I rise to support the motion. I do so despite the castigation I received from the Minister in the last debate, even though lie gave it to me in a somewhat kindly manner. My temerity is strengthened,, despite what the Minister may say either in regard to the adequacy of the allowance or the possibility of the national Exchequer meeting the increased cost, by the fact that those wives and children of soldiers in the National Army are required to exist on a standard of living that is not a compliment to this nation and is an actual disgrace to those who accept responsibility for, it. It is not necessary, I thinik, for Deputy Connolly to bring into this House a long list of individual oases to prove the hardships these women and children are going through. I do not think that anybody in this House is more familiar with the actual position than the Minister. I think that the very personal interest he takes in the men committed to his charge is sufficient to imbue him with a desire to know how and in what manner these human beings who are depending on the charity of his Department, depending on their breadwinners in the Army, are managing to live under present conditions. As this knowledge is so widespread, and as every Deputy would support this motion, there is little or no need to go into the actual details of the lack of food, clothing, boots and shoes, the difficulty of paying rent, and the evictions of soldiers' families from houses in this city. These are ever-pressing burdens that weigh on these women and children.
I suggested in the previous debate-that we should have regard to this problem, not as one of ordinary finance, but as an emergency problem, and that we should have recourse to borrowing. Following the lines of Deputy Dillon and all those who claim the credit of having the Children's Allowances Bill introduced, if a number of Deputies continue to press this matter we may eventually, by the time we are old and grey, get some results. We will not quarrel as to who can claim the credit. We will be willing to forgo any credit and give it to the Minister if he will carry with him into the Chamber of the Executive Government a little more of that martial ardour which he tries to impart to the Army and make a more effective fight to get a larger financial equipment in order to give a larger amount to these women and children.
In the course of the debate on the Children's Allowances Bill, we came up against the same problem that we always seem to meet with when it is a question of presenting a demand of this character to Ministers—that no matter how good Deputies' intentions may be, and how much they plead for the children or the parents who have to maintain them, they are always tied down and circumscribed by the cost of this burden that we are told is always being placed on the general taxpayer. It is an amazing thing, however, that when the Government actually come to allocating the burden they take very good care to see that the biggest share of that burden is placed on the shoulders of those taxpayers who are least able to bear it, and placed in such a fashion that the average man and woman in the street do not realise that they are carrying the burden. As I said the other day, I estimate that the ordinary man or woman completely depending for a livelihood on remuneration in the way of wages, is carrying 70 per cent. of the taxes imposed by the State.
I listened to the Minister for Industry and Commerce indignantly repudiating the suggestion that the cost of the children's allowances should be met out of borrowing. He said that he was legislating, not for to-day or tomorrow, but for a permanent feature of our social services and therefore the cost could not be met by borrowing, that we must regard it as being part of our normal commitments, and put it on that basis. I suggest to the Minister for Defence, that whatever case the Minister for Industry and Commerce may be able to make against the suggestion of his borrowing to meet his commitments, at least in this particular field of defence there is an entirely different situation. At least 70 per cent. of the expenditure on defence that we are committed to at present is abnormal expenditure flowing purely out of emergency conditions which may end within a reasonable or short time. Surely, it there is any case to be made for borrowing, here is a case. Even the Minister will agree, I think, that the scale of allowances given to these women and children is not adequate, even though at the same time he may argue that he cannot obtain any more for them. If we are agreed upon the need, if we realise that, we are dealing with the wives and children of men who are giving front-line service to the nation, not just men who joined the Army because they were unemployed, because they could not obtain work, because they could not leave the country —thousands of them actually walked out of good jobs, with good wages, with good prospects of promotion and security, and took on themselves the duty and the burden of serving as privates in the National Army—surely we must recognise that there is something more than the question of cost, that there is a human factor to be considered. There is a claim upon our national dignity and honour to meet, to give to these women and children who have been thrown on our good and human feelings by their bread winners who have gone into the Army at least a measure of life that will make it unnecessary for them to suffer the hardships that they have at present to bear.
Therefore, I would urge that, if we quarrel about whether there should be an increased income-tax or whether the fellow with £30,000 a year should pay more than the fellow with £250 a year, we could agree that, if this is an emergency situation, if our swollen expenditure on the Army and all that is incidental to it is emergency expenditure that may end within a reasonably short time, and if there is this real need on the part of these women and children, it could be met in an emergency manner by borrowing to tide us over this immediate period. We have borrowed for other purposes. We have carried our Budget in an unbalanced state. We have, in the case of the Electricity Supply Board, advanced money to the amount of £12,000,000 and for years we did not look for a penny back from them. That is an ordinary commercial undertaking. The Electricity Supply Board has always boasted that it is a commercial undertaking, yet they were not dealt with in a commercial way. The subject with which we are dealing to-night is not commerce. We are dealing with human flesh and blood and we are seeing harm done to the bodies of, these children that neither we nor anybody coming after us in this generation can ever remedy because many of these children will carry the scars produced by deficient food and clothing, not only during their formative years but, in many cases, down through the years of their lives. That is the price we are asking them to pay because in a great many cases—I am not saying in all cases-- but in a great many cases, their fathers answered the call of this Assembly and this nation, and undertook a duty for which they received much less recompense than they would have received if they had ignored that call and carried on in their normal occupations and continued to enjoy the good wages that many of them did enjoy before they joined the National Army.
There has been a suggestion made— and it is not a suggestion that has originated in this House; it has actually come from the soldiers themselves—that this deferred pay of 6d. a day to which, the Minister referred in replying to the debate on the Army Vote, should not be held over until after the war. The soldiers do not want to wait for it until after the war because on those who are married and have families the burden is so great to-day that the entire value of receiving the accumulated money at the end of the war will be nullified in their case if they have to continue under their present conditions. Regardless of what may be the conditions after the war, their problem is a present-day problem, not even a problem of year to year but of day to day and hour to hour, and they require all of the income, all the financial support, they can gather together from any source. They have suggested—and many of them have told me—that they would far prefer to receive that payment now in the form of an extra 6d. per day so as to have it going into their homes, rather than have it accumulating and put to their credit when the war ends.
I suggest that is a point that might be considered, at least in the case of married men with families. In the case of single men it may be an argument that it should be held and given to them as a means of tiding them over the immediate period of transition when they are demobilised. But, if as I say—and I doubt if even the Minister will deny, it—there is thi real need existing, and if we do recognise it, surely we should respond to the men whose money this 6d. a day really is and, if they want it now and want it passed over to their wives and children, surely we should not be the people to stand in the way.
In the course of the previous debate on this matter the Minister took me to task because, as he said, I was not as careful in getting my facts as I should have been. I am always glad to be corrected by the Minister, but it seems to me we have different conceptions in this particular matter. When I was referring to the amount. given to a particular individual in the National Army and mentioned the sum of £2 3s. Od. being given to his wife and nine children, I was speaking specifically of the dependents' allowances, and nothing else. The actual words I used were: "When we consider that, in the City of Dublin, the Department of Defence and the Minister responsible require the wife and nine children of a sergeant in the National Army to exist on a sum of £2 3s. Od. per week." I accept the correction of the Minister, that the rate is £2 5s. 6d., and give him the credit of the other half-crown, but it still does not alter the fact that, so far as the Department of Defence and the Government are concerned, the amount they lay down for the support of that wife and nine children is £2 5s. 6d. a week and all the argument and all the quotation of additional sums docs not get away from that fact. The Minister aays that I have ignored the fact that the sergeant Hots 28/- a week. Agreed. But the sergeant would get 28/- a week if he never had a family.