Will you form a Government yourself? No. Before this business is disposed of it seems to be the very nadir of futility on the part of the Leader of the Labour Party to come here and say that he will not support Deputy de Valera, that he will not support Deputy Cosgrave, and that he will do nothing himself. If nobody forms a Government we are bound to have chaos in the country. I doubt if anybody aspires very eagerly to the honours of the office in the present crisis. Whoever takes it on knows that he is going to undertake a thankless and an arduous task. I would say that the Labour Party are afraid to shoulder that responsibility as, if they were not afraid, they would have some more constructive policy to offer than merely to be afraid to say "yes" or "no". I have more respect for the man who will get up and do something. I heard all sorts of encomiums of Deputy de Valera being the greatest man the world has ever seen, to which I will not subscribe, but I say that he is very nearly the greatest politician that the world has ever seen. He is, probably, the astutest politician in Europe. He is one of the most astute politicians in the world and, if Deputy Norton thinks that he can make ducks and drakes of a politican like Deputy de Valera he will have to think again, because Deputy de Valera will make circles around him and the Deputy will not know it.
Here we are, 137 elected Deputies in whom ultimately the fate of this country depends. The people have chosen us. We have a high and honourable office, and we have the courage to discharge the duties attached to it. At this moment 137 men and women act before the world on behalf of the Irish nation. Now I make no disguise of the fact that Deputy Cosgrave's outlook and record in this country commands my respect—my affectionate respect—and admiration and, if I had to work under anyone, there is no man I would be prouder to work under than Deputy William T. Cosgrave. The fact remains that Deputy de Valera is the leader of the biggest Party in this House. I am a believer in the Party system. I may have misunderstood certain Deputies who spoke here to-day, but I seem to remember that some of them said that the Irish people had expressed disapproval of the Party system. I do not believe that. I believe implicitly in Parliamentary democracy. I am a Party man, and I make no concealment of the fact that it is irksome to me to be outside Party. I think Independent Deputies in a deliberative Assembly can do very little good, but the times are abnormal and the Irish people, because of the fact that the times are abnormal, have indicated very clearly by their votes that for the duration of this abnormal time they want the Party system suspended but not abolished. I think they are perfectly right in that. Just as we surrendered a great many of our most precious liberties into the keeping of the Government for the duration of the crisis, I believe the Irish people want to suspend the Party system now, but to keep it in suspension until the crisis is over. They look to see it preserved and protected so that it can come into play post-war as the most effective instrument for the preservation of individual liberty in any nation.
I am not one of those to bow down in admiration of the Russian system, the German system or the Italian system. I think they are all equally beastly. Parliamentary democracy is the best system that I have yet seen working for the preservation of human liberty and indissolubly associated with it is the Party system. It is not perfect. No human institution is perfect. The work of man will never be ideal, but under the Party system men can maintain freedom and dignity. I want to see it maintained. I seriously suggest to 137 Deputies that we are putting that system in jeopardy to-day as a permanent feature of our public life if we do not form a national Government. Some people say that the democratic system of Government is unequal to an emergency. I deny it. If the democratic system is worked by men worthy of the trust of the people it will work. It is working in Britain in face of the greatest crisis that has ever confronted the British people. There you have high Tories and extreme Left-Wing Labour men burying their differences and coming together in the Cabinet, because they recognise the magnitude of the perils that face their people. The trouble is that in this country the people do not recognise—just as some Deputies do not recognise—the magnitude of the perils that face us. There are elements in this country—who will deny it—who would like to take advantage of any confusion that might eventuate on the decision we give to argue that the time had come for the abolition of the democratic system and to substitute for it some other system. I want to ask the House, as a test of its courage and of its character, to defend freedom against those who would destroy it. If this House is going to embark for a protracted period on futile vacillation, culminating in a general election precipitated by the pique of Deputy de Valera, because of some minor reverse in a decision in this House, the forces concerned to abolish Parliamentary democracy will be immensely strengthened. I want to demonstrate to our people what I know is true, that Parliamentary democracy properly worked is the best instrument of Government for carrying our people through the crisis.
The Taoiseach gave an admirable demonstration of that when France fell. I remember those weeks well, when everyone felt that the moment of invasion was at our door. There was then some real danger that we saw. There was no question of words, no question of speculation. We knew that at any minute the foreigner might set his foot on our soil. What did we do? Did we sit down and conduct a debate? We did not. We met in the Taoiseach's room. He sent for us and we were glad to go. The Labour Party came, the Fine Gael Party, of which I was then a member, came. Everybody came, and I think the Taoiseach will be constrained to admit that in those anxious hours leading up to the establishment of the Defence Conference he received material assistance from Deputies on every side. We were in conference with him as to how best to constitute the body which was to remove the question of the defence of this nation out of the sphere of Party politics.
Is not that true? Does he throw his mind back to the days when we were testing formulas and trying to arrive at an agreed programme? Does he remember the hours when it seemed as if, through some futility, there might be a breach between us? But sitting together around a table we found the form of words to say what we all desired to say and built upon it was the Defence Conference of which the present Minister for Defence said that it did good work, and, in respect of which he was prepared to say, behind closed doors where it worked, that the work was good, the co-operation generous, and the results excellent. Defence was then the most urgent problem of this country. I want to tell this House now that getting our people through the next two or three years safe is the most urgent problem that confronts the 137 Deputies of this House. Are we fit to do now what our much despised predecessors were equal to when they decided to have the Defence Conference? You cannot have a Defence Conference for economics, for agriculture, or for any other branch of Government. When the Defence Conference was established the only division of Government that called for emergency action was Defence. We take it now that every Department of Government calls for that same emergency approach, the high resolve to lay aside our differences until this crisis is over, to get through together in the belief that we ought to have a common desire to save our people and our country whatever the cost to ourselves, and in the firm resolve that when the crisis is overcome we shall return to the full undiluted system of Parliamentary democracy with the full thrust and parry of Party debate across the floor of this House. That is the way the liberties of our people can be preserved. I say to you deliberately that if we are unequal to this situation now we may be singing here the swan song of the only institution that can preserve the liberties of our people intact.
These facts being so, I want to ask Deputy de Valera will he invite representatives from the Fine Gael Party, the Labour Party and Clann na Talmhan to join his Cabinet. That is all I want to know. I do not conceal the fact that I should wish to see Deputy Cosgrave sitting where Deputy de Valera sits now, but the people have decided otherwise, and I accept the fact. If the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, will announce that he is prepared to form a Government consisting of his own colleagues and representatives of Fine Gael, Labour and Clann na Talmhan, I will vote for him. He is quite free to say, and could justly say, that he would fix all and sundry with notice that that coalition will subsist only so long as the crisis subsists, and that at the conclusion he will advise a dissolution and a return to the Party system that obtained here before. He has the prescriptive right, as being the Leader of the largest Party in this House and in the country, to make that offer first if it accepts it and if he makes it. But if he does not, and if we are to lapse back for the next three or four years into Party wrangling, culminating in a general election, which will be precipitated by Deputy de Valera on the ground that contentious Parties in this House had made it impossible for him to pursue a coherent policy—because that is the issue he will put to the country—I say that democracy and freedom in this country will be done irreparable damage. Rather than afford him the opportunity of doing that, I think this House should turn in full confidence to Deputy Cosgrave and ask him that his Party and the Fianna Fáil Party should take in hand the task of forming a national Government that will endure for the period of the crisis. I want to join with Deputy MacEoin in saying that my long experience of Deputy Cosgrave has been that he is a man whose word is better than his bond. If he gave his written bond he also has the brains to get out of it if he chose to do so, but if he gave his word, then if there was any ambiguity Deputy Cosgrave always interpreted that ambiguity against himself. He is the kind of man who, in his peculiar position, can be fully confided with the powers of choosing a national Government in the certainty that if given the position of Taoiseach he would not misuse it for any Party advantage, but would, as truly as he could do it, reproduce the people's will.
I am a Parliamentarian. I believe in Parliament, and I say now that Deputy de Valera's duty is to form this national Government. If he were prepared to undertake it, I would not desire to see that duty passed to another. He is the people's choice for that duty, but if he is afraid to undertake it, if he will not face the difficult task of undertaking it, then I ask Deputy Cosgrave to undertake it.
