The second of the three factors which I mentioned is the development within the last two years of the E.R.P. I wonder whether Deputies are aware of the magnitude and scale of the operations which the working of the E.R.P. involves. If anyone thinks that participation in the programme is simply a question of indicating the extent of your needs and receiving the dollars necessary to cover them, he is very much mistaken. On the contrary, the operation of the plan is based on an elaborate and highly technical administrative machinery, which includes, among other things, the preparation of advance programmes by the participating countries, the clearance of those programmes with the O.E.E.C. in Paris, the examination of import applications to ensure that they come within the scope of the programme, the issue of authorisations in respect of approved imports, and a detailed auditing procedure necessary to secure the reimbursement in dollars of the cost of consignments from the E.C.A. in Washington. The magnitude of the work involved in all this may be gathered from the fact that, up to date, our allocations under the E.R.P. have totalled over $131,000,000, of which we have received in dollar reimbursements from the E.C.A. in Washington, after completion of all the programming, authorisation and auditing procedures required, over $88,000,000.
This has involved additional staff. Deputies may say, of course, that this necessary staff has been provided on an unduly lavish scale. I think I have as sharp an eye for public economy as anyone in the House, and I say that this is not the case. So far as headquarters is concerned, I think it would be difficult to find in the Civil Service more hard-working and zealous staff than have been handling E.R.P. matters in my Department and I know that, with their utmost efforts, they are constantly hard put to it to complete important work with the necessary degree of promptitude. I have had the unusual experience of hearing not only officials of the O.E.E.C., but even representatives of other countries taking part in that organisation, making comment on the inadequacy of our staff provision in Paris. The staff in Washington was increased as much at the instance of the Minister for Finance as on my initiative because it was found in his Department that the necessary reimbursement procedures could not be carried through without serious difficulties and delays in the absence of staff in Washington to handle them at that end.
The third factor which has contributed to the increased expenditure on this Vote is the new provision made throughout the Vote, and particularly under the heading "Miscellaneous", for the improvement of our information services abroad. This work, I agree, is a matter of policy, and I propose to deal with it in some detail later. All I need say just now, in order to complete the picture I have given, is that the proportion of the increase on the Vote since 1948 which is attributable to this cause is roughly £69,000. That covers the Grant-in-Aid of the Irish News Agency, the provision of £10,000 for information material under subhead C (3) of the Vote, the salaries and allowances of public relations officers in Washington, New York and London, and the staff of the information division at the headquarters of the Department in Dublin.
The three factors which I have dealt with—the devaluation of the £, increased official activity in connection with E.R.P. and the development of our information services abroad—account between them for £150,000, or nearly 85 per cent. of the net amount of £177,000 by which the expenditure on this Vote has increased since 1948.
The rest of the increase is due to a number of minor and more or less routine factors. The improvement of Civil Service remuneration which took place in 1948 accounts for £7,500; the new Legation in the Netherlands, to which we were already morally committed in 1948, for approximately £5,000; and the provision made for the appointment of Vice-Consuls at Boston, Chicago and San Francisco for approximately £4,500. The balance is made up of routine salary increments, increases in the pay of locally-recruited staff abroad to meet higher living costs and other similar factors.
An efficient information service has been provided to keep missions abroad fully informed of up-to-date developments at home and, by so doing, to enable them to represent the country more effectively. In these and other ways, the efficiency of our representation abroad has been greatly increased and I am fully convinced that the expenditure incurred in doing this was not only fully justified but long overdue.
The salaries and foreign allowances of our representatives abroad are lower than those of almost any other country. Almost no other country spends so small a percentage of either its national income or its annual Budget on external affairs. In order to put the matter in proper perspective, let me take a few concrete comparisons. The total amount of this Vote is less than what the British Foreign Office spent last year on the provision and maintenance of official motor cars for its officials. The staffs of some diplomatic missions of foreign countries are larger than all our staffs, at home or abroad, put together. For example, there are more people on the staff of the British High Commissioner in Pakistan than there are on the staff of the Department of External Affairs here in Dublin. Comparisons of this kind could be multiplied indefinitely but, to my mind, whatever comparisons are made will all bring you to the same conclusion—that, both in the number of their personnel and the financial provision made for them, our missions abroad are organised and financed on extremely conservative and economic lines.
Turning now from the financial aspects of the Vote to the work of the past 12 months it can be truly said, I think, that the past financial year was a particularly active and eventful one in the sphere of our external relations.
At the beginning of the year, the Republic of Ireland Act entered into force, and, for the first time, the Republic of Ireland was specifically recognised as such by the States of the world. Then we had the passage by the British Government last May of the Ireland Act in which fresh legislative sanction was sought to be given to Britain's occupation of our six north-eastern counties. In the domain of general foreign policy, we found it necessary to define our attitude towards the North Atlantic Pact in official Notes, the texts of which were recently presented to the Dáil in a White Paper. On the other hand, we accepted an invitation to participate in drafting the Statute of the Council of Europe and, in due course, became a member of that organisation. Our four representatives attended the Consultative Assembly at Strasbourg in September and, apart from their effective advocacy of our claim to the unity of our national territory, they played a conspicuously active and useful part in the deliberations of the Assembly. We also continued during the year to play an active role in the work of the O.E.E.C., and I think our election to the Executive Committee of that organisation at the end of the year may be regarded in some part as a recognition of the value of our efforts.
Apart from this activity in the policy field, a good deal has been accomplished during the year in other directions. As regards our trade relations, not only were existing agreements renewed and extended, but a trade arrangement was made with Germany for the first time since the war and a comprehensive Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation concluded with the United States. with which country we have also concluded, within the last few months, a Consular Convention.
As regards cultural relations, the new Advisory Committee got into its stride during the year with notable and most successful results. It arranged art exhibitions in the United States and Italy; it arranged for the publication of a series of cultural booklets, the first of which has already been published; it arranged for the making of a film tribute to the poet Yeats, which I hope will be shortly released in this country and will later be exhibited widely abroad; it made a contribution towards the visit to Dublin of the Hamburg State Opera Company; and afforded similar practical encouragement towards a number of other activities of cultural interest, including the organisation of summer schools by the universities, the visit of an Irish lecturer to Holland, Sweden and Denmark, the continued publication of certain foreign cultural reviews of interest to this country, and so on. During the year, too, a new information division was set up in the Department and a serious beginning was, for the first time, made to tackle a task which, indeed, more than any other has absorbed the energies of the Department and the missions abroad during the year—the task of bringing before the bar of the public opinion of the world this nation's just and indefeasible claim to the unity of our national territory.
In introducing this Vote, therefore it may be better if, instead of attempting to give the Dáil a detailed account of all the various activities of the Department, I confine myself to dealing with the aspects of its work which are of special interest, either because of their importance in the framework of the national policy or because of their novelty.
Naturally, our principal concern during the year and the primary object of all the Government's efforts in the sphere of external policy has been to hasten the solution of the problem of Partition. We know that we are not alone in that aim, and, before I go further, I wish, on behalf of the Government, to place on record our appreciation of the support which we have received in this matter from all Parties in the House, as well as our frank recognition of the value of the help given to the anti-Partition drive throughout the world by the All-Party Committee.
Deputies are familiar with the lines along which our efforts to find a solution of the Partition problem have been directed. Basing ourselves on the belief that the Partition of this ancient nation is an intolerable and indefensible injustice which nobody who accepts the principles of democracy and the right of national self-determination can possibly seek to condone, the object of all our endeavours has been to bring the objective facts about Partition to the knowledge of democratic public opinion throughout the world. We retain the confidence that, whatever obstacles we may encounter and whatever attempts may be made to confuse the issue, if we can once succeed in bringing the true facts of the Partition situation home to the moral conscience of the democratic world, it cannot remain indifferent but, on the contrary—if the professions of democratic faith and love of liberty which countries make so freely mean anything at all—the public opinion of the world must assert itself in favour of undoing this flagrant wrong.
In the pursuit of this policy, the Government has found on all sides, both inside and outside the country, great and invaluable aid and encouragement. In the United States, in Britain, in Australia and in many other countries as well, men and women of Irish stock have come forward in their hundreds and thousands prepared to devote their earnest and unselfish efforts to the accomplishment of the task which confronts this small nation. Nothing that we can say or do here would be an adequate recompense for the help and encouragement we have received in this matter from our own people abroad.
Nothing worries me more than the thought that, among those who have helped us so powerfully abroad in this way, there must be many who, because they are unknown to us, have never received as much as a word of thanks for their unselfish work. I am sure that Deputies on all sides of the House will wish to join with me in expressing here our deep sense of obligation and gratitude to all those men and women of Irish stock abroad who have done so much to advance the cause of ending Partition. They have a valid claim on the gratitude of the whole Irish nation.
I am glad to say that the results achieved by their efforts have been most encouraging. I will not detain the House by enumerating here all the evidences we have received from abroad during the past 12 months of support and sympathy in the anti-Partition drive. Among the many manifestations of sympathy we have received, however, there are some which I think I must mention. I am thinking in particular of the resolutions calling for the unity of Ireland and condemning Partition passed by the Houses of many American State legislatures, and particularly by those of Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Rhode Island, Michigan and New York. I include with them the many public declarations of sympathy and support made by individual members, not only of many State legislatures, but of the United States Congress itself. We derived tremendous encouragement also from the resolution pledging its support for the reunification of Ireland passed by the American Federation of Labour at its Convention in October, 1949, and from the similar resolution pledging its support in the anti-Partition fight passed by the Congress of Industrial Organisations at its convention in the following month.
I could add many other examples drawn not only from the United States but from other countries as well; but I think I have said enough to show that the efforts to advance the anti-Partition cause abroad have achieved positive and stimulating results; that it is no longer a movement confined to people of Irish birth or descent; but that, on the contrary, due mainly to the unselfish labours of our own people, there is now a large and influential body of disinterested public opinion outside this country which, having been apprised of the facts of Partition, and having had an opportunity of forming an impartial judgment on these, has pronounced itself clearly and firmly in favour of putting an end to this injustice. I want to take this opportunity to express to all those who have lent us moral support in this way —many of them people with no connection with this country and no reason for viewing Irish problems in other than an impartial and detached way—our grateful recognition of their help.
Needless to say, this progress in the anti-Partition drive has not been achieved without encountering obstacles and difficulties. The opposition and difficulties which have to be surmounted are considerable and many of them still persist. I do not want to go into all this in detail now, but there is one point which I feel bound to mention because considerable use has been, and is still being, made of it to counter our efforts to make the facts of Partition better known throughout the world. I refer to the argument which, no doubt, many Deputies have heard used that, in the present state of the world, a problem such as the Partition of Ireland is a matter of minor importance and that the efforts of the Irish Government to keep this problem before world public opinion at the present time shows a disregard of the danger threatening our civilisation. This is a subtle and an easy line of propaganda for those who desire to maintain the status quo.
There are many points of view which can be put forward in answering that argument. I will only mention one. We undoubtedly stand at a fateful juncture of history and what characterises the present world situation and distinguishes it from any situation which has existed for centuries is that the fundamental conflict which exists is not merely one of national policy or military strategy; it is a conflict between two entirely opposed ideologies embracing two entirely different conceptions of the purpose and the meaning of human life. In the final analysis, the struggle must be fought out, not between armies on the battlefields or navies on the seas, but in the souls of men.
On the one side, you have a dynamic ideology which is opposed to the concepts of human dignity and liberty in which we in Ireland believe and which has already made great gains. What we, in company with the other democratic countries of the non-Communist world, have to oppose to this is the fundamental beliefs which form part of our tradition and outlook—belief in God and belief in the democratic way of life and belief in fundamental, human and political rights, including the right to national independence and to national self-determination. Our ability to evolve a dynamic based on the principles which are fundamental to free people, capable of matching the dynamic of Communism depends on the extent to which we give objective reality to our own fundamental beliefs. The greatest danger we have to avoid in this connection is the habit which has become so common of professing faith in these beliefs while finding excuses for not living up to them. It is that attitude of expedience and opportunism which, while professing belief in the principles of democracy and freedom, tolerates with equanimity the flagrant and inexcusable violation of those principles which has weakened the spiritual dynamic upon which the free peoples of the world must depend in the final struggle with Communism. It is not we who claim that the injustice of Partition should be ended, who weaken the cause of freedom and democracy in the present world struggle, but those who destroy the moral basis of the common cause by treating so glaring a violation of the principles of democracy and freedom as a matter of no consequence. That is one of the many answers to the argument to which I have referred. I would be failing in my duty as a responsible Minister if in this situation I were to acquiesce in the continuance of a situation which is weakening and dangerous to our nation and to the ideals for which we stand.
I should like to say a few words in connection with the work of our information division. The work of our information services has been of tremendous importance in many fields of our national activity: for the development of friendly relations, of trade, of tourism and for the achievement of our territorial integrity.
In all these spheres it is essential to have the proper organisation to ensure a steady supply of up-to-date and accurate information about this country to the foreign Press and others concerned. I regard it as my primary task and duty to overcome what can really only be described as practically a conspiracy of silence, in regard to Irish affairs. That consideration is, to my mind, a more than adequate justification for what we are proposing in this Vote to spend on our information services.
I need not deal with the Grant-in-Aid for the Irish News Agency. The agency has recently been the subject of very full debates in this House. I feel that I should perhaps tell the House something about the information services which are covered by the global expenditure to which I have referred.
In the first place, we have now engaged whole-time on information work both here, in Dublin, and in New York and Washington, a special staff. Provision is made in the Vote for the appointment of similar staff in London.
With the help of this staff a good deal of progress has been made towards remedying the lack of information about this country which has hitherto obtained abroad. We began in November, 1948, the publication and distribution of a weekly bulletin on Irish affairs which has now quite an appreciable circulation. It goes to Press and foreign correspondents, public leaders, diplomatic missions and other important organisations in other countries. Supplies of it are sent to our missions abroad and distributed by them to persons likely to be interested. Our missions at Washington and at Canberra issue local bulletins of their own, based in large measure on the information contained in weekly bulletins sent to them regularly by the Department. The material carried in these bulletins includes, as well as feature articles on various aspects of our national life, such as the rural electrification scheme, our national education scheme, the work of Muintir na Tíre and so on, up-to-date information bearing on the problem of Partition. It is, if anything, an understatement to say that the bulletins seem to be widely appreciated. Every week we receive many letters about them and almost without exception they are flattering and encouraging.
A more important index of the value of the bulletins is the use made of the material contained in them by the foreign Press. We keep a very close check on that and I am glad to say that the results in that regard have been most impressive. The amount of space devoted to material from the bulletins not only in the North American Press but in South America, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Italy and Britain is proof of both its usefulness and of the lacuna which it fills.
In addition, the information division here in Dublin co-operates with the All-Party Research Conference on Partition. A considerable amount of other material also bearing on the Partition problem has been prepared by the information division and circularised abroad through our missions and private organisations interested in the problem.
What we must bear in mind in considering our information services is the amount of leeway which we have to make up and the extent of the efforts made to disseminate abroad information prejudicial to our aims and interests. I wonder do Deputies realise the extent of the propaganda in favour of the maintenance of Partition done by the Six-County Administration. It publishes a monthly entitled Ulster Commentary which is widely distributed abroad and a publication entitled Ulster Speaks—both expensive illustrated productions. In addition the Ulster Unionist Council puts out a steady flow of propaganda material which is particularly copious at election times. They issue a monthly entitled Ulster is British as well as a monthly called The Voice of Ulster. It also distributes a great deal of semi-official propaganda in the form of signed booklets and inspired articles and even books. I do not know the extent of the expenditure which all this represents, but I have a shrewd notion that it comes to considerably more than the provision for information services which I am asking the Dáil to approve in this Vote.
But this is only the beginning of the story. Partition is maintained not merely from Belfast but from London, and nowhere is that fact clearer than in the field of publicity. The Partitionists can rely on the British Central Office of Information with its annual budget of £5,000,000 and its vast technical resources. It is sometimes contended that these resources are not used to defend Partition, but that contention is untrue. I have here a magnificent and expensive production entitled Springboard for Britain which, as its title implies, is intended to justify Britain's springboard or bridgehead in Ireland. That publication is disseminated by the British Central Office of Information. When you add to this the vast resources of the British Foreign Office, with its network of public relations staffs in 45 or 46 different countries, you begin to get a true idea of the inadequacy of our expenditure on information services in relation to the task which has to be accomplished.
I could enlarge further on this aspect of the matter, if time permitted. The only point I want to make, however, is that in this task of winning sympathy and understanding abroad for our claim to the unity of our national territory, we are up against a publicity machine which may fairly be described as formidable.
The lesson of all this is that, in this field, we must make the most effective use we possibly can of our limited resources. I think we are doing that. I think that, taking everything into consideration, including our relative lack of experience in this field, we have not been wasting time or money. But we must be prepared to face the expenditure of the money involved. What I am asking for now is what I believe to be the minimum which we need. As the value of these services prove themselves and as the anti-Partition campaign extends in scope, we may well find it necessary to make an even greater financial effort to counter the increasing barrage of propaganda which will be directed against us.
All this modern concentration on overseas publicity emphasises a feature of international relations nowadays which we must all bear in mind. There may have been a time in the past when foreign policy was determined in fashionable drawing-rooms and at diplomatic dinner parties. What mattered in those days was the flow of opinion in a narrowly restricted upper class. But nowadays we live in a democratic age. The factor which at present governs international relations and determines foreign policies is public opinion and by public opinion I mean all that complicated inter-play of forces—the Press, the radio, the speeches of public men, the statements of important organisations and so on —which at the same time, shapes the point of view of the ordinary man in the street and serves to make it articulate. Any scheme of foreign representation which leaves this important fact out of account and restricts itself to sending ambassadors and Ministers to exchange views in high official circles and Government offices, is simply out of date. It ignores the concrete factors upon which international understanding depends in modern conditions. That is why practically every democratic country nowadays has built up, alongside its official diplomatic and consular services, largescale overseas information programmes, utilising newspapers, magazines, information offices, high frequency broadcasting, films, pamphlets and cultural contacts—all with a view to winning sympathy and understanding abroad on the democratic level on which foreign policies are determined at the present day.
From another, and possibly more important, aspect the development of cultural relations is probably one of the most fundamental methods of minimising national antagonisms and, therefore, of achieving peace. The more it is possible to ensure that nations have a friendly and understanding appreciation of the customs and mode of living of other nations, the less likely are they to be antagonistic to each other.
I will not go over the work of the Committee on Cultural Relations in detail because it is set out very adequately in the report which they have just issued; but I do want to take this opportunity of paying a tribute of gratitude and appreciation to the members of this voluntary committee. I think it would be difficult to find any other similar body which has thrown itself so wholeheartedly and enthusiastically into its work. The initiatives they have undertaken have been conspicuously successful, and everything they have done to make our national culture better known abroad has achieved its main object of stimulating interest where it did not exist before and creating an eager desire to know more about the country. In devoting their time, knowledge and experience so unselfishly to this work, the members of the committee have performed an important public service and I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing to them the grateful appreciation of the Government.
The work of this committee is not, of course, a mere exercise in national self-satisfaction. We are all proud of our national cultural achievements and glad to think that they are being made better known and appreciated abroad, but that is not the whole story. The work of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Relations is of the utmost value in several different practical fields. It is of direct benefit to our tourist industry. By drawing attention in different ways to the principal products of this country, it helps to expand our trade. It helps to create new outlets abroad for our writers, our artists, our actors and other cultural workers. Above all, it is one of our most important means for creating that background of knowledge about this country abroad which is so important to a sympathetic understanding of our national aims and policies.
A review of our general relations with other nations would not be complete without a reference to the recent visit to Rome and Paris of the President and Mrs. Ó Ceallaigh. In many ways, it was an historic event and the reports in the foreign Press show clearly that its significance was not lost on people abroad. Probably many of us here at home could not help thinking, when we read the reports of the magnificent receptions accorded to our President abroad, particularly by the Holy Father and the President of France, how much it would have meant to past generations if they could have lived to see the head of this State accorded abroad the honours due to the President of an independent Republic. I know that everywhere they went, the President and Mrs. Ó Ceallaigh created a deep impression and were accorded enthusiastic welcomes, and indeed, ovations, which constituted a striking manifestation of the goodwill towards Ireland which exists in the countries they visited.
Another event in the sphere of our diplomatic relations which took place during the course of the year and which gave us all special pleasure was the appointment of the new Nuncio Apostolic, Monsignore Felici. I think we may justifiably regard the appointment of so distinguished and experienced a prelate to represent the Holy See in Ireland as a special privilege and a special mark of the Holy Father's Paternal regard for this country. Certainly no more worthy successor could have been found for the late Monsignore Paschal Robinson, whose memory is so deeply revered in this country. In the short time he has been here, Monsignore Felici has won the esteem and regard of everyone who has come in contact with him, and I am sure that Deputies generally will join with me in hoping that his mission here in Ireland will be a long and successful one.
So far as this Vote is concerned, there has been no increase in our representation abroad. I intend, however, to introduce later in the year a Supplementary Estimate providing for the establishment of a mission in Western Germany, a country with which we had important commercial relations before the war and with which our trade exchanges have now begun to develop very satisfactorily once again.
Owing to shortness of time, I cannot deal in any detail with the other changes that have occurred in our diplomatic relations in the course of the last year but the House will remember with appreciation that we have, for the first time, received during the course of the year an Ambassador from India and an Ambassador from the United States. The new Canadian Ambassador has just arrived from Canada to take up duty in the country, although he has not yet presented his letters of credence.
I do not propose, either, to deal with the question of foreign trade. There have been many satisfactory achievements in this field. Our foreign trade, especially our export of industrial goods to European countries, has increased appreciably in the course of the last year or two. This is an important development and I hope that it will be possible to continue to promote our export of industrial goods to European countries generally.
Before concluding this rather disjointed and brief opening statement, which covers a very wide field of activities in the Department, I should like to pay very special tribute to the members of the staff of the Department of External Affairs. Tremendous burdens have been placed upon them during the course of the year. Very often it meant that they had to forgo their holidays, that they had to work late at night and to work at week-ends. They have always been prepared to fulfil these duties unselfishly and have been of tremendous assistance. They deserve the thanks of this House.
There is a separate Vote in relation to European co-operation. I do not know whether the House would like to discuss the two matters together.
