Are we to take the Supplementary Estimate and the main Estimate together?
Committee on Finance. - Vote 45—External Affairs.
Yes— Votes 45 and 46.
Tairgím:
Go ndeonófar suim nach mó ná £720,000 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiochfaidh chun bheith iníochta i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1966, le haghaidh Tuarastail agus Costais Oiflg an Aire Gnóthaí Eachtracha, agus Seirbhísí áirithe atá faoi riaradh na hOifige sin, lena n-áirítear Deontas-igCabhair.
Le cead an Cheann Comhairle, tá sé ar intinn agam an Meastachán Forlíontach agus na Meastacháin i gcóir 1965-66 le h-aghaidh Gnóthaí Eachtracha agus le h-aghaidh Comhar Idirnáisiúnta a thógaint le chéile.
De réir an chaiteachais go dtí seo sa bhliain atá ag dul thart, is soiléir go raibh an Meastachán bunaidh measaithe go ró-ghann. Aithnítear dá bharr go bhfuil gá le suimeanna breise fé mar a léirítear san Mheastachán Forlíontach.
Níos mó ná leath suime atá uaim anois, tá sé ag teastáil i bhFo-Mhírcheann B le h-aghaidh Taistil agus Fochostais. Sé is mó cúis leis an méadú sa bhFó-Mhírcheann seo ná gur aistríodh móran oifigeach taidhleoireachta i rith na bliana, cuid aca go dtí tíortha i bhfad uainn. In a theannta san chosnaigh seirbhísí postais, sreangscéal agus guthán níos mó ná mar a bhí súil leis agus baineadh usáid níos mó as na seirbhísí céanna. Ní mór an soláthar le h-aghaidh seirbhísí áirithe ó'n Roinn Poist agus Telegrafa i bhFo-Mhírcheann C a mhéadú freisin.
Maidir le Fo-Mhírcheann F—Seirbhísí Faisnéise—is léir ó'n gcúrsa caiteachais go dtí seo go mbeidh soláthar breise ag teastáil chun fiacha na bliana so a réiteach. I rith na bliana thárla caitheachas thar an gcoitiantacht ná raibh coinne againn leis. Bhí caiteachas breise ar an leabhrán faisnéise ar Éirinn agus ar scannáin ar chuairt Uachtarán Uí Chinnéide agus Uachtarán Kaunda ar Éirinn.
Laghdáitear ámhthach, olltsuim an Mheastacháin Forlíontaigh de £7,700 toisc go bhfuil farasbarr san Mhírcheann le h-aghaidh Leithreasa-igCabhair. Sé cúis is mó leis an farasbarr san ná go raibh díol maith ar an leabhrán faisnéise ar Éirinn; ina theannta san fuarthas níos mó mar tháillí consalacha ná mar a bhí a bhí súil leis.
Maidir le Meastacháin i góir 1965-66, sé an méid atá san Mheastachán le haghaidh Gnóthaí Eachtracha ná £720,000 agus is méadú glan é seo de £75,800 ar Vóta na bliana seo agus an Meastachán Forlíontach san áireamh. Tá méadú iomlán de £86,000 ins na Fo-Mhirchinn le haghaidh tuarastal, pá agus liuntas, le haghaidh cursaí cultúra agus le haghaidh seirbhísi faisnéise ach, ar an dtaobh eile dhe, tá laghdú de £12,400 ins na FoMhírchinn eile. Meastar go mbeidh laghdú de £2,200 faoi Leithreasa-igCabhair.
An méadú is mó, £76,000, tárlaíonn sé i bhFo-Mhírcheann A, le haghaidh tuarastal, pá agus liúntas agus sé is cúis is mó leis ná an t-árdú pá a tugadh do Státseirbhísigh. Tá méadú de £1,000 sa Deontas i gCabhair Comhair Cultúra agus de £9,000 i bhFo-Mhírcheann F le haghaidh Seirbhísí Faisnéise. Maidir le Fo-Mhírcheann F méaduítear an soláthar i gcóir scéimeanna scannán to dtí £15,000, rud gur cúis leis an méadú sa bhFo-Mhircheann san. Déanfaidh mé trácht ar ball ar na scéimeanna san.
Tá laghdú de £10,900 sa tsoláthar le haghaidh Taistil agus Fo-Chostais—FoMhírcheann B. Is é cúis leis seo ná go meastar go mbeidh laghdú ar mhéid na n-oifigeach a aistreofar i rith na bliana seo chugainn.
Bé an bhliain seo caite an bhliain ba ghnóthaí i stair na Roinne chomh fada agus a bainnean sé le méid na gcuairt oifigiúil a thug daoine mór le rá ó thíortha thar lear agus le méid na gComhthionól Idirnáisiúnta a thánig le chéile sa tír seo. D'á bharr bhí caiteachas de £4,000 sa bhreis i mbliana ná mar a bhí súil againn leis agus tá soláthar in a chóir sin á dhéanamh san Mheastachán Forlíontach.
Faoi mar is eol do Theachtaí b'onóir dúinn fáilte a chur roimh ní lú ná triúr Ceann Stáit agus mórán Aire Rialtais ó mhór-Roinn na h-Eorpa agus ó áiteacha eile. Orthu san bhí áthas orainn fáiltiú roimh Uachtaráin an Phacastáin, na hIndia agus an Zambia, agus roimh Airí Gnóthaí Eachtracha na Frainnce, an Iordáin agus an Sierra Leone mar aon le hAire Talmhaíochta agus Aire Iompair agus Teachtaireachta na Gearmáine. Do tháinig chugainn freisin cuid mhaith daoine céimiúla ó Mheiriceá ar a n-áirím an Seanadóir Éamonn Ó Cinnéide, dream de Theachtaí Comhdhála agus Seanadóirí mar aon le hIonadaithe Stáit.
Tá méadú ag teacht ó bhliain go bliain ar líon na gComhthionóil Idirnáisiúnta a thagann le chéile sa tír seo. Sa bhliain atá á breithniú againn ar na cinn ba thábhachtaí a tionóladh bhí an Comhthionól um Leigheas Eitleorachta agus Spáis, an Comhchomhairle Aire Dlí agus Cirt na hEorpa agus an Comhthionól UNICEF.
Tá suim de £23,000 á moladh agam ar chaiteachas faoi Fo-Mhírcheann G i gcóir 1965-66. I gcomháireamh na suime sin táim ag cuíneamh ar an mhéadú ar líon na gComthionól Eadarnáisiúnta—rud a thaithníonn linn—atá beartaithe le bheith annseo i rith na bliana seo chughainn. Orthu san tá cruinnithe de Comhchumainn Bean Tuaithe an Domhain, Cumann Idirnáisiúnta um Feabhsú Ceardanna Seithe agus Ceardanna Gaolmhara, Cumann na nIarnród, Comhchomhairle Idirnáisiúnta um Árachas Eitleorachta, Comhthionól Idirnáisiúnta na Radharceolaíochta, Comhchumann Priotanach um Taighde ar Ailse, Comhchumann na bhFisitéiripí Cnáimhseacha agus Comhchumann na Músaem.
Provision of £39,000 is being made under Subhead F in respect of the activities of the Information Section of my Department. The sum is £15,000 more than that originally provided for in last year's Estimate. Of the total of £39,000, £15,200 is required for the commissioning of films, £5,800 for the publication of the Department's Weekly Bulletin and £2,500 for the purchase of films on Ireland for use by our missions abroad. £8,400 is in respect of a reprinting of the booklet "Facts about Ireland" and £3,600 is in respect of facilities for foreign journalists.
Developments in recent years such as the visit of President Kennedy and other Heads of State and Government to Ireland, our activities in the United Nations and its peace-keeping operations, the recent upsurge in the economy as well as a growing awareness of the contributions of Irish writers and dramatists to world literature have created greater interest in Ireland abroad. This interest has in turn brought about an increasing demand for information material from the Department and its Missions. Catering for this demand increases expenditure but it is productive expenditure for any improvement of our information and public relations work abroad makes a contribution to the development of exports and tourism.
I referred on previous occasions to the difficulties encountered in commissioning two films on modern Ireland, one on economic progress and the other on social progress. I am glad to report that the film on social progress is now nearing completion and will be available for distribution in the coming months. Arrangements have been made for the making of the film on economic progress this summer and for its widespread distribution in foreign countries. Because of the centenary of the birth of W. B. Yeats which falls in June of this year, my Department last year commissioned a short colour film on the Yeats country to commemorate the occasion. This film will be available for distribution in the near future.
Negotiations are at present being conducted with major international distributors of school films for the production and distribution of two school films for geography classes, one for secondary schools and the other for elementary schools. Under the arrangements envisaged the Department would be responsible for the production of the films and the distributors would purchase the films or share the royalties on sales of copies. It is intended that soundtracks in several different languages will be provided.
The growing interest abroad in Ireland and Irish affairs is reflected in the increasing number of foreign journalists, radio, TV and film publicists who visit Ireland and on whose behalf the Information Section of my Department in co-operation with the Government Information Bureau, Government Departments and State-sponsored bodies makes arrangements and supplies material to facilitate them in carrying out their assignments.
Last year my Department in conjunction with interested Departments and State-sponsored bodies invited 18 prominent United States and Canadian journalists to visit this country for a week to observe modern developments here. This was a very satisfactory project and the subsequent reportage in the United States and Canada was extensive and fair. I want to express warm appreciation to the private firms and individuals throughout the country who co-operated to make the visits a success.
Ireland continues to play an active part in the Council of Europe. In the context of the movement towards economic integration in Europe the role of the Council has assumed an enhanced importance. It provides a valuable forum for the exchange of ideas between the two major economic groupings and the other Western European countries, including ourselves. Indeed the problems and prospects of European economic and political unification have occupied a major position in the deliberations of the Consultative Assembly and the Committee of Ministers.
The Third Conference of European Ministers of Justice was held in Dublin last May. The then Minister for Justice was elected Chairman of the Conference and presented a report on measures designed to promote and facilitate the comparative study of laws and jurists. The Conference reviewed the Council of Europe's activities in the legal field since the last Conference and considered measures for further co-operation in regard to problems of international law and penological questions.
Irish experts have continued to participate actively in the work of the Social Committee of the Council. I am happy to say that Ireland was once again offered and accepted six fellowships for personnel in social welfare and a number of training grants for vocational instructors. As in former years, Ireland was again well represented in the allocation of Council of Europe Medical Fellowships, twelve of these Fellowships being awarded to Irish citizens.
One of the most important aspects of the Council of Europe's work is its activity in the cultural field. The work of the Council for Cultural Co-operation during its first three years was reviewed early last year. The Council has been continuing its important work in a broad range of cultural subjects. There will be general agreement, I feel sure, that efforts directed towards the preservation of the common European cultural heritage, to which Ireland has contributed and from which she continues to draw inspiration, are of the greatest value.
The period which has elapsed since the Estimate for the Department was debated here last year has been marked by some encouraging developments on the international scene, but also by events giving grounds for concern.
The essential character of the détente which has taken place between the East European and Western countries evidenced by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the communications link between Washington and Moscow and United Nations Resolution prohibiting nuclear weapons in space, has not been changed despite recurrent clashes of interest in different parts of the world.
The great nuclear powers appear to be fully aware that if nuclear war is to be avoided and if further progress is to be made towards stable peace the further spread of nuclear weapons must be prevented.
But their slowness in negotiating the non-dissemination agreement called for by the United Nations left the way open for another power to become nuclear and has added to the danger of others taking the same road.
At the current Session of the United Nations General Assembly I emphasised that the acquisition by the People's Republic of China of nuclear weapons capability has made the conclusion of a non-dissemination agreement all the more urgent. I pointed out that the chances of securing the conclusion of an effective non-dissemination agreement would be greatly enhanced if all the existing nuclear powers were to conclude among themselves an agreement that they would go to the assistance of a non-nuclear State attacked by a nuclear power. The responsibility for securing a non-dissemination agreement is clearly on the shoulders of the nuclear powers. Let us hope they will face up to their responsibilities before other States begin to make nuclear weapons.
As Deputies are aware, the current financial crisis of the United Nations has not yet been resolved. Thirteen member States have now come within the operation of Article 19. Their continued refusal to accept the judgment of the International Court of Justice on the costs of the United Nations peace-keeping operations strikes a blow not only at the principle of collective financial responsibility but also at the ability of the organisation to mount and maintain a peace-keeping operation when the Security Council has been unable to take action.
It is important that an early and satisfactory conclusion should be reached on the financial issue if the authority and effectiveness of the organisation is not to be destroyed. But to my mind no solution would be acceptable which would ignore the principle of collective financial responsibility for the expenses of the United Nations activities including its vital peace-keeping operations.
Our participation in the United Nations Force in Cyprus has taken place during the dispute on Article 19, and the present basis of financing that operation is highly unsatisfactory. As Deputies are aware, the Cyprus peace-keeping operation is being financed by a voluntary fund, and we have declined to accept reimbursement from it for the customary United Nations allowances for our troops. All told these allowances amount to £500,000 since the first Irish contingent went to Cyprus in April of last year. This is a heavy financial burden for a country of our size and resources, but we regard it as vital that when our soldiers serve in a United Nations Force their status within it should be clear and unequivocal and that they should be paid and equipped only out of Irish public funds and funds contributed by all the member States of the United Nations as part of their regular assessments. We regard the £500,000 as a debt due to us by the United Nations and we intend to keep pressing for its repayment.
I should like here to pay tribute to the high standards which our troops in Cyprus have established and continue to maintain. We can all be justly proud of them for carrying out their difficult task with courage and tact. They are doing honour to their country and making a vital contribution to the cause of world peace.
The continuing financial crisis in the United Nations has by no means diminished worldwide awareness of the intrinsic value of United Nations peace-keeping operations. Last November we attended, in response to an invitation from the Canadian Government, a meeting of military experts who considered the technical aspects of United Nations peace-keeping operations. Representatives from 22 other countries attended and the exchange of views made possible by the meeting served well the general purpose of improving the efficiency of national planning for contingents to be contributed towards United Nations peace-keeping operations. The value of United Nations peace-keeping forces was, indeed, demonstrated by events in the Congo subsequent to 30th June, 1964, when the last United Nations contingent left the country.
In addition to attendance at the United Nations General Assembly, Ireland was represented during 1964 on the Committee for International Co-operation Year, the Statistical Commission of the Economic and Social Council, the Economic Commission of Europe and the Special Committee on Technical Assistance to promote the Teaching, Study, Dissemination and Wider Appreciation of International Law, and was represented by an Observer at the 37th Session of the Economic and Social Council.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, at which Ireland was also represented, recommended that it be established as a permanent organ of the General Assembly in order to provide continuing machinery to deal with trade and development problems on a worldwide basis. The General Assembly accepted this proposal but left unresolved for the present many practical questions concerning its operation. The creation of this permanent machinery is likely to have great significance for the future of world trade and of development programmes.
Our existing commitments towards two joint UN/FAO programmes which have received our support are now nearing completion—the experimental Three Year World Food Programme to which the Government are contributing £300,000 and the Freedom from Hunger Campaign which was entrusted by the Government to the Irish Red Cross Society and which has realised £132,000 to date earmarked to promote agricultural development in Tanzania. In general, it appears that both programmes are proving extremely successful.
This year, 1965, has been designated by the General Assembly as International Co-operation Year and in this country we, as will many other countries, shall be rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace and progress through peaceful collaboration among nations and peoples. Yesterday, as Deputies are aware, the Taoiseach formally opened this International Co-operation Year when he spoke under the chairmanship of Chief Justice Ó Dálaigh. The conflicts and dissensions which continually arise to plague mankind should not cause us to forget the very real but little-publicised co-operation that is carried on every day between all nations of the world, even those separated by acute differences. To bring to the notice of the peoples of the world all that is being done in this field is one of the major objectives of the International Co-operation Year. We shall endeavour, with the help of Government Departments, the State-sponsored bodies, the Irish United Nations Association and other voluntary bodies, to see to it that this objective is achieved so far as Ireland is concerned.
Deputies will have seen the provisional figures for our commodity exports for 1964 which show an increase of some £26 million, or 13 per cent approximately over 1963. This continuing growth in our export trade is encouraging. I need hardly say that my Department is fully conscious of the necessity to do everything possible to promote exports and other foreign earnings in order to help realise the objectives of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. I am satisfied that our diplomatic and consular missions abroad are fully alive to their responsibilities in this field.
As part of the general effort to redress our trading imbalances with a number of countries, my Department is at present engaged with the other interested Departments in a review of our other existing bilateral trade agreements. Our Trade Agreements with France, Germany and Finland were successfully renewed during 1964 and negotiations for a further renewal of the Agreement with France are at present in progress in Paris between official delegations from the two countries. Negotiations for a renewal of the Agreement with Finland for 1965 will commence shortly. As Deputies are aware, the possibilities of improving our permanent trading arrangements with Britain are the subject of consultation between the two countries.
Ireland continues to participate fully in the activities of the OECD. Several of the groups within the Organisation meet at Ministerial level and during 1964 meetings of the Conference of Ministers of Science and the European Conference of Ministers of Transport were attended respectively by the Ministers for Education and Transport and Power. The meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial level which I normally attend was held in December, 1964, and, in my absence at the United Nations General Assembly, was attended by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Government Departments concerned and certain interested organisations, such as the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and the National Productivity Committee, participate, as necessary, in the Committees of the Organisation.
I referred last year to the pilot study on the long-term needs for educational resources and on that on scientific research and technology in relation to economic growth, both of which were undertaken here under the aegis of OECD. Deputies will be pleased to know that the study group on the long-term needs for educational resources has now completed its programme and will be presenting its Report shortly. I understand that it is hoped to complete the second project by the end of this year.
I might mention that the OECD has arranged to hold two Conferences under its auspices in Dublin during 1965, namely, a meeting of Heads of European National Productivity Committees, and a Conference on Operational Research.
In September, 1960, the Government indicated to the GATT authorities its desire to discuss the terms on which Ireland could accede to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It was subsequently decided, pending the outcome of our application for membership of the Common Market, to postpone action on our approach to the GATT. Following the breakdown of the British negotiations with the EEC, our position vis-á-vis the GATT was kept under examination by the Government. The Kennedy Round negotiations afforded an opportunity to renew discussions for the accession of new members to the General Agreement and, in response to an enquiry from the Executive Secretary of the Organisation, the Government informed him that they would be glad to avail of this opportunity to renew discussions on the terms on which we may accede to the General Agreement. It is expected that these discussions will commence in the course of the next few months.
We continue to follow closely the various developments in the European Economic Community through the Embassy in Brussels and by occasional visits by Ministers and officials to the Headquarters of the Organisation. Ireland's application for membership of the Community still stands and it is the intention of the Government to proceed with it at the earliest appropriate moment.
I have already referred to our increased voluntary contributions to various United Nations' agencies which are concerned mainly with programmes affecting developing countries. Apart from these, we have on a bilateral basis, provided training programmes both for groups and individuals from the developing countries. The largest group so far received consisted of 38 trainees from Zambia who underwent a year's course in central and local administration, organised by the Institute of Public Administration. This programme was very successful and has led to the establishment of two further schemes under which four of the original trainees are remaining in this country for further study in the Graduate School of Public Administration and a new group of 12 students has arrived here for another course in administrative training. In addition, we continue to receive individual trainees sponsored by the United Nations and its specialised agencies for training in a variety of fields. My Department also continues to act as a national technical assistance recruitment centre for the purpose of co-operating with the United Nations and other specialised agencies in finding qualified Irish experts to assist the developing countries in a wide variety of activities.
As has been usual over the past few years in debates of this Estimate, our criticisms of the Minister's statement must be directed towards what is omitted from the statement rather than to what it contains. It is treating this House and the public almost with derision merely to state in this statement which has been read to the House that it is the Government's intention to proceed at the earliest appropriate moment with our application for membership of the European Economic Community. It is merely a banal statement which is of little significance. The public is entitled to know what the Government's policy is with regard to our relations towards the European Economic Community. For many years we have been pressing the Government to indicate what they intend to do and I do not think we are wrong in expressing our dissatisfaction with the way this House and the country are being treated in this regard.
We must bear in mind that the Government's whole economic programme is based on a number of assumptions. One of the strange assumptions is that we are to get a four per cent growth rate each year and by a series of mathematical calculations how this four per cent is to be arrived at is worked out. It is one of the basic assumptions of the Second Programme, as stated in page 10, that Ireland will be in the Community before 1970. We are now in 1965. Anybody with any knowledge of European affairs, and in particular recent developments in England, knows that the likelihood of a British initiative in this regard is very remote and the likelihood of British membership by 1970 is remoter still.
The Second Programme goes further than that because, having discussed the paper targets for agriculture that are set out in the programme, it states specifically that these targets can be reached only in the context of our participation in international agreements in regard to basic foodstuffs. The statement is made that these targets are based on the assumption that we will be in the European Economic Community in the second half of the 1960s. We therefore have a Government whose economic programme is to a considerable extent based on the fact that we are going to be in the EEC by 1970, and now in 1965 its Minister for External Affairs refuses to say anything with regard to the position with which this country is now faced.
The Minister should have informed the House what he thinks our chances are of furthering our economic co-operation with the European Economic Community. We have in the past, with justification, criticised the Government for failing to grasp the opportunities which were there for building up goodwill for this country in the EEC. As long as we are regarded as a pale appendage to Britain, we are not going to get very far with our application to the European Economic Community. I appreciate the considerable difficulties involved in this problem. I fully appreciate the fact that our close proximity to the British markets and our trading arrangements with England raise matters of great difficulty but the fact remains there are areas of independent initiative available to us.
The situation in the EEC has changed. At one time the opinion seemed to be that the applications to the EEC would have to be in the form of applications for full membership but as the years have developed new forms of arrangements have also been developed. The two countries, Greece and Turkey, have treaties of association which involve, over 20 years, the countries coming closer to the EEC and the anticipation of customs unions at the end of the period. Iran and Israel have entered into trade agreements with the EEC. I want to suggest to the Minister that I believe the climate is suitable at present for Ireland's initiative towards endeavouring to make a trade agreement with the EEC. I fully appreciate that the areas of this agreement might be small initially but the important thing is the contacts that can be made between this country and the European Economic Community and equally important is the goodwill we can build up and the interest we can show in this important development in Europe.
Attached to the agreements which Iran and Israel have entered into are joint committees, and if we were to enter into a trade agreement, even though initially it might be confined to a small amount of products, the establishment of a joint Irish-EEC committee would bring about these sorts of contacts in the initial stages which are necessary to bring about eventual association and, in the long run, membership of the EEC. It seems to me that the Minister should inform us and inform the country not merely that our application still stands and that we will move at the appropriate time, but what it is proposed to do in regard to our relations with the EEC and whether or not he believes it possible to take the initiative on the lines I have suggested.
Another remarkable omission from the Minister's speech has been any reference to the recent development of the meetings between our Government and the Government of Northern Ireland. It seems to me extraordinary in a debate like this, where from time to time it has been customary to discuss our relations with Northern Ireland, that there should be no information about these very significant developments. We on this side of the House have been urging co-operation between the two parts of the country for many years past. We regard such co-operation as being one of the principal means by which the prejudices and antagonisms between Irishmen can be broken down.
It is worthwhile recalling that we not only urged co-operation but brought about co-operation. It is worthwhile recalling that the inter-Party Government co-operated on the Great Northern Railway problem and also the Foyle Fisheries for which there were counterparts in Northern Ireland. It is many years since I suggested a form of co-operation which could be carried on between the two parts of the country. This is in the legal field. We treat Northern Ireland as a foreign Government for the purpose of serving writs out of the jurisdiction, and Northern Ireland treats this part of the country as a foreign country, and one must apply to the courts for liberty to serve on a resident of Northern Ireland. Surely there could be an arrangement here to treat the two parts as one? The question of enforcing judgments is another area in which we could undertake to enforce judgments of the courts in each part of the country. There are many areas in which co-operation in the legal and other fields could come about and we would welcome a statement from the Minister as to what concrete proposals he would suggest as to how the desired co-operation can be effected.
There is another matter in the Minister's speech to which I want to refer, that is, the proposed film on social and economic progress. Is this to be a propaganda film or an honest film? Will it have photographs of happy children in playgrounds or in new houses or in hospitals with fine sunshine or will it contain the truth? If we are to have the truth, I could bring the camera team to a house in Finglas in which 20 people are living in a threebedroom Corporation dwelling, or show them a mentally handicapped child who cannot get accommodation because we have not got proper facilities for mentally handicapped children, or I could bring the Minister and the team of photographers to Griffith Barracks. I suspect that the film will be largely a propaganda one. Presumably this will be for foreign consumption but I would advise the Minister that people are becoming more sophisticated and if it is to be a film to demonstrate social progress, with little reality about the social conditions, it is likely to do more harm than good.
One of the matters to which we have referred in previous years has been the China policy of the Government. This policy has been characterised by vacillation, by lack of principle, or by pure expediency. There is a case made for admitting Red China to the United Nations. There is a case to be made against keeping her out of the United Nations at present. Those in favour of the admission of Red China will say that it is necessary for international organisations such as the United Nations to reflect the realities of the world and bringing her in may be some help in disciplining and educating China in the realities of world politics. Those against her admission point to the fantastic difficulties that would arise if you had another large communist state in the organisation, and to the fact that you are going to admit China to the organisation without getting any quid pro quo. I am perfectly satisfied where the balance of the arguments lie. I think the balance lies against admitting China at present unless very specific forms of quid pro quo, which at present will not be obtained, are forthcoming.
I said that there is a case to be made in favour of the admission of Red China and that there is a case to be made against the admission of China to the United Nations but there is no case for the way in which this Government have handled the problem. First of all, we had the Minister stating in a short speech when he went there first that we were voting in favour of a discussion of the problem. This was a legal quibble on the Minister's part. As anybody who reads the debates of the General Assembly knows, although these debates took place on the purely procedural point, the merits of the case were fully debated and all the speakers dealt with the question of whether or not they were in favour of the admission of Red China. To speak on the basis that he was interested in whether the matter should be discussed was to ignore the realities of the situation and the debate and left the impression that he was either not aware of what was going on or that he was not being completely honest when he said he was interested only in the procedural issue.
One will realise the realities of the situation if one reads Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien's book but the Government's attitude was made clearer in the events that followed. In 1961, the Minister stated that he was not in favour of the admission of Communist China unless he got specific undertakings with regard to freedom of elections and the restoration of freedom in its own country. On 11th September the Minister told the Assembly:
On an earlier occasion, I suggested here in the Assembly that before any substantive decisions were taken, an effort should be made through negotiation to secure from the Peiping Government an undertaking to refrain from the use of force against any of their neighbours, to respect the personal rights and liberties of the Chinese people and to allow the people of all Korea to decide their own destiny freely in an internationally supervised election. As I indicated in previous years, the nature of the assurances forthcoming regarding these vital matters which are already covered by the principles of the Charter and the Declaration of Human Rights, must determine the final decision of the Irish Government on the issue before us.
This statement can be criticised as being rather jejeune on the Minister's part. To think that he was going to get an undertaking from the Peiping Government that they would not use force, that they would restore freedom to their own people and that they would agree to free elections in Korea was definitely naive.
However, this was the policy, that they required these undertakings, and that if they got them, it would determine the final decision of the Irish Government. That was in 1961. But in 1962 we voted against the admission of Red China. A few weeks ago, the matter came up again and there has been a significant change in the attitude of the Minister to the problem. His speech on this occasion reads:
Though we are all inclined, from time to time, to cavil at the right of veto possessed by the members of the Security Council, I think we should accept the present division of power and responsibility between them and the rest of our members as a realistic division and a reasonable compromise in the circumstances of the world today. The whole constitutional position would, of course, be greatly clarified and strengthened if the five nuclear powers occupied the five permanent seats in the Security Council. But, however desirable it might be to have the People's Republic of China as a member of the Security Council, particularly now that it has become the fifth nuclear power, it would, in my opinion, be intolerable that this should be done by denying Taiwan and its twelve million people a right to membership of the United Nations.
Deputies should note where the shift has been. It is now desirable that China should have a seat on the Security Council; it would strengthen and clarify the whole constitutional position if the five nuclear powers occupied the five permanent seats in the Security Council. It is then suggested that the interests of Taiwan should be protected in some way. Of course they should be, but the realities of the situation are that probably within the next year or two years the requisite two-thirds majority for the admission of Red China will be obtained and the problem of securing the protection of the Taiwan Government and of Formosa will be a real one.
The point is that the required undertaking has not been obtained, the undertaking that there should be free elections in Korea, the undertaking that there should be freedom for their own people and the undertaking that they would not use force against their neighbours. It is now desirable that China should be a member of the Security Council but that there must be protection for Taiwan. The Government have now changed their policy on Red China, a policy they considered for years past to be the right one but a policy which got the support of neither of the protagonists. The Government's attitude has indicated so many shifts that it cannot have done any good to our reputation in the United Nations Assembly.
In previous years, we have discussed on this Estimate the plight of our emigrants in Great Britain. I do not want to go over all this again, but we, as a community, have a responsibility for our people in Britain. I do not accept the view that the majority of our people go to Britain because they like it. The majority of our emigrants go to Britain because they cannot get a decent standard of living at home and some of the conditions in which they live are appalling. We have got to use what resources we have in the way that justice demands. I know it is a case of limited resources but I think that we are justified in helping our emigrants. I think it is the duty of our Embassy in London to have a welfare and probation service and also to assist financially the voluntary organisations working there. The fact that the problem is such a great one is no excuse for doing nothing about it.
These are the principal matters to which I wish to refer on this Estimate but there is one final matter on which we should have more information. We, and the troops in Cyprus, would like to know how long they are to be there. I join with the Minister in the praise he has given to the manner in which our troops have conducted themselves in very delicate circumstances.
We have a very considerable interest in this matter. We are paying these troops and, while we are a small country with limited resources, we are playing a considerable part in the peace-keeping operations of the United Nations. In this way we are entitled to have a say in these matters. The Government must have some information as to the situation in Cyprus and as to whether we have passed the flash point, whether it would now be safe to reduce or withdraw our troops. These are matters on which we should get more information and I regret that on this and other matters to which I have referred the Minister's speech has been so lacking in the information to which the House is entitled.
I should like to open my remarks on this Estimate by joining with Deputy Costello in asking the Minister to give the House some information about the position in Cyprus. I do so for somewhat different reasons from those given by Deputy Costello. The Minister has referred to the wonderful work done by the Irish troops in the Congo and the excellent way they have comported themselves both there and in Cyprus. I agree completely with his remarks in that regard but there is a wider matter, a more fundamental matter, which has not been mentioned here for a considerable time. The last time it was mentioned was when Irish troops were — shall we describe it — murdered in the course of duty in the Congo. There was a sudden flurry of interest then amongst politicians and the public as to how the troops were being looked after and on what basis they were sent to particular places.
I want to put clearly to the Minister that he has a responsibility to the country to clarify his own position in this regard. The Irish contingent, both in the Congo and in Cyprus, are part of a peace-keeping force sent there by the United Nations. It is accepted as beyond contradiction that only a limited number of countries were considered suitable from all points of view to allow their troops into these troubled areas. Ireland, India, Sweden and Ghana were the principal countries involved.
The main reason Ireland was selected was that the Minister for External Affairs himself had said, and repeated, in the United Nations that Ireland was a neutral country, that we did not belong to any power bloc in Europe, that we were not tied to the Americans' tail or the Russians, that we were not part of any power bloc in the world and were free to make our own decisions, irrespective of pressure brought on us by any country in the world, big or small. That was a brave and highly admirable attitude to adopt in the United Nations and one with which I agree and I still believe it is the correct one for this country to adopt and pursue.
I should like the Minister to say here before this debate concludes why the Government are altering their decision in that regard and where the Minister himself stands with the Government on the change of policy which has taken place.
The Taoiseach has stated — I do not want to bore the House by rehashing discussions that have taken place here before — that we are no longer neutral and that it is our most ardent desire to take part in a west European power bloc; that we are prepared to accept in that bloc all the defence and military commitments which membership of the group would entail. The Government are entitled to change their mind and alter their course but, while the Government have altered their course on such a fundamental matter as neutrality, at the same time we are sending our young boys to Cyprus, where I sincerely hope nothing will happen. We are still sending them to Cyprus on the assumption of the United Nations that Ireland is uncommitted and, because she is uncommitted, she is acceptable in the peace-keeping force.
The reason we hear no talk at the moment is that no really serious problems regarding the lives or security of our young men has come up in recent months. I hope that position continues. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot pretend to the world we are uncommitted, that we are prepared to take a completely free and independent stand in the United Nations, that we are prepared to allow our boys to be sacrificed or killed on that basis while, at the same time, the Government show a second face to Europe in saying that we are prepared to accept the defence and political commitments of a west European power bloc.
I should like to know whether this is the stand of the Minister for External Affairs on Government policy. After all, this House supported, to my knowledge, the stand he took in the United Nations. Has he altered his view and agreed with the present attitude and decision taken by his Taoiseach? That is something we should be told in this debate. I want to get a comment on the position of our troops.
There is another aspect of this, apart from the neutrality end of it, which I think should be clarified. I think the present occupant of Áras an Uachtaráin is still of the opinion that the Party to which he belonged is still committed to the idea that neutrality was a good idea and should still be pursued. In his words of sympathy very recently on the death of a statesman in the next country——
I do not think his remarks should be drawn into this debate.
I think the Head of the State should not make any remarks at all.
That is an entirely different matter.
We were never neutral anyway at any time.
It is very arguable and some opportunity should be given to discuss it, but I am using it only in this context of saying that the present Government, who are his kind, are evidently changing from that position. The present Government thought it highly desirable to be neutral when the Nazi scourge nearly dominated the world.
We were never neutral.
They pretended they were neutral but, as far as Government policy was concerned, even the final honours were paid to the then Füehrer by this Government. All of a sudden, we have this change. We are no longer neutral.
That brings me to this question of Ireland's application in the economic sense for admission to the EEC. According to the Minister's remarks in his opening statement, Ireland's application still stands for full membership. I do not know what sense of reality the Minister had in this at all or did he put this in just because the Taoiseach expected him to do it? I do know the people are expected, and believed by some political Parties, to have short memories, that you can say something and in two or three years time the public will have forgotten it. How many of us here remember when the present Taoiseach took his bag with the deeds of this country in it and hawked them around every European country to see if he would get a buyer? I want to make it clear, when he did that, the two major Parties in this House were committed, not to any question of associate membership of the EEC but to full membership. We were saved from disaster in that regard by the decision of de Gaulle of France at that particular time. This country was completely unready to face the highly skilled European industrial groups. Our Irish industries and our Irish farmers were not in a position to stand up to the full blast of competition which they would have to face as members of that Community. That was a highly irresponsible attitude to take.
I am glad to see that many of those people are now changing their view and saying that some form of associate membership is desirable. When people said that in this House, the Taoiseach stood out against it. He said there was no such possibility of a link of that character. We had his Minister for Agriculture coming back last week from Europe and the first statement he made was that he was misquoted in the papers. When he had discussions abroad, he put his foot in it and said he was attracted to the idea of some form of link or trade agreement with the EEC countries. When he returned, he said we were interested only in full membership. Why are the Government not honest and say the idea of full membership has gone by the board?
We had this Minister and his Taoiseach telling us we are Europeans, we were always Europeans. If this Government were serious about closer association with Europe, is it not a fact the greatest attention would be paid by the Department of External Affairs and other bodies responsible to the study of European languages? Is it not a fact that the initial rush or burst of enthusiasm two years ago, in relation to the Common Market, to study European languages has all gone by the board now? I remember in parts of rural Ireland the ludicrous position of people going two hours a week to learn French because they thought we were going into the Common Market in a few months. That has all gone by the board now. The Government and the Minister for External Affairs tell us our application for full membership still stands. It would not be unfair to say that as far as we are concerned at the present time the greatest danger in Ireland is that we are going to become a pleasure ground for the wealthy people in Western Europe in the EEC.
I have nothing against the idea of welcoming all these people as tourists and encouraging them to spend their money here. What is the position with regard to these people with whom we are so anxious to join? In fact they are joining us here by buying us up, buying our hotels, cities, towns, pleasure resorts and buying our scenic areas throughout the country. That is the membership we are getting at the moment. As I said, I consider we are entitled to a statement from the Minister as to where he stands on this question of the Irish position in the United Nations and of the Irish troops in Cyprus? Are we, as the Minister has said before, uncommitted, no part of a particular bloc in any part of the world? Is that still the position?
Another matter I should like to mention is the question of Partition. It is extraordinary that in the debate each year on the Department of External Affairs there has been a pious reference to Partition but that significantly this year this is no longer looked upon as a matter for External Affairs. It would appear that the Government are fully accepting the idea that Partition now is purely a matter for the two parts of Ireland. Other years the Department of External Affairs carried a reference to what the Government were doing about Partition but that is left out this year. We had the Taoiseach telling me yesterday that it was a question, to a great extent, for Irishmen themselves. Have the Government taken the view that the stepping stones which they helped to remove many years ago will now be replaced by them and that that is something which should have been done a long time ago?
We all welcome the idea of co-operation and we all welcome the idea of Irishmen being able to sit down as civilised persons, no matter which part of the country they come from and hammer out their differences. I want to know from the Minister, at this stage, especially in view of the Taoiseach's ability to change his policy overnight on so many issues, is he prepared to take a stand on any particular line? Was it on his advice, or on the advice of the Minister for External Affairs, that those in the Six Counties who call themselves Nationalists, should become the formal Opposition in the Six Counties Parliament? We are entitled to know following the discussions which have taken place if the advice to these socalled Nationalists was to go in now as the formal Opposition up there? Was that advice given? The House and the people are entitled to know what that advice was. The belief at the moment at any rate is that the group in the North, who now constitute themselves what is known as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, were told to take up that position by the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach should clarify that situation.
I shall move now to another matter, to which reference was made by Deputy D. Costello, that is, the two films mentioned in the Minister's Estimate. I shall refer briefly to only one, the film on social conditions. Under Subhead F, there is an increased provision of £15,000 for film projects. The Minister and his Department are about to make a film on social progress here in Ireland. I should like to join with Deputy D. Costello in asking what is the theme of this film? What is it hoped to portray? Will it attempt to say we have gone much further in the field of social progress since the original pension of 5/- was given, under an earlier Government? We should forget about a film of that nature at this stage because, if it is honest, it will shock the people. Perhaps that would be a good thing. If it gives facts, there will be many people in Ireland, and outside, depressed to learn things can be so bad. If it shows that considerable progress has been made, then it would do an injury all round and would be a source of embarrassment.
If we want to measure the social progress that has been made, we need only look at our county homes. There has been no change in many of them for the past 50 years. They are still gloomy, damp structures to which old people are consigned and forgotten about, as if they were sent to concentration camps. Where is the social progress there? What social progress can be pointed to when we come to deal with children who are physically and mentally handicapped? Every Deputy from rural Ireland has to try to get at least two or three such children into an institution or establishment each week. I have known children who had to wait two, three, or even four years, for admission to an institution for treatment. Then they reach an age at which they are no longer acceptable because they are over the age limit. Those children are consigned to a life of misery, with no hope. Is that social progress? The Minister tells us about a film that is to be made here. Will it deal with the health services, the old age pensioners, the sick? I think that expenditure should be scrapped. I disapprove of the idea of such a film unless the stark facts are given.
The Department of External Affairs have been interesting themselves in matters of trade, commerce and industry, and in getting markets for our produce. That is highly desirable but we could go a good bit further in that field. It is high time we had representatives in all the countries with which we trade. If we trade in a big way with other countries, we should have representatives in those countries.
Another matter with which I should like to deal has been raised on other occasions. The Minister has a responsibility to dovetail and bring together all the groups working in England, and particularly in London. The short-sighted policy which has not secured suitable premises which could be described as an Irish House deserves the greatest criticism. We had another Minister a few moments ago telling us the premises that could have been obtained by Córas Tráchtála were too big for their purposes. In fact, the Department of External Affairs should have had the responsibility of taking a decision in that regard, not Córas Tráchtála. The Finnish Government have allowed their section dealing with external affairs in London to set up a Finnish House where cultural and economic activities are dovetailed, tourist facilities are made known, and where there is a display centre for their produce, all under one roof. I appreciate that that would be a very expensive proposition but the outlay would be recouped in no time at all. We would save the rent of the various separate establishments which are there at the moment and which, to my mind, are not suitable from the point of view of people who are interested in coming to Ireland. There should be no such thing as having to go from one house to another to find out what you want to know about Ireland, or the different aspects of the country in the industrial or tourist fields. The Department of External Affairs should have all those things under their wing in one centre.
I now want to deal in a very brief manner with the position of Irish emigrants. I do not know what the Minister's view is on helping our people in England, but I think one of the most effective ways of solving the problem of emigration would be to give the vote to the Irish emigrant. Let him vote while he is residing over there. Give him a postal vote in Ireland. The majority of our Irish boys and girls were driven out by economic necessity, and they are entitled to show their approval or disapproval of the Government who are responsible, through not providing employment for them, for sending them abroad. They are entitled to express their views whether they are abroad or at home. Americans in Europe are allowed a postal vote or can vote in the Embassies. The same thing could be arranged for Irish emigrants.
We would soon find that our emigrants would exercise a very valuable influence here. By expressing their views in the ballot box, they would alter the situation in this Chamber to such an extent that it would soon be possible to close the ballot boxes in London because we would have a Government here who were ready to listen to them and prepared to take the necessary steps to provide employment here. That would solve the problems of the Irish emigrants in Britain today. That is a first step and a most effective way to help our emigrants. They are not interested in the paternalistic do-gooders.
I have had experience of visiting various Irish centres in London and it is a well-known fact that the majority of our people will not go there because they feel they are being looked down on. Some people have good intentions but they are inclined to say: "We will save your souls and give you a fortnight's shelter in this place or that hostel." I want to make it clear that I have talked to Irish people in London on many occasions and they turn away and say: "We are not going near that place." They must be left their independence and the feeling that they are regarded as human beings. They would like to have the power to express their views in a way that would count, that is, through the ballot boxes, and I would ask the Minister to give consideration to that suggestion.
I see in the Estimate a small item of £200 for the repatriation and maintenance of destitute persons abroad. I should like to know to whom that refers. Does it refer to students who, as students do, run out of funds, or to people who, through no fault of their own, lose their money while travelling abroad? I do not know what it means. If it means the persons to whom I have referred, I think that is not the proper description of funds to help people to pay their fare back home. They should not be described in those terms.
The Minister has expressed his views on many matters. He has spoken on the issue of apartheid and condemned it. I should like him to use his very valuable influence as soon as possible to discourage a visit here by a South African rugby team. I want to make it clear when I speak on this matter that I have seldom played the game of rugby. I hope it will not be looked upon as impertinence on my part, and that it will not be said that, because I played another code, I should not comment on activities in the rugby sphere. Personally, I never supported the idea of the ban in the Gaelic code and in any little activities I had, or any association I had with officials of the GAA, I always said there should never be a ban. I mention that so that, when I do comment on this rugby team coming from South Africa, it will be quite clear that I think it is a horrifying thing to find the discrimination that exists.
Let us not be misled by people who say politics should not be brought into sport; the fact is that politics have been brought into sport by the South African people. They are out to demean the human being and therefore they should not be given the Irish céad míle fáilte. A message should be sent to them telling them to stay at home. I ask the Minister for External Affairs to make these views known. After all, I am not asking the House to give further consideration to the idea of sanctions against South Africa; I am merely asking the Minister to show in a very practical way that this Government disapprove of the idea of apartheid. There is a very practical way of expressing this view in a very short time if the Minister takes the action I suggest.
I want to say to the Minister for External Affairs that in the context of the world situation in which we are at present living, his statement here today was grossly inadequate. It is the kind of statement that Samuel Hoare was making about 1936, bland, treacly, soothing, breathing the atmosphere of détente in a world in which the realities are very different.
There are some minor matters and matters of purely local interest to which I should like to refer before returning to that theme. I concede the right of the Government Party to make all the propaganda they can but now that the tea parties in Stormont and the lunches at Iveagh House are over, all the photographs taken and all the publicity releases put out, I think it astonishing that the Minister for External Affairs should approach Dáil Éireann and, having made the welkin ring through every medium of publicity at his disposal in regard to this round of social entertainment between the Taoiseach and Captain O'Neill, the Prime Minister of Stormont, should communicate not one word to Dáil Éireann as to where we are hoping to go from here.
There have been vague assertions that we are going to embark on a programme of co-operation. I am often bewildered by the ability of the Government not only to indulge in self-deception but to attempt the deception of and fraudulent misrepresentation on the people. Does anybody really imagine that for the past 20 years there has been no contact between the Government of Northern Ireland and the Government here? I do not suppose when I was Minister for Agriculture at two different periods that a day ever passed when we were not in telephonic communication with the Department of Agriculture in Belfast, perhaps two or three times every day. There was never an outbreak of animal disease in Northern Ireland during which they did not borrow vets from us and there was never an outbreak of animal disease in this part of the country when we did not borrow vets from them. Does anybody imagine that the Department of Industry and Commerce is not in daily contact with the corresponding Department in Belfast and has not been every day of the past 20 years? Does anybody pretend to ignore the fact — the legality of which I very much doubt — that the Garda Síochána dump fellows across the Border whom they know to be wanted for misdemeanours in Northern Ireland or that the RUC in the North dump fellows across the Border whom they know to be wanted in the Republic?
Reference has been made to the fact that the Governments in Northern Ireland and the Republic combined to purchase the Foyle Fisheries from a London company some 15 years ago and that at this moment we own them jointly in the Six Counties and the Republic and that every alternate year there is a chairman from Northern Ireland and a chairman from the Republic. Everybody can remember when there was a threat to close down the Great Northern Railway Company, we jointly purchased it and for some time there was a chairman from Northern Ireland and a chairman from the Republic, until a further subdivision was made and we took over those lines in our part of the country and the Northern Government took over the parts of the line operating in the Six Counties. All this, I think, is excellent and it is an excellent thing that personal contact should be made between the Taoiseach here and the Prime Minister at Stormont and between Ministers here and Ministers in Northern Ireland.
I well remember the Minister for Agriculture in Northern Ireland coming to visit me when I was Minister for Agriculture. I am sure other Ministers frequently visited their opposite members here over the past 20 years. All that is good, but I should like to know, and I think we are entitled to know, from the Minister for External Affairs what further fields of co-operation they now have in mind.
So far as drainage is concerned, I believe reciprocal activity is well established. I believe reciprocal co-operation is well established in agriculture. So far as fishery matters are concerned, I believe reciprocal activity is well established. So far as transport is concerned, we even combined to provide a bus service from Derry and Monaghan to Dublin. This is at present functioning as a result of collaboration between the two Ministries and transport authorities north and south. I feel justified in asking the Minister, apart from propaganda, what additional fields of mutual co-operation has he in mind between ourselves and the people of Northern Ireland? Any constructive advance on those lines will be heartily welcomed on this side of the House but I think it is rendered more difficult rather than easier by the excessive desire on the part of the present Government to hold themselves out as the first authority in this country ever concerned to live in peace and harmony with our neighbours on the other side of the Border.
A great deal of talk goes on about the European Economic Community and Ireland's relations with it. A great deal of the confusion that has been aroused has resulted, I think, from the Government's ambiguous attitude towards the European Economic Community. They have repeatedly emphasised that their entire policy is founded on the assumption that we will enjoy full membership before the end of this decade and, in some of their publications, they have said in the latter half of the 1960s. Of course, that bears little relation really to reality, as we have repeatedly pointed out, because full membership of the European Economic Community by this country is out of the question if Great Britain remains outside the Community; and, if Great Britain enters the Community, membership in some form becomes indispensable to us, lest the common tariff of the Community should come between us and our access to our traditional markets in Great Britain.
There certainly does not seem to be much prospect, at present, in any case, of Great Britain pursuing the realisation of full membership for Great Britain of the European Economic Community. Nevertheless, there remains in the minds of many here a belief that we can get some peculiar advantage out of a trade agreement with the European Economic Community as such, which is not available to us by the bilateral trade agreements we have at the present time with the several members of the Community. I feel that belief is open to doubt, unless there is some clear statement to the effect that the alternatives have been examined on their merits, this kind of talk will continue, with resultant confusion in the public mind.
I very much doubt whether a trade agreement with the European Economic Community will yield any more substantial benefits to this country than bilateral agreements with the several members of the Community give, bilateral agreements which are kept under pretty constant review. But, so long as there is a belief that there is available to this country some special advantage through a trade agreement with the European Economic Community, a great many people will continue to yearn after that and say that, if we had such an agreement, many of the difficulties with which we have at present to contend would disappear.
There is only one satisfactory way of disposing of that line of thought, that is, for the Government to say that we are prepared to discuss with the European Economic Community the possibility of a trade agreement and then come back to this House and say: "We have discussed with the Authority in Brussels the possibility of a trade agreement with the European Economic Community. Here are the terms we are offered. We do not think they are any better than the terms we have got through the bilateral trade treaties already in existence. We will not, therefore, proceed with any further negotiation for a trade treaty which gives us nothing more than we already have and, in some respects, perhaps less than we at present enjoy."
Until the Government are in a position to say that particularly in regard to the agricultural industry, I think a great deal of confusion will continue to exist, and a vague kind of belief will continue to prevail that, through a trade agreement with the European Economic Community, vast areas of extended markets might be made available to us, markets not available at the present time for want of the existence of such an agreement, and the sooner the Government take effective measures to clarify that unsatisfactory position the better it will be for everybody.
The Government are sometimes a bit loth, I think, to remind people that the present position is that more than 70 per cent of our entire trade is done with Great Britain and, so far as the output of our agricultural industry is concerned, which constitutes nearly 70 per cent of our entire export trade, a far higher percentage of that agricultural trade is with Great Britain; and, if it were not, it would not be as profitable as it now is. These are fundamental facts from which we cannot escape and we might as well face them. I believe we can better face them if illusory concepts about access to the European Economic Community through a trade agreement are either dispelled or finally determined.
I do not exclude the possibility that there is, perhaps, some wholly unexploited opportunity there about which I know nothing, but what is important is that certainty should be arrived at and there is no means of arriving at certainly unless we try to find out at the highest level, putting ourselves in a position to say: "The best terms we could get in an agreement of this character are terms we could not accept. Here they are and there are the reasons why we could not accept them." Unless and until we are in a position to say that to our own people, there will continue to be a considerable volume of belief that there is something there for the asking of which we are being deprived for the lack of diligence on the part of our Government representatives.
I want to say a word now about our emigrants in Britain. I approached this matter with the utmost circumspection last year and the year before because it is a matter of considerable delicacy and my views in regard to it are not the same at all as those expressed by Deputy McQuillan. I do not give a fiddle-de-dee whether people in Great Britain or outside it have or have not the vote. I do not think it matters a damn and I believe that, if they had it, they would not use it. If they want to vote, they should come home and vote here. I do not think their circumstances are in any way analagous to those which obtain in relation to United States nationals living abroad. They are free men and women and those amongst them who are mature can as a rule look after themselves.
The plain fact is that the vast bulk of our people who go to Great Britain, the United States of America, or elsewhere, as emigrants do extremely well and constitute a very valuable element in the society in which they find themselves. In the United States, in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and wherever else they go, they are acknowledged by their adopted country to be a very valuable element in society. It is, however, wrong for us to close our eyes, in my opinion, to the fact that there is a percentage of young boys and girls leaving this country who we ourselves feel are going to Great Britain too young, and without proper preparation, and who are being absorbed into the British urban proletariat with disastrous moral consequences to some.
The reason for the disastrous character of the consequences is very largely their own innocence and the strict moral atmosphere in which they were born and reared in this country. They find themselves suddenly launched into an entirely different kind of society and, before they fully realise whither they are going, they are involved in trouble. If, at that stage, there was some helping hand to come to their assistance the troubles might be overcome. But once they get lost in the anonymous mass of the proletarian urban population and have acquired a record of which they are ashamed, they are very often unduly weighted by the consciousness of their own guilt at having got into trouble.
If they had the maturity and wisdom to know that if they came to their friends, older people would understand their lapses and be glad and happy to help them on their feet again, then their rescue would be relatively simple. But the tragedy, in both boys and girls, is that not infrequently not only will they not look for help but those who seek to find them in order to give them help find that in their sense of guilt, confusion and shame, very often they avoid contact with their own and are more deeply lost than ever.
This is not a problem to which we can conscientiously shut our eyes. I know it involves a special form of social work which is not easy to undertake. I have suggested that possibly some sort of voluntary effort, or quasivoluntary effort, like a peace corps, might be established in some of the bigger cities in England to work in co-operation with some of the social organisations there whose personnel are already hopelessly taxed, to go to the aid of such young people. I believe such a service could make contact with the police courts in England to supplement the probation system of the courts whose personnel are enormously overtaxed by the ordinary run of the mill cases pouring from the police courts and which the probation officers are expected to give attention to. Those officers naturally cannot find time to give special attention to any Irish boy or girl who has become corrupted.
I do not deny the delicacy or the intricacy of this problem. It would be a great mistake for us to create an atmosphere suggesting that the bulk of our people going abroad are quasi-criminal. At the same time, I do not think it is right to close our eyes to the fact that our boys and girls going to England are too young, too inexperienced, and as a result are getting into trouble. We ought to concern ourselves to help them. I fully acknowledge we cannot set up a duplicating social service system in Great Britain. Nobody suggests we should. What we should do is to seek ways and means of supplementing the very inadequate resources at present available for rescuing those in trouble, seeking them out, getting them home where that is the appropriate treatment, or else getting them away to a new start, if that is the most salutary procedure in particular cases.
Listening to the Minister's speech today on the world situation, one was reminded of Sir Samuel Hoare in 1936. He said:
The essential character of the détente which has taken place between the East European and Western countries evidenced by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the communications link between Washington and Moscow and United Nations Resolution prohibiting nuclear weapons in space, has not been changed despite recurrent clashes of interest in different parts of the globe.
Baldwin might have said that in 1936. That breathes the very atmosphere of the umbrella. Mind you, I have great sympathy with people in a troubled world who are inclined to furl their umbrellas and say: "So long as we have an umbrella, we can breathe an atmosphere of normality." There is not any détente in the world. It is the purest illusion, simply the classic doctrine of the Cominform. There are moments when the Cominform think it wise to create a general atmosphere of relaxation until such time as they find it expedient to strike again.
I imagine many elements of public opinion in America thought the détente atmosphere was very valuable. I wonder if they think it is now, when the stress has been transferred from Cuba to Vietnam. It is not so long since it was on the Indian border. The plain and inescapable fact is — it is one free men in a country like this ought to keep constantly before their minds — that the only effective détente in the world is a combination of free nations, strong enough to ensure that the Cominform cannot successfully attack them.
We had Deputy McQuillan speaking about the pure waters of strict neutrality. I ask if anybody in his sane senses who was reared in the atmosphere of freedom that obtains in this country seriously suggests that as between the Cominform and the free nations of the world he stands utterly neutral? I do not believe many members of the Labour Party would give an affirmative answer.
The same could be said of the last war and this country.
I do not believe Deputy Tully has any sympathy for the autocratic regime sponsored by the Cominform.
None whatsoever.
But I believe he believes that free men ought to be allowed to remain free according to their own wishes in their own country without interference from people outside. Holding those views, I cannot believe Deputy Tully is neutral as between Moscow and Washington.
Neutral in the mind and neutral in what you think is best for the country are two different things.
He makes that nice distinction — neutral in your mind and not neutral in some other part of your anatomy. I cannot separate my mind from the rest of my anatomy with that facility. As between Washington and Moscow, is any sane citizen to say he is neutral? I say that neutrality depends on the fact that Moscow shall not prevail. When I listen to people today talking about various contemporary developments, I cannot help remembering the talk that went on in 1936.
I believe the only effective deterrent to war in the world today is the prospect of an effective Atlantic partnership which will present to the world's only potential aggressor, Moscow, the certainty that it cannot launch a successful war. Once that situation is created in the world, we will have peace. As it is, there is a perennial recurrent danger of war. As I see the world situation, the only hope of an Atlantic partnership depends on the emergence of an effective European unity, because you cannot construct an effective Atlantic partnership without a united Europe. When I hear the French Government talking of the force de frappe and expressing the hope that the rift between Peking and Moscow will paralyse the Cominform, I cannot help thinking of the days when the French Government were talking of the Maginot Line, the impenetrable barrier of Europe, until the Wehrmacht discovered it had no tail and that you could walk around the Maginot Line. The force de frappe exists in the imagination of the French Government and of nobody else.
When I hear them talking about the prospect of division between Moscow and Peking, I think of Mr. Chamberlain going to Rome in 1936-37 to woo Mussolini away from Hitler. If he could only do that, the Axis would not constitute a menace to Europe any more. But, when the chips were down, Mussolini and Hitler were on the one side fighting like tigers and the rest of the disrupted European community were in the cart. It is well to remember that it was not until Japan attacked America that America was drawn into the fray.
The parallel that exists between the thinking in the world today and the thinking in the world of the thirties is so dramatic and so alarming that I am constantly filled with apprehension. I think the great landmark in the history of our time is the speech of President Kennedy at Philadelphia when he formulated the concept of the Atlantic community and the great catastrophe was when the French Government in January two years ago emphatically rejected that concept. The real present danger under the new administration in America is that the old forces of isolationism may reassert themselves and that America may withdraw from Europe as she looks like withdrawing from Asia. Not in my lifetime but in the lifetime of my family and those who come after them we may see a Communist-dominated empire stretching from Calais to Vladivostock. Great Britain will be living on the fringe of that. It will not be a very pleasant world to live in if it comes to pass. Unless there is created in the world in which we live an effective shield against that development its imminence may be very much greater than many of us realise.
How many people when they look at Europe ask themselves the question: "What is going to happen in France after the present President retires?" How many people looking at Europe today realise that the most powerful political Party in Italy is the Communist Party and that, though the Christian Democratic Union of Italy could summon the votes to appoint a President of their own choice, they wound up combining with the Communist Party to elect President Sarregat? How many people have ever reflected that, suppose you had a united Germany tomorrow, you would have the third largest Communist Party in Europe in that united Germany? In France there is the second largest Communist Party in Europe. In the absence of General de Gaulle, there is no other organised political Party of any kind in France.
These prospects fill me with alarm. As a small nation for which survival without freedom is hard to contemplate, it appears as crystal clear to me that our vital interest should be the promotion by every means at our disposal of a united Europe with a view to constituting as part of that united Europe an equal bloc with the United States to establish an Atlantic partnership for the purpose of ensuring that there will not be a war and that individual liberty in the world will survive. Without that, there is a grim prospect, not only of what will happen in Europe but what will happen in Africa and Asia as well.
Our Minister for External Affairs is always talking about nuclear powers. I think a great deal of that talk is wholly illusory. Anybody can be a nuclear power now; anyone can make a nuclear bomb. It is highly likely that Indonesia will make one shortly. But there is not the least use making a nuclear bomb and then sitting on it. It is only a hazard to one's self. The only effective nuclear power is the power which has a nuclear bomb and the means to deliver it. There are only two countries in the world of whom that can be said at present and they are the United States of America and the Soviet Union. As far as I can see, there is not the slightest prospects for the next 50 years of any other power in the world having anything like the effective power to deliver an atomic weapon outside their own borders. We are dealing with two nuclear powers. There are only two in the world.
The Minister is fascinated by this concept of getting five nuclear powers — France, China, Russia, United States of America and Great Britain— together to guarantee there will not be any further proliferation of atomic weapons. There are only two of these powers of any significance. I do not believe for a single moment that any agreement of any description you make with Moscow would be kept for one hour longer than it was for the advantage of Moscow to keep it. I do not believe anybody who has studied the literature and philosophy of Marxian materialism and of Communism based thereon can doubt they do not believe in keeping agreements and they do believe in telling lies as part of their normal armentarium of diplomacy.
Some people may ask here, in that situation are we to surrender ourselves to utter pessimism and despair? Not at all. We ought to face that fact realistically and say there is only one way of guaranteeing yourself against nuclear war and that is by creating a situation in which you make it quite manifest to Moscow that she cannot start a nuclear war with any hope of winning it and once you carry that conviction to her mind, the danger of nuclear war disappears.
It is all nonsense to talk about China starting a nuclear war, or Sukarno starting a nuclear war, or anybody else starting a nuclear war. They may carry some kind of nuclear device in a hand-bag and deposit it on somebody's back-door and blow a hole in the wall and injure thousands of people in the immediate neighbourhood and blow themselves up but that is not nuclear war. That is simply 20th century anarchism. It is 100 years ago that fellows were going around with black bombs and long fuses out of them——
Black hats and black beards.
Yes—black hats and black beards — and everybody was afraid of them. Sir Winston Churchill was depicted wearing a tophat with a stick in his hand directing operations, trying to round them up because everybody was terrorised. That was the alarm then. It is perfectly true that Sukarno may detonate some kind of device in Malaysia's backyard. It would be deplorable if he did. There is nothing you can do about it but it is not nuclear war or it is not the material of nuclear war.
There are only two Powers in the world that can precipitate a nuclear war—the United States of America, on the one hand, and the USSR, on the other. I do not believe the United States of America want nuclear war. In fact, one of the great dangers is that they are so obsessed with the idea of the horror of nuclear war that their power to defend themselves is almost paralysed.
My diagnosis of the world situation would be that the Americans are so horrified of nuclear war there is the possibility that that might deceive Soviet Russia into the belief that she could get away with nuclear war and survive.
All I am concerned with is, for the protection of Russia and the Russian people, to create as clear a picture as it is humanly possible to create that there is no use thinking that they can start a war which they can hope to win. There is nothing that will convince them of that except the emergence of an Atlantic partnership which will manifestly be so powerful and strategically so distributed that its conquest by the USSR is out of the question.
The Minister is always troubled with the idea of this Peking-Moscow breakup. That is a complete illusion. Peking could not beat a cat. They could not beat a mangy cat in the context of modern war. They have countless millions of men but that is irrelevant to modern war. You do not fight modern wars with men. If there is ever a show-down between Moscow and Peking, Peking will disappear overnight because Moscow has never allowed itself to be brainwashed into the position that it could never use atomic weapons. It is always rattling them, announcing that it will be prepared to launch them. Do you imagine, if Peking crossed the path of Moscow in an effective way and threatened the safety of the USSR, that Moscow would hesitate to use atomic weapons on Peking? It might give 48 hours notice to "toe the line, or", and if they did not accept, they would eliminate Peking and the whole headquarters of the Chinese people overnight and simply enslave the 600 million or 700 million Chinese there waiting to be enslaved.
To be talking about a Moscow-Peking axis is the purest nonsense. Peking simply does not count, but, so long as she can be used as an instrument of Russian policy to put the heat on the United States of America, where it is more convenient that she should do it than Russia, Russia will tolerate Peking. Certain old gentlemen, like Khrushchev, will lose their tempers at attempts at abuse by the Chinese propaganda campaign but what happens is that if he allows his natural feelings to get the better of him he disappears down the drain and Kosygin and somebody else comes along and now they are smiling and chortling to the Chinese again and the Chinese are being difficult. But the Chinese are serving a very useful purpose in parts of Asia in harassing the United States of America and they are also being successfully used in Africa for the same purpose.
Does anybody seriously believe that they would be doing those things if it did not suit Russia's purpose? Does anybody seriously believe that they would be doing those things if they were not seriously inconveniencing the United States of America? It is all part of the world Cominform conspiracy which is directed and always will be directed from Moscow. It is nothing to get fussed or troubled about unless we allow the umbrella philosophy to deceive us into the belief that there is some great détente going on. That is the great danger. The only danger of a war in this world today which might involve our destruction or enslavement is to surrender to the mesmerism of Cominform propaganda that a détente is taking place.
The only basis upon which there can be a détente is, in the circumstances of the world, by a combination of free men so powerful in numbers and resources that the Cominform come to realise that they cannot initiate a successful war. Our interest should be, first, to tell our people these plain and inescapable facts and, secondly, to make known quite frankly to our people that our interest as a small nation of free people is to promote the existence of such an Atlantic partnership in the world.
Small as our influence may be, it is not utterly contemptible because, though we are a small island, our people are scattered all over the free world and carry some influence in the councils of the free world. If Ireland's position were clear and cogent and effectively deployed on the side of what I conceive to be the only means to enduring peace, our influence in the world generally might make some contribution, however small — some contribution—to the preservation of peace and freedom and these are the only two important things that international affairs can effectively serve.
There is one last point on which I should like to ask for information from the Minister for External Affairs. I think it is supererogation on our part to be congratulating ourselves on the way our troops conducted themselves both in the assignment they undertook in the Congo and in Cyprus. They conducted themselves exactly as I expected they would conduct themselves. They are first-class men who reflected great credit on the country and who, as a result of being decent fellows, were greatly liked by the people whom they had gone to serve and both in the Congo and in the utterly dissimilar surroundings of Cyprus managed to make themselves be received as the friends, not only of a simple primitive people like the Congolese but also of a highly sophisticated and sensitive people like the Turkish and Greek residents of the island of Cyprus.
In so far as they contributed to the preservation of peace in Cyprus, I am very glad they went there but I do think we are entitled to ask how long is this to go on. It is costing us a great deal of money. We have taken up the position that we will not take any money from the United Nations in respect of this assignment because the funds earmarked for Cyprus have not been collected from all the members of the United Nations but have been contributed by a select few. For reasons that the Minister has explained on previous occasions the Irish Government determined they could not accept any recoupment from that source. That is all very well. I understand their point of view but it is perhaps unnecessarily sensitive.
It is not a matter of major importance about which I wish to quarrel with them but we must ask ourselves how long will this go on. We cannot leave troops in Cyprus forever and, over and above that, after we have done our tour of service we are entitled to say: "Now it is time for somebody else to share in this burden with us and give our men a rest and let us go home". Could the Minister say offhand how long our troops have been in Cyprus?
Since April last year.
I thought we were over 12 months there.
No, 1964.
At the end of 12 months perhaps our Government would consider asking the United Nations to get somebody else to take over there. I would not like the situation to arise in which we were there as a kind of permanent institution. We have troops, I understand in a very restricted sense, in some middle eastern territory?
As observers.
How long have they been there?
For three or four years.
Are they going to be there forever? It is a mistake that these things should be allowed to drift on, first, from the point of view of Government policy and, secondly, from the point of view of our own forces. Reasonable regard should be had to the service of these men. Take the observers out in the Middle East. Have they been forgotten? Perhaps it is no harm to say they are not forgotten by us and that we are conscious of the work they are doing. However, it ought to be possible to set some term to the several activities we undertake on behalf of the United Nations. It is a very unsatisfactory situation if these things are allowed to dander on until they are actually forgotten by Dáil Éireann. That ought not to be allowed to happen. It is unhealthy and undesirable. It is something to which the Minister ought to turn his attention. They ought to make it known to the United Nations that we are quite prepared to undertake a finite assignment and discharge it, given the understanding that at the end of our term we have freedom to withdraw our troops and hand over to somebody else.
If on the other hand, the United Nations is prepared to say it will set up a permanent peace-keeping force to which its members would make an agreed contribution and that that force would be permanently at the disposal of the United Nations, I would be very happy to see our Government make their contribution to it. That would mean we would be permanently engaged with all our fellow members in the United Nations in an assignment of that kind making our due, propertional contribution to it. What I deprecate, however, is that a situation should arise that in perpetuity we would be given assignments and be left open to the charge that we had abandoned our post if we were not prepared to stay almost indefinitely in these troubled spots.
I deprecate the Minister's umbrella approach to a world situation which I believe is fraught with very great dangers. I deprecate the Minister's desire to create an atmosphere in this country that everything in the world is lovely and no serious dangers lie ahead. I also deprecate the making of propaganda or Party advantage out of any discussions that take place between the Government here and the Government of Northern Ireland. That kind of thing tends to make such delicate discussions even more difficult. They have been carried on very successfully over the last 20 years and consequently have borne fruit progressively down through the years as the co-operation became more constant. Do not make them the plaything of Party politics or you may do a great disservice to the ultimate objective of realising a united Ireland.
As on so many occasions I cannot help feeling now that Deputy Dillon is most fluently and eloquently wrong-headed on this most important question whether the Minister's statement is right or wrong on the genuineness or otherwise of the détente. There was a time when it could be said that any comment we made on world affairs was very much of the Skib-bereen Eagle type in its implications in so far as we could be an effective force to change the trend of world events to any significant extent. That is still substantially true but there is this difference, that life here could be completely changed for us by any serious alteration or deterioration in the situation between the Americans and the Russians.
Deputy Dillon has made a number of facile comparisons between the Thirties and now and I do not think they are valid comparisons. There is the fact that having had the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and so on, mankind has now come into the Nuclear Age. In the Nuclear Age, a different conception of human relations will have to be evolved and a completely new understanding of how we must get on and live with one another, no matter how different we may be in our ideological beliefs.
Somebody said once you can do anything with a bayonet except sit on it. The modern version of that would be you can do anything with a nuclear bomb except explode it. That is a truism which means that the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Dillon, is wrong when he says the Russians are waiting to realise their ambitions for a Communist world with their fingers on the trigger of the nuclear bomb. They are much too realistic to believe that anything they take over after they have exploded the nuclear bomb, with all the repercussions in the world that would follow it would be capable of being communised or Christianised. There would be no life left in the world and that is the fabulous reality which is so difficult to assimilate. It means that one has to take a completely different approach to the present power struggle.
Of course there is a tremendous power struggle going on, a tremendous, fascinating and exciting struggle between the gradations of the western type civilisation, if you like to call it that, and the eastern type civilisation, Communism in its various forms and Christianity and these various other religions. That is a wonderful struggle to anybody interested in the whole progress of world society towards the millennium. It is a great thing that it is going on. It is quite conceivable that we have got to the stage where everybody realises you cannot explode the nuclear bomb and that for the first time in the history of the world, you cannot make war seriously.
The struggle is on an ideological level and must be fought out in all these countries, particularly Africa, the Middle East and the East. What I think is frightening is that where one or the other loses the ideological struggle, they may tend to try to win it by the use of the gun or the nuclear bomb now. Deputy Dillon is desperately out of touch in this suggestion about a genuine détente. Peadar O'Donnell once talked about the priest-ridden laity in Ireland. I think in terms of world power the attitude of the Vatican to this position and the extent of Communism throughout the world, is completely different. It was different in Pope John's time and even in Pope Paul's time it is different. He does not strike me as being a man with the same very strong views as Pope John but he is taking a comparable view to Pope John, that this is here, it has got to be lived with and in some way we can do business with it—a realistic assessment of the realities.
One of the great strengths of the Catholic Church over the years, if anybody is interested in the remarkable miracle of its survival in view of the many major mistakes it has made during the centuries, is its terrific capacity for adaptation, its flexibility and its ability to compromise and, above all, its ability to face the realities of a particular situation at a particular time and then meet and deal with it. I suppose that to a considerable extent has been the secret of its survival through all its difficulties. One does not meet that type of flexibility with this type of laity which Deputy Dillon represents, the bigoted sectarian with doctrinaire orthodoxy. I do not think there could be said to be any comparison in anybody's mind that there is today the same sense of danger, of imminent possible destruction or the possibility of a nuclear war as there was five years ago, or seven or eight years ago. Those of us who live in a country like this, with our views and beliefs, should at least try to keep up with what is not, God knows, a particularly avant garde, radical organisation, the Vatican, with our acceptance of realities in the world and our acceptance of the sense of relief most people feel that we are no longer glaring at one another looking for holds with which to try to pull down the enemy and strangle him.
The reality is that neither side can do that any more. I am surprised at a man whom I know to be a very humane and gentle person such as Deputy Dillon dismissing whole races of people by one word—Peking or Moscow or New York, because, of course, he is condemning them to decimation if he runs them into one of the wars he has in mind. This misuse of a word which covers men, women and children in their tens of millions is, of course, one of Deputy Dillon's blind spots. While he would have the greatest feeling of charity and compassion for somebody who is disabled or hurt or ill, if the person is there in front of him, he does not seem to be able to face the reality of the proposition he makes for going around armed with this bomb which he will throw at Moscow or Peking or North Vietnam. He does not hit these places; they are merely spots on the map, but they do represent human beings. Anybody who saw the bombing of London or Liverpool during the last war saw the dreadful results — youngsters with limbs missing, people blinded or blasted and the awful effects from the destruction of houses and all that— the realities of war.
There can be no question that no civilised human being could seriously visualise war of any kind, particularly nuclear war, as the solution of any grievance or difference we may have. We have to go back further all the time to the beginnings of wars and to what starts them before we get to the stage of the last war or the 1914-18 war when youngsters went out and were butchered for imperialist objectives of one kind or another between Britain and Germany and again in the last war because the Nazis were allowed to get into power by the German ruling classes.
The appalling position is when these mistakes are made and allowed to go on being made, the flashpoint comes and the clarion call goes out to the youngsters and then they man their Spitfires and Messerschmidts and they kill one another and what does it all resolve? You see all over Europe thousands and thousands of graves of people who did not have any middle age or old age because of European statesmen during the 1930s and earlier. I do not want to dwell on it but even the present development in our relations between North and South must cause people like the Minister to examine his conscience on his actions, with the great benefit of hindsight, and wonder to what extent their solution for their terrible dilemma 40 years ago was the correct one.
Even the most apparently insoluble difficulties between human beings must always end up around the conference table and the intervention of force, whether it be a revolver, a cannon or a nuclear bomb, is never the correct solution. That is always an evil and a bad thing and it is wrong of a person of the stature of Deputy Dillon to advocate that. I cannot think of Moscow as a city. To me it is a place with a lot of people living in it, people with wives and families, people who live together and work together, people who may dislike and quarrel with each other, but people. You cannot talk about destroying these people in order to establish a point of view. It always comes down to that, the establishment of a point of view, our point of view or the other point of view.
Anybody who has had experience of travelling in Europe since the war will have had the dreadful experience of hearing of the bombing of these places, Hamburg, Frankfort, Cologne, where one knew there were beautiful places and where there were people, nice people, and knowing that they were destroyed because of the stupidity of man and his obsession with the idea that if he could kill or maim enough of the other side, he would be right and his position would be established. This war psychosis is an evil and a bad thing. It was never a valid or a good solution and it has now become an impossible solution. Deputy Dillon must accept that fact. Whatever we may think of Peking or Moscow, we have to realise that they are there and that they are very powerful.
Deputy Dillon said that there are only two cities. Mosgow and Washington, capable of fighting a nuclear war. He should remember what was said about Russia 40 years ago, that this backward agricultural country was unable to do anything. Now they are spinning men around the country in the true sense of the word. With the advances the Chinese are making at the moment, within a relatively short time they are going to be in the same position as the Russians. We have to accept the fact that they are growing and will keep growing in terms of strength. They have produced the nuclear bomb, a tremendous achievement by a very backward country. How proud General de Gaulle was when he could announce that he had exploded his bomb and now this primitive backward country has produced the bomb in a very short time.
It is unrealistic to say that this is a backward country and that we do not need to fear it. We do need to fear it and we need to come to terms with it. In dealing with this matter, the Minister has followed a very careful and wise line. He has suggested that these people be brought around a conference table and that suggestion is the correct one. They are there and they must seriously be reckoned with. They cannot be wished away.
The origins of war, both in South Vietnam and in Europe, have lain in the struggle between peoples, some times nationalistic but becoming more and more ideological. Until we are prepared to go into the developing countries with something more attractive than we have in our own societies and offer them the advantages of our way of life, whatever they may be, we will not make advances in the new emergent societies. President Kennedy had something of the germ of the idea which was not fully developed then. The peace corps approach to the emergent countries was obviously the correct approach. The Minister has given every assistance to these countries and supplied whatever help he could in the way of doctors, teachers and advisers. That is the only help these people need and that is the only help that we should export. The export of guns and bullets for these people to kill off one another is an evil and bad thing.
It is one of the difficulties of a country, even such as the United States, that having failed to solve their own social and economic problems, they have to go out to these countries and offer them a method for the solutions of their problems, illiteracy, high disease rates, bad housing accommodation, lack of internal communications and lack of industry and agricultural developments. Unless the Western powers can go out and offer these new countries methods of building prosperous societies, they are wasting their time and they cannot complain if they are rejected when they go out and support some Tshombe-like backward individuals so that the exploitation of these countries can continue and their copper, rubber and oil be taken away from the rightful owners and brought back to bolster up the standard of living of the British, French or Belgians.
You have to offer to these people a way of life which is a better way of life than that offered by the eastern powers. We are taking the view that because they will not accept our way of life our attitude is that we will use the gun and force them to take our particular side.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.