It may have been the case a thousand years ago, but I doubt it. A great number of these services cut off were altogether uneconomic. The number of letters delivered was altogether disproportionate to the cost of delivering them. Even with the three days a week delivery it will be very far from being economic, but we realise that postal services will have to be maintained, not merely at a loss to the post office, but to the Exchequer, and the question is whether it is essential to civilisation that there should be six deliveries a week. You cannot set up a standard six-day delivery and say that is the irreducible minimum. You may as well say that two deliveries a day is the irreducible minimum. There are areas, say, in Dublin, where one delivery a day would not be sufficient or reasonable. In those areas where a three-day a week delivery is to be instituted, we think that is a fairly reasonable service, all things considered. While occasionally some individuals may suffer inconvenience, the great mass of the people in those areas will not be detrimentally affected. The ordinary farmer through the country very seldom gets an urgent communication—a communication that would not do as well, say, on a Tuesday as a Monday. I was brought up in the country, and I do not think I ever saw a letter coming to the house that it would not have suited just as well to have received the next day. There may be, occasionally, people who do business of other sorts than farming who may require more frequent deliveries, and the change will be some inconvenience to a very small number of such people.
I would be very glad if people could devise other means of saving the £40,000 or £45,000 involved. Senator Sir John Keane referred to a system they have in the United States and Canada. I am informed the system there is that at some cross-roads there are 200 or 300 letter boxes. There is a letter box for each family in the neighbourhood. When the postal vehicle drives up the postman goes around from one box to another and he puts the letters into them, and the various families come down, some from half a mile or a mile away, and each, having a key for the letter box belonging to them, can open that box and get their letters. There is no interference with the boxes. It would take a good time to accustom the people here to that. I do not think they would like it anything better than the arrangement proposed. I am afraid that with such a system here, for a considerable time the boxes would be subject to interference, and the arrangement could not be so easily worked. With regard to the men who are likely to suffer loss of employment, I think I have mentioned that in each village there will be a delivery. Senator O'Farrell made a reference to Glengarriff being affected by a reduction in the delivery of letters. There will be a delivery there, and I do not think the tourist traffic will be affected at all.
With regard to the men who will be disemployed, it may be that a considerable number of them have no other employment. There is supposed to be an investigation or an inquiry before a man is employed as a part-time deliverer to make sure he has other means of earning his livelihood. It may be that an examination of that kind is in some instances merely casual. It is quite probable in a number of cases that after appointment men may lose their other employment, and it may be that a considerable number have no other means of livelihood. There are, we believe, a considerable number who have other resources. In dealing with the reduction of these deliveries every consideration will be given to the men affected. In some cases it may be that the amount of pay to the men engaged will be reduced, and that the men employed will be retained. In cases where there are two men one may go and the other take the two areas on alternate days and receive the same money as at present. In dealing with the matter the Post Office will take all the care it can to insure there is a minimum of hardship. It is too much to ask us to accept the views of the men who are to be discharged. A considerable number of them hold other employment. It is suggested that the whole of these men are going to be put on the unemployed list, and something like permanently, but I do not think that is so.
If we were to accept the arguments made in this case we could not reduce the number employed in any branch of the State service, and we could not, as we have done, been able to reduce the numbers of the Army. We would be simply tied to the present expenditure in a great variety of directions. I think that while it is necessary to give all the consideration that can be given to the circumstances of the individuals, we cannot take the view that the State must not disemploy anybody who is in its employment. I do not think that the analogy suggested by Senator O'Farrell with reference to tariffs applies, and that the purpose of tariffs was to help people. Tariffs were imposed for the purpose of creating a new source of production. It was not a case of deciding to provide an amount of money out of the Exchequer so that certain people might continue to be uneconomically employed. The position in regard to tariffs was to impose some burden, or at any rate the possibility of some net burden, on the taxpayer in order that an industry might be established, might strike root, and might provide a permanent source of employment for those engaged in it, and who would be employed ultimately without any charge to the general taxpayer.
I think in this particular case it is a question of alternatives. Have we alternatives before the Post Office which do not involve any unemployment, and which would enable the money to be saved? If alternatives could be put forward whereby the daily deliveries could continue, and the money could be saved, we would be glad to receive them, and I am sure the Post Office would accept them. It comes down to a question of alternatives. When we were looking over our expenditure, and doing what we could to avoid putting a heavy additional impost on the taxpayer, we had to explore all the avenues that seemed to be open, and we could not just simply turn a blind eye to one of them. It may be that if we had not attempted to carry out any economy we might not have had so much complaint as we are likely to have, and we might have been able to get a majority to impose any additional taxation that might be required. I think it is only looking at one side of the case to assume we may have taken the better course in doing that. I think it is wrong to assume that the imposition of taxation for some uneconomic object does not itself affect the country as a whole, because if increased taxation caused no unemployment, then the line we really ought to take is lavish expenditure. No Government can hope that economies will be popular, and no Government can hope to receive other than criticism when any reduction in expenditure is effected, nor can we expect to receive much other than criticism when any reduction is effected. But I think it is entitled when a case is made against a particular reduction to ask those who criticise to study carefully whether there are other alternative ways of getting the money, and not merely suggest that that particular saving should be cut out.
With regard to the point raised by Senator Moore about the C.I.D., I would deny altogether that there is indiscipline in the C.I.D. I do not say that cases of indiscipline might not have occurred. In any police force can you avoid having occasional cases of indiscipline; in any police force can you avoid some occasional wrong-doing by members of that force? But I do say this, that the Government, the Department of Justice, and the heads of the police, have consistently and promptly punished any cases of indiscipline that have been brought to their notice, that no indiscipline has been allowed to continue, and that if, on all the facts of the case, it is shown that any member of the police force did wrong, and that he did that wrong either wilfully or through culpable negligence, he will be punished for it. In punishing men for acts, all the circumstances, of course, will be taken into account, and the errors which were made. If they seem to have been acts that were not quite correct, seem to have been made entirely in good faith, without any animus against any individual, they would naturally be looked upon in a different way from acts that were done through personal animus, or were done with the deliberate knowledge that they were wrong. In certain other cases, extreme provocation would serve as some measure of excuse, and all things would have to be taken into account, but no growth of indiscipline and no practice of indiscipline will be, or has been, permitted. I know nothing about the individual case the Senator referred to. I saw something in the newspaper about the trial. That is really all I saw. I do not know it at all.
With regard to frequent arrests in Dublin lately, the police are acting there under Government instructions, with a view to rooting out the gang of people who have been firing at jurors and witnesses, and generally attempting to hold up the administration of law, and so far as that is concerned, the Government is determined to deal with that with all the vigour that is possible.
Senator Connolly referred to the Civic Guard. I do not say that no reduction in the Civic Guard would be possible. As a matter of fact, some time ago the Government decided to stop recruiting for the Civic Guard, and so long as that decision holds it means that a reduction in the number of the Guards will take place, because the ordinary wastage is somewhere between 150 and 200 yearly. Members of the force fall ill and have to retire for reasons of health; members join other police forces, where they are better paid; members occasionally want to go to America, and occasionally members have to be required to leave, so that there is an annual wastage of between 100 and 200 men, and as long as no recruiting takes place a process of reduction in numbers will be going on. But I do not believe a considerable reduction, which was the term used by Senator Connolly, can be effected. As was indicated by other Senators who spoke, and I think recognised in Senator Connolly's own remarks, the police here have duties other than the duties that police in certain other countries have. For instance, they have the enforcement of the School Attendance Act, which gives a great deal of labour to a member of the force in practically every barracks. They are dealing with the preservation of rivers, the collection of agricultural statistics, and other matters, and even if you take a particular area and are able to say that the police in that area are not fully occupied, it does not follow that you could withdraw them from the area. Sometimes the presence of the police is the only thing that prevents a considerable measure of crime. There have been cases where various sorts of both petty and serious crime has been rife, and by putting a number of Guards in the area, normal conditions have been restored; but, in most of these cases, if you were to withdraw the Guards, you would have a recurrence of the evil which existed before they went there.
As I indicated in the Dáil a week ago, I would like in some parts of the country to have a trial made of the village constable system, which they have in England, and if it worked, and if it could be extended, then the possibility of a considerable reduction would certainly be opened up. But there are areas of the country where, I think, you simply could not try it, where, as I said, you have the poteen tradition, and various bad traditions, traditions of agrarian crime, shall I say, that tend to bring the gun or some other lethal weapon into quarrels about fences, lands, and so on. You have a great number of areas where, for one reason or another, it would be, at present, madness to work with a single policeman, who, in the carrying out of his duties, would rely on the support of civilians around him, and it is because there are only comparatively small areas where you could at present make any alteration in the present system that I think it must be taken that, while reduction might be effected gradually, no considerable reduction can take place. The Government has tried to meet the difficulty that arose by imposing duties on the police that they had not before. For instance, normally the enforcement of the School Attendance Act would have been done by special school attendance officers, who would have been paid by the county councils. The duty of enforcing that Act was given to the police, because it was recognised that where you have to maintain a barrack system with a group of four or five men, there must be times when the men have not really enough to do, or have not as much to do as they ought to have; but because we do not believe we can alter to another system, or take them away, the object was to throw additional duties on the police. In certain other respects additional duties have been thrown upon them, and it will, possibly, prove practicable to give them other duties. But, while economies might be effected in these two ways, by perhaps some small reduction, and by giving extra duties to the police, I think what are called considerable economies are not possible, and to answer the question with which Senator Connolly began, I think the country is really getting value for the money expended. It might be, if there was less expenditure, that there would be a great deal more police work to do, but that would not prove that better value was then being got for the money being expended. To some extent it might truthfully be said that the less the police have got to do, the better value is being got for the money that is being expended on them.
Senator Connolly asked whether the agricultural statistics were being properly collected. I think they are. A Guard who is collecting statistics goes into the house of a farmer, asks questions and takes his answers. I do not know whether he ever checks them, or questions them, unless they seem to be in some way very ridiculous, but we must take it that the ordinary person when questioned about the number of acres that he has under potatoes, the number of acres he has under oats, and the number of cows he has, will give correct answers. He has no reason for not giving correct answers, but if there are occasional errors they, perhaps, balance one another, and, on the whole, I think the primary statistics collected by the police give a thoroughly solid basis on which to work. I do not think it would be possible to do anything more. It would make it inordinately expensive to collect statistics if the police had to check the statements of the people from whom they make the inquiries. When a census is being prepared, you have to take the statement of the householder. You cannot have inquiries into his veracity, and I think nothing different can be done with regard to agricultural statistics.
A Senator asked about the delay in the vesting of lands bought under the 1923 Act, and inquired if there were enough inspectors in the employment of the Land Commission. There are certainly enough inspectors. There have been too many. As a matter of fact, concurrently with the Post Office reductions, a number of inspectors are being discharged. The difficulties, I am informed, are not on the inspectors' side at all—I cannot deal very fully with this— but on the legal side. I understand that vesting has been going on for the last year or so very much more rapidly than before. Such delay as has occurred has nothing to do with the work of the inspectors.