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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 4 Dec 1952

Vol. 135 No. 5

Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance) Bill, 1952—Second Stage (Resumed).

This Bill has generally been accepted as the forum from which each Deputy can air not only his grievances against the general implementation of Government policy, the nature of that policy, but also air in a specific way the many difficulties he may encounter locally in his constituency. While at stages of my contribution to-day I may refer to specific problems, my approach, in the main, will be to the broad general issue of the consequences of a Government policy which initially was based on false premises. The conclusions arrived at were erroneous. The method adopted to remedy the difficulties that might have existed in the economic system was, in fact, in its ultimate effect a chaotic effort, an effort which has led to complete unrest in business, insecurity in employment and a general weakness manifesting itself in unrest and uncertainty in the community. I hope to demonstrate clearly that all this has been the inevitable consequence of Government stupidity.

One must start with the general over-all picture that is covered by the various Orders and the various enactments which this Bill seeks to continue. One must inevitably go back to the general structure of Government control which, unfortunately, has the tendency to encroach further and further on individual liberty and freedom, and it is in that situation that we get an opportunity here in Parliament to raise a wide range of topics because I cannot conceive any subject which can be raised on this measure that is not in some way related to some Order continued under this Bill, Orders of which I do not believe the Minister has any knowledge or of which any Department of State can give you full details and certainly Orders many of which I know the Stationery Office cannot supply. So you have the general position of re-enactment by this Bill for a period of a year of a good many Orders, the nature of which is abstruse but the effect of which can be very serious on the general economic situation.

For the purpose of my discourse to-day, I propose to try, without any heat, to bring into a deliberate pattern the contribution I have to make and where I offer criticism of Government activity, I trust that I shall be able to offer an alternative constructive idea. My approach to this problem is not so much an approach on the basis of politics as on the basis of economics. I propose to take the view which is now generally accepted, even by the most diehard supporter of the Government, that the Government have been a catastrophic failure, that they are living on borrowed time and that their notice to quit has expired. We have to demonstrate here in a responsible way the consequences which will ensue if this Government does not take into consideration the present temper of the people and do either of two things: drastically amend its approach to the economy of the country, or get out and make way for a Government who will.

The situation has been reached politically where a succession of bludgeoning and butchering taxation imposts, rising unemployment, with uncertainty in unemployment, short time and half-time, have so aggravated the mood of the people that they now realise in the fullest possible way, with the impact of Government activity being felt in their very larders and falling on the very smallest of their essential commodities, how true indeed is what we believe, that this Government is on a taxation rampage, completely indifferent to the distress or trouble that such a campaign may cause. That is the present general situation. The country is thoroughly and unequivocably tired of this Government, of its ineptitude and its inability to tackle the situation. I propose to contrast the present operations of the Government with what I believe could and should be the approach of any Government in present economic circumstances.

Inevitably, we must place responsibility as the creator of this atmosphere of gloom and discontent not on the present Minister, who, I may say, I do not believe had any convictions which would compel him to align himself with the harsh and doleful utterances of the Minister for Finance. The chief architect of this policy is the Minister for Finance. We shall have to analyse the premises on which he built his policy and show how erroneous was his conception; we shall have to analyse how incalculably stupid were his suggested remedies and show in a realistic way how disastrous is the effect not only on industry, business and trade but—and this is where it has its toughest and hardest impact— on what I describe as the limited earning group, whether tradesmen, labourers or small salary earners.

We have to take responsibility in this House for demonstrating to the country not only the weaknesses in the Government but the real solution which we offer and I suggest that our effort must fail, unless we offer such a solution. I feel it my responsibility to do that, so far as I am able, because I think it is our bounden duty, in our representative character, to give the Government, in their present muddle, what help and assistance we can, not that they may preserve their being, but that they may at least ease the strain on the people whom they purport to lead and whom, in recent months, they seem to wish to bludgeon and grind down.

Let us contrast the situation with the situation when, two short years ago, my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, introduced this measure. The Fianna Fáil wails and bleats would have torn the heart of the loneliest and wildest banshee ever conceived in our traditional literature. From all quarters and areas of the country came tremendous remonstration about the cost of living and a particular Deputy excelled himself in a way which was consistent with his mathematical training. Deputy Vivion de Valera came in here, and, in a tremendously long discourse, referred to no fewer than 170 odd commodities which had gone up. They had gone up then, but there is not one of these commodities that does not show a far greater increase since. He now, however, is in the dumb servitude of the Whip, a silent Deputy no longer interested in the fact that the housewife in Dublin whom he represents has to pay more for tea, sugar, bread, butter, flour and a wide range of tinned and packet goods normally used in the house, as well as an inordinately increased price for many of the other semi-essential commodities—such items as various items of scullery and kitchen equipment, different types of articles like blankets and sheets and other requirements of that nature which inevitably must be replaced from time to time to keep a normal standard of life in the home.

The Minister should not think for a moment that I am going to try and lay the responsibility for the inordinate increases in wool prices or the external difficulties which affected us at his door—I do not believe that serves any purpose—but I do think that there are a tremendous number of increases in essential commodities which, although they were consistently and persistently resisted by the previous Government, have now been given with gay abandon, without the necessary investigation, without indeed a proper approach to the problem of basic costings or any consideration of the effect of their impact on the general community. We had a situation when Fianna Fáil took office that we had a country geared for expansion, a country that had been taught a new faith. It had been taught, first of all, a new political doctrine, one that was, of course, sneered at and jeered at, for with various types of gavottes and cavorts, the Fianna Fáil Party tried to discredit the inter-Party Government. They found, apparently, something obnoxious in the capacity of Irishmen with different political creeds being able to sink those parts of their policy which may have been non-essential or impracticable of implementation into a common basis from which they could work together for the common interests of the Irish people to the best of their ability.

It does not really seem extraordinary to me that the Fianna Fáil Party should be so loud and virulent and persistent in its denunciation of that spirit of unity which we were able to bring into a concerted effort in order to give all groups of the Irish people full representative Government, a Government in which the lowest industrial worker could sit down with the farmer and the businessman and iron out problems of mutual importance to them all. That fundamental spirit of co-operation was completely condemned by the Party which was then in opposition. The bleats that arose on the Supplies and Services Bill were directed at the impossibility of this and the impracticability of that. The Fianna Fáil Party do not want any portents of unity in the remaining sections of this country for that unity spells inevitably and irretrievably the ultimate elimination of their very effective political machine and political Party. But in the light of all that, they still come here to-day, masters of a Government policy by virtue of another unity, another Coalition—by virtue of the Four Doubtfuls. I do not believe that anybody, not even as brilliant a political manoeuvrer as the Tánaiste himself, would have the capacity to gauge what is the basic approach to Irish life of Deputy Dr. Browne, Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll, Deputy Peader Cowan or Deputy Cogan. We have a kind of pseudo-socialist-communist approach by the young doctor who allows everything to be coloured by a personal viciousness against his former colleagues. Deputy Peadar Cowan has been able to succeed in political gymnastics that do not involve merely a one and a half somersault but a kind of concentrated gymnastic effort by which he can do one and a half somersaults forward and at the same time two somersaults backwards. Deputy Cogan is again actuated in the main by his belief that Deputy Dillon when he was Minister for Agriculture had not bowed to what he considered his superior wisdom.

It is hard to know whether that concentrated wisdom is not now the guiding inspiration of a Government that cannot control a country in any reasonable way. But let us start in this discussion by impressing on the Government, as has been impressed on them before, that they are, in fact, a minority Government supported by four Independents who fear a general election more than the devil fears holy water. They are holding office in a situation where the country's general economic position is worsening while the people have clearly demonstrated their anxiety by a vote to see whether or not they condone and confirm the Government's idea of policy. There has been a change, as I explained, from a country geared up to expansion with a tremendous impetus in its housing drive. The situation before that change was that Deputy Keyes, then Minister for Local Government, was able to invite and encourage home to this country our skilled tradesmen who had to go abroad. In the building trade here there was at that time good employment and an expanding effort. Everybody knows what the situation is now even though Deputy Briscoe will glibly say that more houses were constructed last year, neglecting, of course, to say anything about the period of office when those plans were made. But face the reality: there are infinitely less people in employment in the building trade in Dublin to-day, there is growing unrest in the building trade and the threat of further disemployment. There is, as the result of Government activity, a serious slowing-up and a tremendous impact on the psychology that was growing up among our people to build their own homes where the local authority was not able to supply them. It took a while of deliberate and constructive Government effort to develop that psychological approach among so many boys and girls who were about to be married, to encourage them to get together, by each couple's joint effort, the necessary deposits and to go ahead with the building of their own homes.

That psychology has been disrupted and bludgeoned by the savage impositions which are a result of the effort of the Minister for Finance in his recent loan. He glibly told us in the House that he paid £75,000 to the banks to underwrite a £20,000,000 national loan that was offered at 5 per cent. when even the least financially wise of us knew that a loan issued at such an amazingly attractive rate was bound to be over-subscribed. A Government that can do that, that can give £140,000 to dance-hall proprietors because they are unable to collect it, that can increase the burden on people who are contemplating building houses of their own, are killing the initiative and effort that was making for a better social standard in that class of the community and was ensuring the continuation of employment in the building trade.

During the period of office of the previous Government there was an impetus to expand industrial employment. I have always given unqualified credit to the present Minister for Industry and Commerce for efforts he has made in the establishment, propagation and development of Irish industry and he will recognise that during the period of office of his predecessor there was a considerable expansion of employment in industry that ran into figures of 1,000 per month. That was the situation. There was a flow of capital into Irish industry, a general impetus in trade, a general higher standard of living. The people were cheerful, which was evident proof of expanding economy, of permanence of employment and of the forward march of the country. That was the picture in industry.

In agriculture, after the spearhead and concerted attack on the personality of one individual had fallen to the ground, the constructive effort of a Minister for Agriculture who had returned to the basic principle of one more cow, one more sow, one more acre under the plough, and who had pursued a policy of directing and encouraging and leading the Irish farmer as distinct from the policy of compelling and controlling of a previous Government, had begun to show dividends. The Irish farmer was re-established in his self-respect and as master of his farm and was trying in every way, as he always had done, to do his part in stabilising the economy. There was the scheme of land rehabilitation in full operation and subsidiary schemes such as the ground limestone scheme, drainage schemes. As a monument to the memory of the late Mr. T.J. Murphy, throughout rural Ireland there was productive employment being given under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, on roads, for the benefit of people who, with patience and fortitude, had struggled for a living on isolated holdings and who had made their contribution to the Irish economy. By that legislation, and in giving money from the Exchequer without cost to the local authority for that type of work, the previous Government showed its consciousness of and interest in the problem of the person living in isolated or inaccessible farms and their anxiety to improve his lot.

There is a picture that is reflected in facts and figures. During our period of office as an inter-Party Government we had been able to give a substantial measure of justice to people who had been subjected to the barrier of a wage freeze Order by the previous Government. We were told that the heads and, indeed, the skeleton of a Bill were there in fact in 1948 to continue that policy. That has been a matter of discourse in the House. I shall not put it any further than that it was evidence of the approach of the Fianna Fáil Government to the wage earner and the wage problem.

The fact that it wants such a ceiling typifies the ineptitude of a Government. What did we do? We succeeded in our period of office in giving substantial rises, not only once, but twice and in some cases three times, to sections of workers whose claims had been too long denied and at the same time we were able to keep stability in the cost of living. We were not able to keep it completely stable after the outbreak of the Korean conflict, but prior to that we were able to maintain a stability in the cost of living. We were not able to reduce it but we were able to maintain a reasonable stability and at the same time we were able to increase the earnings of the people who endured the severest impact of the cost of living and to put them in a better position to meet it.

In other words, in succinct language, the position was simply this—that the cost of living remained virtually stable for a long period while the pay packet going to the housewife became fatter by at least two increases and in some cases by three increases. She had more money with which to meet the impact of the cost of living.

What is the contrast to-day? We have the absolutely diametrically opposite case; the pay packet is virtually the same while the cost of living has soared astronomically. I shall be fair to the Minister and, instead of taking the optimum figure, I will put the increase in the cost of living at about 15 per cent. There has been no commensurate increase in the earning capacity of the people who are hardest hit by the cost of living. Instead, there has been rising unemployment, half-time and insecurity in employment. That is the Government's contribution in the general economy to the pattern that they raved about, that they howled about with the penetrating howl of the lone coyote, when they were here in opposition. When they set their hand to the task of the control and management of the country, overnight, over a week, in the first month, we had a catastrophic increase in the price of certain commodities that are consumed by the general householder.

Then we had the evidence of their approach to the Irish people. First of all there was a wail of gloom, a false, hysterical atmosphere created by speeches of the Minister for Finance and his chorus, the deep voice of the Tánaiste trying to temper his intemperance, and the banshee wails of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs talking about standing armies of pound notes in England that we must preserve at any price. Out of that summer madness—as one may describe it, with the Dáil in recess—came this time last year the reopening of Parliament and the complete scattering of this gloom that had been disseminated throughout the country. We had the Tánaiste, in his succinct characteristic way, saying there was no crisis now, only a problem. Here was the first bit of realism coming into the approach of the Government when it had got over what I describe as the midsummer night's madness. Then, emerging in its wake and apparently as the result—we must inevitably take it as the result—of close association between this Government and the Tory Government in England, we had a Budget designed on British pattern, a Budget designed for a debtor nation imposed on an Irish people who are a creditor nation. That is the broad final analysis of the financial situation.

We are entitled to comment here— and this is the opportunity we get—on the tie-ups in general governmental approach with the Chancellor of another Exchequer. Two responsible Ministers—at least, two Deputies of the House holding responsible positions; one I will describe as a responsible Minister, the Tánaiste as Minister for Industry and Commerce, and the Minister for Finance—take off for London. They have a series of talks with the Chancellor of the British Exchequer, Mr. Butler. We have no revelation to the Dáil of the nature, the scope or the effect of these talks. We are told in a most pugnacious way, in a most dogmatic way, that we will get no information. And then, in the light of all that, we get a Budget that has the same tracings, the same financial impact and the same effect as that of a Chancellor of a British Government.

No matter how vehemently the Tánaiste may interject to say that there was nothing but an exchange of views, we are entitled to say to the Irish people: "Here are the facts; as the result of an observation made by the Chancellor of the British Exchequer in the British House of Commons, that Mr. MacEntee was going to come over to see him, there is a flight over to London, there is a series of conversations, there is no disclosure in this House, as the final seat of authority in this country, as to the nature or scope of those conversations; but there is after that, first of all, an early Budget conforming as to time with the effort of a Tory Chancellor and then we find that that Budget is conceived and designed in pattern on the Budget of a Conservative Chancellor in England who is dealing with a highly debtor nation, a very heavily involved debtor nation, and that kind of Budget is imposed on this country, which we all know is a highly creditor nation." We are entitled to say until the Government can controvert that impression by laying bare what did transpire, that the directions and suggestions of a foreign Chancellor did, in fact, influence Government policy, the result of which we are discussing now.

In the Budget we had an approach that was tantamount to this: "I will take the maximum I can off the Irish people by way of taxation"—and the one gleam of relief is the now too-vaunted remission of the dance tax. We have a Budget that deliberately sets itself out to do one thing only, to depress consumption at home—and how successful it has been is only too bitter a reality. More money is extracted from the people; less money is available to them for the necessary purchases for the home; infinitely less surplus is there for the purchase of various articles of clothing and footwear; less money is there for the purchase of many of the small items that tend to ease in the domestic situation. The main buying bulk of the Irish people and the mainstay of trade, commerce and industry is the wage earner and the small salary earner and those people are not now in a position to buy. That is due, let me remind Fianna Fáil Deputies—they voted for this and this is their contribution to Irish economy—to the increased prices for bread, butter, tea, sugar, milk and every possible commodity going in by way of essentials to the home. That has to be met out of the same pay packet.

The impact comes most severely on the man with the large family. I know that some people on the Government Benches will endeavour to offset that by entering into hyperbolic exuberance of language in relation to increased social services, increased children's allowances and increased pensions. I would like some practical financier to explain to me how the old age pensioner or the parent in receipt of increased children's allowances can be better off when, through the impact of taxation, he will lose from 2/8 to 3/-per week while through the medium of increased social allowances he cannot get more than 1/- or 1/6 per week. How can a man who pays out 3/- and gets back 1/6 be better off?

In the main that hyperbolic exaggeration is the defence of the Government when it comes to an analysis of our economic problem; things may be tough but we were living beyond our means. Is the man on the dole to-day, the man in receipt of unemployment assistance and the man who has had to fly the land of his birth because there was no work available for him better off? Is he the man who is living beyond his means? We suffer from three haemorrhages which must lead us to national disaster, namely, unemployment, emigration and a rising sense of insecurity, all attributable to the policy of a Government which, either because of advancing years or spite, is incapable of implementing an expansionist policy for the salvation of our people and which has bludgeoned an expanding economy into a depression. It is the duty of the Government now to take immediate steps to alleviate that depression or get out and let in a Government that has the courage and the foresight to take such steps.

This Government pays lip-service in one sentence to capital investment and an expansionist economy. In the next sentence, with an almost sinister efficiency it slows down all effort. When one presses, as I have pressed, for land rehabilitation, for farm improvement schemes and for all the various schemes subject to Government grant one is told that the matter will be examined. There is an inspection and six months after the inspection one is pressing all over again and then there is a reinspection. It is in that way that this Government is closing down on expansionist effort.

The situation here was crystal clear. The inter-Party Government had conceived a policy that I am proud to stand over and it is a policy that I will stand over as long as I remain in public life. I believe that the proper place for every Irish £ available for investment is in the improvement of Irish land and the social conditions of the Irish people and not in low interest loan for the improvement and betterment of the lot of a foreign people and a foreign country. The inter-Party Government set itself to the task of creating a flow of Irish capital into the improvement of Irish farm land. There is a wonderful field there for continued effort because the output of every Irish farm can be and should be increased by progressive effort under an expansionist policy. With proper nutrition of the soil the output of every farm can be increased by 200 to 300 per cent. and where one blade of grass grows to-day it should be possible to have three, four and five blades growing in the future. The cereals most suitable in our climatic condition should be developed so that we can walk off the land our mixed agricultural produce in the way of beef, pork, poultry and pigs.

That increased production potential can only be brought about under a Government prepared to adopt a realistic approach to agricultural expansion. If that is done our best economic theorists will be startled at the results in a period of three or four years. That should be the keystone of our policy. The inter-Party Government sought to improve every Irish acre and to get from it its maximum productivity by sinking in it all the capital we could put into it. We conceived it to be our duty to make Irish capital available for Irish agricultural production. We conceived it to be our duty to make Irish capital available to solve the housing problems of our people and to improve health services and hospitalisation while alleviating the distress and sufferings of those sections of the community least able to bear the burdens cast upon them.

We believe in remitting ill-conceived taxation on certain so-called luxuries. We believe in the policy of imposing a tax or an excise duty on beer, spirits and tobacco which will yield a satisfactory revenue return as distinct from imposing a tax which fails to achieve buoyancy in revenue while denying to our people the small luxuries to which they are entitled.

It was our experience in the inter-Party Government that having improved conditions for the aged, the infirm, the widow and the orphan we were able to give a forward impetus to Irish economy. What replaced that policy? It was replaced, as we now know, by an almost senile repressiveness, by Government ineptitude, by Government lack of foresight. We had an unnatural despondency as the forerunner of an economic stupidity. We had a Minister for Finance deliberately deciding to teach the Irish people a lesson for what they had done to the "Empire" of Fianna Fáil. He would teach them the lesson that there was no alternative Government to those who had abrogated unto themselves some peculiarly divine right to continue to be the masters of the destinies of the Irish people. We saw rapidly accumulating all the evils that had been the cause of the downfall of the "Empire." We are encouraged and emboldened to-day in our belief in the Irish people and in the salutary and no doubt alarming warning that has been given by the working-class people of our capital city—a city which has always jealously guarded Governments of this country and jealously guarded its right to have its say in the formation of Governments of this country.

Why does the Government not face up to the problem by getting as quickly and as rapidly as possible such sums of money as it may need? They will get it with our complete support as they got the last loan. All criticism of that loan and the method of its flotation was reserved until the loan was, in fact, fully subscribed—a courtesy and the political integrity that we never got from Fianna Fáil when we were endeavouring to get loans. I am giving you this assurance. What this country needs at the moment is a transfusion of vast sums of money into a return of impetus, into schemes such as those under the Local Authorities (Works) Acts, into schemes like the land rehabilitation scheme, into increased effort and impetus, into afforestation, into the completion of the drive to give every family its own house, into hospitalisation, into the completion and expansion of the drive towards electrifying the country. Into all those channels can be poured more Irish money that is available for investment. Into all those channels can be poured further people into employment to halt the growing unrest, to dispel the disquiet and the lack of confidence that is in the people. Into this country and into this country's development can be poured these things by any Government. Do not mind what State economists may say. Do not mind what conservative theorists may say. Any Irish Parliament, supreme in its power, exercising its supreme judgment, can gather together Irish money and use it to put back into employment in this country people at home—to put into this country the effort of the strong right arm of Irishmen and Irishwomen that it may build up at home something enduring and lasting—rather than that they should be forced into foreign lands whether England, Scotland, Wales, America or any of the dominions of the late British Empire. Their effort would be better here at home. We need a constructive effort to improve the land, the forests, housing, and all the various things which are crying out to be done in an under-developed, under-capitalised and capital starved nation. Far better that the Government, even to the extent of imprudence, should pour money into that effort than to allow a continuation of expanding emigration, decreasing employment and rising insecurity.

I believe, no matter what economic theorists may say or what people claiming financial rectitude may say, that we are entitled to pledge in this House and in this country the earnings of posterity for posterity's gain. I believe that it is the bounden duty of this Government to cushion its people against the economic shocks of depression when it can put its hand on the money to do so. I believe that any Government with a sane and broad approach—one that allows for the political march of a nation and not one that arrests a depressed nation— can get the money to alleviate the temporary distress and depression that has hit all sections, classes and types in this country. I firmly believe that if the Government has the courage to say that they will face this task and if they have the courage to come and seek the money that will preserve the essentials necessary to any development in this country it will get the complete and unanimous support of this House. We can never hope to build a strong and a better Ireland if our manpower is allowed to be too sadly depleted. We can never hope to rehabilitate industry in this country if the human element is allowed to fly from our shores at the time of its formative development. I have in mind the young man or the young boy from 18 to 21 years when all the strength of his development and all the dynamic impetus is there to be harnessed. Once that effort has gone no money can replace it. That is why I say to this Government, not in the sense of political antipathy but that of appeal, that the nation must preserve its right to survival by the maintenance of its young boys and girls at home so that they, in the fullness of their time, may marry and settle down and bring up families at home. This country is too rapidly becoming the playground of too many old people and of the terribly young.

I see a Deputy from Galway over there on the Government Benches. He represents the same type of constituency as I represent. We see only too well the denudation that has taken place. We see only too well that it is not the people that might best be afforded who go. We find that the people who go are the young in mind, the young in heart and the young in sinew. They are the people who are fleeing the land. All over our constituencies we see farms on which there is only an old couple and on which none of the children was prepared to stay—farms which none of the children will accept because of the economic hardship that has been their stigma in recent months. We see that emigration is increasing. I say to the Government, in this particular case, to blazes with politics and to blazes with Parties: we have a bigger problem to deal with. We have to preserve here at home in this country the very nucleus and the very life-stream of our own nationhood. We can do that only if the Government has the courage to approach the problem, irrespective of the cost, of ensuring those people a livelihood at home. I do not care what way you argue. I do not care whether we build hospitals, houses and enduring capital assets in this country, there is nothing either unethically wrong with it financially or anything in any way dangerous to a financial credit to commit posterity to carry in each successive year its share of the burden because it will get its full facet of the asset.

We have members of the Government Party here "meowing," particularly in the person of Deputy Briscoe, about putting the country in pawn. This is a Government that has become the dream of the big investor, the wealthy corporation, by floating a loan at a rate of interest well beyond the wildest hopes of these investors. I believe that a Government facing in a responsible way the task of eradicating the cancers in our economic system and eradicating the unrest caused by rising unemployment and the general economic depression, will get the wholehearted support of the Irish people. Mind you, I go this far and you can describe me as anything you like afterwards. If it is necessary for the preservation of the Irish people at home, to raise money to enable them to keep these people at home, I will support any Government that needs authority to deal with the banks because I say without fear of contradiction that no section has battened so successfully or so well on Irish economy as that particular section and if the necessities of our economic ills call for a remedy that involves our being allowed to use all our available resources for development here at home, resources that are otherwise invested in various types of foreign securities, I would not raise a whimper of protest against any Government taking that line.

I stand here to make an appeal to the Government, not in any narrow political sense because many of the people who were forced to leave our country have no formulated idea of politics at all. They are pressed and depressed by the one reality that, born and reared in this little island of ours, once they reach budding maturity, they have to flee the land and the homes they love so well. That is a tragedy, a tragedy that becomes a reality to a person as young as myself who has seen his friends, his school contemporaries and his contemporaries in various efforts from boyhood to early manhood, dispersed and scattered over the world. Indeed can I not bitterly recall how many of them in the exigencies of the war situation, had to lay down their gallant young lives in that effort, not because of any desire on their part to defend any other country but because of the sheer economic necessity that drove them from this nation into these other countries, there to suffer premature death because we did not face up to or are not facing up to the task that is the Government's first duty?

The Government, by the judicious exercise of its power over the finances and the economy of this country, could cushion the people against depression, against the illnesses that are now so manifest in our economic system. It is their duty to do it as rapidly and as quickly as they can, no matter what the ultimate result may be, because I say in a positive and deliberate way that the denudation of rural Ireland, the flight of skilled tradesmen and competent workers in various avocations of life, in their early manhood represents a loss to this country that no money can repay. It is a loss of something so vital, such an integral part of the fundamental basis of expansion, a loss of what one might describe as the right human digit for economic development, that no money can replace it. I am talking from my heart out when I say it is indeed a tragedy to find that we have a situation in this country where there is growing specialised employment for non-Irish people while there is this tremendous flight of Irish people from their own land. That is a sign of an economic cancer, for the removal of which I demand Government action.

I am here as the representative of people who, generation after generation, played their part in every organisation and in every effort that was made to win us the right to a Parliament in this country. As the representative of these people, and proud of their representative trust, I come here to demand of the Government that they do either of two things: that they leave the way for a Government that will tackle this problem or get down to the task of putting into rural Ireland the means of employment and the life-stream of money necessary for investment if we are to keep Irish boys and girls in their proud and lordly fastnesses of West Cork. These people are entitled to some action of that kind. We have seen what is happening. We have seen the Beara peninsula denuded of its young people. I asked in a series of parliamentary questions what was the real situation in Beara and whether the Government was going to take any action in regard to it. We have the situation painted by the Minister for Education that in Beara peninsula there are fewer than 20 per cent. of the number of children attending school that were attending there 30 years ago.

We have the situation in the peninsula and in Beara Island where the doors of houses are sealed and a name left on them so that, perhaps, some returning emigrant having made a successful career for himself in some other country can come at some future period and say with sentimental and tragic reality: "That was my home from which I had to flee because there was no sustenance or livelihood for me at home."

No matter who forms the Government, in the present situation that faces rural Ireland, I would be fearless in my demand that they take immediate and speedy action to arrest these ills. We are now approaching the festive period and we shall very shortly go on holidays. Before doing so, let us shock ourselves and ask ourselves the question: what is the situation that is facing so many people in this country, a situation that is so different from that of Christmas two years ago, despite all the wails and bleats that we had then? We should ask ourselves why has this cancer come so suddenly into our economic life. I believe, no matter what central banks may say, what the trends of foreign trade may be, no matter what interpretation the Minister for Finance may try to put on it, in the fundamental strength and will of the Irish people. I believe in their capacity for work and in their capacity to develop the land with homes worthy of its people. I believe their production will be worthy of the Irish farmer and that their industry will be of a standard that will be worthy of a proud race. They will do that if given the least bit of encouragement, of hope and financial support by an Irish Government. That is the minimum that might be expected by a people who, in the final analysis, have made it possible for all of us to be Deputies or part of any Government.

Deputy Collins assures us that he has been speaking from his heart. I think this is a place where, preferably, we might speak from our heads. The Deputy wandered from the beginning to the end of his speech over a whole series of theories and promises as to how the job was to be done. I would recommend him to read his speech when he gets home.

I will read it, and yours, too.

I will give the Deputy full marks as a debater and for making a very eloquent electioneering speech, something that would appeal mainly to people who were gathering up excitement in preparation for polling day. But from the point of view of what he promised to do, he did not do anything. He was going to show us that our whole system, our financial structure and Government policy were wrong. He was going to criticise it and then give us his alternative to make it workable. I will sum up his speech not exactly in his own words but by giving the sense of them. It amounted to this: build now for the benefit of posterity and posterity will pay for it. That reminds me of the gentleman who used to say: "Let posterity pay for it because posterity has done nothing for us." That was the approach that we got from Deputy Collins.

In Volume 72, column 831 of the Dáil Debates for the 14th July, 1948, these very wise words spoken by Deputy Costello appear:—

"The more experience I have of political life the more I am convinced that the people will believe anything."

Apparently that experience is now shared by most of the members opposite. It does not matter any more whether what you say is sound sense or is practicable. "The more experience I have of political life the more I am convinced that the people will believe anything." It is very strange that the Deputies on that side of the House can so easily and rapidly change policy not by reason of the position which they may occupy in the House but from day to day as the situation appears to them. I am reminded, when I read some of the speeches made some days ago or some years ago by leaders on the Opposition Benches, of the actor who was familiar to us in the old days. He was known as the quick-change artist. He would first appear on the stage as Napoleon; he would then turn around and, in a matter of seconds, he was Frederick the Great. That is what we have here. We have a most extraordinary situation. There appears this morning in the Irish Press in a letter from the Minister for Finance, a quotation from a speech made to the Institute of Bankers in Ireland on the 19th November, 1949, by Deputy Costello when he was Taoiseach.

Is that a copy of the Irish Press you have?

This is a copy of the statement. If the Deputy has the Irish Press with him he can check this quotation word for word as I deal with it. I am going to relate this quotation to the speech which Deputy Costello made yesterday. Yesterday, he had quite a new approach to the banking system and to our behaviour vis-à-vis the banks, as suggested by Deputy Collins a few minutes ago, that the time had come when we must direct the banks how to deal with their depositors' money. I do not know whether everybody has read this quotation in the Irish Press this morning, or whether is has appeared in the other newspapers or not, but Deputy Costello, speaking on that occasion, said:—

"While recognising the defects in our economy and sparing no effort to remedy them, we must, of course, beware of making a fetish of capital investment."

We have just had a speech which amounted to this: take the money and invest it; it does not matter how or where you invest it, and increase your output by 200 or 300 per cent. How that figure was reached I do not know. The quotation continues:—

"There is both good domestic investment and bad domestic investment, justifiable neither by its economic return nor by its social fruits. We must turn our faces sharply against anything that savours of the mere visionary. Even foreign investment is better than bad domestic investment, and certainly better than anything remotely approaching dissipative expenditure The more our social necessities compel us into forms of capital investment showing a social return alone, the more carefully must we select schemes which can survive vigorous financial examination. I we build houses which are a necessity, we must so augment agricultural and industrial productivity that the people who live in those house have real incomes to maintain them We must tilt the balance on outlay in a genuinely productive direction.

The more we invest, the more we must save. If the evil of inflation and all its consequent waste, on the one hand, is to be avoided and an unnecessary deficit in the balance of payments on the other, it is essential that savings be increased. The degree of expansion possible is limited by the availability for expenditure of current savings and accumulated resources. There is a connection between those extra glasses of whiskey you may have taken and the house you don't get built!"

That is what we had coming from the Taoiseach as he was then. It is to be compared with the speech which we have just heard. The quotation continues:

"A new Jerusalem cannot be built overnight—not even on after-dinner optimism. If we attempt to do too much at any one time, our schemes may jam each other and all may fail. The problem must be approached with good sense, and the Government are aware that if proper priorities are not established nothing will be done. Poverty cannot be solved by hysteria—not even by hysteria in the right direction."

Now what in the name of goodness that means I do not know. "Hysteria in the right direction". I suppose I shall have to go to some psychiatrist and ask him to explain to me what is hysteria when it flows in the right direction. When I say that people change their outlook and their views, when we are abused and accused of complete neglect of the interest of the people as a whole, and when the whole history of the operations of this Government for the 16 years they were in office is forgotten, it is only fair to remind the House of how people thought yesterday and how they think to-day.

We had Deputy Costello as Taoiseach, more conservative than we are to-day, expressing more conservative views. Now we have him advocating a type of action which would certainly make him less conservative than we are. We had an alliance in the Coalition Government, as was demonstrated in most picturesque language by Deputy Collins, which put into abeyance policies of the different groups which were in conflict with the general set-up. What he did not tell us was that in the formation of that Coalition Government these groups had to put into abeyance fundamental principles for which they stood and for which they sought the support of the people when they went to the country in the election of 1948. There is a big difference between what is done and what is said if you demand support for a certain policy and if, when you join with other groups and do not get sufficient support for that policy, you abandon all the fundamental principles which you had advocated.

Before this marriage, or whatever it was, took place, we had, for instance, the opinion expressed in this House by the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Norton, with regard to Deputy McGilligan. We are talking about industry, employment and taxation. As reported in Volume 49, column 1685, of the Official Reports for the 27th September, 1933, this is what Deputy Norton said:—

"If one did not know Deputy McGilligan when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, one would be inclined to be deceived by the debating points and the welter of dialectics to which he has treated the House this evening. Some of us who know Deputy McGilligan longer than some of his new-found friends can remember that he was almost an industrial tank in this country during his period as Minister for Industry and Commerce—levelling one industry after the other; and coming back fresh from the victory of having closed a distillery here, a brewery there or some other industry which had survived many generations. If we did not know that Deputy McGilligan was engaged in that campaign; if we did not know he was cheered on at the time by the disciple of low wages, the colleague who sits on his left, we would be inclined to believe that some of the speeches delivered from those benches were really intended to be a definite profession of sympathy for the poor and needy in this country; but we all know Deputy McGilligan's attitude and his record as Minister for Industry and Commerce."

It is only fair that we should get a clear picture. We are either genuinely concerned with the welfare of the people and the future prosperity of the country as a whole or we are only concerned with playing politics and trying to find out by what means we can get the people during an election to put a particular group here or over there and the sooner we realise what is happening, the sooner we will be able to understand that it is not from our hearts we are speaking here but from our heads.

Deputies on the Opposition Benches have been talking about the banking system and the lack of concern on the part of this Government about bringing the banks to heel and forcing them to do with the savings of the people what they should do, namely, invest them for the welfare and benefit of the nation. I do not know whether most Deputies remember or even knew that in the time of Sinn Fein this State had a bank known as the Sinn Fein Bank. After the Treaty the name of that bank was changed to the National Land Bank. It was owned by this nation and had certain branches. If the Deputies who are now asking for a change in our banking system and the taking over by the State of part, if not the whole, of the banking system want to convince me that they are sincere, I want to ask them why, in 1926, they sold the bank owned by the State to the Bank of Ireland for a measly £190,000. We had a bank before the establishment of the Currency Commission or the Central Bank which could have been the nucleus of what they are now shouting about. But what happened? The Minister for Finance of the day, Mr. Ernest Blythe, came into this House and said: "I have an announcement to make." This is what he said, as reported in the Official Report of the 20th July, 1926, column 2214:—

"I wish to make an announcement to the Dáil with reference to the National Land Bank. The Executive Council have decided to dispose of the interest of the Minister for Finance in the National Land Bank."

That was all; the job was done. There was a big discussion on it, and I must say to the credit of the Labour Party, under the leadership of the then Deputy Johnson, that they did their best, with some other former Deputies, to try and stop this change taking place in national policy and to prevent its being dealt with in the way it was.

Deputy Collins used so many beautiful words in his oratorical effort to-day that I could not possibly rise to his level. But he actually stated recently that our Minister for Finance went across to meet Mr. Butler, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, and made an arrangement with him that our Budget should be on the lines of the British Budget, notwithstanding the fact that the British Budget was for a debtor nation and that we were a creditor nation. In other words, he was supposed to be disclosing a secret arrangement between our Minister for Finance and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was said by a Deputy who is a member of a Party that concluded the well-known secret financial agreement in order to get rid of which we had to have an economic war between this country and Great Britain. Now we are accused of making a secret financial agreement.

I cannot understand the cheek of people who make these accusations against people on this side of the House when they themselves were responsible for this kind of act and we had to undo it. We are making no secret financial agreements.

How do you know?

Does the Deputy suggest we are?

How do you know?

I say we are not, because I know this side from its form, present and past. That is how I know.

That is just your opinion. Will you read the November Volume of 1947 and see what you did?

Will the Deputy show me where we made any secret financial agreements and I will give way to him? We hear Deputy McGilligan in this House talking about the banks. We all know what he said here and how he abused the whole banking system. On the 26th October, 1949, when speaking on a motion dealing with monetary policy, he said at column 129 of Seanad Éireann Debates:—

"As far as the commercial banks are concerned, I do not think anyone can expect any other investment standard than that which now obtains."

Who said that?

Deputy McGilligan, the Deputy's new found friend and ally.

I am finding no new friends or allies. I can make up my own mind on financial matters.

If the Deputy is in favour of the suggestion made by Deputy Collins to-day that another Coalition Government will soon follow this one, with all the surrendering, as I said, of fundamental principles, then Deputy Hickey, if he is in that Coalition, will have to surrender the fundamental principles he stands for in connection with finance.

Are you quoting Deputy Collins?

Deputy Collins spoke here only ten minutes ago. I would not accuse Deputy MacEoin nor will he accuse me of misquoting anybody deliberately. Deputy MacEoin was not here when Deputy Collins was speaking. That is what he was talking about. To revert to Deputy McGilligan's speech which I was quoting:—

"When it comes to Government funds, the Government may have other considerations to bear in mind, such as the increase of productivity in the long run. There is also the social consideration which the Government are always bound to bear in mind. Any preference investors may have for British picture houses rather than home investments is a consideration, with other considerations, that has to be taken into account by the Government in approaching investment policy."

Again, in the Seanad on October 26th, 1949, Deputy McGilligan said in relation to the banks: "They have their own standards and we cannot object to their having them in regard to particular proposals which come before them from time to time." When we are talking about the wealth of the people of this nation we must have some reasonable perspective. It is no use abusing the banks, because they are set up under charter and they have to operate under specific rules and regulations and Acts of Parliament. What we must recognise is this, that if you take the amount of money invested in the banks by the banks' shareholders, in other words, the owners of the banks, and add them up to whatever sum they may be and relate them to the amount of money in the coffers of the banks, held by the banks as trustees for their depositors, then you will realise that the banks have no business to do other than they are doing to preserve the liquidity of this money which does not belong to them.

It is the system that is wrong, not the banks.

Then why attack the banks? The banks are under discussion now. What is wrong with the system which tells me that if I should have—I am not saying I have—a substantial amount of money I should deposit it in the bank rather than keep it in my pocket or in a safe at home? What is wrong with that?

Good man. There is nothing wrong with that.

What is wrong with my right then to demand my money when I want it?

What do you get?

Forget about that.

When you put it in around 1914 you got gold.

We are discussing at the moment in this debate, and were discussing in the debates last week as well, the means available to the Government of securing cash for the purpose of creating work in this country and creating whatever wealth we have in the shape of buildings or items for reproductive purposes. That is what we are talking about.

And the speech you are making is one that could have been made prior to John Bradbury's time but not since.

The speech I am making is that there was nothing to stop this State developing what Deputy MacEoin has in his mind when they had the Land Bank before they sold it.

Except the one thing.

The State owned the Land Bank and it could have been used for Government purposes in a variety of ways.

Of course it could.

Yes, but it was sold in 1926 to the Bank of Ireland.

Why did you not buy it back during the 16 years of office?

Why did the Coalition not buy it back when they were the Government for three years and when they were talking about this subject? Remember, we are not pressing the point that is being pressed by the other side. We are trying to get the other side to realise that so long as we honour the Constitution of the State, and the system within which we live, we must recognise the right of private ownership.

And continue to recognise it.

We stand on this side of the House for the recognition of private ownership.

That is a very vague term. Are you going to make any changes?

It is not vague. We are not proposing to change it. Are the Deputies in the Opposition proposing to change it, or does Deputy Hickey believe it when they say they intend to change it? Deputy MacEoin is not going to change it because he believes as we do. He is as much in favour, and would struggle just as much as we would to retain the right of private ownership in this country.

You would want to draw up an act of faith if you say I believe as you do on finance.

You speak as we do on the right of private ownership. There is no use quibbling about it. You stand for it also, but it may be politic to let Deputy Hickey believe that it is not so in case there should be a possibility of coming back to office with the support of the Labour branch of the Coalition. I tell Deputy Hickey that there will be no changes in that regard either from us on this side of the House or from the Deputies in Fine Gael.

Deputy Hickey has a good idea of what both Parties believe.

No change is to be made. The Deputy wants a change.

The Deputy wants a change in the interests of the people of this country and nobody else.

And not in the interests of sterling.

It is time for us to tackle the problem and see what can be done.

Deputy Briscoe might be allowed to make his speech without interruptions.

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy.

The Deputy likes it.

I will not delay the House. I understand that we want to get this matter finished. I will get an opportunity of talking at great length on the balance of payments on a more suitable occasion than this. Let us be quite clear. What is suggested? When the Fianna Fáil Party advocated tariffs and protection, it was Fine Gael, or Cumann na nGaedheal as it was then called, who objected to that policy. We were definitely a protectionist Party for the purpose of the building up of our industries.

Deputy Collins to-day talked about the tremendous expansion that took place during the three years of Coalition administration. He said it increased investment and the flow of money into capital investment during those three years, but Deputy Collins could not point to a single industry established during those years. I have yet to hear what industries were established in those three years. What flow of capital was there for capital investment? Nothing was done other than what had been done by the Fianna Fáil Party before they left office in 1948. The Coalition Government did nothing, but certain industries closed down during the three years.

Deputy Collins bemoaned and bewailed our young people having to flee the shores of this country to find an early grave in some other clime. How many people had to leave our shores when the transatlantic air service was closed down? Not only had the personnel and the crews to leave but also those who would have found employment in the repair shop at Limerick. What about those? Do they not count at all? They do not count because they did not flee the country during our period of office. If something happens while we are in office it is a crime and tragedy but if the same thing happens when other people are in office then it is no longer a crime or a tragedy but a virtue.

Party politics.

I want to talk about what is good for the country.

What will happen in the future?

We have a policy which we have not surrendered in the slightest. That policy is the same as it was when Deputy Norton supported us and when he referred to Deputy McGilligan as an industrial tank. We made no change in our policy and I would like Deputy Hickey, when he speaks, to show us where there has been a change. The changes were made by all those on the opposite side of the House. They had theories but they did nothing of a practical nature either when they were in office or subsequently.

The change of a Minister from a £1,000 a year salary. They did not even change from that.

That does not arise on this Bill.

It does, Sir. There is no change of policy.

I do not mind the interruptions. They are sometimes helpful. They help me to follow the line of thought of those listening and to discover whether my remarks are registering. Sometimes a Deputy may speak for an hour but his remarks may register on nobody. I hope my remarks are registering on somebody. Capital investment was talked about. Some people—I think Deputy Collins is one of them—seem to think that if this State, through its citizens, has a credit balance invested abroad of £400,000,000 you can take that home and put it immediately to work. It is not so easy as all that.

There was some reference to those employed in the building of houses. We are conducting a very big campaign in the City of Dublin in the building of houses. We are building 5,000 houses a year. We hope that after the passage of three, four or five years we will have reached finality, made provisions for all the houses we need and, except for normal expansion, the building of houses will no longer be necessary at the rate of 5,000 per year. We believe that when we have built 50,000 corporation houses in the City of Dublin we will have provided for the housing needs. But what will happen when we stop building houses? All those people at present engaged and who will be engaged on that work for the next few years will then become disemployed.

You have disemployed them already.

Deputy Keyes may have the country as a whole in mind. As far as the City of Dublin is concerned, I can tell the Deputy that we are not building less houses this year than we were last year. We are not employing less people on the building of houses in the City of Dublin than we employed last year. I do not know whether Deputy Keyes believes that or not.

I do not believe it because I know that tradesmen have emigrated. I could not believe it because I know they are going out of the country.

Were those tradesmen employed on the Dublin Corporation housing schemes?

Of course not. It suits the Deputy to say that because there has been a recession in the trade somewhere else in the country all those men are disemployed in the city.

I will accept the position in regard to Dublin.

I am talking about Dublin. In three, four or five years we may have completed our housing programme in its entirety. What will happen then to the people who are at present engaged on those housing schemes? Will somebody say we should keep on building houses, even if we do not need them, in order to keep the people employed?

It will be a long time before we reach that stage.

We will reach it within a period of five years.

You will not.

How many years would the Deputy say?

It would be very difficult to put a figure on that.

We are building over 5,000 houses at the moment, and we will need another 20,000 odd houses to complete our schemes. I say we are hoping that will be done in five years. It may be six years or four years, but it will be done within a reasonable time, within what we can now call foreseeable time. At the end of that period what will happen to the workers? Will it be suggested from Deputies opposite that we should continue building houses even though they are not needed? The Government has the responsibility of trying to find in advance ways and means whereby these people can be transferred from their employment to other gainful employment. Is not that the way you have to think of it?

We cannot use the £400,000,000 in a limited period of a few years and then say, having spent the money: "Now we stop." What happens then? What is more important is that whatever money is invested here in so far as it concerns capital or industrial development schemes should result in continuous employment and not part-time employment or employment for a period of years to satisfy some outstanding need. Is it not obvious that that is the way in which the problem has to be approached? Therefore, if you want to employ money where it will give continuous employment you must also allow, if it is used for private industrial development, for a margin of profit for the person or persons who will make the investment. If money is to be invested in the Government securities for Government or local authority spending, so also must it show some return to the people who own it.

That is where Deputy Hickey and I come to the cross-roads. Deputy Hickey has an idea that it would be quite justifiable and right for the Government, by some means or other, to get money and make it available at the barest minimum interest rate. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that that is what Deputy Hickey more or less wishes. He has it in mind mainly in relation to taking off the backs of the working people the additional cost of living, arising from interest charges, where interest becomes payable in connection with capital spent on their behalf. If that is all, it can be dealt with by some form of subsidy to relieve it, without killing the source of supply of the money; but when we go on from there to industry, does Deputy Hickey not agree that the workman should be as free to sell or to give his labour wherever and whenever he likes as the person is to engage in it? Is it not obvious that you cannot just go from the interest charge in relation to requirements—living accommodation and so forth—into industry and say that you will not allow any benefit to the owners of capital put into industry, and that in that connection also there should be a reduction of interest charge, or, as it is usually known, a reduction in the profits accruing to the people who invest?

We have had a lot of talk about industrialists and about their contribution, by their profiteering, to the high cost of living. When Deputy Norton was on this side, he was going to have investigations made, and was going to put behind bars these profiteers who deserved to be there. Not one person was put behind a jail wall or prison bars on the criminal charge of abuse to the extent of profiteering. Everything is controlled and everything should be controlled, but controlled only to the extent of being reasonable, and when Deputy Hickey talks on this, I should like him to tell the House in what form he feels it would be possible to do what he says without completely nationalising the State. If he says that that is the only way to do it, I can understand it, but that is where he and I will part finally, because I do not want to see everything in the State nationalised. I want to see a preservation of the private rights of the individual, whether he be a worker, a farmer or an industrialist.

I heard Deputy McGilligan here attacking our recent loan. That loan was issued at 5 per cent. which, in the opinion of those who criticised it, was much too high a rate to give to get the money. It was criticised on the ground that, because it was issued at that high rate, it commanded a premium, and that was putting money into the pockets of people at the expense of the community. The Deputy stated that when he left office all the securities raised by the Coalition Government were at par. We all know that that was not so. Let me remind the House that Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, raised a 3 per cent. loan, the first loan after coming into office. That loan was issued at a figure——

Three and a half per cent.

I am talking about the first loan issued at 3 per cent. People invested their money in that loan. They paid £100 for £100 worth of stock and they got 3 per cent. Shortly after, the same Minister issued another loan, but this time at 3½ per cent. What happened to the investments of the people who had subscribed to the 3 per cent loan? It immediately fell below par.

Is that not a good case for control?

I am talking about a different thing. It fell below par. Why did Deputy McGilligan, when he found that in order to get more money he had to pay more, not protect these subscribers to the 3 per cent. stock and convert that for them into 3½ per cent. stock, instead of forcing on them within a very short time a heavy loss in capital?

What is it quoted at now?

It has fallen again.

I suppose the stock exchange has a good say in that matter.

The stock exchange has nothing to say to it. It is the person who has the money to invest.

He is the victim.

He is not the victim; he is the judge. If Deputy Hickey and I have £100 to invest, we scan the financial papers and we find certain types of investment offered to us. The first thing we look for is security for our money and then the dividend we will get. If we see side by side stocks of equal security but one giving 4 per cent. as against 3 per cent., which do we take? We take the 4 per cent. Therefore, the person who holds 3 per cent. stock, if he wants to sell it, has to sell it for less than Deputy Hickey or I pay for the 4 per cent. investment. The stock exchange has nothing to do with it—it is the matter of the supply of and the demand for money.

It is a matter of the system that dominates the whole machinery of finance.

I cannot agree with Deputy Hickey who wants this system changed. I want the system worked so that it will bring the best results. I have read about places where the system was changed, and, apart from complete collapse, there was no ultimate and final result, and I know of no place, except some dream place, where the system Deputy Hickey talks about exists. Perhaps he can tell us where it has happened.

What about New Zealand? Did they not make a change?

They have not abolished the right of private enterprise and they have not gone out of the system. There was a Labour Government in England which went a good distance but did not go all the way. We are as social minded as we can be and we will continue to be so but we are not going to take away from the people the things they properly and rightfully own and the right to do with them as they wish to do with them.

I do not advocate that. You are accusing me of that all the time.

Maybe I misunderstand the Deputy. Let me put to the House, Sir, what happened. I hear Deputies over there accusing us of bad management in State affairs. Let me give the House an illustration of what I would call damn bad management—and I think I can use that adjective in connection with the transaction because it is not concerned with an individual. Under the Marshall Aid loan scheme this country was accorded £40,000,000 worth of dollars as a loan. Now if I had been Minister for Finance with the outlook I always held and if I had taken that loan I would have held it in dollars. I would have invested the unspent portion of it in dollars and I would have had the dollars at my disposal and would have relinquished them or sold them for sterling only when it was most vitally necessary. But our predecessors got this £40,000,000 worth of dollars and within a matter of days after its receipt it was sold to the British Treasury for sterling. The proceeds were invested in the Central Bank about which we now hear all this hypocrisy about bad management and invested by the Bank at 12/6 per £ per annum. Yet Deputy MacBride and Deputy McGilligan, members of the Cabinet that conducted that transaction, are now asking us here what are we doing in not forcing the Central Bank to invest our money better than they are doing. Does Deputy Hickey follow what I am saying?

I do. I am following you.

£40,000,000 worth of dollars was sold immediately after receipt or very shortly afterwards and the dollars transferred to the British Government. They held them, and we got sterling, which was put in the Central Bank by the then Minister for Finance, and invested in short-term loan on his behalf by the bank at 12/6 per £ per annum. Then came devaluation, and I venture to suggest that, if we had held the dollars, as I believe the prudent Administration on this side of the House would have done, we would have had 30/-.

12/6 per cent. You said 12/6 per £.

I am glad of the correction; 12/6 per cent. for every £100. When devaluation did come we would have had 30/- for every £ we got for those £40,000,000 worth of dollars. Yet the people who conducted that transaction have the temerity to get up here and abuse this side of the House for doing the things they are doing which cannot compare in absurdity with the handling of that transaction. I do not know whether the Deputies realise the seriousness of this. Could one imagine, Sir, what would have happened if our Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee, had received £40,000,000 worth of dollars and it was now disclosed that he had sold them immediately on receipt to the British Treasury for sterling, that subsequent to that sterling had become devalued, with a loss of millions of pounds both on capital repayment and on interest? Could one not imagine the violent motions from the other side of the House, the persistent calls for his head?

Did they not sell the Constellations for sterling?

Oh, the Constellations were sold too. Everything movable was sold.

You are making a good case for a change.

I am making a good case for a changing of Government and I hope it will be perpetuated. Could you not imagine, Sir, how many days we would have spent on investigation about that transaction, how many motions would have been put down, possibly tribunals set up to investigate why and how? And now we are told, notwithstanding that transaction, that Deputy MacEntee went across to the Chancellor of the British Exchequer, Mr. Butler, to take instructions from him on how to frame our Budget. Is it not obvious that in framing the Budget the Minister has to do it in conformity with the conditions existing and with the results he hopes to bring about and is it not also clear that what Deputy MacEntee as Minister for Finance wanted to accomplish was a closing of the gap in our balance of payments in order that our reserves invested abroad, whatever they may be— £300,000,000 or £400,000,000—shall remain as reserves? Before I conclude, may I give the Dáil my authority, which I am sure they will agree with, for believing that is a good thing to do? I read the other night in the House Deputy Costello's reference to this matter in 1948 and I am not going to bore the House with it now. But I am sure Deputy Hickey will accept this as authoritative. Speaking in the Seanad on July 29th, 1948, Deputy McGilligan, then Minister for Finance, said at column 546, Volume 35, of the Official Reports:—

"We are living beyond our means as far as the difference between the balance of payments shows and, unless we can correct that, we will soon come to the point where these reserves will be dissipated and weakened to the point that they will not give us the old reserve. In that position, two things have to be done. We will have to make a tremendous effort to get extra exports from the country or else we definitely lower our standard of living in so far as that depends upon these importations."

Again in his Budget speech, May 2nd, 1951, speaking at column 1884, Volume 125, of the Dáil Report, Deputy McGilligan said:—

"Making all allowance for the exceptional conditions now obtaining it is to be feared that we are not producing and earning enough to pay our way. The implication is obvious. We cannot have both consumption and capital development on the present scale unless we save more and produce more."

While he was Minister, Deputy McGilligan, addressing the north city constituency of Fine Gael, was reported in the Irish Press of October 25th, 1949, as follows:—

"Even though they could now achieve the object of closing the gap immediately, it could not be postponed for longer than half-way through 1951."

Then, speaking in Dáil Éireann on October 15th, 1947, as reported in Volume 108, column 427, Deputy McGilligan said:—

"We will reach the happy condition then in which we will have nothing more to play with and in which we will have to turn attention to the home front."

That meant that the external resources would have been gone. Obviously we must not dissipate those funds, those assets, that wealth of our people. We must recognise that the real wealth of this nation is what we can save over and above what is needed from year to year. Out of the productivity comes the saving. Out of the saving wealth is created and, if that is going to be of any value at all, out of that wealth some advantage must accrue to the people who create it. They must get something for it. They must get the benefit of their thrift in the shape of an income.

If a person has too much money invested and his income is consequently very high, instead of reducing the rate of interest that he gets we tax him. From the other side of the House taxation has been referred to as a bludgeoning attitude of the Government. So that, Fine Gael, if they ever get back and lead the Coalition group again, are going to reduce taxation; they are going to reduce the cost of living or, if they are not going to reduce the cost of living, they are going to increase wages so that the increased cost of living will not be felt; and they are going to reduce incomes as well. It is a very simple proposition; I think you can do it by algebra: If X produces Y, you get so much, and if you put your values on your Xs and Ys and reduce them, what will be the final result? How is a person to get food, clothing and shelter if the means to get them are destroyed, if the means to produce them are destroyed? That is what Fine Gael are talking about now. They talked about our attitude when we were speaking on the Vote for Supplies and Services when we were in opposition, but Deputy Collins cannot remember the facts.

Pre-1948, Fine Gael, and Clann na Poblachta in particular, promised, if returned to office, to reduce the cost of living. After they took office the cost of living increased. Our criticism was of their breach of promise, not of the fact that the cost of living had increased. We have enough sense to know that if goods which we import are higher in price one year following another, the cost of living will increase. We did not criticise the then Government because of the increase in the cost of living. We did criticise them for having successfully misled a great number of people by a promise to reduce the cost of living. Clann na Poblachta had literature specifying that they would reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent. The others were wiser and did not say by how much it would be reduced. The facts are as I say and not as Deputy Collins would have the House believe, that we criticised the increase in the cost of living.

The Deputy is also quite at sea in his dates and, consequently, in his facts about increases in wages and the time when the Standstill Order with regard to wages was removed. He is also quite wrong when he says that there have been no increases in wages since the present Government came into being some 20 months ago.

It is all very well to make election cross-road speeches here. People who do not understand may sometimes believe what is said. It is all very well to make promises that cannot be carried out. I would again like to remind Deputy Collins and any others who speak here that in this House we have to speak from our heads and not from our hearts.

The debate has travelled over a wide sphere although the introductory remarks of the Minister for Industry and Commerce did not indicate that the Government had any conception of the gravity of the economic position which at present prevails in the country.

In introducing the Bill the Minister referred briefly to the fact that certain Orders required to be continued and he dealt with only one specific matter, the reason why the price of bread had been increased by ministerial Order without the necessity for an inquiry by the Prices Advisory Body. It is obvious, however, from the trend of the discussion, from the speeches that have been made by Deputies from different parts of the House and different parts of the country, that the present economic position is serious and that the country is looking for a lead that so far has not been forthcoming from the Government. It is unnecessary to quote extensively from statistics or figures to prove the contention that the present economic conditions are worse than those that prevailed 18 months ago or two years ago but it may be necessary to refresh the memory of some Deputies by reiterating certain figures that have been given already.

We have been told by members on the opposite side of the House that conditions are worse, that, comparatively speaking, our standards of life are better than in other countries, although those countries have not been specified and no particular standard has been indicated which would provide a basis on which to judge the accuracy or otherwise of their assertions.

Since this time two years, the numbers on the unemployment register show an increase of over 11,000 persons. That does not take into account the number of factories, businesses and workshops that are operating part-time or half-time. It does not take into account the numbers who have since emigrated. The figures that are available appear to indicate that emigration has tended to increase. No entirely accurate figure is available and, so far, no new system has been devised which would allow of accurate assessment or compilation of the present rate of emigration. It is obvious from whatever figures are available that emigration and unemployment have increased, that the substantial reduction in industrial production has been followed by a slackening in the general industrial drive and by a reduction in the numbers engaged full-time. It is significant that, although the figures for the first two quarters of this year show a fall in industrial production of 15 points, there has been no reference by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in introducing this measure to the causes of that fall. Whatever the causes are, no examination has been conducted, apparently, no investigation has taken place, and no reasons have been given to the House for that substantial drop, for the first time since the end of the war, in industrial output.

At the same time, since May, 1951, there has been an increase of 13 points —equivalent to a rise of 12 or 13 per cent.—in the cost of living as shown in the figures published for August of this year. In other words, between May, 1951, and August of this year— and that does not take into account any rise that has occurred since, as the figures are not yet available— there has been a rise of a minimum of 13 points, equivalent to 12 or 13 per cent. That rise in the cost-of-living index figure does not take into account the increases in respect of beer and tobacco. Those two items were excluded from the index figure compiled at the end of 1947, and they are no longer taken into account in assessing any variation in the index figure. If they were included, the rise would be still greater, as the old index figure included those items.

We need not now traverse the circumstances in which the Fianna Fáil Government altered the index figure in August, 1947, or prior to the introduction of the Supplementary Budget in October of that year, when those items, on the specific direction of the Government, were deleted from the computation made by the Statistics Office in assessing a variation in the index figure. Those who are familiar with the pattern of life in this country, familiar with the pattern of expenditure as undertaken by average persons, are well aware that the two items I have referred to figure to a considerable extent in the ordinary budget of almost every family, and in many cases the ordinary budget of all adults.

This serious economic situation has been gravely worsened by the speeches of members of the present Government. As we have indicated, we are anxious to make a constructive approach to the problems that face the country. We do not impute wrong motives to the Ministers concerned or to those responsible for this policy, which has already caused so much economic dislocation, so much suffering for so many, often needlessly and without due regard to the consequences of the policy that is being pursued.

At the end of 1950 and in the early part of 1951 we recognised that the temporary disequilibrium in the balance of payments position, or the substantial import excess which was caused by the stockpiling at that time, would rectify itself later. We asserted then that it was the considered policy of the then Government that that import excess would continue only for so long as the various interests concerned required to import goods needed in anticipation of any worsening of the supply position, goods which were sought not only by importers here but by numerous other countries as well. We announced then that any temporary import excess could be regarded as justified in the circumstances, and that time would remedy it—as the export figures showed then, and as they have justified since by continued expansion. Our exports have continued to increase and without any drastic remedial measures the import reduction would have taken place already. But when the present Government assumed office in the middle of last year they announced here, in a speech by the Minister for Finance, and subsequently supported by speeches from different members of the Government, that the country faced an acute crisis, that there was urgent need to rectify the import excess and that drastic measures would have to be taken.

That speech was subsequently followed by the report of the Central Bank. It followed the same pattern as previous reports from that source and amongst other suggestions incorporated in it was the assertion that a reduction in consumption should be enforced in the country, that that reduction in consumption should be effected by the abolition or reduction of food subsidies. That report was the subject of a debate here and the Minister for Industry and Commerce alone said that the Government did not accept the terms of the report. It is significant that this year's Budget follows exactly the recommendations in respect of food subsidies that had then been enunciated by the Central Bank Report and which have since been given effect to by the abolition in some cases and substantial reduction in others of food subsidies on bread, tea, sugar, butter and flour. These essential items have all been substantially increased in price by the methods adopted in the Budget and in compliance with the recommendations which were made in the Central Bank Report.

That position has seriously affected the economic circumstances of large sections of the community. In the last few months, numerous wage applications have been made to the Labour Court and other wage agreements have been negotiated between workers and employers, in an effort to ease the burdens that have been imposed on the community by the exceptional terms of this year's Budget. It is well, however, for the House to remember that the main charge that was made against the inter-Party Government was that we had squandered money extravagantly, that we had wasted our assets, that we had put the country into debt, that we had squandered the people's resources. No specific instances were given of this alleged waste; no indications were given of what schemes should have been abandoned; no particular instances were given of what schemes should have been continued.

It is significant that the current rate of expenditure this year, as furnished in the returns published in Iris Oifigiúil, shows that on an average this Government so far has spent for each financial month of this year approximately £5,000,000 more than the inter-Party Government spent during its term of office or on the basis of the Budget introduced last year.

We have had references to the fact that certain schemes were wasteful and that some schemes might have been modified, but no particular instance has been quoted where schemes should not have been proceeded with, nor has this Government seen fit to stop the capital development programme initiated by the inter-Party Government. It is, I think, important that we should during this discussion decide once and for all what capital schemes are desirable and, if necessary, establish an order of priority for such schemes.

During our term in office we considered the question of drawing up a priority list for capital development schemes. We decided that, if necessary, such a list should be drawn up and particular schemes initiated immediately and others postponed to a later date. As things turned out, it was not necessary to earmark individual schemes for particular years and, in the main, a large-scale development programme was adopted which had the effect of expanding agricultural and industrial production while providing at the same time other capital development schemes of a social kind.

We have had discussions here and references to different aspects of that capital development programme. Nobody has yet suggested that we should not proceed with the Electricity Supply Board development programme or curtail the extension of rural electrification. No one has suggested that Bord na Móna activities should be reduced or that the Irish shipping programme should be cut down. Similarly, no one has suggested any curtailment of activity on land reclamation and drainage.

All these schemes in their own way and in varying degrees are productive. In some cases the return may be immediate. In others the return may be delayed, but in all cases some return will be forthcoming, and it is our aim and policy to see that the maximum development possible is undertaken in respect of all these worthwhile capital development programmes.

No one has suggested that there should be any contraction of developments of a social type, such as housing, hospitalisation and health services. In the strictly economic sense no direct return is expected to be forthcoming from these, but nobody has suggested—in fact, there is common agreement on both sides on the point—that the rate of progress in relation to building and hospitalisation is as rapid as we would like it to be. The significant change that has occurred this year is that, although some local authorities are proceeding at about the same rate as they were last year and the year before, private building now for the first time shows indications of a substantial drop.

Reference has been made to the fact that Dublin Corporation is building 5,000 houses per year. The truth is that that particular body has never yet reached that level. That may be the target set, but the fact is that that target has never been reached. Aiming at a target and reaching that target are two very different things. The rate of building in Dublin has never yet reached 5,000 houses per year. That may be the plan, but the plan has never been attained. In relation to Dublin Corporation and in relation to some of the local authorities the rate of building has been maintained, but the substantial drop in private building is noticeable.

We had a discussion here recently on the variation in the rate of interest charged under the small dwellings acquisition loan. It was significant that although a motion was moved here on that subject the Minister for Finance declined to intervene in the debate. Subsequent questions and representations to both the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance were successful in getting the Government to alter its views, and to allow the old rate of interest in respect of applications made up to the beginning of October. That is satisfactory in relation to those persons who had undertaken commitments prior to that date. Has anyone taken the trouble to find out or is the Government aware of the serious position which faces those who are anxious to avail of the facilities under the small dwellings loan because of the rise in the rate of interest? Virtually, in respect of Dublin, the small dwellings acquisition loans have now ceased to operate, and many people are in a serious position because of their inability to secure loans at rates of interest within their competence to pay.

That problem must affect and has already begun to show its effect in the diminution in private building. Its effect has been to reduce substantially private building. The figures which were recently circulated to Deputies show an increase of over 500 in the number of building operatives now on the unemployment list as compared with this time last year. Even though this is the slack period, that in itself is an indication of the trend of events, and an indication of the effect that the alteration in the rate of interest is having in relation to the small dwellings acquisition loan.

I wonder if it is possible now to clear up a bit of a mystery. We had here recently a number of questions dealing with the export of timber to Belfast. Apparently nobody can elicit the full facts of the situation. Would it be possible to get from the Minister before this debates concludes a full statement of all the circumstances which warranted the granting of export licences in respect of that timber? If timber is available freely, as we believe it is, at a cheaper price than that timber was imported, then it is difficult to understand why persons in Belfast, or elsewhere, were not prepared themselves to avail of the cheaper timber from whatever source it was available. If, on the other hand, this timber is being sold at a reduced price, then I think local authorities in this part of the country are entitled to first preference.

As I understand it, the Minister did not inquire into the circumstances in which this deal was undertaken. Normally, where private firms are concerned, it may not be fair or reasonable to expect a full disclosure of the circumstances in which private transactions are undertaken. But in this particular case where a commodity was imported as a safeguard against a deterioration in the supply position, it is reasonable to expect that the full facts and the full circumstances of the transaction which took place and the reason why an export licence was sought, and the Minister decided to grant that export licence, should be disclosed. It is recognised that there are available in this country ample supplies of timber. It is recognised that supplies—particularly in view of the anticipated reduction in respect of certain construction work—will last for a considerable period, but it ought to be possible to give the House and the country the full facts of the circumstances which made it possible for this timber to be exported, why it was not offered in the circumstances or, if it was offered, why it was not accepted by the local authorities concerned.

The other two matters to which I wish to refer are bread and tea. The Minister, in defending the decision to grant an increase in respect of bread prices, stated that the inter-Party Government did precisely the same thing in similar circumstances. He omitted to mention that on one occasion the Prices Advisory Body was not in existence and that on the second occasion the Prices Advisory Body had only just been established, and was at that time inundated with applications for price increases, and so forth. Everyone is familiar with one aspect of this matter and that is that bread made by different bakers is being sold at different prices in different shops. It is not suggested that if wage increases are granted they should not be implemented. It is not suggested that if awards are made by the Labour Court or agreements negotiated for increases in wages these increases should not be granted and that the award should not be implemented.

It is impossible to understand why, in Dublin itself, the price of bread can vary as much as 2d. a loaf. It may be that it is confined to specific instances where small bakeries find it possible to sell bread more cheaply but it is equally significant that some of the large Dublin bakeries are sending vans even as far as 100 miles down the country to compete with rural bakeries or bakeries in provincial towns. That position has been justified by the Minister on the basis that an inquiry was conducted by the Lavery Commission, that the price factors that were then revealed have not varied considerably since and that it had been possible, on the basis of the figures then compiled, to assess accurately the variation in any item of cost. It is, however, common knowledge and in that report and as a result of that inquiry the Commission announced that it was difficult to get costings in some instances, that it was impossible to assess accurately the level of profits, that it was impossible for the commission to decide particular costings in respect of particular branches of the industry and that their decisions in some cases had to be on the basis of conjecture or on the best assessment that the figures available to them allowed. That inquiry was conducted over two years ago. It is unreasonable to expect the Dáil or the country to accept the suggestions that have been made in defending the recent variation in the price of bread that the figures which were then compiled or any variation in prices or the changes which have occurred since can be related to the rates and figures that were then available.

It is a matter of serious concern that the application for the increase in the price of bread was not referred to the Prices Advisory Body. As a result of questions which were put down here about this time last year I succeeded, in common with other Deputies, in getting the substantial increase in motor insurance premiums referred to the Prices Advisory Body. The House may not remember the facts. When that matter was first referred to the Prices Advisory Body and an investigation undertaken some of the insurance companies at first refused to reveal the full figures. Certain figures that were required were not produced. The Chairman of the Prices Advisory Body advised them to get these figures and to produce them. Subsequently the figures were produced. A full investigation was undertaken.

The Prices Advisory Body decided that the increase that had been imposed by the insurance companies was exactly double what the figures justified after examination by the Prices Advisory Body. The fact that that applied to motor insurance and did not affect all sections of the community may not have made its significance as effective or may not have brought home to the people the full significance of that inquiry. I think it is a matter of very considerable importance that, in that specific case, a full investigation by the Prices Advisory Body resulted in a 50 per cent. reduction in the increase which had been imposed and which was actually introduced last year in respect of motor insurance premiums. The inference from that inquiry justifies the House and the country in expecting that matters intimately affecting every individual in the community should be investigated fully by the Prices Advisory Body. If import prices rise, if wages rise, if the raw materials increase in price, if a whole number of factors increase in price and whatever is manufactured or produced as a result of the particular commodities concerned increases in price, then the public will understand and will appreciate the reasons and the causes for any variation in price. What the public do not understand and what the public find confusing is the fact that price increases take place without giving the public the information and without revealing in public the causes for these increases. If an increase is warranted after a full investigation then people generally accept whatever changes have to be made. However harshly they may bear upon them, they realise that these increases are inevitable—but they realise that they are inevitable after a full examination of the facts and after a full investigation into all the causes of whatever increases may flow from that particular matter.

I come now to the question of tea. In recent times we have had questions in this House concerning the price of tea. It is common knowledge that tea is available in Britain at substantially lower prices than it is available here. Nobody expects that the tea stocks which were accumulated could be utilised overnight, but it is known that those stocks are now being used up. It is known that the accumulated stocks are gradually being worked off, but no indication is given that we may expect any substantial reduction in the price of tea.

No valid justification has been made for the continuance of the monopoly which is enjoyed by Tea Importers. The only argument that has been advanced here is that because we were dependent on Mincing Lane or the London tea market during the war for our supplies, our tea position was worsened. It has not been stated whether that position was created by Government restrictions in Britain or by the tea market itself. I think that it is generally understood that whatever limitation was imposed was a Government limitation and not a limitation imposed by private enterprise. However, circumstances have changed and we should not continue to operate a system which obliges our people to pay more for tea of the same quality than people in Great Britain or elsewhere. If an alteration in our trading methods can enable us to get cheaper tea, surely the cost of living is already high enough—the price of essential commodities is far beyond the capacity of most people to bear—without having an official limitation or restriction, preventing a reduction in the price of tea or preventing benefits which would flow if normal trade practices were allowed to operate.

The other matter to which I wish to refer in this connection is the fact that no explanation has been given to the House as to why this Government abandoned its undertaking, contained in the 17-point programme, that it would maintain food subsidies and that the price of essential commodities would be regulated by, on the one hand, control and, on the other hand, by the maintenance of food subsidies. In respect of a number of commodities, food subsidies have been abandoned and in respect of others, substantially reduced. No justification has been given and no case has been made for the deception that was practised on the people or for the deceit that is being perpetrated by that alteration in policy.

Would they be restored by Fine Gael?

We undertook publicly to maintain the price of bread, tea and butter at the level existing when we were in office. We undertook that publicly, and we are prepared to adhere to it.

Are you prepared to adhere to it?

If Deputies want to salve their consciences by interrogations on matters of this kind, we made our position quite clear. In the course of the recent by-election we undertook to follow a certain policy in regard to the cost of living, and we succeeded in securing from the electors of Dublin the most decisive indication of public opinion on the present cost of living that was ever given in any by-election since this State was established. We are prepared to abide that result. It is common knowledge for a long time that this Government is waiting for something to happen. It is common knowledge that it has no policy, no leadership, no guidance, no direction, that the Government are hanging on in the hope that something will happen. They know that they may postpone their doom, but that it is inevitable. If they are not prepared to adopt an alternative policy, then the sooner they give the country the opportunity that it awaits, and the sooner they give the country an opportunity of providing an alternative Government, the better.

Despite all that has been said on both sides of the House, much of it was merely playing the game of Party politics again. I am satisfied that we have come to have one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilised world. It is no longer government by vote of the majority but government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men who, because they control money, are able to control credit and decide to whom it shall be allotted.

I want to say that it is only the courage, the fearlessness, the honesty and the true patriotism that inspired the men of 1916 and the men of subsequent years that are required to challenge things for what they are, rather than what they appear to be, and to abolish the poverty and insecurity that affect so many thousands of our people to-day. I want to make it clear, also, that whatever the Government do or wish to do—and I do not care what Government is in power—they will never do anything effective or practical until they take control of the money situation and the credit of this country and give to our Central Bank the necessary power to deal with these matters.

I made it my business to listen with great attention to the speeches in this debate. I followed with interest the speech of Deputy Briscoe a little while ago. Deputy Briscoe made it quite clear that he does not want to change the present system, but he wants to make it work better than it is working at present. I listened with very close attention last night to the constructive speech of Deputy Costello and to the speech made here last week by Deputy McGilligan, the ex-Minister for Finance. I am going to repeat now what I have said before, probably for the last time, that if the present Taoiseach and the former Taoiseach and the present Minister for Finance and the former Minister for Finance got together, with all the goodwill in the world, to try to make this system work, it would fail them to do so unless they are satisfied that it is to operate in the interest of 30 per cent. of the population, while the other 70 per cent. are suffering from poverty and insecurity.

I have no room for much of the talk that took place in regard to what happened in 1936, 1938 or 1948 or what happened in the recent by-election. What does all that matter to the man in the street or the man down the country? Deputy Briscoe expressed his belief with emphasis that we must preserve private enterprise and that we are living in a democracy. What use is that concept to the many thousands of our people who are living in poverty and insecurity? What good is that concept to the thousands living in slum hovels? Deputy McGrath will know that I am not exaggerating when I say that there are thousands of decent men and women in Cork living in hovels, pest-ridden and rat-ridden, and in conditions that are a disgrace to any civilised community. I think we are not doing our duty, having before our minds the condition of the thousands of people who are living in poverty, if we do not take radical steps to deal with the situation.

I was surprised to read the speech of Deputy Lynch, Parliamentary Secretary, last week. He did not consult anybody, but he seemed to be satisfied with his own statement that we were better off than most other countries and that we should be satisfied to maintain the present cost of living. I want to tell Deputy Lynch—and I am speaking from no political Party angle —that the time has arrived when we have to face these things more realistically than we are facing them.

We have the position to-day that we have 68,000 people registering at the labour exchanges. The maximum amount allowed to any worker who is signing there is 24/-, the purchasing power of which to-day is only 11/3. He gets 12/6 for his wife, and according to the Taoiseach's statement last May, the purchasing power of that is only 5/3, giving his wife and himself a total income for the week of just 17/-. That has to do them for seven days of the week. If they are living in a corporation house they are expected to give one-sixth of their income for rent which, in their case, would be 3/6. Deputy McGrath will bear me out when I say that you cannot rent one of these houses in Cork for one-sixth of that man's income. Therefore, the position of that man is that for seven days of the week his wife and himself have an income of 13/6. Divide that into seven days, and you find that the man is left with 1/7 a day. If his wife and himself are going to have anything resembling three meals a day, they are left with 6d. for each meal, without taking into account at all what a bit of firing and clothing will cost them. While conscious of having these problems behind the scenes, is it not a shame that we should be spending hours in this House talking Party politics, and of how one Party can advance against the other?

Deputy Briscoe tried to defend the loan and the payment of 5 per cent. for it. He complained about the last Government floating a loan at 3½ per cent. and of the fact that its market price has now gone down considerably. I suggest that, instead of wasting time here on Party politics, we should be devoting ourselves to the question of trying to change that system. I believe that if a man puts £1, £100 or £1,000 into State funds for the purpose of building houses it should have the same value after six or ten years or any other number of years that it had when he made his investment. Are we going to allow the gentlemen on the Stock Exchange, the manipulators of our finances, to dictate how the pound is to fluctuate, as it has been fluctuating for years?

I want to come back to the question of the cost of living and to point out to the Parliamentary Secretary, who is representing the Government, that I took the trouble recently of ascertaining the price of 26 items of food on the 27th September, 1951 and on the same date in 1952. The food items which I selected are those which are used by the average housewife. None of them could be classed as a luxury. Their cost in September, 1951, was 46/2. In September, 1952, the cost of the same items of food was 62/10. I defy anyone to controvert those figures. I had a question down last May asking the Taoiseach what was the purchasing power of the pound then as compared with 1938 and 1939. He informed me that it was 9/- Deputy Briscoe, last Thursday, emphasised the fact that the purchasing power of the pound to-day was only one-third of what it was in 1939. I am prepared to stick to the official figure despite what Deputy Briscoe said.

I want to emphasise that we ought to have some reality in this debate, especially as regards how people are living. Despite the depreciated value of the pound to-day, we are only giving our deserving old-age pensioners 21s. 6d. a week. Quite a big number of them are men who have given 50 years of honest and faithful service to the nation, and that is the best we are able to offer them. We are told, of course, that we are spending an awful lot of money on the old-age pensioners and that the country cannot afford any more. The fact is, taking the present-day value of the pound, that what they are actually getting is 9/-. The man who was earning £2 14s. in 1939 should have £6 a week to-day; the man with £3 12s. in 1939 would want a wage to-day of £8; the man with £4 10s. in 1938 or 1939 would want £10 a week to-day; the man who had £4 19s. a week in 1938 and 1939 would require £11 per week to-day, while the man who had £5 8s. a week in 1938 and 1939 would require a wage of £12 a week to-day to give him the same standard of living as he had in 1938 and 1939.

I submit that if we claim to be making progress we should be able to make an improvement on the standard of living that we had in 1938 and 1939. I will not agree that the masses of our people had the standard of living that they were entitled to in 1938 or 1939. I think it is necessary that I should say this: Is not the daily imposition of poverty upon thousands of our people an offence to God? We have the scandal of unemployed resources of labour and capital coexisting with unsatisfied want. I think it is time to end that. I want to say to the Parliamentary Secretary that it is time we refused to accept any longer the doctrine that we must have poverty in the midst of potential plenty.

Mr. Lynch

Some people suggest that to assist the needy is an offence against God.

Who said that?

Mr. Lynch

I am not saying that the Deputy said it.

I have never heard anyone make such a statement. If anyone did make such a statement I can tell the Parliamentary Secretary that I would have some comment to make on it.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us who said it?

Deputy Hickey.

I think it is an insult to our intelligence for anyone to say that the conditions operating in this country to-day are providential. From the way some people talk about the unemployed and about poverty one would imagine that it was an act of God that it should be so. I ask Deputies to bear this in mind, that God did not fill this earth with full and plenty to mock the sufferings of thousands of people. God is the God of Heaven as well as the God of earth. He is the God of earth as he is the God of Heaven. It is time that we got some conviction into our minds for the purpose of dealing with the very serious problems which are confronting us rather than be wasting the time of the House on Party politics.

Deputy Briscoe taunted me by suggesting that I was denying the right of private property. I have never suggested or advocated any such thing. I did say that the control of money and credit should not be left in the hands of any group of individuals in this or in any other country. Until we take control of our money and credit, nothing will be done. We can go on talking here for years, but we will not get anything done.

Why have I talked about the system of banking and credit? I have an interest in the affairs of the Cork Corporation and in the citizens of Cork. What do I find? The Cork Corporation for the five years ending in 1941 paid an average of £46,000 per year in interest on money borrowed, and for the five years ending in 1951 they paid £70,540 per year in interest alone on money for building houses. Last year the Cork County Council paid the huge sum in interest on loans and overdrafts in the bank of £93,274, and in six years they have paid a total of £380,470 in interest on money borrowed. Yet Deputy Briscoe and the Minister for Finance tell us that paying 5 per cent. interest on the loan of £20,000,000 was a normal thing to do in order to get money to serve the people of the country.

I hope to have another opportunity of discussing that aspect on the other Estimate that is coming before the House, but the time has arrived when the people elected to this House should get down to talking about the necessary changes which must take place in this country if the people are to be served. I advocated before and I advocate now that we should have a private session of this Dáil, at which the back benchers of Fianna Fáil and the other Parties could, without Press propaganda, talk about the changes necessary to be brought about to serve the people of the country. That is badly needed. I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce is as conscious as anybody else of that, because we in this House are just children in the hands of combines and financiers and people who have no interest in this country.

I am not satisfied that the members of this House have been given the full details or the implications of the agreements which we made with the British Government in 1938 and 1948. Whoever goes to Great Britain or anywhere else, the elected representatives of the people are entitled to be told every detail of what took place or what has been done in the interests of this country or to the detriment of this country. I am satisfied that the implications of the 1938 Agreement are contrary to the best interests of this country. Under that agreement Britain was to give us all the coal we required, but we were unable to get that coal because she decided not to give it. As against that, she gave Denmark all the coal that country wanted; she increased her supplies to Denmark. In 1948, Denmark got 813,928 tons of coal from Britain; in 1949 she got 1,609,000 tons; and in 1950, 1,876,475 tons. Why did we not get from Britain the coal to which we were entitled in those days? I do not care from which side of the House representatives go to Great Britain to discuss this, that or the other thing, but I am satisfied that our Budget was dictated mainly by British interests rather than Irish interests, because when the British Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his Budget he said that the only way to make sterling stronger was to make it scarce, and that is what we have done in regard to our business in this country since the introduction of the Budget. I say to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the time has arrived when each Party in this House should sit down and, without scoring political points, discuss and decide what changes are necessary to bring this country back to where it was in 1919 and 1920. Let us get back to the Sinn Fein days.

Deputy Briscoe referred to the selling of the National Land Bank in 1926. The Labour Party at that time objected to that. We want to see the Central Bank Act amended in such a way that that bank will control our money and credit and give us advice in regard to it. As it is, the Central Bank might as well not be in existence because it has no powers. I hope the Minister will pay heed to the appeal I made, that the time has arrived for the Government to take into their confidence the people who matter in this country and have a private session of the Dáil to decide what changes are necessary and should be brought about in this country.

To a certain extent I shall probably find myself riding the same hobby horse as the Deputy who has just concluded. It seems to me that we are at present discussing the problems of unemployment, emigration and high prices which dominated the debates here since the Dáil began. I do not think there is the slightest use in the Opposition berating the Fianna Fáil Government for any recent increases in the unemployment figure or for the continuation of emigration, both of which are interdependent. Nobody can deny that the problems which created these evils in modern democracy have existed throughout the life of those who have held control of affairs here. The usual unemployment figure has been 50,000, 60,000 or 70,000, and anything up to 20,000 usually had to emigrate.

It does not matter which Government is in office, these are the facts. I have listened very carefully and, when I have been unable to listen I have read very carefully, the speeches of the Opposition and, with the exception of Deputy Costello, and, to a limited extent, Deputy Cosgrave, I have not really received any help in finding out what the Opposition will do if and when they are returned to the Government Benches again. Naturally, as the main Opposition they must anticipate such an occasion. But I feel that as a responsible Opposition they have the responsibility of putting before the House a reasonable plan of campaign which they would operate if returned to control our affairs. It must be obvious to them that speeches that go down at the crossroads or which move a mob at a street corner will not impress the average Deputy. We expect a reasoned examination, fair criticism and, more important than all, constructive suggestions, either to help the existing administration out of its difficulties, or constructive suggestions as regards their own activities should they be returned to power.

As I say, I have read or listened to most of the speeches and Deputy Costello is the only Deputy from whose speech yesterday I have received any light at all. Now for the time we must leave aside completely the fact that Deputy Costello is the ex-Taoiseach, the ex-head of the Government. He did not solve the problems which existed; they may have been mitigated to a certain extent, but these problems substantially existed throughout the term of office of Deputy Costello as Taoiseach and of his Government.

As an absolute realist, I must accept as axiomatic that the ex-Taoiseach did not in his time solve these problems when he was in a position to do so. We must, therefore, judge by whatever propositions he has put forward now, and we must assume that he has changed completely his solution for those problems which will doubtless be there for him if he should be returned as Taoiseach with his Government, however it may be composed. We must accept that the solutions which he tried last time substantially failed—even though you accept that there was a certain mitigation of the problems—and that he has decided that those solutions which he provided will not be put into operation if he comes back over the Government of the country.

As far as our problems are concerned—and I think they are very serious ones, indeed—I said before in the Industry and Commerce Vote debate that, in relation to prices, prices were largely dependent on the two main industries, the agricultural industry and our other productive industries of relatively recent origin. I feel, as I have always felt and believed, that our industries, factories and so on are in safe keeping with the Tánaiste. I do, however, feel, and would like to repeat, that the time has come, in my view, where the competent and efficient industry—and there are plenty of them—must be specially considered and the incompetent, inefficient industry which shelters behind Deputy Dillon's friends, tariffs and quotas, struck out of the life of the country. The good industrialist should be given every possible encouragement—he is up against it in every way—to produce a good article cheaply and, what is very much more important, to produce a good article which he can export in the world market, the world market being the way it is at the moment.

There is no doubt that an industry based on the idea of supplying the domestic market is a futile industry. I do not think it is an industry on which any country can exist solely. That must be accepted; certainly it is accepted by most of the countries of the world. Even America could not live on a completely internal economy. Great Britain is now finding itself gradually losing all its colonies and gradually finding that places like Canada are moving into the dollar areas; that New Zealand is self-supporting and tending to reorientate itself towards the dollar area, and that Australia has its own problems. Similarly the whole of Europe is really becoming self-sufficient as regards its own home needs in the industrial markets. Consequently, in the industrial field, if you take textile goods and factory products generally, any Minister or any Government trying to get a healthy industry here—I believe a healthy industry must be an exporting industry—must realise that the industrialist is up against a tremendous problem. I do not think the good industrialist can be expected to compete in the world's market without substantial help from the Government in the form of protection, insurance and guarantees against loss if he does branch out abroad. If the bad industrialist is put out of business you can get a good article at a reasonable price under those circumstances. It would help in the present great problem of high prices.

The Restrictive Trade Practices Bill when it is enacted will be a great help if it is properly operated. The time has come when the Minister should reconsider the Industrial Standards Bill which did not get through the House. The Industrial Standards Bill, if passed into law, would be a great help in carrying out this grading process in regard to our existing industries and in that way we could rid ourselves of the incubus of those people who are operating behind the protection of the tariffs and quota system, and who provide possibly a good article, often a shoddy article, at a price in excess of that which could be obtained elsewhere.

Possibly one of the greatest troubles is the fact that many firms operating here, being subsidiaries of British companies, are not remotely interested in developing our export trade; consequently it is they to a large extent who are operating to their own advantage behind the protective barriers which the early Fianna Fáil Government largely established for the protection of our own industries.

Deputy Costello made a number of grandiloquent passes at the problems facing him or likely to face him in relation to high prices, unemployment and emigration. I think I am being quite fair in saying that he really did not get down to devising a general programme which would convince anybody with a reasonably open mind— very few of us have open minds, I suppose—that he could cope with these problems which substantially overcame him during his term of office as Taoiseach. He mentioned some alterations in the Stock Exchange. He was extraordinarily vague about the Stock Exchange and what he wanted done. I do not know whether he wants to change the Stock Exchange personnel from being a largely Freemason dominated body to being one dominated by the Knights of Columbanus or something like that. Fundamentally, the Stock Exchange can only be changed by a completely different approach to the use of money. Deputy Costello left that particular suggestion rather high in the air, I thought. He agreed, I believe, on a most important postulate of Government particularly where the Minister for Finance is concerned and in the context of the existing circumstances.

He said that any future Government would be faced with getting their money at 5 per cent. and having to like it. They had no choice. I think that is a fair summary of what he said. I think that is a most important admission, a perfectly sane admission under the existing circumstances. I think that is the problem which faces the Minister for Finance. It is one he will have to accept if he is realistic.

Accepting that postulate, I think you must then go a little further and accept that this is a very high interest rate if we accept that the solution to our problems is capital investment in a very big way. Deputy MacEntee, the Minister for Finance, was most unkind incidentally in the course of a letter in this morning's newspaper referring to Deputy Costello's former very lukewarm and unenthusiastic reference to capital investment but we will leave that matter to Deputy MacEntee. Deputy Costello has not always been so enamoured of capital investment as he now appears to be but let us accept that this is a deathbed of that——

Resurrection if you like.

——seeing that he has now changed over and honestly believes—as I believe he now does— in a capital investment programme for the resuscitation of the State, the end of unemployment, the solution of emigration and such like problems. May I add, indeed, that with his capital investment proposition I am in complete agreement? Fortunately, I am in rather a good position to comment on this, being, I suppose, one of the few people who had a lot of money to spend and actually spent it or arranged for it to be properly utilised—Hospitals' Sweep money. It was, I believe, in my view quite correct to spend such moneys in prohospital facilities. To a limited extent the orthodox economist—Deputy Cosgrave—referred to the desirability of spending money on projects which might or might not give a big return or, indeed, any return at all.

I think all sides of the House and, of course, Deputy Cosgrave are completely agreed that it is correct policy for the Government to develop the physical requirements of a good health service by building hospitals. I would have liked, indeed, to have been able to spend money on projects which would give productive employment in order to create wealth for the community as a whole. I agree wholeheartedly with Deputy Costello's suggestion in relation to capital investment. I believe that both sides of the House would agree with that proposition.

It was, I suppose, in the practical application of that particular principle that the New Zealand Government established the tremendous level of prosperity which we know to-day. It must be little comfort or satisfaction to those who are so sceptical of the welfare State because New Zealand happens to have achieved both desiderata of a modern democracy— prosperity and, in addition, social justice for everybody. That desirable achievement has largely sprung out of the most far-sighted—positively visionary—policy of faith and belief in the wealth of the land and in the produce of the land of New Zealand. That intensive development of their land over the years has given to them a place second to none in prosperity and wealth and social justice amongst the civilised countries in the world. Even at this late stage, we ought to accept that a solution to our problem must be a vast and large scale capital development programme.

Again, Deputy Costello left me at any rate high and dry on another very vital problem. Perhaps, he did not mean to do so and, perhaps, he may elucidate the matter subsequently. I do not know. Perhaps Deputy McGilligan or even Deputy Dillon will provide his own bizarre and novel solution to the problem. At any rate, I must confess that I am still in the dark to know where the Fine Gael Opposition are going to find the hundreds of thousands of pounds which I feel they will have to find if they are going to provide for their capital development programme.

Deputy Costello has said that he considers 5 per cent. a fair rate of interest. I think that is very dear money. Having regard to the way we are organised here and the particular economy which exists, I suppose it may be considered to be cheap money. But if we are going to try to develop agriculture then it is axiomatic that you must accept the proposition of making available long-term loans at low interest rates, particularly in relation to agriculture and to the development of land generally. If Deputy Costello is going to borrow his money at 5 per cent. that is all right. If he is going to spend a tremendous amount of money on the land and the development of the land of the country I say good luck to him. But how is he going to provide the money at the right price for this very desirable development? Perhaps, Deputy Costello has made a most revolutionary conversion. Perhaps, Deputy Costello considers that it will be possible for this Government to alter the legislation governing the activities of the Central Bank. Deputy McGilligan hinted at that in his recent speech.

If they expect to do that then I, and I am sure, a lot of other Deputies will be glad to welcome it, but I think it would be very helpful for Deputies generally to know what Fine Gael has in mind. I do not mind what Government carries out such a programme, but any Government prepared to adopt such a policy must accept the responsibility of combining and changing the activities of our joint stock banks and our Central Bank to provide the cheap money which is essential for the rational and realistic development of agriculture, and will get my support. The other, what could be termed quick-money-producing industries, can find the capital fairly easy. I do not think anybody has ever contested that the ordinary textile industries cannot find money. They can. There is plenty of it. In regard to the development of the land, the banks do not seem anxious to lend money for agricultural production.

Even at 6 per cent.

I agree completely with Deputy Costello's diagnosis. I agree completely with the cure he proposed. I should like to know what price he is prepared to pay for that cure. He left us on the edge of that very interesting and important question, a question on which depends, in my view, the prosperity or otherwise of the country in the years ahead.

I do not think it is any good berating the farmers for being lazy, improvident or anything else. I have been a critic of the farmers. I believe they do not pay half enough income-tax, and I am prepared to say that anywhere, but at the same time I believe that the farmer suffers from very serious disadvantages. He appears to me not to have any facilities for the proper marketing of his goods, and, in addition to being a technician on the land, he has to be an auctioneer, a shopkeeper, a good bargainer and so on. I believe that a lot of time is wasted in that way, in getting rid of his produce, when he should be out on the land applying his ingenuity and skill to it for the production of goods to make life easier for us in the city. That is not the sole reason, but it is a good enough reason.

I believe the farmer works terribly hard and works, on the whole, to very poor purpose. He gets very little real return for the work he puts into his land, and this is largely due to the fact that he works with the wrong equipment, that he cannot afford the right, the most modern and the best equipment and because, as everybody agrees, our agricultural economy generally is completely antediluvian, under-mechanised and operating under tremendous disadvantages. The result of that is hard on the farmer, but I am not gravely concerned about the farmer. I am concerned with the fact that the general effect of that on the community is that we are living in grave fear of—disaster is a very serious word to use—very serious trouble ahead.

I am a person—this is quite a dangerous thing for me to say in some ways—who fervently believes in very fine social services—sickness benefit, health provisions and so on—but I believe that all these things are inextricably bound up, logically and to the realist, with a prosperous agricultural and industrial economy. So long as we have, on one side, an exotic and extravagant set-up of social services and, on the other, this high rate of unemployment and emigration which has been the constant criticism of every Government since the formation of the State, I am afraid it is unrealistic on our part to try to pursue it, despite its lack of realism. We are trying to provide the super-structure of a prosperous State on a foundation of something which is positively wrong.

I have asked Deputy Costello that question. I do not expect a clear-cut answer, but I should be very glad to get it, particularly if it were in agreement with what I believe to be very necessary, that is, an amendment of the Central Bank Act so as to give us greater powers over the disposal and repatriation of money, and to enable us to take some action in relation to the joint stock banks concerning the lending of money and their operations generally.

Deputy Costello made one other point in relation to taxation. One hears from the Fine Gael benches the most perfervid declamations of a most revolutionary type and I am sure that those Deputies who have been here longer than I and have listened to statements by Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies in former years and Fine Gael Deputies now must prick up their ears when they hear the very revolutionary things that come from over there from time to time, but, throughout all that, there runs the same constant thread. There is a tremendous obsession about taxation. "We will reduce taxation" has been the constant cry over the years. "It might mean that we will have to reduce old-age pensions or carry out some other social change of an undesirable nature, but we must reduce taxation." Deputy Costello said that, and, if he can reduce taxation, good luck to him, but, at the same time, he left us in some doubt—and Deputy Cosgrave again this morning left me in doubt—about this question of subsidies.

If he is going to reduce taxation, is he going to restore the subsidies? If he is, in the name of the Almighty, how is he going to manipulate these two quite contradictory propositions? I am leaving aside the possibility that there might be an attempt to play around with the figures on the cover of the book and assuming that orthodox financial methods will be employed. How is this tremendous sum of money required to provide subsidies to be found and how is taxation going to be reduced? That is a simple question which I feel is capable of an answer. I think it is positively dishonest for an Opposition to go around waving this apparent promise to the people that subsidies will be restored if they are returned to office, while, at the same time, promising our old friends, the taxpayers, that they will reduce taxation. It is a case of having one eye on Cabra and the other on Morehampton Road and I do not think that is being quite fair as a responsible Opposition.

There is a certain tempering of the enthusiasm for this promise with regard to food subsidies and there was a certain amount of circumlocution in the context of the subsidies promise. It is not quite as clear-cut and definite as it was a few months ago. They may not mean to restore the subsidies and may not mean to reduce the price of bread, butter, tea and so on. If that is so, I know that it would be politically inexpedient to say so in anticipation, but I suggest that it would be a damned sight more inexpedient politically not to do it if the Fine Gael Government is ever restored to office, because it would be a major failure with the people, and could only be treated by them as such. In their own interest—and I am not vastly concerned with the interests of the Fine Gael Party—it would be wiser for them to make it clear at this stage whether they intend to leave the prices of essential commodities as they are at the moment, or to adopt the good socialist principle of introducing subsidies in order to mitigate or ameliorate the hardships which these things tend to bring on the people. I would be very glad if Deputy Costello had enlightened us on those points, because I can assure him that his speech, a most interesting one in its analysis and in its occasional constructive propositions, did not, in my view, do the job of a Taoiseach or a shadow Taoiseach, and that is to say what they think of these things, and that, if they were given the opportunity of handling these problems, they would handle them quite differently. I believe myself that the big barrier or difficulty which Deputy Costello would find as a Taoiseach would be this 5 per cent. For he would have to lend out at 6? or 6½ or 6¼ per cent. to the farmers who could not take it at that rate or to the local authorities for house building, and they could not take it either, because the people could not pay the rates necessary to get the money back. And it would be no use raising their wages because then you would get inflation.

You must get back to the root problem of our society at the moment. That is the fact that we are trying to carry on, providing for our social services—good houses and hospitals, etc.—and at the same time keeping in power the joint stock banks and following their dictates in relation to the price of money. It is no use appealing to these people. We have given them authority and power to dictate these terms to us. They are not philanthropists. They are not interested in unemployment, old age pensioners or widows or the blind or anyone like that. This must be said for them: they never make any profession of being interested in these matters. They are a business concern. Money is given to them to make more money and that is what they do. It is no good moaning and whining here. The solution is in our own hands. It is a very radical solution and if they had to face it most Deputies would run away from it. I would honestly like to know whether Deputy Hickey would face the very serious repercussions implied in his own statements.

Are we not accepting worse evils under what is happening at present?

If the day comes you will have at least one supporter in carrying out your particular policy. In the 30 or 40 years of our Government here we have roamed far, far from the domestic programme of the founders of the State. We have here a capitalist economy. I think everybody will agree with that. I would like to quote an article from a journal here. It was written by Dr. Newman of the Catholic Workers' College, Oxford. I deprecate in the strongest terms the use to any extent at all in political matters of what you might call ecclesiastical hatchetmen to do your dirty work. But this quotation is so apt and so helpful to us at this stage that I do not think I can be accused of using these subterfuges to further what I believe in myself. Dr. Newman's statement was:—

"Capitalism can blame itself for the fact that to-day men are prone to think of liberty, justice and equality solely along material lines. It is a valuation springing directly from the capitalist system which condemns the worker to economic dependence, subordinates his life to care for his daily bread, and makes it impossible for him to better his lot in any other way than by the stimulation of his acquisitive instinct in opposition to that of the employer and the middleman. Living in an environment which seems to him to be entirely dominated by the material motive of gain, the worker is rich soil for materialism. It springs, as it were, from his social experience. As a result, he distrusts all conceptions which do not present themselves as the defence of some economic interest or other and he is shy of ideas which cannot be represented in a concrete economic programme."

A sound quotation.

It is a very sound quotation indeed. I am deeply grateful for this particular article and have learned a lot from it. It is an outright condemnation of the communist ideology and a perfectly sound and reasoned one. But that particular extract is, I think, terribly important and one which for some reason or other is an attitude of mind towards this particular problem in Ireland which appears to be overlooked completely. Perhaps, it is not overlooked exactly completely, to a certain extent we have developed in other lines but to a large extent we have adopted holus bolus since the beginning of the State the attitude of the British Treasury towards economics. It would appear to me, looking at the British Treasury and the forlorn and desolate state in which it seems to be to-day, that nothing could be more unwise and unsound for our successive Governments than to turn their heads towards the British way of economic behaviour. And although they have changed, unfortunately we have not changed our attitude.

They have thrown all this overboard now—I believe, too late. They have thrown over the whole orthodox view on economic matters. We, unfortunately, are meandering along accepting the penalties of the old attitude— the impositions on our people, the inevitable unemployment, the inevitable emigration and low standards of living for our people, and particularly for our old people and various other sections who are so gravely penalised simply because we continue to follow this particular attitude.

I think, Sir, that we have in many ways and at many times been given really first-class guidance such as the one to which I referred. Again, may I in passing refer to the excellent articles appearing under the name of Dr. MacCarthy on the use of private property and of private enterprise in the State? I think a lot of what is said there has been completely neglected by our big landowners and property owners. That is one of the reasons— the neglect of development of the land by the big farmers, in particular— which have produced this sad state in which the Government finds itself, and in which, I guarantee, any other successive Government will be, unless a major reorganisation takes place in the fundamental set-up.

Down in my own bailiwick near Wicklow I am within reach of about five farms running from 100 to 150 and 200 acres. Two vast farms are owned by a Belgian. Goodness only knows where or how he made his money, but he has come over here and bought up two of these big farms, and he has let them out for two successive years in conacre. He does not care what happens to the land. He is taking out of it all the time as much as he can get and he is putting nothing back. Another Belgian has bought a farm of nearly 200 acres. He has sacked all the men, and he now has one man and a dog looking after cattle. That farm is let in conacre too.

We all know that the land is undeveloped. We all know it is not producing one iota of what it should produce if properly worked and harvested. It does not need any extraordinary intelligence to know what is wrong. It has become a platitude and, because it is a platitude, we are inclined to ignore the fact that agriculture is our most important industry and is sadly underdeveloped. The main solution to all our problems lies in the land and in an agriculture upon which we can base a really sound economy.

No Minister for Agriculture since the foundation of this State has tackled the problem as it should be tackled. That may be due to the fact that there is a certain insecurity of tenure where Ministers are concerned because of changes of Government and it is not so easy to handle agricultural problems as it is to handle health, financial or other problems of the State. The facts are there. The figures are there. Both are incontrovertible. There is nothing like the same increase in production and in wealth from the land as there has been from industry, industry which labours under all the disadvantages of lack of know-how, lack of faith and trust in the beginning, lack of capital, competition from abroad and all these other drawbacks.

Industry has forged ahead. If it can go further, then good luck to it. Agriculture is stagnant. There has been no progress despite the activities of the different Ministers who have occupied that office. I am not a farmer but I know enough to realise that our land is not producing anything like the wealth it should and could produce. Its position is analogous to that of the father of a family who has a fixed income of £10 per week and is trying out of that £10 to educate his children, give them every opportunity he can afford, care for his parents, provide medical and health services for them and his family and at the same time spread this £10 over schemes he cannot possibly hope to meet. We are creating no new real wealth. It matters not whether Deputy Costello is Taoiseach or Deputy de Valera. So long as we accept the existing fundamental economic policy of expensive money we cannot develop an economy based on a sound agricultural policy.

The atmosphere of sweet reasonableness that is permeating this debate is most edifying.

I hope it will not now be disrupted.

I hope Deputy Dillon will increase it.

Our colleague, Deputy Dr. Browne, said at the outset that he hoped he would say what he had to say in less time than it took Deputy Hickey to say what he had in his mind. Actually he took twice as long, but I do not complain of that because he was in one of those reasonable moods in which he was endeavouring to speak his mind on the problems that confront us as he saw them. It is a source of great satisfaction to me to participate in this debate on a day on which it is so auspiciously inaugurated.

I think Deputy Dr. Browne is mistaken in his interpretation of Deputy Costello's speech. I do not think Deputy Costello said that he accepted 5 per cent. as the minimum effective rate of interest payable on Government borrowing. Indeed, I am quite certain he did not say that. I think he very properly said that the action of the Minister for Finance in raising a loan at 5 per cent. would render the task of his successor proportionately difficult, but I can assure Deputy Dr. Browne that the day of Government borrowing by an Irish Government at 5 per cent. is gone and gone for ever.

I hope it is.

I do not think Deputy Dr. Browne understood Deputy Costello correctly when he spoke of reform of the stock exchange. I think what Deputy Costello said was that he thought the time would come when we would have to inaugurate in Dublin a money market. If I read Deputy Costello's speech aright, I think he spoke in very great and, indeed, unprecedented detail for a leader of the Opposition of the very comprehensive programme for the reform of the financial structure of this State designed to make possible a programme of capital investment in our national resources by an inter-Party Government when this Government is put out. It is not without significance that throughout Deputy Dr. Browne's speech to-day he referred to Deputy Costello as the Taoiseach.

The Chair called my attention to the inaccuracy.

Quite so, and I noticed that, towards the end, he amended that in speaking of the shadow Taoiseach and, of course, coming events cast their shadows before, as Deputy Dr. Browne well knows. I think he displayed a strange political sagacity and wisdom in approaching the whole of this discussion from the point of view that he was concerned lest Deputy Costello should undertake the responsibility of Taoiseach unprepared, and he apparently felt that Deputy Costello had not very long in which to prepare himself for undertaking such burdens and responsibilities and that, therefore, the sooner he arrived at precise conclusions as to what he wanted to do the better it would be for the community. I agree with Deputy Dr. Browne in that view.

It is a very sound one.

It is a very sound view. As Deputy Dr. Browne can well imagine, I have been privileged to participate in many discussions designed to prepare us for the work that I believe the electorate will shortly ask us to undertake. I think the Deputy will be relieved to hear that the fruit of these discussions leaves me clear in any case on one point: serious as is the damage that has been done during the past 18 months, there is no insuperable obstacle to our retrieving what has been lost and resuming the progress on which we were engaged.

Was the Deputy in on these discussions?

Yes, and Deputy Norton. We earnestly hope that when our time comes to form a Government we shall again have in it one of the best members of the last Government and that is Deputy William Norton.

You will have to get the views of the Administrative Council of the Labour Party on that

Was he in on these discussions?

I think we have travelled far enough to-day when we have awakened Deputy Dr. Browne's solicitude that Deputy J.A. Costello should take office as Taoiseach in the next Government. Let us not go through the whole Cabinet lest somebody should ask questions about me. That, as everyone would realise, would cause me embarrassment and distress. I think Deputy Dr. Browne is asking—indeed I think he is entitled to ask questions—more questions to-day than he has offered solutions. One of the questions he asked rewarded me for years of missionary zeal. He announced that I was not far wrong when I referred to tariff racketeers. He said that while there are honest, decent, hardworking manufacturers in this country there are, side by side with them, a number of tariff racketeers and that it is high time to root them out. He said that the difficulty is how to encourage somebody to expand his business so as to supply not only the domestic market but to press forward for an export market as well. I think there is a perfectly simple way of doing that. I have always believed that there is a way of providing encouragement to industry in this country without burdening the consumer with a blister which makes his life a misery.

The way is to abolish all quotas forthwith, to impose a tariff on such commodities as we deem it to be expedient to protect and, if there are any imports of that commodity, to take the revenue derived from the tariff on those imports and to say to the domestic producer: "We will give you a State subsidy of so much per article produced by you." Let us take a concrete case. Suppose we eliminate the quotas on boots and say: "We will put a 25 per cent. duty on all boots coming in. Out of the revenue derived from that tariff, we will give every bootmaker in this country 5/- or 7/6 for every pair of boots he produces." We can then tell him to do his best and sell them, at the same time pointing out that the foreign boot manufacturer has to pay a 25 per cent. tariff. We can tell the domestic producer that his costs of production are reduced by 7/6 a pair and that, with all that help, he should now be able to go out in competition with all comers. By that device the consumer in our own country will get a reasonably cheap article. If the manufacturer has any pretence at all to efficiency and if he begins with a subsidy of 7/6 a pair and has to compete with people who have to pay a 25 per cent. tariff on their goods, he ought to be able to get ahead on these conditions. If any part of his commodities is designed for export then he still enjoys the 7/6 bounty per pair on that part to be exported. Thus, we can very quickly test the willingness of an industrialist to spread his wings and to enter on the export market. Protect the domestic industry where necessary but ensure also that our own consumer is not as ruthlessly exploited as he is at present being exploited behind many of the tariffs and quotas in operation in this country.

The Supplies and Services Bill is designed to confer wide powers and wide discretion on the Government. I want to put it to the Government that there are two prerequisites for a Government which asks Paliament for wide powers—(1) that the Government should enjoy the confidence of the electorate, and (2) that the Government has shown some degree of prudence in the conduct of the nation's affairs prior to seeking the powers contained in this Bill. I submit that, by both these tests, this Bill should not pass. This Government has been repudiated in a by-election by a greater majority than has ever been recorded against a Government in office in any previous by-election since this State was founded. Nobody can say that it was the popularity alone of the candidate that was responsible for that victory, because the Government had no less a candidate than the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Whether we agree or disagree with the Lord Mayor's politics, nobody will deny that he is popular, and would, on personal grounds, strongly recommend himself to the electorate of the constituency for which he stood. He had every advantage as a candidate. Yet, the moment the Minister for Finance presented himself at the corner of Manor Street to dwell on the demerits of President-elect Eisenhower, and to display his own charms to the electorate, the Government of which he was a member was defeated by the greatest majority ever recorded in a by-election against a Government in office since this State was founded. Is it reasonable to invest a decrepit Government such as this with the powers contained here? The pledge which the Taoiseach gave to the four satellies has now nearly run out. Will the Government go to the country now? Will they clear out and take the judgment of the electorate upon them? They will be wiped out, of course, but they will be honest men-such of them as are left to come back here. They are not in that position now. If they have a scruple that their guarantee to the four satellites does not run out until June, I think they can retrieve the situation now by saying: "We will go out in June. Let us hang on until then". I think that if the country knew that this burden was to be taken off their backs in June we could carry on and hold them in some reasonable kind of check for the next six months.

I imagine, however, that the poor satellites are going down the drain in February or June or whenever the Government goes. Perhaps the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Taoiseach when he comes home—which will be soon, please God—will meet the satellites and discuss with them whether they would not release him from the undertaking he gave them 18 months ago not to expose them to what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture calls "the cold blast"—the blast which proved so unpropitious in North-West Dublin. The Government certainly should get out and face the people before they ask for powers such as are contained in this Bill. Will anybody deny that when a Government has suffered an electoral reverse such as this Government has suffered they can no longer claim to represent the people? There is not a constituency in Ireland to-day in which the Government would not sustain a similar reverse. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
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