It has been a source of refreshment to me to hear so much economic orthodoxy proclaimed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and by Deputy Norton. I have endured so much abuse and rage and fury, in saying so many of those things that the Minister and Deputy Norton said to-day, for the last 15 years that it intrigues me to discover that my labours were not in vain and that the two converts, although belated, are to be counted amongst the fruits of my labour. However, it is very important, in view of the extremely critical situation revealed by the Minister's statement, first, to consider for a moment certain fundamental facts and, secondly, to make such contribution as one can to the solution of the problems that lie ahead. We are going to experience great difficulty in financing the purchase abroad of things our people want. The strange thing is that Great Britain is having exactly the same difficulty at the present moment. The British people at this moment are hungry, they are very shabby, thousands and thousands of them will have to give up cigarettes and tobacco, because Great Britain has not got dollars to buy the goods. A great people, who have borne the heat and burden of the day for seven years, sometimes alone, in the struggle to preserve human liberty in the world, are now shabby, down at heel and hungry, because they have not got dollars.
It often amazes me that men and women all over the world resolutely close their eyes to the simple fact that if to-morrow the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States of America would proclaim free passage for men, money and goods over their respective territories, all the embarrassment that we suffer from, that Great Britain suffers from and that threatens in America by way of industrial dislocation consequent on the drying up of her foreign markets, would vanish overnight.
A lot of practical people are inclined to say: "Oh, that is visionary, that is not practical politics." Maybe it is not. It is none the less the truth. There is nothing to prevent it; it involves no infringement of national sovereignty, no interference by any one State in the affairs of its neighbour. It simply takes a group of people on the face of the world whose fundamental beliefs closely approximate, who feel in very much the same way about the things that matter, and says to them: "Over the territory that we occupy, men, money and goods may move freely, without let or hindrance." In one hour, the hunger, the shabbiness and the gloom is dissipated over England, the microscopic problems that confront us are at once solved, American industry, instead of being faced with a recession, finds itself confronted with a challenge to greater production, and all the primary producers of the American continent have before them the problem for their lifetime of having their ingenuity taxed to fill the requirements of those who are ready, willing, anxious and able to buy and pay for the foodstuffs those primary producers could produce.
All that is denied to us by an elaborate international, financial set-up which says that we must have dollars and we must have pounds and unless a manifestly unobtainable balance is established between the purchases of Great Britain in one place and of the United States in another, an endless struggle must go on for that equation, which can never be attained, and the sanctions devised to create the undesirable and unattainable quality are poverty, hunger and gloom for a large part of the human race. God only knows why: I do not.
I have never met, in any international gathering that I attended, a rational legislator who was prepared to defend that in private and I have rarely met one who was prepared to attack it in public. Some day, people will come to realise the curse this whole loathsome structure of tariffs, currency restrictions and restrictions on the free passage of men over the face of the earth constitute. Then they will be swept away; but, in the meantime, I suppose we must go on labouring under them, hoping that, if we do not live to see the day of their abolition, our children or children's children may.
We have to deal with the facts that confront us now. I read with interest that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has made our case to the International Food Council for 405,000 tons of wheat per annum for several years ahead, and that he has accompanied that request with an undertaking to accept that quantity and pay for it in each year that they are prepared to concede it. I could not resist, when I met Deputy Allen, of Wexford, downstairs in the Lobby, pausing to congratulate him on this great day, when the wheat scheme had finally gone up the spout. Now, 405,000 tons of wheat represent 3,000,000 barrels; 3,000,000 barrels of wheat at 90 per cent. extraction represent 2,700,000 sacks of flour per annum; and that is the total consumption of flour of our people—one sack per head, including women and children. The Minister is perfectly right in deciding that our contribution to the cereal output of agricultural land can best be made—and will be made most gladly—in those forms of cereal products which are just as badly needed in other parts of the world as wheat is wanted here. Our land, our husbandry, is capable of contributing to the world pool of food requirements a far more substantial contribution, provided our agricultural industry is not forced into the strait-jacket of an attempted wheat production which it is quite incapable efficiently to perform.
He also spoke of coal. I agree with Deputy Norton that the coal target fixed by the British Government is substantially below that which they confidently anticipate to reach. I think that when Deputy Norton talks about going over and making bargains he is talking through his hat, and he knows it. We have nothing to bargain with at the present time, except our reliance on the knowledge that the people who live in the island next door to us are a reasonable people, and that the people who inhabit the United States of America are bound to us by many ties of family and blood. That is the only thing that we have got at the present time. It may be that by careful organisation in the years that lie ahead we may be able to offer goods with which to bargain. I do not take so pessimistic a view as Deputy Norton did in connection with wheat and coal. I want to say this, that I was not aware until the kept newspaper of the Government announced it in a sub-leader yesterday that my person was made to correspond with that of Mr. Henry Wallace and Mr. Churchill in foreign countries during the war. In the words of that paper:
"During the war, it suited the British and American Press to represent Mr. James Dillon as an influential Irish statesman, with the result that he is still suffering from a mistaken idea of his own importance. There is no excuse for Mr. Dillon, for, unlike the British War leader and the former American vice-President, he has never held or seemed likely to hold any post of responsibility in his own country."
Well, if during the war years I was represented as speaking for a far larger section of our people than, in fact, I did, it may have been no harm that that voice which, in the darkest days, protested friendship for Great Britain and the United States of America was made to sound louder than perhaps it should. If, in fact, it was, this is the first information that I have on it. Perhaps it could be turned to good purpose now because if it did, and if that voice resounds for Ireland again to tell our friends in Great Britain and America who listened then to listen now and believe that when the Minister for Industry and Commerce bespeaks wheat and coal for our people he does it for no ulterior purpose and with no primary desire to derive riches or wealth from either of these products, but for the fundamental purpose of feeding the people and of preserving essential services, of keeping from cold and misery tens of thousands of our people in the cities who will be cold unless coal is made available, and are fated to suffer most acutely in the winter that lies ahead no matter how energetic our efforts may be in the meantime to provide alternative fuel in the form of turf—if the kept organ of the Government will use its machinery for promoting the resonance of my voice now, it may serve some useful purpose.
We have travelled a long way down the road since Deputy Aiken, the Minister for Finance, was wishing to God that all the ships that sailed the seven seas might be sunk in the bottom of the ocean so that Ireland, at last alone in self-sufficiency, would really know the happiness of abundance. Deputies remember that passionate proclamation. It is gratifying to know now that we realise that, if our people are to live in this country, we must export. Remember this, that all our people will not die in Ireland. There are going to be for the next ten years powerful inducements to most of our people to leave Ireland and go to Great Britain if standards of living fall too low in Ireland. We will see in our day the greatest exodus of the Irish people that history has ever witnessed. Mind you, for the last five years we have seen the greatest emigration since the Famine. It is nothing to what we will see in the next ten years unless requisite measures are taken to ensure that a tolerable standard of living will be maintained in this island, and it is going to take us all our time to do it. We have the materials which we can export, and we have got to make up our minds that we intend to export them. We have got to export them at a profit. There is no use exporting goods if we have to pay the British people to consume them. Our exports, the ones that we can make money on, are the perishable products of the agricultural industry delivered in the British market in a fresh condition— Guinness's porter, Jacob's biscuits, men's suitings and, Deputy Norton notwithstanding, such branches of the metal industry, the ready-made clothing industry, the chemical industry, the value content of which is measured more in skill and specialisation than in the methods of mass production. It is quite a mistake to say that living in the lee of Great Britain there are no industrial products which we can hope to export to England. The very fact that England is a wealthy, industrial country makes it a great potential market for the kind of industrial products this country might very well produce, given the right atmosphere and a realisation of what is truly necessary.
England would not be the only customer. I know of one manufacturer at the present moment who could bring from New York to this city the buyer of the most exclusive fashion house on Fifth Avenue and constrain her to admit that, in the particular specialised line of ladies' wear which he was manufacturing, he could put garments before her superior in finish and in material to anything that she had seen in Paris or London. The material was made in County Dublin and the garments were made by Irish men and women in this city.
But they were made painstakingly. They were expensive. The more that experienced buyer examined them and the more she tore open the seams to find out what went on inside, the more deeply impressed was she as to what a really good Irish industry could produce when it went the right way about it. It suddenly dawned on her that here in the City of Dublin there might be something produced of that character where skill and care and high standard rule, which would match anything produced anywhere all over the world. If you had asked her to come to Dublin to compare some so-called mass production article here with what she could buy in the great industrial centres of the world, she would not have bothered to waste her time or money in making the expedition.
We should concentrate now on the production of cattle, sheep, pigs, bacon, eggs, pasteurised cheese, baby foods, vegetables and all the perishable products of the agricultural industry in order to get a surplus of them which will be exportable to Great Britain, and exportable at a profit. Let us get this into our minds now: If you are serious about that, you have got to take the taxes, the tariffs and the restrictions off the raw materials of the agricultural industry. Remember the Danish pig and the Irish pig. If you put a tariff on Indian meal and raise its cost by 2/6 a cwt. and it takes 7 cwts. of meal to feed a pig, the Irish pig will cost 17/6 more than the Danish pig. When the Irish pig is exported to London it must be sold in competition with the Danish pig. The Dane may be well pleased to get 10/- profit on his pig and, if he is, and the Irishman has to sell his pig at a price which will yield the Dane 10/-, the Irishman is going to lose 7/6 on every pig he sells—lose 7/6. Unless this House, this Government and this country are prepared to face that fact, we are done for, and that is as certain as I am standing here.
And remember, in the same statement in which the Minister has drawn this gloomy picture of our plight, in which he has told us that our only hope of salvation is to export and that he sees no substantial volume of exports except from the agricultural industry, he has announced his intention of preventing the import of sulphate of ammonia—an essential source of nitrogen for the land—and of sulphate of copper—without which the potato crop, which is the raw material of the pig industry in this country, cannot be grown. If he persists in that, he is mad, stark, staring mad. If he persists in keeping the price of artificial manure up by tariffs and restrictions, if he continues to keep the price of feeding stuffs up by tariffs and restrictions, if he intends to keep the price of sulphate of copper up by tariffs and restrictions, if he intends to keep the price of all farm implements at the fantastic prices which rule for them, by tariffs and restrictions, he is cutting the throat of the one industry which he himself admits is the country's only hope of surviving the present crisis.
Is it conceivably possible that Deputies, to whom these facts must be as clear as day, are going to permit him to get away with that fantastic contradiction—while exhorting the agricultural community of this country to save us by their extra exertions, simultaneously to pile upon them burdens which make it certain that it will be impossible for them to earn a profit on their labour?
Subsidies, regulations, plans, are largely "cod". There is one thing that will extract from the land of this country the maximum production for consumption at home and export abroad, and that is, the assurance that the man who labours to produce will get a profit on his work. You can plan till the cows come home but if by your industrial plans you create a situation in which the man who lives upon the land, the individual farmer, discovers that at his local fair or market he is not getting a profit on the things he produces, your plans will all go up the spout because the small farmers of this country will not produce if they cannot make a profit, and why should they? But give them the opportunity of earning a profit upon what they produce and—they will want no instruction from the Minister for Industry and Commerce or from anybody else—production will go up and continue to go up, because our people are not afraid of work.
I was astonished to hear Deputy Norton speak of stagnation in the agricultural industry for the last 20 years. Stagnation and regression there have been in the last 15, but, in the first ten years of the existence of this State, look at the agricultural statistics, look at the price commanded by Irish produce on the British market. See how we began under the obligation of accepting 10 to 15 per cent. less than the Dane could get in London and how, in 1931, no Danish product could command one penny-piece higher than a similar product bearing the Irish trade mark.
Look at the vast expansion in eggs and pigs going to England—all swept away, vanished, gone and, in its place, the fraudulent misrepresentation that we were producing our own requirements, which is largely responsible for the fact that we have been denied supplies during the last three months, and which is wholly responsible for the fact that our people have been called upon to eat the wet dirt, masquerading as bread, which they have had to consume because there was nothing else to consume in this country for the last two months. We cannot remedy all that overnight but, given two years, I would undertake to set up the agricultural industry of this country on the road to surplus exports that would put us back very near to where we used to be. On the crest of that wave of energy and industry our people were able to forge forward to many remarkable achievements, secure in the knowledge that the fundamental industry of the country was making profit as a whole and, at the same time, that the individuals engaged in that industry were getting a decent living out of it, that they were not being reduced to the fantastic position in which we now are in which butter is being produced in this country at 2/11 a pound and, on that, all we have of it is two ounces per head per week. The subsidies necessary to procure it for our people at the price they can pay in Ireland constitute an appalling burden on the Exchequer. In Ireland, as we stand at this moment, bacon is scarce and in Ireland it is not impossible that in the winter that lies ahead, unless we can prevail on countries abroad to send us food, our people may be hungry. Is it any wonder that the Minister for Industry and Commerce slumps in his seat—that he is afraid to raise his head?
I do not believe that the Minister has been frank with the House on the subject of external assets. No sane man believes that when the international arrangement we are under came into operation sterling was to become freely exchangeable for dollars and that we would be able to go over to England and convert the £200,000,000 we had there into dollars and spend them in the United States of America the following morning. I believe that while Great Britain is prepared to give us dollars for current burdens she would be prepared to liquidate in instalments, by arrangement, what she owes us in respect of past transactions. Is not that a fair proposal? Who would go to an old and respected customer who is temporarily embarrassed and take her by the throat and say: "Pay us now and pay us all or you are a robber"? Is not it fair to go to her and say: "Well, if you are in a jam at the present time, to whom have you a greater right to look to for accommodation than to us and we are glad to be able to do it and we are prepared to wait for our money? Why not? You have never reneged on your bargain yet and we do not expect you to do it now." They are an honest people. They have been that for generations and I would sooner have their note than the note of any other nation on the earth. Even if they cannot pay it now they will pay it some time and this is no time to challenge them with their temporary embarrassments. It is a time rather to approach them, equal to equal, telling them that we understand their difficulties and asking them to realise ours. I have never tried to do business with an Englishman yet on that basis that I could not arrive at a reasonable arrangement. They are not a people who take kindly to being told where they get off. They are not a people, when they are in a tight corner, to take kindly to being unduly pressed, and what people in the world who are worthy of their salt would take kindly to it?
I do not believe that it is any of our people's intention or desire to press them in their temporary embarrassment or to be the first to say that we resent their inability to meet their obligations on the nail. I am convinced that if negotiations are opened with the British Government on that basis a modus vivendi will be arrived at which will permit us to get our essential requirements in the future as in the past. Let us not forget, when talking about plans and bargains and deeds, Mr. Ziff, the Zionist Communist, notwithstanding, that it was Great Britain who provided the dollars all during the war far in excess of our legitimate claim of honour for the essential requirements that we wanted from America and she more than honoured her bond all through a time when it was hard for her to do it. She is in trouble now. I do not believe she has any reason to fear a foray from this side of the Channel. I do not believe that in the long run we have any more reason to apprehend a double-cross from the people of Great Britain than any other nation trading with her has had reason to deplore in the years that have gone by. I believe the Minister for Industry and Commerce is perfectly right to continue working to the end of promoting that kind of industry in this country which can compete with any industry in the world. I believe he is perfectly right to go on seeking opportunities to promote in this country industries which will produce products which will reflect credit on this country no matter what market they may be offered in. He must realise, however, that there is proceeding in this country, under the shelter of tariffs and quotas, a great deal of detestable fraud by lazy, inefficient, slovenly parasites who simply, because they have sky-high tariffs and quotas, produce anything they like and foist them on the public, in the knowledge that so long as the quota functions they can put what they like on the market.
I know of no means of controlling that except by taking off the quota, and that is what I would do. I know the Minister is reluctant to take that course, but if he is, I suggest to him that some kind of tariff commission ought to be established as a permanent feature of his system, before which interested parties who, in their daily trade, see the quality of protected materials steadily deteriorating, would have a right to go and complain that the product that was being offered from the Irish source was no substitute for what could be obtained abroad and that the Irish source should pull up its socks and produce something usable or else the kind of protection they enjoyed should be altered or abolished.
It is monstrous to see an industry, guaranteed its market, starting off with a great flourish of trumpets and, after two or three years, confining itself to an antediluvian product that is not comparable with what that industry was putting out. It is a monstrous thing that the agricultural industry of this country should have foisted on it a great many of the implements at present being foisted on it, implements of antediluvian design which no industry in the world outside this country is producing. Look at the manures that are being manufactured here; look at any of the implements of higher grade than a plough and compare them with up-to-date products from the British and American manufacturers.
I know the difficulties here. The market is not large enough to permit of complete retooling of your factory when modern improvements emerge, but look at the consequences to the unfortunate farmer who sees across the Border from Monaghan his prototype with the very latest machinery while he himself is struggling with the kind of implement that was rejected in all modern equipment years and years ago. Irish industry of the right type— Guinness's, Jacob's and the other industries to which I have referred, such as ready-made clothing, textiles, certain branches of the chemical industry —all these could make a good contribution to the trade balance of our people.
How the Minister, who says, in his opening speech, that it is folly to compete in branches of industry which are completely overshadowed by the dominant industries of Great Britain, can at the same time be proclaiming, as a triumphant achievement, that he is expanding the cotton-spinning industry and the cotton-weaving industry in Athlone, is a mystery to me. Does he not regard the cotton-spinning and weaving industry of Great Britain as one of the industries which overshadows every other industrial unit in that particular branch? Does he not realise the purchase of raw cotton with which to spin in Athlone means the use of dollars, whereas the purchase of cotton textiles and thread could be financed out of sterling? How can we ever hope to get anywhere if, in respect of every problem, there are four different policies pulling in four opposite directions? Either we want to save dollars and eschew these branches of industry where we are going to compete with immense units in Great Britain or the United States of America, or we do not. But, if we do want to save dollars and avoid competition, if there is one industry that we should not be bothered about it is the cotton-spinning and weaving industry which (1) involves the expenditure of dollars and (2) goes into competition with the whole of Lancashire.
How in the name of common sense can we go to Great Britain and ask her to deal with us on a reasonable basis of mutual help if, at the same time, we announce one of our primary objects is to strike as hard as it is in our power to hit at one of her most vulnerable industries, to wit, the Lancashire cotton industry? How much more sensible would it be to say: "Look here, every penny in the pockets of our people is going to find itself in Lancashire and Yorkshire. They buy calico, prints, cotton of every kind and description, and it is from you we want to buy them. Help us to produce the stuff and the prosperity created in Ireland will react on Lancashire and you." The English are not fools.
If we go to them with that tale they will say: "Very well, that is what you say, but there is not a single traveller in the cotton industry now who bothers to go to Ireland. There is no sale for calico, long-cloth or union, all the bread-and-butter stuff in the trade. You have pushed us out. We know you will take the high grade prints that you cannot produce yourself; we know you will take the fine prints, but they are not our bread and butter and they are not the things upon which Lancashire was built. Every enemy we have has struck at the calico, the sheeting, the union and the long-cloth and now you do the same thing. Why? Surely to God, in the whole range of industry you could have found something to do in Athlone without cutting in on the bread and butter of our trade?"
I want to sound a note of warning about Rineanna. I remember the day the Minister announced the agreement his officers had negotiated in Chicago whereunder every United States aeroplane proceeding across this territory towards Europe undertook to land at Rineanna. On the strength of that we were called upon to provide unlimited funds. I was the only Deputy—and I was sternly rebuked by Deputy Morrissey for sounding a discordant note —who warned this House that we were making a very great mistake and we were securing an utterly illusory advantage. We made an agreement with the Americans in which there were several provisos. They have the right to give a year's notice to terminate that agreement at their own sweet will. There was no fixed period of ten or 20 years. Has that notice been given? Has the United States Government asked our Government to accept a year's notice of a proposal to review the air agreement made in Chicago whereby American aeroplanes going across our territory are required to land at Rineanna? I await with interest the Minister's reply to that inquiry. I think that notice has come or is coming. The agreement was never worth very much and shortly it will be worth nothing at all.
If we are to be left with Rineanna and Foynes on our hands, we are making a praiseworthy effort to rescue something out of the wreck by the establishment of a free airport, which will be mainly composed of Foynes seaport, so the derelict hotel may yet come into its own. In my opinion, it would be much better to spend the most of our future appropriations on the development of air traffic at Collinstown. Whatever future this country may have as a centre of air navigation, it will be near Collinstown and we may just as well make up our minds that, with the development of the modern aeroplane, it can easily proceed from New York to London or Paris without stretching its capacity.
Ireland as an intermediate stage upon the world traffic lanes is a thing of the past. It will be with the greatest difficulty that we shall remain on the aerial map at all. As a point of junction for world routes, I think it highly unlikely that Ireland will be used at all ten years from now. I have no doubt that to say that at this stage will be regarded by some people as something like high treason: "Is it not an awful thing to say? He does not want Ireland to be on the map at all." To tell the truth, I do not give a fiddle-de-dee. I do not see what advantage it is to this country to have Gaby Deslys or Patricia Pott stepping off an aeroplane at Rineanna, flicking her eyes at the photographers and telling the admiring crowd how she would like to live in Ireland, skipping round on her high-heeled shoes and clambering back into the plane again. I do not see any advantage to this country in traffic of that kind. Mr. Rockefeller's only contribution to the prosperity of this country when he called there was to refuse to pay the price demanded for Irish handkerchiefs. He clambered into his plane again and bought all his requirements at a haberdashery counter in New York when he arrived there. Nor can I see what benefit is conferred on this country if a gentleman like Mr. Bullit steps off an aeroplane and says: "Tell my old friend, Mr. de Valera, that I was asking for him", and clambers back into the plane again.
Goodness knows if you heard the observations about the fellows who do get off and stay in Ennis or some of those other places it would frighten you. They certainly constitute no advertisement for such visitors. If it comes to pass that Rineanna ceases to be a junction on the main traffic-ways of the world, I should regret that so much money was spent on it, but I do not think it is something that we should look upon in a tragic light. I do not think we shall have lost anything of material substance. If we are able to build up Collinstown as an aerial terminus and erect a few local aerodromes at places like Cork and Sligo, it will mean much more to our people. It would mean a great deal more to me if I could fly down home within an hour after Dáil Eireann had adjourned than know that Patricia Pott or Mr. Bullit stepped off a plane at Rineanna. If we could provide facilities by which the simple people of our own country could take a trip down to Mayo or Clare whenever they felt like doing so, our people would feel that they were getting more value for the public money expended on airports. I think it would be a very sensible thing to consider whether we should not expend at least some of this money in providing internal air services that would enable our people to move rapidly round the country and enjoy short periods of leisure with their friends in distant parts.
The last matter to which I want to refer is one of immense importance of which Deputy Morrissey spoke but with great circumspection. He spoke of the unauthorised strike. It is an odd thing that when anyone refers to Communists in this country they at once get mealy-mouthed. I was in Glasgow recently and spoke at a meeting at which a resolution was carried condemning the imprisonment of Archbishop Stepinac. I said there, and I want to repeat it here, that Communists are never going to try to get control of the Parliament in England or of Dáil Eireann for the very simple reason that they have not the slightest hope of converting the majority of the British people or of the Irish people to the philosophy of Communism.
If you reflect for a moment, you will realise that no country in the world ever became Nazi or Communist. They were made Nazi or they were made Communist by a resolute, small minority which carefully undermined the existing institutions and precipitated social chaos. Then, being the only group left in the community that knew what it wanted and was organised to take it, they grabbed power and held the remainder of the population in servitude. I declared that I believed it to be the studied purpose of the Communist Party in Great Britain and this country to infiltrate, not into Parliament, but into the trade unions and to use their power in the trade unions for a dual purpose of which, I think, trade unionists very often lose sight. One purpose is to precipitate sporadic strikes in essential industries for the purpose of embarrassing the Government of the day, just like the turf strike, the sugar strike or any strike that will cause the maximum inconvenience for the community at large with resultant indignation against the Government of the day.
The second purpose is more subtle, more deadly. They go into the Amalgamated Transport Workers' Union in England or into the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, the Workers' Union, or any of the other unions you care to name and they get a cell established in some particular branch. When the time is ripe, they will start an unauthorised strike. Possibly the Minister for Industry and Commerce will then get into touch with the union headquarters on the 'phone and say: "What is this? I understood there was an agreement registered between the union and the employers which provided for arbitration machinery in the event of a dispute. Why have we this strike now?" The union will reply: "Oh, the general secretary is going down there to insist on the men returning to work and getting the arbitration machinery into operation." Down goes the general secretary and when he goes down there the members of his own union throw him out on his ear as they did to Mr. Deakin this year in London and made a public show of him.
When this happens five or six times, people begin to say: "What is the use of making agreements with unions? You deliver your share of the bargain but when it comes to their delivering their share, they are not able to do it." We do not blame them; it is just that they are not able. They do not control the members of the union any longer. The fellow who represents the union, the chairman or the general secretary, has no more control over the union than a crossing sweeper. The union is taken out of their hands, and so you see under your eyes the destruction of what is a very precious asset of a free democratic society, that is, a legitimate, honest trade union movement. Nothing can be more precious in a well ordered democracy and the Communists know that.
Deputy Morrissey seemed to suggest here that it was the Minister's duty to grapple with this conspiracy. It is not; he has neither the capacity nor the means to grapple with it. The Labour Party and the trade union movement must do it. There is nobody who can clean up the trade union movement but the members of it. God forbid that we should ever see in this country the Government moving into the trade union movement to reorganise it and put it under proper discipline. If the members of the trade union movement are not going to recognise that peril themselves and clean up their own house, nobody on God's earth can do it for them, and so vital a part are they of a free democracy that I dare to say this: if the trade unions betray their own trust and allow Communists who want to tear down this State to get at the State through the trade unions the curse of God will fall on them because nobody else can do the job which the members of the trade union movement can do, and if responsible men stand up and allow our people in the trade unions to be used by the Communists for the purpose of tearing down the State, it is the men in the trade unions, who understand the peril but who are too cowardly to face it, who will be responsible before God in the long run. There is nothing I can do; there is nothing the Minister can do; there is nothing anybody can do but the men in the unions themselves.
I said that in Glasgow from a public platform and I was approached, when the meeting was over, by a very prominent trade unionist in Scotland, who said: "Mr. Dillon, you were perfectly right. We know that is going on, but it does not suit us to say so." It is astonishing the number of prominent trade unionists who, in their hearts, know that it is going on, but who find that it does not suit them to say so. If they play with that ball much longer, they will find that they have sold the pass, and there is no more despicable crime than people who accept responsibility in the office of trustee selling out on that trust because they have not got the courage to do what their obligations demand they should do.
I do not think the Minister can meet that peril by Government action. I think he would probably do more harm than good if he tried, but I do say: "Do not let us, in our desire to circumvent the Communist conspiracy, which, though small, is formidable—the Communist Party is never a big Party; do not judge its power by its size—be betrayed into destroying our liberties in an effort to control them." The Communists require one remedy—the light of day. That is a thing they cannot stand; that is a thing they hate to face. I have learned that. There are a couple of them knocking about the public life of this country—I think there are—and I am waiting to make sure. When I am sure, I intend to name them in their presence and to invite them to reconcile their protestations of innocence with the record of their conduct. That is all that we who stand outside the trade union movement can do—let in the light of day. I suggest to the Minister that he should concern himself with that task and leave the rest of it to the trade unionists themselves.
I am not pessimistic with regard to the various problems which confront us. I think we will get the coal; I think we will get the wheat; and, if we do not put impossible burdens on the agricultural community, we can produce the exports. If we meet with disaster, we shall have nobody to blame but ourselves. I am certain that a Party drawn from this side of the House could run this country along lines in the next two years that would carry us through and that would involve no lamentations, shivering or terrors about the future. I am apprehensive that we will stumble into disaster under a Fianna Fáil Government. Unless there is a more realistic approach than the contradictory remedies advocated in the Minister's opening statement, I am sure we will. I am not without hope that this debate may have achieved something, that the Minister may come to realise this fundamental economic fact—and let us finish on it, so that we may all remember it—that if you want agriculture to produce the exports, you must ensure that those who work in it will earn a profit, and, to do that, you must take the taxes and restrictions off the raw materials of the agricultural industry.
