asked the Taoiseach whether his attention has been drawn to an article, written by the Northern Minister of Home Affairs, relating to this country; and whether he proposes to make any pronouncement in relation thereto.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Northern Ireland Minister's Article.
I assume the Deputy is referring to the article in the Sunday Times of November 16th.
My attention has been drawn to that article. While I do not think that this is an appropriate occasion for dealing with it comprehensively, there are several statements in it which give such a completely misleading picture of the situation that it would not be right to let them pass wholly without comment.
At the outset I would like to say that I was glad to note Mr. Warnock's expression of official goodwill towards the people of this part of Ireland. Regarding, as we do, the Six Counties as part of the national territory, we in the Twenty-Six Counties have also a very deep concern for the welfare of the people of the Six Counties.
Mr. Warnock says that—
"when the British Parliament partitioned Ireland in 1920 no one was enamoured of the plan".
Certainly no Irish member in the British Parliament voted for it. But is not the fundamental point that the vast majority of the Irish people, as proved by the Elections of 1918, and previously, denied then, as they still deny, that the British Parliament had any right or authority to devise any system of Government for Ireland? Mr. Warnock points out that we had not peaceful conditions in Ireland in the past. Was not the reason this: that not for 100 but for more than 700 years the Irish people were resisting by every means at their disposal Britain's claim to rule them? Partitioned Ireland is at peace, he says, to-day. Does he wish to suggest that the nationalists in the Six Counties are satisfied with Partition?
He speaks of the Six Counties as "Ulster". Everyone knows that the Six Counties are only a part of Ulster and that the historic province of Ulster is partitioned no less than Ireland.
Mr. Warnock's article suggests that the area governed from Belfast and Westminster is homogeneously a partitionist area. The fact is, of course, that the peoples of the pre-1920 Parliamentary constituencies of South Down, South Armagh, together with the Counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and Derry City, by a substantial majority, all desire union with us. All those areas adjoin our territory. On what principle does Mr. Warnock claim that they should be cut off from us and included in any partitioned area? Are they not held apart, separated from us, by coercion? Does he deny that they desire by a majority to be with us? Will he agree to put it to the test of a plebiscite of the inhabitants of those areas?
The figures show further that even in a block of four counties out of the six, and these again, areas adjoining our territory, there is a majority for union with us. On what principle are these four counties separated from us? Are they not held from us by coercion? Even in Belfast City itself there is relatively as big a Nationalist minority that object to Partition and the régime under which they are now compelled to live as there are partitionists in the whole of Ireland. Why must one be coerced if not the other?
So far for the political side of the picture presented by Mr. Warnock. When we come to examine the economic side we find it an equally inaccurate representation of the position. When he alleges that wages in the Six Counties are about 20 per cent. higher than in the Twenty-Six Counties, he is completely at variance with the facts. It is, of course, notoriously difficult to obtain strictly comparable data for any two arbitrarily defined areas. But in a list of 33 occupations for which reasonably comparable wage-rates can be obtained I find that in only four are wage-rates higher in the Six Counties than they are here and that in general wage-rates are considerably higher here than in the Six Counties.
In regard to the cost of living, it is altogether misleading for Mr. Warnock to say that it is no less than 70 points lower in the Six Counties than it is here. As far as I am aware, there is no cost-of-living index number compiled for the Six Counties at all and, if there were, a comparison of crude indices would be fallacious in the absence of an adjustment to make allowance for the varying degree to which items entering into the compilation of the cost-of-living index number are subsidised in the two areas.
A special calculation that has recently been made here shows that, if subsidies had not been paid, the rise in the cost of living between 1938 and 1947 would have been about 72 per cent. in the Twenty-Six Counties and about 64 per cent. in Great Britain; this suggests a very different picture to that conveyed by an alleged disparity of 70 points — whatever that may mean — in the cost of living.
It is undoubtedly true that cash social services are, on the whole, higher in the Six Counties than they are in the Twenty-Six Counties, though in some particular instances ours are, as a matter of fact, the higher. But while Mr. Warnock stresses the advantages of the Six-County resident in this respect, he is very careful not to mention the other side of the account— namely, the price that the Six-County resident has to pay for these higher social services through heavier taxation. The proceeds of central taxation in the Twenty-Six Counties in the past financial year, that is, 1946-47, amounted to £15.9 per head of the population, whereas in the Six Counties in the same year it amounted to no less than £34.6 per head of the population —that is, more than twice as much.
To give some examples of this higher taxation: In, say, Belfast, a smoker pays 3/4 for 20 cigarettes. In Dublin he pays 2/-. A bottle of Guinness's stout costs about 1/2 in the north-eastern area. Here it costs 8½d. Our income-tax rate is at present 6/6 in the £. True, it will be 7/- from the beginning of the next financial year, but that rate will still be low in comparison with the present rate of 9/- in the £ which must be paid by the Six-County resident.
There are other disparities. Beef, mutton and eggs are unrationed here. They are severely rationed in the Six-Counties. Our butter ration is twice that is the Six Counties and our sugar ration is 50 per cent. higher. Apart from a few items, the subsidised prices of the principal foods are, it is true, lower in the Six Counties than here, but taking wages, prices, taxes and availability of supplies all into account I do not think that any Belfast worker who knows the corresponding conditions in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford or Galway, would deny that the standard of living is in fact very much higher in those cities than in his own.
Mr. Warnock also refers to education. All I will say in this regard is that we have never received any complaint from the minority here on the score of religious discrimination against them in matters of education. One might venture to ask whether Mr. Warnock can say the same.
As regards health services, a comparison is difficult to make and it is doubtful whether any useful comparison can be drawn between the two areas, having regard to the fact that the services in both areas are in a state of transition. A comparison of housing conditions shows that the Twenty-Six Counties are in a far superior position to the Six Counties; the total housing deficiency in each area in 1943 (the last year in which surveys were made in both areas) was estimated at about 100,000 houses, which represents a deficiency of approximately one in 12 of the population in the case of the Six-Counties and only one in 30 of the population in our case.
Mr. Warnock tells us that great water and sewerage schemes are afoot in the Six Counties. The necessity for such is evident from a White Paper on the subject published by the Six-County Government in 1944 which stated that "reports have shown that these services are extremely inadequate", that there were four towns with a population of over 1,000 which had no piped water supply, and that the great majority of the 109 towns and villages with a population of from 250 to 1,000 had neither a piped water supply nor, as a consequence, adequate sewerage facilities. In contrast with this, in the Twenty-Six Counties, there are only two towns with a population of over 1,000 which are without a piped water supply, and, of the 307 towns and villages with a population of from 200 to 1,000 less than one-third are without a piped water supply.
In conclusion, may I add that if Mr. Warnock is as confident regarding the attractiveness of the conditions created by Partition in the Six Counties as his article might lead one to believe, he should have no hesitation in putting the question of that attractiveness to the test of a plebiscite in the areas I have mentioned above—that is, in the old Parliamentary constituencies of South Down, South Armagh, the Counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and in Derry City, or in the block of four counties Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry. Which of us is right can then be settled conclusively by the vote of the people.