The Minister, in reply to my question on the Committee Stage of this Bill, said that a similar case might arise with regard to old age pensions and to all other pensions. He also said that the land annuities were a debt due by the farmers to the stockholders. All these statements are incorrect. The old age pensions paid direct to the people by the Treasury here are quite different to the payments referred to in my question. We do not pay the R.I.C. pensions here. What is done is that the Minister for Finance sends direct to the British Government a sum equal to the R.I.C. pensions, but our Minister does not pay the pensions direct. I want to know why he does not pay the R.I.C. pensioners direct? Apparently, the Minister has contracted to pay to the British Government a sum equal to that which is paid to the R.I.C. in pensions. As the Minister does that, it seems to me that he accepts that as a liability, that he cannot deny that it is a liability of the Treasury here to the Treasury in Great Britain. Therefore I say that, if anything is a liability, that is one.
The Minister's statement in reference to old age pensions is not correct. With regard to the land annuities, the money which the Minister pays over is paid direct from the Treasury here to the Treasury in Great Britain. That money is not paid, and never was paid by the people here to the stockholders. The Minister knows perfectly well that it was paid into what was called the Land Account. The Minister has arranged, apparently, more or less on his own account, to pay a sum, in respect of the land annuities, direct to the Treasury of the British Government. If it was a case of the people who had bought land paying the money over to the stockholders it would be a different thing. The Minister knows quite well that the people here never paid that money to the stockholders. It was paid into what was called the Land Stock Fund, and in regard to that the Minister has undertaken to do an extraordinary thing—that is, to pay an amount away annually whether he collects it or not. He has to pay a definite lump sum over each year to the Treasury of the British Government whether he collects it or not. In the same way he is committed to pay a lump sum over to the British Government on account of R.I.C. pensions. Therefore, for my part I am unable to see how these payments differ from any part of the National Debt.
There are many matters which I might discuss on this Bill, but I do not intend to go into them now. I am referring to these matters because under this Bill the Minister is taking power to borrow. The Minister is now proposing to raise another loan, or rather a piece of an old loan. In order to do that, and to obtain favourable terms, he goes around issuing statements that the National Debt of the Free State is only a small sum. I think he has put the figure at thirteen million pounds. He deducts from that what he considers are assets. As far as I know, the Minister has never put the National Debt as high as twenty millions. I maintain that this statement of the Minister is perfectly incorrect, because I submit that you must take into account the liabilities of the State to a foreign Government. I have mentioned two of these liabilities. There are many others. There is a direct liability, not from the people but from the Treasury here, to pay over to the British Government in respect of land annuities a bulk sum whether these moneys are or are not collected. I assume, therefore, that is as much a liability as any other debt. I cannot see any difference between it and any other debt. Therefore, when the Minister makes out these reports in order to make the newspapers favourable to him and goes around acclaiming the wonderful benefits that have been derived, without going into debt, he was doing so under false pretences. If any business concern were to make the statement that its assets were so much, and left out all mention of its liabilities, as apparently is being done in this matter, it would very soon find itself landed in gaol. Goodness knows what is going to happen Ministers one of these days. I do not know, but something of the same sort might happen one of these days.
There is also the circulation of the statement that this State has the smallest national debt in Europe. We have that statement made in spite of the fact that we are paying five million pounds a year to the British Government for which we do not receive anything in return. If that sum is capitalised on the basis of relative taxable capacity as between this State and Great Britain, and at the rate stated by the Minister himself, it will be found that the national debt of this State comes to the sum of £858,000,000, whereas the national debt of Great Britain is only about £700,000,000. That statement is quite correct, and nobody can contradict it. Senators may laugh, but I defy anyone to contradict that statement.