We want to walk circum-spectly in this matter. When we appropriate £1,500,000 or £3,000,000 here for canned beef for Europe it may look an awful lot from this end, but there will be very few sovereign Governments in Europe which would peacefully entertain a questionnaire from an Irish Government as to how they were conducting their internal affairs in exchange for a consignment of our canned beef. Everybody who acknowledges himself to be bound by the obligations of the Christian belief must subscribe to the general proposition that where there are hungry people we must try to feed them, whoever they are, or whatever they may have done in the past. The acceptance of a general principle of that kind imposes no obligation on us to abandon prudence and commonsense.
I do not know what function this country has in sending supplies of food to Poland, the Ukraine and Yugoslavia. Poland is a very large exporter of food, and the Ukraine is exporting food to Russia. I do not think it makes sense for us to be sending food supplies into Russian occupied territories which are themselves sending out food on the foot of arrangements entered into between the U.S.S.R. and their own Governments. I think it is common knowledge that out of Poland and Yugoslavia large quantities of live stock were removed by the Russians. I am informed that in Yugoslavia a great part of the supplies delivered there by U.N.R.A. were taken over by the Government, then sold to their nationals, and the proceeds utilised to pay for armaments supplied by Russia, which had been captured from Germany. These abstruse transactions may be of interest to the people of Russia, but why we should become involved in them I cannot imagine.
So long as the Taoiseach, when dealing with the distribution of this stuff, was in a position to say to us that he was handing it to some central committee of the Swiss Red Cross which was personally supervising its distribution to individual necessitous persons, my mind was quite at ease, but I discovered with some dismay that this national body had been set aside by what is known as the Paris Committee. That Paris Committee, if my information is correct, consists of delegates from every national Red Cross in Europe. The national Red Cross in Ireland consists of a fair cross-section of our people, but when you go to Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria or Roumania the Red Cross consists of groups that are obedient to Joe Stalin. If they go to the Paris Committee and fail to do what Joe tells them, they get shot when they go home.
The result of that situation, as far as I know, as regards supplies delivered to certain eastern European countries through the agency of the Paris Committee and thence to the local Red Cross Societies in their respective countries is this: that if you wear a red tie you get beef and that if you do not you go without. I do not know that it is any part of our duty to be getting involved in that kind of transaction. I strenuously object to it. I do not care whether a man is a Bolshevik, an ex-Bolshevik, an ex-Nazi or an ex-anything else, if he or his wife or his children are hungry I would feed them. I would do that because he is a person in affliction. What I do strenuously object to is that you have a Government getting control of supplies which we are sending out to feed the hungry, and then using them for the purpose of victimising the hungry because they do not subscribe to the political tenets of that Government. It is using them for the purpose of enriching those who support it. What is even worse, those supplies are being used to fill the vacuum created by the domestic Government's readiness to permit the Government of the U.S.S.R. to remove foodstuffs which should have been retained if the domestic Government were doing its duty by its own people and not conforming to the wishes of the Government of the U.S.S.R. on the goodwill of which the domestic Government is depending for its own survival. I know that the simple thing to do would be to close our eyes to all this business, simply to send out the stuff and pat ourselves on the back in the belief that we are doing marvels for the relief of Europe. If we are going to intervene in these kinds of things, then I think there is a duty on us to exert ourselves to see that the relief which we have been able to make available— and it is very, very little but such as it is—will go to those who deserve it.
I want to say further that we cannot ask France to reassure us that she is controlling the distribution of the foodstuffs in her own country, or ask any other sovereign State in Europe. But I think we are bound to ask ourselves this. If we have good grounds for believing that there are large accumulations of foodstuffs in a given area and that the people will not give them to their hungry neighbours, that they hold out for a black-market price and send their own neighbours hungry from their doors, how can you possibly justify our sending foodstuffs into an area where that is going on, when unquestionably there are a great many people in this country short of food? I think a great deal of dishonest capital will be made out of the suggestion that, so long as anybody here is hungry, we ought not to send any relief to Europe. That is a very simple proposition, not easy to controvert, but it could be very dishonestly made. It seems to me, however, that there is something wrong, when there are people hungry in Gloucester Street and Meath Street because they cannot afford to pay for the quantity of good food that would nourish them adequately, when one of the contributing factors to the cost of food is the drain on our supplies by the despatch of food to Europe, if, at the same time, an Irishman can come back from Western Germany and say he was sitting in a farmer's house where there was a sufficiency of plain food, that a knock came to the door while they were at dinner in the kitchen, and the woman of the house, a German woman, went to the door and the Irish visitor heard some altercation take place and the door slammed; when the German woman came back and sat down at the family dinner table in dudgeon and her husband asked her what had annoyed her she said: "It is that rascal out from town again. I gave him potatoes yesterday on his promising to bring me boots for them and he has the impudence to come back to-day with no boots and say he is hungry and he wants more potatoes. I told him I would see him damned first." There were plenty of potatoes in the house; they had enough for themselves. Her approach to the problem was that anyone who wanted her good potatoes should pay her in boots or tangible commodities which would not suffer the penalty of depreciation.
That is a very practical outlook on life. But I cannot help feeling that, if the rural community of Germany are not prepared to feed their own neighbours, it is a very severe demand to make upon us that we should send food out to German cities while our own people are hungry. Of course, what we send is only a drop in the ocean, but it amazes me to see countries like Great Britain and America sending floods of food to feed the German city population when the German rural population themselves will not feed them. I do not understand that.
I would, therefore, be interested to hear Deputy Brady who toured Europe on behalf of this House. I do not think he got to Yugoslavia, but he travelled over certain countries in Eastern Europe with a view to reviewing how this food that was provided was being distributed. I understand that his primary duty was to report to the Government, but I am sure that his colleagues here will be interested to hear his impressions of what he saw. I do not know whether the Minister can place before us to-day the report of Dr. Hourihan and another gentleman who, I believe, toured Yugoslavia on the Government's behalf with a view to seeing how these food supplies were distributed. I want to say, quite explicitly, that I think the Government were right to send food to the hungry in Europe. I want to say that I think that, unless certain reasonable misgivings are frankly recognised and dealt with, honest, reasonable people in the country may find ground for resentment when they think we are sending food abroad to people whose own neighbours will not feed them while some of our neighbours have to go hungry.
It is easy to make a rampageous case against the Government on the ground that they are sending out supplies of food to Europe which they ought to keep at home. But I do not think that it does any service to any interest our people should hold dear that that kind of case should be made. If I were to arrogate to myself the right to judge people's motives, I might take a different view of all this business. But none of us is competent to judge our neighbours' motives and I am prepared to take this at its face value as a genuine effort on the part of a small nation, with limited resources, to do what it can in keeping with the Christian precept. As such, I think it is a good work. A variety of other motives might inspire it and might very materially alter the quality of what is being done; but I do not think it is necessary to go into that We are entitled, however, to assume that what is being done is being done from the right motive and, on that assumption, I cordially tender to this House on my own behalf and on behalf of those whom I represent and speak for the provision here proposed for the relief of hungry people in Europe, whoever they may be.
