Speaking on this motion last night I was endeavouring to stress one point which I consider it is more important to examine carefully than any other. I was trying to direct particular attention to the position, not as it may be after the next election— should this motion go through—and not as it may be in five years' time, but as it may be over the next 15 years. During the week-end the Minister for Lands said the next 15 years would be vital for our future policy. I want to concentrate on that facet of this issue. The Taoiseach is most anxious that the people should change from the system of proportional representation to the so-called straight vote. During the many discussions here members were inclined to over-estimate the volume of voting power there would be in each constituency under the proposed new arrangement. The new constituencies would be areas containing populations of between 20,000 and 30,000 people. It is safe to assume that the average would be about 25,000.
If we work out the actual number of voters in each constituency in ratio to the population, we get a figure of roughly one to three. That means that if there are 25,000 people living in a new constituency, the number of people on the electors lists entitled to vote would be approximately between 8,000 and 10,000 people. We know that it is an absolute impossibility to expect a vote of 100 per cent. in any one constituency. The result would be that in these new constituencies the number of people voting would be anything from 7,000 to 9,000 people.
Last night, some members said I was wrong. Apparently, they could not understand that position. Let us be more thorough in the examination of the position that will arise from the results in these constituencies. In ten years' time, should these proposals go through, it is safe to assume that conditions will be more or less normal. We may be in the position of having in each area a strong Government candidate, a strong main Opposition candidate and a candidate of a smaller group contesting the election. As I mentioned last night, in the rural areas the changes will not be so noticeable.
Let us examine the position that could arise in such a large industrial area as Dublin and, to a lesser degree, Cork, Limerick, Waterford or any large industrial area. If there is a fairly close contest between the Government, a strong opposition and a second opposition, no one candidate can expect to get a large number of votes. What then is to prevent the introduction into the political life of the Twenty-Six Counties of a new, deadly dangerous factor—the coming forward of a Party under an ultra-patriotic name claiming to represent highly-advanced Republican ideals and to be more advanced than anyone else in their determination to secure better conditions for the people? It is easy to see that this can happen and that such a political Party, ultra-patriotic by name, would carry with it a false ideology completely foreign to our people. But the people will not be told of the background and ideals of such a Party.
A voting strength of 2,300 or 2,400 in a large constituency in these highly industrialised areas could completely swing the balance in favour of the candidate of such a Party. At present it is imposible for that to happen. We may differ in relation to our aims, but under proportional representation the people who vote for a Labour candidate would be perfectly willing to vote 2, 3 and 4 for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael after Labour, if they thought that by so doing they would help to keep out of this Parliament candidates of a reactionary Party.
I will give credit to the supporters of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and say they would do likewise. After voting for their own Party, they would vote 2, 3 and 4 for the other established Parties. While we may disagree on economic principles and so on, we do not differ on the main issue. But, under this proposed system, the people who would vote for Labour can only put an "X" in front of their candidate's name. So also are the people who would be voting for Fianna Fáil tied down. They cannot combine, even if they would wish to keep out the candidate of a Party who may carry false principles in relation to the ideologies we hold sacred in this country.
Has the Taoiseach examined that situation? Does he realise that in ten, or, at the outside, fifteen years, we may be placed in the position that, owing to the election of such type of candidate, of such type of Party, between Dublin, Cork and the other industrial areas, we may have in this Chamber anything from 20 to 40 members of a Party whose sheer determination would be to carry out a policy in accordance with the dictates of a foreign Eastern power?
I am not accusing the Taoiseach of planning any such a thing. God forbid I should ever do so. I am not suggesting that any member of Fianna Fáil would wish for it. I know they do not. I am suggesting that, in their ambition to secure power for their own Party, in following the Taoiseach on his present line of approach, they have completely ignored the fundamental danger in relation to this issue. That is why I say, as a member of the Labour Party and as an individual member in this Chamber, that it is far more important for us to admit the right of the people to continue to vote according to a system they know and understand. After giving their No. 1 or No. 2 vote to the Party they are interested in, they can decide, if necessary, to follow up by giving Nos. 2, 3 or 4 to any other Party or any other candidate.
All I want is protection for the people, protection for the whole community. In the debate on this motion, that point has been completely ignored by the people who are so anxious to introduce a policy here which in other countries, we are told, worked so well. I am more interested in what may work well in the Twenty-Six Counties. I will not waste the time of the House by dwelling on whether it is good, bad or indifferent in England, America or elsewhere. We know that even in the United States the system of the straight vote has brought with it a greater state of corruption than we ever knew in relation to any system of election in this country. All the abuses that were said to have occurred long ago in the rural district councils, and so on, here, were honest in comparison with those under the straight vote system in some of the countries we hear so much about now.
I am not asking the Taoiseach to withdraw his motion. I do not believe in doing such a thing. However, I challenge the members of the Party supporting the Taoiseach, and himself, to prove where I am wrong in relation to this biggest danger-of all in connection with the possibility of the introduction of people and of members of a Party who, thanks be to God, were never able to show any strength up to the present owing to the fact that we had P.R. to protect us.
Under normal circumstances, and even with things as they are, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Taoiseach. Like all other members of my Party here, I have consistently opposed certain measures. We supported the Taoiseach and his Government when we thought we were doing right. We all know that, in political life, there is no such thing as the completion of a man's job. We all know that anyone in public life who is anxious to do everything possible, who believes in an ideal and tries to put it into effect, cannot, when the time comes to retire, say: "I have done all I wanted to do."
I can understand the Taoiseach's difficulty. He has been the chief architect and the builder of a strong national Party. Over the years he, above everyone else, brought that Party to its present position of strength. Therefore, at the time of retiring, it is bound to be a problem with him as to whether or not the Party to whose success in the national life of the country he has devoted his life will in the future follow the headline he personally has set. I can appreciate that difficulty.
A bigger problem must rest with the Taoiseach. He may see that, in the next five years, his close associates— those who hold Ministerial rank and who, over the years and back since 1932, have held Ministerial rank—can be depended upon to continue the line of policy he has set down for them. But time is not charitable to any of us. I think it is safe to say that, within the next ten years, his successors must be moving on as he has to move on and as each one of us must move on, as time decides that we must be put on the sideboard of political affairs. That is why I am so anxious to ask the following question. Does the Taoiseach understand that, given what he asks for, the support of the people for this proposed system of election, within these ten years, if the Party are still in Government, power and control must, of necessity, be handed over completely to younger men who have not been tested as the senior men of his Government have been tested over the years?
I do not wish to repeat myself. I pointed out already the biggest danger of all. There is another danger and that is the tendency on the part of some of the younger members—but the men who probably would control the destinies of a Party and probably of a Government—to swing towards liberalism. There we have the two deciding factors. There we have the two opposing sections. Within the next 15 years, with a tendency of government towards liberalism and the introduction of a new Party with tendencies towards Communism, who will be the sufferer?
I am not offering my criticism in the sense of attacking a Government just because I am in opposition. I could not change my views irrespective of what Party may be in Government. Do we want to create a situation which, on one side of the House, will give a policy of liberalism and, on the other side of the House, 30 or 40 Deputies who, by their strength in the Chamber, will control to a certain degree the destinies of the people in the Twenty-Six Counties? That is a question that I want answered. It is the duty and responsibility of every Deputy, irrespective of the Party to which he belongs, to examine his individual conscience and to try to answer. Are we prepared to support a motion which is likely to give these results within the next 15 years? That is the matter on which the House has been divided.
As an individual and as a member of a Party, I have no hesitation in saying that I am prepared to go under direction to cast my vote which, in its own small way, will be a clear indication that, as a representative of a rural constituency, I am not prepared to be a party to the passing of a motion which can give us liberalism, Communism and a removal of the true Christian principle in government which has been recognised by every Government that we have had, whether it was a Fianna Fáil Government, a Cumann na nGaedheal Government or an inter-Party Government. That is one principle on which we never differed fundamentally. All Governments have been on one plane in that respect.
We can divide now and by the division can be forced into the position that the people will be asked, not what they think about P.R. or about supporting a new system of government, but whether they are prepared, having carefully estimated the results that may ensue in the future, to vote to retain P.R., whether they want to continue a system that has given representation to all Parties and which has been fundamentally safe for the protection of the people, or swing to a new system that may create a situation the consequences of which even the Taoiseach cannot foresee.