The Minister may have wished, in his statement, to place his financial proposals before the House unencumbered by any restrictions he might be tempted to make in order that the House might get an opportunity clearly of seeing the enormity of the bill presented to the people. I do not think a Budget was ever presented to the House without some kind of examination of the position of the country, the extent to which the country could expect to bear it, and some kind of comment on the future of the country from an industrial and an economic aspect. If ever a Budget statement should have embodied a review of the economic position, and the kind of economic future we are faced with, the Budget presented yesterday should have. When, in the middle of March, we discussed the motion for the setting up of an Economic Council and had to face the discussion on the Vote on Account, realising what the situation was in the country, realising that additional taxation would inevitably have to be borne by the people, and wishing to bring about a situation in which the people might have some confidence in the way in which the economic and financial situation was being treated, we did our best to get the Government to discuss the economic situation in order to show the country that at any rate the Government understood some of the most important facts in the situation and were impressed with the importance of taking definite steps to deal with it.
During that debate we did not get the response to our enquiries that I think we were entitled to. We pointed out that so far from giving the country any idea that they appreciated the seriousness of the situation, the Estimates for a certain class of expenditure presented to the Parliament at that time showed that the Government under-estimated the situation. We pointed out that in presenting a statement of the proposed expenditure on relief schemes the Government were presenting an amount that was £400,000 less than the amount they pent last year. Between the amount they were estimating to spend on unemployment assistance and on works under the Board of Works and Land Commission, there was another reduction of about £400,000; so that an expenditure of £800,000 less than last year was being estimated for this year. It showed either that the Government did not understand the situation in the country or that they were presenting an estimate to the Oireachtas here in which they did not believe. We did not get from the Government at that particular time a reply such as I think the people of this country, being presented with such a bill as we have to-day, were entitled to get. So far as any statement as to the possible outlook on the country is concerned, and the additional work to which this additional expenditure is going to be applied, if we were to depend on the Minister's statement yesterday, all that we heard was that there was an increase in the armed forces amounting to four times what it had been, an increase in the Civil Service, an increase in connection with the schemes we have to subsidise or finance in order to procure substitutes for the necessary raw materials which we formerly procured from overseas, and also the cost of the distribution of food, under the new technique, which amounts to £520,000. Then, we have to take into consideration the expenditure by the local authorities of, let us say, about £200,000. In addition to the increased Army expenditure, the increased Civil Service expenditure, and increased expenditure on subsidies, we have about £900,000 worth of food coupons.
Now, what Deputies who have been in any kind of close touch with the position, in either our rural or urban districts within the last 12 months, ought to realise, is that all that has happened as a result of all the promises that were made by the Government last year as to what was going to be done for the benefit of this country, is the dissemination of about £900,000 worth of tickets or food coupons to be presented to local shopkeepers by the people for bread, milk and butter. Deputies should exercise their minds in seeing how the Government are approaching the problems of 1941. From everything we have heard here in the House, there has been no word of complaint from the general run of the ordinary members of the Government Party as to the way in which the Government carried out its business last year. I, personally, thought the position an appalling one some months ago, and in dealing with this matter, last March, I made an appeal to the ordinary members or back-benchers of the Fianna Fáil Party to realise that, next to the members of the Government themselves, they were the people who were most responsible for thoroughly examining and discussing the situation here with a view to seeing that a more thoroughly progressive and active method was adopted in order to effect an improvement in the economics of this country.
We were told yesterday that this is a War Budget. It certainly is. Ministers, on various occasions, in comparing statistical matters in this country with analogous matters in Great Britain, have used the formula of the 66-times ratio. In March of last year the British Government, who were carrying on during an extraordinary war situation at home, and also fighting a war both on land and sea, were spending something like £12,250,000 a day in their whole expenditure, in order to carry on a war such, as I suppose, was never contemplated in history before. If we apply to that expenditure the formula of the 66-times ratio, we find that we are expending per day the equivalent of £7,250,000, and should be expected to get that from the pockets of our people of to-day or of our people to-morrow. What does that mean? Spending a £7,250,000 equivalent a day and dealing here only with the internal affairs of a small island. We are meeting our difficulties, no doubt, but are our difficulties to be compared in any way with those of Great Britain?
I do not want to stress this question of the ratio of 66 as Ministers have done in the past, but to those who are fond of that kind of calculation, I put it that they ought to compare what is being done with that £7,250,000 equivalent here and what is being done by the people in Great Britain, even on the ratio of 66 times. It must be remembered that when we entered upon this present emergency, this country was already exhausted by a war. It was not a military war: it was called an economic war. But as a result of the years during which we were engaged in that economic war our whole economic foundation here was weakened. It was weakened first and foremost by the way in which our agricultural industry was hampered, and, in another way, by the wiping out of certain small industries, even though we were building up greater and bigger industries, employing a greater number of people. If an examination is made of the figures in connection with the Census of Production, from 1926 to 1936, in connection with industries, one of the things particularly to be noted is that, in spite of the increase in production between 1926 and 1936, a large number of small firms were wiped out. As I have said, our agricultural position was seriously injured by the way in which it was hampered, and the capacity of our people to maintain their ordinary economic standard of life was very seriously injured by over-taxation. In the year ended March, 1932, for instance, the total amount of taxation collected from the people was £21,286,000. In the last year before the outbreak of the war that had been increased by £4,701,000. By the end of the year 1941 it had been increased by another £2,837,000. So that the amount of taxation taken from the people in the year ended March, 1941, was £7,538,000 more than in the year ended March, 1932. That was the amount taken out of the people's pockets by taxation. It is now proposed to take, this year, if the Minister's Estimate is realised, an additional sum of £1,802,000; so that, this year, it is intended to take from the people by taxation £9,340,000 more than in the year ended March, 1932.
In addition to all that, there was taken, out of the people's pockets, additional taxation in another form: taxation that was kept from the public eye or from any eye. This was to meet the cost of the policy of home-grown wheat, to subsidise the export of butter, and also to meet increased costs with regard to bread, bacon, etc. All that taxation was hidden away from the eyes of the public. Accordingly, over and above that additional taxation of £7,538,000 that was taken out of the people's pockets between the years 1932 and 1942, at the same time, by means of rates, very considerable additional sums were taken out of the people's pockets also. Up to 1939, £1,607,000 more was collected in rates than in the year 1931-32. Last year that amount was increased by an additional £206,000. The Estimates for the year ended 1941 are very substantially up, too. I think they are up by £442,000 in county districts alone. Therefore, while State taxation has been increased enormously, the rates have gone up by more than £2,000,000 since this Government took office. We are brought up against the present situation with our economy weakened in that particular way. Not only is there lack of confidence in our State institutions, but at the same time, while our debt has risen, our agricultural position has been so weakened that thousands of men have left the land. Millions of pounds have been spent in the distribution of land and on the improvement of estates, but all the millions that were spent and all the subsidies that were given to endeavour to maintain agriculture during the war period, have not availed to keep our agricultural population on the land.
The attempted large scale development of industry went ahead for a while, but during the whole period of the last six or seven years the normal increase of persons in employment, and paying National Health Insurance contributions, showed a progressive decline until in the last three years, it practically came to a standstill. We know from figures given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce recently that during the last year the number of persons in employment and paying National Health Insurance contributions declined by the equivalent of 11,000 persons employed in a full year. Then we are faced with a situation in which, as far as agriculture is concerned, not only is the capital that agriculture badly needed taken from it, but the other requisite that our farmers needed in order to increase agricultural productivity during the emergency—manures—is practically unobtainable. The position with regard to the employment afforded by increased tillage is emphasised and commented on in an extraordinary way by the fact that it was necessary during January, February and March, 1941, to employ a very large number of men on relief schemes. For the month of January the figure was 33,581, for February, 35,614, and for March, 41,875. These figures are only slightly less than the number of persons that had to be employed on relief schemes in the spring of 1940.
Since the outbreak of war our agricultural development has been very much hindered by, what I consider, the lack of definite and effective contact between the Department of Agriculture here and the Ministry of Agriculture in Great Britain. There was no contact to enable our people either to foresee or to keep in touch with the changing agricultural policies in Britain in so far as they reacted on us here. Lastly, we have had the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, the spread of which, many people consider, has been unchecked as a result of faulty handling on the part of the Department of Agriculture.
The Minister for Finance tells us that he is alarmed by the situation, and he reiterates that "without a sound agricultural economy no amount of juggling with financial machinery or bits of paper will avail, no national well-being can be assured, and all progress must be arrested." I do not think anybody ever queried that the foundation of our economic well-being here is the agricultural industry. It the Minister only observes the way in which the rate demands for the year ended 1941 were met, he will realise how much agriculture is hit in the present time. The increase in the amount of rates required for the year was £440,000, but the rate collection itself was behind on the 31st March by £1,250,000. The Minister says he takes a serious view of that situation I say it is no wonder that he should. I doubt if there is likely to be any quick recovery that will enable the farmers to pay up that money in any short space of time in view of the store cattle position at present and the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. But at a time when, no doubt, there were opportunities in prospect which would have enabled the agricultural community to recover some of the losses of the last war, if they had the necessary capital, no capital was provided to assist them to get on their feet or to enable them to meet the new emergency or avail of the new possibilities. They were also faced with lack of manures and nothing systematic was done to help them.
A commission was set up some time before the outbreak of war for the purpose of reviewing the whole of our agricultural economy and to consider what should be done in a systematic way, and from a long-distance point of view, to improve the foundation of our economic well-being. On the outbreak of war, instead of being urged to knit closer into its work, the Agricultural Commission was disbanded. Instead of working night and day, to bring the best brains of this country to bear on the day-to-day problems of agriculture and on the long-distance hopes and possibilities of agriculture, our Agricultural Commission was disbanded and we are dependent for exhortation, control and administration in relation to agriculture, on the Department of Agriculture. I do not think that anyone even in the Fianna Fáil Benches will have the temerity to say that that is sufficient.
I would consider that there was some trace of hope, that there was some suggestion to the people that they might have some confidence in the Government, if the Minister for Finance were able to announce that they were going to reassemble the Agricultural Commission, and going to get it to work week in and week out, reviewing in every possible way the future of agriculture from the next harvest. There are too many things to be thought over and decided to leave the inspiration and direction of agricultural policy, in the circumstances which we are now facing, or in the future towards which we are going, in the hands of the Department of Agriculture.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce indicated yesterday that he had issued invitations, I take it, to representatives of workers and employers, to consider what steps should be taken to see that our industries can be maintained in a way that will give the greatest possible amount of work to the largest number of people at the present time. During the discussion, I hope the Minister will be able to indicate whom exactly he has invited to that conference, the lines upon which it is proposed it will run, and an idea generally as regards his own thought on the industries that it will be possible to maintain fairly fully; what changes he thinks it will be possible to bring about in the regulations governing payment of unemployment insurance, so that workers will not necessarily be deprived of benefits they are insured against, or employers forced into working industries in a way that will give them less beneficial returns for the work than they might otherwise get. Nothing is going to pay the bill that has been presented here but production, and that must come either from the agricultural side or the industrial side. On the agricultural side, if we are going in the next two or three years to be left dependent on agriculture here to feed our industrial population, then, unless something is done to organise and to help farmers in a way that will show help them how to produce at lower costs than they are producing at present, there will be more than the people who are now on home assistance to be maintained by the distribution of food tickets.
There is a considerable amount of organisation and education to be done on the agricultural side. Immediately on the outbreak of war we pointed out to the Government that we considered our main difficulties during this war were not defence difficulties but economic difficulties. Even if we have defence difficulties, any defence machinery we erect here, unless it is substained by sound economics, is going as a weapon to fall out of our hands. If there is to be any strength in our defence machinery it will come from our economic roots. One of the greatest dangers at the present time is lack of exposition of Government policy. A great danger is that, through lack of confidence in the social and economic policies being pursued here, our people will lack faith and confidence in our defences. If we are going to continue to spend £8,000,000 a year on maintaining an Army then the rest of the extraordinary taxation imposed on the people is going to be spent in the upkeep of the economic strength and the economic morale of the people who foot the taxes.
I was rather astonished at the reference of the Minister for Finance to the Council of Defence and the way in which he put it. When we wanted a council of defence we were told we could not have it. We got a defence conference. We were given to understand that the difference between a defence council and a defence conference was that a defence council would have some authority and some control, while a defence conference could merely advise. As we felt that some kind of unity of outlook and unified contact was necessary, in order to get our people as a whole to support such defence machinery as the Government decided to set up, and such defence policy as the Government decided upon, we went into a defence conference. The Minister, when he was faced with this very big bill, said:
"My first drive, when confronted with the situation, was naturally to secure a curtailment of expenditure, and here the Army seemed to offer the most promising field with its Vote of £8,313,000 and Allied Services of £1,048,000. If their defences in the field are as strong as their defender in the Council Chamber, our soldiers need fear no foe. All my attacks were repulsed. I suppose I am revealing no secrets when I say that not even was succour forthcoming on my side from the Council of Defence...."
It is news to me that the Minister for Finance had any suggestion to make with regard to the cutting down of Defence Estimates. I should have been delighted to know of any proposals of that kind. We of the Defence Conference have made three main contributions to strengthen the defences. When the Government approached us and said that they required a bigger Army, as we were well within the war zone after certain happenings in Europe in May last, Deputy Cosgrave proposed that a defence council should be set up so that the united mind of the Parliament might be brought to the consideration of defence problems and steps taken to provide against them. However, a council was thought not to be the proper word, as the Government was going to be entirely responsible for defence policy and would not allow anybody to share in that. We accepted a Defence Conference and, as the question has been raised, I want to say that our achievements have been three. First, it was the Government's intention when they approached us, that men would only be admitted to the Army if they joined up for the ordinary period of two years and seven years on the Reserve; or if they joined the Volunteer scheme, it committed them to Reserve service of five years. They also wanted to have a Local Security Force that would be associated with the police.
In my opinion our first contribution was that we persuaded the Government that the only appeal which they had to men who joined the Army for the emergency was to join for the duration. We got the Government to accept that point of view. Our next point was that if we were going to add to our Army, the amount of money we would be able to spend on it was limited, and that if we wanted an Army of an increased size, we also wanted reserves among the ordinary people, that they could not expect young fellows, with defence problems in the air, simply to join an auxiliary police force, on the one hand, and that, on the other, they were there to be given military training, and on a recommendation of ours, after some weeks' consideration, it was agreed to divide the Local Security Force into "A" and "B" sections, and that the "A" section, now the Local Defence Force, would be the reserve army of the country, costing very little and getting a certain amount of local knowledge and training in dealing with military problems which might arise locally. Our third achievement was about a year after when, in a very slow way, we succeeded in getting the Government to put the Local Defence Force under military authority. I think that is about all we achieved, outside the big achievement of helping to get the people of every rank and class to rally to the various services being set up to deal with the emergency.
Personally, I think that if the Government did not look at their defence problems through those Fianna Fáil mists through which they do look at them, which, like mists which rise against the sun, exaggerate and distort their problems, they might be able to run the Army a little more cheaply, but then Government policy is decided by Government, the outlook on our defence problems is decided ultimately by Government and the machinery set up is decided by Government. Our policy is to bring Government policy on right lines, to help to clear the Government view on defence matters, and we do our utmost to do so, but having got them to take what we consider to be the most sensible and the clearest views they can take, we have to leave it at that. Having brought them to the best outlook and to the best policy to which we feel we can bring them, our policy is to support them. That point reached they get our full support. Speaking as a member of the Defence Conference, if I wanted to nibble at the Defence Estimates, I could do so, but only by taking on myself the responsibility for undermining the foundations of the military machine which Government considered it was absolutely necessary to have at a particular cost and of a particular kind to meet the problems which they envisaged from their own peculiar and particular information. I am conscious that I did recommend, and do still recommend, that an expenditure should be undertaken which is not provided for in the present Estimates, but which, I am sure, can be met within them.
Considering, again from my own point of view, that A.R.P. organisation in our cities is the hub and keystone of our main and immediately likely defence problem, I believe that the personnel of the A.R.P. organisation should be maintained by a capitation grant at least as large as that given in the case of the Local Security Force and the Local Defence Force. I understand that that is accepted, but I admit that in so far as that is an addition to the bill, I ask that it be added to the bill. I am not aware that either any recommendation was received from the Minister for Finance that economies should be brought about, or that, if they were submitted, there was the big "no" which the Government Press this morning announced was returned from the Defence Conference to suggestions of that kind. I am quite confident that if our defence position were thoroughly reviewed, we could spare on what we are spending at present in the directions in which it is proposed to spend it. I am also satisfied that if we could equip certain sections of our Army with the equipment necessary to enable it to serve against dangers likely to come our way, it might not be possible to save much out of the £8,000,000, but that is entirely another matter. I raise it in order to make the general position clear, and I say, quite frankly and openly, to the Minister that if he has any proposals to submit to the Defence Conference for reducing the large expenditure on the Army, we should be most interested to hear his point of view and more than anxious to examine both carefully and energetically any proposals of such a kind that can be made.
Quite a remarkable thing about the presentation of the Budget—and it emphasises the lack of perspective on the one hand, and the tendency, on the other, to attempt to reduce this Parliament further to the position in which some people think it ought to be, regarding it as a nuisance or an intrusion—is that when some Deputies wanted a copy of the Minister's speech yesterday, in order to study the elaborate details overnight and to take part in the debate to-day, the usual copies were not available. Economy was being embarked upon. A proposal to expend £40,000,000 was being presented to the House and the usual number of typewritten copies could not be made available to Deputies who are supposed to discuss it to-day. That shows a lack of perspective which is condemnatory of the Government's approach to economy. In the second place, I think it is an attempt on the part of the Ministry, or maybe the Civil Service, to reduce this Parliament to the position in which they think it ought to be. If there was ever a moment when Deputies were entitled to every possible piece of information which would enable them to take part intelligently in the debate, it was last night. I appealed before to members of the House to realise the responsibility on them as members of an Irish Parliament to stand up to the present situation. I view with the greatest want of confidence the continuance of this emergency, or the period which may come after it, with this House conducting its business in the way in which it is being conducted, and particularly in view of the attitude taken by Ministers to criticisms, if you like.
I had occasion a few days ago to deal with the excessive charges for fuel falling on the poorer sections, and I appealed to members of the Government Party representing the City of Dublin to discuss the matter and to help to get down to the facts. Not a single voice, except that of the Minister, saying that he would not allow members to get at the facts, was raised. If the members of the Government Party are not going to continue to be like things covered over by a stone, white and bloodless, now is the time for them to speak out. If they do not speak out, if they do not discuss the situation and make some kind of impression on Ministers to force them to face up to the situation, I fear very much for the future, because, if the present emergency continues, with the prestige of this House in the public eye injured as it is, then anything may happen here.
If anything is to be saved in this country, it will be by Parliament doing its work and standing over a thorough examination of the situation. When we started out on the present emergency, with the conviction instilled into our minds that our main difficulties would be economic, we asked the Government to take cognisance of the course adopted in Australia, where Professor Copeland, Dean of the commerce faculty in Melbourne University, was taken in as economic adviser to the Government during the war. We suggested that it was advisable, particularly when taking a long-distance view, that a group of, if necessary, three persons be set up in this country, not to interfere with what was being done by the Government and not to have responsibility for administration, but to be watchers and advisers—men qualified to estimate what the likely effect of things being done from week to week would be on the economic situation, both immediate and distant, and who would watch things outside the country as well. The Government did not approve of that proposition but our people who, more and more as time passes, look on the economic situation as the really important one, will expect, if they are to have confidence, to be told who are the economic generals directing our fight on the economic frontier. For goodness sake, do not tell them that they are the members of the Government in their various Departments. If the people are to have confidence in the situation, they are entitled to know the names of their generals and it would be of advantage to this country if we knew who, either as a person or a group, were examining from week to week the implications of economic developments and of Governmental actions in that respect and who were estimating the likely effect of things happening outside on the economy of this country at present and in the immediate future.
An endeavour was made in March last to get the Government to take the Parliament into its confidence and, through the Parliament, the people, as to their estimate of the general situation. I hope some endeavour will be made during the debate on this Resolution to outline the main features of the economic position here. The Minister for Finance said yesterday:
"The effects of these repercussions on our economy are too painfully familiar to Deputies, and, indeed, to all sections of the community, to need detailed recital here."
When proposals for expenditure so enormous as those contained in the Budget are made to the House, even if the Minister be concerned regarding petty economies, I think we could spare a page or two of the Official Debates, and a few minutes of the time of the House, to set down a list of the things that are painful to Deputies, even if Deputies be fully aware of them. We ought, at least, to be told what are the main distressing features which we are all to campaign against. Unless Ministers meet us in some way by attempting to tell us what they see in the situation, and by giving us an outline of what they propose to do, they will be striking another blow at this Parliament. Voices may be raised in this Parliament against that, and some members may not be prepared to tolerate or allow it, but, in a really critical time for our people, that is not the way Parliament ought to be carried on.
