar tax. Such a tax has a double effect: it takes money out of the pockets of the poorest portion of our people and it also taxes their health. I have a very clear recollection of the war period of 1914-1918 and know that, as a result of the lack of sugar, the people of this country suffered a terrible scourge, through their lowered vitality, and that they were open to every disease prevalent. Everybody knows that the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 could really be said to be due to lowered vitality through lack of sugar foods. The expenditure of the poor people—in fact, of all people—is more than ever it was, and the result is that they will reduce the amount of sugar they use and therefore their vitality will be considerably lowered. If that goes on for any considerable length of time, you have a double tax—a tax on the pocket and a tax on health. For that reason, I am perfectly satisfied that the Government should not proceed with this tax and that no member of the House, in my opinion, should support it.

There is no question that, if a plebiscite were taken upon that particular tax—and Fianna Fáil has pleaded and shouted about their democratic ideals and the rights of the people—as against any other one, it would be wiped out in five seconds. It may be argued, as it was argued by the Minister, that the reason they put the tax on there was that they were sure to get the money, that sugar was a necessity and that there was no use in taxing a commodity which could be cut down, so that the last stage would really be worse than the first—they would be imposing a tax and not getting results. That may be so, but, again, I wish to point out that Deputy McGilligan showed a road that, at any rate, could be explored; and, before that tax or any other tax is imposed, that exploration should be concluded.

So far as tobacco is concerned, to those with considerable means, it does not matter very much if they pay a little extra. When they buy tobacco at 1/2 or 1/3 an oz., or at 18/- or 19/- a lb., 1/- or 2/- more per lb. does not matter a lot to them. But to the working man who buys half a quarter of twist or plug, it does mean a great deal. I know for a fact—it may seem jocose to mention it—that in certain parts of the country today you have men experimenting with the smoking of puck turf and dried dock leaves. It took a Fianna Fáil Government to reduce the people of this country to that level; but that is a fact. As was pointed out here this evening, Fianna Fáil had declared itself to be the poor man's Government. There is no possible shadow of doubt about it: they certainly have increased the number of poor people in the population. There are more poor people now than ever before; and that state of affairs is becoming daily worse.

These two taxes—on sugar and tobacco—are bad. I now come to what, in my opinion, is even more serious: the increase in the price of spirits. Last year was a bad year for the harvest. Oats grew musty in stooks and stacks. Some farmers had great difficulty in getting that far at all and—there is no question of doubt about it—there was a good deal of illicit distillation in the country last year as a result. With this increase in taxation upon spirits, it is now worth the farmer's while, if oats has gone musty, or anything like that, to have a crack at distillation; and they are doing it, I regret to say. That is demoralising; it is lowering the moral standards of the people. If there is even a football match or a dance in the district where this poteen is made, there are fellows becoming half cracked and half crazy, and rows ensue.

With this increased tax on a gallon of whiskey, it is worth the farmer's while to convert into poteen an acre of oats which may not be worth very much to him now if it has gone wrong, if it has heated in the stooks or heated in the stacks. They are in the process of converting it at the moment, notwithstanding the efforts of the Civic Guards to stop it, into valuable spirit, with the result that there will be unseemly incidents occurring in the country. I know it is not a popular thing to say that, but, at the same time, a tax that increases an evil is a bad tax, and should not be put upon the country. I feel that the three things the Government has decided to tax are the things that are going to bring greater evils in their train, and even at this late stage I do appeal to the Government to drop them or to reconsider the matter, and in that way get over the difficulties that may arise.

We are told that if these taxes are not imposed, our neutrality will be endangered. It is only in a country like this that a statement like that would be made by responsible Ministers. They think that anything they say will be accepted as gospel by their supporters, and I regret to say that a number of their supporters will accept anything they say as gospel, but that does not mean that we should not point out that the direct opposite is the truth. Whether we go on with these taxes or not will not in any way endanger our neutrality. Our neutrality can be endangered by acts of our own people of a very positive nature, and by nothing else, but if, on the other hand, there are people who wish to break our neutrality, there is only one thing we can do, that is, to stop it. But the fact that the poor man's tobacco has been taxed, that there is 2d. on the glass of whiskey and 3/4d. on the lb. of sugar, is not going to affect it one way or the other. Again, we were told that our independence was endangered. It has been pointed out that that means that the independence of the Front Bench is in danger, and that if they got a rebuff in the House refusing to impose the taxes they demand, it would mean that their independence from financial worries, as we know it at the moment, would be seriously in danger, but that does not apply to the country. The country is completely different from the Fianna Fáil Front Bench. Many people would have us believe that the Front Bench is the country personified, but we do not accept that point of view.

There is a report by the Prices Commission on the pigs and bacon situation, and another on the flour situation, and the Government have apparently done nothing about them, but have decided to proceed with this taxation irrespective of what Deputy Corry calls "the English miller getting away with it". Deputy Corry said this evening that, prior to the advent of this Government, the English miller was getting away with all these profits. I should like to know just exactly what change has taken place, because I know certain prominent millers in this country—they may have taken out citizenship papers within the last 12 months or so, but prior to that, we know that they were not citizens of the country—who can afford to have a few good race-horses and to run them well. If I had the profits they make from flour milling, I could afford to run a few horses.

There is also the question of economics. Deputy Dillon made a speech which was attacked by Deputy Corry. It may seem fitting to Deputies opposite that a speech of Deputy Dillon's should be answered by a person like Deputy Corry, but that speech deserved much more than that. Deputy Dillon is well able to speak for himself, but I will say this, that his speech was one in which he gave expression to his opinion, and he certainly was not playing politics because, if he were, he would try to be, and could easily be, as clever, or, let me say, as cute, as the members of the Fianna Fáil Party for the last seven or eight years. Deputy Dillon pointed out that there were certain matters which could be remedied. I will not travel the whole distance with him, but will take merely some of the things he said. He pointed to industrial alcohol and its cost to the community. I can say from experience that there is not only the cost in money to the community, but every person running a car to-day knows what extra cost it entails. I drive a car, unfortunately, and I got six gallons yesterday of this mixture. Unless you put nitric acid in the tank, the mixture could not do more. There was nothing in the tank for the last two years which it did not bring up and put into the carburettor. Everybody knows that alcohol will mix with water, and that petrol will not, but when you put this mixture in the tank it mixes the whole lot together, with the result that you have to empty the tank completely. That is a further imposition of this plan of the Government. There is not only the cost to the car owner in buying it, but this additional cost which is an unknown cost, because if a person is trying to make time, or has appointments to keep, this thing cuts across his plans and leaves him high and dry on the road when he has to empty out his tank.

The question of the dole is rather a ticklish matter, and when somebody gives expression to a view which is not popular, others should be thankful, but it is a fact that it is unfair to the young fellows of the country to have them marching in twice a week to the Civic Guard barracks, or the labour exchange, for a few paltry shillings. Deputy Dillon spoke of 6/- a week, but those who get that are very few. It ranges from 1/- upwards and, by the time they walk in to the town twice in the week, sign on and get their 1/- or 2/-, two packets of cigarettes, or, in present circumstances, a large packet and a small packet, are gone. When we have a drive by the Government for increased agricultural production, which I think is a wise one, it should be possible for these young fellows in receipt of unemployment assistance to report to a farmer who would be prepared to pay them the usual rate, less the amount of which they were in receipt, and to get unemployment assistance to make up the standard rate. If farmers who have their normal number of men—and they are not apparently going to employ more—knew they could get an additional man at 5/- or 6/- less than the ordinary rate, they would, in my opinion, employ them and that would be productive expenditure. I presume that the Agricultural Commission is sitting and very probably somebody has made reference to that point, but now that it has been mentioned here, I think something should be done about it. Where there are no means and no employment, I am perfectly satisfied that unemployment assistance should continue, and I also say that it is bad that the moment a person in receipt of unemployment assistance gets work for a week or fortnight, he must wait a fortnight or three weeks before he can get unemployment assistance again.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is a matter of administration.

General MacEoin

I mention it only in passing; I do not intend to labour it. In the way I suggest, there would be a considerable reduction in the national expenditure, and the necessity for taxation to provide the money would not arise.

We are told again that this taxation is due to increased expenditure upon defence. To my surprise, and I am sure to the surprise of a great number of Deputies in this House, the Minister for Industry and Commerce declared here that the mobilisation of the Defence Forces was not to meet external aggression or not to defend our neutrality but to meet a murderous conspiracy internally. That was a rather peculiar statement to make. A number of us live in country districts and we have all the information that is available in the countryside. Whatever might be said of three or four years ago, when there were some attacks on life and property and when there was deliberate murder committed in certain parts of the country, there has been no recurrence of these attacks in recent years. To say that this expenditure had to be undertaken because of the outbreaks of some years ago, is to say the least of it, trying to impose upon our credulity a little bit too far. It is an imposition and it is only a Minister for a Fianna Fáil Administration who would attempt to tell this House or the people of the country that. In view of these facts— I have not gone into them very fully but I have examined them in my own way—I think the Government should reconsider the whole matter. Deputy Dillon was quite clear that if they did, this Party would not try to make any political capital out of it. Any Government, worthy of the name of a Government, that gets information and co-operation of a very definite character, should avail of it and should say to themselves: "Well, we shall reconsider the matter and we shall not proceed to impose this additional taxation until every other avenue has been explored." I contend that every other avenue has not been explored. Unless the Government decides to alter the position, there is nothing left for me, or I believe for my colleagues, members of this Party, except to oppose all stages of this Bill.

Mr. Curran

Having listened to the Minister to-day and on previous occasions asking for the co-operation of the Opposition in connection with this and other Bills, it struck me that it was impossible to secure that co-operation in face of the attitude adopted by members of the Front Bench opposite on recent occasions. I do not attribute that attitude to the Minister here present, either this evening or in his introduction of the Budget.

I think it is time, however, that a well-recognised principle was adopted here, that Ministers, in the interests of the country, in the interests of democratic institutions, and in the interests of this House, should not deal with questions of public and national interest in the flippant manner which has characterised the attitude of the Front Bench recently. Quite recently a question was put to the Minister for Supplies, and he definitely stated in this House that he would not answer it. I put it to the Minister for Finance, is that the way to get co-operation? It certainly is not, and the Minister should not ask for it or expect it under those conditions.

I can cast my mind back to the first Budget introduced by the Fianna Fáil Government. On that occasion the then Minister for Finance came before the House, and he prided himself on the buoyancy of the revenue. I listened to him on the occasion of the introduction of the last Budget. Everybody who was here on that occasion can remember what was said then, and what has been said on this Budget. A more doleful speech could not be made by any Minister than was delivered by the then Minister for Finance in introducing the Budget earlier this year. He said on that occasion that if Europe was plunged into war it would have serious consequences for this country. War has now come, and we have all these serious consequences. We have now a Supplementary Budget introduced for the purpose of raising additional taxation, when the country can least afford it. Why? Because of the policy adopted by the Fianna Fáil Party since they came into power, and for no other reason. I ask the Minister and members of this House generally to look at the present situation. Look at the unemployment problem to-day and contrast it with what it was when they came into office. Is there anybody better off—there may be a select few, I know—than they were before Fianna Fáil came into office?

The position of the farmers has been stressed this evening, and I think rightly so. It is just as well to remember the years through which we have passed, though some of us might like to forget them. Is it not true that the farmers' capital has been written down by two-thirds in recent years? I do not want to go back into these questions too far. I say now, as I said some time ago, that prices which farmers are receiving at present would not be so bad were it not for the cost of production.

The price of everything that enters into the cost of production is increasing by leaps and bounds. The Minister might say that the farmers are in a position to supply all their raw material themselves. Such is not the case. There is scarcely a day passes on which it is not necessary for the farmer to purchase something for his farm, and when he goes into the shop he finds that the price of the articles or the commodities which he requires has increased by 10, 15 or even 50 per cent. since the emergency started. At present we have a number of farmers on strike and nobody seems to be satisfied at the present situation. I am not going to deal with any item of taxation recently introduced but this I will say, and I speak for myself alone: it is my opinion that this Budget is a good Budget in one sense, because it has made this House and the people realise the financial position of the country. All sources of taxation have practically dried up. A good and a proper comparison to make between the present financial condition of the country and that which obtained when Fianna Fáil came into power was that the Fianna Fáil Party got a good milch cow when they came into office. The same cannot be said of that cow now. The cow has practically dried up. All sources of taxation have been dried up.

I admit that prices are not so bad, but the position in which farmers find themselves to-day is the outcome of the years that have passed when, due to the prevailing conditions, they got into debt with the Land Commission, the rate collector, the shopkeeper and everybody else. Because of that the farmer finds that neither he nor the country is prepared for the emergency that has arisen. I know that the Government will ask what social services do you suggest we should drop, or what do you suggest we should tax? I do not feel that I am capable of going into details in connection with a reduction of social services, economies or anything like that. I listened to the Minister's statement to-day, and I think it is correct to say that the Army is now costing £4,700,000. Is not that a huge figure for the maintenance of an Army in a non-belligerent country? Before expenditure of that magnitude was embarked upon, the Government should have asked themselves whether the country could afford it. I am definitely of the opinion that the country cannot afford it. I do not want to deal now with all the promises that were made in the past by Fianna Fáil about a reduction of expenditure and so on. Taxation was never as high as it is to-day, and if it continues at the present rate I do not know what the situation is going to be. I can say this, that the country is at least realising the serious financial position in which it has been placed by the present Government as a result of its administration during the last six or seven years.

Mr. Victory

It is no pleasure to a Deputy on any side of the House to be called upon to support increased taxation. The Government have the responsibility of raising taxation. We all know from the estimates that have been put before the House that, due to war activities, the public revenue will be down this year by a sum of £1,612,000. Deputy O'Sullivan to-day made great play about economies under five heads. What I cannot understand is how the members of the Opposition forget the speeches made by them in this House within the last couple of months. I have before me Volume 70 of the Dáil Debates, which contains a verbatim report of a speech made by Deputy O'Higgins on the 16th February last, on the Army Vote. The Deputy was speaking to a motion to refer back the Estimate on the grounds that the strength of the Army was not sufficient, and said:—

"After those eight years—eight years of trust, eight years of confidence, and eight years of a free hand —the testing time came last autumn, and when the testing time came we found that the job had not been done, that preparations had not been made, that plans had not been made, that stores had not been filled, that armaments had not been purchased."

That is an example of the kind of speeches that we have had from Deputies who are now finding fault with the present rate of taxation. That was the kind of speech we had from a Deputy who brought the members on his side into the Lobby to vote in favour of a motion of his because, in his opinion, the Army was not paying enough to the members of the medical services, although you had a Major-General getting £800 a year. The Deputy did not think that was enough.

Dr. O'Higgins

And they are being badly paid. I am not disputing what the Deputy is saying on that, because I will repeat it.

Mr. Victory

We had a speech last week from the same Deputy in which he asked for a statement as to why money was needed for the Army. I have not his exact words before me, but I am sure he will not deny what he said. At any rate, he found fault with the Army, and went so far as to say that it was not needed.

Dr. O'Higgins

The Deputy has stated that he is not in a position at the moment to give the quotation. I want to tell him now that the statement that he has just attributed to me was never made by me.

Mr. Victory

We had a speech this evening from Deputy MacEoin. He does not like to see taxation increasing, and neither do any of us. But, speaking here on the Army Estimate in February last, following an interruption by the Taoiseach, the Deputy said:—

‘No, Sir, next year you can bring in another Estimate for £5,000,000. I am not a fool. I happened to be a member of the Council of Defence for a while, and I know that the proper defence of this country cannot be undertaken for £5,000,000 a year."

Now, we have the Deputy talking about increased taxation, but that is what he said in February. I confess it is something that I cannot understand.

General MacEoin

Did I recommend to the Taoiseach that he should put £5,000,000 on the country?

Mr. Victory

In the same volume a speech of Deputy Mulcahy's is reported in which he complained that the expenditure for aeroplanes for the defence of the country was not half enough. What use would machine guns be if you had not enough gunners to operate them? These are the people who condemn the Government because the Government only went half as far as they wanted it to go in the matter of Army Expenditure.

Dr. O'Higgins

We voted the money, and why did not the Government spend it?

Mr. Victory

The conclusion that I have arrived at, from listening to the debate, is that the Opposition are not treating the country fairly. They are not treating it in the responsible way that the intelligence of the people deserves. I know that when they went into the Lobby on that occasion and voted for increases they thought, as most of us did, that this war would be a more terrible one than it has proved to be up to the present. There were all sorts of rumours as to what the Germans would do and would not do. On our side we are trying to face the position as it really is, and the Government are trying to reduce expenditure. In these debates one would expect more intelligence and more consistency from the Opposition. Instead of finding fault they should endeavour to be helpful in meeting an estimated deficit, because that is really the aim of this Budget.

The Opposition do not tell us what services can be dropped. Deputy O'Sullivan ridiculed the idea of attempting to make economies estimated at £400,000. In my opinion, if the Government succeed in doing that it will not be a bad beginning. That is not Deputy O'Higgins's idea, because, as I have shown, his idea would be to increase threefold the expenditure on the Army medical services. I think the expenditure on that service is quite adequate at the moment, and that if economies are to be made all should bear their share of them. We are faced to-day with trouble all over the country. The depression is crushing some more than others. I have the greatest sympathy with the unfortunate man who is drawing unemployment assistance. He is certainly deserving of more sympathy than the person who is in a position drawing a salary. We have numbers of unfortunate men and women who are willing to work and cannot get it, and who are being driven into a state of destitution by reason of the terrible war that is going on at the moment. These taxes will press heavily on them. The people on the opposite side have not suggested where we are to get the money to relieve them, if not by additional taxation. I would like to hear from Deputies opposite where the money is to come from to relieve those unfortunate people, if not from taxation. I am anxious to help industry, agriculture and everything that will contribute towards relieving that pressure but surely it is not fair to us that the Opposition should be speaking on this Budget as they have been for the last two weeks.

Dr. O'Higgins

It is rather a new experience for a Deputy to be called on to speak, following one whom I may describe as Deputy Rip Van Winkle. We have been discussing here for two weeks this Supplementary Budget and these new taxes. Many proposals and numerous suggestions, whether wise or unwise, have been made as to how to find the equivalent of the money by way of economies and now this Deputy wakes up from his slumbers to say, after some two weeks' continuous debate of that subject, that he never heard a suggestion or any proposal as to how money could be saved. Times may be bad but I suggest that Deputy Victory consults an aural surgeon before he returns to Longford. The Deputy strayed into past debates with regard to the Army and, by a whole series of misquotations, semi-quotations and inaccurate quotations, tried to imply that this Party over here had something contradictory in their policy. He pointed out that certain Deputies over here, including myself, had said in the course of previous Army debates that the Army was equipped to meet nothing.

That was one correct quotation given by the Deputy. What we pointed out was that in spite of the fact that the Army under the present Administration had cost £1,000,000 more per annum than under the previous Administration, yet it had nothing to show at the end of eight years. Year after year we have been voting fabulous sums for armaments, and when danger came there was nothing worth while in the hands of the soldiers. We advocated, personally I advocated, that the pay of the medical officers should not be reduced. I have no apology to make for that. The country has used these men for 17 years. They were kept in such a position that they were not allowed to leave. Then the Government broke every honourable and sacred contract made with them and altered these conditions. The case made that time was that the pay of the medical officers was out of proportion to the pay of the other officers. My answer to that was that it was true that the regimental officers were paid the rate they received 17 years ago, before any of them could claim to be professional officers, but that since that time they have gone through long, stiff courses, that they had passed their examinations, and that if there was any discrepancy between the pay of the regimental officers and the medical officers, the way to meet that was not by reducing the pay of the medical officers, but by increasing the pay of the regimental officers. I make Deputy Victory a present of that.

I never heard more bunk, trash, and insincere nonsense uttered in defence of any Bill than was uttered from the Government Front Bench in defence of the Budget and in defence of this Bill. Now we have more of that nonsense echoed from the far back bench. I do not blame Deputy Victory. He repeats what was said on the Front Bench. We have had repeated the nonsense that 1½d. per lb. on sugar is necessary in order to defend the neutrality and independence of this country. If no better case can be made for that kind of bunk than could be made by a country Fianna Fáil cumann or a slogan at a general election, if no better defence can be made for it, then it is better that there should be no defence. The Minister and Deputy Victory themselves know that if there is a military menace to the neutrality or independence of this country, it is not going to be met to any extent by an army of 10,000 or 15,000 men.

If there is a military threat to our independence or to our neutrality we will have to get away from the idea of a professional army altogether because we cannot afford it; we would have to meet such a threat by a conscript army of 100,000 to 150,000 men. Even they would be only a defence for a week or two. Yet we have one Minister getting up saying that this money is necessary in order to defend our independence and our neutrality and that, if we do not tax sugar by 1½d. per lb. extra, we are delivering ourselves up into a state of slavery. Very well. We have another Minister getting up two seats lower down to say that this money is required not to defend our independence or our neutrality but to defend us from Deputy Victory's pals. Now who is stating the truth? Is it the Minister who said that he wanted the money to defend us against some extraordinary menace not named and not visible, or the Minister who says the money is not wanted for dealing with an extraordinary menace but for dealing with organisations in this country? Which of the Ministers is telling the truth? Which Minister is trying to fool the Deputies in the House and the people outside? One or the other of these Ministers is fooling the people, which is it?

General MacEoin

Both.

Dr. O'Higgins

One would imagine when a Supplementary Budget is being introduced, with poverty rampant and unemployment growing, we would have unanimity about it on the Government side. If it is necessary to put a tax of 1½d. a lb. on sugar and 2d. on an ounce of tobacco, 1/- on the income tax and ½d. a pint on beer, surely one would expect that at least the few Ministers who comprise the Executive Council would have made up their minds in advance as to why it is necessary and not have two Ministers, one a Minister for Finance of some six or seven weeks' duration and another, an ex-Minister for Finance of seven or eight years' experience, telling two completely different stories. These two Ministers tell us completely different tales as to why the money is wanted. No Minister has satisfied the House as to why the money is required. Deputy Victory in a perfectly well-intentioned way gets up to repeat what one Minister has said and he turns a deaf ear to what the other Minister told us. The fact of the matter is this that we have to put those crushing penalties on people in the worst year the people of this State ever experienced because the Government has squandered money continuously for eight years and because in normal times they increased the taxation to breaking point. That was done at a time when there was no war, no threat to our independence and no threat to our neutrality. In the past eight years we have increased the taxation of this country by £6,000,000 or £8,000,000 a year.

In order to meet that extravagant scale, we are leaning more and more on entirely insecure methods of getting in our finance. We put ourselves as a State in such a financial position that any eruption at almost any point in the world creates financial instability here. A rapidly increasing yield was obtained from such insecure sources as tariffs and customs duties on goods imported into this country. Now, when there is a shrinkage of trade, with resultant unemployment and distress, in order to adhere to the scale of spending established in previous years we have nowhere to go but to the pockets of the very poorest people. In order to cover that up, we have all this nonsensical camouflage; we have all this nonsense about the money being required to defend our neutrality, to defend our independence. Deputy Victory does not believe that.

Mr. Victory

No?

Dr. O'Higgins

No. He is a sensible man. He deemed it his duty as a loyal follower of that Government to repeat all those catch-cries, but he does not believe it himself. Sugar and tobacco duties were very fully discussed last week. I myself spoke with reference to those two taxes, and I do not intend to repeat myself. I rose merely to protest against one tax imposed in this Finance Bill. I refer to the increased duties on beer and spirits. I am not protesting against those increased duties in so far as they affect the licensed trade. I happen to represent a constituency in which there is a small brewery and several malt houses. Every member of this House is aware of the fact that, by a miracle, by an entirely unexpected concession, the closing down of one of those malt houses—the malt house in Mountmellick—was averted some six months ago. It was postponed for 12 months. The closing down of that malt house would mean the ruin of that town, and, because the owners of Messrs. Guinness were satisfied—not by the case made but by personal investigation on the spot— that it meant the absolute ruin and destitution of a fairly good-sized town, even though it was bad finance and bad business they delayed the blow for 12 months. It was clear to the people who were dealing with that difficulty at the time that the crushing impositions on beer in this country, as against the impositions and taxes in the North of Ireland or in England, were forcing Messrs. Guinness, in a competitive world of hard business, to cut their overhead charges everywhere they could, even though destitution and misery and poverty were the result. They had to do it, in order to keep in business in a hard competitive world. On account of the height of our duties in this country they were forced to do it. The outlook was that Mountmellick was not the end but only the beginning of a long series of closures throughout the length and breadth of this country.

The Minister must know that villages and towns in this country of ours grew up in the past either around the mansion of a great family or around some local industry. Most of our towns were built and grew up around one big business. If that central business closes down the whole town becomes dependant on an organisation such as the St. Vincent de Paul organisation. Every second town in the midlands grew up around the maltings. Two out of every three able-bodied men are living on the wages drawn directly out of the maltings. The others are living indirectly out of the carrying and distributing trade. Every human being in those towns is living out of the maltings. It was because even a big business such as Guinness' appreciated that fact that they did an unbusinesslike thing and allowed the industry to continue, in the hope that there would be the same amount of humanity in the heart of the Government as in the heart of a business directorate; in the hope that the appalling outlook for the people in such towns would be considered by the Government, and that there would be some alleviation in the penalties on that particular industry. Here we have nothing but increases.

I should like to know if the Minister got any advice, when he was imposing those beer and tobacco duties, as to whether they are likely to bring in any increased revenue. I do not pretend to understand such problems, but I would venture to forecast that there will be no increased revenue from either the tobacco or the beer and spirits duty. We all know that three out of every four people we have met have either gone off cigarettes or cut down tobacco consumption by so much per week. What applies to cigarette and tobacco smokers will apply equally, in very bad times, to beer and spirit drinkers. Those new taxes will be met by the consumption of one bottle less per day in some cases, or one bottle less per week in other cases. In either case it will mean that there will be a loss to the revenue rather than a gain. In reply to our complaints about increased taxes and increased prices, we have heard Ministers and Government Deputies glibly telling us: "Oh, but during the war the price was even higher." I do not know whether they have any recollection of conditions in this country during the Great War. Did the cost of any article matter one whit during the Great War? The lid was off everything. The sky was the limit of prices. The sky was the limit of wages. A man bringing a bullock to the fair did not know what price to ask. If he asked what appeared to him to be the top price, he might be asking only half the price that was going that day. Wages went up in proportion. Everybody in the country was experiencing wealth that never before was found in the country and never will be again, the people were never as well off, and prices and taxes did not matter. Here we are putting on similar taxes, when it is true to say that the people were never poorer, and when every effort is being made by the Government to control prices.

The only prices we are able to control are the prices of the goods we ourselves produce, while we are powerless to control the price of goods that are produced elsewhere. The result is that we are paying the top price for what we buy, and getting the bottom price for what we produce and sell. The result of all that is, if course, that everybody is poorer, desperately poorer, and a tax that might have been scoffed at in 1915 and on to 1918 is a serious imposition now.

I think it is well always to take our standard from the poorest. In any of our homes a tax on sugar merely means that the running of the house costs 3/- or 4/- a week more and, if we have to meet it by saving, we can meet it very easily by reducing certain luxuries, certain amusements or certain expenditure on holidays. It does not really interfere with the economy of the household. But a tax that means 3/- or 4/- in a household that is existing on earnings amounting to £2 a week constitutes a serious problem. There is no luxury going into that house; there is no expenditure on holidays there, and this new imposition of 3/- or 4/- a week can only be met by the family going without supplies to the equivalent of what the tax abstracts. We have gradually embarked on a policy during the last seven or eight years of taxing poor and rich alike by invisible taxes, by taxes and tariffs on the goods they buy, and we have got entirely away from the old policy of letting the strongest shoulders carry the biggest load. A tax on such a commodity as sugar is a much heavier tax on the poor family than on the wealthy family, even if there are the same numbers in the poor man's family.

Sugar is a source of energy and a source of heat. The colder children are, the worse they are fed, the less nourishing their diet, the more of a craze they have for sugar. Everybody who lives or works amongst the poor knows that in the poorest houses, if a pound of sugar were left exposed and get-at-able, the youngest infant crawling on the floor would get at it and lap it up in a minute or two. In a wealthy household you can leave sugar on the sideboard, and the children will not bother about it; they are better fed, better clothed, and they are warmer. There is not that craving for internal heat-producing foods. A sugar tax, even on an equal capitation basis, is a tax that discriminates particularly against the poor, and in the exact proportion to the poverty of the household.

The tobacco tax is something similar. As Deputy MacEoin said, the tax is 2d. an ounce irrespective of the price of the tobacco. The wealthy man paid 1/7 an ounce for his tobacco. It means nothing to him if they increase his tobacco from 1/7 to 1/9. But the poor man who buys a small portion of plug, and the very economy of whose household makes it imperative that he would be rationed to so much tobacco a week —in his case the 2d. on the ounce of very cheap tobacco is a brutal tax.

Personally, I do not believe that the beer and spirit tax or the tobacco tax will bring any increased revenue. It will merely force so many people to go without some of the things that contributed a little pleasure to their lives. There will be no increased revenue. There will be increased revenue from the sugar tax and there will be that increased revenue at the expense mainly of the very poorest people in the country. Harm will be done in their households. Immense harm and no good will be done by the beer and spirit tax.

The Minister for Finance, when he introduced the Budget and this Finance Bill, absolutely passed sentence on the town of Mountmellick. There was plenty of lip sympathy six months ago. There was real consternation when last week came and when 39 men, who had been in regular, well-paid employment, got their last week's wages. There were others who lived indirectly out of it. There was such an upheaval that week that the sound was heard in the headquarters of Messrs. Guinness, and they could not face the appalling picture that would be there the week after. They said: "We will give you another year; we will pay the full wages for one more year in the hope that business in our particular trade will be better at the end of the year." Then the Government walk in with this. The grass will be growing in the streets of Mountmellick this time 12 months and the only thing that will prevent the grass growing will be the ironbound wheels of the hearses going through the town. There is nothing else in that town, no other thing that would give employment, even to one man or one woman. It is a town that grew up around the malthouse, and if the malthouse closes it means absolute ruin for the town.

I do not want to speak about one particular town. Every one of us knows, from the information at our disposal —and the Government must know it, too—that the smaller breweries in this country were on the point of closing down last March. We know, too, that there is scarcely one little brewery that can survive this Finance Bill. It may be the policy of the Government, just as it is with flour milling, to have big millionaire firms catering for the whole country and to wipe out the smaller firms. Certainly the death knell of the small brewery is sounded now. My interest is not concerned with the owners of the brewery, but with what it means, not only to the workers directly employed, but to those towns. The Minister sitting in front of me at the moment, the Minister for Lands, unlike most of his colleagues, has a close and intimate experience of the conditions outside the cities. He knows that what I say is true, that most of our towns grew up around one industry. Remove that industry from Mountmellick and that town is impoverished, ruined; there is no other possible source of employment.

There is nothing keeping the doors of the shops open but the wages of the workers and the money spent by the farmers when they bring in their barley to the malthouses and get paid for it. It means ruin to an extensive stretch of rural Ireland beyond the towns. Knowing that, or feeling it is true, and facing that situation, particularly in one's own constituency, surely it is not out of place to ask what is it all about. When one gets the kind of answer: "If we do not get this money our independence is gone or our neutrality is snatched from us," surely nobody can blame a Deputy for losing patience, particularly when he gets that answer from one Minister, and another Minister stands up and says: "That is not so. We want the Army, and we want all this expenditure to grapple with the murder gang within the country." The biggest mistake you could make is to magnify any of the despicable elements that are in this country and to give them an importance which they do not deserve. Whatever lawless elements are in this country now or at any time would be dealt with in any parish by five determined policemen with soft potatoes in their hands. We know that. You are merely making a whole lot out of nothing to pretend that your taxes, your aeroplanes and all your other paraphernalia of big war are required to deal with illegal organisations in this country.

There was a time in the history of this State when illegal organisations were much more numerous than they are at the moment, when illegal organisations got the patronage of the most influential politicians in the State, but even in those times there was nobody talking of such organisations as a vast military problem that required immense military expenditure to grapple with it. Put all that kind of thing on the very highest plane, and it is merely a major police problem, and not a military problem to any extent.

If, on the other hand, there is some real threat to our independence or to our neutrality, of a military kind—a real threat from any quarter—and immense taxes on the people are wanted in order to meet that threat, either in public or in private, cannot you be frank with your Deputies, and cannot you say where the threat is and why you want the money? If it cannot be said in public, then it can be said in private, but neither in public nor in private did any Deputy, even in that Party opposite, get any case for these new crushing and brutal impositions on the people, except the nonsensical, insincere speeches that have been made from the Government Front Benches.

Mr. Bennett

References have been made to the position now and during the Great War. Deputy O'Higgins has dealt with that and has showed that there is no comparison. Deputy Corry spoke about the cost of things now and in the Great War. The cost of selling things now and that during the Great War are altogether different. I am sorry that the Prime Minister is not in the House because I think he gave us a headline when he was speaking on a similar matter to this some ten or 12 years ago that is more valuable than that offered by any other Deputy. Speaking in this House, I think it was in July, 1928, on a similar occasion to this, the Taoiseach expressed himself in these words:—

"What is fundamental in our attitude is this: we recognise that we are a comparatively small country and that we cannot afford to carry on our administrative services here on the same scale as if, for instance, we were a part of the British administrative system."

He went on to make a comparison in another way and he said he was going to quote the example of a servant living in a mansion, with all the luxuries of the mansion, grand rooms, cushions, etc. He said that if the servant felt uncomfortable in the mansion there was nothing for him to do but to get out and get into a cottage. He said:—

"If I had that choice to make I would say, ‘We are prepared to get out of that mansion, to live our lives in our own way and to live in that frugal manner.'"

I think the Taoiseach at least is satisfied now that we have got out of the mansion but have we yet got into the cottage?

If what the Taoiseach said was any fair criticism at that time, the conditions now would make a criticism such as that much more apt and much more true. At that particular period our income was much greater than it is now. Our taxation in every direction was much less. The Taoiseach made that criticism very shortly after we had emerged from the first great crisis that this State had undergone. I do not want to go into a period of history now about which we might all differ but we had emerged from a civil war, with all the consequences of that civil war only a few years before the time the Taoiseach said we were living in this highly extravagant manner.

Very shortly after that—a few years after—the Prime Minister's own Party came into office, and he became Head of this State with all the chances of putting into operation the ideas that he had expressed. One of their first actions was to plunge this country into another crisis—the economic war. The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Flinn, when he was speaking a couple of days ago in this House said, as an argument for the Government, that we had survived the economic war and had come out of it in great financial condition. But that particular economic war had a most disastrous effect on this whole country, and particularly on the agricultural part of the country. That particular war forced Britain to forge and to use a weapon never hitherto adopted by the British themselves, and it probably never would have been used except for that particular dispute. I refer to the weapon of the tax on cattle, followed by the quota. Previous to that we never had a tax on cattle or any adoption of the quota system. We suffered tremendously from both. The loss to the community has been stated in millions. It has never been exactly computed, but very many millions were lost to the farmers and the community as a whole, owing to that particular policy.

That would have been bad enough but, concurrently with that particular manæuvre, they set out to adopt another idea of the Taoiseach's and his Party, a thing that was referred to in the very same speech that I quoted from a moment ago. Following that particular statement, I think, he made a famous reference to self-sufficiency, and said we would build a wall around the country. Incidentally, he said that the wall was not altogether meant to stop exports. The wall, in fact, was going to be a sort of drop fence; it would be easy to get out, but the devil to get in. But it proved in effect afterwards that the drop part of the fence was not deep enough and that things we wanted to keep out did come in, even though we put a particularly heavy tax on them; they came in at a higher cost to the people at large. Everything went up either because of tariffs or something else. Everything bought by every human being advanced in price so that we had the position that, concurrently with the lowering of prices through the operation of British duties, quotas, etc., we had a raising of prices by our own action through taxing our imports. We paid at both ends. Whatever reserves there were in the country were eaten up.

The reference that I have quoted from the Taoiseach was made after the first great crisis in this country. We had again to impose extra taxation before we had recovered from the effects of the second great crisis, and the most serious crisis in this country economically—I refer to the economic war. Now we are facing matters subsequent to the two crises at a time when we are probably more ill-fitted to bear taxation than we ever were or possibly ever will be. There is not a shilling in the till of the ordinary individual in this country.

References were made, as I said, to the Great War. But there were reserves of income and of savings when we faced the Great War. There were even some reserves left when the Taoiseach made the reference I quoted. There are no reserves now. There is scarcely an agriculturist, very few consumers, and hardly a workman with any savings. All three sections of the community are ill-fitted to bear any extra burden of taxation. If there was ever a time when what was "fundamental attitude" of the Government Party should be put into operation it is now. We ought to get out of the mansion and begin to think of getting into the cottage and cutting our expenses accordingly. Are we doing that? When the Taoiseach spoke at that time our taxes were comparatively small as compared with what they are now. Our customs and excise were millions less than they are now and our Army expenses were millions less than they are now.

We are now presented with increased taxes on three commodities which are essential to people who are not in a position to bear a further tax on anything. We have an increased tax on sugar. The tax on tobacco has been referred to by other Deputies and I do not intend to go into that again. If any tax had to be imposed, these are two of the last articles on which anyone should think of imposing a tax. The tax on spirits, while it may not have the same effect on the ordinary consumer, will, as Deputy O'Higgins stated, have an effect on the country. As Deputy O'Higgins pointed out, it will have a tremendous effect on many towns which are depending on the malting industry and on other towns which are depending on the brewery industry. I am one of those who are not afraid to go a bit further and to class even the "pint" or the "medium" as a necessity for many an humble person in this country. I can say that pretty openly, because no one can throw a stone at me as I happen to be a teetotaller. I do say that a drink is as much a necessity as eating to many people in this country, such as dockers and men engaged in work which creates a lot of dust. A "pint" or a "medium" is a necessity to such a man. It is as much a hardship on him to put a 1d. or 2d. on that drink as it would be to put 5/-, 6/-, or 10/- on a luxury or a semi-luxury used by a person in better circumstances.

We will be asked, of course, what we suggest in lieu of the taxes which the Government have imposed. Surely it is not necessary for us to make any suggestions to the head of a Government who in 1928, when taxes were relatively half of what they are now, if we take into account our income and the ability to bear taxation, stated that we were living on the scale of a highly-developed and rich neighbour which we could not afford; and that we should get out of the mansion and into the cottage.

For seven years I have been waiting to see the Party opposite getting into the cottage and instructing us in this frugal method of living which the Taoiseach spoke of. Now is the time to put that into operation and to make savings. The Party opposite, from the Taoiseach down to the humblest Deputy, has at various times preached how savings can be effected. It would be ill-mannered, impertinent therefore, for us to suggest how savings could be made. They know it better than any other Party in this House or any individual Deputy.

If I might, as a very humble Deputy, suggest where savings could be made, I would say that we might make savings on the Army. Another prominent Minister, when he was a Deputy in Opposition, speaking in this House in 1930 made a reference to our Army expenditure at that date when it was £1,600,000. Criticising the Army expenditure at that date the present Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures asked what we were spending £1,600,000 on the Army for except to fight Britain's battles. I am not suggesting that we are spending the taxation now being raised for the Army to fight Britain's battles. I would be very loath to make such a statement. I am looking for information as to how that particular expenditure is to be of benefit to this country. Deputy O'Higgins, when referring to it, thought that it was being increased because of internal trouble. Honestly, I do not believe it is. I think the Government know full well that less than what we are expending would be sufficient for any internal trouble that we are likely to have. No one can say that the present Government is faced with any greater degree of internal trouble than the previous Government, when Deputy Cosgrave was head of the State. I do not think any Deputy will admit that there is a greater degree of internal trouble now than there was previously. I do not want to get into any argument about parties or quarrels, but everyone will agree that there is no greater menace to the peace of the country than there was when the previous Government was in office.

It was argued then by Ministers, who are now on the Front Benches opposite, that this expenditure of £1,600,000. in a country like ours was ridiculous. If the only excuse offered now is because of internal trouble, surely it is ridiculous to ask the House to spend £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 or more. We cannot compute the amount, because nobody can make up his mind what the ultimate amount spent on the Army will be. If the Army is not for that purpose, for what purpose is it? It has been said that it is there in order to preserve our neutrality. Does anybody seriously suggest that the expenditure of £4,000,000, £5,000,000 or even £8,000,000 of money on the Army is going to be any effective contribution to our protection or defence? Everyone knows that it would not be. As far as our neutrality is concerned, we all hope it will be preserved during this war or any wars to come. I do not think any Deputy seriously considers that such expenditure would be of any use. Why, then, should we engage in this expenditure? When speaking in the recent debate, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce stated that neutrality might be more expensive than belligerency, and he went on to add that if we were in the war, an outside Power might have to help us. He suggested it might be by bearing the big cost of the fight. Is there any danger that we are going to fight? I do not think there is. If there is, surely the Minister knows where some of the money is going to come from.

On the other hand, if the Army is only for defensive purposes, and, from what we have heard in the debate, the only people we have to defend ourselves against are a small section engaged in internal trouble, that is no excuse for the expenditure of this money. There is no more internal trouble now than there was when the previous Government was in power, and there is no reason why more money should be spent. There is every reason why less money should be spent, if only for the reasons that I suggested originally, because, due directly to the actions of this Government, our capital and our reserve savings have been eaten up. In addition, taxation has been added to. The cost of most things that ordinary consumers purchase has risen extensively, while the price of many things we have to sell has been reduced. One does not know, but it may be that during this war there may be a temporary rise in the price of certain commodities that we export. At present every effort has been made to keep prices at the normal figure. If there is a small advance in the price of any article we export, it will be more than off-set—it is already off-set —by an increase in the price of articles necessary in every individual household, and I might say in every concern in the State.

There is only one remedy, and that has been pointed out by the Minister in his Budget statement, to have drastic economies made on all expenditure. Savings can be effected in almost every Department, and particularly on the Army. One might go through the whole list of Votes and suggest economies that could be made and, in view of the explicit statement made on the highest authority that we know, the Leader of the Government Party in this House, that drastic economies could have been effected when this country was in much better circumstances, and when taxation was much lower than it is now, it is surely not beyond the ingenuity and the sense of the Government in office to make the economies that are apparent to every Deputy.

Mr. Keating

To my mind this Supplementary Budget is a mean, low way of taxing the poorest of the poor. We were told by the Minister for Supplies at the outbreak of war that there was no need to worry about sugar, as plenty of it could be had. However, when the housewife went to the shops to buy sugar she was told that she could only get half the usual complement. Then the Government saw fit to increase the price by 50 per cent., or by 1½d. per lb., if that woman asked for a ton of sugar, she could get it. I say that is a low, mean way for the Government to raise taxation from the poorest of the poor. In addition to that, they taxed the poor man's tobacco by putting 2d. on the ounce. I have often wondered if the Government ever considered in what way it would be advisable to reduce taxation. Do they ever think of the promises they made before the 1932 election? They asked the people then to return Fianna Fáil to power as they could reduce taxation by £2,000,000 a year. They also stated that this was the only country in the world that could solve the unemployment problem. They told us they had a plan up their sleeves—it is up their sleeves yet—and that they were going to send to England and to America for the exiles. They were going to make this country such an industrial one that they would have to bring back all the people who had left it in order to make a living elsewhere. What really happened? When Fianna Fáil got into power we saw the steamers going to England day after day filled with fine young boys and girls who had been told that if they voted for Fianna Fáil they would find employment in industries here. We were also told then by Fianna Fáil that the British market was gone and gone for ever, and they thanked Almighty God that it was gone. They told the people that they had alternative markets. The Minister for Agriculture told how he had sold a pair of hens here and a lb. of butter somewhere else. We also shipped 200 cattle every week to Germany at the expense of the taxpayers. These were the alternative markets.

I have been a member of the Cattle Traders' Association for years, and I often told the Minister for Agriculture in this House that that association had tried for alternative markets on several occasions and that it failed. There is no other market in the world for our surplus produce but the British market. I am sure that those who said otherwise uttered lies and knew as well as anyone else that there were no alternative markets. It is now up to them to get back that British market for our produce. We are back in that market, but on what terms? It is the duty of the Government to meet the British Minister for Agriculture or the British Minister for Supplies, and to tell them that if they are prepared to give us feeding stuffs at the same price as they supply the British and Northern Ireland farmers, and give us the same price for our produce, we will take off our coats and supply their requirements. If, however, we are to be ground down by our native Government and by the British Government, it is no encouragement for us to work.

When Fianna Fáil were seeking power, they could not see anything at all for the farmers except derating, but when they got into power they said that they thought it would be very badly spent money. If it was necessary to derate the farmers in 1932, it should be necessary to-day. I have often asked, but my question was never answered, what did the economic war cost this country? I have never been answered yet. Surely, it cost more than three or four times what the civil war cost, but between the economic war and the civil war, and the Taoiseach making a bargain with England and giving England £10,000,000 that he said was not due, the cost to this country must have been something enormous, at any rate. They say that they have halved the annuities, but any farmer, whether he be a big farmer or a small farmer, who is indulging in mixed farming, and whether he sells his stock to the export market or to the home market, knows that it is the export price that rules the home market, and that if you have an exportable surplus it is always the export price that regulates the home market. We know that, as an agricultural country, this country wants more than the home market for our stock. We want, and we have at our door, a market that the whole world is trying to get, and that is the British market. I am sure that, when this economic war was started, and for a long time after it, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, and all the countries that supplied England, had every occasion to cry "Up Dev," because he surely helped them in the British market.

Now that the economic war is settled it is up to our people who are in power in this country to make a bargain with the British Government and ask them to give us a fair deal, in order to try to make up for the six years of the economic war, the six years of robbery that went on in this country. I do not intend to say anything more on this matter, but I am sorry the Minister for Finance is not here. He asked me the other night to tell him how to reduce taxation, instead of interrupting him. Well, the Minister is a man of experience, and a man who has made many promises, and I think it is not so easy for a back bencher of the Fine Gael Party to tell him that. I am surprised that many of the farmer back benchers of Fianna Fáil, who have been sent here by the farmers to look after their interests, should be trying to persuade the people that the agricultural policy of this Government is a sound one. Thank God, however, I was at a fair in Enniscorthy, yesterday, and I noticed that the leading lights there were supporters of the Government. If those gentlemen, however, had availed of the opportunity they had at the last general election, there would be no need for a strike, because they could have settled this matter through the ballot box.

Mr. Coburn

So much has been said in connection with the Budget and this Finance Bill that I presume there is very little more to be said on this occasion. However, representing a constituency that feels very much the extra taxation that has been imposed as a result of this Finance Bill, I think it is only right and proper that the views of those people should be put before the Minister. Now, the Minister, in his Budget statement, I regret to say, had absolutely no message of hope to send out to the thousands of unemployed people in this country. He had no suggestion to offer in regard to the question of one of the greatest industries in the country at the present time —that is, the building industry—which is absolutely prostrate since the war broke out. According to the Minister's statement, the whole fabric of this State seems to crumble like the proverbial pack of cards. That is a rather peculiar admission on the part of those who stated that, if given a chance, this country could live well and be independent of all other nations. Yet, strange to relate, at the first whiff of war, at the first whiff of adversity, there seems to go all out through this country a wave of pessimism which, if not checked, will have very bad repercussions upon the people of this State as a whole.

I, for one, would not object to this extra taxation if I thought it was essential with regard to the national interests of the people of this country, but it is because I am not convinced that it is essential that I am absolutely opposed to the increase in income-tax, the increase in the sugar tax, the increase in the beer tax and, last but not least, the increase on tobacco. The amount which the Minister expects to receive as a result of the imposition of these extra taxes is somewhere in the region of £1,500,000, and, naturally, the Minister for Finance asks the Opposition to tell him what remedies they would put forward if they were in power, or what economies they would effect which would have the result of making up for the non-imposition of this taxation. That is a strange question to be put by a Minister representing a Government, who, some few years back, stated, when the taxation of this country was in the region of £24,000,000, that the taxation was too high and that this country could not afford it. However, since the Minister has put the question—and especially the former Minister for Finance—and told the members of the Opposition to have at least the moral courage to tell him, I would suggest to him that if, during the past seven years, they had devoted a little more time and attention to the resources of this country, they would not be in the position to-day of having to impose extra taxation. For the last seven years the Government carried on a policy typical of that little winged creature called the fly. They were basking in the sunshine all the time and enjoying it, on the assumption that the sun would always shine. They never took cognisance of the fact that there is another little winged creature, called the bee, which, in addition to enjoying the sunshine, takes the precaution of putting a little by for the rainy day. As a result of the spendthrift policy pursued by the Government during the last seven or eight years they now find themselves in the position that they have not got one penny piece in reserve to fall back upon and, as a result, they have to increase taxation.

I stated here eight or nine years ago that the Government that set out to do certain things by means of increased taxation would fail and that, as the years went on, they would have to increase taxation year by year. I stated here on several occasions that the Government that set itself out to solve the unemployment problem by means of increased taxation would find that the net result of their efforts would be an increase in unemployment and an increase in taxation. That situation has arrived here to-day, and we are asked now, by means of the tax on sugar, to tax the very poorest of our people, and I for one am not prepared to do that.

I am not prepared to ask a man with a wife and a family of eight or nine, whose maximum earnings range from 27/- to 15/- or 16/-, to bear these extra burdens, especially when I am conscious that I am a member of a Legislative Assembly that, scarcely three months ago, voted its members an increase of £2 10s. 0d. per week because £7 per week was considered insufficient to live upon. That is why I, at that period, voted against the increase. I had in mind the plight of thousands of our people down the country who had to live not on £7 per week but on one-seventh of that sum. The then Minister for Finance had the audacity to disbelieve the statement made by me on that occasion that I, as a father of a large family, had lived upon £360 and was prepared to live upon it.

Again, I am to ask the poor man in the country to pay 2d. per ounce more for his tobacco when he may not be in receipt of 15/- a week. I am not prepared to do that when, to my own knowledge, we have a Government here paying military pensions to men in receipt of £4 or £5 per week. I have in my pocket a letter from a married man with five of a family whose means were assessed at the Labour Exchange at 11/- because he happened to live with his father-in-law. At the present time, that man is in receipt of 3/- per week for himself, his wife and his five children. The maximum amount he would be allowed would be 14/- but, whatever way the officers computed or assessed his means, they came to the conclusion that, because this man was living with his father-in-law—who probably took him in for charity—his means should be assessed at 11/-. There was no other reason for that assessment. The net result is that that man is receiving 3/- per week and I am to ask him, under this Finance Bill, to pay more for his sugar, his tobacco, his beer and every other commodity he buys. I am not prepared to do that. Before I ask him to do that, I am prepared to make sacrifices myself. If the Minister for Finance or any member of the Government or the Party opposite asks me to make sacrifices, I say I am prepared to make them, but those sacrifices will have to be general.

As I stated before, this poor country is not able to maintain the standard we set out to maintain. That has been proved by the statement of the Minister for Finance in his Budget. He said that were it not for our long association with a great and rich country like Great Britain, we might not be enjoying the social services we were enjoying—in other words, Great Britain was such a fairy godmother to this country that she gave us social services which we would not have been able to give ourselves if we had been free. If that statement means anything, it means that we were a lot of blithering idiots for ever driving the English out of this country.

We have the statement of members of the same Government that, during the economic war, the people of this country could not be coerced or starved into submission. We had that statement by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Hugo Flinn. The Irish people, he said, made such sacrifices that they defeated the threat of England to starve them into submission. If the Parliamentary Secretary were here, I should like to ask him what sacrifices he made, with his £1,000 a year. What were his sacrifices compared with the sacrifices made by thousands of farmers, large and small, who sold their 10-cwt. beast for £7 or £8 when they could now get £23 or £24 for the same beast. That was the time that this country was ruined financially. Then, the Parliamentary Secretary, instead of closing that chapter of history, comes here to challenge members of the Opposition with wanting to surrender to Great Britain. My opinion —and I am not an Imperialist in the usual sense of the word—is that any sufferings endured during that period were self-imposed as a result of the blunderings of the Taoiseach, especially, the members of the Executive Council and, to a lesser extent, members of the Fianna Fáil Party. No sacrifices were made by any member of the Party opposite, nor by members over here for that matter. It was the common people who made sacrifices at that period, and it would be much better if men like the Parliamentary Secretary would regard that period as a closed chapter.

These taxes on essential articles of food, like sugar, are not needed. As I said, I should be prepared to support them if I thought this money was to be used in the interests of the people, especially the working classes. I have yet to listen to a speech from any member of the Fianna Fáil Party informing me that any considerable sum —or any sum—of this extra £1,500,000 will reach the pockets of the unemployed or the pockets of those thousands of men who were engaged in the building industry during the last four or five years, and who, as a result of the outbreak of the war, now find themselves out of employment. Where is this £1,500,000 to go? That is a question to which I want an answer. We have it on the authority of the present Minister for Industry and Commerce that portion of it is going to the Army, that portion is going to the Gárda auxiliary force, and portion to a thing called A.R.P. So far as I can see, not a penny is going to the relief of unemployment. This time last year we had a large number of men engaged in making new roadways and new footpaths. In the capital town of the constituency which I represent, not a penny piece of Government money is at present being spent, and I suppose the same applies to Drogheda and Ardee. The urban council no later than last night had to vote £250 to give a week's work to a certain number of men who were canvassing for that week's work, which will not be given until Christmas, almost three months ago.

At present some of them are busily canvassing. What a commentary on our present social position! Sometimes I yearn—I am speaking now honestly and from the bottom of my heart— for some strong man who will take the lot of us by the back of the neck and make us realise our duty to our fellowmen, make us realise that we are living in a small country and that if the unemployed and those in danger of disemployment as a result of the war are to get a chance, the people as a whole must make sacrifices. The example must come from the top. There is no use in getting up in this House and asking: "What are you prepared to do?" One must realise that fact and realise the duty to people who at the moment find themselves unemployed.

Again. I will vote against these taxes because I am conscious of the fact— and I do not want to do any man out of anything to which he is entitled— that this is not the time for the Government to summon hundreds of men to come up here with a view to giving them pensions for military service, even if those pensions were earned. I am not against the giving of pensions but this is not the time. I cannot understand the Government which appears before this House and asks us to sanction taxation that will react heavily upon the very poorest of citizens, and in the next breath invites hundreds of men—some of whom, to my certain knowledge, are at the moment in receipt of £4 to £5 per week—to come up here to give them from 8/- to 15/- a week more on top of their wages. I say that it is not right to do so, when there are so many men unemployed and so many people all through the country living, not on £4 a week, but on 10/-, 12/- or 15/- a week.

We must face the facts. I am perfectly conscious of the fact that, so far as this country is concerned—and many other countries, too—what is really wrong, to a large extent, is that all of us as a whole have invented 20, 30 and 40 new ways of spending an extra shilling, but unfortunately we have not invented 20, 30 or 40 ways of making the extra shilling. The green field, which is the chief industry of this country—and that has been proved since the war broke out—will not produce in accordance with the advanced tastes of the people. That is one thing that we cannot force, and the sooner we realise that fact the better. It is up to the Government themselves to give a lead in this matter. Before they ask people who cannot afford it to pay more for their tea, sugar, beer and tobacco, they should be in a position to prove to the people that they have effected all the economies possible.

One could speak on this Finance Bill for quite a long time as regards the very baneful results that will ensue from this extra taxation. One of the things referred to this evening by Deputy O'Higgins is the position of some of the smaller breweries. Nobody knows how great an asset a small brewery is, in the small country districts where some of them are placed, in connection with the buying of barley and of ancillary and incidental items used in the carrying on of the business. Nobody, except those acquainted and with experience of that particular business, knows the real boon that such an industry is to the farmers and workers. With the increased taxation there is great danger of these small breweries going out of commission altogether. That is put up as one of the things that should weigh heavily with the Minister for Finance. I say here and now, before the Government asks the members of this House to vote for these taxes, they are taxes which, in the opinion of all right-minded, honest people, are going to place an impossible burden upon people who are not in a position at the moment to bear such a burden. I say they are asking for something which ought not be granted and for that reason I am going to vote against this Finance Bill.

Mr. S. Brodrick

In the eight years since the Government came into office they have on every occasion found a cloak to cover in some way their mishandling of this country by increasing taxation. They have now taken the cloak of the European conflict in order to put a further burden on the people. That burden is really put on by the way the finances of this country have been mishandled for the last seven or eight years. There is no getting away from that fact, seeing the taxation that this country is asked to pay at the present time as compared with ten years ago and the independence of this country at the present day as compared with ten or 12 years ago.

We had figures from the present Minister for Finance the other day as to the tax on sugar. When he was questioned in this House he at once produced figures to show that there was more taxation on sugar during the former Government's time than since Fianna Fáil came into office. There is one answer to that: the taxation on sugar during the previous Government's time was due to the activities of the present Minister for Finance—no, I will not say the present Minister for Finance; there were no activities attached to him as regards that—the activities of the Fianna Fáil Government and their followers down the country. If the Fianna Fáil Government followed the policy of the previous Government, I believe that to-day there would be no need for any taxation whatever on sugar.

They came along and told us of the great social services they were going to give the country, that they would cost much less. They made a great boast over the increase of 1/- in the old age pensions, but I ask the Government to-day were not 90 per cent. of the old age pensioners when they were receiving 9/- a week, better paid than they are to-day when they are receiving 10/-. You will get 90 per cent. of the old age pensioners to-day to tell you that. Now, we come along to the matter of unemployment in this country. If you look up present figures you will find that at the present time, as compared with this time 12 months, there are 17,000 more unemployed. Let the country not be misled. If there are another 17,000 unemployed, there are 110,000 unemployed in the country at the present time. Let them not be surprised if there are 130,000 unemployed inside two months, at the rate the policy of the Government is going.

Where is the employment to come from? Check building costs at the present time: take one item, corrugated iron. It was sold at £20 a ton down the country until three weeks ago to-day and it is £40 a ton to-day. Ranges, grates, every article in the building line, in the line of metals, have gone up by at least 30 per cent. Timber is up by 33 per cent. Where is the employment to come from in the building industry that we hear such boasts about? I do not think that you are going to relieve unemployment by your present policy. You have got to change your hand, if you are going to do it; you have got to see that costs of social services in this country are curtailed as much as possible and that there are not so many inspectors going around harassing the public every other day; you have got to see that you get the best services from your county authorities. It is the boast of the Government that there are better social services to-day, but what is the country paying for these social services? If you take one county in the West of Ireland, the rates, inside the last eight or nine years, have gone up from 8/6 to 15/7. They are paying for these services but they are not getting them.

At present there are a number of commissions sitting. There is a Commission on Agriculture sitting, and a Commission on Drainage has been sitting for about a year and a half. We see every other day numbers of officials and members of local authorities brought up from the country by this commission, with all the resultant expense. Members of local authorities may know something about drainage in a particular county, or in their own districts, but a great number of the officials brought up know nothing whatever about drainage. Long before that commission sat, there were commissions in this country to inquire into what could best be done for drainage.

Has the Government made one effort to carry out the reports of these commissions? Not one effort have they made, and the same thing will happen, I believe, with regard to the report of the commission sitting at present. If the Government are really serious in their desire to relieve unemployment and prevent the continual flooding of land, why do they not put a portion of their report into effect? They know as well as we do the way this country is flooded at present; they know the condition of the farmers and of the unemployed; and if there is to be anything effective as a result of this commission, now is the time to do it.

We have a Commission on Agriculture, and, quite recently, we had a consultative council on agriculture appointed. What is the idea of both bodies? Will the country get anything out of them? We have also a Commission on Vocational Organisation, and we had a Bill the other day to establish fire brigades. Probably fire brigades will be established in towns where they do not see water for six months of the year. There are several towns in the West of Ireland where they see very little water for six months of this year. The country is suffering enough, and it is time the Government took action. They talk about increased tillage. Will they give a guarantee to the farmers that they will get fertilisers for the coming spring? They want 900,000 extra acres of tillage. Where are the manures to come from? All we see is an increased number of inspectors, and that is the very class which should be cut down, because the public are harassed by them. No matter what business you carry on, there is not a day goes by that there is not an inspector in on top of you about something, and if you carry out his instructions, it is quite possible that, next month, you will have another inspector countermanding the instructions he gave.

There is also afforestation, and the Government have boasted greatly of all they have been doing in that respect. I think they are only on the fringe of the problem, and they have been on the fringe of it for a long time. I know a number of places that have been planted and I give the Government credit for all they are doing, but they are only on the fringe of the problem. We have taxes on tobacco, beer, spirits and sugar and, at the same time, the Minister says that he will see that there will be no increase in wages. It is very hard to accept that the poor must be taxed to that extent, if there are not to be increases in wages. One thing at least the Minister should consider, that is, to give the people a chance to live. There are 117,000 unemployed at present. Let him see what he can do for those in order to bring them over the winter. Conditions are very bad for them. The Government got the support of these poor people year in and year out on the false promises that every man would be employed, that every farmer would get a price for his produce and that every member of his family would have a good livelihood in future, and those are the promises that have put the country in the position in which it is at present.

Mr. Norton

The discussion that might normally take place on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill has already taken place on the Financial Motions and on the óther motions relating to the imposition of taxation on sugar and the increase in the price of sugar generally, and I do not, therefore, propose to travel over that ground again; but there is one aspect of the Minister's Budget speech to which I should like to refer, in order to get some clarification of the Government's policy in respect of wage standards in this country. The Minister, I know, has made certain statements this evening, but he did not go beyond professing a general sympathy with the workers, which it is very easy to give from the lips, but which we know from experience is not often translated into practice, when it comes to raising the standards of living of the workers. In the course of his Budget speech, the Minister said:

"The war has resulted in increases in the prices of many essential commodities and, before it ends, further increases are unforunately probable. These increases will bear heavily on every class and there will be a strong temptation to demand a corresponding increase in wages, salaries and profits. If such demands were successful, the effect would be to increase prices still more and to give occasion for new demands. In that way an artificial price structure would be built up which would inevitably collapse at the end of the war, if not before, leaving behind widespread unemployment and depression. The Government feels that it has a duty to do everything in its power to avert such a development and is determined to set its face against the efforts of any class to obtain compensation for the rise in prices at the expense of the community. Action to the same end is in contemplation with regard to all classes of public servants and, if the war continues for a long time, the Government may be forced to adopt more drastic measures."

The whole philosophy underlying that statement seems to me to be an intimation to the workers, because the employing class can usually look after itself pretty well, that so far as the Government is concerned, it proposes to set its face against the attempt of any group of workers, or all the workers, or all the small farmers, to secure compensation for the rise in prices. We have seen, during the past few months in particular, the price of many commodities rise substantially, and all the indications are that further increases will inevitably result. Nothing the Government has done so far has prevented a rise in prices, and if the same methods are to continue and if we have to import some of our foodstuffs and other commodities we use, there will be further increases in prices. I should like the Minister to say definitely whether in circumstances of that kind the Government intend, as a matter of deliberate policy; to prevent the workers agitating for increased wages to enable them to purchase the commodities which they require, and which are now being sold at prices substantially higher than those which prevailed 12 months ago.

If that is the Government's policy, we ought to know it definitely. That is the only meaning one can attach to the language in the Minister's speech. We should have from the Minister some definite declaration as to where the Government stands in the matter of wage standards, whether it is going to permit prices to rise, on the one hand, and to use every instrument at the disposal of the Government machine to prevent wages rising, on the other. If that represents Government policy, and if they can manage to implement a policy of that kind, then, inevitably, a situation is going to develop wherein wages will have a lower purchasing power than they have to-day. As a result, there will be a slackening in the demand for goods of all kinds, and there will be increased hardship for many classes of workers in this country. But the Minister's statement, I think, has even a greater significance and purport which apparently it was not the Minister's intention at the time he made the speech to disclose in any great detail. Certain newspapers last week-end, notably English newspapers, carried a report to the effect that the Government intended to suspend the operation of the cost-of-living sliding scale agreement that is in operation in the Civil Service. The Minister for Finance, as the ultimate employer of the Civil Service, is aware of the type of arrangement to which I refer. Under the sliding scale arrangement, Post Office workers' wages were adjusted in accordance with the rise or fall in the cost-of-living index figure. For over 16 years these workers have borne a steady reduction in wages in consequence of the decline in the cost-of-living index figure. Now, in a war situation, when prices will tend to rise, if the newspapers are to be believed— and the statements which appeared in newspapers were very definite statements, particularly those in the English newspapers—the Government apparently have under consideration the question of suspending the cost-of-living sliding scale arrangement, at a time when it will, perhaps for the first time in the past 16 years, provide some compensation to the lower-paid persons in the Post Office service for the rise in prices.

I should like to know whether that was mere speculation so far as these newspaper correspondents were concerned, or whether it is contemplated, particularly in respect of the lower-paid grades in the Post Office service, to suspend the operation of that agreement. For about 16 years, as the Minister knows, the agreement has operated to the considerable disadvantage of civil servants.

One might say that for 16 of the 19 years, it has operated to their disadvantage. When it might now conceivably give some compensation to these lowly-paid civil servants for the rise in prices, I should like to know from the Minister, particularly, in view of the fact that the agreement is a signed agreement to which he is a party on the one hand and the staff organisations are a party on the other hand, whether it is contemplated in any way to interfere with an agreement of that kind. Should the Minister contemplate a step of that kind, then I can only say such action on his part would be regarded as a very grave breach of faith and as a headline to private employers to repudiate their responsibilities under other agreements.

If there is one example more than another which the Government should set, it is one of respect for agreements that have been freely made between employers and workers. I hope the Minister in the course of his reply will indicate that the State does not intend to repudiate the agreement which was freely entered into, an agreement which has already been approved of by various Governments and an agreement which enshrines an arrangement which has been the subject of commendation from time to time by various members of the present Government. Grave disquiet and perturbation have been created by the announcements which have already appeared in the Press. If they are inaccurate, it is all to the good. The Minister will this evening have an opportunity of denying the accuracy of these statements. I do hope that the Minister will indicate in his reply, at the conclusion of this debate, that the Government has no intention whatever of breaking that agreement, that it will fulfil the agreement loyally, particularly as the agreement has always been kept by those who are the other party to it. A statement of that kind will help to calm the indignation which is felt and which will become much greater if it is thought that at this stage, in the third month of the war, the Government is about to embark on a policy of repudiating an agreement which the State up to now has always honoured and always freely accepted.

Mr. Morrissey

I should like the House to try to get a picture of what this Finance Bill means. The Minister told us that he wanted to find approximately £1,700,000 and that he proposed to raise, in round figures, £600,000 by the additional taxation proposed in this Bill. He hoped, he said, as a result of the activities of the Economy Committee to save a sum of £400,000 and, if my recollection is right, he went on to say that the other £600,000 would be carried on to the next financial year. The Government are asking the people, through this Supplementary Budget, to put up an additional £1,700,000 in one shape or another.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Not quite so much.

Mr. Morrissey

Perhaps the Minister would make it clear.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Go ahead.

Mr. Morrissey

I do not want to go ahead if I am in any way misrepresenting the Minister. The Minister mentioned a sum of £1,600,000 or £1,700,000. Did I understand the Minister to say that this sum would be required to meet the deficit to the 31st March next?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is the deficit in revenue, the falling off in revenue.

Mr. Morrissey

And the only reason you are not asking the people for the £1,600,000 now is because you cannot get it in this financial year. As reported in Volume 77, column 968, the Minister said:—

"The various increases in taxation which I have proposed will, if accepted by the Dáil, bring us from now until the end of the financial year a total estimated revenue of £603,000 against the deficiency of £1,620,000."

There is a deficiency of £1,620,000 arising in this financial year. That is a deficiency which will have to be made good by the people. What I want to emphasise is that this additional burden is coming on top of one of the heaviest Budgets ever borne by the people of this country, and the people are being called upon to meet this additional burden at a time when they were never in a worse position to meet it, after years of a steady drain on their resources. Despite all the activities of the Government, there are 110,000 registered unemployed. We know, of course, that that figure does not give us a full picture of the unemployment situation in the country, because we have between 6,000 and 7,000 people in the City of Dublin alone on poor relief.

We had Deputy Corry's statement that the price of cattle has gone down. I think some farmers, and some people in the cattle industry, would be prepared to say that certain classes of cattle have gone down in price by as much as £2 a head in the last five or six weeks. We know, too, that there are thousands of farmers who are unable to make ends meet, and that not only are the fathers of families unemployed, but that their sons and daughters are also unemployed. I do not want to exaggerate, but we know that of the hundreds of boys who obtain the leaving certificate in our schools the percentage of them that will succeed in getting employment in this country is very small. That is the picture that we have to paint of the situation in this country at the beginning of a war.

Deputy Norton referred to the Minister's statement about people seeking to compensate themselves for the increase in the cost of living. If one takes what preceded that reference in the Minister's statement, then the statement itself can be taken as referring absolutely to workers. Is the Minister aware that the present cost of living is due principally to Government activity over a number of years: that Budget after Budget, prohibition after prohibition, and tariff after tariff resulted in steadily and consistently raising the cost of living here, and that workers, in most cases, far from getting an increase in their wages to meet the increased cost of living are to-day in receipt of lower wages than they had ten years ago. I do not believe that either the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance would dare assert that the purchasing power of a pound note is nearly as great to-day as it was ten years ago. Will the Minister tell us, when replying, that there is anything in this Budget that is likely to provide employment for one single person who is unemployed to-day? Is not this additional taxation more likely to add very considerably to the number of unemployed that we have, high and all as the figure is?

So far as unemployment is concerned, we know that we have not yet reached the peak point. That is reached about the first or second week in January. I am afraid that the figure will go to 120,000 or 130,000 before another two months have passed. That is the position that we find in the country, and it is in these circumstances that the Government come along and pile on additional taxation. Grave objection must be taken to the manner in which they are piling on the additional agony, for instance, to the way in which the price of sugar was increased. The Minister for Finance must know well that, while the increase in the price of sugar hits all sections of the community, it will fall with particular severity on the poorest section. Yet, he said that the Government would set its face against any section trying to compensate itself in any way for these increases. I suggest to him that he might as well try to keep back the tide with a fork. The workers may make up their minds to set their faces against their wages being further reduced as they are under this Budget.

I would like to hear from the Taoiseach or the Minister if they are in a position to tell the House whether they have any scheme to provide employment for the people who are unemployed. I would be very much surprised if the Government have not adverted to the very grave danger of having such a huge number unemployed, a danger not only to themselves and their families, but perhaps a danger even to the State itself. Some of those men, through no fault of their own, have been unemployed for very long periods. Men with families, some large families, in our provincial towns and villages cannot, and will not, go on trying to exist and to rear a family on a maximum sum of 14/- a week. The 14/- which they were getting 12 months ago is not worth more than 11/- to-day. The Minister for Finance knows that. I give him full credit for this: that, due to his activities in another Department, great numbers of the people I speak of were put into new houses, but, as I said on another occasion, a bird can be just as hungry in a gilded cage as in a rusty one. You are certainly not improving the position of a man with 14/- a week if you take him out of a house, no matter how bad it is, of which the rent is 1/-, and put him into a new house costing him 4/6 a week. The 4/6 will be the first charge on his unemployment assistance allowance. There is nothing in this Bill calculated to ease that problem, but there is everything in it to aggravate the conditions under which those people are trying to live.

I, unlike the members of the Government and their Party, have never looked upon it as an easy thing to absorb into employment all the unemployed. I do not believe it is possible for this Government, or any Government, given the best will in the world, to do that; but what I do say is this: that the least we had to expect from the Government was that they would not initiate, and insist upon pursuing, a policy that not only did nothing to reduce the number of unemployed, but that aggravated the position and increased the number substantially. The only outlet, unfortunately, that we had for our unemployed in the last few years has been stopped now. It was an outlet that, if we had the choice ourselves, we would not have selected.

I do not want to paint the picture any blacker than it is. It is black enough, but, as I said already in the course of this debate, we are not going to make matters any better by refusing to face up to the facts as we see them. I warn the Government that there is a growing feeling of discontent through all sections of the people down the country. I know it is not easy for Ministers to learn the real feelings of the people, and to know what they think. I know it is difficult for people in the Government to be in touch every day with the ordinary man in the street. It is not as easy for them as it is for the ordinary T.D. down the country. There is a feeling growing in the country that the people are not getting a fair deal; there is a certain amount of resentment, and a feeling of despair is growing in the hearts of the people. That is not confined to the unemployed alone. It is spreading to all the people. That is a feeling that none of us would like to see spread. I suggest to the Government that they ought to forget a great many of the commissions they have set up.

In dealing with the present situation they must forget about these commissions. Remember these difficulties did not arise on the 2nd or 3rd September last. There is no use in the Minister trying to fool this House and the country, and telling them that the necessity for this money arose solely and only because of the fact that Germany declared war on Poland on the 1st September last. The matter goes back further than that. The necessity for this additional taxation is due to other things than the outbreak of war. I do not say for a moment that the proclamation of war has not aggravated the position. It certainly has, not only for the country but for every citizen. But let the Government remember this: If we at the beginning of the war find the position as it is, and feel the necessity for placing these burdens on the people, where are we going to be and where is the country going to be if this war lasts for four or five years? I wish the Minister would be serious on this matter. I hope he will, when replying on this debate, give us a serious statement and so show the House that he has given thought to the matter. It would be unfair to expect the Minister, in the short time he has occupied his present position, to make a statement covering the whole financial situation of the country. Nobody expects him to do that. But there are many problems which were known to the Minister in his former Department. He has been a member of the Government from the beginning, and these problems must have been pressing on his mind. This is one question which I will put to the Minister-this is what we want to know from the Government: Have we nothing to get or expect from them but a demand for additional money?

Mr. Childers

I come from a constituency where there are workers as well as farmers, and I would like to ask once more that the Minister for Finance would make his position clear so that the country may avoid inflation during the course of this war. I am speaking entirely on my own behalf. I have made somewhat of a study of the economic history of Europe from 1914 to 1932. I would like to know roughly what the Minister has in mind in connection with wages. It is very important that the people should face up to the position that it is very desirable that increases in wages and salaries should be controlled within very narrow limits. At the outset it should be made clear to the people why that is so. The way in which I look at it is this—that we are depending for the whole life blood of our industry on our exports. It is by the money that we get for our exports of agricultural produce that we are able to import part of our raw materials.

Now the British Government has rigidly controlled the prices that we are to obtain for our agricultural exports. As a result of that if we, through great increases in wages, salaries and costs of distribution of the products of our industries, make it impossible for the farmer to export his goods at the prices at which they are controlled in England that will have the effect of creating more unemployment in the factory and in the farm. Our imports are paid for by our exports and if our exports are reduced our imports of raw material must also be reduced. That is the first point to be considered.

We have to enable the farmer, during this crisis to go on producing so as to enable the raw materials of our industries to be imported. If we make conditions impossible for the farmer by the spiralling upwards of wages, salaries and the cost of the things that he buys, that will have the effect of increasing unemployment in our industries. The second point that occurs to me is the fact that we may have to control very rigidly the price of the products of our imports since these may go up unduly in relation to agricultural exports and that would make it impossible for our people to buy them. Then we have to note the decline in income from our investments abroad and this will also have an affect on our financial position.

Having regard to those facts we are in this position that if we allow or encourage too much of an increase in wages or salaries the result is that we increase the cost of living and then again we get a demand for a further increase of wages which in turn will create a lowering of employment in the country. For that reason the particular worker who is asking for a rise in wages is jeopardising his own employment. There are other reasons over which we have no control and over which no neutral country has control. We will find that if wages rise through an increase in the cost of living this very increase in wages will, in turn, increase the cost of living so that there will be the necessity for another increase in wages a few weeks later. In that way we will be reducing the ability of the farmer to continue exporting so as to be able to purchase raw materials for our industries. I am not suggesting nor arguing that it will not be necessary for the wages of low-paid workers or operatives to be increased. I am not expecting anyone to take the whole burden on his shoulders but I am suggesting that if there is a considerable increase in wages the result will be to raise the cost of living of the person with a very low income. That increase in wages will by raising prices reduce the consumption of the articles produced by our factories. That will make the position of all workers more precarious.

As far as possible it should be the object of the Government to prevent profiteering amongst the employers and producers and to discourage any excessive increase in wages. I would like to know from the Minister for Finance whether I have described the position fairly accurately? I would like the people to understand that no way can be found out of this problem by the devaluation of currency, nor by any form of financial jugglery can we find a way out of this question of prices. If someone is trying to steal advantages from somebody else that too will have a bad effect. Nothing can be worse in this crisis than for one section of the community to get the suspicion that another section is trying to rob something from them. If there is a feeling in the community that the employers are profiteering or that the workers are taking advantage of the present crisis to increase wages, that will have a very bad effect. There is no subject on which more calm consideration is required than on the need to prevent inflation. I think everyone will agree that from the beginning of the war in 1914 until the end of the depression in 1932 the principal cause of the depression was the inflation created by the war. Let no one in this House lightly say anything which would encourage inflation. I do not wish any of my remarks to be taken as indicating a lack of understanding of the position of the poor man, the man with a small income. I am simply arguing that his very life blood, his very chances or continued employment, depend partly on the calm consideration of those issues. On the last occasion, when speaking on the Financial Resolutions, I pointed out the financial stability of this country, and its ability to face the present issue. I concluded my remarks on that occasion by pointing out that we now had had speeches from two Ministers for Finance, both of whom warned us that the time had come when we would have to consider how far we could continue the impositions and burdens of taxation which we have had up to now. I should like briefly to point out the position to the House, and to embroider the Minister's words to some degree, in order to illustrate the reasons for his fears, and at the same time to prove that we can be confident of the future. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.