Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 6—General—(Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (10th Dáil) – Thursday, 7 May 1942

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 6—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.

Mr. D. Morrissey

When introducing the Budget yesterday, the Minister for Finance expressed feelings of relief and thanksgiving that the country was still at peace. These are, of course, feelings shared on every side of the House and in the country itself. The Minister referred also to the fact that we are still a neutral country. That we are in that position is due to the wish of all Parties in this House and, we believe, to the wish of the vast majority of our people. The Minister went on, on the very first page of the Budget from which he was reading, to state:—

"The United States, the other great external market with which we were in contact, has been drawn into the conflict, and many of our kith and kin in that great country are now engaged in active combat. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to them in their hour of trial."

With those sentiments also we are all, of course, in complete agreement, but what struck me about that particular passage in the Budget was this. There are a great many of our kith and kin in Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, in Africa and in other countries that are to-day, and have been for three years past, involved in this war. Perhaps, if they were put together they would amount to as many of our kith and kin as there are in America. We know that a great many —hundreds, perhaps thousands, for all we know—of our people in Britain and those other countries have already met their deaths—many of them not engaged at all in combat. We know, further, that thousands of them have been badly maimed, wounded and injured, and further still—particularly in Britain—that many of them who, through long years of toil and saving, had built up their homes in those countries, have had those homes destroyed, and in many cases their families destroyed as well.

It does seem strange, to say the least of it, that a Minister of an Irish Government would—by implication, at least—suggest that those people are not worthy that our thoughts and sympathies should go out to them. Are they looked upon as outcasts because they had to seek a livelihood in Britain instead of America? Did they cease to be Irish because they worked in an English, Scotch or Welsh city or town, rather than in a similar town or city in the United States? On certain occasions, if such reference was made in the course of an impromptu speech, one would overlook it and might say it was merely an accidental omission, but the Budget is the most important document coming before this House in the course of the year. It is a very carefully prepared document, and I am sure that, not only every page and sentence, but every word going into it is closely examined.

"—there is a serious shortage of wheat for bread purposes in the current cereal year...."

May I remind the Minister and his colleagues that in November, when we had a debate in this House on the wheat position, and when I said that from information available, which was the best we could collect, there was every probability that we would be short anything from 100,000 to 130,000 tons of wheat, the Minister for Supplies told me that I was talking through my hat. But, two months later, in the month of January, the Minister had to break the same sad news to the people and to admit that I was not talking through my hat.

Mr. M. Brennan

I cannot agree.

Mr. D. Morrissey

From my knowledge of the country I agree that that statement is true. I can only say, and I hope the Minister will agree with me, that I regret there were not even greater quantities sown. As far as my knowledge goes far greater quantities of wheat were sown this year than last year. The statement continues.—

"Many advantages will accrue from the growing of our full food requirements on our own farms. In the first place shipping space, now utilised mainly for wheat, will be available for the importation of raw materials for manufactures, and thus help to keep in existence many of our industries which might otherwise be forced to close down with resultant unemployment of a serious character."

The greatest advantage of all is the increase in the acreage under wheat this year. It is very great, but I believe the Minister may make up his mind, even granted a very favourable year and a favourable harvest, that it is very unlikely that there will be anything like enough to meet our full requirements. I am afraid that that is so, and I think that the Government ought now to make up their minds to that fact. They will have to make up their minds that they cannot afford to give whatever shipping space is available to anything but foodstuffs. You may have a greater acreage, but I think it will be admitted by farmers on all sides of the House—men with practical experience who have more knowledge of this matter than I have—that it is almost a certainty that, notwithstanding your greater acreage, you will have a lower yield. That is true, perhaps, more particularly of what we have always looked upon as the great tillage areas. Deputies must remember that many of these farms have been growing wheat for a number of years. Last year, farmers got only two tons of manure for the three tons they got the year before. This year, they are getting only one ton for every four tons they got last year. The man who got six tons of manure two years ago is lucky to get one ton.

You are faced with that position at a time when you are asking men to till double, treble and, in some cases, six times as much as they tilled previously. A great deal of the wheat that has gone into the ground this year—I know this of my own personal knowledge, and I am sorry to have to say it—has gone into the ground that was absolutely unsuitable for wheat and out of which one could not expect to get a decent crop. I shall give one example. I came across a case within the past fortnight in which a man sowed winter wheat. Last year and the year before, he had barley in the same field. After two years of barley, he puts wheat into it in the third year. I leave it to some of the practical farmers in this House to tell the Minister what sort of crop that man is likely to get.

That is the situation so far as it is humanly possible to foresee it for the present year, but the position which will obtain next year is what is causing the gravest possible concern to people in the country. The position next year will be of the greatest seriousness. Farmers know well that the land in which corn is sown is usually called "manured ground". One grows root crops this year and corn next year. Because of the shortage of manure and, to a lesser extent, the shortage of turnip and mangold seeds, the amount of manured ground available next year will be very small indeed. A great deal of the lea land has already been broken up and you may increase your tillage to 50 per cent. next year and not get as good a return as you have this year off your 25 per cent. Without wanting in any way to be an alarmist, I may say that I have discussed this matter with men who are very closely interested in it, and I am convinced that, unless we have some surplus and lay in a store of wheat for next year, there is the danger of famine. Nobody likes even to mention the word "famine". At the same time, we are living in an extraordinary period and under amazing conditions and it is not the time to refrain from giving a fact the plain name which it deserves to be given. I do not want to pretend for a moment that I am an expert or that I know a lot about this business. The views I am giving to the Minister are those which I have obtained because of certain activities of mine in connection with the wheat position and because of daily contact with farmers in my own county. I give them here because I am gravely concerned about the matter as, I am sure, is every other member of the House.

Now I come to the beet position. The Minister stated in his Budget:

"The assumption is made that the present domestic ration of ¾ of a lb. per head will be maintained and that jam manufacturers will receive their full requirements on the basis of their 1940 consumption. I am informed that the area planted to sugar beet will not be up to earlier expectations owing to shortage of artificial fertilisers. This shortage will also affect the yield per acre even on the reduced area, but it would have affected the bigger area even more."

I should like to know how the assumption was arrived at that the present domestic sugar ration of ¾ of a lb. could be maintained and manufacturers supplied with a full quota. There are Deputies here who, like myself, come from beet-growing parts of the country. I have gone to some trouble to collect accurate information on this matter. My information is that a very large number of the beet growers—as high as 50 per cent., I have been told—have returned their contracts to the company. I have been told by men who have been growing beet since the inception of beet-growing here that those who have not returned their contracts will grow less than the amounts for which they contracted. If that is anything like the position, then there will be a very serious shortage of sugar next year. I believe that it is the position because I know, of my own knowledge, that most of the farmers concerned, if not all, were under the impression that a special allowance of manure was to be made available for the growing of beet, as distinct from any other crop. No matter what we told them to the contrary, they were not inclined to believe it. They said: "They want the beet and they will make the manure available." We told them months ago that there would be only one stock of manure available and that that would be distributed on the basis of one-fourth of last year's distribution. The farmers have discovered that there is no special allowance of manure for beet growing. They have, therefore, returned their contracts, because, whatever chance there is of growing any other crop without artificial fertilisers, I am told that there is no hope whatever of growing a crop of beet under those conditions. I appeal to the Minister to seek more information from those who can provide it accurately regarding this matter, so that he may have a true picture of the position, as it is likely to be.

The next matter to which I want to refer is a very important one—the question of oats. We know that some of our people in certain parts of the country—notably parts of the west and part of Donegal—were brought to the point of starvation by the shortage of flour and potatoes and by, I might say, the complete absence of oatmeal and flakemeal. Many people, particularly those in the towns and cities, not understanding the position, have asked what has become of the oatmeal and the flakemeal; is it being cornered and held up; are the people being put in the position that they will have to pay three or four times the present price in order to get it? There is a simple explanation. The Minister for Agriculture—in my opinion, very foolishly— fixed a price for oats last harvest that was absurd. Farmers were expected to sell their oats at 1/4 a stone, less deduction for sacks and delivery. They were supposed to sell first-class oats at 1/4 a stone and then go into the shop and pay 3/- per stone for inferior feeding stuffs. What happened, of course, was that the farmers did not put their oats on the market. I am bringing this matter up now because I am afraid the same thing is going to happen next harvest and that the Government will again fix a price for oats that will force farmers to feed it to live stock instead of making it available for human consumption.

There is another important point to which I wish to refer. Again it deals with foodstuffs. The Minister said we are going to grow more potatoes. I would be very happy if I could believe that more potatoes are being sown this year than were sown last year. I doubt it very much, I am sorry to say. The farmers last year responded in a magnificent way to the appeal for more potatoes as well as for other crops and we had, last year, perhaps, one of the finest potato crops produced in living memory in this country. The position for the last three months has been that in farmhouses throughout the country there are stores of potatoes which are going rotten and which the farmer is unable to dispose of in any way. I am afraid that, for that reason amongst others which I will not go into now—it would delay the House—and because of the fact that manure is so scarce that farmers will be tempted to use it for other crops, we are not likely to get a greater acreage of potatoes this year than we got last year, if indeed we get as great an acreage. That is a matter that might engage the immediate attention of the Department of Agriculture, if it is not too late now.

From my observation of the newspaper publicity and appeals, I would say that there is not the same drive at all behind the appeal for potatoes, oats and barley as there was last year, while, if anything, the need is greater this year. The House knows that one of the things we have to be extremely grateful for was the very mild winter which we had.

I said at the beginning that £45,000,000 was not the total burden the country had to bear. We have to face the fact that there is a tremendous drain upon our natural resources. I do not want to develop the question of emigration, but we do know that tens of thousands of our people are going elsewhere to seek a livelihood. I think the Government are terribly short-sighted in thinking more of shillings per week in wages than of men and women. I think it is almost a national calamity that we should have work held up on certain bogs in this country for the last two or three weeks, in which we have been blest with the grandest weather that we could wish for for the production of fuel, on the question of whether 800 or 900 or 1,000 men should be paid 32/-, 33/- 34/- or 35/- a week. Have not the Government yet awakened to the fact that we are living in times when shillings do not matter? It is goods, it is food, it is fuel, that matters.

Mr. Lemass

And prices.

Mr. D. Morrissey

The Minister will listen. Again I do not want to go into it. I am trying to deal with this in a very serious way. I am trying as far as it is possible for me to make a constructive contribution to this debate. I suggest to the Minister that this country is gaining nothing, but is losing something that perhaps cannot be regained when it is saving shillings, pounds or hundreds of pounds per week and exporting hundreds of men and women.

Finally, we have to ask ourselves this question: What is the capacity of the country likely to be in the future to meet a load of taxation that certainly will not be smaller, if it is not greater, than this year, when the population is declining because of this vast emigration and when the productive capacity of our land is decreasing from year to year because we are taking everything out of the land and have nothing to put back into it. Is it not going to be far more difficult for us, is it not going to be almost impossible for us, to meet a bill even of the proportions of this year's bill, if it is presented to us in 12 months' time? Are we not to-day bridging the gap not only by floating loans but also by drawing upon the accumulated savings in the form of the fertility of the soil which has been built up over the last 50 years? Is it not a self-evident fact, even to a person who is not a practical farmer, that our land must become poorer year after year because of the circumstances which prevent us from putting manure into it?

These are problems that must cause any Government, and certainly a Minister for Finance, grave concern. I have not the slightest wish to over-paint the picture and I want to assure the Minister that nothing was further from my mind than in any way to misrepresent him in regard to the passage in his speech which I quoted. Nobody will be more pleased than I when he puts that right, as I believe he will, but I think he will admit that, reading it as I read it this morning in the paper, it was open to the interpretation I put upon it. However, nobody will be more pleased than I if the Minister makes it clear that, so far as this Parliament is concerned and so far as the people of the country are concerned, our minds and thoughts and sympathy go out equally to all our people, no matter on what part of the globe they may be settled to-day.

Professor O'Sullivan

I listened with a considerable amount of interest yesterday to the speech of the Minister for Finance. I do not know whether I should be exaggerating or not in saying that there were few Budget statements, in one way so much on the ground, to which I listened with such interest. I think—and I am sure the Minister will agree with me—that it is quite clear from his speech that he was anxious to convey a number of lessons to the people of this country or, if I might change the metaphor, that he was anxious to put up a number of warning signs. Am I not correct in supposing that that was one of the intentions, in fact, I might say, the main intention, apart from his giving a picture of the financial and, to some extent, the economic condition of the country at the present moment? Therefore, I hope he will accept any assistance that I can give him in underlining some of the warnings that, in his wisdom, he thought it absolutely incumbent upon him to give to the people. The reason I do that is that in the natural reaction that people have felt at the temporary relief of seeing that the deficit in the Budget was to be made up by borrowing, it is quite possible that they might overlook the necessity of studying the grave warnings that the Minister felt it his duty to put to the public of this country.

After all, what was the lesson he was anxious to convey? That he was compelled to adopt the very risky expedient of bridging over the gap between expenditure and income by borrowing. He was compelled to do that for the simple reason that the full taxable capacity of this country had been reached. He knows perfectly well—I am sure he knows as well as anybody in this House—the danger of setting up such a precedent as that. Whether the sum was £4,000,000 or £5,000,000, is a matter of secondary importance at the moment. He knows the danger of the easy expedient of bridging over that gulf and of meeting that deficit by borrowing. Yet he made it quite clear to the House and to the country that he had no other alternative. Extra taxation was out of the question, and I will say this for him, he also made quite clear why it was out of the question: because the people could bear no further taxation. Take two sources of revenue—beer which he said was steady, not steadying, but he thought it had reached its taxable limit— saturated from that point of view. Take tobacco. He knew perfectly well that if he put an extra tax on tobacco, the same amount of tobacco would be smoked in the coming year. There would be no dropping off in the consumption; all the tobacco available would be smoked by smokers and yet, knowing that he could have got an increased return in that way, he felt compelled not to increase the tax on tobacco. I suggest, and I think he would be the first to agree, that the reasons which persuaded him to forgo that yield from taxation were compelling. They were reasons that he himself stressed and underlined and I am now venturing further to underline, but not to modify, them—that the people could bear no further taxation. Is it strange that they cannot? How could the ordinary people of this country, the ordinary workers, possibly stand an increased tax on tobacco with the tremendous increase in prices that has taken place?

The Minister mentioned in one portion of his speech: "We have tried to stabilise prices, wages and dividends." I shall leave out dividends. "We have tried to stabilise prices and wages." Have we been equally successful in regard to both? I am not going into the "official" cost-of-living figures, but I propose to dwell a little on the cost of the absolute necessities of life, what they are expected to cost the Government. I think a reference was made to the matter already by Deputy Mulcahy. Some Minister, possibly without thinking fully over the matter or consulting his colleague, gave an excuse. I am referring now to the cost of keeping prisoners and to the fact that the cost of keeping a prisoner for a year, the food cost, has nearly doubled in four years. Are prisoners kept in luxury? Is the food that they get the food of the rich man or is it merely such food as is necessary to keep them in good health and alive? As I say, one Minister, I understand— I was not here at the time—suggested that they were getting better conditions. Having heard that, I went to the trouble the night before last to ask the Minister for Justice what was the cause of the increase in the cost of maintenance of prisoners in the last four years—an increase from £10 19/- per head, as mentioned in the Estitimates four years ago to £20 19s. 6d. to-day or almost double. He did not take the easy way out of his colleague —better treatment. He said that it was practically all due to the increased price of food. We may take it for granted that the food of a prisoner consists only of bare essentials and the working man is at least entitled to as good food in this country as a criminal. The cost of the bare necessities of life, of food such as a criminal gets, has doubled in four years.

Mr. Hickey

I am glad that the Minister for Supplies is listening to that argument.

Professor O'Sullivan

Now, I want to relate that to the statement of the Minister for Finance—I admit that it was carefully framed—"We have tried to stabilise prices and wages". I shall leave it to others to deal with the question of stabilising wages, but I claim that they have not stabilised prices. We see that in that striking instance of the food that is given to prisoners. The cost has gone up, not in one year, but has steadily mounted since the 1939 Budget. In the Budget of 1938-39 the figures, per head, were £10 19s.; in the following year the figures were £11 16s.; in the following year, £14 1s. 6d.; in the following year, £16 4s., and in the present year £20 19s. 6d. The Minister for Supplies made an interruption at the close of Deputy Morrissey's speech, adding to Deputy Morrissey's reference to prices, "and wages".

Mr. Lemass

That was not my interruption.

Professor O'Sullivan

No, the Minister is right: he added the words "and prices" after Deputy Morrissey's reference to wages. Is the Minister satisfied that he stabilised prices to the same extent as he has stabilised wages? Is the spiral, so to speak, spiralling only in one direction? The matter, however, does require examination, and I thoroughly agree, however unwise as an example it may be, that you dare not put extra taxes on the ordinary workingman at the present time when your policy is to allow the prices of essential commodities to double and yet try to hold down his wages. These increased prices apply to even the simplest commodities now, and not merely luxury commodities. The cost of clothing, in the case of prisoners, has increased in these four years from £1,100 to £1,720. I may say that the number of prisoners has fallen; there is a slight diminution in the number of prisoners. In the matter of clothing, I take it for granted that the prisoners do not follow the fashion of the Minister for Finance and go to Savile Row or its equivalent here in Dublin. I take it that they get good serviceable clothes, but they are not the glass of fashion; there is no luxurious clothing. I doubt if they get as good clothing as an ordinary workingman is entitled to expect for himself and his family. In the essential article of clothing for our prisoners there has been that increase from £1,100 to £1,720. Furniture has even more than doubled in the same period. In the case of fuel, light and water—and I do not think that even the Minister for Industry and Commerce would suggest that for the workingman these are luxuries—in 1939 there was put down for the prisoners £5,795, while in the present Budget the sum is £13,680.

I put that before the Minister and the House, partly to show how true he was speaking when he said that the country has reached saturation point in the matter of taxation: how equally true he was in recognising that you dare not tax the working man any further in the face of figures of that kind. As I say, when the relief and the enjoyment are felt that there are no taxes, that we are simply putting the bad dream off to what the Minister, I am afraid, suggests will be a worse day, I hope people will not forget this other side of the Minister's statement that was so instructive. Undoubtedly, the situation was pretty bad; yet here, in time of peace, we have reached the limit of taxation. The Minister is quite right in not contemplating—I do not think any Minister could be expected to contemplate—what would be the situation if we were pulled into war. It is the desire, as the Minister quite clearly pointed out, of everybody to avoid that. If we are pulled in, it will depend, I hope, on the action of others and not on anything that anybody in this country either says or does. However, he is quite right in basing his policy and his summary of the situation on the assumption that we shall enjoy peace to the end of the war. Of course, whether we do or not, does not depend on us; it depends on forces altogether outside this country that we cannot control, but it is quite obvious that the Minister cannot take that into account. However, in time of peace, taxation has mounted very much year after year in this country, and the Minister points out—partly, I think, by way of warning, but also with a certain element of self-complacency—that money has been spent generously. He now practically says that so far as providing money from revenue goes, we have now reached the limit—and that in time of peace. That is a very serious picture, and, remember, it does not come from political opponents of the Minister: it is the lesson that the Minister himself is anxious that the people should draw from this Budget speech of his.

Reference has been made by the Minister to unemployment and emigration. When first, several years ago, I called attention to the actuality of emigration, it was denied. I do not intend now to discuss the rights and wrongs of emigration. There are many problems concerned with emigration that are more important than any of those that have been mentioned in this Parliament, and more important than any of those that can be dealt with by this Parliament or by the Government—much more important than the purely economic problems. However, it is not a matter primarily for this Parliament to deal with these things. What I should like to stress is this: so far as unemployment and emigration are concerned—the two are bound together, I do not say wholly, but at least to a large extent—notwithstanding the fact that we have reached the limit of our taxable capacity, we have not been able to deal with these problems. That is not my statement. That is what the Minister for Finance said in the Budget statement that he has put before the country. These things, unemployment and emigration, have not yielded to the measures the Government have employed, and yet the bill is £45,000,000 and before the end of the year may extend to £48,000,000 or even £50,000,000—we do not know. I put it to the Minister for his serious consideration: is that not a matter that requires examination? Notwithstanding the continual increase of taxation, notwithstanding the continual increase of expenditure, neither of these two problems has been solved.

Is it not possible that a great deal of the money that has been raised, with a great deal of other money that is not mentioned here that is employed in various efforts, may have been not as profitably employed as it should have been, and that the whole matter requires a deeper and much less partisan investigation than possibly the Minister's colleagues have given to it? It is a serious problem that, notwithstanding this tremendous sum of £45,000,000, with hopes of an increase —shall I put it that way—in the course of the next 12 months, that is being spent, two of our biggest problems still remain. Because I am a great deal more interested in the future than in the past, I would put it to the Ministers that it is time they would examine thoroughly the implications of certain aspects of their policy.

Reference has been made by my colleague, Deputy Morrissey, to the Minister's not very enlightening treatment of agriculture. I cannot, between the Minister's statement and the statements that I understand were made by two of his colleagues, understand what future any of them sees before agriculture. The Minister pays the usual passing salaam, so to speak, to agriculture as our premier industry. What future has it? The dairying industry, no future, I understand, according to one Minister, and cattle, no future, according to the other. The Minister for Finance thinks the only hope "for the duration" is to go in for a certain type of production—the home market, "to tide" as he said "the industry over the adverse conditions caused by the war". What is the future to be? Has the Minister or his colleagues given any thought to that? Are they still in post-war conditions only going to produce for the home market? Is that the suggestion? Are we to allow the cattle trade and the dairy trade to collapse if we follow the hints given by the Minister's colleagues? If you allow them to collapse, can you quickly revive them after the war? I know of another great country that killed off its cattle in the course of a civil war and for years and years afterwards it required from that country great efforts to build up the cattle position once more. Are we going to allow ourselves to drift into that position? Is that the policy— merely to produce for the home market vegetables, fruit and grain?

I do not want to discuss what our wheat policy should be in a time of peace. I should prefer to see these things examined impartially, but I would again direct the attention of the Government to things which I have heard. I am not going to enter into any controversy as to whether they are well-founded or ill-founded, but I have heard the charge made against Germany—the charge may be unfounded; I do not mind whether it is unfounded or not, it is what the charge implies that I am anxious to get at—that if she wins the war it is her intention to compel the subject peoples of Europe to go into grain, which is described as a lower, less economic and less technical type of agriculture, giving less employment. That may be right or wrong, but I know it is held, and the same people who make that charge say that their particular effort after the war will be to try to get the European countries out of that. That may or may not be correct. I am merely putting it forward as the view of a number of responsible men—they may know nothing about the business and yet they may—who have given their life's thought to matters of that kind. I only want now to put it to the Minister that, simply to address ourselves to the effort to tide the industry over the war and allow some of the principal branches of our agricultural industry to collapse, means a very poor look-out for the future and for the paying back of this loan when that is to take place. You do want not merely to provide a home market for the people at present, now that a great deal of the foreign market is interrupted in its normal trade, but you must keep alive these other aspects of agriculture if you are to have your proper place when peace comes. I see no indication of any effort on the part of Ministers to look at that aspect of the agricultural problem. As the Minister has pointed out, we are deprived of a lot of our raw material at the present time both for ordinary industries and for agriculture. But are we not also in danger if, for instance, we have not sufficient manure? If that is so, and I think everybody is agreed that it is so, then we shall deteriorate and destroy our fundamental raw material, if I may say so the very machinery, namely, the land. Again, has any thought been given to the problems that must face us in that respect whether peace comes in six months, 12 months, or in two years?

It is quite obvious that the Minister, in certain portions of his Budget statement, indulges in what I may call confession. I do not say contrition. I am sure the Minister is convinced that there is nothing he has done that calls for that, and that his soul is white. I do make the suggestion, however, that I hope some of the lessons contained in his speech are not what he himself would call New Year resolutions, or may I put it the other way: that he has made up his mind that he is not going to fall again and again as he has done in the past: that since he seems to be rather keen on theological terminology, and on lasting resolutions, he is not going to become what the theologians call recidivist—having to confess the same sins again and again. I am speaking of him now in his economic and not in his personal capacity. “The habit of spending readily grows.” That is almost a self-revelation from the Minister for Finance and a member of the Fianna Fáil Party. “The habit of spending readily grows and, like all bad habits, reform is difficult. Temporary spasms of virtue are not unknown, but they are almost as fleeting as New Year resolutions.”

May I suggest to the Minister that he should make sure that these lessons that he is anxious the public would learn are learned by his colleagues, and that if they do spend money it will have a productive purpose, much more productive, judging by results, than some of the ways in which it has been spent up to the present. But the Minister gave several indications during his speech that he thinks that the mere spending of money is a proof of good work. I am afraid it is not, if the results be judged by emigration and unemployment. Right through, as I say, we have evidence that he was defending himself against Deputy Hickey and Deputy Hickey's colleagues by saying: "We have spent; we have spent"; and Deputy Hickey's answer is: "They have gone; they have gone." Deputy Hickey will complain that if the Government have spent money the results are not there to show.

But the Minister does issue a challenge, and it is a challenge that ought to be answered in some detail by Deputies of his own Party and other Deputies. I understand from the Minister's own statement that the matter got grave and long consideration in his own Party. Therefore, I hope that each man has been able to make up his mind. The Minister has issued a challenge here and I myself have asked the question and I hope it will be met by those who hold a different view from the Minister's. The Minister has issued a challenge that there has been no lack of money for any decent industry or any decent undertaking. I want to make that quite clear. I am not criticising the Minister now, because, so far as I have heard up to the present, I have not heard the case which the Minister makes and which the Taoiseach makes answered. Here we have a challenge thrown down to members of his own Party, who have been remarkably silent in the matter when they had an opportunity, and to others in this House, that there has been no attempt to spare money, that no enterprise in this country that was a proper enterprise was held up for lack of finance. I am glad that the Deputy who has just come in has come in. I pointed out to the House that the Minister has issued a definite challenge to members of his own Party who so deeply discussed the matter behind closed doors and to the members of the Labour Party to bring forward examples where proper industries have been held up for lack of finance. The statement was made in the course of another discussion here.

Now a definite challenge is thrown out to those who doubt that statement to prove that the Minister is wrong. If they do believe that the Minister is wrong, now is the time for them, after he has thrown out the challenge, to refute him, not merely in general terms, but by indicating and pointing out where proper industries have been held up on account of lack of finance. I am rather stressing the matter because I am interested myself. I am anxious to get that information, if that information is forthcoming. I think it is time that generalities in that matter should be left aside and that we should come down to instances, not one or two instances, but many instances in which industries have been held up for lack of finance, and also that an indication should be given of the industries that could be started with a reasonable hope of success if finance were more readily available. I should say that that is a matter that does require the attention of the House. It is one of the most important matters we have been discussing in recent times.

The Minister pointed out that there is evidence of expansion. It would be a strange thing under modern conditions if there were no expansion. There always is. The question we must ask ourselves is: what has been the rate of expansion? He points out the tremendous difference between the expansion here and in England and brings that forward as one of the reasons why we could not have taxation here like in England. That is admitted. But they have kept down the cost of living in England in a way that up to the present we have not done here. I am not going further into that. I have some figures available—I think they were taken from The Economist—that suggest that in the four years I was dealing with there was an increase of about 27 per cent. However, I am not going by any official figures. I am going by the prices paid for the actual essentials to keep body and soul together as revealed in the Prisons Vote. I am not going by any Departmental figures of any Government, either the English Government or this Government.

What steps are being taken for the reconditioning of the land, for keeping it, even where it can be kept by labour, from deteriorating? The Minister knows perfectly well that there is a lot of work that could be done on the land, and there are two different Departments to which it is useless to appeal to do it—the Land Commission and the Board of Works. If you go to the Land Commission, you are told it is the business of the Board of Works. If you go to the Board of Works, they say: "We cannot do anything until the Government make up their minds what they are going to to with the report of the Drainage Commission." At a time when there is emigration, when work cannot be found for people, we are told that the Government are "seriously considering" the report of the Drainage Commission, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance used to tell us that certain works are not economic. Therefore, it is a matter of pounds, shillings and pence. When I see other countries in Europe going in for large works of reclamation and apparently thinking them good national policy, and when we reject them on the ground that they are not "economic", I doubt the principles on which the judgment is based. But the fact remains that Government inaction in this respect shows no foresight whatever. It allows land to get worse and worse year after year and, at the same time, Ministers make speeches demanding more productivity from the land. No effort is made, as I say, to improve the fundamental part of farming, namely, the land, even to save it, not to mention to keep it in good heart. The provision of manure may be now beyond the control of Ministers, but surely reclamation could be done. Again, there is nothing of the kind.

More than once I have asked the Minister and the House to consider one thing about this yearly sum which we have to pay. Leaving aside the exact figure—£30,000,000, £40,000,000 or £50,000,000—does any reasonable man think that we are getting value for it? That is a matter which I stressed last year. I do not intend to go into it now, but it is a question which has really never been faced by the Government of this country as constituted at present.

Mr. Hickey

Listening to the Minister and some of the speakers, I try to keep in my mind that, in terms of reality, this is not a money question. The truth is that the only question is this: can this country produce sufficient goods and services to enable the people to enjoy a reasonable standard of living? If the answer to that question is "yes", which, in fact, it is, then it is the duty of the Government to make provision to enable the people to enjoy that standard. We must keep our minds on what counts in this or any other country, and that is the people in the country. I asked questions to-day of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and of the Minister for Finance yesterday, about certain sections of our people, and I was told that, because of present circumstances, no increase in their income is to be made. No attention is being paid to the increased cost of living. In 1934-35 we asked our local medical officer of health in Cork City to give us a figure for the minimum cost of the food necessary to maintain the health of a man and his wife and three children. After some inquiries he reported that 22/6½ would be the minimum expenditure on food per week for a man and his wife and three children. I have gone to the trouble of relating those figures to the cost of those particular items of food in 1942, and what cost 22/6½ four years ago now costs up to 46/-, taking the prices of those commodities as controlled by the Minister. Every article of food on that list, except tea and rice, is produced in abundance in this country, but in that dietary scheme for a week for a man and his wife and three children there was only 1/2 lb. of butter allowed, and not as much as one egg was included. It would be well for those of us who have some responsibility for legislation in this country, and an obligation to the poorer sections of the community, to ask ourselves why we should think of that dietary scheme as being sufficient for any man and his wife and three children.

The Minister stated yesterday that he had pegged down wages and also was successfully keeping down prices. The figures I have quoted are sufficient proof of the falsity of that statement. The Minister for Supplies and Industry and Commerce is here. He has brought in an Order pegging down wages. The Minister knows as well as I do that there are workers in this country who have got only 2/6 increase in wages since 1938, notwithstanding the fact that the cost of those items of food has increased by over 100 per cent. That is borne out by the figures given by Deputy O'Sullivan as to the increased cost of food for supporting prisoners in jail. He said that the dietary scheme for prisoners in jail was the least that the ordinary workingman in this country should expect. I say that the ordinary workingman should be getting a good deal more than that standard of living. Surely the ordinary worker in this country should enjoy a higher standard of living than the prisoners in jail.

The Minister stated yesterday that no worth-while scheme has failed because of capital starvation. He went on to say that finance is not, therefore, the obstacle here, and that those who seek to discredit the banks, Finance Ministers, and others connected with monetary reform, should take note. We heard Fianna Fáil Deputies last night telling the Minister for Lands what the position is in their respective areas, and it all amounted to the fact that there is no money available. We had one Deputy complaining that they could not make roads into a bog, and another complaining that fences and everything else were in a deplorable condition. Yet, in the Estimates, there is £128,000 less provided for the improvement of land this year than last year. I seriously suggest to the Minister that it is because money is not available that that reduction has taken place. I also want to point out, particularly to the Minister for Finance who, for a number of years was a member of the Dublin Corporation, and who was also Minister for Local Government, that one of the drawbacks in regard to housing in Dublin or elsewhere is the shortage of money. I was listening here the other day to the Taoiseach going to terrible extremes in saying that he could not understand why house rents were so high. I submit, without fear of contradiction, that the shortage of houses is due to shortage of the money necessary for the public bodies, notwithstanding the fact that taxation in this State amounts to £15 14/- per head of the population.

I must point out to the Minister that at the moment we have unfortunate people who have been living, for the past 12 years, in Corporation houses of which the rents were 12/- or 13/-, now unable to pay those rents because of lack of employment. They are being evicted from those houses and accommodated as far as possible in cheaper houses, of which the lowest rent is 5/8. I may say that they have to carry the arrears of rent from where they were into those cheaper houses. I think all that is due to the fact that the price paid for money to build those houses was most uncalled for. We have at the moment 210 houses in Cork, and the rent is from 12/- to 15/- and 17/-. I will indicate to the Minister how that rent is made up. We looked for money, cheap money if we could get it. We could not get it at 4 per cent., or even at 5 per cent., and eventually we had to pay 5¼ per cent. for it. The purchase of the land, the development of the site and the building costs have worked out so that each house is costing £520 odd. Before the Corporation themselves put 1d. rent on that house to meet current expenses, they had to pay 10/4 or 10/5 per week on interest alone for money borrowed to complete the house. Does the Minister now suggest that no credit-worthy scheme was held up for want of money? We want a large sum of money in Cork to meet the housing requirements of the people.

Anybody going through the country will be appalled to see the hovels there still are throughout the country where people are compelled to live. We heard here recently about the number of school-houses that were in a wretched condition, and we all have some knowledge of the cases where parents have refused to send their children to such schools. Surely the Minister is not seriously telling this House or the people that money is no obstacle here. Recently, when the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was asked why he did not build a post office at Thurles, and do some other things as well, he quickly replied that the obstacle was money. I remember his saying here on his Estimate quite recently, when somebody was criticising the wireless station and so on, that it was a question of not having sufficient money. Does the Minister think for a moment that the small farmers throughout the country would not be glad to avail of credit facilities? Travelling by train from Dublin to Cork one is appalled at the condition of the land on both sides of the line, through lack of drainage and general cleaning up, and I am quite satisfied that that condition of affairs is due to the fact that credit facilities are not available. I could quote instance after instance where that kind of work is not being done because money is not available.

The Minister told me yesterday that he could not agree to increase the income of old age pensioners or widows and orphans. I should like to bring certain facts home to Deputies, as well as to the Minister. I feel that there are times when we are inclined to forget the poorer sections of the community. I believe that if there ever is anything that will tend to discredit democratic institutions, it is the way in which we treat the weaker sections of the people. I sit on an old age pensions committee, a public assistance board, and a court of referees, and I often ask myself why was the court of referees set up, and why are the payments to the unemployed reduced to starvation point. The Minister tells us that it is not a question of money. I pointed out to the Minister for Agriculture last week that during the 12 months ended last December there were 75,135 gallons of milk sent from the city distributors, supplied by the Milk Board, to the university dairy, and sold at 7d. a gallon because the poor people of Cork could not pay 1/8 a gallon for it.

Do those responsible for legislation here realise that unemployed men of 40 or 50 years, men for whom industry has no further use, men who, because of changing methods of production, are cast out of industry, are compelled to exist on 10/6 a week in the city, and, in the suburbs of Cork, they get only 6/- a week with which to feed and clothe themselves? Do those responsible for legislation here ever consider the position of a man who is sent to a sanatorium, who is taken from employment where his current wages would be £3, or £3 5s., and whose wife and children, while he is in the sanatorium, have to exist on 15/- a week? If that man is longer than six months in the sanatorium the 15/- is reduced to 7/6. In such circumstances, can we boast of our Christianity? Do we realise the implications of our religion when we approve legislation of that kind?

I wonder if any legislative assembly can justify a position such as this? A man is thrown out of industry, having got a week's notice, and he has six or more children depending on him. He gets a contribution from the State of 1/-, plus a food voucher for 1/6, for each child to the number of five. What about the sixth or seventh, the eighth or ninth child? I sat on a pensions committee three weeks ago and we considered the application of an ex-railway employee who had given 53 years' service to the Great Southern Railways, 38 years of which he spent as an engine driver. Last November he got a pension of 16/- a week. On the 6th January he reached the age of 70 years and because he was 70 his pension was reduced by the railway company to 6/-, so that he could qualify for a 10/- old-age pension.

We had a report from the investigating officer to the effect that the man's wife owns the house in which he lives and he revealed that he had £150 in Savings Certificates and that he got something in the way of a superannuation gift, something from a benevolent fund, when he was leaving the service of the railway company. In view of all that, it appears that he cannot get even 1/- by way of old age pension. That is his position after giving 53 years' service, not alone to the railway company, but to this country. I could quote other cases of a somewhat similar kind.

I suggest that we cannot claim that we are legislating here as we ought to legislate while that state of affairs exists. That is the type of thing that will tend to discredit democratic institutions. Take the position of an unemployed person, a man who has been out of employment for the last 12 months because of war conditions. His stamps are now exhausted and the payment of 15/- a week he was getting has been reduced to 10/6. Is that man a less worthy citizen to-day than he was 12 months ago? Is he a class apart from you or from me? Are his wife and children not worthy of more humane consideration? Why can we not legislate for them and give him at least the bare necessaries of life?

When I hear people talking about balanced Budgets, I ask myself what does it mean. A balanced Budget means to me that the bond-holders are going to be paid, whoever else suffers. I suggest the sooner we think in terms of men, women and children the better we can claim that this and similar institutions should remain. This Budget may be very fine for the type of people the newspapers told us went home with smiles on their faces last evening. They were satisfied with the Budget the Minister introduced, but there are other people who have no reason to be satisfied. Take the case of a worthy citizen who has given 20, 30 or 40 years' service in industry and who is no longer required. He cannot get the old age pension, because he has not reached 70 years. That person cannot get an increase on the 10/6 or 6/- a week that is now paid to him. Yesterday the Minister told us that he is going to increase the dividends for merchants and employers from 6 per cent. to 9 per cent., and that he is not prepared to put 100 per cent. on the excess profits arising out of the emergency.

There are thousands of men and women in industry starving, many of them dying because they have not the necessary nourishment. Their children are dying because of lack of nourishment. What was the report of the medical officer for Cork last year? The infant death rate was the highest for a number of years, the number being 95 as against 75 for the previous year. The deaths of children were only 16 less than in 1919. The deaths from tuberculosis had gone up. The births in Cork City are the lowest on record. Is the Minister aware of the report of the Waterford doctor who said that the hospitals there were filled by people who were more hungry than ill? The medical officer of Limerick said the one thing that surprised him was that the people are not alarmed or horrified at the sight of children suffering from malnutrition. The Cork school medical officer's report indicates that over 10 per cent. of the children are suffering from malnutrition and over 9 per cent. are suffering through unsatisfactory clothing and footwear. If we had a record of the number of children who are not yet going to school and the 800 families who have been removed from the city area to new houses, I am sure it would represent a very grave position.

The total income for an unemployed man, his wife and five or more children is 14/- a week in those areas. There are widows who were removed to those areas who were in receipt of food vouchers but are now cut off because they are outside the city area, and the maximum amount for their children and themselves is 16/-. Can we boast of Christianity, or can we say that we are legislating in the right way? Take the small farmers and the agricultural labourers. I think the greatest slaves in this country are the small farmers, their sons and daughters and agricultural labourers. I am satisfied that the majority of these people do not know what it is to enjoy an egg for breakfast, although they rear poultry. I am satisfied they do not enjoy a lb. of butter for the whole week although they produce it on the farm. Yet we have the Minister coming in here and telling us that a deputation came to him and complained of the hardships and that he had to reconsider the position by increasing their dividends from 6 to 9 per cent.

The Minister is now going to borrow £4,500,000, notwithstanding the fact that we are already paying £3,000,000 a year in interest on money alone, not to mind what public bodies are paying for the £35,000,000 they are in debt. I would like to ask the Minister why we should borrow from a group of people with no responsibility to the nation. I claim that credit of any country is the capacity of the people to produce goods. Why should the Minister have to go to those people, with no responsibility to the nation, to borrow money? He could as well create that credit by the authority of this House and of the people to whom it is to be issued. Are we going to add another £200,000 to the burden on the backs of the people for money to run the country?

I have a great deal of experience, through meeting every class of person, and particularly the working class and the unemployed—because, unfortunately, they have to come to people on these different committees—and especially sitting at the court of referees and hearing these cases coming before them. I referred to the matter here to-day when Deputy Harris stated there was a scarcity of labour throughout the country. We had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance telling us the other day that there were 15,000 applicants for cutting turf, although the wages offered were only 32/- to 35/- a week. Does the Minister or anybody else here suggest that a man with a wife and three or four children in a country town or in the heart of the country, or even in the cities, lightly goes off to a war-ravaged area, facing death, to earn a few paltry shillings? Unfortunately, I have seen people go off to England who have been killed a few days afterwards. Yet we have people leaving the land and country places because they cannot exist there.

I do not advocate that they be paid the dole. Let nobody say that we on these benches advocate payment of the dole. We want to see these people put to work, to produce wealth for the nation, not going across to produce wealth elsewhere and sending back paper money to buy up whatever is available. We have plenty of work in the country for the people to do. I am not going to accept the Minister's challenge that no scheme was held up for want of money. The Minister, and the Government, in charge of the money and credit are responsible for the position we are in. Until the money question is settled, there can be nothing like prosperity for agriculture and no improvement in family life. As far as I am concerned, this is responsible for the position of the mass of our people, as indicated in the Budget which the Minister has introduced.

Mr. Hughes

Notwithstanding that this is another unbalanced Budget— unbalanced by an amount of over £4,500,000—I think it is a healthy sign that the Government, which has pursued a policy of reckless squandermania for the past ten years, now realises that people are already taxed to their utmost and that it is physically impossible for them to bear any further burdens. The many sources of revenue have reached saturation point and the Minister finds it impossible to collect any more money. The nation cannot, without dire consequences, carry any further impositions.

It was probably a relief to the vast majority of the people this morning, on reading their papers, to realise that they had not to bear any new form of taxation. They are probably amazed that, by some conjuring with figures, or by some other means, the Minister has effected that. Nevertheless, it is an unbalanced Budget, and I suppose it is popular. Unbalanced Budgets are popular in these days, and the Minister is in the fashion in that respect. No matter what Deputy Hickey says about his disregard for unbalanced Budgets, it is a certainty that this sum of money will have to be met somehow, some day, somewhere, by the people.

Mr. Hickey

By putting people to work, not by having them idle.

Mr. Hughes

It is a bill that will have to be met at some future date, possibly at a time when the difficulties will be as great, if not greater, and when there may be very grave necessity to borrow money, too. The fact that we have pursued the policy of taxing up to the hilt for the last ten years and tapping every possible source of revenue, has brought about the present situation. We are entitled to ask— apart altogether from this huge burden of £45,000,000 that has to be faced, if not all this year, in some future year —whether better use could not be made of the money that is being spent by the Government at present. I have no hesitation in saying that money could be used in a far better way, in the interests of the people as a whole, and to improve our productive capacity. The Minister promised, a couple of years ago, when he became Minister for Finance, that it would be his first duty to effect economies. There is little or no sign of an implementation of that promise or of economies effected in various Estimates. The only result is an increase this year again of over £3,500,000. At the same time, we have the Government, a couple of months ago, inviting local authorities to give close attention to all branches of administration where economy could be exercised. The Government is like the preacher: "Do not do as the preacher does, but what the preacher says." That is the sort of advice they are prepared to give to local authorities, but they are not prepared to act on it themselves. The best way the Government could effect economies in local administration would be to set the example themselves.

As Deputy Cosgrave said yesterday, it would be very interesting to examine the national income of the country at the present time, and compare the trend of national income for some years with the trend of taxation. We never got any information on that point, and I think the figures would be useful and interesting. When we talk about economies on one or two Votes, I look at the Vote for the Department of Lands, and although the activity of that Department is practically at a standstill, of the amount provided, £1,400,000, a reduction of £130,000 seems very small, seeing that the Department is at present merely a skeleton of its former size. In particular, the sub-head providing for land improvement is considerably reduced. I understand that officers on loan to the Department of Supplies and to the Department of Agriculture are still borne on the Department of Lands. A reduction of £130,000 there appears to be a negligible amount.

Our chief concern now is with the problem of supplies. A very considerable amount of money is being expended on the Department of Supplies, and Deputies, as well as people outside, are entitled to question whether that expenditure is in the best interests of the country as a whole; whether it is functioning to the best of its ability, and if the policy directing the operations of the Department is the wisest one that might be pursued. We all realise that little or no effort was made by that Department to secure essential supplies while it was possible to secure them. The operation of quotas against the importation of essential articles was permitted until it was impossible to secure them, and then the quotas were removed. That applies particularly to artificial manures. When Deputies representing agricultural interests made representation on several occasions they were not listened to. Later the ban was lifted but it was too late. That Department has not only failed in its attempt to secure and to build up reserves of supplies while it was possible to do so, but its efforts were even worse in the distribution of available supplies. That is the reason why we hear so many bitter complaints from the people as to there being no equity or fair play in the system that operates for the distribution of available supplies. It was pointed out time and again by this Party that it would be impossible to effect equitable distribution without a proper rationing system. Three years after the emergency began we find that the Minister is forced to listen to the advice of this Party. There must be a proper rationing system if there is to be equity and justice in the distribution of any articles of which there are short supplies.

On the question of food supplies, the agricultural community will play no small part in that respect. In his Budget statement, the Minister for Finance was very optimistic as far as future supplies are concerned. He said:

"The information at present to hand indicates that there has been a substantial increase in tillage generally this year, and, given a reasonably favourable growing season, and a good harvest, we should be largely independent of imported food supplies...."

I am afraid I cannot subscribe to that view. We have been disappointed in the results of our food production activities for the last two years. As an agriculturist I am not optimistic as to the future, not because I blame the agricultural community for incapacity or inability to provide the necessary food for our people, but because they were not properly harnessed to the work, and because the responsible Department and the Minister in charge of food production did not set about the job properly. He did not bring to the assistance of the agricultural community the organisation that was essential to secure their best efforts. I agree with Deputy Morrissey, Deputy O'Sullivan, and with other Deputies, that the wheat crop at present is looking anything but promising. Much of the old grass land was ploughed too late, and where wheat was put in it is looking very poor. Where people were growing wheat fairly intensively in recent years, sufficient precautions were not taken to try to maintain the normal fertility of the land. Where there has been a reduction of fertility, and where in tillage districts people depended on artificial manures to provide the necessary fertility, it will be found that the absence of artificial manures is going to be very serious, and is bound to be reflected in the yield, notwithstanding the fact that there might be a substantial increase in the acreage.

I do not think the Minister can anticipate being in a very independent position as far as imported foodstuffs are concerned. Unfortunately I feel that we will not be in that position through the failure of the Department of Agriculture to organise the work properly. It appears to be ridiculous to have inspectors going through the country in March and April compelling people at that late season to break up old grass land. Every practical farmer knows that the prospect of getting good results from that class of land at that period would be a pretty hopeless proposition, mainly due to the fact that there was no attempt made to provide the necessary equipment in non-tillage districts. I do not think anyone could argue that it would be fair to make people cultivate 25 per cent. of their land without attempting to provide the equipment that possibly could be provided if a census of the equipment available had been made and used to the best advantage. Evidently the Government thought that their responsibility was to send a few Ministers through the country to tell the people that we were short of food, that every effort should be made to produce more food, and that that, coupled with the Compulsory Tillage Order, would secure the necessary results. When one has regard to the efforts made in other countries to produce essential foods and the amount of organisation involved in that type of work, one realises why we have failed here and that our people are not to blame in any way for that failure.

On the question of beet, the Minister said that he felt that, even with the reduction in the amount of land under beet, the present ration of three-quarters of a lb of sugar per individual could be maintained. Again, I feel that the Minister is very optimistic. I do not think that there is any hope of the maintenance of the present ration, judging by the amount of land under beet at present and taking into account the limited amount of artificial manure available for that crop. When we learn from the Sugar Company that 75 per cent. of this crop heretofore was grown with the assistance of artificial manures and without any farmyard manure, it is inevitable that a very steep fall in the yield of the beet crop will result from the present position, coupled with a reduction in acreage. The fact that there was an increase of only 10/- in the price did not constitute a reasonable inducement to the people to cultivate the crop. The Minister may know that, up to this year, the price paid for beet in this country was almost equal to the price paid in Great Britain. Sometimes, our price was slightly higher than the British price and, sometimes, their price was slightly higher than ours. Now, we find that the British farmer, who has a sufficient supply of artificial manures for production of the crop, has a price of £4 10/- as compared with a price of £3 10/- to the Irish farmer. The Irish farmer is faced with the problem of producing beet without artificial manure, and the Minister should realise the hopeless proposition he is up against. The method of fixing prices arbitrarily is all wrong. The people who produce the essential commodity were not consulted. When we compare the treatment meted out to the agricultural community in respect of price fixation with the treatment accorded to industrialists during the past ten years, we can realise how sore the agricultural community must feel. The price of this commodity has been arbitrarily fixed. No attempt has been made to justify the figure, which was made without reference to costings. In fact, all price-fixation is done in that fashion in that Department. When we asked why the costings officer in that Department was dropped some years ago— perhaps conveniently dropped—and on what basis prices were fixed, on no occasion did the Minister satisfy anybody that he went into the cost of production properly. When the farmer has to produce food at a fixed price, that price ought to be computed on a costings basis and should be such as to leave a fair margin of profit. I do not think that the Government, the Minister or anybody else, has morally a right to fix a price arbitrarily, without any reference to the cost of production, during this emergency when farmers have to draw heavily on the fertility of the soil, the greatest asset the farmer has. If he has to draw upon that capital reserve, he is entitled to a fair price for his product.

I agree with Deputy O'Sullivan that the Government had no plan, although they got into office ten years ago by telling the people that they had a great plan. They had no plan then nor had they a plan for the emergency. They evidently have not given the post-war period any consideration. This is a very important matter and some reference should have been made to it by the Minister for Finance in his Budget. Many branches of agriculture have been in a state of decay for years in this country. At best, it could only be said that some branches had maintained their production. Many people have left agriculture and there is a very considerable reduction in the number of people engaged in it. Even before the war, we heard the complaint all over the country that people were fleeing from the land. Notwithstanding that that problem existed all that time, the Government were not prepared to face up to the situation and to have the matter carefully and properly examined with a view to a solution. When we hear complaints from the Labour Deputies of the number of workmen forced to seek employment in other countries and when we are told by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance that it is impossible to find productive sources of employment under the various employment schemes, we must realise that here is an opportunity for spending any amount of money and providing any amount of work for people who are losing employment in other branches of industry.

There is, for instance, the big problem of land reclamation. Other countries find that it is good national economics to spend money in reclaiming land and in bringing rough, scrub land into arable form to produce essential foods. We have omitted to do anything with similar types of land. Vast tracts of land are becoming marshy and boggy which, a few years ago, were sound and arable. That is simply because main and field drains are getting choked up. As to afforestation, we could plant shelter belts which would be useful to agriculturists in many districts, and give employment to many people who at present are forced to leave the country.

Mr. Corry

How does the Deputy want that done—is it by credit?

Mr. Hughes

What do you mean?

Mr. Corry

Is it that you want loans given to the farmers for that purpose?

Mr. Hughes

You could do it by borrowing, certainly. Ways and means ought to be found for doing it, at all events. There should even be a State organisation to do that. That is a matter of detail that I do not think we need discuss at the present time.

Mr. Corry

Oh!

As I said before, one of the biggest handicaps in tillage districts—and I think we will have to agree that it is to the tillage districts we still have to look for our main source of cereal supplies for the coming year—is the lack of artificial manure. It has been suggested over and over again in this House that some effort should have been made to effect a trade deal with the people to whom we export our surplus produce. I understand that recently a deal in that direction was successfully carried out, but it seems an extraordinary thing that the Minister for Supplies gave an export permit to a company that recently went into liquidation here to export, unconditionally, 250,000 gallons of whiskey. When we remember that the people at the other side are in a desperate way for whiskey, it is fairly obvious that they would be quite prepared to exchange some essential commodity in order to secure that 250,000 gallons. The Minister lost an opportunity by issuing a permit unconditionally.

As I have said before, the manure that we miss more than anything else is nitrate which we generally use in this country in the form of sulphate of ammonia. That is one manure that I notice is not controlled in Great Britain at the present time. Every other manure that is available there is rationed to the farmer because both phosphates and potash are in short supply. They are getting a fair amount of these but nevertheless they are rationed. The one they are free to buy to any limit, both in England and in Northern Ireland, is sulphate of ammonia. One of the things of which they are very short in England at the present time is milk. An article appeared in a British farmers' magazine,

The Farmers Weekly, headed:—

"Dairy Cows for 1945. It's impossible to get a Milk Production Increase without them—but where are they to come from?”

The article, which is by A.G. Street, says:—

"The great concern of the authorities to-day is the provision of an increased supply of milk for next winter... Therefore, there are only two ways to increase next winter's milk supply: Firstly, to increase the number of autumn calvers by importation from Ireland; secondly, to see to it that the available autumn calvers find their way into the hands of the most efficient dairy farmers in the country."

Mr. Street further says:—

"Again, if autumn calvers cannot be imported from Ireland, dairy stirk heifers can be. Every extra stirk heifer that is bulled next Christmas will mean a definite increase in the milk supply for the winter of 1943."

That shows the position on their problem of milk supply. We all know that we export large numbers of maiden heifers that make the basic stock for the British farmers' dairy herds. There again is an opportunity of saying to the British Government: "We are prepared to release all the heifers that are suitable for export for that purpose, but it is only fair that we should get something as a quid pro quo”. We want sulphate of ammonia. I would again press on the Minister the necessity of making some really sincere effort to secure supplies of sulphate of ammonia for next year because, if they are not secured, the results are definitely going to be bad. There is going to be a steep fall in the yield of grain this year due to the lack of sulphate of ammonia and, as time goes on, that will be progressively worse. Some determined effort ought to be made to secure a supply of that essential commodity.

Mr. Linehan

Might I say at the outset that I am in absolute agreement with Deputy Hickey's references to the shockingly low standard of living of a very large section of our community? I will go even further than Deputy Hickey. He was suggesting that this House was very complacent about that. I am afraid we are, but a lot of other people are complacent about it too and before very much can be done in the direction that Deputy Hickey and a lot of people outside this House would like to see, the great mass of the middle classes of this country will have to be jerked out of their complacency on the subject. Is it not perfectly obvious to anybody who considers the position, who has read the reports Deputy Hickey referred to by the various officers of health dealing with malnutrition in school-children, that are published in the public Press regularly, that 90 per cent. of the people of the country do not take the slightest notice because these cases do not come under their immediate review? If a person agitates to any great extent about it, he is regarded by a large section of the community as a crank. If people do not actually see misery, they salve their consciences by pretending it does not exist.

As far as the question of housing is concerned, it is easy to understand the position in places like Cork City or Dublin City. Deputy Hickey referred to the position of labourers and of the small-farming community, but I would say that in a great number of small towns in rural Ireland the housing conditions are as bad as in any slum in any city. In towns in the rural districts less has been done than anywhere else. While cottage schemes have been carried out to a large extent outside towns in recent years and in towns which happen to have urban councils, in very few cases has there been any attempt to deal with the housing problem in middle-sized towns which are not urbanised. The real difficulty, and the fundamental cause of the trouble, is the cost of building and the question of fixing an economic rent. Everybody understands the difficulty of the local authority. If it wants to carry out a scheme it has to borrow money and pay very dearly for it, but when the houses are built, the type of tenant that needs a house cannot possibly pay a rent that would be regarded as economic to enable that authority to meet all the charges.

You have the unfortunate state of affairs in which people come out of condemned houses for which they were paying, perhaps, 1/- a week and are put into houses for which the rent is 7/- or 8/- a week. Then because of temporary depression, or loss of employment, they find themselves unable to pay that rent and they have to be put out of these houses again. That is creating a desperate problem. It is terrible to think that after councils erect houses for such families, bring them out of condemned buildings and put them into houses that offer them a moderate degree of comfort, through stress of economic circumstances a position arises where these people have to be put out of the houses again because they cannot pay the rent which has been fixed. That is happening perhaps not very often, but fairly regularly in every county in Ireland. We should all like to do something about it, but with all respect, I think that we have not yet got any solution for it. We talk about credit and the provision of money. We all know what we should like to do, but it is very hard to get a solution for it. I frankly admit that I do not feel that I could, at any rate, put forward a scheme at the moment that would solve all these difficulties. I think, however, it would go a long way towards relieving these difficulties if the ordinary middle-class person were educated to the fact that there is a lot of misery and hardship in existence in this country and that such misery and hardship will be there as long as the present economic difficulties prevail. If this war lasts for any considerable time, these things will steadily tend to become worse. I suggest that now is the time when everybody is troubling about his own future, and is getting a broader outlook as regards the social evils that exist, to jerk people out of their complacency and to make it quite clear that the fact that one chooses to shut one's eyes to misery, does not mean that misery does not exist at all.

I was very much surprised to-day at the reception the Minister's Budget got. To look at the headlines in the Press, and particularly in one organ, one would imagine that there had been a reduction of £5,000,000 in taxation. As a matter of fact, one prominent industrialist is reported as describing the Budget as "a damn good Budget". I really wonder what he would consider a damn bad Budget. In my opinion, the only way in which one could describe the Budget is as a completely hopeless Budget, because in the whole 44 pages there was not the slightest indication of what should be done, or what the Government intends to do to ease the present situation. There was merely the complacent attitude: "I am not going to increase taxation. I am going to borrow to meet the deficit. As long as I am doing that, everything is all right, and everybody should be perfectly happy." Actually, here and there throughout the Budget statement, the Minister did occasionally show signs of a deeper appreciation of the realities of the situation than is indicated by this attitude. On page 6 he made reference to the fact that when he brought in his Budget last year he budgeted for a certain figure, but that during the year a number of Supplementary Estimates had been introduced, the aggregate of which fell only a few pounds short of £3,000,000. Are we to expect that this year again we shall get a number of Supplementary Estimates which may again be in the neighbourhood of £3,000,000, because if that be so, the amount of the deficit which the Minister anticipates in this year's Budget is entirely imaginary and illusory? It merely means that we are painting a better picture than is justified by the requirements of our supply services.

There is scarcely a Department in existence at the moment that does not present the House with some Supplementary Estimate in the course of the year. That is a system which has developed of recent years. It is a vicious system, a system which would not be tolerated in any properly controlled business institution. If a professional man or anybody engaged in any line of business planned out his year's work, by saying: "Well I have got to spend only so much" knowing perfectly well but conveniently forgetting that he had to spend much more, or if he sought to justify himself by saying that in five or six months' time he could produce an additional estimate of his requirements, he would soon discover that he was living in a fool's paradise. I wish the Minister for Finance would announce to his colleagues in charge of other Departments that if these Departments did not supply him with a reasonably correct estimate of their requirements at the beginning of the year, he would set his face resolutely against the in-introduction of Supplementary Estimates for these Departments. It is their job to give him a fairly correct estimate of their financial requirements for the year before he prepares his Budget. One can understand that occasionally circumstances will arise which make the introduction of Supplementary Estimates necessary but, as I have said, I think the Minister for Finance should set his face against the growing practice of certain Departments to bring forward Supplementary Estimates in the course of the year, because otherwise he is merely presenting to the people a completely illusory picture in the Budget statement.

As far as the question of employment and emigration is concerned, the Minister in his reference to the Road Fund said that the income would be substantially down this year as compared with last, that it would amount only to £600,000 as against £978,000. At the end of that paragraph he said that when all the liabilities of the fund had been met there would still remain sufficient resources in it to justify parting once more with £100,000 to the Exchequer and that he proposed accordingly to insert a clause for this purpose in the forthcoming Finance Bill. Immediately prior to that statement, he said that some provision would be necessary for road maintenance and improvement grants. That is a matter to which I wish to direct the Minister's attention. For some reason or other, since the emergency started local authorities have neglected to maintain roads properly. Even the principal main roads are beginning to fall rapidly into a state of disrepair. I think Deputies travelling through rural constituencies will have noticed that, for the first four or five months of the year, the main steam-rolled roads which are carrying any volume of traffic, have been rapidly deteriorating. If the necessary repairs are not carried out to these roads, they will be in a shocking condition by the time the war is over. I think there could be no possible objection to money being provided for normal repairs on these roads. I suggest that it is hardly worth the Minister's while to take that £100,000 out of the Road Fund and that he should let it be devoted to its proper purpose, the maintenance of the main roads.

Actually, in the Budget statement the Minister boasted that money had been made available in abundance for projects of all kinds and that no worth-while scheme had failed because of capital starvation. I hope he will be able to justify that statement more in the future than he has in the past because as far as employment is concerned, there are at least two outstanding examples of possibilities of employment that have been entirely ignored by the Government in the presentation of their Estimates. One in particular is the question of afforestation.

At the rate things are happening in this country at the moment, there will not be a good-sized whitethorn bush left in any field in the country in another 12 months' time, if the war lasts. The situation as regards forestry was bad enough up to the present. The country was denuded of its trees during the last war, and practically no attempt has been made over a period of 25 years to remedy the damage that was done in that time, but now we have every tree in the country being cut down for fuel, and very often, as any Deputy who travels round the country must admit, the trees are being cut in a very ugly manner. No attempt is being made to preserve the amenities of the countryside. You see a half-mile or so of nice timber along a road; a man gets a permit to cut the timber there and, instead of cutting every third tree or so, and in that way, trying to preserve the amenities, he cuts a block of about 300 trees out of one patch, leaving an unsightly gap.

In that connection, I doubt very much if the replanting condition is being insisted upon at all, and I defy any Deputy to say that when he was going through the country he has seen even one tree replanted for every ten that had been cut. Any money that could be made available for afforestation would be money well spent, and apart from that it is the type of thing that would give employment in rural areas which will be badly needed when employment on the roads has dropped, as it has already dropped, and when work on the bog schemes is over. The work on the bog schemes, possibly, will finish earlier this year than last year because, from what we learn, the Parliamentary Secretary who is dealing with that matter has learned his lesson from last year: that you cannot keep cutting turf too late in the year. Naturally, when that work stops, the men employed on these schemes will be going back unemployed to the rural districts and small towns, and coming on to the autumn would be the ideal time to put these men to work on afforestation. As far as I know, the one thing that we should not be short of in this country would be trees. There are sufficient nurseries in this country to provide us with the requisite amount of trees for afforestation purposes.

I was very much surprised at one statement of the Minister; he made the statement actually under two different headings. On page 5 of his Budget statement, when he was referring to the position of the State and the issue of money by the State, he said:

"These figures are a reproof to critics, who blame us for lack of initiative in developing our resources, whether local or national. Money has been made available in abundance—and some think, in superabundance—for projects of all kinds. No worth-while scheme has failed because of capital starvation."

Then, on page 21, he speaks of money that came from others, as distinct from money that came directly from the Government, and he went on to say:

"But the money is available and has been sanctioned for many schemes. Finance is, therefore, not the obstacle here, and those who seek to discredit bankers, Finance Ministers and others connected with monetary affairs should take note of this."

I am afraid that the Minister does not agree with the experts of his own Party. There is a very prominent member of the Fianna Fáil Party, a man who, I am quite sure, is almost as well versed in economics as the Minister, and who was responsible for a statement in this House recently, and that statement directly contradicts what the Minister says. In column 1453, of Volume 86 of the Official Debates of 30th April, 1942, during the debate on the Central Bank Bill, Deputy Corry had this to say:—

"I could not agree with the statement made that the banks could not help in that matter. The attitude of the Irish banks during the last 20 years has been definitely anti-agricultural. Any person who is not a farmer and who puts up any kind of hare-brained scheme could get all the money he wanted for it. But, if a farmer wants a loan, he has to bring in the deeds of his farm to the bank and also bring in two securities who have deposits in the bank to the amount of the loan and who will not be allowed to withdraw those deposits until the loan is paid off."

Now, that statement, which is out of the mouth of an expert of the Minister's own Party, refutes the Minister's statement; it is absolutely correct, and there is no doubt about it. The question of credit is a very important matter. I think it was Deputy Davin who asked another Deputy a moment ago what he proposed to do about it, but the question of credit seems to be the strangest question of all in this country. Everybody knows that Deputy Corry was right to a certain extent. Strangely enough, money can be made available for the most peculiar schemes, and what Deputy Corry said about the banks and the agricultural community is also true. The banks would not lend a farmer a £10 note purely on the security of his farm. They would not give him any money at all merely on the security of his farm. During the debate on agriculture I made a reference to the fact that the institution that was set up by the Government to enable farmers to get money for improvements or reproductive work on their farms, was carrying out practically the same tactics as the banks. That was the Agricultural Credit Corporation. Now, that is quite a useful body, but, none the less, it is still hidebound with the same type of prejudice: that the only thing that matters is the question of security, and nothing else.

Mind you, that is not right. You may have a farmer who, at the moment that he is applying for a loan, owing to the condition of his land or scarcity of stock, or something like that, may be definitely non-credit-worthy, but if that farmer were enabled to get £20 or £30, and to get it reasonably quickly, quite possibly he would be as credit-worthy as any of his neighbours in three months' time. The Minister for Agriculture, last year, attempted to explain why it is that these institutions, when they are offering their loans to people and publish advertisements in the public Press inviting people to avail of their terms, advertise that they are prepared to give loans to credit-worthy farmers. Surely, a man who is credit-worthy does not generally need a loan so badly. The man who wants a loan may not, at the moment, be considered credit-worthy in the ordinary sense of the word, and there is a very great difference between the case of the farmer and that of the ordinary business man. The ordinary business man has to be able to balance his accounts periodically or he will go bankrupt, but a farmer can go down much deeper. The farmer has more resilience than the ordinary business man, and he can go down much deeper and come back better, for the simple reason that, actually, the security that he has is worth far more than it is ever regarded as cash. If a farmer has, say, 60 acres of land and 12 or 13 cows, and if he is working the land reasonably well, surely he should be regarded as good for a loan of £100 from the Agricultural Credit Corporation or any other bank, without having to mortgage his farm and, very often, provide outside securities as well, as in the case of the ordinary banks.

If a business man were looking for a loan, the amount of security he would be asked to put up would be nothing in proportion to what the farmer is asked to put up for a loan of £100. The whole tendency seems to be that if you lend money there is the danger that it may not come back. I think the experience of recent years, at any rate, has shown that the actual return to the nation itself, as a result of the money lent for agricultural improvement schemes, and similar schemes, was well worth any risk that might be taken. Just because the money does not come back in one or two cases, that is no reason why the Agricultural Credit Corporation or anybody else should not be prepared to take the ordinary business risk in the case of the other 98 or 99 per cent. Surely, because a few people do not pay back, it is not enough to say that the rest of the people should not get a loan.

Actually, one of the most serious features of the whole position, and one that the Minister glossed over, is the question of unemployment. There are really two questions, unemployment and emigration, because people are leaving this country at a very rapid rate. New types of employment have been created as, for instance, the large turf-cutting schemes in some places, and there is a shortage of agricultural labour occasioned by the movement of these schemes and, possibly, by the attraction of better wages elsewhere. Apart from that, however, we still have this great number of people unemployed in the country, and it appears to be rapidly becoming a fixed number.

It would appear that, no matter what may happen or how many people leave the country or how many new employment schemes are put up, we are still to be left with this kernel of 80,000 or 90,000 unemployed. It is a very sad commentary—I shall go no farther—on the policy of the present Government, because the Minister has said that money has been available in abundant quantity for schemes of all kinds, and I am quite sure that any member of the Government Party would be highly indignant if it were suggested that they had made no attempt to deal with unemployment in the ten years since they came into office, but even if all this money has been available abundantly, the unemployed, like the poor, are still with us, and, like the poor, it would appear as if they will be always with us. So that, actually, after ten years, the situation has not improved in the least. Can the Minister or anybody else in this House envisage, with any kind of calmness at all, what the position here will be when the war ends? As regards the tens of thousands who have left the country to earn a living abroad, what will their position be when they return and find that there is no employment for them? I assume, speaking subject to correction, that they will not be able to draw unemployment benefit. What will their position be, and what will be the position of those who will be going out of employment when a lot of the present temporary schemes come to an end, as well as of those who are at present unemployed? The position, I suggest, will be far worse than any that we have known in our history so far as the unemployment problem is concerned.

There has been a lot of talk about post-war planning. There will be a number of big post-war problems to be faced. It will be much easier to face them if there were some little planning done now. If we cannot improve the unemployment situation with all the extra expenditure represented in this, the biggest Budget that we have ever had presented to us, and with large numbers of our people earning a living abroad at the moment, what is the position going to be when all those people return, and when all the present temporary expedients come to an end when the war is over? The Minister, in his Budget statement, mentioned that attempts were being made to stabilise prices and dividends. I am afraid that statement is not going to improve the temper of certain people who will resent the permitted increase on dividends of from 6 to 9 per cent.

The Minister, I think, will come in for a good deal of criticism in connection with that if he is not able to give a more adequate explanation than that contained in his statement. He also indicated that when the Central Bank Bill becomes an Act, the banks will have to pay a licence fee of £1 a year, but the most that he hopes to get out of it is £8 or £9 a year. That would hardly pay for the paper used in issuing and sending out the licences. The proposal seems a rather extraordinary one, in view of the fact that shopkeepers have to pay licence fees of 5/- and 10/- for various things that they sell.

People carrying on a mixed business may have to pay as much as £1 a year in licence fees. What will they think when they see that a bank is to get a licence for £1 a year, especially when we know what a bank means in the minds of people in the country? The total sum that the Minister estimates to get from the banks in licence fees is paid annually by an attorney practising in a small country town. He has to pay £9 a year so that he may practise his profession. I think that, in view of what the Minister estimates to get from the banks for the licences issued to them, it might be just as well if he gave them the licences for nothing.

If the Minister and his colleagues want to get any kind of calmness restored in the country in regard to the supply position they will have to do something more than they are doing. I do not want to deal now with the bringing in of supplies. What is resented in the country more than anything else is the fact that certain people, apparently, if they have money enough to pay the price can get all the supplies they want. I have heard stories of people paying 25/- for a lb. of tea and 9/- a stone for white flour, but I was inclined to discredit them not having any special knowledge of such transactions. The Department of Supplies, however, has proved to me, by the action it has taken, that such things must be occurring.

Last week the Department fixed the price of white flour. That proved to me, at least, that there was some substance in the stories I had heard. It was suggested in the Press that the reason for doing so was to prevent the sale of white flour, and that the Department would then be in the position to deal with those who were selling it at more than the fixed price. But the actual position in the country is that you have numbers of people clamouring for brown flour and cannot get it. I do not know when I saw white flour, but this Order made by the Department of Supplies would seem to indicate that there is white flour available somewhere in the country. Does anybody think that fixing a price for it is going to stop the sale of it?

The Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, in the course of his reference to the agricultural industry, said:—

"The development of the home market to the greatest possible extent would appear to afford the best means of tiding the industry over the adverse conditions caused by the war."

That sounds very nice, but it is not as nice as it sounds, because in a number of lines the agricultural industry cannot be further developed in the home market. Take, for example, the bacon industry. It cannot be further developed because there are not sufficient bacon pigs in the country to supply a reasonable demand. What is worse is the way the trade has been handled. In my opinion, there cannot be any further development of that industry, so far as the home market is concerned, for the reason that 75 per cent. of our people cannot afford to pay the retail price for bacon. Bacon, which at one time was a staple article of diet in the ordinary households of this country, has now become a luxury. The only households in the rural districts, at any rate, in which bacon is now regularly used are those where the people themselves keep pigs and kill and cure one for their own use. The retail price of bacon is beyond the means of the average person in the towns and rural districts. Even if the supply of pigs were increased, there would not, I think, be very much more of a demand for bacon in the home market than that which already exists, unless some reasonable relation is established between the price the farmer gets for his pigs and the price the consumer has to pay for the finished product in the form of bacon. For years the farmers have not been satisfied with the price for pigs. The greatest dissatisfaction has prevailed because of the huge gap that existed between the price that they get for their pigs and the prices charged for the bacon manufactured from them.

That is only so far as the Irish wholesalers are concerned. It is the British Ministry of Food which controls the tea supply.

Mr. Hickey

Why do not the wholesalers here do it?

Mr. Linehan

They will not give it out without a licence from the Minister's Department. Some people are lucky to get a supply of tea while others will not get any at all. When they make a complaint, the investigation officer collects their cards from the retailer. But what retailer is going to take an extra ration card when he has not a supply for his own customers?

The only benefits conferred by the Budget upon any section of the citizens are conferred upon the moneylenders and upon the new industrialists, some of whom, as Deputy Walsh and others know, have been fortunate enough during the past eight or ten years to make fairly reasonable profits out of their investments. This Budget exposes a deficit of £4,550,000, and as a result of that it is proposed to go to the moneylenders and ask them to be good enough to make up the necessary sum at whatever rate of interest they will be willing to lend that money at.

The rate of interest at which money has been borrowed for purposes of this kind in the past is admitted by the Minister for Finance to be, on an average over a long period of years, £3 13s. 4d. per cent., but the average rate during the past few years has been at the rate of £4 per cent. The figure representing the service of debt due by the State and payable by the taxpayers at the present time is £2,992,000, or the equivalent of £1 per head of the population. If we have to borrow the £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 which would be required to balance this Budget and to meet other bills that are due, I suppose the least we will have to pay for that is 3¼ per cent. In other words, the taxpayers will be obliged to pay an additional sum of £195,000 per annum. That means that the amount to be paid by the taxpayers of this State for the service of debt will go to a figure of over £3,000,000 yearly. There is something radically wrong with the system under which we live, and which compels the taxpayers to find that sum—a sum equivalent in the present Budget to about 6.4 per cent of the total expenditure. Is there no other financial system that could be devised by the Minister which would enable us to find that money at a lower cost to the community?

Mr. Hickey

Of course there is.

Mr. Davin

The Minister for Supplies, who is listening to this discussion at the moment, when he was sitting on this side of the House shortly after he came into the House in 1927, suggested a system which would find that money for nothing.

Mr. Hickey

He believes it yet, too.

Mr. Davin

I do not want to exaggerate what he meant, because what he meant was not too clear, but I think he was referring to a rate of interest not exceeding say 1¼ per cent.

Mr. Hickey

Do you not think he believes it yet?

Mr. Davin

I would have little difficulty in leading a revolt of workers, organised and unorganised, in my constituency against the starvation rate of wages which the Minister and turf-controller Flinn are trying to impose on the people there.

An Ceann Comhairle

The "turf controller" should be referred to as Deputy.

Mr. Davin

I am sorry if I was in any way discourteous to anybody. I should have said Deputy Hugo Flinn. If the Minister has any doubt about what I have said, he can go down there or send his representative to test the feeling of close on 1,000 unorganised workers who are on strike, without any invitation from leaders of the trade unions or leaders of the Labour movement in that constituency, against the starvation rate of wages which is being imposed on them by the deliberate action of the Minister and his colleague.

We were told by the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech and in the speeches he has made on the Central Bank Bill that there is plenty of money in this country for any credit-worthy scheme people may be able to suggest. Deputies have pointed out many useful schemes which have been held up as a result of a shortage of money. There is plenty of money on deposit in the banks, but this money will only be given out on their own conditions by the bankers who dictate the financial policy of the Government. Is it possible to get money for any credit-worthy scheme at a rate of 2 per cent. and, if not, why not? The records of the House show that the Irish banks, between September, 1939, when war broke out on the Continent, and December, 1941, invested in British war loan and British securities £27,500,000 at a rate of interest not exceeding 2 per cent. and in some cases as low as 1? per cent. Why can we not have money for any credit-worthy scheme at the same cheap rate as they give in England for schemes considered there to be credit-worthy, whether they are for the production of machinery to destroy life or to produce more food for the people?

I was handed an amazing document recently in connection with the activities of Irish banks. It indicates their attitude towards loans raised in this country for credit-worthy schemes and loans raised in another country. The rate of interest paid by the Government for money borrowed here is the minimum rate of 3¼ per cent. I have here a copy of an advertisement issued in the London Times of last Sunday. It is headed: “Issue of 3% Savings Bonds, 1960-1970... Price of issue £100 per cent. Payable in full on subscription... The Governor and Company of the Bank of England”— that is now the British Government—“by authority of the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury offer the above Bonds for subscription. Subscriptions will be received on Friday, 1st May, 1942, and thereafter until further notice in the London Gazette. Subscriptions may be lodged at any office of the banks hereafter mentioned....”

To my surprise I saw, appended to the list, eight of our Irish banks, the banks that are going to get three representatives on the board of the new central bank. They are in the position of appealing for money to their own depositors, asking them to give their support to this loan at 3 per cent. The Irish banks include the Bank of Ireland, the Belfast Banking Company, the Hibernian Bank, the Munster and Leinster Bank, the National Bank, the Northern Bank, the Provincial Bank of Ireland, and the Ulster Bank. Is the Minister for Industry and Commerce in a position to tell us that these eight Irish banks will lend money even now at the rate of 3 per cent. to this Government for schemes of a credit-worthy nature? I am sure the Minister would be able to produce many such schemes if he could get the money at that rate.

The banks are certainly bulging with money, as somebody said, but they are not prepared to part with it for schemes of development here, certainly not as quickly, apparently, as they are to hand that money out for schemes of a different kind in another country. There is something radically wrong with the system of government that allows that. There is something wrong with the members of a Government which permits Irish banks to take from the people of this country a rate of interest of 3¼ per cent. while they are prepared to use the money of the Irish people for any scheme authorised by the British Government at rates of interest ranging from 1? per cent., but not exceeding 2 per cent. If during the emergency the farmers were assured that they would be able to get money through the agency of the Government and the goodwill of the banks at a rate not exceeding 2 per cent., I am perfectly certain that there would not be the same need to compel them —and some of them, I regret to say, have to be compelled—to increase the acreage under tillage. There are thousands of acres derelict because the farmers are not able to get the money to purchase machinery. They are not able to till their land in the way it could be tilled if sufficient money was available.

I heard the Minister for Finance speaking here recently on the Central Bank Bill, when he made suggestions of the same kind as those in the Budget. He says there is plenty of money available for credit-worthy persons. I would like to have a definition of a credit-worthy person. Is it a man who does not get up at the usual time in the morning, or does not do a normal day's work; or is it a man who is handed over a farm of land, for instance, heavily in debt, by somebody who went before him, and who is working hard and doing his best, in difficult circumstances, to meet his obligations? I can assure the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Supplies that there are only too many farmers in my constituency pressed very severely by our banks here, which are supposed to have plenty of money, to repay loans quicker than they are able.

The most amazing portion of the statement made by the Minister for Finance was the praise given the Civil Service. I could not help laughing at that portion of the statement, when I remember what I heard at the crossroads during the last general election in regard to the Civil Service. We were informed in this House that the last general election was forced upon the country and upon the Government by our alleged demand to increase the salaries of civil servants who had £1,000 and £1,500 a year to £1,500 and £2,000 respectively. I know that agents of the Fianna Fáil Party went into houses in my constituency during the last election and said to the people: "The Labour Party are standing for increasing the salaries of civil servants from £1,000 to £2,000 a year and are not thinking of the wages of agricultural labourers. They want to put taxation on you to give these highly-paid civil servants more money, whereas they were sent to the Dáil to look after the interests of the lowly-paid wage-earners, agricultural workers, turf workers and others." Will these people go into the same houses and tell the same story at the next election? Will they tell the people what the cost of the Civil Service was in 1932, 1937, and 1938, compared with what it is to-day? Will they send their agents around to tell how many highly-paid civil servants are doing work which Ministers should be doing, how many highly-paid civil servants are responsible for the hundreds of Emergency Orders which are signed by Ministers, though prepared by these civil servants? They will not tell them that the Government of this country, instead of being carried on by Ministers elected by the Dáil, has, in fact, been carried on, since this emergency arose, by a small band of highly-paid civil servants. Nobody could believe that some of the Orders and regulations issued under the Emergency Powers Act were manufactured in the imagination or the mind of the Minister for Supplies, the Minister for Industry and Commerce or any other Minister. We know perfectly well that Order No. 83, Order No. 166 and every other Order and regulation under the Emergency Powers Act were manufactured in the minds of the highly-paid civil servants whom, as the Government's agents said during the last election, we, of the Labour Party, were trying to put in the saddle. Ministers used language in the last election to the effect that they were going to put these civil servants in their place. Instead of putting them in their place, they put them in the saddle and handed over responsibility for government to them.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce will say that he and the other Ministers signed these Orders. There is no doubt about that. It is the usual rubber-stamp style of governing a country and, if any country has been governed by rubber-stamp methods since this emergency arose, it is this little country, which should be governed by the Ministers who sit there, while those who do not sit behind them at present should see that they carry out their duties. I wonder if the Minister for Finance will, if he has any paper left, circulate that section of his speech which paid such tribute to the activities of the Civil Service and the work of the Civil Service, generally? Will he indicate that he is prepared to defend the action of the Government in putting these highly-placed civil servants on the boards of companies set up by the taxpayers' money to implement a policy which should be carried out by the Government elected by the people and not by civil servants who are not elected by the people? We have a large number of highly-placed civil servants on the boards of several companies set up with the taxpayers' money. At the same time, we have the ridiculous procedure of Ministers who put these civil servants in these positions refusing in this House to answer for their activities as members of these boards.

An Ceann Comhairle

Does the Deputy not consider that he is discussing administration?

Mr. Davin

I consider, if you will allow me to say so, that the Government of this country never got authority to put civil servants on the boards of industrial concerns set up by the taxpayers' money or to give them large sums in fees in addition to the high salaries they receive from the State. If civil servants are supposed to give whole-time service to the State, and if it is considered part of their duty to act as directors of State subsidised concerns, it is not right, in this emergency period, for these civil servants to get, in addition to full-time remuneration at a fairly reasonable rate, the fees which they are at present receiving from these different companies. It is true that a number of civil servants are receiving fairly high fees in this way. Civil servants, acting on different boards, are receiving fees from these different boards, in addition to the good salaries they receive from the taxpayers for whole-time services. That aspect of Government policy should be looked into in existing circumstances, especially as we shall have the Minister for Industry and Commerce getting up and telling us that the taxpayers should not be asked to pay more than 32/- per week to the turf workers for providing the people with fuel during the coming winter.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

Perhaps I had better begin by assuring Deputy Davin that, in support of the policy the Government have devised to deal with the circumstances of the emergency, they have nothing to advance but arguments. But they have very good arguments. If they were not good arguments, I assure Deputy Davin they would not have the support of the majority of the members of the House. Members of the Government Party are much more independent than Deputy Davin thinks. They are much more capable of criticising the merits of the Government's policy and of expressing an opinion upon its practicability than members of the Labour Party have shown themselves to be. Every project for the management of the country's affairs which finds expression in an Emergency Powers Order, and every proposal for legislation brought before this House is submitted to and approved by the Government Party.

Mr. Hickey

As a whole?

Mr. Lemass

As a whole. It is only because the Government Party believe in that policy that a majority for it can be found here. I want to assure Deputy Davin also that the Government's policy is devised by the Government. This ridiculous idea, that the Government is ruled by civil servants, is fostered by Deputy Davin and certain of his colleagues because they can think of nothing better to say. It is the argument of children. Is it seriously believed by anybody in this House that a person elected to Ministerial position in which he has to take responsibility in this House for his every action and defend that action not merely in this House but before the country is going to allow himself to be dictated to by people who have not got that responsibility? Surely, it is about time that this slave mentality, which has dominated the Labour Party since its inception, should be finally disposed of. Can they not conceive the possibility of an Irish Government having that independence of mind and knowledge of the country's affairs which will enable them to devise a policy for the country? It is preposterous that this ridiculous contention should be reiterated, time and again, by people who, obviously, do not know what they are talking about.

Mr. Davin

Look behind you.

Mr. Lemass

My purpose here is to explain the Government's policy. I think I shall be able to give good arguments in favour of it. It stands upon these arguments. I want the House and the country to understand that it is a policy devised by the Government elected by this Dáil and that, for it, the Government only is responsible—nobody else. Let us start off by assessing the extent to which this debate has shown there is agreement upon facts. Deputy Norton said, yesterday, that taxation had reached a stage at which no further taxation could be imposed, that the country could not stand further taxation. I take it that in that matter he was expressing the views of the Labour Party.

Mr. Hickey

Because of the lack of production.

Mr. Lemass

He stated definitely that the country could not stand any more taxation.

Deputy Norton spoke about the plight of the poor farmers, and particularly of the milk producers and the need they had for increased prices for their milk. In the same sentence he denounced the Government because the price of butter was going to be increased in order to give these poor farmers an increased price for their milk. I merely mention these matters as illustrations of Deputy Norton's inconsistency. We do not expect consistency from him. The Labour Party has always tried to seek support everywhere. They say one thing in the cities and they say another thing in the country, even though what they say in the cities is in direct contradiction of what they say in the country. In this matter of the turf workers' wages they are following the same policy, as I will demonstrate before I sit down.

To stick for the moment to the question of the budgetary position, I am asking the House to realise the significance of what has been said by the leaders of all Parties, that we cannot impose upon the country new taxes which involve taking a greater proportion of the declining national income for State purposes. We must avoid, in so far as we can avoid, borrowing to meet a revenue deficit, because that borrowing adds to our dead weight debt and imposes a charge upon revenue which will continue to exist for many years. If we are agreed upon that, it should be possible also for us to agree to avoid new charges upon our revenue, because every new charge we put upon the revenue of the State must be met sometime. Somebody must provide the money. It must be got either by new taxes upon individuals or by fresh recourse to borrowing.

I want particularly to refer to many of the proposals which were made in this House during the course of this year, involving substantial additions to Government expenditure, to the effect that we should subsidise prices in order to prevent prices rising. Now we are subsidising prices. It is true that the wisdom of the course which the Government took when it decided to prevent a rise in the price of bread last year by providing a subsidy of £2,000,000 for bread prices is open to question. I think that if we had not offset the obvious effect of the increased guaranteed price for wheat by providing that subsidy, members of the public and members of this House would have realised more clearly the exact significance and the exact consequence of the further demand which came subsequently for another increase in the price of wheat, a demand which was met. I see in this afternoon's newspapers in a report of a discussion at the conference of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, a speech by Rev. Father Coyne in which he deals with this matter and in which he said that agricultural prices are not being subsidised, that it is consumer prices that are being subsidised. That is a very thin distinction, but it is important from a political point of view, because the effect of that subsidy, as I remember stating in the radio announcement during which I first announced the intention of the Government to make it, is to conceal from the people the inevitable consequence of a rise in prices to the producers for the raw materials from which goods are made.

We raised the price of wheat from 35/- to 40/-, and that increase in the price of wheat involved an increase in the price of bread. There was, in fact, no increase in the price of bread because a subsidy was provided which offset it. A further increase in the price of wheat to 50/- has been guaranteed in this year, but at the time that it was guaranteed, the Government announced that it could not contemplate offsetting any further increase by a further subsidy, so that the full cost of the increase will have to be borne by bread consumers. Nevertheless, against the price of bread at the present time and against the price of bread later in the year, when it is increased following the next harvest, a subsidy amounting to at least £2,000,000 has to be paid.

The price of butter has been increased by 2d. per lb. to enable an extra penny per gallon to be paid to farmers supplying milk for butter making at the creameries. An extra penny per gallon for milk supplied for butter making to the creameries involves an increase of 3d. per lb. in the retail price of butter but in order to provide that the increase would be, not 3d. but only 2d., a subsidy of £500,000 has to be provided. If we are to decide that we are not going to allow prices to go up, if we meet the demand which is sometimes voiced here that in order to prevent prices going up, subsidies should be provided, then we must recognise that these subsidies are going to involve a charge upon the Exchequer amounting to several million pounds. If we are agreed that we cannot increase taxation, if we are agreed that it is undesirable that we should borrow to meet the budgetary deficit, from whence are these millions of pounds, required for subsidy purposes, to come? Deputies must attempt to answer these questions if they make any pretence at consistency. They cannot have it every way.

I do not believe that Deputy Davin has any really effective system of getting money for nothing. I do not think Deputy Davin believes it himself. Because we cannot get money for nothing, we have got to look to the sources of revenue which will enable these additional charges to be met. This is a matter which arises acutely now because members of the public are rightly concerned with the increases in prices which have taken place already and which will take place in the future. It is desirable that members of the public should be told why these increases are unavoidable. It serves no useful purpose merely to denounce the Government because prices have gone up. Let us examine the causes of these increases and consider whether there is any basis for dealing with these causes. If we come to the conclusion, as I think we must, that these increases are unavoidable, then let us consider the effect they are bound to have upon the livelihoods of a number of people and how we can minimise them. That is obviously the purpose of policy.

Mr. Davin

And relate them to Order No. 83.

Mr. Lemass

I am coming to that.

Mr. Davin

And to Order No. 166.

Mr. Lemass

And to Order No. 166 and every other Order made by the Government. We have been told by the members of the Labour Party and by some speakers of Fine Gael, that our system of price control has failed because prices, despite it, have risen. A statement of that kind shows a complete misunderstanding of the aims of price control. Is it seriously suggested that any system of control capable of being devised could have prevented a rise in prices in this country in present circumstances? How could we avoid a rise in the price of bread when we have guaranteed to pay 50/- per barrel for wheat which before the war could be imported for 15/- a barrel? How could we avoid an increase in the price of butter——

Mr. Norton

Why did you not import more wheat at 15/- a barrel?

Mr. Lemass

Thousands and thousands of tons were brought in at that price and because they were bought at that price, the subsidy this year is going to be substantially less than it will have to be next year.

Mr. Norton

What about the bread shortage and the bread queues?

Mr. Lemass

I want to suggest seriously to the Labour Party that they have failed the workers of this country by refusing to face up to the realities of the present situation and to devise a policy for protecting the interests of the workers in these circumstances. Do not the members of the Labour Party appreciate that every economic force is now working to produce inflation? Everything is working to that end, and the aim of the Government is to try to put such checks and controls upon these economic forces that inflation will either be avoided or, at any rate, limited in its operations.

Mr. Davin

You cannot control it. You are handing over control to the bankers.

Mr. Lemass

Is it agreed that we should try to control it?

Mr. Davin

You are not trying.

Mr. Lemass

Will the Deputy answer my question? Do you agree that we should try to control it?

Mr. Keyes

By proper methods, but not by yours.

Mr. Lemass

By any method. We are agreed that we should try to control it by proper methods.

Mr. Davin

Not by the Central Bank Bill.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister should be allowed to proceed without interruption.

Mr. Lemass

The members of the Labour Party have this conception of democracy, that they should be allowed to misrepresent their opponents at will, and that their opponents should never be allowed to reply.

Mr. Davin

You are doing it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

These interruptions must cease.

Mr. Lemass

Mr. Lemass

As soon as the machinery of the Order is operating.

Mr. Davin

The machinery will not operate before the end of the emergency.

Mr. Lemass

It will operate in a very short time. I do not know the class of workers Deputies have in mind who, they contend, can get an increase of wages now if they are allowed. The great majority of our workers are not in that position. Most of them are far more concerned about the possibility of their jobs closing down than the possibility of getting increased wages. Is not that true? The dearth of raw materials, the cutting off of our supplies of fuel, the fact that machinery is wearing out and cannot be replaced, and a number of other causes are operating to make the employment of a very large number of our workers exceedingly precarious. In fact, we know that a number of them must lose their employment as time goes on, because there will be no materials on which they can work or no machines on which to work the materials.

There are some classes engaged in essential services, flour millers, bakers perhaps, creamery workers, gas workers, and other workers engaged in sanitary and other public services who, because of the essential character of their work, can no doubt put this community in the position that they would have to meet their demands in order to ensure that the work was carried on. But all these workers are the best off of the working classes. I may say also that I have found amongst them, not merely reasonableness, but a complete understanding of the necessity for the control which the Government has imposed. It is these classes of workers, whose employment is secure, who are engaged upon essential services, whose rates of wages are high in comparison with the average rate of wages of workers, and they only who are in a position to force from their employers a substantial increase in wages. Let us take the case of turf to which Deputy Davin and Deputy Norton referred. Perhaps in that regard it might be no harm to read, for the information of the Dáil, a recent speech of Deputy Norton.

Mr. Norton

From what is the Minister quoting?

Mr. Lemass

From the Irish Press of Monday last, from a speech of Deputy Norton at a meeting in Dublin.

Mr. Norton

That is the Bible.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy can deny the accuracy of it if he wishes:

"A further manifestation of the Government's hostility to the working class was the offering of a 32/- a week wage, less 5/- for food, to turf workers. While turf workers were only getting 32/-, Dublin coal merchants could get no less than 16/- for handling one ton of turf. Was there not reason why the workers were rebelling in the turf district?"

He went on to deal with some other matters:

The Isle of Man got Irish butter when the Irish people could not get it at home.

Mr. Lemass

We have had a number of statements made here concerning the black market, and I want to deal with these particularly. For some time past I felt that we could congratulate ourselves on the fact that what are known as black market activities were much less extensive in this country than in Great Britain or any other country in Europe about which we could get information. I am not sure that that is true any longer. It is an utterly wrong attitude for Deputies to take that the sole responsibility for checking black market activities rests on the Government. The Government alone cannot deal with them. There is no system of inspection, no system of control by Government officers, which is capable of preventing the development of illegal black market activities if the public will not stand in and help, and, while it may bring kudos to Deputy Norton and other Deputies to have headlines in the papers: "Jail the Black Market Traders," those Deputies would be doing a much more useful day's work for the country if they told the public what they must do to help the Government to suppress these black market activities, this illegal selling of goods at prices beyond those fixed by law, or in quantities in excess of those permitted.

I believe that unless we can succeed in suppressing those activities our institutions of State are in jeopardy, that we will have to make fundamental changes in the system of administering and enforcing the law. I will indicate later what I mean by that. We must try to suppress that trade, but we cannot succeed unless the public help, and the public are not helping. There is, in the minds of many people, the idea that they must not be obliged to report offences, that they commit no real crime when they themselves trade in the black market, that there is no obligation on them to come forward in the open and give evidence against this breaking of the law, even though they know that the law breakers are enemies of the people and are doing real injustice to many poor people. I have in public, on many occasions, pleaded for public co-operation, and I am asking members of the Dáil to help me to get that degree of public co-operation which will ensure that no trader will be openly able to defy the law in respect of price control or quantitative control of goods without having his crime exposed and without having a number of people coming forward willingly to testify to the courts as to the commission of the offence.

It is true we may not be able to suppress illegal trading, what is called black market activities, entirely. It exists everywhere, in every country where the Government tries to pit its forces against the economic laws and prevent a rise in prices where there is scarcity and where there are selfish people willing to buy and to secure for themselves the supplies that rightly belong to others, using their higher purchasing power for that purpose. Those who trade in the black market are themselves criminals like those who sell. There could be no black market if there were no buyers. Do not delude yourselves into believing that all the buyers in the black market are rich people. Human nature operates irrespective of class, and people think they are clever and wise if they can snaffle somebody else's share of the supplies, even at enhanced prices.

We have to get rid of that mentality. We have to make those people who buy goods in the black market realise that they also are contributing to the development of that evil and that they also are enemies of the people; that every ounce of tea, or every pound of sugar that they get in excess of what they are entitled to, means that there is some family unable to get its appropriate ration.

I ask Deputies not to waste their time denouncing the Government because a black market exists, but to help the Government in suppressing it. We have brought a large number of traders to court, and fines have been imposed on them. In 95 per cent. of these cases the evidence had to be secured by outdoor officers of the Department. In not 5 per cent. of the cases was the evidence available from members of the public. Until we change that we cannot hope to win this battle against this form of illegal trading, which we must suppress unless we are to be faced with much graver decisions.

Deputy Norton tells us to jail black market traders. I and every member of the House could reiterate the hope that black market traders will get jail, but Deputy Norton knows, as every other Deputy knows, that this is not a matter for the Government. It would be a very serious matter for us to contemplate a change in the constitutional provisions for the trial of offences against the law. There are certain principles of personal liberty which must be preserved as long as we can preserve them. Every man who is suspected of an offence is innocent until he is proved guilty. He is entitled to a trial before an impartial judge, an independent judge—and by independent I mean not subject to the orders of or pressure from the Executive Council. He is entitled to be convicted only upon the testimony sworn to in the court. We should preserve these principles as long as we can— trial by an independent judge and conviction only upon sworn testimony. It is for the judge to decide what penalty is appropriate to the offence. The law enables the judge to send offenders of this class to jail for long terms. It enables the judge to impose heavy money penalties, or both a jail sentence and a money penalty.

So far as the law is concerned there is no restriction on the liberty of the judges to take that action, and I agree with Deputies that many of our district justices do not appear to have realised the importance which the public attach to offences of this character, and have not made the penalties imposed by them appear to reflect the importance of the offence. It is, of course, difficult to criticise the decision of a judge when one has not heard all the evidence in a case, and I am not purporting to criticise now, but a great deal of public disquiet has been created by the fact that the general run of penalties inflicted by district justices for offences against the Emergency Powers Order relating to price control and rationing are unduly low.

I want to make it quite clear that I have no desire in the least to put the Irish Trade Union Congress in a false position or to misrepresent it. It is true they expressed opposition to the whole principle of wage control. They based their opposition to that principle on the ground that it was unnecessary, that the trade union movement would themselves impose the checks which they recognised the existing circumstances called for, and do that voluntarily; but they did say that, if the Government were committed to the principle of control, the system might usefully be improved in certain respects, and the Government was guided by the representations of the Irish Trade Union Congress. I have nothing further to say except that, if the contention put forward by Opposition speakers is seriously meant —that we cannot increase taxation under present circumstances and that we should not borrow to meet a budgetary deficit, while they urged increased expenditure at the same time—I hope they will indicate how the money is to be obtained.

Mr. Cosgrave

May I ask the Minister one question? Has the Minister or his Department, on application by a person for a commodity in short supply, stated they could not get a supply, and was the person advised that it was available in the black market?

Mr. Lemass

No.

Mr. Cosgrave

Definitely not?

Mr. Lemass

Definitely not.

The Deputy will appreciate that, while it is practicable to fix a unit price for a commodity sold loose, it may be difficult to fix a price for it packed under various conditions. A number of firms selling flake oatmeal did use fairly elaborate packages, which involved a higher price and people were prepared to pay for that. The fixed price is for the meal sold loose.

Mr. Byrne

But they refused to sell it loose.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy O'Higgins.

Mr. Dockrell

Surely, it would be elementary that, in issuing a price list such as is brought forward here by Deputy Hurley, the minimum priced package, the cheapest package, would be included. Surely it is not contended that people can come and take oatmeal away in their hands. That is only bringing these price orders into disrepute.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy does not understand it.

Mr. Hickey

I want to tell the Minister——

An Ceann Comhairle

This is not a debate on the administration of the Department of Supplies.

Mr. Lemass

There will be an opportunity in due course.

Dr. O'Higgins

It has often been said that "imitation is the highest form of flattery". I never met a person so annoyed by flattery as the Minister who has just sat down. He opened his speech by a vigorous and virulent attack on Deputy Davin, because of the Deputy's reference to the Civil Service. In the course of the Deputy's references, I was struck with a reminiscence of the Minister's own speeches regarding civil servants, when he was over here and toured the country in political opposition to the then Government. That particular section of Deputy Davin's speech could be taken from any one of the Minister's speeches of ten years ago. I think that explained the Minister's annoyance and his pretence of vehement heat. He felt he was being thrashed with one of his own discarded sticks. He went further to accuse the Labour Party of insincerity and of making one type of speech for the city man and the city audience and another type of speech for the country audience in rural areas.

That was the technique developed by the Minister and his colleague, and brought to the finest art ever known in this country. Again, he was incensed, he was annoyed, he was white hot at the idea that any other persons, or any other Party should use the step-ladder that put him where he is. We heard a speech that, in so far as it related to the Budget, was based on two pillars, that, if more money was wanted for any new purpose it could only be found by taxation or by borrowing. Consequently, anybody who advocated any new expenditure in any direction, was automatically advocating either further borrowing or further taxation.

I listened to the Minister's speech from beginning to end, and after one and a half hours I never heard the word "economy" mentioned. There was no suggestion at any point that there was anywhere any room for retrenchment, that there was any possibility through any machinery of economy, of finding as much as a £10 note to be expended in a new field of expenditure. Yet, the Minister blew red hot with the charge that the Labour Party were making insincere speeches. He is the outstanding personality who toured this country, and carried it, with the argument to develop more and better social services of one kind or another, and do it all through the avenue of economy, without putting one halfpenny of extra taxation on the people. Is economy a word that has passed out of our vocabulary with the change of Government? Is economy such an instrument that it is unworthy of use, merely because there is a change of Government? Is the State to be run on the lines that, no matter how much extra expenditure there has to be in any one direction, there cannot be curtailment in any other direction?

What has become of the grand speeches we heard at the outbreak of war, when we were naturally faced with new and heavy expenditure, about the economy commission that hoped to devise ways and means of retrenchment, so that the bulk of the new expenditure would be met by economies? What has become of all those high-sounding phrases about equal sacrifices for all. Is there to be curtailment and retrenchment in the humblest homes but none in any Government Departments? These Government Departments have now more and more satellites, more runners, more clerical assistants of one kind or another. Are they to be growing and growing, spending more and more, when in every home, the wealthy, the middle class, the poor or the pauper, there has got to be retrenchment, and more and more retrenchment as one month passes another? Is that putting into operation the phrase: "Equal sacrifices for all in the face of danger, and while passing through the emergency." I never heard such a tirade of quite obviously insincere cant as I listened to for the last one and a half hours. There was a charge of misrepresentation against everybody whose views do not coincide in every respect with those of the Minister.

I see in this Budget a number of danger signals. How dangerous some of them are I certainly do not pretend to understand but, in so far as the management of the national home is a headline for the management of each home, then I think we have established as disastrous a precedent as it would be possible for any people to establish. We had the Minister for Finance standing up, and riding away on a phrase, with millions at his back. We had a few simple phrases, that it is common now for budgets to be unbalanced. We had another phrase to the effect that it is easy to acquire the habit of spending, but difficult to pull up or check it. Having uttered these two phrases, one an obvious commonsense remark, and the other containing a certain amount of wisdom, the Minister immediately proceeded to put into practice, and to make it painfully clear to everybody, that a Government just like a person having got into the habit of spending, finds it impossible to curtail expenditure. As he said, there may be periodic spasms of virtue, but they are as fleeting as new year resolutions. Instead of new year resolutions he might have said Fianna Fáil promises.

What is the headline set in this Budget? The headline set for every family is this: "Spend all you want to spend and borrow the balance." That is the way to run a house. Whatever you want buy it, and whenever you are short, borrow. The only difference between the Government and a house is that it means bankruptcy for a house. I do not know what it means for a Government. I listened to the Minister for Finance and his colleagues when they were over here, shaking the walls of this Assembly with their denunciations of the men who were then over there, if the Budget had the appearance of not being balanced to the extent of a threepenny bit. These were difficult times, costly times, when very considerable sums of money outside the normal had to be found, but now we are told that because countries at war find it impossible to balance their budgets, the day of balanced budgets is gone. I describe the Budget essentially as a lazy man's Budget, merely totting up revenue and totting up expenditure and borrowing the difference.

I should like to be informed by somebody if all the old-time conceptions of national finance that were preached from Government Benches— not by one Government but by many Governments—were all so much froth, if there was no substance in them, no conviction in them; if, in fact, they were only just phrases to fool Deputies or to fool taxpayers in normal times, and that it took a war to demonstrate the fact that they were only phrases that were not meant, and did not bear the stamp of truth. I can quite see that a country at war has got to finance a war. It has got to risk going "broke", in the fullest sense of the word, in order to fight that war, if possible, to victory. Standards of finance, sound in normal times, must be departed from in time of war. The justification for such Governments and Ministers for Finance is: "We are at war." I do not admit that there is a carry-over of that justification. I do not concede for one moment that because countries at war have entirely departed from any attempt to balance budgets, a small, poor country at peace is entitled to gobble that, hook, line and all, and say that all our previous conceptions of finance must go by the board, that there is no responsibility even to put a face on balancing a budget and that, whatever the difference between revenue and expenditure, it can be met by borrowing. It may be sound, but it is a precedent that I believe will remain as a shadow over this House for a great many generations of government.

There was no attempt in the Budget to pick out certain things and say: "That expenditure is creating an asset; consequently, it is the type of expenditure that, quite properly, should be met by borrowing." There was no attempt to pick out other items and say: "These are items of expenditure a percentage of which is quite properly attributable to the emergency, which is temporary, and these particular items, (a) to (e), may quite properly be met by borrowing." There was no attempt at that. There was merely a bald statement to this effect: our revenue is so much, our expenditure is so much, and whatever the gap is—the lazy man's way out—will be met by borrowing.

Did the Minister pause to consider, before he made that statement, the door he was opening in this Parliament? People, rightly or wrongly, expect a Minister for Finance to understand finance. No matter whether they criticise a Minister for Finance or not, they regard him as a man who is speaking with authority and knowledge on financial matters. What is our headline in this Budget? Whatever we may require and demand, there is no longer the answer to be made from a Government Bench that conceding that demand would mean the imposition of taxation which might fall on the backs of the poorest people and that, because the demand would necessitate that taxation and that hardship, no matter how sound the demand, it must be refused. That was an answer that was always available to every Minister for Finance until yesterday evening. From yesterday evening onwards, such an answer can never again be given. The headline laid down now is that whatever is required and however it enlarges the gap between revenue and expenditure, we need not bother; it can be met by borrowing. The very minute you come to the point that, without naming specific items and justifying the claim to meet these specific items by borrowing, where do you find yourself? You find yourself in this position: that whether the gap between expenditure and revenue is £500,000, £1,500,000 £2,500,000, £3,500,000 £4,500,000 or £44,000,000, there is no need to worry; it can be met by borrowing. Having listened to the speech made by the Minister for Supplies, in which reference was made to the dire hardship and poverty caused by galloping and rising prices in the poorest houses in the State, if the principle laid down in the Budget is sound—that whatever you want, you can get by borrowing— why stop at £4,500,000? Why not borrow the whole £44,000,000 that is required to run the country this year, have no taxation at all and reduce the cost of living in the poorest houses by having no taxes on the necessaries of life? That is a degree further, but it is only proceeding along the road marked out by the Minister for Finance.

I am not a conservative in finance. I am not a master of finance. I am a sufficiently humble student of finance —perhaps a sufficiently gullible student of finance—to believe what I hear from the Minister for Finance. But I am not the kind of student who believes what he hears in 1940 and, when told the opposite in 1942, disbelieves everything he heard in 1940. Financial statements, coming from a Minister, make a certain impression on my mind and I do not forget them just as quickly as it might suit some Ministers for me to do so. The Minister himself, in his more hectic days, very frequently led the band in denunciation of unbalanced budgets. Now, he gets up and calmly tells us it is the fashion and, because it is the fashion and is the easiest way, it is right. It is only a year ago since the Minister told us: "A very good case is made for this and a very good case is made for something else, but we cannot provide even things that are highly desirable without imposing further crushing taxation on the people." All those are antiques. These are discarded doctrines, that no longer are correct or, rather, they are incorrect because they have ceased to be fashionable and they have ceased to be fashionable because they have ceased to be universal. What it amounts to in effect is this, as I said before: spend what you want to spend and borrow the difference. Is that a sound headline? Is it a sound headline either for the State or the individual household in the State? Is it a headline that can be followed only when other countries are at war? If it is a headline that can be followed safely when other countries are at war and when we are at peace, then it is a headline that can be, and should be, just as safely followed when other countries are at peace and we are at peace.

If there is any soundness in the headline and the precedent established in this Budget, then we should never again have a household in this country with an income of less than £5 a week, whether they are in work or out of work. Is it sound finance that whatever money you want, you should borrow it, that there is no obligation on anybody to economise and that there is no obligation on anybody who enters into new financial commitments in one direction to entrench in any other direction? We have that not only from one Minister, we have had it from the two Ministers who have spoken in this debate. We have the headline from the Minister for Finance: spend what you want and borrow the balance; and we have the clear-cut statement by the Minister for Supplies that there are only two ways in which money can be procured, that is, by borrowing and extra taxation. Economy has gone out of fashion. It has been put out of fashion by the Party that became a Government by the weight, strength, vigour and enthusiasm of their economy campaign throughout the country. It is either a tragedy or a joke that, when the cost of running this country was about £22,000,000 a year, the poor boobs of the electorate were caught with the chaff of that Party when they said that the country could not afford the Government that was in office then, that they had gone into the whole thing and that they could reduce expenditure in the country by £2,000,000 a year without interfering with the social services to the extent of one halfpenny. Is there anybody opposite who is proud of that? Is it not a most disgraceful thing that the destiny of a country such as this, and of the people living in it, should fall to be controlled by a Government of men who, in endeavouring to get into office, rely on that kind of propaganda and, when they are in office, enunciate the principle that no money can be found by economy or that there is no responsibility on anybody to find money by economy; that whatever money you want, if you do not get it easily by taxation, you will get it by borrowing?

Perhaps it makes for the Minister's mental equilibrium that he lives in a time of unbalanced budgets. If this Budget is a sample of hard work, thought, consideration and a feeling of responsibility for national finance, I think it is very fortunate that we had such a Minister at a time when it is the fashion to have unbalanced budgets. I wonder where he would be found if he had the job of bringing in a budget at a time when it was fashionable and sound finance to endeavour to balance budgets. As I say, I regard that at the moment as a danger signal, as a thing that is going to make trouble for successive Ministers for Finance. If the principle contained there is sound, that is, merely borrow without obligation to point out the particular items you are borrowing for or why, then it is a pity we did not discover it many years ago, but it is a certainty that, year after year, in the future, there will be demands for more and more expenditure under one head or another and that never again can a Minister for Finance answer that the resultant taxation would be too heavy for the people to bear.

I listened to the Minister for Supplies talking at great length and with great heat of the stabilisation of prices. I admired his exhibition of shadow-boxing with regard to Order No. 83 and his attempt to parade himself as the protector of the poorest workingman. When I saw that nauseating parade, it struck me that there is some truth in the old saying: "May God save me from my friends." We had this justification of Order No. 83, sound enough if we were at the beginning, that Order No. 83 was designed to prevent a rise in the cost of commodities, and if he was beginning at that end rather than at the other end. Order No. 83 would be justified—and I do not think there is anybody in any Party who would not stand for it—if Order No. 83 was applied to wages and there was a standstill of wages and there was at the same time a standstill of prices. But Order No. 83, in the face of rising prices and rapidly rising prices, ceases to have the only justification it could have for its existence.

There is a perfectly fair headline being followed by the present Government with regard to business, with regard to tenders for public contracts. Where a contract is given based on an estimate, we will say, of 6 per cent. profit, and the price of the raw materials goes up so that that 6 per cent. profit becomes a 2 per cent. profit, in spite of the law of contract, in spite of the power to compel the contractor to carry out the contract at the original price, the Government quite properly holds that the estimate of profit on the conditions existing when the contract was entered into should be honoured and that the price can be increased so as to allow the original 5 or 6 per cent. profit. It is a sound headline, and it is a thing of which I think most reasonable people would approve. The profit of the contractor or the businessman is the amount he has left over after paying outgoings. He is allowed that; that is guaranteed to him irrespective of changing prices or increasing costs.

What is the profit of the working man? The profit of the working man is the difference between his wages and the cost of running his house at the end of the week, and when the cost of necessary commodities keeps on increasing, the gap between his wages and the cost of running his house is getting narrower and narrower every week. His profits are getting smaller, until finally he reaches a point when his profits are gone and he can only carry on by eating less himself and giving less to his family. Where is the principle that is applied to the wealthier man or to the business man? Where is the principle that is fair and just when applied to stronger members of the community? That is where I see the tragedy of this Order No. 83— No. 1, in its failure to control rising prices, and No. 2, in the rigidity with which it was adhered to when it became clear that rising prices were not grappled with and not dealt with.

The same Minister in the course of his remarks adopted an attitude that is becoming only too common with Government spokesmen, namely, that no matter how bad conditions are with regard to black marketing and other forms of racketeering, no matter how criminal, illegal, nationally discreditable or demoralising they are, everybody is responsible except the Minister; everyone is responsible but the Ministry. That is an entirely unworthy line for a Minister or a Ministry to take. People in the Government accept very great powers and very great privileges, a lot of advantages and a lot of facilities. They cannot accept those powers, privileges, advantages and facilities and at the same time dodge all their responsibilities. The Minister responsible for supplies is responsible for the control and equitable distribution of supplies, and if there are sufficient commodities escaping his control to provide what he referred to as an immense black market, then the Minister has broken down on his job.

Whenever a Minister for Finance wants to put a tax of 2d., 4d. or 6d. on tea, he will make very well sure, and always has done, in advance of the Budget that he knows of every pound of tea held by wholesalers and retailers up and down the length and breadth of the land. That was done with no great expense, with great success and efficiency when it was a case of clapping a tax on tea, sugar or anything else. Yet the Minister for Supplies stood up here knowing that for some 15 months there had been a miserable ration of tea for the ordinary person in this country—so miserable that none of us could contemplate it as possible, say, three years ago—and that alongside that miserable ration, in practically any town or village or at any cross-roads, the man who was wealthy enough or fool enough to pay £1 per lb. for tea could get it ad lib. and got it ad lib. In face of that, for the Minister for Supplies to stand up and blame Deputies, blame members of the public and blame everybody else except himself and his Department, is merely a case of attempting to grab all that is good out of the job and shirk everything that is irritating.

I remember the time when the Minister and his Department wanted to collar all the paraffin oil in this country. There was a Civic Guard's nose in the petrol tank of every second car in the country to ascertain whether you were using paraffin oil or petrol. Subsequently an immense, demoralising, degrading, disgraceful black market grew up in this country in petrol. It is well known that if you were prepared, or were fool enough, to pay 15/- per gallon or if you were sufficiently in difficulties to make it necessary or expedient for you to do so, you could find many places in this city, and hundreds of places throughout the country, where you could get four gallons of petrol for £3. That was carried on for 12 months, and during that 12 months, at race meetings, football matches and sporting events of all kinds, you would see thousands of cars in the City of Dublin from the far end of the country, north, south and west. It was well known that these cars were on a ration of petrol of four gallons a month. It would not take them out of the frontiers of their own county, and not an officer of this State ever interrogated any motorist as to where he was getting the petrol; not a member of the Civic Guard in the man's own home area, who knew all about the running of cars and the amount of petrol required and whether it would be reasonable that that man could have saved up his petrol over a number of months, ever addressed a query. Yet we have a system of discs in this country for three or four days, and you have Civic Guards with so little to do that they will ask a man, travelling with a disc, what right he has to have his wife and child in the car—that he is breaking the law.

Now, there is every appearance that there is plenty of force, plenty of energy, plenty of vigilance in the wrong direction, but when we want a bit of an effort in the right direction we are told that the responsibility is on the people and not on the State or the State machine. I heard a Deputy in this House some months ago—I think it was Deputy Corish—pointing out to the Minister for Supplies that over-charging was very prevalent, that it was wide-flung, and that it was unreasonable to expect the humble citizen to write a complaint to the Minister for Supplies because many, if not most, of those people owed a bit of an account to the local shopkeeper, and if they were to put their names to a complaint, then the shopkeeper would say "pay up", and the shopkeeper's pals would do likewise, and that unfortunate person would be put through the hoop. Now, the way out that the Deputy suggested was to use authorised, officially recognised vigilance committees of volunteers — independent, well-intentioned people who would be officially recognised in the various areas, and if a person was over-charged, that person could go quietly to any member of those committees and say: "Go down the street and see what So-and-so is charging for jam", and it would then be the committee that would make the complaint, but that suggestion was scoffed at as unwieldy and unworkable. It is just another example of how very little is known and understood by the people sitting on the Front Bench opposite of conditions in the country. In the city it is true that the ordinary individual may be able to handle it himself. You have not the same tied system of a customer dealing with one shop all the time and the shopkeeper being hand-in-glove with, or the friend or neighbour of, another shopkeeper. Outside of the City of Dublin customers, in the main, dare not complain, no matter what they are charged, and their existence, in so far as supplies would go, would be impossible afterwards, quite apart from having a demand made to clear up their accounts at a time when it might be very inconvenient.

It is fashionable for Ministers opposite to get up periodically in this House and say: "Well, if you are going to criticise things, why do not you ever make a suggestion, even if it is a foolish suggestion?" I have been in this House, certainly, since the present Government took over, and it may be that we are all fools except the 12 wise men opposite, but I never yet heard a suggestion adopted or a suggestion received in the proper spirit. The behaviour of those Ministers, when it comes to criticism or when it comes to suggesting that there might be a better way of doing things, is the brassy attitude of people who have nothing to learn and cannot learn from anybody: that whoever has any different point of view from theirs is necessarily wrong, and that if their point of view is not shared by any other member of the community, then every other member of the community is wrong and they are right. It is reminiscent of the battalion of soldiers passing by and the proud mother watching out for her son, and when the soldiers come marching up, all in step, spick and span, except her son, who comes streeling along out of step, the proud mother says: "They are all out of step but my son John." We are all out of step with the Johns opposite. The only thing is that thinking people are being convinced more and more, as one day follows another, that it is John who is out of step and not the people who are making the suggestions.

There is truth in the complaint that there is no good in fixing prices by an advertisement in the papers. The papers are getting scarce, and so is money. Less and less people are seeing newspapers in this country, as one day follows another, and there is no point in saying that the obligation is on the people and that there is none on the State. The people are prepared to accept and shoulder their responsibility, but the people's suggestions as to how best they can shoulder them should be listened to. I believe, however, from what is going on in more fields of commerce than one, that we are very rapidly reaching the point in this country where we are compelling the people to think that it is only a fool that is honest. There is more open trading being done in defiance of the law—there is nearly as much as is being done inside the law— and the people who are making big money quickly by racketeering are beginning to sneer more and more at the people who are making little money slowly by leading law-abiding lives. The quicker the members of the Government, not only one but one and all, begin to understand the demoralising effect that that is going to have on our people as a whole, and particularly on the young and impressionable people, then the quicker they will make up their minds that there is some responsibility, at all events, on them to grapple with evils that have grown up under them and that have arisen out of their Orders.

Mr. Corry

The complete and sudden change of front that had to be made on the Opposition Benches, in connection with this Budget, shows that they were agreeably surprised, and the people of the country as a whole were agreeably surprised. The manner in which this Budget was got up, and the fact that there was no need for new taxation, was a very agreeable surprise to the people of the country as a whole. I, unfortunately, owing to Deputy Davin's statement in the House to-day, to the effect that we were silent and absent members and only walked into the Lobby to vote, and owing, I suppose, to the fact that there is a peculiar kink in me, and also owing to the fact that the official Opposition in this House has been gagged by an Act of Parliament known as No. 38 of 1938, as a result of which we have to do a little criticising ourselves in order to keep things up to the mark—I, unfortunately, as I say, feel that I have to make some criticism here. My objection to this Budget is that, in my opinion, a little more might have been done, that a little more might have been devoted definitely to finding employment for those who have none, to get work for the people of this country.

Now, I am, first of all a farmer, and I know my farming, and I could not agree with statements that I heard here to-day in regard to credit facilities for farmers. Deputy Davin said there was a lot of derelict land in the country because there was no money available to till it. I do not think there is any of it in the County Cork, and if the local authorities did their part there would not be any of it in any county. I have protested frequently against the peculiar mentality of the Government which puts the obligation on local authorities of providing money for seeds and manures for farmers who have not the wherewithal to purchase them themselves. A scheme making provision for that is there, and if taken advantage of by the local authorities and the agricultural community we need not have any land either untilled or unseeded. Deputy Hughes told us about all that could be done on the land if credit facilities were available: the drainage that could be carried out and all the employment that could be given. I do not believe in lending money to farmers and charging them high rates of interest for doing work of that description. The Government have gone 100 per cent. in providing credit facilities for farmers to enable them to drain and reclaim their land, because the farmer who undertakes that class of work and employs labour on it is helped to the extent of 50 per cent. of the cost by money provided by the Government. There is no need, therefore, for him to go to the Agricultural Credit Corporation or to any other body if he wants to do work of that kind. I think it is right that I should say that, and give credit where credit is due. It is far better that the farmers should get money in that way than in any other to do this work.

Deputy Hughes complained about sugar rationing and said that, in his opinion, the ¾ lb. per person will not be available next year. The Deputy must not have read the statement issued by the Sugar Company to the effect that the reason why sugar is being rationed is because they are laying in reserves lest there should be any kind of a breakdown. Therefore, there will be a ration of sugar for next year, but unfortunately we are in this position, that even if we succeed this year in getting the full acreage of beet grown—the same as last year— acre for acre—the production will be 40,000 tons less than last year. That will be the position, even though we do our best. I maintain that the loss of these 40,000 tons has not been made up by the increase of 10/- a ton given by the Sugar Company for beet. I would be far happier if the statement made by the Minister for Finance, when introducing the Budget, in relation to sugar had been made a week before the price for beet was fixed for the season 1942-43.

We had complaints about agricultural wages. Deputy Davin mistook the minimum wage for the maximum and did not know how the Minister fixed the maximum. There is no trouble in fixing the maximum wage. You have fixed prices for wheat, oats, barley and beet, so that it is very easy for the farmer to know what he can pay his labourer. That is his maximum. In regard to the money that is voted here for employment schemes to cover the period from November to April, when in the usual run of things employment in the farming business is slack and when a certain number of men are laid off, it would, in my opinion, be better if those men were employed, not on Government schemes at a lesser rate than the minimum agricultural wage but in agriculture at the minimum agricultural wage. I think plenty of work could be found to keep them, as well as every agricultural labourer who wanted employment, engaged from November to March at that rate. I may be asked could we find the money to do that?

According to the statements made by Deputy Mulcahy, it is the easiest thing in the world to find. He spoke of the millions of credit we are piling up in respect of our cattle exports and of our being unable to bring in anything in return. If his statement be true, we have £125,000,000 in the banks of this country. If so, there is plenty of money available, and it ought to be put into circulation so as to keep our young men employed at home.

The Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, told us that the price paid for first-quality cattle exported since the beginning of 1940 has increased by only 10 per cent. If the people across the water are not prepared to pay the cost of production to our farmers for the food we send them, and if what they do pay is only going to be laid up for us in the shape of credits and we cannot get any of the things we require from them, then my advice would be to stop exports. It may be a bold thing to say that the fat cattle we exported during the last six months could very well have been fed to our own poor people who are on a ration of a half ounce of tea and are also rationed in their bread. They could well eat them all.

Mr. Keating

I think the Deputy is talking through his hat.

Mr. Corry

That is your opinion. If what I suggest were done the cattle would be of more value in building up strong, healthy people here than in having all these pound notes at the other side which, if this war goes on, may become as of little value as the German mark was after the last war. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again on Tuesday, 12th May.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.30 p.m. until 3 p.m., Tuesday, 12th May, 1942.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 7 May 1942

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 6—General—(Resumed).

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 May 1942