Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 14—General (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (10th Dáil) – Friday, 10 May 1940

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 14—General (Resumed).

Question again proposed:—

That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance.

Colonel Ryan

After eight years of highly increasing taxation what do we find? We find that unemployment is increasing. We find agriculture in a bad state, short of the necessary finances to carry on. We are told that this is a great and a grand Budget because taxation is not increased this year. It is time that taxation should be decreased. It is time that, in order to decrease it, the Government should cease to carry on their wild and hazardous schemes, that they should give up interference in the ordinary business life of the country and that they should abandon schemes such as peat development, industrial alcohol and many others. All these have been wild-cat schemes, never thought out in a proper manner. It is such schemes that are the cause of increasing taxation and were it not for them we would not have such high taxation. It is madness to say that it is because of the social services that taxation is so high.

If so much money is being spent on social services, why is the position as bad as it is? Why are the unemployed numbers so great? Why are so many of them badly off? Why are they confined to three days a week work? Why are they made to live on 13s, or 14s. a week? Why are people going in greater numbers to charitable organisations for help year by year? It is all due to the one thing—increasing taxation. Even those people who are living on 14s. or 15s. a week have to pay nearly half that amount in taxes. Everything they buy, clothes, boots, the food they eat, is taxed by hidden taxation. The Government try to hide it from the people, but it cannot be hidden any longer. The country cannot possibly carry on indefinitely as the Government think it ought to. The Government borrow every year for unemployment. It is ridiculous to think that money spent on unemployment should be capital expenditure. It is no such thing, and each year the Government are adding to the debt and there is no hope of unemployment stopping.

There are many other public services in which there should be economies. Take the Land Commission, for example. Why is it to cost so much this year when the Government say they are not going to take over any more land? There should certainly be a big saving in the Army because there is no use in having an Army for defence purposes if the people are hungry and in the position of slaves. The Government have interfered in every line of business. They have interfered with the farmer and with the business man, and hordes of officials have been employed to carry out that interference. The employment of these officials should not be necessary, and the Government should be able to carry on with the same number of officials and the same cost as the previous Government. They must make up their minds that this thing cannot continue indefinitely and that all the wildcat schemes must stop. Let them admit the mistakes they made in respect of industrial alcohol, peat development and meat factories, and close these schemes down. Let whatever is gone be lost, because it is better to do that than to continue wasting the taxpayers' money on these schemes.

An enormous amount of money is spent on peat, but there is less peat being raised now than was the case when the Government took office, and most of the money spent on the scheme might as well have been thrown into the bog, because it is of no value whatever. I believe the same applies to the alcohol factories, and it would be better to burn them down than to continue the scheme. The squandering of money is inexcusable. It must stop and interference in business must stop. Otherwise, when the war is over and the depression comes, there will be no hope of existence for the people of rural Ireland who are working the land.

Mr. Hurley

This Party is very disappointed with the Budget the Minister put before the House. In the first place, it is not a true index of the position in the country. There are, apparently, no increases in taxes over those imposed in last September, but that is not really the case, because some of the taxes then imposed are now taking effect, and there is no regard for the future financial position of the country. I venture to suggest that before the six months are out the Minister will be coming to the House again with a Supplementary Budget, instead of having faced up to the facts within his knowledge and having visualised the position for at least 12 months. There is no doubt that in this country there is a growing volume of unemployment. The numbers who are being disemployed are increasing day after day, and week after week, and, side by side with that increase, we have this very steep and very definite increase in the cost of living.

These are two factors which the Minister should take into consideration when considering his Budget in respect of household expenses for the coming 12 months. But he has not even attempted to do that. Despite the growing unemployment and the position obtaining in the country, no real attempt is made to grapple with the problem. We are told in the White Paper that a sum of £350,000 is to be borrowed for employment schemes. That, to my mind, is only tinkering with the question because private enterprise, as we understand it, cannot, will not and dare not attempt to make any contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem. The position is that, in various industries, you have a kind of carry-on or hang-on policy, with no vision of the future, and it is very hard to blame those people. In order to meet that position, it is the duty of the Minister to make a bold effort to grapple with it.

To illustrate my point, I will quote for the House the example of the position obtaining in the town of Cobh. In April, 1939, there were 273 men unemployed in the Cobh Urban District; in April, 1940, the number had increased to 469. Side by side with that, 200 young people have left that town since the war started in September last, and have gone across to Britain. My information is that 200 more would have gone, if they had had the wherewithal to enable them to go. The population of the town less than 20 years ago was 10,000. To-day, it is 6,000, and in that community there are 669 people who have not an opportunity of earning a livelihood. Surely the Minister recognises his responsibility for that town because the position there has definitely been brought about by the change in conditions in this country. As I say, private enterprise can make no attempt to meet that situation, and I say that the Minister in this Budget should have made some provision for, should have made a bold effort to tackle, a position such as that which exists in Cobh.

The town of Passage is another depressed area in that district. There again the condition of the people is appalling and they have been driven to such a point of desperation that they applied to the Minister for Local Government for the de-urbanisation of the district. An inquiry was held last Wednesday and my only regret is that the full details of the conditions there, as disclosed at the inquiry, could not be published in the public Press. Business premises have been closed and are falling down, and men are hanging around the corners with a depressed and disheartened air about them. That condition of affairs will still prevail under this Budget, and that is the quarrel I have with the Minister. In that area, a proposal has been put forward to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance for the establishment of a dockyard which would give employment to a good many people. By the way, lest the Minister should think that I am exaggerating or painting an untrue picture, I may say that the figures I have quoted in regard to Cobh were supplied by the chairman of the urban district council to a public meeting held there. He is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, I understand, so that I am not either exaggerating or misinterpreting the position. The conditions in Cobh can definitely be improved if not altogether cured—I am speaking of the harbour district—by the establishment of a dockyard. I have been informed by people who know in that area that they get inquiries—I am speaking of shipping agents there—from their firms as to the facilities in Cork Harbour for the repair of ships and they have to reply that there are no facilities available. The provision of a dockyard in Cobh would certainly relieve practically all the unemployment there.

We have a steelworks in Cobh which employs at the moment 120 men. If that steelworks were working at the capacity that was expected at this stage, there would be 700 men employed there. These people cannot go ahead because they have not the credits or the money. They have to jog along while people are flying from the district and those who remain are mostly unemployed, living on 14/- a week. Surely that is a position of which the Minister should take very serious cognisance in this Budget. The same remarks apply to the town of Midleton which is the centre of an agricultural area. The condition of agriculture is reflected in the position there. While certain provision is made in this Budget to assist agriculture, it is not the kind of provision that the Minister would make if he were seriously concerned with the position of the agricultural community. To my own knowledge, numbers of agricultural workers are leaving the area to seek employment in Britain. We talk about our neutrality, about preserving our nation, about the Christian family and all the other grand ideals we hear of from time to time, but surely if our young people are flying to other countries, even at this stage of the war, there is going to be a very serious position for this country in the near future. Suppose we had enemy aeroplanes, British or German, making a raid on a town like that and wiping-out, say, 200 of the population, I am sure we would have a great outcry, but the depopulation of which I speak is going on silently. I want to draw public attention, the attention of the Minister and the House to that development in that part of my constituency.

I may be asked what is the cure for all this and what the Minister could do in this Budget. I think that this Party has put before the country a document which gives detailed suggestions as to things that could be done and how they should be carried out. That document has been before the country for some months and I have not seen any serious criticism of the document except, of course, from the organ which is now praising the Minister's Budget, the Irish Times. I am reminded by some of my colleagues of the fact that yesterday, when Deputy Dillon was quoting from the Irish Times, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance thought he was quoting from the Irish Press, so that, apparently, there is very little difference between the comments of the Irish Times and the Irish Press. To get back to the point I was making, perhaps the Minister may think that the suggestions in that document were too revolutionary and that he would not at this stage of his life be inclined to become a revolutionary as far as they are concerned. But is there not an easier way instead of raising this £1,900,000 which the Minister proposes to borrow? Surely the financial institutions of this country have some responsibility to the community? Surely the Minister, desiring to see that that responsibility is exercised on behalf of the community, would be entitled to ask the financial institutions for a big loan, £40,000,000 or £50,000,000, for a long period, to finance those schemes which I suggest should be put into operation, if this country is not to suffer as severely as if it were subjected to all the ravages of war? There are many useful schemes of employment, apart altogether from the question of assisting properly the agricultural industry, which could be initiated. There are schemes of house building and afforestation. Surely the produce of those schemes would be more useful than the British securities which lie in the banks at the present time to back sterling? As time goes on, it may be even more useful and more profitable than British securities.

In regard to housing, the housing of the rural workers has not been carried out in any satisfactory manner in my area. The only attempt that has been made is concerned with the non-municipal housing schemes, the town schemes. In former days we had the labourers' cottages schemes whereby neat tidy houses, each with an acre of land attached—more land could be allotted in some places where plenty of land is available—were built in the country. These houses made a wonderful improvement in the condition of the rural workers. There are no schemes like that in operation now. If the matter is put to the Department we are asked where is the money to come from.

Mr. Hurley

I am speaking from experience, because I had experience of it when a family of eight had to live on 10/- a week. Such a position as that should not obtain to-day. There may have been different circumstances and so on and we survived that. But there is another serious aspect of this question. There is the position of the children of these people. Deputy Dillon was correct in the statement which he made in regard to these children. Surely they must suffer from malnutrition as they are not getting proper nourishment. We are told that we have a Christian Constitution and that everybody by the work of his brain or hands is to be able to support himself and his family in decency. I wish the Minister had tried to realise that very high ideal in his Budget, but it is not being done. We have our Ministers going over to England—I was going to say hat in hand, but I suppose it is hardly that. They are going over to England to arrange to sell our butter, bacon and other agricultural produce, while there are thousands of people in this country who never see a bit of butter or bacon or an egg except in the shop windows. There is a market at home which could be usefully developed if these people were put into employment. The average consumption of milk in this country is about half a pint per head per day. Supposing we were able to double that, look at the opportunity we would provide for our agricultural community.

I am sure the Minister has considered all these things but he has made no provision to give effect to them in the Budget, and that is really the quarrel I have with him. During the last war we exported foodstuffs to Great Britain and we built up a huge reserve there of £300,000,000. Let us not make that mistake this time. I put it to our financial experts and to the Minister that the reserve we have in Great Britain is of very little use to us to-day. With a more careful handling of the exports and the imports perhaps that position will not be accentuated in future. I see that the Irish Times lauds the Budget, because, I suppose, it represents the 2,500 people in this country who have an annual income between them of £8,500,000. Despite the poverty that exists in this country, I saw it stated in the Irish Press a few weeks ago that 2,500 people in this country have an income of £8,500,000 between them. It is very nice to see that these people are properly safeguarded and looked after and that everything will be well for them. I would appeal to the Minister to take his courage in his hands and do the big thing for the people of the country. I know that he has done wonders in the matter of housing and he should get credit for that. He should now do the big thing and tackle the financial problem in this country, and I am sure he will have the help, co-operation, and good will of all parties and all creeds.

Mr. D. Morrissey

At the outset I should like to say that I find it rather difficult to follow Deputy Hurley's references to the home market and to the export of agricultural produce to Britain. The Deputy decried the attempt that has been made, apparently by the Minister, to see that the British shall take more of our produce and take it at higher prices.

Mr. Hurley

Only when our own people are fed.

Mr. D. Morrissey

The Deputy went on to say that while that was being done we had here a considerable section of people who could only look at Irish agricultural produce in shop windows. I agree with the Deputy, but I do not draw the same conclusions. One of the main reasons why a big section of our people cannot purchase enough Irish-grown food, whether it is butter, eggs or other things, is because the Government, with the help of the Labour Party, for eight years prevented Irish farmers from selling their produce at the highest price in the British market. We are suffering for that to-day.

Mr. Pattison

No one would believe that.

Mr. D. Morrissey

That is a statement of fact and anyone who, at that time, suggested that that policy was wrong—that the British market was gone for ever, thank God—and declared that it was a bad policy to put that market in jeopardy, was told that they were West Britons and were playing England's game. Deputy Hurley knows, probably better than I do, and so does the Minister for Finance, that 98 per cent. of our difficulties are largely due to the policy that was pursued during the so-called economic war. The Minister may shake his head, but we have the evidence. Will not this statement be accepted by anybody who is prepared to face facts, that we are not going to have either prosperity or the employment of capital unless agriculture is in a prosperous condition, and unless our farmers are producing to the maximum capacity of their land, and getting fair prices? What is the position now? There was a fair in the town I live in on Monday last and, from the point of view of prices, it was, perhaps, one of the best fairs held since the last war, but the unfortunate part of it was that, while prices were good, not 50 per cent. of the farmers in the county were in a position to take advantage of them. That fact will be admitted wherever a fair was held within the last fortnight. There is not much more than half the cattle that would ordinarily be offered at fairs. We are paying through the nose now for the slaughter of 500,000 calves. No farmer in any Party in this House—I do not care what his political opinions are— will deny that.

I do not want to go back on that phase, but I tell Deputy Hurley—and I am not doing so in a carping way, as I have no intention of having a tilt at the Deputy—that the only hope for this country, and particularly for the workers and the unemployed is to make agriculture prosperous. We are not going to have employment on the land or in the towns unless farming can be made pay. How could a boot factory or a clothing factory, whether in Cork or in Dublin, succeed unless those for whom these factories produced boots and clothes were in a position to buy them and to pay for them? I am not an economist. I know very little about financial matters, about currency or schemes of printing more money. I am not competent to express an opinion on these questions, beyond saying that the only thing that makes me sceptical about them is that they seem to be too simple.

We have a Budget here, and from its general reactions the most we can say for it is that there is nothing so bad that it could not be worse. We are asked to congratulate the Minister because, instead of imposing additional taxation on May 8th. he imposed it six months ago. It is a thoroughly dishonest Budget, and some of the most dishonest statements ever uttered in this House were uttered in connection with it. The Minister finds himself in the position that there is a deficit of some thing like £2,500,000, and he proposes to solve the problem by putting an additional 2/6 on wireless licences. The other subterfuges of the Minister in the Budget to bridge the gap are just as dishonest. The Minister talked about borrowing for what he called "capital charges". Nobody knows better than he does that they are not capital charges. If the Minister was on this side of the House and if a Budget of this type were produced by another Government, I have a fairly shrewd idea of what his attitude would be. I heard the Minister in action when he was on this side of the House. We had another statement from the Minister and nobody knows better than he does, that it does not reflect the true facts when he talked about providing £8,500,000 for unemployment. That statement is not correct. Even if it were correct, is it not a terrible reflection that after ten years of office this progressive Government that was out to develop both arms of industry has to tax the people to the tune of £8,500,000 to provide for the unemployed? But they are not providing for them. Many people talk loosely about the country being prosperous. I advise any Deputy to apply the real test.

When there is a cry of prosperity let Deputies examine the latest figures for payment of home assistance, from which it will be seen that one evidence of our prosperity is that there are 10,000 more people receiving home assistance this year than received it last year. Is that the sign of a prosperous country? Is not every Deputy aware that there has been a growing volume of emigration? Does anybody seriously suggest that if there was prosperity, and even a reasonable chance of getting a livelihood at home, young men would be going to England in thousands in the midst of a world war to get employment? They are so anxious to get it that they are prepared to take all the risks, including that of conscription. Yet we are asked to be overjoyed and to congratulate the Minister. We get this sort of nonsense—it is worse than nonsense—from the Irish Times, congratulating the Minister on a Budget that will bring as much satisfaction to the poor as to the rich man. That is the contribution of the Irish Times to the Budget. I suggest that whatever reductions have been made, and whatever pilfering there has been, have been done at the expense of the poor and the unemployed. The Minister has taken £150,000 from the Road Fund and he tried to justify robbing that Fund by telling us that last year so much money was made available for road works and for construction works in urban and rural areas.

That scheme was so ill thought-out, so badly administered and so foolishly put into operation that the result of it—I shall speak of my own county of which I have personal knowledge —has been that where a number of men were given rotationally two, three, four or, in some cases, five days' work, which would ordinarily fall to be done by the permanent staff, for the first time in 30 years the majority of the permanent staff under the county council in my county were dismissed off the roads in September and were not re-employed until the first week in April, when the new financial year opened. What the Minister attempts to justify in taking this £150,000 from the Road Fund is a scheme which gives—I am putting the matter in the most favourable light possible to the Minister and to the Government—two men six months' employment each instead of giving one man 12 months' employment. Does the Minister think that he is going to solve the unemployment problem by methods such as these? We have these methods notwithstanding the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister in which he solemnly assured the House that the Government's trouble was not to find money to provide work but to find the work.

Deputy Belton, speaking last night, said the impositions in the Budget would not fall heavily on the people if incomes were increased. We all know that. But the fact is that the standard of living is being steadily reduced and, so far as a considerable number of people are concerned, they have not a standard of living but a very low standard of existence. It is not the Budget only that affects the people. I was speaking to a housekeeper the day the Budget was introduced. She was discussing the Budget and she was relieved, I admit, because she had not to pay additional duty on sugar or some such commodity. But she said to me:

"There is a box of starch which I used to buy for a 1d.; now it is 1½d., 50 per cent. of an increase. There is a bottle of olive oil which used to cost me 6d.; now it costs me 9d., a 50 per cent. increase. There is a box of blue which used to cost me 2d.; now it costs me 3d., a 50 per cent. increase."

There are 100 small articles like those which have to be used in every household in the country, and particularly in the households of the poor, and these charges are making it impossible for these people to maintain anything in the nature of a decent standard of existence. I am not one of those who hold that the war has nothing whatever to do with the situation. Of course, it has something to do with it. It has accentuated the position but the war has comparatively little to do with it.

The main reason why we are not in a good position to meet the economic shocks of war is because we had a mad, suicidal war of our own for six years in which our people were impoverished. I saw cattle sold on Monday last at £15 per head. I saw better cattle sold six years ago at £4 per head. Very few farmers, even on the Fianna Fáil benches, will deny that. It is things like that which have this country in the position in which it is to-day. I am satisfied that the Minister knows that the country is not able to bear the burden which is being placed upon it. A certain number of people may be able to bear the burden but there are farmers whose lands are derelict, or practically derelict, and, unfortunately for them, the higher the prices for livestock now go the less hope there is of their ever being able to stock their lands. I saw £5 and £5 10s. 0d. being paid on Monday last for calves which, in some cases, were not so good as those slaughtered six years ago at 10s. a head. That is the root of our trouble. That is the reason why we have to protest against the piling on of this taxation. That is why we have to point out that, notwithstanding all the tariffs, quotas and prohibitions, notwithstanding all the artificial aids the Government have tried to apply in order to improve the employment situation and notwithstanding all the emigration we have had, we are to-day unfortunately—none of us can be proud of it—in the position that we have more people unemployed than we had ten years ago. That is the condition in which, unfortunately, the country finds itself when facing not the end of a war but the beginning of a war. If that is our position to-day, what is our position likely to be if this war lasts for a number of years and is followed by the inevitable depression?

The Taoiseach spoke the other night about the menace of internal differences and the security of the State. We agree with him but, without wanting to be an alarmist in any way, I suggest to the Minister and to the Government that there is another menace which might become far more dangerous than the menace to which the Taoiseach referred in his broadcast address the other night. The Taoiseach spoke of the patience of the Government. He said that they had been over-patient and that there was an end to their patience. There are other people in this country who have been patient—and very patient. I think I can claim to have some little knowledge of their condition. For a number of years they have tried to exist on hope and I, certainly, dread the day that their patience will be exhausted. I dread the day that some fellow with sufficient brains, who is sufficiently unscrupulous, gets hold of them and exploits in the wrong direction the menace that is there. I do not say that in any way as an alarmist but, human nature being what it is, people are prepared to suffer a good deal and suffer for a long time if they can see a hope of their sufferings ending but, if the people lose hope, then we can all picture for ourselves what may happen—I shall not put the matter more strongly than that. I say to the Government and to the Minister—I have tried to stress this before—that, in my opinion, this is one of the greatest and gravest problems this country has to face. Speaking for myself—I think I can speak for this Party also—I say that in any action the Government may take, I shall not say to put an end to this state of affairs because that would be almost impossible, but to make big inroads on the problem, as I believe can be done without any great additional cost to the State, I am prepared to co-operate with them.

Mr. Cogan

This Budget is being described as a "no-change" Budget. Such a description applies equally to the condition of the taxpayers generally. If there is very little change in this Budget, I think the taxpayers find themselves with very little change in their pockets to meet the demands that are being made upon them. They find themselves in that position because of the reckless, irresponsible policy that has been pursued by the Government over a number of years, a policy of recklessly increasing unproductive expenditure without, at the same time, making any effort to promote productive enterprise. One would be inclined to think, if one had not experience of the methods employed by members of the present Government and particularly the Minister for Finance, that the balancing of a Budget is an extremely difficult matter. But, when we consider the methods which have been employed to balance this Budget, I think the matter of balancing a Budget is a very simple one. There is no need for the Minister for Finance to fill the gap between expenditure and revenue; all he has got to do is to borrow, notwith standing the fact that the gross debt of this country exceeds £100,000,000 and the dead-weight debt exceeds £54,000,000.

There does not seem to be any limit to the extent to which a Minister may go in borrowing. At least, the present Minister seems to be in the happy position that he considers that there is no limit. One might compare the Minister to the man who was greatly worried, or appeared to be greatly worried, and whose wife asked him what he was worrying about—was it because he was so deeply in debt? He replied that he was worrying because he could not get any deeper in debt. I believe the Minister for Finance will not begin to worry until he reaches the stage when he cannot borrow any further, when the borrowing powers of the State will be exhausted. The Minister has borrowed to meet national defence expenditure at a time when this country is not engaged in war. One could understand a nation engaged in war borrowing money to meet the problem of defending the country in the hope of being able to repay the money borrowed on the termination of the war, but it would appear that as this Government borrow money for national defence when we are not engaged in war, it is the intention of the Minister to repay the money on the termination of peace.

Again, the Government are borrowing a large sum of money for airports, very doubtful assets. They are borrowing also for employment schemes. Having regard to the fact that there was money voted each year during the past 20 years for the relief of unemployment, we can hardly regard unemployment as a non-recurring expenditure and yet we have borrowed for it. There seems to be no limit to the number of services for which the Minister may borrow money if he thinks fit. It would seem that in framing the Budget the Minister made up his mind that no matter how great a deficit there would be in the Exchequer, he was determined, in this Budget at least, to impose no new taxation; he was prepared to beg, borrow or steal the necessary money in order to meet the deficit. I think the amount borrowed in this case was absolutely unjustifiable.

We are all expected to congratulate ourselves that there has been no increased taxation, but we have to remember that it is only a few months since we had a Supplementary Budget in which very far-reaching and drastic increases were made in taxation. One of those increases, in regard to income-tax, is only now beginning to be productive and during the coming year it will produce £750,000. In this connection the position is that the Minister, having started out so drastically, having applied the whip so vigorously to the taxpayers, finds that they will be able to contribute enough to carry on the work of the country without increased imposts, to carry it on until there is another Supplementary Budget, perhaps. It is much the same as the position that I found at a recent point-to-point races. One of the riders was congratulated because he was not using a whip very vigorously on his horse, and yet he succeeded in winning the race. People interested in the prevention of cruelty to animals congratulated him and asked him how he managed so successfully without using his whip. He replied that it was a secret, more or less, but he did not mind admitting that he used the whip on the horse before he had taken the animal out of the stable.

The taxpayer is in the position that he has already been bludgeoned and scarified to an enormous extent, and more especially a few months ago. That is the position in which the people find themselves. I think the time has come for the Minister to get away from the complacent attitude which he is now adopting. No doubt, he thinks he is in a very happy position and that he is probably the only Minister in Europe who has not the heart to impose increased taxation this year. He probably thinks that he should be held up to the admiration of Finance Ministers throughout Europe, and perhaps some of his admirers and supporters are of the opinion that he should be exhibited in a glass case in the various European countries, such as Holland or Belgium.

Mr. McCann

He would not be very safe in a glass case there just now.

Mr. Cogan

That is the attitude in which the Minister has introduced this Budget. There has been no realisation of the seriousness of the situation, of the fact that this Government are extracting from the taxpayers almost £10,000,000 a year more than was extracted from them at a time when the national income was higher and when the resources of the country were much more extensive. It may be asked what can be suggested to remedy this situation. Surely, the first step is drastically to reduce expenditure? We have the position that the Minister tells us that his Economy Committee has produced no result. Apparently, he has not gone about the work of cutting down expenditure in a sufficiently drastic manner. He has not tackled the job with a clear realisation of the seriousness of the situation in which this country finds itself.

Practically every big service in this country is being run on too extravagant lines. In addition to that we have the position that the whole financial and economic policy of the Government is directed not towards improving or increasing the agricultural and economic output of the country, but gradually reducing that output. Suppose, for example, that in regard to agriculture there was no State interference in any possible way, what would the position to-day be? It would not be a very satisfactory position, but at all events you would probably have 50,000 or 100,000 more people actively employed in agriculture than we have, and there would be an enormous increase in agricultural output. But these would be employed at a rate of wages which would be much lower than the rate at present. Because without State interference wages would be governed by the law of supply and demand. As the number of workers exceeds the demands wages would be lower. But the result at all events would be that we would have increased production. The State has interfered, and I say wisely, so as to ensure that the poorer section of the community shall not be exploited to too great an extent and forced into a condition of poverty. But by its interference it has paralysed the arm of production. I hold that the State, having decided to interfere, should at least take such measures as may be necessary to ensure that production is not reduced.

We have the position at the present moment that agricultural production in this country is the lowest in Europe. That production is low for several reasons. One, perhaps, is that the farmer has not enough capital. The farmer is not able to employ sufficient labour to make agriculture productive. The State has been mainly responsible for that condition. I hold that if it is necessary in the best national interests to see that the lowest paid section of the community are not compelled to work for less than a living wage, the State should take active steps to assist the employers who are compelled to pay a living wage. The State should give them such assistance as would enable them to pay it. In other words the wages of labour should be subsidised in the same way as we subsidise artificial manures. Artificial manures and labour are the two things necessary to make agriculture productive. Increased use of fertilisers and increased employment of labour will increase agricultural production. These two should be subsidised.

But, instead of subsidising workers on the land, the policy of the Government is to attract labour away from agriculture. The same policy prevails with regard to education. All the efforts of the State seem to be directed towards drawing the young people and the workers away from agriculture and directing them towards the towns and cities. In other words the State is directing the people towards unemployment or towards such work as is not nationally productive. The result is that we have a huge adverse trade balance every year; we are not able to make our national income balance our national output and we are drifting towards complete bankruptcy. There is only one way of solving these problems. That way lies in getting the huge army of the unemployed working in the production of food. That is the one thing which is needed and urgently needed.

We are borrowing money for afforestation. Much has been done in regard to housing. These things are necessary but not so urgently necessary as increasing the production of food. We are all aware that this country is capable of largely increasing its food production. We can increase our output by at least 50 per cent. That 50 per cent. increase in agricultural output would wipe out our adverse trade balance and restore this country to a condition of prosperity. If the output on agriculture could be increased prosperity would follow. That could be secured if as many as possible of the army of the unemployed in this country were put to work on the land. That is the real problem we have to solve, but up to this no attempt has been made to solve it. The agricultural worker is compelled to go to the nearest town to register amongst the unemployed. He does that in order that he will receive a very inadquate sum towards his maintenance and also in order that he will be qualified to work on the various State schemes such as afforestation, roads, and so on. The man is encouraged in every possible way to get away from the land, while the urgent need really at the present time should be to get more and more people to work on the land.

The land of this country might be divided into three categories first, second and third class. In the matter of the first class land it is not possible to get a great increase in output. In the second quality land, that is the rougher class of land, there is room for an enormous increase in production. That type of land has, as a result of the recent past unsettled conditions and to a large extent owing to the irresponsible policy of the Government, been allowed to deteriorate because the farmer has been selling his produce at one-fourth its value. He was unable to employ labour or to purchase artificial manures. That has been his position for the last eight years, with the result that he was not able to keep his land in a state of fertility. The country to-day is reaping the wild oats sown by the Minister for Agriculture and his colleagues. Then we have a very large amount of land in this country that is in a very unproductive condition. Much of our land is unstocked and unfertile and we have a very large percentage of completely derelict farms. At the same time, we are supporting, at a cost of over £3,000,000 a year to the community, a huge army of unemployed. It has to be remembered, too, that all the unemployed people in the country are not registered. We have large numbers of young boys and girls, from 16 years of age upwards, who have not yet got into employment of any kind. They may not be living directly on the State, but they have to be supported out of the earnings of their parents. That is a dreadful problem which the Government should seek to solve, and solve rapidly, especially at the present time when there is such a demand for the type of product that we can export.

I hope the Government will not be tempted to embark on any wild schemes of financial reform suggested from various quarters from time to time. In matters of this kind, I think Governments and political Parties should follow the example of the medical profession. When its members engage in research work, they usually start by experimenting on small animals, mice, frogs and so on. The politicians act in an altogether different way. They try out their experiments on the entire population, on the nation. If the experiment goes well, then all is well, but if it fails the result is national disaster. If the politicians are sincere in their belief that there is some great merit in their ideas with regard to financial reform, they should, I suggest, take some small island and try out their experiment there, and not begin by practising on the people of the nation. The wealth of the country is not going to be increased by putting more currency into circulation, but by producing more of essential goods and commodities, to be used at home or exported in exchange for the goods that this country requires.

That is the task which faces this Government. If they are sincere in facing up to it they should have the active co-operation of every section of the community and every Party in this House, because we must remember that if discontent is allowed to grow, if our people, and particularly the young people, see no prospect of getting settled employment in their own country, then they are either going to get out of it or create trouble within. I think it was Henry Ford who once said that if you once inure a young boy to habits of work, it is almost certain that he will grow up to be a useful, law abiding and desirable citizen. That is a task the Government should engage in, of giving the idea to our young boys and girls that success in life depends, first of all, upon work. No matter what ideas may be put before them, if they do not acquire early in life the habit of work and particularly of manual work, they are not likely to acquire it later. It is manual work that is required at the present time. It is by it that the majority of our people will have to make their living, and it is to be regretted that our social services are largely directed towards getting the people away from useful productive work.

In conclusion, I want to condemn strongly the action of the Minister for Finance in making another raid on the Road Fund. This is simply an attempt, on his part, to shelve responsibilities that should be carried by the Central Government on to the local authorities, to relieve, to a certain extent, the general taxpayer at the expense of the local ratepayer. As a farmer, I protest against that, because I realise that general taxation is more equitably distributed than local taxation. The incidence of the latter presses more heavily on the farming community than general taxation does. For that reason, I think it is a criminal thing to impose this additional burden on the local ratepayers in order that our Minister for Finance may be able to say that he is the only Minister for Finance in Europe who has not had to increase taxation this year.

Mr. Esmonde

I regret, in common with a number of previous speakers, that I cannot congratulate the Minister or the Government on this Budget. There is one thing, however, on which I can congratulate the Minister for Finance, and that is the fact that he has proved himself to be a financial strategist of the highest order. During the last six months, while he created an atmosphere in this country which led everybody to believe that there would be a general all round increase in taxation, he has been able to introduce this Budget without making any very startling proposals. For the sake of form, he has put a little rise on here and a little rise there, on such innocuous things as wireless licences and cider, thereby leading a large proportion of the general public to forget altogether that the real harm was done six months ago when taxation was substantially increased. The Minister is now able to get up and say that there is no real increase in taxation, and the public have to admit that, so far as this Budget is concerned, that is so. What really happened was that the Minister increased taxation six months ago, and the public now sighs with relief. I think the Minister is perfectly entitled to look satisfied, as he has been looking during practically the entire of this debate. As I have said, he has proved himself to be a financial strategist in his own sphere, and his name will probably go down in history with that of another man whose name is now on everybody's lips as a strategist in his special sphere.

I think it is time that members of this House, independent of Party affiliations, should seriously consider the situation that exists in the country at the moment, and that, as a number of speakers have already said, will continue to exist when the state of emergency under which we are living at the moment disappears. Because of that, I think it is desirable that we should all pool our views and experience in order, in some way, to contribute towards a solution of the problem that exists. It is a good thing that all Parties in the House are now in agreement that agriculture is our main industry, and that upon its prosperity the welfare of the country, directly or indirectly, depends. It is a regrettable fact that we have a very large body of unemployed, and that our unemployment problem is not improving. In view of that, I think we should get together to try and devise some scheme under which agricultural conditions will improve and our unemployment problem disappear.

Now, I believe that the two questions are intimately related, one to the other. I believe that, if agriculture in this country is put on its feet, unemployment will automatically disappear. I shall give two instances, taken from two periods of time. In the course of my professional duties some time ago I came in contact with a large firm of saw-millers in the Midlands. At that time they were employing over 60 men in regular employment, and the nature of the goods which they were turning out consisted, to a very great extent, of egg boxes which were being sent to other parts of Ireland, and particularly to the West, for the purpose of exporting eggs from this country. The second instance is an instance which is obvious to-day in my constituency. They are very glad there to know that some of their agricultural implement firms in that constituency are working three shifts a day in order to comply with the orders they have received. Now, both of these industries I have mentioned are directly dependent on the agricultural effort of this country and, therefore, I think it must be obvious to us all, having considered these matters, that it is a prime duty and necessity to put agriculture on its feet.

In a Budget debate of this kind, I think that, of all debates in this House, this is one from which politics should absolutely disappear. We all have to get up in the morning, earn our daily bread in one way or another, and meet our obligations to the State, and we therefore have a community of interest to that extent in connection with a Budget debate I therefore think that it is unwise to introduce politics, whether Party politics or politics of any other kind, into a debate of this kind, and that we should confine ourselves strictly to the economic issue, since it affects us all. In that connection, I was very interested to hear the figures that were given by Deputy Childers yesterday and I should like to congratulate him on the amount of work and research that he put into the production of those figures. They are figures of very great use, but I regret to say that I cannot congratulate him upon the conclusions he drew from them. The figures, undoubtedly, were accurate and, in many ways, disquieting, but I regret that the conclusions he drew from these figures were not the correct ones. It is undoubtedly a fact that our agricultural production has gone down. It is undoubtedly a fact that, so far as we have been getting into other markets, as against our competitors, the situation there has disimproved from our point of view. It is necessary, in order to discover the causes of that, to look back over a few years, as some of the speakers in this debate have looked back, on the affairs in this country, from the economic point of view. Now, the people who have the sources of wealth are the people who are the proprietors of industry and those who own the land of the country. Some 30 years ago the land in this country was held by two different types of owners. There was, roughly speaking, the owner of lands in fee simple, who usually had a large and substantial place of several hundred acres, who was giving a large amount of employment, and who was producing and using the land through the help of his paid employees. Now, a great many of that type of producers were not very worried as to whether or not they made any real profit out of their activities. From their own point of view, they were not very worried as to whether they made any real profit, and whether or not that was desirable is another question.

Alongside with that type of owners of land you had the second type of owners of land: the tenant farmers of this country who, if I may say so, represent the backbone of citizenship in the country. They were working their holdings, which were not held in fee simple, but which were subject to a payment of overhead charges, annuities or rent, as the case may be. These were the two types of owners of land and of the soil of this country: The first, holding the land in fee simple, and not absolutely dependent upon making a profit out of it, and the second type absolutely dependent upon and making some kind of profit out of working the land. The first type is rapidly disappearing. Whether or not the disappearance of that type is a matter for congratulation to the country is one that I would not deal with, but at all events there is this much to be said—and I am not putting forward any argument, but merely stating what is and must be the fact— that with regard to the unemployment question there is not now anything like the number of people who were formerly in employment on the big holdings in this country. These holdings, to a large extent, have disappeared. I do not think there is any cause for argument there; it is only necessary to go around the country and see the derelict places in every constituency where, in former years, a lot of employment was given.

Now, in recent years what has happened is that the land of this country is gradually being divided up, not only amongst those who were the original tenant farmers for generations, but also among new men, known as landless men, and the result is that you have at the present time three types of owners of land in this country: First, the original fee simple men who are left, some of them giving employment and some only too glad to hand over their estates to the Land Commission; secondly, the tenant farmer; and, thirdly, the new man who has come in under the more recent Land Acts. I am glad to know that the soil of Ireland is going back to the people of Ireland, and it will always be a source of congratulation to me that at one time I belonged to a Party which initiated the policy of dividing up the land of this country amongst the people of this country.

However, be that as it may, we have a problem here to deal with, and that is that we have a large number of people in possession of the land and of the wealth of this country, and justly entitled to its possession—newcomers to the land—who have been placed in the position that they are not able to produce the wealth. Now, I come to the real basis of my argument, and I shall illustrate it in this way. We have had illustrations from countries abroad, New Zealand in particular. New Zealand was a new country. Now, the production of wealth out of the soil is the greatest wealth that can exist at the present time. If you send a shipload of the highest-skilled farmers in the world out to an uninhabited island, present them there with the most fertile soil that this globe can produce, and put the most experienced farmers there and give them the most suitable climate, yet, if they have not got the money to buy a packet of seeds, implements and so forth, you might as well be sending them there with bars of gold which they can put in the ground and let weeds grow around them. That is the situation with regard to the owners of numbers of holdings in this country. Each one of them is a little factory but has no capital to work that factory. Until we realise that, we are not going to get over our difficulties. It is not a question, as Deputy Childers suggests —it is a wrong conclusion he drew from his figures—that the people of this country are not energetic enough to work the lands. They are willing and able to work the land but they have not got the capital with which to work it. There is not a proper credit system in existence in this country at the present time directed towards making our agricultural effort a real and a productive one. We have got to realise that. It is an outstanding fact that cannot be contradicted. Day after day in this House I hear it stated by responsible Deputies who know what they are talking about that there are derelict farms in this country, that the fairs at the present time are understocked with cattle although big prices are ruling. Production is disappearing for want of capital. What has happened is that we have placed experienced individuals, hard-working individuals, in possession of little factories throughout the country and we have not provided for them the wherewithal to get the wheels of those factories going.

There is another matter that we must not overlook. This country at the present time—and I am referring to the whole of this island, surrounded as it is by the sea—is cut in two. It is an island with a natural boundary and the division of that island in two is taking its effect upon the economic life of this country. I deprecate the whispering rumours that have been going around in here for the last few months that the abolition of Partition would be a desperate economic ill for the Twenty-Six Counties. That is the little argument that has been put round and it even gets so far as being stated in print. I regard the existence of Partition as a terrible economic evil. In every country you have got to have certain districts where certain forms of industry are carried on and certain districts where other forms of industry are carried on. You have that in this country, if you consider it an island, but you have not got it with twenty-six counties on one side of the Border with one line of thought economically and politically, and six counties on the other side taking the opposite view. One of the factors that is contributing to our economic condition at the present time is the existence of that boundary and one of the arguments in support of my contention is that everywhere you go, if you meet a group of five or six people in private conversation you will find someone who will come forward and say: "Would not it be a terrible thing for the rest of this country if Partition were abolished and we had to take on the whole island again?" First of all, there is no credit for the potential producers of wealth, and secondly, we have a country dismembered.

We have got to face the fact that we will have to provide credit sooner or later, and I think the sooner the better. It is always very dangerous to talk about credit. You have people saying that you are a Douglas-credit exponent on the one hand or some other credit crank on the other. I am neither. But some scheme has got to be evolved whereby a man, if he has good acres of land and the will to work it by himself and his sons, will be able to get some money to get that land going. And let us all face facts—in the way the world is going at the present time, when old established ideas are crashing to the ground, sometimes ideas changing twice in 24 hours, you will have a very dangerous situation in this country if people cannot get credit through the authorised and regular sources. Therefore, I say, it is the duty of the Government to provide in some way credit for these people. It will amply repay the Government if they do. We have had a number of Bills introduced in this House from time to time providing credit facilities and trading facilities for all sorts of new factories and schemes of that kind. I am not against the new factory at all. I am in favour of it. I believe that there are numbers of people in this country who are unemployable on farm lands but who are employable in industry and in industry indirectly dependent upon agriculture. What we should do is to make use of our best raw materials. Every country makes use of its best raw materials. In the Scandinavian countries, which produce wood pulp, et cetera, the raw material is wood. In coal and iron countries, it is steel. We have the greatest raw material in the world, and that is the Irish pig, because the pig in its production as raw material is the means of creating employment and wealth. Coal as a raw material is in the ground, but the pig as a raw material has to be produced and, in the course of being produced, produces wealth and employment.

Some figures were given in so far as our best customer is concerned, England. It is a very fortunate thing that England is a bacon eating country and I venture to suggest, without fear of contradiction—putting it very simply, without recourse to figures or works of reference—if we only had the monopoly of 50 per cent. of the Englishman's breakfast table so far as bacon and eggs are concerned, I do not think we would have a single unemployed man in the country, provided we made the bacon. That is a fact. We have not done that yet. The pig and bacon position in the country is most perplexing and I do not profess to understand it at all but what I do understand, and what everybody in this country understands, is that we can produce pigs and fatten pigs. We can make bacon—and very good bacon —because we have the bacon factories and we have the market on the Englishman's breakfast table. Yet we allow it to come from New Zealand, and, as was the case formerly, from Denmark and Holland. Even Poland sent several times more bacon to England than we did although it had to come out through the Treaty Port of Danzig and down through the Baltic.

There is a problem for the Government experts. It is not a question of coming in here year after year saying that expenditure is so much and our assets are so much and that we will balance our Budget this way and that way. It is the duty of the Government who accepted the responsibility of office, with the approval of the majority of the people of this country, to work out these schemes. It is our duty to help and to suggest improvements but it is the duty of the Government to work out these schemes. If we made proper use of our raw material, the pig, so as to employ people in the bacon industry, making bacon, packing bacon, carrying bacon, shipping bacon, it would absorb every unemployed man in this country into employment without touching anything else. In the course of doing that, all sorts of subsidiary industries must come into existence, such as the sawmill I was referring to, making egg boxes in the West, or the agricultural implement factories at Wexford which are working overtime at present on account of the increased tillage.

If a stranger from Mars, or some other neutral planet, could look down on this land of ours he would be surprised to see the glorious opportunities we are missing day after day and year after year for the simple reason that those responsible will not aid this industry in the manner in which it should be aided. It may be that, for some reason for which I do not blame them, those responsible for opinion in the counsels of the Government have not got the outlook that members of this House have towards the members of the farming community. I think that in order to appreciate the greatness of the effort that the agricultural community put forward, the men who are responsible for policy must have sympathy towards the agricultural community, but that sympathy must be born of experience as members of the agricultural community. I do not say it in any derogatory sense, but, sitting on this side of the House and looking across at the Government Bench, are there there—I may be entirely wrong—any individuals with personal experience either by way of control of or actual work in the agricultural industry? Would not a stranger coming here regard it as strange that policy in this country, which everyone now admits is an agricultural country, is dictated by a Government consisting of men who, by experience, are entirely divorced from that industry?

That is a strange state of affairs, and I would press the Government to take into their confidence and into their counsels men from their own Party who have experience of working the land, men who are veterans in the agricultural industry—and they are there—to get their views and to accept their views because their views cannot be far removed from the views I am expressing. Until the policy of this country is dictated by sympathy towards the agricultural community, you will not get anywhere along the road towards solving the unemployment question or increasing the agricultural industrial effort. I am making these remarks not for the benefit of agriculture solely, but for the benefit of the country as a whole, because, until you put a agriculture on its feet in the manner I have suggested, you cannot, and you will not, cure the unemployment problem. So long as the unemployment problem exists in this country, so long is it a reflection upon the Government, because, I think, unemployment is capable of being cured.

Some of the other speakers have mentioned one or two ways in which it could be cured, and I think a very excellent scheme would be the subsidising of farm labour on agricultural land. It would immediately take men off public and State assistance, and put them into productive employment, and, in addition, teach them a very useful method of earning their livings. You must, in addition, provide credit for farming; you must reorganise the whole of the pig and bacon production of the country; and you must, above all, see that the man who is going to spend his energy, his time and whatever capital he has in the production of goods of any kind, can do so with the knowledge that he has a sympathetic Government and sympathetic Departments willing and ready to find a market for whatever he produces whether that market be in this country or abroad.

Captain Giles

In former years, Budget day was looked forward to as a great field-day, but, unfortunately, in the last few years, Budgets have been taken in a very light manner by the people. They do not count for very much in the lives of the people, and I blame the Government for that because, properly, a Budget should be an annual affair, but the position to-day is that we have one, two or three Budgets in the year. The people are growing sick of worrying about Budgets because they do not know where they stand. In fact, Budgets to-day are a mere juggling with figures and we have really no facts at all in connection with them. We had a number of speeches here in connection with the situation in the country. Some were wise speeches and some were more or less lackadaisical types of speeches, but the fact of the matter is that we had one speech from the Government Benches, from Deputy Childers, which more or less brought heart to this side because it indicates that there is a realisation by one Fianna Fáil member at least that all is not well with this country.

The speech of Deputy Childers was one which reflects credit on him because he has delved into documents and spent a great deal of time in getting his facts, but the facts he has ascertained do not redound to the credit of the Government because, from the Deputy's own statement, unless the Government change their policy this country will not survive. For the last ten years, a Fianna Fáil Government have been in power and they have tried out a policy of their own, a policy of self-sufficiency and of neglect of agriculture. Their self-sufficiency policy has definitely gone burst, and their policy in connection with agriculture, which was no policy at all, had to be dropped, and we are in the happy position to-day of realising that respect has to be paid to one great man who has gone from this country, the late Mr. Paddy Hogan. His policy of "one more cow; one more sow; and one more acre under the plough" has come to stay and the Fianna Fáil Government to-day stand where we always stood, on the principle that agriculture is, and must be, the salvation of the economy of this country.

Many speakers have said that this, that and the other was the reason for the dry rot in our country, but I think that every man will admit that the cause of the economic decay for the last ten or 15 years was the fact that this country had to undergo too many shocks and too many wars. It could not be a competitor with Belgium, Denmark or New Zealand because we started in 1916 a war for independence which we carried on to 1921 and, as you all know, agriculture had to carry the brunt of that war; we started a civil war in 1922; and we did not get ten years respite until we started an economic war in 1932. Here we are to-day in the midst of a European war, the end of which no man can foresee. How could the country be expected to survive all those wars? It was beyond the capacity of a big country to do so, let alone a small country, and you cannot make any comparison between this country or Denmark or New Zealand. Denmark was always ready for any opportunity that offered, while New Zealand was a new country with a new outlook and with no disturbance whatever. Those countries could enter any market when and where they liked, but our energies, by reason of these emergencies, were diverted from the real course which they should have followed—production, and comfort and peace for the people working the soil.

The policy of self-sufficiency started in 1932 certainly has made tremendous inroads into the financial solvency of the country and, in fact, it has eaten away our whole economy, and we have to start, in 1940, at the point at which the Cumann na nGaedheal Government had to leave off in 1932, that is, to try to get from the land the prosperity which this country should have. The policy of doles and sops carried on for the last ten years has destroyed the initiative of our people with the result that we have to-day a sick and weary people—the agricultural worker crying out for the work he cannot get and the farmer working from morning till night for no return. These people are a sick people and a tired people. They have neither a national nor an economic outlook because, after ten years of troubles and worries, they have certainly grown miserable and old. Some of them may be young in years but they are old in spirit because they feel there is very little hope for them.

If we had put more effort into agricultural production from 1932 to 1940, we would to-day find ourselves in a key position and we could demand our rights from Britain, as we are unable to do at present. We have to take whatever Britain offers us for our produce. Ministers from this country are afraid to go over to negotiate an agreement unless they are sent for. That shows a poor national spirit and it is due to the fact that we have not shown more initiative for the last ten years. I quite agree that the farmers never got a chance. If they had got a chance, they would have carried us safely through the many economic blizzards which we have had to face in recent years.

We are told by Deputy Childers that our farmers are lackadaisical, and happy-go-lucky, that they are not making an effort to bring the country out of the rut. I do not blame the farmers for that; I blame the Government, because the farmers found that they were working morning, noon and night without any return for their labours and why should they be expected to continue to do that? We must admit that all our people— farmers, industrialists and labourers— are not pulling their weight, and they will not pull their full weight until they see a Government in power which will give them a lead. Until this country is put in a position in which a sound national economy can be worked out and until that economy is there for future Governments to respect, you need not expect progress or unity in the country. Instead you will have bickering, disunity and national decay. There could be built on the foundations laid by the first Minister for Agriculture, Paddy Hogan, sound economy, a sound road on which all Governments could travel. I would ask the Fianna Fáil Government, now that they are going back to the Hogan policy, to do so openly and to try to forget the highfalutin' theories that were expressed for the past ten years. I would ask them to give full effect to the Hogan policy—one more cow, one more sow, and one more acre under the plough. If you do that, you will certainly do something to retrieve lost ground.

I think one of the chief reasons for the low spirit that exists in the country to-day is the absence of a proper national outlook. I think it is unfortunate that we in this House have left to people outside the House the work of carrying to fulfilment the national aspirations. I say the Government have not played fair with the country for the past 12 months. They have told us: "Leave it to the Government and we shall settle all your national problems." The country did leave it to them and what has the Government done? They have sat tight and we hear nothing to-day about the fulfilment of our national aspirations. We hear nothing about the removal of the Border. We hear nothing about bringing our people into line, to do and dare for the prosperity and the unity of the country. If the Government are content to sit tight as they did for the last 12 months, there can be very little respect for this Parliament. I would ask the Government to remember that we on this side, and they on that side, over 20 years ago did our best to carry on the national tradition and we asked the people to support us. To-day we sit sulking as if to suggest that what we did in the past was all wrong. I think we made fools of the people. I ask the Government, if they think it was wrong, to stand up nobly and say it was wrong. There are many young people who were followers of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and to-day they are out against both Parties, and against this House, because you are not giving them a true lead. We are not showing the initiative that they desire in the effort to solve our problems. We have an economic problem but our first problem is the national problem.

At the moment there is a European war raging and countries are falling under the heel of the tyrant. We, here, should let the people know where we stand. Do we hear a word about the Border at present? Are we afraid to set about abolishing the Border? As Deputy Esmonde has stated, the national position is the first position we must alter. Until the Border is removed the economy of this country can never be placed on a sound basis. We have six counties severed from this State and maintained by sops and subsidies from a foreign Government. We have twenty-six counties within the State that can carry on a crippled kind of economy, but we cannot pull our full weight while we have that artificial Border which cuts off these six counties from this State to which they rightfully belong. We know the Government have a hard task, but we also know that they have not shown sufficient initiative in carrying on the principles for which we fought from 1916 onwards. I do not want to go so far as to suggest that we should march an Army on the Border, but I want to declare that we, old Republicans, are not going to allow national aspiration to be taken in hand by people outside the control of this House. The Government told us they were going to give a lead. They have not given that lead. I ask the Government again to give that lead because, remember, forces outside this House are working. They are small, but they are compact and determined. I have some respect for them, although I have no respect for much of their leadership. I shall say this much, that when you have men prepared to die on hunger-strike for their ideals you should not think that these men are fools. These men are clear-thinking persons who know what they are about. Men will not go on hunger-strike to the death unless for a noble ideal. Are we doing justice by sitting down idly, sniggering and sneering at them, when we know that these people outside are really deadly in earnest? They are deadly in earnest because we handed over to them, whether we are prepared to admit it or not, the custody of national aspirations. A very serious situation could easily arise because certain things are more than the country can stand.

Until the national position is rectified, you cannot have economic prosperity, because the national and the economic advance must go hand in hand. We want to give the people a proper spirit. To-day we are a nation of cowards and crawlers and nothing more. We have spent ten years in giving sops and doles to our workers and farmers for the purposes of political expediency. The Fianna Fáil Government have definitely weakened the morale of our people both materially and spiritually. Our people to-day are not pulling their weight or holding their heads up. We have the same crawling spirit that we had when the British were here, with 2½d. looking down on 2d., and the Government with a superior complex and the farmers with an inferior complex. We do not want that. We want spirit in the people so that men will pull their weight and not be afraid to pull it. The Government are responsible for that with all their doles and subsidies for the last ten years.

We present a sorry sight to-day in the midst of a European war situation. We could get a decent price for agricultural produce, but we have no real production, because economically and financially the country was destroyed by the high-falutin' political nonsense carried on for the last ten years. I want to see the spirit revived in the country that we had from 1916 to 1921, when men were friends and comrades of each other. To-day we have nothing but spite and bitterness. People who always worked to rear their families in a decent and honest way are now down-trodden and poor with no national or economic outlook. All they can do now is to rear families for export, whether it be for cannon fodder or otherwise. They must get out of the country because they cannot get a living here. After having freedom for 20 years, to-day we are blazoned before the world as people who are unfit to rule ourselves. We are too cowardly to rule ourselves. We have no initiative and are making no advance either economically, nationally or otherwise. We sit here lackadaisically while dry rot has set in amongst our people outside.

I want to see the workers get work no matter where the money comes from. I am not worrying about Budgets, big or small. I want to see our people content and working, whether for big or small profits. What we want is work for our people so that every man can earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and not have State paupers as half the people of the country are to-day. People who were well able to work in the past have now got flabby and soft. Men who were able to work for eight hours a day could not work one hour a day at present. We want to bring hope to these people. We want farmers who are sitting at their doors to-day smoking their pipes and wondering when the Government will do something for them, not to worry about Governments or anything else. We want the people to do something for themselves. I do not blame them for seeking doles and subsidies, because the Government have trained them to that. What we want is to get them away from that and to realise that their salvation depends on themselves. It will take a strong Government to do that or, perhaps, a dictator. The Government have spoiled the people and it is their duty to show the people that their existence depends on themselves.

One of my colleagues has said that what is wrong is that we have nine or ten men on the Government Front Bench who do not know anything about agriculture and I agree with that. In a country which should be 80 per cent. agricultural, it is an unfortunate state of affairs that we have not one man on the Government Front Bench capable of guiding the destinies of agriculture. There are men on the Government back benches who are good practical farmers and who are capable of filling some of the places on the front bench. It is unfair not to give these men an opportunity of saving the only industry which can save this country. I say to the Government that they have failed definitely in the agricultural field, in the economic field, and in the national field, and that it is time for them to get out. If they do not want to retire, they should at least put six or eight of the men who are on the back benches on the front bench and see what they can do. I do not want them to hand over control to our Party. I do not care whether we ever get into power or not. I do not care who comes into power if they are honest and sincere Irishmen. This country must be saved, whether by a dictatorship or something else. The dry rot which has set in should not be allowed to continue. We are not a nation of free men, but just a half nation of cowardly crawlers. We are not pulling our weight. We are doing exactly what the big fellow across the water tells us. We raise a big Army and tax our people to pay for it.

Some years ago when the people who lived by fishing told the Government that they wanted some boats to protect their fishing grounds from the foreign trawlers that were taking all the fish from our waters, their demand was not acceded to. The Government only provided a few hundred pounds to put two extra men on the Muirchu when they should have provided sloops or other boats for protective purposes. Afterwards they rushed over to Great Britain and bought torpedo boats at £6,000 or £7,000 apiece, not to protect our fisheries, but to protect Great Britain. If we have to do things in that slavish way it is only right that we should know where we stand nationally and economically.

It is unfair that our people are not being told the truth. The censorship is all right, but it has gone too far. In our Army, in our police force, in our Government, and in our capital city we all know that things happened which the Government deliberately said did not happen. The censorship is doing more harm to this House than to any other people. We should hear more of the truth. We should be told where we stand. I am not at all satisfied that this House has given the people the lead that it should give. As I said, we should get the people working and keep their minds away from what is happening all over Europe, where men are attacking and murdering other men. There is plenty of work to be found in this country for every man, woman and child, from which a decent return could be got if the Government will only give the lead. They should give that lead. They should not worry about finance. This country will finance itself if every man is working in his own interest and in the interest of the country. While you have 50 per cent. of the people seeking a living which they cannot get, and the other 50 per cent. carrying them on their backs, you are not doing your duty to the people.

For the last 10 or 15 years this country has gone in entirely for amusements of all sorts—horse racing, greyhound racing, picture houses and everything else. The Government must put a stop to that, because there is no return either spiritually, morally, or in any other way to our people from amusements of that kind. Our country to-day is living on the instalment system. Bicycles, motor cars, and other things are bought on that system and the finance of the country is in the hands of Jews and foreigners. People pay monthly instalments for a bicycle to bring them to amusements. I would rather see them paying 5s. for a spade and digging their gardens. It is time that the Government realised that there is general decay, nationally, economically and morally, and that they are responsible for it. There is one Minister on the front bench with a smile. I give every credit to that Minister, because he pulls his weight, whether he is on the Government Benches or on the platform. I have every respect for him, whether he says what is wrong or not. At any rate he speaks, while others never express an opinion until there is an election in the offing, and then all sorts of high-falutin' nonsense is talked. The Irish people are easily gulled but if they are to be gulled in the same way for another ten years then, I say, the devil mend them.

Mr. Keating

I cannot congratulate the Minister for Finance on this Budget, because the taxation was really introduced six months ago, and the country has been practically taxed out of existence. I am glad that the Minister for Supplies is in the House, because it is a good omen to have the Minister for Agriculture and himself going to England to take part in trade talks there. I hope these Ministers will use their good influences in order to get for our people as good prices for their produce as the farmers in Northern Ireland receive. At British landing ports first-grade spring lambs are at present graded at 1/4 per lb., and second grade at 8¾d. per lb. There is 7¼d. per lb. of a reduction on second-grade lambs. I think it is the duty of the Minister for Supplies and the Minister for Agriculture, when next in consultation with British Ministers, to ask them to put their hands to their hearts, and to reconsider prices, and, if necessary, to consult practical people, who will tell them that there should be no such difference in the prices of first-grade and second-grade lambs. The price of second-grade lambs should be only 2d. per lb. lower than first grade. Then there is third-grade lambs, for which the price is 4d. per lb. It would be better for the exporters that such lambs were never born, because that price is worthless.

The price of a 36-lb. lamb first grade in Great Britain is now 48/-, less roughly 10/- for charges, leaving the net price to the exporter 36/-. That is an economic price, and I have nothing to say against it. When it comes to second-grade lambs, the price is 26/3, or a difference of 21/9 per lamb compared with first and second grades. As the exporter gets only 16/3 per lamb it would be better if these lambs were never born. The Minister for Supplies and the Minister for Agriculture should be able now to get for our people a market that was thrown away some years ago. I want them, when talking to British Ministers, to realise that the British will want every lb. of meat and other farm produce that we have before this war is over. It is about time our Ministers impressed upon British Ministers the fact that a guarantee should be given that when the war is over there will be no quotas. The present Government is responsible for quotas. I remember that up to a few years ago every man in this country could ship all the cattle he liked to England, because there were not quotas then. We had a preference of 10 per cent. in Britain until Fianna Fáil, unfortunately, started the nonsensical economic war. The ending of quotas is overdue. There is an opportunity now to end quotas and I hope our Ministers will grasp it.

I do not wish to criticise what happened in the past. I want to look to the future, and to tell the Government that if agriculture is not prosperous the country cannot be prosperous. The only way to make this country prosperous is to have mixed farming. In the 'eighties the majority of the farmers in the constituency I have the honour to represent tilled from 70 to 80 per cent. of their land. They worked hard, met bad seasons, and had to meet competition in the British market—which is the only market we have—and everyone of them got into difficulties. As time went on they went in for mixed farming, raised livestock and poultry and before the last war they were all out of debt. Some were fortunate enough to have money in the banks, but through the policy of this Government that money is now all gone. Now is the time for the Government to help agriculture, which is the mainstay of this country. If farmers are not prosperous the country will not be prosperous. The Government should encourage farmers to keep their children on the land. They will not stay on it unless there is a living to be made on it, and some profit. In order to help agriculture and to encourage people to stay on the land it would be a good move if the State gave a subsidy to those with children and in that way encourage the young people to settle down and marry on the land.

We have increased tillage this year, but I am sorry to say, coming as I do from one of the best tillage counties in Ireland, that the work is not done as well as I would wish it to be done. It was done in a hurry. There is a scarcity of labour, and some farmers cannot afford to pay for it. Unfortunately from what I saw in many places I am afraid we will have as much weeds as corn. It is necessary that the Government should help farmers to cultivate the land and to make farming a success. If a crop is badly sown it will not be an economic crop. There is now a golden opportunity to put people back on the land, and to encourage them to work it. I believe that with the help of the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Supplies we will be able to do something in that respect for our people. Above all, I urge the Ministers to insist on impressing on the British Government this fact, that we can supply them with food stuffs. If, however, farmers are to be penalised by quotas, markets that might take years to gain would disappear in a few months.

I also want the Government to pay attention to the importance of bringing down the price of mill offals. Pigs are making a good price now but people are losing money on them. We were told by the Pigs and Bacon Board some time ago to have pigs heavy and to have them of a better finish, but when they were for sale there was no market for them. Unfortunately, like many others, I speculated before our Ministers went to England and I had pigs of suitable weight for the home market three weeks ago, only to find later that they were unsuitable. That means that three weeks' feeding will be lost on these pigs. I am not the only one to suffer in that respect. I hope our Ministers will be able to bring us home better results as a result of future talks. I am only interested in seeing our country prosperous and peaceful.

Mr. Cleary

This is the pleasantest Budget debate I remember in this House. Nothing seriously wrong was found with the Budget by the Opposition Party. Many statements were made, but when they are analysed it will be seen that they are founded upon nothing in the Budget that can be objected to, but upon the policy that Fianna Fáil put into operation some years ago. The speech we have heard from Deputy Keating was the only speech that I have heard that had any substance in it. It was a helpful speech, and if we compare what we heard from one practical farmer with the speech of another practical farmer and member of the same Party, Deputy Giles, I think that the latter has not done a great deal of credit to the Party to which he belongs. I presume, Deputy Giles, when speaking, was only thinking of the position in his own county, when he mentioned cowardly crawlers and people who were demoralised by doles and sops. If that day comes, I hope that, by a greater expansion of the migrant system from the West, we will improve the morale of the "cowardly crawlers" whom Deputy Giles speaks of in his own county. That is the policy of the Government and I take it that it is such a policy as will raise the morale of the "cowardly crawlers" who are demoralised in the county Meath.

Captain Giles

On your benches.

Mr. Cleary

A more virile policy of migration will, I presume, have the helpful support of Deputy Giles.

Captain Giles

At the State expense. Send us men with means?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Giles was not interrupted and he should not interrupt.

Mr. Cleary

Deputy Giles has got quite a lot of help at the State expense.

Captain Giles

For services rendered.

Mr. Cleary

He should be the last to talk about other people getting State assistance to help them in life. He should examine his speeches a little more if he expects them to be taken seriously. Might I suggest that he speak once or twice into a dictaphone and have the speech read out to him again. He might then have little more respect for other people who have to fight their way in life. The Budget has been one of the few pleasant shocks this country has got for some time. It has been almost too pleasant a shock for the Opposition. Not a man in the Opposition or in the country, outside the members of the Government, but was prepared for a very unpleasant shock before the Budget was introduced. The people thought that there would have to be a lot of extra taxation—taxation of the breakfast table and taxation that the people could not, perhaps, bear, in order to even out matters and balance the Budget. There was general talk of more taxation on tobacco, on liquor and on tea. The people were wondering whether the Minister would have to impose a few extra millions in taxation in order to balance matters. That did not come off and the shock has been almost too pleasant for the Opposition, for whom Deputy Giles speaks in his attack on the front bench on this side. Deputy Keating said that he knew that every member of the front bench was a capable man in his own job. Deputy Giles thinks that they are all numskulls. I doubt if we have any numskulls in this House on either the back or front benches. We may have one. I doubt if we will get anywhere by calling members of the front or back benches numskulls. Deputy Keating thinks that they are capable men, and he made suggestions by which the Minister would be able to improve matters.

There are things out of gear in the farming industry. I do think that some Government Departments expect too much from the book of rules, so far as the farming industry is concerned. They expect that every individual farmer can keep the rules as strictly as they are laid down in the book when carrying out his work on the farm, whether in respect of the grading of pigs or the grading of eggs. I think that there is too much severity and that too much hardship is imposed on the farmers and producers by the books of rules drawn up, from time to time, by the various Departments. If there were a little more freedom, provided the farmers made a decent effort to have their produce up to standard, you would have a greater feeling of happiness and security on the part of the farmers who go in for producing livestock for export and for the production of eggs. If the Department of Agriculture would try to relax this very strict code in respect of producers, they would improve matters even by being lax and would get the farmers in time to observe with strictness the code which has been laid down. The farmers are to be congratulated — despite Deputy Giles' idea that they are all crawlers and cringers — upon the effort they are making to adopt the policy of tillage formulated by the Government. They have gone a long way towards meeting the requirements. They have made big sacrifices. They have pawned their future for some time by putting money into machinery and fertilisers in order to meet the demands of the people for food. They are to be congratulated upon that.

Nothing succeeds like success. I think that this policy will bring great success to the farming industry and to the country as a whole. Speaking of that, is it not strange that, in this debate, the Opposition leaders, who have attempted to attack the Budget, have said nothing about the "cod" schemes which Deputy Dillon was so fond of referring to during the past year or two—beet, wheat and barley? They are as silent now as Deputy Giles about this policy, embarked upon at great cost by the Government during the past few years. Were it not for these schemes, which had to meet the full brunt of opposition from members of the opposite Party, we should be in a very poor position to-day so far as our vital supplies are concerned and we should be attacked by the Opposition because these schemes were not then embarked upon. It is a great tribute to the Department of Agriculture and the Government that, in spite of the virulent opposition which they met, they did go ahead and embark on these expensive schemes at a time when things did not look very rosy or bright for them and when there was no great hope that, in the near future, they would bring any great results.

I think that the various Departments might make an effort, now that success after success is bound to come to the farming industry and to all the industries we have established, to try to improve the system of employment. There is an immense amount of work to be done. Drainage, reclamation and resettlement of land require to be done. I think that these three items should be specially taken up by the various Departments, that they should apply themselves to them and try to put people into employment on these schemes in preference to having them drawing unemployment assistance. There was opposition some years ago from the main Opposition and the Labour Parties to the rotational employment scheme. It is a good scheme. It is a start, at any rate, towards putting our people at least into temporary employment, and I think if assistance were given to the Government by the other Parties in the House in their efforts to put people into temporary employment for even a few days a week it would be appreciated by a large number of able-bodied men who are anxious to get work instead of the dole. If the type of propaganda that is going on about forced labour camps were discouraged, you would have a great and a successful effort made to put people who are now unemployed into temporary employment.

This Budget was a pleasant shock to the country. It is too bad that it has to be such a heavy Budget. It is a great pity the Minister for Finance could not reduce taxation, the type of taxation that falls heavily on the poorer sections of the people. But he has not been told how he can do that. Yesterday an attack was made on the Government for their expenditure on the protective forces of this country. I wonder would that attack be made to-day? If this Government did not take effective steps, necessarily expensive steps to defend this country, to have an army that would in some way make others feel that it would not be profitable to attempt invasion or to curtail our rights, what type of attack would be made on us by men like Deputy Giles for leaving the country in an unprotected position?

The money spent on Army services may have been, in the opinion of some people, very foolishly spent, but I submit that the greater risk would be not to spend it. Some protection has to be provided. We must organise our State and make some effort to defend it. We must have it in a position that people from either without or within will think it would not pay to try any tricks with the independence or the rights of our people. If, during this terrible world catastrophe that is now proceeding, we can succeed in keeping our country apart from the war and all the evils that follow in the wake of war, then I think any money spent on our Army and other defensive services will be well spent and I feel sure that the people will later be satisfied that all that money was usefully expended.

I think the greatest tribute that could be paid to the Budget presented by the Minister for Finance was paid by the Opposition yesterday. This is my own construction and, while accepting the professions of other people, I must say that, having heard the speech of Deputy Giles, I am forced to come to this conclusion, that the greatest tribute that could be paid to the Budget is the fact that the Opposition Party, of which Deputy Giles is a member, had arranged the day after the Budget was introduced for a very live campaign in the by-elections in two constituences, but the Budget so affected their plans they decided that, for the present anyhow, they would postpone any such test as a by-election against the Government's policy, either on economic or national grounds. I think no better tribute could be paid to the Minister for Finance.

If the Government are dragging the country to disaster, as Deputy Giles has said, surely that is the greatest evil at the moment and they should not be allowed to get away with it by the postponement of any opportunity, such as an election, that would test their policy, any opportunity that would give the people a chance of expressing their views? I hope the lesson that has been taught will have its effect. I hope that helpful criticism of any portion of the Government's policy that requires it will be given rather than criticism of the type contained in the speech of Deputy Giles. It is in that way that we can make our country happier and give our people some little hope in the very dark world in which we are living.

Mr. McGovern

Opinion about the Budget varies in this House, but I do not think that the Opposition got any shock by reason of its mildness. I believe that this country has been living above its means. I have been of that opinion for the last seven or eight years and I think the Minister for Finance will agree with me now and will admit that the country is living beyond its means, notwithstanding what the Deputy behind him has just declared. When the Minister is driven from the good old true and tried course of finding expenditure from revenue and has to resort to borrowing, that does not improve the position, because it is an attack upon the credit of the State. The credit of the State is our last reserve. When a general has to call out his last reserves, he is on his last legs, as it were. I warn the Minister and I believe he realises the difficult position he is in. I warn him to be careful.

I think it was Deputy Bennett who referred to the ratio of the taxable capacity of the people as between this country and Great Britain. The old formula, according to our Taoiseach, was 66 to 1. That formula is out of date. The 66 to 1 ration does not apply in 1940, and the proof of that is given in the figures for income-tax. I think the best basis on which to find the taxable capacity of the country is the taxable income. According to the Budgets of Great Britain and Éire, the ratio of taxable income has altered very much since the Taoiseach put it down at 66 to 1. The estimated income-tax in this country at the 6/6 rate is £5,650,000 and the surtax, £560,000. The estimated revenue for Great Britain at the rate of 7/6 is £520,000,000 for income-tax and surtax. If the Minister or anybody else will work out these figures, he will find that the taxable income for the purpose of income-tax and surtax would represent a ratio of 80 to 1 instead of 66 to 1.

Our Budget of over £35,000,000 in taxation is equivalent to a Budget of £3,000,000,000 in Great Britain. Now that is an extraordinary position for a country that has been for the last six months congratulating itself upon being out of the war and upon the fact that we are a neutral country. We are a neutral country but where is the gain in the saving of expenditure? We are spending at the rate that only countries engaged in a life and death war are spending. These countries after years of preparation have much increased their expenditure and now in the midst of the conflict is it not a terrible state of affairs to find that our expenditure is relatively as high as theirs? I tell the previous Deputy who has spoken in this debate that there is a shock to the Opposition in this Budget. The Opposition is shocked because the country is drifting into the financial position to which Deputy Childers pointed yesterday. Anyone who takes trouble seriously and earnestly, as Deputy Childers did, to examine the position will be as much shocked as Deputy Childers was.

I have no doubt that the Minister does not enjoy the position in which he finds himself to-day. The late Minister for Finance got out in very good time. He put the present Minister into a boat that had begun to spring a leak. The Minister for Finance evidently to-day finds himself attacking the last resource, for when the Minister for Finance has to take to borrowing to balance his Budget he is attacking the credit of the State. Up to now the credit of the State was good. But if the present rate of expenditure continues what is to happen? I hope it will not continue and I hope that it will be only for this season that it will be necessary to borrow to balance the Budget. When the British Chancellor of the Exchequer was introducing his Budget he was wondering, he said, if the British taxpayers would freely pay up the money that he believed they would if they were satisfied that that money was well expended. I wonder is the Minister for Finance able to satisfy the taxpayers of this country that the money he is extracting from the people is well expended.

When we look around and see the position of our principal industry, when we see production going down because of the enormous increase in its cost and in the cost of living and because of the eating into the reserves that make for the credit of the State we are undoubtedly shocked. Certainly we can find no evidence that the huge taxation that is being imposed is being well expended. I will not detain the House by going into matters that have been discussed here again and again, but I am satisfied that most Deputies on all sides will agree that as far as the expenditure of the money is concerned it is largely pure waste. The money raised in taxation is not expended in a manner to increase the national income, to increase production or to reduce the cost of living. If it were doing these things we would agree that the money was well expended.

It may or may not be necessary to spend as much in defence as is being spent. It is an enormous amount of money to spend on an army when we find that that army is not in a position to face an enemy owing to its want of ammunition. I do not know what is wrong but surely something must be wrong somewhere if in the event of a surprise attack we have not the ammunition to defend our country. That being the position we might as well never have spent anything on our Army.

The unfortunate part of it is that since the present Government came into office they spent all the money they could collect on all sorts of wildcat schemes and on all sorts of so-called social services. They left no reserves to fall back upon. No other source can now be tapped to meet expenditure. None of the old sources can bear increases of expenditure. In addition to that some of the old sources that in the past years produced a good deal of revenue have now dried up. That is the position, for instance, with the revenue from the Sweepstakes. I am afraid that has gone west, at any rate for the present. There is another source that I am afraid is also dried up for all time and that is the collection of arrears or so-called areas of income-tax that was not paid from 1914 to 1921. That, in itself, was a great source of income to the Exchequer. These two sources have now dried up. They were worth something like a couple of millions a year to the Minister for Finance in the last seven or eight years. At all events these two sources have completely dried up and other sources are gradually being reduced. I have not the slightest doubt but the Minister will come forward with another Budget before the end of the financial year, and I am afraid, to use the words of the previous speaker, that that Budget will give a shock to the people of this country. The Minister will certainly not be able to carry the country through this financial year on this Budget. That I am satisfied is the position, notwithstanding the fact that he has borrowed money from the Road Fund and from other sources in order to invest it in that sound security of the relief of distress—that security that has now got the new title of unemployment assistance. But, really, it is in relief of distress. That is nothing to boast about. A Deputy says that that is a shock to the Opposition. He told us that the mildness of this Budget was a shock and a disappointment on this side of the House. I want to tell the Deputy that we are not so keen on Party politics as to disregard the interests of the country. The other side of the House may do so. The only shock that Deputies on this side of the House could get is because of the fact that the country is called on to pay so heavily in taxation and that we are spending entirely beyond our means.

In introducing previous Budgets the Minister for Finance was in the habit of making very glowing speeches. He waxed eloquent telling the House how quickly the money was flowing in and at an increased rate from every source. He told us about the rising income from taxes on motor cars, tobacco, alcoholic liquor and so on. I give credit to the present Minister for wisely refraining from boasting. Of course he has nothing to boast about; he has not attempted to boast. At any rate, I give him credit for knowing the position of the country. Nobody has better reason to know it. In that position there is nothing to boast about and nothing over which to crow. There is everything to cause serious thought as Deputy Childers, a member of the Minister's own Party, pointed out yesterday. We are told that social services are the cause of all these increases. Deputy Cosgrave gave figures here the other day in regard to these social services and he segregated a number of items that certainly could not be classed as social services. I think the expenditure on them comes to in or about £3,000,000. It represents increases in various Departments, including the Taoiseach's, Defence, Industry and Commerce, Posts and Telegraphs, and others. Surely that cannot be regarded as expenditure on social services. Even the Minister for Finance himself did not so describe it. The increases in these Departments are for salaries and allowances, and for a bigger number of officials, compared with 1931-32, and total, as I have said, upwards of £3,000,000. Would the Minister not consider that a reduction of £3,000,000 a year in customs duties would be more of a social service than these increases? Customs duties are not paid by the wealthy, but principally by the poor, and four-fifths of the people in this country may be described as poor.

The standard of living of our people may be ascertained by making a comparison of the taxable income of this country with that of Great Britain: of the amount raised in income-tax and customs duties in the two countries. Here, over £10,000,000 a year is raised by customs duties. In other words, that sum is raised off the poor, and is twice as much as the sum derived from income-tax. In Great Britain, both sources bring in about an equal amount, but there is this difference, that in Great Britain customs duties are raised principally off luxuries. An examination, therefore, of the position shows that this £3,000,000 to which I have referred comes out of the poverty of the people. It is raised off the poorer classes, and utilised for the payment of extra officials and to meet extra expenditure on the various items to which I have referred. That is not taxation to provide more social services. It is taxation which is antisocial because it is taken from the poor and given to those who are comparatively well off. The money is being utilised for the creation of new positions, making them permanent and a burden on the taxpayers of the present day and of the future. I say that because those officials, once they are installed in office, cannot be lightly disposed of. I am sorry that I cannot congratulate the Minister upon these changes and on that kind of social service.

There is no doubt but that taxation must be reduced and production increased if this country is ever to become prosperous or, indeed, able to carry on at all. Personally, I have great faith in the country myself. I believe that, by all Parties pulling together, by making reasonable suggestions for an improvement of the present position, with good-will, especially on the part of the Government, this country can pull through. I do not subscribe to the view that Deputies should not criticise. I believe they should, and in that way point out to the Minister where improvements might be made. I believe that the best means of helping the country is by assisting agriculture, not by giving doles to agriculture, but by providing the farmers with loans at reasonable rates, and by reducing the cost of production. If that were done farmers would be able to produce more and make a profit. When the cost of production is proportionately higher than the price paid for agricultural products then, just as in the case of all other industries, there is no profit and no inducement to farmers to produce. Even if they had the money, they surely would not be prepared to lose it in that kind of activity. It would not be a business proposition. No matter what criticisms may be offered against the farmers, they are acting, in my opinion, on sound business principles. If there is no profit they must cease to produce. For a number of years past there has been a loss, instead of a profit, on agricultural production. Even in this year, I believe that farmers will be producing at a loss. At the same time, I want to say that owing to the situation with which the world is faced, it is the duty, not only of farmers and farm labourers but of all concerned, to produce all they can, even at a loss. It is also the duty of the Minister to help farmers to produce. I am glad that he has decided to give some little help to farmers by increasing the amount for fertilisers. It is a pity that he did not do so sooner, but perhaps it is better late than never.

Some Deputies have spoken about the popularity of this Budget. I am sorry that I cannot join with the Deputy on the Government Benches who, a moment ago, congratulated the Minister on the victory he has won with his Budget. The Minister has won Party popularity apparently against the country's interest, the country's credit and financial stability. I cannot congratulate him on winning a victory on the score of Party popularity. This country has come to the stage when Parties should be the last consideration and not the first. I believe that all Parties should come together and try to do something to improve the position of the country economically, nationally and in every other respect. Popularity for a Party is a very poor consideration to weigh against the long term credit, financial stability and soundness of the country. I would not accuse the Minister of doing that but for the statement of a Deputy on the Government Benches who got up and boasted that the Minister had succeeded in winning this victory.

This is a popular Budget, to be sure. At least it ought to be with the older people, but it is rather ironical that it is with the younger people that the Budget is most popular, since it is the young people who will have to pay for it eventually. As I say, it seems to be the younger people with whom this Budget is popular, and yet it is the younger people with whom it should be unpopular, because, although these young people may be congratulating the Minister to-day, when it comes to 1945 or 1950, these people, who are young now, may well, perhaps, curse the rakish policy that was responsible for imposing a burden upon future years. For the next 10 or 20 years, at least, they will find what this burden means in a few years' time, and they will not have the same means of finding money for new schemes then as now. These schemes are all very good while they last. Of course, any individual can have a good time so long as he can borrow money and spend the money while it lasts, but when it comes to the time that he must pay up the money he has borrowed, he finds it to be a very different story. It is just the same in the case of a nation. This nation has been spending money that it has not been earning for the last nine or ten years, and the day is coming, and coming soon, when the nation must either pay up or go bankrupt. I hope that there is no question of the nation going bankrupt and that we will be able to pay up, but when it comes to the time to pay up, it will not be so pleasant, and the generous spending will stop then since the bill must be paid. We all have a responsibility in this matter, but if there is anybody in this House who has more responsibility than anybody else, it is the Minister for Finance, who is the trustee of the taxpayer and of the country. It is his duty to see that this country is kept in a financially sound position, and if he fails in that trust, then he does not deserve congratulations from the people of this country.

Other Deputies have referred to matters in connection with agriculture. Deputy Keating, for one, referred to agriculture. I understand that certain of our Ministers are engaged at the present moment in certain negotiations with Great Britain, and I should like to urge that they should try to arrange for a long-term settlement that would provide for decent prices that would cover the cost of production, not only now, during these abnormal times, but also during the slump that is bound to follow when the war is over. I have a cutting here that I took out of a newspaper a few weeks ago. The statements made in this cutting may not be accurate, but it should be easy for the Minister or his colleagues to find out whether or not they are true, and in any case I think it might be useful to call the Minister's attention to it. This cutting has reference to the price of lambs, and shows the discrepancy between the prices for lambs in this part of the country and the prices in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The prices, according to this cutting, which is a few weeks old, to be paid for lambs exported from this country to England are as follows: hogget lamb carcases, 11½d. per lb.; grown wether carcases, 10d. per lb.; ewe carcases, 6d. per lb.; whereas the prices paid for equivalent classes to English and Northern Ireland farmers are as follows: fat lambs, 14½d. per lb.—that is, a difference of 3d. per lb. between what is paid there and what is paid here; whethers, 13d. per lb., as compared with 10d. per lb., here; and for light-weight ewes, 9d. per lb., as compared with 6d. per lb. here.

Now, these are discrepancies that, in my opinion, should not exist at the present time. This was a cutting of a few weeks ago. I do not know whether the position has changed since then, and I cannot say if these figures are correct, but the Minister or his colleague can easily find out whether or not they are correct. Another matter to which I should like to call attention in this connection is with regard to the price of eggs, and I had this information from an importer in Northern Ireland a month or two ago. According to that information, at that time, the price of our eggs was 21/- per hundred, whereas in Northern Ireland the price was 30/- per hundred. That was in March last. I do not know how the position stands now. However, these are matters that require very serious attention, and I hope that the Minister for Finance will call the attention of the Minister for Agriculture, and the other Minister who is to accompany him to London in connection with these trade negotiations, to these very serious and important matters. These prices are not encouraging so far as production here is concerned, and when we bear in mind that the cost of production here is higher, that the cost of living is higher, and that the cost of manufactured products is much higher here than in Northern Ireland or Great Britain, it is easy to see the difficulty that the agricultural community has in making ends meet. I call the Minister's attention to these matters because I know that we all try to help each other, and I believe that we should all co-operate in helping the Government to improve the lot of the country generally. I hope that the Minister will call the attention of the Minister for Agriculture to these matters in connection with the present negotiations with Great Britain.

Mr. Keyes

In the various speeches on this Budget the Minister has received pæans of congratulation on the one hand and a lot of condemnation on the other hand. I think, however, the Minister is a sufficiently wise man not to be particularly disturbed by one or the other. In my opinion, the acid test as to the success or failure of the Budget will have to be found outside this House, even though we, who are assembled here, are the representatives of the country. I think that these votes of congratulation or of condemnation in this House are recognised in the country generally as more or less part of Parliamentary practice. The real test of the success or failure of the Budget will be found amongst the plain people of the country. It is the plain people of the country who will really test whether this Budget will confer boons and advantages on the people of the country generally, or the reverse. Judging by that standard, I am afraid that I could not join in the pæans of congratulation that have been offered to the Minister in connection with this Budget, because, to me, the Budget indicates that there is no alteration in the policy or programme of the Government for the coming year. It seems to me that they have allowed themselves to be lulled into a sense of false security, and to leave things as they are. Naturally, of course, any Budget will walk upon somebody's corns, but it seems that this Budget is not designed to walk on anybody's corns; that it is designed to keep an even keel, so to speak, and to leave everything alone. I warn the Minister and his Government that, in doing so, they are treading on very dangerous ground.

Deputy Childers in his speech said that, although the position might be bad, there ought to be no exaggeration used in depicting the present situation in the country. The Deputy is very wise in saying so, but I think that the exaggeration can come from both sides, and if the Government representatives speak in the vein that everything is all right in the country, that things should be left as they are, and thereby convey the impression that the position in the country is not as bad as it actually is, then I think that that type of exaggeration is more harmful than the exaggeration of those who depict the situation in the country as worse than it is at the present moment.

Anybody living in the country and having contact with the poorer element of it—and they are, unfortunately, the vast majority of the people of the country—must be alarmed by the position obtaining to-day. The unemployed, who have been hoping from day to day that something would be done on a big decent scale to alter their position have, as Deputy Morrissey stated earlier in the day, definitely lost hope of any such action being taken on their behalf. The Government themselves appear to accept unemployment as inevitable and inevitability of unemployment might get a kind of benediction here because of its having obtained for so long but it does not bring any solace to the hearts of the people who are so suffering and who for a continual period have been enduring and existing on 13/- or 14/- a week, with a wife and family. If they are going to be told that there is no hope for them, that there can be nothing done and that this Budget brings no new outlook or new development, that is not going to console the people who contend and claim that they are the people of this country, just as much as we in this House, that they are as much entitled to the consideration of this State as are the biggest merchants or magnates or the big producers of farm produce or anyone else who is talking here.

The poor and the lowly are voiceless. They are men of no property. They are entitled to little consideration in dealing with Budgets and finance matters. Deputy Morrissey issued a warning this morning in very guarded and careful language. I think his language was much too moderate. From my conversations recently with people from various walks of life in the country, and notably clergymen, whose business and profession brings them intimately into contact with the homes of the poor, I would suggest that the Minister and the Government are sitting on a powder magazine by ignoring the fact that the unemployment menace is a growing and a clamouring one, that will give vent to itself in a most unwelcome fashion if the Government cannot see its way to attend to it.

We are perfectly aware that there is work waiting to be done. We are told from every side of the House that taxation must not be increased; it must be reduced and production must be increased. Between those two lies the problem. That is a truism. We want increased production. We do not want increased taxation but, certainly, the Government of the country have the responsibility. I blame this Budget for one thing—for lack of vision, for lack of planning, for lack of recognition of the responsibility that is theirs for the 120,000 people, approximately, who are unemployed, with no hope of employment, who are only being treated for employment by having their names transferred from one side of the labour exchange register to the other, by having them robbed of the State benefits conferred upon them by the Unemployment Assistance Act for many months of the year when the Minister for Industry and Commerce decides to say: "From this day until the end of October you people must be at work. You will get no more benefits."Ipso facto the people are out of work. Have they never taken steps to ascertain how many of these people, denied of the benefits of the legislation passed by this House, and robbed of it now from February to October, actually get work? The unemployed man, the married man with no dependents, the widow without dependents, are all deprived of their benefit and are forced back on to the channels of charity and the home help of the local authorities. In certain instances the local authorities are already contributing to central funds for the relief of the unemployment of able-bodied men who are willing to work, but for whom no work can be found.

The scales provided by the Government for the maintenance of those who are still on the books and getting unemployment assistance are the scales fixed some years ago, which even then were not claimed by the Government to be an ample or adequate maintenance allowance. They were only provided to tide people over between short periods of unemployment from one job to the other. But the reverse has happened since that legislation was passed. The jobs are scarce, and getting scarcer, and the unemployment period is getting longer. The letters that are received by Deputies throughout the country—I could fill that desk with piles of them—would be much more eloquent than all the statistics from the Statistical Abstract, or any other document, for they tell their story in their own simple and unvarnished language and ask the question: "How am I going to continue to maintain myself and wife and six or eight children on 13/- or 14/- a week, having a first charge upon that of rent?"

The Lord Mayor of Cork last evening gave specific instances of the 360 odd cases in his city out of a total of 2,000 odd tenants of the municipality who were paying a fixed charge of one-tenth of their income as rent, fixed upon the differential basis, by the humanity of the corporation, and while paying only one-tenth of their income on rent, 350 families were living on an income of between 20/- and 30/- a week in the City of Cork and paying a minimum rent of 3/- to 3/6 in the week. So that, working it down to the personnel, the persons of those families were asked to subsist upon sixpence a day.

We were calmly asked by Deputy Childers last night not to exaggerate the position of the present time but rather to gird our loins for the time which is to come when the war is over, to get ready for the aftermath that is going to follow in the path of the great war. I suggest there is little consolation in telling that to the people who are living on sixpence a day, for the aftermath of the war can bring them nothing worse than they have at the present time. I suggest that if this House were to have—as it ought to have—an indication of Government policy, and if they were to have some vision and planning for the aftermath of the great war, we should be taking advantage of the opportunity that is there. The soil of our country is prolific and we have the unemployed people. We lack the vision and the planning of the Government to apply the latent wealth of our country, which is the unemployed men, to the soil of the country. We want increased tillage. We want increased food. The farmers say they cannot do it individually because they have not the capital. A suggestion has been made recently to subsidise the farmer, to subsidise the workers' wages, but the land itself is lying there and many estates are lying at the mercy of the Land Commission, not being divided, not being tilled by the absentee landlords and other great ranchers. What on earth is to prevent the Government from putting that land into cultivation and tilling it with the help of the unemployed in the various districts, utilising the machinery of the Department of Agriculture and of the Land Commission? We have been importing grain from South America and British Columbia and various places at a huge cost for transport, owing to the war emergency and insurance rates. We have the means of producing it and storing it in our granaries as the nation's war asset. We have in the stores of the country to-day a considerable amount of grain that has been so brought across the ocean as the war ration. Are we supplementing that or making provision for its replacement by the additional tillage that could and should be done by the Government and which would utilise the man-power of the country in that very useful national experiment?

That brings me to another point.

What have we been doing to ensure that we are going to be able to continue the export of our produce, apart from imports? We have been perfectly unmindful of the necessity for a mercantile marine. We have been purchasing war 'planes, bombers and fighters, all kinds of artillery, antiaircraft implements, but we have never dreamt at all of interesting ourselves in the necessity for a mercantile marine. A small country, Belgium, which was invaded this morning, has recently purchased 66,500 tons of shipping for £1,000,000. I would ask the Minister to examine what have been the freight charges paid by this State since the war began in September. If he tots up the freightage paid in the ports of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and the other ports, he will find by how many times that £1,000,000 has been paid. Now we are forced back to the position that Scandinavian shipping is non-existent as far as we are concerned. With all our influence in America, we are still declared to be in the war zone. It has cost £32,000 for the freightage of a small cargo of timber from Canada to Limerick at the present time, quite apart from the value of the cargo itself. Similar charges have been paid on tonnage going into Cork and other places. We have lost the butter packets that we used to import from Norway. We could not export our butter in beech keels. We have talked about it many times in this House. We never could dream of using beech to export our butter. The Danes send their butter to England in beech. We have been using resinous packets. We obtained the resinous wood from Norway, but that is no longer available. Can we say that we are in a position to turn any section of our timber industry to this work? The cooperage has been allowed to drop. We are faced with this very serious problem: how are we going to continue to export our butter? We will have difficulty in importing more timber from Canada. If we have to do it we will have to pay more for the shipping—if we can get the shipping. We have been perfectly unmindful of that fact while building up war implements and arms—neglecting the particular points which would go to build up a successful present and future when the war is over.

Progress reported. The Committee to sit again on Wednesday next.

Dáil Éireann debate - Friday, 10 May 1940

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 14—General (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 10 May 1940