The most exhaustive extremes of charity that I have ever come into contact with were in the tenement rooms of the City of Dublin. That is as it should be. It is a good thing, within reason, for society to help out, with outdoor relief or pensions, and always to stand ready to ensure that destitution will not be allowed to overtake anyone. It would be a great mistake, however, and one into which Deputy Norton will not readily fall, to make the case that the State must provide a reasonable stipend for every afflicted person before it pays the necessary expenses of maintaining Government and carrying on the institutions of the State.
Deputy Norton spoke also of the £90 per annum for the widow of a 1916 veteran. I do not understand now and never could understand how this Parliament has stood for figures of that kind. I have very little sympathy with the payment of a pension of any sort to an able-bodied man who has not suffered any physical injury in the service of his country, but where you are dealing with the widow of a man who has laid down his life in the service of his country, whether you agree with the fellow or not, it is different. Where you are dealing with a man who is crippled in the service of his country, whether you agree with him or not, that he should know the bitterness of looking at his neighbours who are comparatively prosperous and realise that he has to struggle along on £90 per year when, if his health were spared to him, he could have made a good living for himself and his family, is to me utterly incomprehensible.
Regarding Deputy Norton's reference to the widow of a man who was killed in 1916 or died as a result of wounds then received, and now in receipt of £90 a year, I think it is an outrage and I cannot but believe that, if that matter were brought before the House, all Parties without distinction would say that, where a person has suffered such physical injury as to make him unable to earn his own living, or where a person has left a widow and family after him because he died in the course of his duty, the inadequacy of the pension at present provided should be readily rectified.
I want now to break a lance with Deputy Cosgrave. He says we ought to be very circumspect about what we do because he observes the criticism of democratic politicians abroad and sees to what pretty pass they have been brought, owing to their having left themselves open to such criticism. I gather from his words that he implied that this criticism was very much justified. I want to question that. Every would-be tyrant, whether Bolshevik or Nazi, has always held the democratic politician up to odium as corrupt, as a time-server, chiseller and intriguer. Then he gets in and there is no more criticism—that is an essential part of the system—but if there was a faint aroma from the democratic Parliament, there is a stink that would paralyse you from the dictator's sanctum. Every corruption, every abomination, every inequality, every savagery that the mind of man can conceive, proceeds to pour forth, but there is never any criticism, because the first man who criticises, you knock his block off. We poor simple democrats acknowledge the right of people to praise or blame us at their own sweet will, but our critics who want to replace us or who want to set up pure, efficient, radical forms of government, it is perfectly true, are never criticised because it is as much as your life is worth to do so. So far as I am concerned, imperfect as we democratic politicians are, I would a damned sight sooner live under the worst of us than I would under any of the bloodstained dictators who disfigure the face of the earth at present.
It is true that at one time during the Third Republic in France one might criticise adversely the opportunist manæuvres of the splinter parties of the French Parliament. When we start dwelling on that, we might have a look around here and begin to wonder if that fate might ever overtake us in Dáil Éireann, but he is a bold man today who will start lecturing M. Ramadier, the Prime Minister of France, on courage or resolution in handling the problems of the democratic republic. If every man in the world showed the same courage and resolution, whether he is right or wrong, in the Parliaments of the world, the world might be a much better place than, in fact, it is. Do not let us carry over from yesteryear what were appropriate criticisms at that time into the present day when they have ceased to be appropriate, because there is nothing more discouraging than to find that, when a man changes a bad old system and, at great personal sacrifice, substitutes therefor the hard, difficult new system, the critics of the bad old system are still blaming him, although, at great sacrifice, he has changed what was bad and has sought to substitute for it something that was good.
I said I intended to vote against this Bill and I want to tell Deputies why. This Bill falls into two parts. The first part is the one which has to do with travelling expenses. Whoever is to blame for that part of the Bill, it is not the Minister for Finance, because I think I state the facts correctly when I say that, in regard to Part I, the Minister simply gave effect to a request made to him by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, with the approval of every member of that Committee representing all Parties in the House. On that request being made to the Minister, he considered it, and, believing it to be of a character which he might with propriety recommend to the Government, he did so, and the terms of this Bill in respect of Part I are no more and no less than a fulfilment of a request made to the Minister by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.
It was designed to a particular end and it is very important that the House should know it. Under the old system, a Deputy was entitled to his first-class railway expenses coming and going from this House. He could come on foot, so far as I know, on his bicycle, in his motor-car, on a donkey or in a train, and, so long as he came and went home again, he was entitled to get his first-class railway expenses. A great many Deputies came in their cars and went home in their cars, and what these Deputies were entitled to—take my own case—was £2 1s., the return first-class fare to Ballaghaderreen. But suppose you started out on a day on which there was no train. You were entitled to 6d. a mile, and 6d. a mile sometimes ran up to £5, with the result that you found yourself down in the hall with no man on God's earth knowing what day you came, and if you said you came on Wednesday, you got only £2 1s., but if you could bring yourself to say that you came up on Tuesday, you might get anything from £5 to £7. Now, £5 is as acceptable to me as to anybody else, and, so far as I was concerned, I found the temptation was getting too strong for my constitution. The basis on which I went with the Minister for Finance was: "I do not want to be exposed to temptation and if this goes on much longer, great as is the grace of God, some day I will put down Tuesday instead of Wednesday."
I think that was a rational approach —that we ought not to be put in the dilemma every week of our lives of saying whether we came up on Wednesday or Tuesday, when no one could check up on us and when the difference might amount to a sum as substantial as £5 on each occasion. Over and above that, some Deputies do not claim their expenses every week, but let five, six and ten weeks go by, and then claim for all together. They were faced with the problem of trying to remember in respect of each week if there was a train available or not on the day on which they travelled. Accordingly, we asked the Minister to provide that if a Deputy coming to the House on public business came by train, he would get his train fare; if he came in a hired car, he would get the appropriate mileage rate provided by the regulations for that form of transport; and if he came in his own car, he would get the appropriate mileage rate laid down by the Department of Finance for that form of transport, without regard to the alternative means of transport available.
For that proviso in this Bill, if it is to be criticised, I want to accept my full share of responsibility, because I was one of the moving spirits in pressing on the Minister the desirability of it. So far as he was concerned personally, it was of no significance at all, because, living in the neighbourhood of the city, it is a proviso which has no reference to him whatever. It was designed purely for the convenience of country Deputies of all Parties who habitually travel.
We come then to the question whether we should raise the allowance or not. I trust the House will pardon me if I observe that when I hear members of the House declaring that it is unthinkable that men without independent means should be expected to serve in Parliament without adequate allowances, it makes me look back with pride to the 30 weary years during which the members of Parnell's Party and of Redmond's Party served this country in the British House of Commons, with no allowances of any kind, sort or description, except such modest contributions as their constituents were in a position to give them. Not until 1911 did the members of the Irish Party receive one penny Parliamentary allowance.
I look back with pride on the fact that some of the most distinguished amongst them did not think it beneath their dignity, in the service of this country, to live in tenement rooms on the Vauxhall Bridge Road in order to spare their constituents any excessive burden of their maintenance in London while they were doing their work there. I do not expect, and I do not suppose any of us should expect, now that the fight for national independence has been won—their fight—so far as the Twenty-Six Counties in this part of the country are concerned, that we should demand of public representatives the same standard of brilliant service which was so casually demanded of them and so ill-requited by those in whose service that work was done. They wanted no reward. It was not for that they worked but we, who live upon a lower plane than they, must ask ourselves the question Deputy Norton asked: Should we be the paid servants of the State or should we be the unpaid servants of the people for whom we work? For the reasons set out, I believe we should remain as we now are—the unpaid servants of those who vote for us—receiving an allowance barely adequate to permit those whose circumstances make them depend upon it entirely for their subsistence to live in modest comfort. I believe that is the penalty we must pay in order to avoid becoming paid servants of the State and in order to preserve the kind of Parliamentary diplomatic institutions we have got. There may be those who say: "You, who have an independent income find it very easy to say so. If you had to live on the £480 a year you might sing a different tune." I know. Maybe I would. If I did I think I would be wrong. I think my judgment would be swayed by personal considerations which, very possibly, if they applied directly to myself, I would not have the fortitude to meet with the detachment with which they ought to be considered. I recognise fully that it is not easy for any of us to judge this problem with detachment. Each of us must be influenced very largely by his own personal experiences and problems. In so far as I can do that, I believe it is best that we should forego a salary so that we may be independent and so that we may have to render an account to nobody on earth except to those who vote for us.
When we come to the question as to whether we should decide in principle whether we should receive an allowance tax free instead of a salary—and it is on that basis we are to estimate the reward—the fact, I think, is that we are getting enough in £480 a year. I think, admitting that the cost of our expenses has increased since the beginning of the war, if we go back to the commission which we ourselves set up to inquire into this matter in 1937 we will find that that commission—and it was a good commission—then said that they thought £360 and equitable figure; that it should not be changed, and the change was made to £480 despite that commission's recommendation. Now, if we stick to the figure on which we at present stand I believe that we are anchoring ourselves back to that commission's 1937 recommendation, making an allowance of about 30 per cent. for the increased cost of living. £360 plus 30 per cent. would be approximately £480. I do not believe the people down the country will recognise that that £480 a year, laid out as we have to lay it out, is very tight measure. On the contrary, I believe the vast majority of the people down the country think we are all living in the lap of luxury. We do not give two fiddle-dee-dees what they think. Our job here is to do what we believe to be right and if they do not like it let them lump it and get someone else. I think we are on solid ground so long as we can say: "We did what we thought was right, and if you think we are not fit to do it any longer, get someone else." But we must be clear in our minds that we did what we thought was right. We set up a commission in 1937 on which we had no representation at all. There are the names of the men we chose to examine this problem. They recommended £360 at that time. It was very short commons. The increase in the cost of living since then is probably more than 30 per cent—call it 30 per cent. We stand on £480 now, which is very short commons. We knew that when we entered public life.
Our contribution to the maintenance of democratic institutions in this country is the juryman's contribution —he does it for nothing but he only has to do it a couple of days every 12 months. We could not do it—if we did we would starve and our families would starve but we do it for the allowance. In the case of some of us it means we are living on very short commons and on far less than we would if we were to work for hire or at a profession. In the case of others of us, who have businesses or professions, the neglect of our business or of our profession as a result of our Parliamentary duties loses us far more than the £480 gives us. In regard to other fellows who do not come near the House at all and who enjoy the £480, I would say: "The devil mend you for voting for them. Who ever asked you to? If you think it is all lamb and salad at Leinster House you are quite wrong and if you do not like it you can lump it." Once we depart from that position I think we are lost. I do not think any Deputy in this House has made any case on the basis that this allowance of £480 is too little. For those who believe that it ought to be a salary—that is another story. I am not going to argue that. I choose in principle to stand on the allowance because I believe it is a better system. That is why I am going to vote against the Bill.