Of the subjects notified to me for discussion on the Taoiseach's Vote, I am ruling the following as being in order:— (1) Postwar policy re trade and commerce, supplies and finance (Fine Gael); (2) State interference (Fine Gael); (3) Plans for the rehabilitation of returning emigrants (Labour); (4) Policy in regard to social services and to a comprehensive social insurance scheme (Labour and National Labour); (5) Policy in regard to vocational organisation (National Labour). Several other topics of which I received notice are not—as I informed the Deputies submitting them—proper to this discussion at all, since they deal with matters of policy or administration clearly within the province of other Ministers, on whose Votes they were, or might have been raised. On the discussion of the Estimates, each Minister answers directly to the Dáil for Government policy as carried out by his Department and the Taoiseach cannot, therefore, be asked to answer for matters which are purely the concern of another Minister's Department. This debate is, or should be, confined to major aspects of general Government policy which could be dealt with effectively only by the Head of the Government. I also received notice from Deputy Dillon to raise the question of the constitutional position of Ireland. That, I think, would more properly arise on the Vote for External Affairs.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 3—Department of the Taoiseach.
May I make a submission?
If my interpretation of the Deputy's notice is correct, he intends to refer to the position of this country vis-á-vis other countries or the British Commonwealth.
May I make a submission?
Certainly.
The matter which I proposed to raise has no reference to any other country or the seven seas surrounding this country, but relates exclusively to the territory on which we stand. I desire to inquire in some detail of the Taoiseach, in vacuo, are we a Republic or are we not, because nobody seems to know?
If it is really in vacuo, the Deputy's motion would arise on the Vote.
It is divorced from the seven seas, without any reference except to the soil on which we stand.
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £11,320 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st day of March, 1946, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Taoiseach (No. 16 of 1924; No. 40 of 1937; and No. 38 of 1938).
Of the total Estimate, the sum of £5,700 has already been granted by means of the Vote on Account. The sum now asked for is required to complete the total of £17,020 which is the estimated expenditure for the current year. Last year the Estimate was for the sum of £15,571. Accordingly there is a net increase of £1,449. That increase is due almost entirely to the provision for payment of salaries and wages and bonus on the higher cost-of-living figure. I do not think there is any necessity to analyse the various sub-heads at this stage. If any questions are asked in relation to them, I shall be glad to answer them.
I would have imagined that in approaching the House at this stage with this Estimate, the Taoiseach would have addressed himself to the general state of affairs in the country as regards the future economic well-being of the people. I think it an extraordinary thing that the Taoiseach has not attempted to do so. We have just gone through a long period of emergency and war. If the Taoiseach does not want to listen——
That is not true. I was about to go out for a brief period as I shall be here until 9 o'clock to-night.
I undertake to be very brief. I simply want to refer to a few things to which the Taoiseach might have addressed himself. I do so entirely with our eyes on the future. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that we have gone through an extraordinary state of affairs in the world, and that a very extraordinary state of affairs, economically, socially and politically has been brought about. We see that the United States of America and Great Britain are in negotiation with each other as to whether following the giving of a tremendous amount of material and food under Lease-Lend, the United States will give Great Britain a substantial vote in dollars to equip their people to trade with one another and so establish in their respective countries an economic state of affairs based upon the development of plans for full employment for the whole of the community, an absolutely essential prerequisite for any kind of decent living for the people either in Great Britain or the United States. That is one of the pointers which we see in the world situation to-day that indicates the extraordinary situation in which we are. We are not necessarily going back to anything that has passed when we face a certain number of facts. When we look back at the years between 1932 and 1939, we see a period in which a Fianna Fáil policy of a particular kind was put into operation which had a certain effect on the economic well-being of our people. Following that, the country faced great difficulties and now we are facing a very difficult future. We have had various indications from the Taoiseach and other Ministers that they see no necessity for departing from the line of thought and the outlook on economic affairs that they held during the years that preceded the war.
As far as the people of the country are concerned they entered on the war situation with a taxation that had substantially increased as compared with 1932, with taxation in the form of rates which had substantially increased over the seven years, with a very considerable fall in their exports of both agricultural and non-agricultural produce, with a very considerable effect on the capacity of the country to import necessary capital goods and services. During that period, we had a fairly substantial increase in emigration; we had a substantial decrease in employment, particularly on the land; and we had a situation in which the normal annual increment in employment, having been reduced compared with previous years, was brought to a standstill in 1938 and 1939. We had the consumption of flour in terms of bread reduced by 10 per cent. and the consumption of bacon reduced by one-third, with much greater costs imposed on the people for that reduced consumption. It was in such circumstances that we faced the difficulties of the war.
At the beginning of the war, the Taoiseach will remember that we urged on him the necessity for setting up a small committee, a small group of experts to watch the trend in the world—not necessarily to interfere in any way in things the Government were doing, but to watch what was being done here and the possible effects on the economic life of this country of things that had to be done during the emergency and things that were being done outside as a result of the emergency—so that we might be in a position to understand what kind of economic world we should stand in at the end of the war and so that we might have our plans ready for that emergency.
The attitude of the Government at that time was that they did not require any such machinery, that the various Departments were fully equipped to do all the necessary watching and planning. There is no appearance at all that the Government have any outlook in relation to co-ordinated plans for creating a situation here which would enable the producers to go ahead with their work and to bring about a condition of things in which, with the energies of the whole people directed to production, there would be some opportunity of having the wants of our people attended to, and attended to from the point of view of greater comfort as the next few years pass.
We see in Great Britain that agricultural policy there has been fully reviewed. Their targets have been set, both as to the type of production they will go in for and the quantity. Here our agricultural community have had no assistance of any kind that would enable them to develop any firm outlook as to what particular lines of production will be encouraged by the planned Government mind, and what particular facilities will be available to enable them to get back to the export position they had. A certain number of Acts have been passed here, such as the Drainage Act, and papers have been issued, such as that on the building programme. We have had, as well, a scheme outlined for all kinds of road development, but in spite of the Government's fears expressed from time to time about the danger of inflation, these are the only types of plans which have been suggested in any way by the Government or by Government Departments. Surely it is clear that if we are to have a substantial expenditure on drainage, a substantial expenditure on roads and a substantial expenditure on house-building, without a very considerable increase in the production of consumption goods we are going to run into an extraordinary inflationary state here.
Then when we come to the financial side, how the increased work on drainage, house-building or roads is to be financed, the only indication we have is in that part of the report on the building industry which indicates how the people who drew up that report think that money for building by local authorities might be obtained. If we examine it, we find that they contemplate that money will be paid for at a rate of 3 per cent., but will be borrowed for a period of 60 years. The practice in the past has been to borrow money for building purposes for a period of 33 years, and, if the proposals in that respect are examined, it will be seen that the effect of borrowing at 3 per cent. over a period of 60 years for housing, as against 33 years, will mean that, on the basis of the ten-years plan indicated in the memorandum on building by local authorities, the people will be asked to pay £16,000,000 more in interest for the number of houses to be built. If that is the point which the Government have reached with regard to the financing of increased employment, the very foundations on which any reasonable development of such undertakings as house building, drainage or road construction are to be carried out are simply rotten.
Every way one turns one sees nothing but hopelessness before the people, if we are to look for a cause of hope in anything the Government are saying or doing. In these circumstances, I think it extraordinary that the Taoiseach should ask that his Estimates be passed without making any attempt to deal with these matters. One of the features of the situation pre-war was that a very great expenditure on social services had taken place. More social services are promised and more social services are wanted, but the problem we are up against is where can we get what will alleviate the condition of these people who are poor or unemployed, or where can we get what will provide for these additional social services, but out of real production? These are matters of vital importance to our people, and we ought to have some outline of what is in the Government's mind with regard to the future.
As to the future, I ask the Dáil to concentrate on the replies given to me to certain questions I addressed to the various members of the Government yesterday. To anybody who looked at these questions, it is quite clear that the information I sought aimed at trying to get a picture of the present situation, so that we could consider whether what is undoubtedly the bad present situation is to be continued into the future. I asked for replies on certain matters with regard to currency, and, in particular, whether or not this country had made any arrangements with what are called the hard-currency countries with regard to the financing of such imports into this country as we may require in the near future. The Minister who was present had used the term "hard currency", and had spoken of countries dealing in hard currencies, and it may be remarked that it really covers such countries as do not deal in sterling.
I myself am, and I find that business people in the country are also, rather intrigued by, and rather anxious about the situation that may develop here, because, in the old days, the situation of this country—I speak, of course, subject to many reservations on points of detail, but this was the general picture—was that we traded almost entirely with Great Britain and Northern Ireland. For the goods that we sent to Great Britain and Northern Ireland we got what is called sterling, and, under the old conditions of multilateral trade, that money which we got through selling goods to England and Northern Ireland was available for exchange into such things, say, as dollars or kroner or whatever other currencies might be required in the countries from which we required certain imports. That situation has now fundamentally altered. If one reads the various articles written by the economists on the British side, it will be seen that the situation which has developed from their point of view is this, that before the war they had investments abroad to the extent of about £3,000,000,000, and that on account of the war they have lost all those investments. Leaving altogether out of account any moneys that may be demanded by them on foot of what are called lend-lease transactions, instead of having owed to them £3,000,000,000 they owe about £4,000,000,000.
The situation which faces the British, according to their economists, is this: in order to maintain their people on the standard of living to which they have become accustomed— and that depends on what imports they can finance from outside countries— they must increase their export trade in order to get those new imports. There are varying calculations as to the amount; the lowest I have seen says about 50 per cent. increase on the 1938 figure, and the worst says about 100 per cent. increase on the 1938 figure. It certainly means, if you take the mean calculation, that British exports to foreign countries, those to what would be called the hard-currency countries, must go up by about £500,000,000 sterling per annum.
As I said, our situation prior to the war was that we sold freely and with great equanimity to Great Britain, because we realised that, having got the money that she could give us, it was convertible easily into those other currencies. It is a new situation for the future. In so far as we sell to Britain, we have sterling enough. If anything, we have a glut of this sterling. We do not want any more of it. We possibly have too much. We certainly have so much that, if there were suddenly loosed on this country purchasing power dependent upon the immediate liquidation of our sterling assets, this country would experience a wave of inflation in comparison to which what occurred in Germany after the last war would be merely child's play. It is quite clear that in order to get the imports which we require we have to buy those imports either by exporting goods or by getting some arrangement with Great Britain whereby the sterling that we buy with our goods will be available for the purchase of goods from hard currency countries. Accordingly, I asked the Minister for Finance yesterday as to whether any arrangements had been made with those hard currency countries, and I do not think I am parodying his answer when I say that he told me no arrangements had been made. It is quite clear from his answer that the Minister does not think it is possible to get any such arrangement made. As far as the currency available is concerned, we have about £2,500,000 available, with which this country may purchase such imports as she requires from countries except those inside what is called the sterling area.
Of course, there is another feature which stands out from the new development as a result of the war. We have piled up sterling assets to an enormous extent. As I say, that was quite good policy in the days when they were freely convertible into such other currency as we required, but it is quite clear to anybody who attends to what a lot of people on the British side have been saying for four years back that they do not propose to allow countries who have piled up sterling balances with them to liquidate them immediately so far as the purchase of goods is concerned. It is doubtful if it will be possible to liquidate them by purchases inside the coming generation, and it is also fairly clear, according to British economists, that they are eventually going to fix the value of the £ at a rate which will not at all represent the value of the £ when we piled up those sterling assets. It is quite possible, I think, that those assets of ours will be written down by about 50 per cent. For every £ in the old days that we piled up in sterling assets, we will be lucky if we get 10/- worth, and we will only get 10/- worth of goods, and we will only get such goods as England cares to supply us with, and we will only get that limited class of goods at such time as England thinks it is possible, without straining her resources, to supply us with them.
In case I may be thought to be speaking at large on that, I would refer the Minister to statements made by Lord Halifax in America three years ago, by Lord Keynes frequently over the last three years, and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain in his last two Budget speeches, in which he quite clearly pointed out that countries which had those balances piled up in England could not at all hope to get goods for those balances as and when those countries required them. In fact, it would appear to me —it may be a pessimistic reading, but it is one which certainly lies from the statements made—that a possible British attitude, when they come to put their house in order after the general election, will be this, that they will draw a line and say: "We owe you, Éire, India, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, so much money. We will fund that, and we will pay it out to you over a period of years, and we will pay it out in such goods as we can supply at the rate of exchange that we think is the proper one."
I ask people who may think that that is an unwise assumption for me to make just to consider what the future will be in England. Let us take it for the sake of argument that the figure I have mentioned is a correct figure. It may vary by £50,000,000 or £100,000,000 up or down. Supposing it amounts to this, that the British face the prospect in the new world of having to increase their exports by £500,000,000 sterling in the year, and supposing the further situation is that out of our accumulated assets on the side of Great Britain we want to liquidate them at the rate of say £20,000,000 or £40,000,000 in each year. It means that the British will have to set themselves to work to produce goods for export to an additional value of £500,000,000 sterling per annum. Do we think it is at all likely that the British will stop working to get in goods that they will purchase by their exports, for say a month or six weeks, in order to provide us with the goods to meet claims we have accumulated against them over the last 25 or 30 years? I do not think it is at all possible. I think it would be beyond all possibility and beyond anything in the nature of reasonableness to demand that the British would say that they will work for us for either three or five or six weeks and stop working for themselves, stop working on the production of goods which they will export in order to get an import of goods which they think are necessary for the maintenance of their present standard of living? The situation, therefore, as I see it, is that, unless we can get exports to the hard-currency countries, once the £2,500,000 we have already accumulated in hard currencies has been exhausted we will not be able to buy the goods we require from the countries of what are called the hard currency type. Not merely that, but it appears from the table which the Minister circulated in reply to one of my questions tabled yesterday that since 1941 the British have not allowed us to cash in on any of the accumulated sterling assets that we have on their side.
Since 1941, there has been an excess of exports over imports in three out of the four years. In 1941 we exported £2¼ millions more than the value of the imports we got in exchange. In 1943 we exported £1? millions more than the value of the goods we imported in return, and last year we exported nearly £1½ millions more than the goods we got in return. In only one of those four years, the year 1942, did we get more goods from England than the value of the goods we sent to them. In that year our imports amounted to almost £2,000,000 more than our exports, but if you take the four years together we have sent them, in value, about £3,000,000 worth of goods more than we got in. Of course, that may seem a small sum, but remember that in the years before the balance of visible trade that we had with the British amounted to an average of about £16,000,000.
I want people to consider what that means. It means that we bought in international trade, the greater part of which was with Great Britain, £16,000,000 of goods per annum more than the value of the goods which we exported to all countries. The reason that we were able to do that was because we had so much in the way of assets of different types piled up with the interest on them or the goods that we could buy by liquidating those assets. The annual return on them was so great that it would have balanced our international accounts even though no goods were brought in. That situation suddenly came to an end in the year 1941. From 1941, although it is quite clear that we still had abroad such assets accumulated as would have entitled us to import £15,000,000 or £16,000,000 worth of goods more than we exported— although that was still the situation— the British put us during the last four years on what has amounted to a condition of barter. They gave us, more or less, pound for pound. They did not even do that. They extracted from us in the last four years, in the way of goods, £3,000,000 worth more than we got from them, and, in addition to that, all the time there was piling up the interest on the sterling assets that we used to take up. That has been stopped for years back. I suggest to the Minister that was definite policy. It happens that 1941 was the year in which, when both Lord Halifax and Lord Keynes were in America they pointed out that the British had accumulated such an enormous debt that nobody could expect them to liquidate it at once.
From that time they apparently adopted the policy of putting us on a complete rationing system, of £1 worth of goods for £1 worth of goods. We were foolish enough not to accept that system. We insisted on sending them £3,000,000 worth of stuff more than they gave to us, entirely neglecting the purchasing power of the dividends and assets that we had accumulated abroad.
In these circumstances, a pretty clear picture emerges from the Minister's answer to me. I asked if we had made any arrangements with the hard currency countries about getting goods on credit from those countries, and I was told "No". I was told that all we have is about £2,500,000 of a reserve, and that when that is exhausted we are finished as far as importation of goods from those countries is concerned. I asked further if any inquiries had been made, or any arrangements sought or obtained with Great Britain, as to the use of the vast accumulation of assets that we have on the other side, to see whether they would be available to enable us to purchase such imports as we may require, or, under any conditions or limitation that seemed to be reasonable. I got the optimistic answer that there is complete freedom of movement of sterling funds within the sterling area. There has been, but there is not at the moment. If that answer is correct, why did we not get in more goods within the last few years, and why did we deliberately send out £3,000,000 worth of goods in the last four years more than we got in exchange? It is not that we had not plenty of buying power or an export capacity. The Minister told a University College, Dublin, audience that we were sending out £2 for every £1 that we were getting in. The natural comment about that, as about any statement the Minister makes, is that that statement of his was not correct. The statistics show that it was not correct. He said that there was a policy in that, but the virtue of that policy had not been sufficiently understood by the public. I suggest the reason is that nobody has yet stood up to explain it or to say that it should continue. It is continuing, although not to the extent that the Minister said, but it is continuing to some extent.
In any event, that is the situation that meets us. It is a rather bleak picture. Once we buy £2,500,000 worth of goods from the non-sterling areas, we have not the money to purchase any more from them, and we have not approached them to see whether we could get goods on credit or whether they would exhaust any of our sterling assets in return for the goods that we may have to get from them. As far as Great Britain is concerned, we are sliding along on an easy optimism. The Minister, in his answer, told me that "it is assumed that as goods in the greater part of the sterling area become available for export or re-export, this country will get its share." I do not know what that assumption is based on. It is certainly not based on the experience of the last four years, because although we sent out more goods than we got in we saw no elasticity on the side of the British. To use the phrase "credit" is a wrong phrase. It should be that they would not allow us to cash in on the enormous sterling assets that we have piled up over years and that we have continued to pile up over the war period for purchases in England. I suggest that this easy assumption is an approach to in sanity, especially when one considers the statements of representative men in England, and particularly when two Budget statements called attention to the peculiar position the British are in with regard to the enormous debts they owe and which they cannot possibly face in the sense of producing goods in order to meet purchasing power on demand immediately. In the face of (1), our exports over the last four years, and (2) in the face of the statements made by those representative people, it is absurd for us to go along in this easy-going fashion and assume that this, that and the other will happen. It is peculiarly absurd if one deliberately considers the situation in which the British find themselves, with some of their economists looking for a moratorium in the payment of those debts. In face of that, how can it be assumed that it is going to be all right for us, and that we will get the goods first?
There may be some subtlety in the answer given to me that "it is assumed that as goods in the greater part of the sterling area become available for export or re-export this country will get its share." I do not think that anyone can really believe that the British, faced with a serious situation with regard to their exports, will solemnly decide that, say, for one month out of the 12 they will stop producing goods for export to the hard-currency countries for the imports they require and will work for us to wipe off the debt accumulated over a couple of generations. I do not think that is likely to happen.
In that connection this comparison occurs to me. There have been many pamphlets and books written in recent years as to how Germany financed her situation in anticipation of the war that is just over. The general line of approach to that problem can be clearly seen in a series called, I think, the "Rogues Gallery", written about Schacht, who has been described as Hitler's finance magician. There is not much in that book which has been countered in any of the pamphlets written on the matter. What emerges from the book is that Germany got herself into a condition, with regard to the countries near her, in which she got them to send her goods. Having got these countries into that position, the Germans then suddenly faced these countries like Bulgaria, Roumania, Yugoslavia, even Italy to a certain extent and even France to a certain extent, and said: "You have vast acumulated credits with us. We cannot pay you in the way of giving you your own currency." I think in this book about Schacht, Hitler's magician, it is said that Germany had arrived in a position in which she got what were called forced loans from all these neighbouring countries in Europe and, having got these countries in that position, the German Government then turned round and said: "We cannot pay you. We offer you either of two alternatives: Take a composition in the £. Where you have accumulated a credit of £10,000,000, we will pay you £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 in your own currency and you can do what you like with it; or, we will give you goods." Most of these unfortunate countries said: "Rather than sacrifice £10,000,000 credit by a minimum payment of £2,000,000, we will take your goods." Then Germany off-loaded an immense amount of sewing machines and safety razors, and things like that, in which she had immense production. Yugoslavia said: "We will take your sewing machines and razor blades because we will be able to trade with our neighbouring countries in these commodities." When they took them, they found that Italy was full of sewing machines, that Bulgaria was full of sewing machines, and so was Roumania, and they could not trade. When they came to talk of the liquidation of the next £10,000,000, they said: "Give us the £2,000,000 and we will be content."
I do not know who is the magician on the Government Benches who has put us into the same position with Great Britain, but that is the position we are in. We are now in a position exactly the same as if we had made a forced loan of about £250,000,000 to Great Britain. We have even gone further in our benevolence with regard to Great Britain than these countries did with regard to Germany because there came a point when Germany had to reveal her hand to those countries and when they said, "If that is the situation, we will export no more to you," and they consumed their stuff at home. But, notwithstanding Lord Halifax and Lord Keynes, and notwithstanding Sir John Anderson telling us that we might find it hard to get any goods for the moneys we had piled up there, we have for the last two or three years decided to go on supplying her with more goods on tick. That is what it comes to. We are giving these goods on tick to a country that has already said, "We may find it hard to pay you." We are giving these goods on tick to a country which has certainly said, "We will not pay you when you want the payment"; and we are giving these goods to a country which has said to us, "Whatever we do we will do it in our own time and at whatever rate of exchange we think is the proper one." Notwithstanding all that, since 1941, although we had a mass of money abroad and although we knew that that mass of money was no good to us for purchases, we decided to send to the British £3,000,000 more.
I remember when Fianna Fáil came into this House first, one of the bits of economic philosophy they all had was that if a country got itself into a position in which it had only one market, it was then in an extremely weak position. That lesson was applied to Great Britain and we were told of the fatuous policy of the Government that preceded the present Government that they dealt with Great Britain and almost entirely with Great Britain. They were going to change all that.
Of course, it is going back on old history, but one of the things we all in this country knew was a bit of a bluff—but we never called the bluff until Fianna Fáil came in—was that we could get markets elsewhere than in Great Britain. We had been going along, preening ourselves on this view that we could get markets elsewhere but that we were such a valuable market for Great Britain that she could not go elsewhere. We went along living easily on that, making use of that basis. Then Fianna Fáil decided to call that bluff on themselves and they proved to Great Britain over the years that we actually could not trade anywhere else except with themselves, that we could not sell our exports in any other countries and certainly could not get any imports from any other country, even in the conditions of multilateral trade when the money was good for the purchases.
In the old days the great controversy of economics was the weakness of the situation in which you put all your eggs into one basket. The only change we have made since is that we have put more eggs into the old basket but, out of political considerations, we cannot refrain now and again from having a kick at the basket. That is, maybe, very good politics but it is very poor economics.
We are in the situation that Schacht, Hitler's magician, got Germany into vis-a-vis all the surrounding countries. I think, if I had to give the honours myself, I would give them to the present Minister. He is the man who has put us in the position that we have traded with Great Britain almost exclusively, to the deprivation of any other market. We have found that that was the situation and we have accepted it. We have not merely accepted it but, at a time when Britain said, "We will give you £'s worth for £'s worth of goods you supply us with", we said, "That is not a good enough bargain. We will give you £3,000,000 more than you give us and will not ask you to pay us a penny-worth in the way of goods for all the sterling assets we have accumulated on the other side."
I wonder is that going to continue for the future. I have read successive weeks' reports of the Dáil. I think I may go back on three weeks. In the Budget recently introduced by the Minister for Finance, he told us solemnly, at the end of a very gloomy statement, that what we had to face in the new world was that we had to produce more goods for export. He did not say to England, but the table I have shows that it is almost entirely to England. We have to produce, in any event, more goods for export if we want more imports, and, despite all the talk we used to have against what was called the mania for international trade, it is apparently now agreed that we must get imports if we are to maintain our standard of living.
The Minister for Finance says: "Get exports, and they must be exports produced under conditions of competition." Then the Minister for Agriculture comes along the next week and says: "We must have exports to get the imports we require, and the only hope for this country is exports of agricultural goods." The Minister for Industry and Commerce comes along the week after and says: "We must have exports to get the imports we require, and the only hope is the export of industrial goods."
Again, I asked him a question about the export of industrial goods. There was a time when we had a fair industrial export. There was another time when we had very little. The change occurred in the Minister's time. He was so concerned about his home market that he destroyed a fairly good trade we had with regard to the export of tweed to different countries. There was even a time when we had an export of tractors. I cannot lay it to his door that that failed, but certainly he did not get any substitute for it. In any event, we have gone down the hill as far as the export of industrial goods is concerned, and nobody can say, so far as the Minister for Agriculture is concerned, that anybody holds out much hope that we are going to get such an increase in agricultural production that we will have more agricultural exports by which to buy the imports we require.
The situation boils down to this: We have sterling assets—more than we want. We have not been able to cash in on them for years back. We have added to them even although we are getting no goods. They propose adding to them. We have £2,500,000 of hard currency, and when that is gone we are finished as far as the importation of goods from countries other than sterling countries is concerned. When I ask a question about the arrangements we are making, I am told that we are going on on the assumption that we will be able to use whatever sterling assets are there, as and when required.
I suggest to the Minister that there is a very definite danger ahead of us, clearly indicated. No one in this country can say that no warning was given, when you consider the statements of all these representative people. The warning was clearly indicated: we can build up credit, if we like, in England but if we think we can get goods for that credit we are entirely mistaken. We may get goods issued to us on the reduced buying power, so to speak, of our sterling assets, so that we may import into this country whatever it suits the British to determine and at a price which they will fix; and they will give us no agreement as to the time when the goods will be delivered or the type of goods we will get. I can see the Minister saying that we require a considerable amount of capital goods. We do. These are the goods that England is going to find herself pressed to give to other countries in return for imports that she will require. Is it sensible to think that England will stop in the amazing tasks before her in the future and work for us over a month or so per annum for nothing, to give us capital goods which formerly she exported to some of those other countries, so that she would get; over and beyond the goods we send to her, the particular type of goods that she requires to maintain her standard of living? It is beyond all reason to suggest that that will happen.
Supposing they say: "We will give you goods; we will adopt the German system: we have a multiplicity of sewing machines," does the Minister contemplate the possibility of this country being flooded by some enormous mass of goods, which the British will press on us because they have nowhere else to send them and which we will have to take, since we cannot get anything else? Is the problem a sufficiently serious one to demand the attention of the Minister? Should he not try to inquire as to what goods we are likely to get in return for the vast amount of money we have lying there? Supposing the British decide they will send us what we call "consumer goods" or "luxury goods", clothes of a particular type, does the Minister contemplate with equanimity a period of five or ten years in which this country will be flooded with all sorts of luxury goods, on which our people will waste this accumulated credit—and that at a time when the country is starving for capital goods which we will not be able to get?
Remember that the Minister is put vis-a-vis Great Britain exactly in the position in which Schacht put Germany vis-a-vis Bulgaria, Rumania and Yugoslavia, saying: “£2,000,000 for £10,000,000, and wipe off the balance, or we will give you sewing machines or old razor blades and that sort of thing, of which we have too much, because we cannot give you anything else”. What arrangement has the Minister made? I take it from the Minister for Finance that we are simply saying: “We hope for the best, we hope that we will get the goods as we used to get them and if we do not, well, that is a new situation.”
In that connection, I come to one other point. I asked the Minister yesterday if he would help me by estimating the amount of money likely to be brought into this country or brought in already by tourists. I am told in reply that it is impossible for the Minister to give an estimate. That seems to be foolish. We have financed a tourist board, at great expense. I understand from newspaper reports that the board has recently opened an office in England and is parading before the people of England the benefits they will enjoy if they come over to Ireland for the holidays. I understand we are doing propaganda even in Northern Ireland, with a view to showing the great food that we have down here, which is better than they are allowed to buy in England or Northern Ireland. Notwithstanding that we have a board financed at fairly heavy expense to the State, the Minister says that it is not possible to estimate the amount of money brought in. I would say that, if we were to estimate anything about the Tourist Board, we would at least estimate what it was likely to bring in. I assume that the Tourist Board is not financed for nothing and my only hope about the immediate future is that the Tourist Board will continue to be as highly inefficient as it has shown itself to be so far. It would be a catastrophe if that board gained any success immediately. Let us assume it did and that tourists coming into this country spent £3,000,000 in the year 1945. What does that mean? It means that people in England and Northern Ireland, who are not allowed to spend £3,000,000 on goods such as bacon, eggs and butter, come here and spend that money here. When the holiday season is over, our situation will be that we have been deprived of bacon, eggs and butter to that extent and in return we have got credit for £3,000,000—we have provided these people with our produce "on tick". I do not think anybody can deny that that would be the situation.
At the moment, people in Britain are subject to a very efficient rationing system; they are also subject to a very efficient tax system and also they are compelled—or at least induced by a particular type of propaganda to put a great deal of their money into various forms of investment. It is easy enough for people to put money into saving certificates or national defence loans, when they find they have more money than they are allowed to spend on things they would like to buy. The British have made it easy, by relaxing the permit controls, to allow these people to flow into this country, across the Border and across the sea. They will come here and spend their £3,000,000 or £5,000,000 and will consume that amount of stuff. To that extent, they will deprive the natives of this country of that amount of provisions. If anybody thinks that we will be able immediately to get a return from the British of that money in the form of goods which we require, let me say that if the British agreed to that it would be a stultification of their whole policy.
Look at the situation. They are paying their people wages which are 80 per cent. higher than they were paying them in 1939, on account of piece-work and increased rates. They do not allow them to spend it in England. Why? Because the commodities are short and if they had the impact of that vast purchasing power on those commodities the prices would rise. They are taking very good care that that will not happen in England. They send over these tourists, with the purchasing power of £3,000,000 or £5,000,000, and we have the impact of that extra purchasing power on our limited store of foodstuffs. Are we going to go, then, to the British and say: "You would not allow X, Y and Z wage earners in Lancashire, to spend that amount of money on goods in your country, but they have spent it in our country; let us now buy that amount of goods from you? The moment the British assent to that proposal they are stultifying their own policy.
For the holiday period, therefore, we are going, at national expense and to the detriment of the natives, to allow the expenditure of more money in this country, and we are not going to get ultimately more and more for that in England. As I say, I only hope that the Tourist Board will continue to be as inefficient as it has been hitherto and that they will fail in their efforts to get people to come here to spend that money as, if they do bring that money here, the result of the expenditure of that extra £3,000,000 will be to raise prices still further for whatever foodstuffs we have.
Suppose, from the point of view of inflation—and I am discussing it now only from that point of view—I were to suggest to the Government that we should stop tourists coming in here in the holiday season and that we should do something else. It is admitted pretty generally that the stoppage of the increase in the civil servants' bonus in relation to the increased cost of living was a most immoral proceeding. I have never heard it defended on any moral grounds. It is agreed that the civil servants have earned that money and that it has been taken from them. It amounts to about £1,000,000 a year, according to a reply which I received to a Question I put here. They have earned the money. We owe it to them; we have pledged ourselves that we would give it to them. The Taoiseach told them that they should hang on to their cost-of-living bonus, that prices were going to go up and this would be their safeguard when prices did rise. Not merely has he accepted the old contract with regard to the bonus for civil servants, but he has emphasised the contract by telling them his viewpoint, from his amazing knowledge of international matters and international movements, was that prices were going to rise and, when prices did rise, the cost-of-living bonus would be the civil servants' safeguard.
I am taking the civil servants as examples. There are many more worthy people than they, but they are a worthy class. They have earned this money. We promised it to them and contracted to give it to them. The only excuse with regard to the withholding of it is that if we let them spend it we will increase the cost of commodities here. Suppose we say: "Stop the tourists and put an end to the hotels enjoying prosperity via tourists from outside, but instead give a million to the civil servants or half a million to the teachers. We have kept them out of a certain amount of money. We cannot give it to them because of the danger of inflation." Let us say there will be inflation to the extent of £3,000,000—that that could be spent here by tourists. We will keep the tourists out, but we will let our civil servants and our teachers spend half the sum the tourists would spend—£1,500,000.
I am speaking now simply from the point of view of inflation. From that point of view, we would have given relief to certain people who, no doubt, deserve it. We might cause a certain small inflation, but it is only 50 per cent of what it would be if we were to allow tourists in. The background is that we give it to teachers and civil servants; we pay them what we think they have earned. They have earned it and, as a result, we expect to get better production. If we allow the tourists from Britain in, we hope for the best; we hope that we will get it from the British as and when they can give it to us.
What is the situation with regard to tourists? Are we to allow these people in of their own free will to spend here what Britain will not allow them to spend in her country? Do we realise why Britain will not allow them to spend that money in her country? It is because they would put up the cost of living. Are we going to allow them to put up still further our cost of living? In the end, what return will we get from them? Another £3,000,000 on to the £3,000,000 we have sent to those people? We have given them more goods than we have got from them. In the background there is the immense mass of several hundred million pounds sterling, not one shilling of which we have been able to cash-in for goods we required during the past four years. Apparently, we are going to allow that condition of things to continue for years to come.
This table I have got from the Government gives a very definite picture of this country appearing to import more goods than we export. So far as visible trade is concerned, we did not earn in goods sent out of the country the goods we got in, but we earned something in this way, that we put more into the common pool years ago than we ever got out, and we are drawing on those reserves. In 1940 the British said: "You will draw no further." When is that ban to be lifted? We have a ban in existence, and when will it be lifted? When will we be allowed to cash-in on some small fraction of the investments we have abroad which used to even up a balance which appeared to be about £15,000,000 against us? Since 1940 that ban has been on.
There is one other point. The British will not let us get any goods in return for all we did for them by giving them more than we ever took from them in the old days, but she is doing this, she is taking our population from us. When she takes our population, do you think she is getting soft-hearted and is inclined to say: "You good Irish people, you have come to our assistance in time of need. We will let you spend more than the ordinary Englishman, Scotsman or Welshman?" Not a bit of it. She puts our people there under the same conditions with regard to the expenditure of money as she puts her own citizens, and no one can blame her for that.
What do these people do? They send that money home. We were told, in reply to Parliamentary Questions, that in recent years we have been getting £13,000,000 a year by way of remittances from our people who earn money in England, and because they cannot spend it in England they send it here. That £13,000,000 has to be added to such purchasing power as there is in this country. It has its impact on our limited store of foodstuffs. It has been partly responsible for sending up the cost of living to the point it has reached.
They are taking our population. Deputy Norton asked a question in the month of April as to the number of people who went out of our country since 1940. The tot is about 170,000 people. He then asked what were the figures for the early months of this year and he got them for January, February and March, in which months they seemed to be at a lower level. We are only being bled to the extent of 1,000 people per month. Anybody who travelled in the trams past the British Passport Office in the last couple of months must know that every neck on the tram cranes when you come to the British office on account of the queue outside that office. It was certainly quite clear to anybody passing along the road that what had been described as an average of 1,000 a month was certainly not going to be maintained at the 1,000 a month for the future.
I asked the Minister for External Affairs as to the number of permits issued in April, May and June, and I got a tot of 7,000 for those three months. It means this, 100 a day. The office is not open on Sunday. It means 100 a day for the days the office is open, with 50 for the half-day. That is the rate at which our people are being exported. If that rate is maintained we will be exporting at the rate of 100 every week-day, excepting the half-day on Saturday, when we will export only 50 people. We are sending those people abroad and they will send back more remittances, and those remittances will be added to the purchasing power here and, if we are lucky to get very big numbers of tourists, they will spend more money here, and in the end we will find ourselves with far bigger sterling balances on the other side than we ever hoped for.
I am sure Deputies know of the tragedy which occurred in County Kerry some three years ago when a tramp, was discovered dead on the side of the road. At the inquest the verdict was that he died from malnutrition, yet he had hundreds of pounds sewn into his clothes. He died of starvation on the side of the road with hundreds of pounds sewn into his rags. We have millions abroad sewn into our rags, but we cannot cash-in on them. All we get in return is a little less than pound for pound for what we send them.
I have heard from the Labour Benches here certain pessimistic comments as to what might happen if our 170,000 people in England suddenly decided to return. Maybe they are better judges than I am, but I do not think those people will return. I think the tendency is all the other way. There is a certain amount of electioneering confusion in England as to certain programmes they have and figures are variously put before the populace. I will take the minimum figure in relation to one or two things. The man who was lately a Minister and who was in charge of man-power in England—Mr. Bevin—told the people there that one of the great things that they have ahead of them, and on which all Parties agree, is an amazing programme of new house-building and repairs to houses. Mr. Bevin says that before the war started the labour forces operating on houses used to rank at about 1,000,000 men. He said about 1,000,000 operatives were engaged in building new houses and repairing old houses. On account of having to draft man-power into the war services, that 1,000,000 had shrunk to about 250,000. That figure is criticised, but that is somewhere about the figure.
He says that due to his efforts he has got people released from the forces who have gone into labour forces for house building, 440,000 of them, but that they have got to get 1,000,000 and more than that on account of the houses that have been destroyed, on account of the houses that have been damaged, and on realisation of the fact that they were still in a bad condition as regards houses. He gave various figures of the new man-power required for house building, the lowest being 1,250,000 and the highest 1,750,000. Before he left office according to his own statement, he got in touch with the trade unions and they agreed to what is called a scheme for the dilution of labour, in which men are going to have three, six or nine weeks' training under skilled men, and then will be regarded as craftsmen in the building trades. He wants to get from 440,000 in the building industry to a minimum of 1,250,000. How many will he draw from this country in the way of building operatives? The Minister for Local Government, who has come in, enlightened an audience in my university by stating that not merely will the Beveridge Plan not work in England, but it cannot work anywhere. A man with, I understand, little reading of economics, nevertheless criticises one of the plans on which the English are founding their future prosperity. The Beveridge Plan must break down! The English may be foolish but they are going on with the silly idea that it will work. In any case, one of the things they are agreed upon, Beveridge or no Beveridge Plan, is that they must build houses for their people, and they are giving rates of wages, that the same Minister told that audience, this country could not afford, and social services that, according to that Minister, this country cannot afford. Suppose they want to increase their labour power for building from less than 500,000 to 1,250,000, how many building operatives do you think will be left in this country when they are finished ?
I take another example. They have recently introduced an Education Bill in England. It is criticised on many grounds, but there are one or two things it is agreed by everybody they must do. One is that they are going to raise the school-leaving age. I am speaking of primary education. The second thing is, that they are going to abolish the system whereby there is a very big number of pupils to each master. They are going to have more teachers for the number of pupils they have to deal with. In addition, they are going to give better educational facilities, even in primary schools. The last calculation I saw made by the man who is now Minister in charge of education is that they would require 70,000 new teachers on the primary side to carry on the work. Let us take that. They want 70,000 new teachers and they are offering scales of salaries that we cannot compete with. They are offering amenities of life and certain conditions with regard to superannuation that we have never approached. They are offering even a gradation, whereby good primary teachers can pass to the upper ranks. All sorts of inducements are being offered to people who want to go into teaching and they want 70,000 of them. We have a disgruntled group of primary teachers who are told in the most ironical fashion by the Taoiseach that it was a pity their salaries were not related to the cost of living, and therefore they could not raise their salaries, much as they regretted it. If they had the cost-of-living bonus we would have owed it to them but would not pay it. They would, however, have the moral satisfaction that the money was owed. We have disgruntled teachers, and 70,000 new posts yawning for them in England.
Before that really hit, people were leaving this country from 1,000 a month until we got to the region of 2,500 a month for the last three months, and apparently the Government is not going to do anything about it. I am not saying that we should compel them not to go there, but some effort should be made to induce them not to go, to tempt them to stay here. These people would much rather live and teach and build at home than go to the other side. We are going to export our people. We have exported goods and we have piled up money we cannot use, and the Party opposite, having come in as the Party which hated the thought of having all our eggs in one basket, has now piled more of the eggs into that one basket, and fewer into the few other baskets lying around to collect. They have done that in the teeth of the hard reality that the British will not allow us, no matter what goods we give them on "tick," to get goods as and when we require them. That is a pretty hopeless situation. It can be handled. They are making plans with regard to the export business and to have what they call full employment. The Minister for Local Government, in his complete and superior wisdom, goes to University College and says that the plan cannot work. He proved by a great piece of economic reasoning that if you did get into the happy position in which there would be more jobs than men the whole system would collapse. In America, in England, France and Russia and other countries they are tending to that, but the Minister in his superior wisdom says it cannot happen; in fact that it is inherently wrong and carries the seeds of its own destruction.
A man called Vinson addressed an American audience the other day. I speak with a certain amount of humility about a man called Vinson, who is in charge of economic affairs in America, when faced by the Minister for Local Government, after what he said to a university audience here. In his folly, Mr. Vinson told a group of American pressmen that America was in the happy predicament of having to live at a 50 per cent. increased standard of living. He said further that the inescapable fact, at which pessimists might scoff but which realists believed, was that, unless they got their economy on to that basis, they would all fail. He says: "You must all accustom yourselves to living on a 50 per cent. higher standard"—not a higher cost of living as we have here, but a higher standard of living—"than you have ever enjoyed before," and, fools as they are in England, they are hoping to achieve that position, and greater fools, that mass of people in America who are going to be wrong, according to the Minister for Local Government, have decided that if they cannot achieve that, they are in for a terribly bad time. What are we doing here? There have been many comments about planning. Will the Government nominate for me, before the debate ends, one plan? The nearest thing to a plan is the rural electrification scheme, and that was not prepared by the Government. It was prepared by an outside body. As far as I remember, it was sent to the Government before March, 1943. Notification that it had been sent was released to the public about August, 1943. The plan was produced about August, 1944. There has not been, I venture to say, one shilling spent on the whole plan since but there is a plan there— not prepared by the Government.
What else have we that passes for a plan? We have a statement of facts with regard to housing. We have a statement of facts, a problem posed, and certain suggestions made as to what might be done in regard to the rate of interest at which money might be borrowed for that purpose, and so on, but we have no suggestion as to how they are going to fulfil the proposals made in that report. There are other things on which we have statements of fact about problems shown to the Government, but outside the Rural Electrification Scheme Report—the nearest thing that we have to a plan—will the Government tell me of any plan they have, or anything on which they have spent £100,000 in the last couple of years, which can be regarded as a plan for post-war development? I am stressing that: post-war development.
The Minister for Finance, in his Budget speech this year, hopped away from the great high-light of last year's Budget, which was the Tourist Development Board, to a new pet, and that was the development of the airport at Rineanna, and when I asked him, in the course of the debate on the Financial Resolutions, what return this country hopes to get from the £2,000,000 which he proposes to spend on the provision of new landing places there, and so on, we were told that this country will get a great deal of prestige. I suggest that if you were to knock down certain slums in this city and provide proper housing accommodation at an expenditure of £2,000,000 —not looking at it from the money point of view—you would get more prestige from that than by building wonderful landing places or runways at Rineanna and building another concrete runway near Dublin at a cost of £500,000—for more prestige. If they want an opportunity for getting more prestige, will they turn to the report about housing, and turn to that paragraph in that report that I have read so often before in this House, and see that it is there stated that in a test group of 36,000 families it was shown that over 50 per cent. of them were not getting a family wage of more than 50/- a week. Do they realise that that 50/- a week in 1938 has a purchasing power now of only 25/-? If they are looking for prestige, could they not do something about the 36,000 families depending on what amounts to 25/- a week for the maintenance of themselves and their families in Dublin?
We have heard great schemes about arterial drainage. This is one of the schemes which the Government like, because it can be paraded as something that is going to be done immediately, although actually it need not be done for 25 years. It looks grand now, but when you ask when it will be done, the vista recedes, and you find that it will be done in the course of 25 years or even longer. Supposing, however, that it is done, what good will it be to the country? The scheme was undertaken on foot of a report in which the representative of the Department of Finance said that there would be no material good done for the country. That was the view held by the representative of the Department of Finance upon that commission. We are going to have new roads, and there are great hopes of the good that will be done by the provision of new roads. What do we want new roads for? We have 2,500 emigrants leaving this country every month, and the existing roads seem to be quite sufficient for them. You do not have to have new roads in order to allow these people to leave the country at the rate of 100 a day, or 50 on a half-day.
If we really want to do something for these people, I suggest that there should be something in the nature of a shelter erected in the lee of that building in Merrion Square so that the people leaving this country may be left with at least a happy memory of the last bit of business they did in this country before leaving it. We are going to have a lot of new roads; we are going to have new facilities at the Port of Rineanna, at a cost of £2,000,000; and we are going to have a magnificent concrete runway at Collinstown at a cost of £500,000. Are they going to plan for housing, post-war, and have they any idea of the rate of interest on the money to be borrowed for those houses, or of the rents to be paid for them? Have they any idea what present wages, stood still by their Order, will be able to purchase, post-war? Do they think that people can pay increased rents arising out of post-war costs on their pre-war rate of wages, in view of the fact that 50/- a week pre-war represents only about 25/- a week now in purchasing power?
I have tried to find out what we were doing in the matter of production—a field in which other countries have made an attempt of some sort. Every country has plans for public works, and the reason for that is that their attitude is that when there is less private spending in the ordinary fields of industry, commerce, agriculture and so on, it may be necessary to prime the pumps with a little bit of public spending, and so they put money into public works. In all these countries they have arranged such programmes, because they feel that it is the best way of getting agriculture going, of getting industry and commerce going, and so on, and if there is a failure, then they say: "We will make a little advance in order to put additional purchasing power into the hands of the people." What are we doing in that respect? We are to have new roads. We are to have new landing places at Rineanna and concrete runways at Collinstown. We are to have arterial drainage, whenever it comes off, and perhaps housing. But what are we doing about production, and what good is it going to be if we are to send to England goods on "tick" with the return to be made to us when every member of this House has passed away? You will only get a return for these goods that you send on "tick," after a generation, and then perhaps it may be at a reduced rate, or perhaps not in money at all, but in the form of luxury goods such as razor blades, sewing machines, or such other goods as the English may have an enormous surplus of.
The Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, told us of money spent on various things, and of the assets that he had behind him, and he then went on to speak of what the economists call dead-weight debt-moneys on which we have no economic return. As far as I remember, we had £100,000,000 run up on what the economists call dead-weight debt. Leaving out such things as the Shannon Scheme or anything else, what return have we got for that expenditure of £100,000,000? Nobody would object to the expenditure of £100,000,000, or even the creation for expenditure of another £100,000,000 in this country, if it were spent on production; but we are spending it on what? Only to allow 170,000 people to flee the country in the last five years: 100 a day going out now to seek employment on building and teaching in England— and that with a tuberculosis problem in this country that was never so acute as at this moment, and with a delinquency problem, both so far as children and adults are concerned, which is causing grave anxiety to every member of the judiciary who has to deal with what is called the new criminal classes. Is that to be the return for the £100,000,000 debt: depopulation, destitution—we have 36,000 families here with only 25/- a week to spend on what they want—and disease? I sometimes wonder if these pamphlets that are produced by good-meaning people, such as the Red Cross Society, and so on, ever get into the hands of the people who are really suffering from tuberculosis in this country. I wonder if any of these people went to the exhibition in regard to tuberculosis in its early stages.
The idea that was played around with there—it was quite a good display —was what was described, in the jargon of the moment, as "helping the resistance movement against tuberculosis"; to help the resistance movement against tuberculosis the supplies are not guns or munitions but just food —eggs, butter, milk. They cost money and the way the present Government is helping the resistance movement against disease is by cutting the value of the wages of the population by half. Then, they cynically ask the population to believe that we can encounter this onset of tuberculosis by helping the resistance movement, they themselves being the people who have so completely weakened the resistance movement.
In the debate regarding the Sanatorium Bill I quoted statement after statement from doctor after doctor, who spoke publicly, that the main cause of that disease in this country was malnutrition, that malnutrition was only a polite term for starvation and that you need not hope to have a proper resistance movement against that disease unless you give the people the power to buy the supplies that they need in order to withstand it. But we prefer to send our goods abroad. We prefer to hope that all the credits we have piled up will be useful somewhere, somehow in somebody's good time. When I asked if this matter was affecting Ministers with anxiety, I was told that they believed that the accumulations of sterling assets were available to finance imports from any part of that area, and that it was assumed that goods would be available as and when they come into supply.
In that happy-go-lucky way, we are drifting into the new world. We have no plans; we have done nothing to prevent our people going abroad; no great attempt has been made to induce production; no effort has been made, as has been done in America, to try to get our people to accustom themselves to the "happy predicament" of having to live to a 50 per cent. increased standard. We are tearing their standard away. We have depressed the standard of living because we have reduced the value of wages. Amongst a small section, we have allowed profits to pile up to such an extent that the Minister for Finance described them as "enormous". So far as our trade with other countries is concerned, we are told: "Let us hope the old situation will revive and we shall be all right." That was the situation which Fianna Fail used to criticise—trade with Great Britain, international trade. The truth has at last hit them that this country requires imports to maintain our standard of living and that those imports can only be obtained by exports. If that truth has hit them only now—five or six years after its impact on the ordinary mind —what are they doing about production? The answer is —£100,000,000 dead-weight debt, an airport at Rineanna, some roads, and the Tourist Board to enable more people to come in and waste our good commodities. Then we are to "hope for the best".
We have listened to a most interesting speech. We have seen, or heard, Deputy McGilligan throw overboard his whole political past. This House has been treated during the past 45 minutes or thereabouts to a spectacle of political self-murder. Listening to Deputy McGilligan, I could think only of those accounts which one reads from day to day in the newspaper telling how, having lost a battle, a Japanese admiral or general commits hari-kari.
What? The phrase is hara-kiri.
Very well.
You did not know even the pronunciation of the phrase.
I have not had occasion to study it quite so intimately as the Deputy, who must have been contemplating that course quite a while, judging by the speech to which we have just listened. What was the whole tenor of that speech and what were its natural conclusions? That sterling is of no value. I remember that one of the topics which used to be most ardently debated in this House was the question of the link, as it was called, with sterling. One of the foremost defenders of the legislation establishing that link, which was passed by the Government of which he was then Minister for Industry and Commerce, was Deputy McGilligan. To-night, we have not heard very much from him in support of the link with sterling. We have been told that our trade with Great Britain was a disaster, that we should live in a state of complete isolation, selling nothing to Great Britain and taking nothing from her—least of all her money. Apparently, Deputy McGilligan's speech was too much for the Leader of the Opposition because I noticed that Deputy Mulcahy left the House while the Deputy was speaking. But Deputy Hughes, Deputy MacEoin and a number of other members of the Fine Gael Party listened to the speech with rapt attention. Perhaps, they will engage our attention later by telling us whether they agree with the tenor of that speech, with the arguments with which it was furbished and with the conclusions to which it must inevitably have driven those who agreed with it.
The Minister is not, I hope, pretending that what he alleges are my conclusions, because they are not.
Is the Deputy already recanting?
I object to being misrepresented.
I did not interrupt Deputy McGilligan.
I am sorry. I am not a bishop and I ought not to be treated so badly.
Great stress has been laid by Deputy McGilligan on the fact that, in the abnormal trading conditions under which the world has existed since 1939, there has been a very steady and substantial accumulation of sterling assets here. It might have been well if the Deputy, who seems to regard this accumulation as one over which we had complete and absolute control, had informed the House if his laborious midnight studies of the economics of our present situation has led him to put to himself the question: How did it come about that we accumulated those sterling assets over the past five years? When this Government first took office, we had to embark on a political and economic policy which lead to drastic dislocation, for the time being, of what had been held by our predecessors to be our normal economy. When we were engaged in putting through that policy, which has left this country in the happy position in which it is to-day— unwasted by war, substantially the most prosperous country in Europe— we were opposed tooth and nail by the Opposition on the ground that we were dislocating the traditional agricultural economy of the country, an economy built up over generations and an economy based on the yearly natural increase of our flocks and herds.
We were told that the live-stock industry was the foundation of all our prosperity. We were told that if we did anything to jeopardise that industry, anything which would interfere with the free flow of the products of that industry from this country to Great Britain, we should be inflicting irreparable damage on the welfare of this community. Our live-stock population and the pastures on which it is based represent an enormous investment of capital on the part of this country. So long as that capital exists, we must allow it to produce its natural return and it is because we have not interfered, more than was absolutely essential for the maintenance of this people, with this traditional economy of ours during this period of emergency, when we could not possibly find anything to replace it—it is because of that fact that these sterling assets of ours about which Deputy McGilligan has been so critical, have accumulated in the measure with which we are all familiar.
When, during the economic war, Great Britain interfered with the free disposal of that natural increase in our live-stock population and we had to take exceptional measures to dispose of our otherwise indisposable surplus, Deputy McGilligan, then a leader of the Fine Gael Party, and those associated with him, embarked on a course of action in this House and in the country which brought us to the verge of civil war. The battle cry then raised against Fianna Fáil was that we were slaughtering the calves. We still have, however—and the Deputy in the course of his speech might have adverted to the fact—calves to dispose of. We still have yearlings, we still have stores, and we shall continue to have them so long as the live-stock industry remains the primary industry of this country.
What does Deputy McGilligan want us to do with that natural increase? Does he want us to slaughter the calves again or does he want us to sell them for what they will fetch in whatever market may be available to us? He has told us, of course, that he wants to stop accumulating sterling assets. Does he want us then to give the disposable surplus of our live-stock industry as a free gift to the British people without even getting——
Is that the only alternative?
—without even getting a promise to pay?
Is that the only alternative?
Can Deputy McGilligan give us another one?
Goods.
Naturally, but supposing Britain will not give us goods or has not got goods to give us? So Deputy McGilligan now wants us to refuse to continue to export cattle unless we get goods in exchange? That is the policy——
Or artificial manures.
That is the policy of the Fine Gael Party. Let us have that on record. I see the shadow Minister for Agriculture along with the Deputy on the Front Bench opposite.
He is in agreement.
He is in agreement with that policy but supposing they cannot give us goods?
Then you will trade on credit?
Supposing they cannot give us goods or will not give us goods, what does he want us to do with our surplus cattle?
Is not "tick" the only answer?
But I understood that Deputy McGilligan will not give them on credit. I understood that was the burden of his speech. For 45 minutes I listened to Deputy McGilligan telling us that we were giving the British perhaps the one thing we have at the moment to sell them, that we were selling cattle on credit. He condemned us because we were selling cattle, as he said, on credit. I know that Deputy Keating is interested in the cattle business. Does he want us to stop the export of cattle?
Go and put your head in a bag.
I understand that Deputy Keating has still some bitter memories of the economic war. I know that Deputy McGilligan wants us to start the economic war all over again, but does Deputy Keating want us to do that?
No. Deputy Keating never approved of the economic war.
We remember how bitterly Deputy Keating resented the fact that the British imposed restrictions upon the import of our cattle into Great Britain. Deputy McGilligan apparently wants us—remember this is the official Fine Gael policy as we have had it now explained—to impose restrictions on the export of our cattle.
I did not say that at all.
No, the Deputy did not say it straightforwardly, but that was what he implied. In fact, he wants us to prohibit the export of cattle altogether unless the British pay us in something other than what I think Deputy McGilligan used to worship like the golden calf—in something other than British sterling. That is apparently the new Fine Gael policy. We must stop the export of Irish cattle to Britain unless the British pay us in some way other than sterling. Supposing we did adopt this advice of Deputy McGilligan, what would the farmers say if they found their fields being stocked up with bullocks and stores they could not get rid of? How would they deal with demands for land annuities and for rates? How would they deal with the demands of shopkeepers to meet their bills if Deputy McGilligan's policy were given effect to?
Have you not got the British market?
The fact of the matter is that the Deputy, for 45 minutes, has been pouring scorn on the British market. We know that consistency is not one of the Deputy's signal virtues, but at least he should not contradict himself a dozen times within the space of 50 minutes. He has spent 45 minutes of his speech pouring scorn on the British market——
I did not.
——and on the fools who were following the economy which has existed here for generations, and who send their surplus stock to this market.
Which the Minister has been trying to destroy.
Apparently we have not succeeded sufficiently to satisfy fully Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Hughes.
A new departure.
It is a new departure, because we are now told that the shadow Minister for Agriculture of the Fine Gael Party wants to stop the export of Irish cattle to Great Britain.
I never wanted that.
That is what Deputy McGilligan said.
Use the export of Irish cattle properly.
I wonder would the Minister talk a bit of common sense?
I have had twice to ask Deputy Keating to cease from interrupting. I may not do so again.
I was saying—and I think I must have convinced even the Opposition, because I note that Deputy McGilligan has already recanted his speech—that so long as the present abnormal conditions of trade exist between this country and the world and so long as we continue to export cattle to Great Britain, we must continue to accumulate sterling assets. Now, Deputy McGilligan wants us to stop accumulating sterling assets.
No, I do not. Cash in on them.
That, I gather, was what Deputy McGilligan was saying.
Cash in on them is what I was saying. Do you know what cash in on them means?
You tell us now as you have gone so far.
Oh, now. We listened in patience to Deputy McGilligan talking the most arrant nonsense for 45 minutes.
Cash in on them. That is not arrant nonsense. Get a return for what you send. Can you do it?
The House is as familiar as I am with the conditions which exist in Great Britain. We hear that there is a scarcity of all essential materials in that country. We have learned that, within the last week or so, the coal industry in Great Britain had reached such a parlous condition that they are actually going to have to import coal in order to keep their industry going during the coming winter. We hear that they have no wool, no cotton—nothing that is not already absorbed by their military necessities. What is the use of Deputy McGilligan trying to work the confidence trick upon the simple people who take him seriously, by telling them that if we do not take sterling in exchange for our cattle, we can get goods? Does he not know, and does not everybody else appreciate as well as I appreciate, that if there were any possibility of getting goods in exchange for our cattle, we would have got the goods? We must assume that there is no possibility of getting goods in present circumstances and therefore our problem is: since we cannot get goods in exchange for our cattle, what are we to do with our cattle? That is the question I am putting to Deputy McGilligan.
It is a pity that Hitler had not got you long ago. He would not then have wanted Schacht.
I was patient with the Deputy when he was speaking, although I usually am not, because I do not suffer fools gladly.
I am not a bishop, so you should let me down lightly.
I want to put this question to Deputy McGilligan and those who support him.
You will get an answer then.
Do they want us to kill our cattle industry?
Good lord, no. You tried that before.
And you were not able to kill it.
If we cannot get goods for our cattle, and people know we cannot get goods for our cattle——
You can get sulphate of ammonia for some of them.
We have as much sulphate of ammonia as is available to us, and that is the beginning and end of it.
That is not so. If you can get, at £60 a ton in the black market, what ordinarily costs £9 a ton, surely you could get it?
Oh, grow up.
Because you would not look for it. Perhaps the Minister would grow up.
I had the manners to listen to Deputy McGilligan, but I do not think he has the manners to listen to anybody.
The Minister is now on his dignity and that is what does not increase his stature. That is why he keeps so small all the years— because he is always standing on his dignity. It is a poor footing.
Until the light wit and the lightweights cease, I will not proceed. Until I can proceed in order, I will not continue.
You asked a question and I have answered it.
Am I to sit down, Sir, or is Deputy McGilligan to keep order?
The Minister must get a hearing, but if he asks a question which apparently requires an answer, he is inviting interruptions.
I am not inviting——
On a point of order, Sir. I would not have any quarrel between yourself and the Minister. I should hate to see that happen.
There is no quarrel.
I am entitled to put a question to whomever is to succeed Deputy McGilligan and try to justify his speech. I am asking this question in view of the argument he has used: Does Deputy McGilligan, and do the members of the Fine Gael Party, want to kill the cattle industry of this country?
No.
Let them answer in the usual form by getting up and speaking. Does Deputy Mulcahy, does Deputy Hughes, want to kill the cattle industry ?
That will be answered.
The Minister must get a hearing.
He was asking a question.
There are such things as rhetorical questions, which, no doubt, the Deputy knows.
If it is only a rhetorical question, I agree. The Minister does not want an answer.
The Deputy will give as good a hearing as he got.
Very well.
I am putting the question because I hope that when some other member of the Opposition Party speaks in this debate, he will answer it.
Then it is not rhetorical question.
The people of this country, after the speech we have listened to, are entitled to an answer. That speech, let me put it to the House again, represented that sterling is of no value, that our trade with Great Britain is of no value, and that we should live, as has been said, in a state of splendid isolation. That is a complete reversal of everything that Fine Gael has been arguing and pressing on the people over the last 20 years, and I think it is something that should be noted; but, since that speech has been made, we are at least entitled to know to what extent it represents the views of the Opposition Party.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.
Tell us what you think of the British market now. We should like to know. God be with the days of Kinnegad.
It is quite obvious that the Opposition Party do not want to hear the implications of this speech by Deputy McGilligan brought out.
In the best of good humour, tell us.
What does Deputy Corry think of the British market, if he does think?
Let us hear what the Minister thinks of the British market.
Who told you to interrupt?
It is a free country yet.
I am waiting until I am permitted to continue my remarks.
Let there be no more interruptions.
In view of certain speeches made quite recently, we are entitled to know what is the attitude of the Party opposite on this matter and what is to be their attitude towards British currency. Do they want us to refuse to take it in payment for our goods? Is that going to be their attitude? Is that the new policy of Fine Gael—to refuse to take British sterling?
That is the policy of Kinnegad.
If there is nothing else to get and if we do refuse to take it, what are we to do with the cattle we have to dispose of?
Send them to your alternative markets.
Ghosts from the past.
If there were alternative markets, we should be very glad to send them there, but the Deputy never wanted us to avail of the alternative market. The Deputy is now realising the consequences of the policy which was pursued here from 1922 to 1932.
What about the economic war?
The Deputy must cease interrupting.
Talk to the Minister.
Deputy Hughes now realises to the full the consequences of the policy which was pursued here from 1922 to 1932, when no attempt was made to find any alternative to the British market and no attempt was made to give to the people of this country any alternative livelihood except that which they might derive from the livestock industry. Of course, as I said, this industry grew up here over generations. We could not change that position overnight.
That is right.
But we had certainly gone a long way——
You have been trying it for twenty years.
Yes, and the experience of this country over the last six years showed to what extent we had succeeded——
Hear, hear!
—in giving to the people of this country an alternative to the British market. Because of what was done in the seven short years from 1932 to 1939 we went through this war suffering far less privation than people who were much more remote from it even than we were.
On half wages.
Deputy McGilligan poured scorn too upon the tourist industry. I remember, when the Deputy was Minister for Industry and Commerce, that one of the things which he used to suggest to the people that he was anxious to encourage and foster in this country was the tourist industry. He objects to our sending cattle to Great Britain, but what is the big attraction that the tourists find now in Ireland? When they come here they can at least get a good beef steak every day if they want it, and that beef is fattened here, killed here, cooked here, and served here. From that point of view, the tourist industry at least has this advantage over the export of the raw material of the tourist industry in the shape of food, that it does, in the killing and the cooking and the service of those things of which we have a surplus in the Twenty-Six Counties, provide a livelihood for a large section of our people in this country. But Deputy McGilligan wants to take away the livelihood of every person who is engaged in the tourist industry here.
I never suggested it.
Let us mark the burden of his speech again. He wants us to prohibit the influx of strangers and visitors into this country.
And to provide the money for our own people.
Again, may I ask that I be allowed to proceed without interruption? He wants us to prevent the influx of visitors and strangers into this country. He wants us to become peculiar people. This man who used to want us to be good Europeans now wants us to shut ourselves up as if we were hermits, and to stop everybody from coming here to Ireland to see what the country has to offer and to enjoy the good things which are available to them here for payment. Let us make no mistake about it; Fine Gael, under the leadership of Deputy McGilligan, has become the enemy of the tourist industry in this country. They want to kill the tourist industry here. That is now another plank in the Fine Gael policy.
Great heavens, you do not believe that? You cannot believe that. You are not so stupid as to believe it.
I suppose, to this extent, that it is very difficult to believe anything Deputy McGilligan says.
As interpreted by you.
The Deputy is a great interpreter himself. I am telling him what his speech sounded like to an intelligent listener, and when that speech is studied to-morrow morning, the people of this country may well rub their eyes when they learn that Deputy McGilligan, one time Minister for Industry and Commerce in this country, one time proud godfather of the tourist industry, now wants to kill that industry.
Terrible nonsense that is. I do not think you believe it.
You cannot take it.
I cannot take that rubbish.
Upon what silly hypothesis was the whole of that speech based? We were condemned first because, willy-nilly—we had no option—there had been a great increase in our sterling assets over the last five years; then we were condemned because we were allowing people to come into this country as tourists and spend their money here; and the basis of both condemnations was that sterling was going to have no value in future. If it was not that, what other justification could there have been for the argument which Deputy McGilligan used?
Do you want an answer?
No. I am making my speech. You have had your chance.
I must appeal to the members of the Opposition to accord the Minister the same good order that was given to themselves.
Would the Chair appeal to the Minister not to ask questions if he does not want them answered? I can answer them. He is asking for answers.
The Deputy lost his chance of answering them.
Deputy McGilligan spoke for 75 minutes, and there was not one single interruption.
I did not ask for interruptions. I did not ask anybody to answer questions except in the course of debate. The Minister is asking questions. If he does not want his questions answered, we will understand that, but he is asking for answers.
I am not addressing myself to Deputy McGilligan. He is not capable of answering the questions I am asking. I am addressing the intelligent members of this Assembly.
Hear, hear.
Do you hear the intelligentsia responding?
I am asking those members to give them.
Stand up and bow.
I notice the Deputy is not standing up and bowing.
Deputies must keep order.
We cannot forbear to admire that galaxy of talent.
I am afraid the Deputy went too often to the bar.
If Deputies do not want to hear the Minister they can leave the House, but while they are here they must retain order and listen to the Minister in silence.
If there were less noise we might be able to listen to him.
And that does not refer to the Minister only.
I was asking—I am not addressing Deputy McGilligan; I am addressing the Chair—you, Sir, to consider what was the hypothesis upon which Deputy McGilligan's speech was based. I was saying that it was based on the hypothesis that sterling in future is going to have no value. I was asking you, Sir, what other basis than that could it have? I do not think it can be based on anything else. It was, of course, very imaginative. It was very facile, but fundamentally that speech depended upon the truth of one assertion, upon the validity of one assertion—that now and in the future sterling is going to have no value. That, of course, if it were true, would be a very serious thing. But now that the war has ended in the way in which it has ended, and that Great Britain is again the dominant power in Western Europe——
Japan may be making representations in the near future.
——with vast colonial possessions still, vast reserves of raw material which she will be anxious to sell and dispose of to the world as soon as she has the manpower available to exploit them, what justification is there for assuming that sterling now and in the immediate future is not going to have a real value in exchange? If there is anyone who might be misled by Deputy McGilligan's flights of fancy, I would ask him to remember this, that one of the great sources of British power and influence in the world in the past was the fact that she was the dominant banking and financial centre of the world.
The Minister might move to report progress.
Not on that note. He was just on the dominance of Great Britain.