I am sorry for putting it that way, but the Parliamentary Secretary is actually wrong. The actual position is reflected in their estimates. I will give you now their defence estimate. It is published in a statement on defence for 1949-50. It is a White Paper of the British Government, and the comparative figure which I am giving will be got in Keesing's Contemporary Archives, referring to this paper. Here are the figures:—The net financial provision for defence purposes proposed for 1949-50 is as follows: £759.96 million. The comparable figure for last year, for 1948-49, was £692.60 million, and that embraces Admiralty, War Office, Air Ministry, Ministry of Supply and Ministry of Defence.
They are the actual figures. The army figure in England was left roughly as it was, the air force and navy were increased. Perhaps that is what my friend was thinking of. There is the situation, and undoubtedly there is a state of tension abroad, and because there is we must, in common with others, look to our defence problem, if a defence problem we have. What defence problem have we got? I submit primarily that our defence problem is posed by geography. If one looks at the map and sees the position of this island, having regard to the present set-up—that is, having regard to the Western Powers with America as the strongest and greatest of them, as against Russia, the centre of the opposing bloc and by far the major part of it—if one looks at that geographical picture, one will see that this island lies in a position which makes it comparable to an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean from the point of view of the Western Powers. To use a phrase of Deputy Captain Giles this evening: "a floating dock"—that also rather aptly describes our position. You have then lying east of you an island composed of England, Scotland and Wales, a kind of barrier, so to speak, which gives you a certain amount of protection in your rôle as a potential aircraft carrier. You are close to the northern end of Western Europe. Generally speaking, I do not think you can afford to ignore your geographical position. As a consequence of that, you must conclude that anything directly involving Western Europe will also involve you to some extent, either directly or indirectly, as we were, to some extent, involved in the last war on matters of supply and so on. That is not an altogether new situation. Traditionally, this island has always been of strategic importance—the southern coast in relation to France and the eastern coast in relation to England.
Without going into detail I think I am warranted in concluding that from a geographical point of view alone we are posed with a defence problem. The question is as to what is its nature. The best way of approaching that, in order to avoid controversy in the future, is to look at our position in the last war. We are situated on the flank of England. I still adhere to the view that had an invasion of England been attempted and had "Operation Sea Lion" been projected we would have come into the picture at least as a theatre of diversionary attacks, if nothing else. It was essential then that we should account for this unit of territory. From England's point of view it was essential that there should be some protection in order to protect her flank. From our own point of view it was essential that if any such attack were made upon us, whether directly or as a means of bringing England to heel, we should be in a position to resist. We achieved that during the war. I think the fact that we achieved it was largely due to a number of providential factors into which I do not propose to enter now. We were fortunate in many of the things that happened.
Because of our geographical position and because of the nature of the set-up in the world to-day, it seems to me that this island must necessarily enter into the defence picture and some provision must be made for defence. If we do not make that provision somebody else will. The next question then is, upon what basis is that provision to be made if we are going to make it. Before answering that I think it would be as well at this stage, having arrived at the conclusion that some provision must be made for our defence, to ask ourselves whether we are going to do it ourselves or whether we are going to leave it to somebody else. I think it has been pointed out on previous occasions that if we do not do it ourselves somebody else will do it for us. What is the consequence? The consequence is the wholesale occupation of our country with all the disadvantages that accrue therefrom. The consequence is that you would lose your freedom of action. Immediately you make that decision and proceed to deprive yourself of freedom of action in international affairs when questions of defence arise, in the long run you will pay and your people will pay for that defence. When the problem is put in that way I think most people will agree that we should provide our own defence. It may be expensive but it will at least leave us in the position of maintaining a certain freedom of action to mould our own lives and make our own decisions. We were able to do that in the past. We were able to preserve our people and our country as a unit. When all the factors are reckoned up the cost in the long run will probably be less than if we abandon our defence to somebody else. This has been debated before. I could repeat the arguments in detail.
When I challenged the Government I got only one Deputy who opted in favour of a police force only. Last year I approached this Estimate on the basis that we were all agreed on providing our own defence and that an auxiliary police force was not the solution. I mentioned it again now, because I was not quite clear from this debate whether or not we had disposed of that problem.
That is the first problem to be faced, because we cannot afford to throw away £3,750,000. If we are only going to maintain an auxiliary police force, then let us do it in a direct and cheap way. Let us recruit a couple of thousand special constabulary and arm them with submachine guns and a few armoured cars and organise them for a police job primarily. Let us cut out the trimmings. We shall save a lot of money in personnel, maintenance, equipment and everything else. If you, however, make up your mind, as most of us have, that we want a defence force, then the problem must be faced on a different basis. It is going to be a more expensive one. If we are going to face it, let us face it as realists. It is no use having an Army, or a force that appears to be an Army, which cannot do its job. Spending £3,750,000 on an Army of that kind would be unjustifiable waste. It is for that reason I am pressing the Deputies to face this problem of defence in the broad manner in which I have outlined it. The Deputies must have the courage to make up their minds as to what they will recommend to their constituents. Are we going to face this defence problem seriously or are we going to be content with a police force and leave our defence to somebody else? That is a simple straightforward question. It cannot be shirked. We cannot talk about this Defence Estimate with any degree of clarity until we dispose of that problem. I invite Deputies to consider it and to decide for themselves. If we decide that we shall cater for our own defence, then let us be realists and face up to and implement the consequences of our decision. That is surely a reasonable thing to ask.
For the rest of this debate I go on the assumption that we intend to provide for our own defence, that that in the long run is going to be the best thing for us, that it is preferable for us to preserve our integrity whether we are involved in hostilities or not, than simply to throw ourselves open to the occupation and dictation in detail of any foreign power, no matter how friendly. Let us proceed to the discussion of the Estimate on that basis. In the more narrow sense, what is the problem we have to face in that regard? Perhaps there are people in this country who would argue two ways on that. There are three possibilities, as I see the situation. You are either on one side or the other; the third is that you are neutral. So far as the great majority of the people in this country are concerned, I think we can leave one of these out and then we are left with two. In other words, the possibilities are that we carry on or try to carry on to implement a policy of neutrality, such as we had in the past, or that we become active and participate with the Western Powers in any future conflict. I will admit that there are probably people who at this stage would have two minds about meeting one or other of these definite alternatives at the moment. There are others who would like to wait longer before making a decision.
What I want to point out, in approaching this, is that, whether you are going to be neutral, as we were in the last war, or whether you envisage co-operation with the Western Powers, whether firmly or flexibly, on either showing the approach to our defence problem is the same. There is so much to be done. The opening phase of our problems, so to speak, remains the same, no matter on which basis you approach it, so that we can avoid controversy in approaching this defence problem here by simply assuming either of those, and for the purposes of this debate I shall leave the question completely open.
What can a defence policy for us mean in practice? Perhaps I can answer that in a negative way first. Every one of us realises that in modern conditions absolute defence against any aggressor is out of the question for a small nation like ours. We will all agree, too, that absolute resistance, with a chance of ultimate success, against any major or even second class modern power, is beyond the resources of a nation of our size. It is, therefore, futile to think of defence in such terms. We must rather think of defence objectives in a more limited way. As I can see them generally, these objectives should be, firstly, that in case of war or serious emergency such as the last, we should be able to provide our own local security and local garrisons. That is, from the local security point of view, we should be able to guard against espionage and to provide for the protection of installations, communications and so forth. We should be in a position to supply the elements necessary to ensure such security in time of stress. Secondly, we should be able to dispose of certain tactical forces distributed over the country that would fulfil the rôle of garrison troops, so to speak, and deal with anything like light incursions of a belligerent, activities of enemy agents and so forth. That is, local tactical forces should be available to garrison the country at such a time.
Thirdly, we should then have such a force as would compel any belligerent, who is going to interfere with you to deploy relatively large forces against you; which could inflict sufficient damage to make the cost both in men and materials relatively high for him. If you have a sufficient force to do that, you make it a fairly serious problem for him to interfere with you and therefore you are deterring him from interfering with you. You should have that force there in order to inflict certain delay on him. Not only must it cause him to deploy large forces, not only must it be costly to him in men and materials, but it must be costly to him in time. The advantage of that is twofold. If you impose as large a time factor on him as you possibly can, you take away from him the element of surprise. In so far as he wishes to secure surprise against his main enemy through interfering with you, if you have forces able to delay him, to that extent you take away the advantage of surprise from him and so further deter him from interfering with you.
Suppose we had been interfered with in the last war by German forces, it would have been vital, both from our own point of view and from the point of view of the opponents of Germany, that we here should have been able to put up a resistance for a considerable length of time in order to enable them to deploy in this particular area. If we have in the future forces that will imply such a time factor, it immediately operates as a deterrent to anyone interfering with us. Therefore, briefly the objectives should be: to garrison your own territory, supply your own local security with the necessary local tactical forces, and then have a sufficient central reserve—let me call it that for want of a better name—to compel any intending aggressor, no matter who he is, to deploy considerable forces against you at a likely heavy cost in manpower and material and a substantial time factor.
These are, I think, the objectives that we should have in our immediate defence policy. As I say, it is obvious that the set-up is compatible with a policy of neutrality, but it is equally compatible with a policy of cooperation because, in the geographical set-up, this island will have to be garrisoned in any event, and it is better that we should do the garrisoning ourselves. Even if we are to cooperate with somebody else, it is much better that we should afford the contribution to garrison our own country and minimise the necessity for occupation by foreign troops, no matter how friendly. Lastly, if you are in active co-operation you can be much more helpful to your friends if you are organised than if you are disorganised, and exactly the same type of organisation will fit both bills. That is why I say that controversy can be avoided by taking the picture generally on that basis.
Therefore the question is: is it feasible for us to implement such a defence policy? In my humble opinion, it is. But, if we are going to examine that defence policy, we should not fall into the mistake of examining it merely from the localised point of view of armed forces. A defence policy of that nature involves a large and broader view of the State. Although it is out of place on this Estimate, perhaps the Chair will permit me to mention them by way of correlation. It presupposes that you organise your communications, your food supply, your fuel supply, with a view to meeting the emergency situation. It presupposes organising your armed forces. It presupposes co-ordinating all these together. That is an aspect which, I am afraid, we have neglected to a certain extent to date. During the war we were fortunate in that a number of factors conspired to give us that co-ordination. The policy before the war of growing wheat, of developing turf and a number of these things fitted into the defence picture, along with the development of the defence forces from 1937 onwards. I think that in the position we have to face in the future some such co-ordination must be looked after. I mention it now as the most appropriate occasion on which I can mention it, and I mention it particularly in order not to lay myself open to the charge of looking upon this defence problem from the narrow point of view of the forces. It is, however, in that narrow point of view that we are engaged in this Vote. We might follow it on that basis.
If then we are to have that policy that I have attempted to outline, what do we need? It seems to me that local security requires the F.C.A. There is a rôle for that immediately. Next garrison and tactical troops. There you need both a certain regular element and a First Line Reserve element, for reasons which I shall develop in a moment. It seems to me, therefore, that on that basis we must face the problem as demanding that we have three elements, each with its own specific rôle. We cannot confuse these and we cannot adequately make one rôle do another. We need the permanent forces, we need the First Line Reserve and we need the F.C.A. more than ever in present times. The question is, what is to be the proportion, what is to be the equipment, and what is to be the strength of these components and, of course, what is the cost going to be? So much for the general picture.
I should like to feel that we can take it from the point of view of unifying this debate, and I should like it to be agreed that we could take it that way, that this defence problem must be provided for on the basis that we will provide for our own defence to the greatest extent that we can. That is the first point of agreement that I should like to feel we have. The second point of agreement that I suggest is that the only rational policy for us is a policy of the nature I have briefly outlined. That policy is equally adjustable to a policy of neutrality such as we had in the past or a policy of cooperation such as I have mentioned, and so all controversial issue is avoided. If we could feel that we were agreed on this matter, I think that we cannot escape the conclusion that the three elements, the Regular Army, the First Line Reserve and the F.C.A., are essential elements of the Defence Forces, all related, of course, to the broader aspects which the Minister himself has mentioned. I think he mentioned it in this debate; he certainly mentioned it last year. It must be taken in conjunction with that. If we got that far, then we have the basis on which we can take the facts that the Minister referred to and keep strictly to these facts.
The first problem is the strength of the Regular Army and the strength of the Reserve. There the Minister at the opening was at pains to point that out, apparently, agreement had been reached in the past on this matter. I am not going to controvert the Minister on anything he said, save to this extent, that times have changed and, with respect, I would suggest that we have got to study this problem specifically in the light of events in 1948, 1949 and 1950. We have got to have regard to present events and the general lesson of history which teaches that if something which was decided in the past is to be qualified then we must qualify what was decided on in the past. I have tried to outline generally heads of defence policy. I have actually done no more than outline what was the general policy of this State from its inception. Last year I referred to an agreed policy and Deputy Cogan, I think, said:—
"Look here, the mistake that fellow is making is that he is talking as if we should have the same policy as we had for 20 years."
I want to draw a distinction. A broad general policy, yes, remains substantially the same, for the reasons which I have given. These reasons are largely imposed by geography. Of course, "policy" in the restricted sense of implementing the general policy must change from day to day. The general policy in regard to our Defence Forces appears to have been agreed by three Governments.
However, if I read the record aright, I would say that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, at one stage, anyway, had the idea of relying on the efficiency of a small, highly-trained force of permanent personnel to offset the lack of numbers and also of relying on them as being a cadre on which to expand in an emergency. I gave reasons last year in the debate to which I have referred why that policy was not realisable in practice and why results could not be achieved. Briefly, it was for the reason that, first of all, you could not get an Army where every soldier was a potential officer on the terms of pay, recruitment and so forth. Only a percentage of the force could live up to the ideal of being a leader upon which a little unit could be formed. Secondly, some units of the regular force must inevitably, as such, be disposed of on mobilisation. In other words, you cannot split it up into single individual men and say: "I will form a little unit round each man." Some units of the permanent force must be held as such on mobilisation, leaving only a fraction of the permanent force as a skeleton upon which to expand. Thirdly, under modern conditions more than ever certain units are highly technical. These highly technical units demand for efficiency not only skill on the part of the individuals which compose them but a degree of collective skill and that degree of skill and efficiency can only be achieved by keeping the unit together. Then there was the question of guard duties. I went over all that last year and I do not intend to repeat it. However, for that reason it is not practicable to rely purely on a small permanent force, no matter how efficient. In any event, it would be very hard to achieve especially in the light of experience as to conditions of pay, promotions and so forth.
Another view which was expressed by other people was that of having practically no permanent force or of regarding your permanent force purely and simply as a cadre on which to expand and having a very large voluntary army. Experience shows that you can go too far in that direction also. First of all, the experience with the voluntary reserves which we have had in the past and especially the volunteer force, is that to every unit a cadre must be provided. In other words, no volunteer unit will completely run itself if it has not a certain nucleus of regular personnel permanently associated with it for administration and training and to fill certain key positions. That is definitely a lesson of the past, both in the pre-war period and on the 1940 mobilisation. You must provide the cadres for that force. Further, as has been already pointed out, there is a limit to the size of any voluntary army which you can maintain and that limit is imposed by the size of the permanent force which you maintain.
In addition to these general reasons all of which have been given already there is a further factor governing that. This is directly relevant to the quotations the Minister made in his speech. From the Boer War to 1914 a large part of an army was composed of infantry men, the principal weapon being the rifle. There was no mechanisation. During that period it was more feasible than it is to-day to rely on the voluntary reservists like the Territorial Army in England, provided they had been trained to shoot. In fact the experience of 1914, 1915, and 1916 shows the value of that Territorial Force in England. These ideas were carried on even after the Great War of 1914-'18. Sight was lost of the fact that mechanisation was in the offing, that soldering was becoming a much more complex matter, that new weapons were intruding on all branches of the service and that the degree of efficiency and training required was correspondingly greater. These factors were not quite apparent until close to the last war. We had apologies from various people as to why they did not foresee the tank or this, that or the other thing and the result of such lack of foresight. The fact is that the lessons of the 1914-1918 war were not learned until a comparatively late date even by those who took part in that war. The few, like General de Gaulle and some other officers, who did see the contents of the lesson were more or less discredited until the stress of action proved them right.
In these circumstances, as long as armies remained as they were during that period there was a lot to be said for the view that you could rely largely on a voluntary army. I think that that day has gone for ever for this reason. Firstly, to get efficiency, as I have already mentioned, with modern units the collective efficiency has to be taken into account and to develop that takes a certain amount of time. Consequently, no voluntary army will be available immediately on mobilisation. On mobilisation you are going to have to depend on your permanent force and your First Line Reserve—mainly on your permanent force.