I am glad to have that clearly explained. Senators are dealing now with a motion to appoint a Commission to inquire into the National Land Bank. That is one of the instances referred to. I think this House does not consider on that ground alone there is reason for a motion to inquire into the Land Bank. The Cathaoirleach has referred to the Auditor-General's criticism. I am going to be met with that criticism in another House, and it will be more directly the subject of debate there. I am not disposed to quarrel with what the Auditor-General says in his report. I simply make the comment that I think it would be better that the Aduitor-General, in making reports, should state the full facts. There is nothing to prevent his making any report he wishes. We give a certain licence to him with regard to criticism, so that the financial affairs of the State may be properly safeguarded. I say, with regard to the Auditor-General's Report, that from it we can learn that the Auditor-General does not always give the full facts. What was simpler for him to say than that the Attorney-General had ruled in another way, and he would then be giving the public the information they are entitled to get? There is no criticism in this report of the National Land Bank. It did not even enter the minds of the Committee of Public Accounts to say anything relative to the Land Bank, for it never entered the scope of their criticism.
Having considered the report of the Auditor-General they proceeded to investigate this transaction, and this interim report is the result. I am referring to paragraph 15 in the interim report, which says:—
"The Committee desires to make it plain that no question arises affecting the good faith of the company in applying for the guarantee or in responding to the suggestion that, so as to make it possible for the guarantee to be given under the Act, a formal reconstruction of the company should be made. The Department of Industry and Commerce for its part was eager to fulfil what was regarded as the primary purposes of the Act, viz., to promote employment in the Saorstát. The Advisory Committee recommended that the application was one which should be approved and the guarantee given. The Department, after making its own inquiries was assured that employment would be promoted to a noteworthy degree by the granting of the loan, and were satisfied that the assets of the company were a good security for a second mortgage. The Minister also for the greater security of the loan exercised his right to nominate a director on the Board of the reconstructed company."
That is the net result of the Alesbury case. That paragraph rather sums up the whole position. There are certain comments the Public Accounts Committee thought fit to make afterwards connected with an amendment of the Act so as to get the words "capital undertaking" better defined. They go on to say:—
"The Committee does not propose to express any views on the question as to whether or not a guarantee can be brought technically within the scope of the Act by winding up a company and formally reconstructing it so as to enable such a proposed new company, by purchasing the assets of an existing company, to carry out a capital undertaking."
That is the summing up of this whole Alesbury transaction, about which so much has been made. There is no criticism of the National Land Bank, and no criticism of the Minister for Finance. Any criticism there is is of me. I have met that to some degree here, and I am prepared to meet it further when the time comes. I direct attention to this point at the end of paragraph 15: "The Minister also for the greater security of the loan exercised his right to nominate a director on the board of the reconstructed company." I nominated Senator Douglas, as I said here, for the greater security of the loan, and it did come to my cars many months ago that he had been very seriously and very grossly maligned as a result of this transaction, and as a result of my action in nominating him on that board. The matter went so far that I thought it fit to address a letter to Senator Douglas which I shall read. It is dated 19th November, 1925:
"Dear Senator Douglas,
"I understand a statement has been spread abroad to the effect that you were financially interested and that you misused your public position in connection with the recent reconstruction of Messrs Alesbury Bros., Ltd., Edenderry, when a loan for that firm was guaranteed under the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act. I cannot understand how any such improper action can be attributed to you as I know you were not at any time financially interested in Messrs. Alesbury. It was my Department who asked you to look into the position of the firm and see if anything could be done to get the factory reopened and we would not have done so had you been financially or in any other way connected with the firm. It was not until after the plans had been completed that I asked you to represent the Government interest by becoming a Director, and I am aware of the fact that you have no shares in the company and that you will cease to be a director at the end of the period during which the Government guarantee is in force. You are at liberty to show this letter to anyone, and I very much regret that the work which you undertook in this matter and for which this Department and everyone dependent on the prosperity of the concern is very much indebted to you, should have given rise to any such false and malicious statements as you have mentioned to me."
Senator Douglas took up that position at my request, and his help has been a great benefit to the carrying on of that concern. On more than one occasion when these rumours and slanders got abroad Senator Douglas was about to leave the company, but he was approached by the people of the neighbourhood who begged him to remain on as he was the only hope the company had of remaining a going concern. The question of the Trade Loans Advisory Committee has been raised in these articles. I consider myself liable to some blame, but I think the circumstances a sufficient excuse. The Trade Loans Advisory Committee as originally constituted was composed of Mr. J.C. Dowdall, Mr. Lionel Smith-Gordon, and the Chairman, Mr. Telford. About May of last year Mr. Dowdall asked leave to retire as he found his other business interests were being neglected by reason of the work he had to put in on this Committee. I saw him at that time, and I prevailed on him to remain on as I found it very difficult to get men of integrity, business experience and good commercial conduct who would consent to give so much of their time as these three gentlemen had given up to that date in assisting the State by acting on this Advisory Committee dealing with applications made under the Act. I prevailed on Senator Dowdall to remain for some little time and for that time I find a note on my own file with regard to the matter, and I noted this with regard to the members of the Committee that "They have done invaluable and onerous work without much recognition, and it might be desirable now both to accord them that recognition and secure a continuance of their services."
I have read that minute for this reason, that it shows even as early as last May how much definitely we regarded ourselves as indebted to these three gentlemen who gave up so much of their time and energy in investigating the applications that came in under this Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act. Senator Dowdall remained on until December last year, when he finally retired. Just before he retired the matter had been raised to me that inasmuch as the Industrial Trust Company was under process of organisation, and was likely to be started very soon, that it had become necessary for me to consider the reconstitution of the Trade Loans Committee, inasmuch as Mr. Smith-Gordon and Mr. Telford were going to be associated with the Industrial Trust Development Company. It was put to me on several occasions both by Mr. Telford and Mr. Smith-Gordon, that they should be allowed to resign. It was conveyed to me personally and through my officials. It even went to the point that when I had a social engagement at Mr. Smith-Gordon's house he asked me to come ahead of the others so that we might discuss that particular position. His anxiety at that time was not so much for himself as for the position in which I might find myself if criticism in this matter were raised. I was very anxious about the situation. I felt the information that was in my departmental files would reveal the position as I saw it, and my whole fear was the public criticism Mr. Smith-Gordon might be subjected to if he agreed to the request I pressed on him that he should remain and act with Mr. Telford on this Advisory Committee. I did that for this reason, that the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act was due to expire in July of this year. At that period there had been no great number of new applications.
The applications that were under consideration had been very definitely seized hold of by Mr. Smith-Gordon and Mr. Telford. If I were to interrupt their period on the Committee at that point it meant that a certain number of good applications, from the point of view of the intentions of the Act— that is to say, the providing of employment—might be held up until I secured other committeemen, and got them fully seized of the facts. I pointed out to Mr. Telford and to Mr. Smith-Gordon that the Act would probably expire, that it would not be renewed, for that was generally the intention, inasmuch as what was aimed at in the Act would, we thought, be better done by the Industrial Trust Company, and inasmuch as there were no new applications coming in, and whatever applications had been in were considered by those two gentlemen, and they would have to be delayed until other gentlemen that might be appointed got acquainted with these cases. Inasmuch as the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act was not at that time expected to be continued, I asked these two gentlemen to remain on. Their anxiety most of the time was with regard to my position. They decided to remain on.
I would not like to have to declare what was the exact date at which the Committee was dissolved, but I may say since last December I had it in my power at any time from resignations offered to me and almost insisted on by Mr. Telford and Mr. Smith-Gordon to dissolve the Committee. I allowed it to remain on. Recently when the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act was about to expire I did change my point of view. There were certain realisations as to the work of the Industrial Trust Company and there were certain further realisations that applications were coming in under the Act. The number of applications acceded to and the number of sound applications that came in had, on the whole, been disappointing under that Act. But a number of applications just then came in, and after a consultation with the Minister for Finance he agreed that the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act should be renewed for a further year. Now a new Bill for Trade Loans (Guarantee) is down for discussion in the Dáil to-morrow, and I am at this moment without an Advisory Committee. And as long as papers of the type of "Irish Truth" are allowed to carry on a campaign of this kind it will be absolutely impossible for me to get men of the integrity and business capacity that I require to give their services, if they are going to be subject to the kind of slander that has been so common recently—that is to say, unless they are stopped by the decisive action of the Seanad in turning down this resolution here to-day.
I say with full knowledge and some experience of the inside of Government offices that it is the most surprising thing that has come under my notice how few men there are who are anxious and who are even willing to serve on this type of committee where the work undoubtedly is onerous, where the responsibility is heavy and where the only return is to be subjected to ill-informed or else the maliciously-minded types of remark that this journal has been giving vent to of late. I am at present without an Advisory Committee. And even worse—I hardly know if I can approach anybody. I do not know what position I am presenting to any man as being likely to find himself in at the end of twelve months if I ask him to become a member of this Advisory Committee. Are all his transactions to be adverted to in that scurrilous way that Senator Douglas's transactions have been referred to by this journal? Is there to be any security for honourable-minded and decent men who are prepared to do honourable work for the State; and how is that to be got except by the repudiation of the motion put forward here?
Senator Moore supports this motion. He seconded this motion, and in answer to Senator Douglas says: "How could I have seconded it if I did not advert to these criticisms?" The main object of Senator Moore is to second the motion—without any care as to whether it is sound or unsound. There is an ordinary way of seconding a motion which one is not certain is sound, and that is by formally doing so without entering into a series of arguments. But this shows that Senator Moore is one of the type of person whom it was intended to mislead by this sort of criticism, or else he does not understand the report of the Auditor-General. This paper is called "Irish Truth." I think they should insert under that, as a sub-title, the phrase that was used by another slanderer of this country, "the truth, half the truth and nothing like the truth."