Seanad Éireann debate -
Monday, 18 Jul 1932

Vol. 15 No. 23

Emergency Imposition of Duties Bill, 1932 (Certified Money Bill)—Second Stage.

Question proposed —"That the Emergency Imposition of Duties Bill, 1932 be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Connolly)

This Bill has been circulated and no doubt all Senators have gone through the various sections of it. I doubt if there is any necessity whatever to argue this Bill here to-day, in view of circumstances that we are all aware of, and of what has been transpiring during the last week. We all know the history of the various conversations, communications, etc., that have gone on with the British Cabinet, and we know that the question of the land annuities is before both people and is a knit issue at the moment. Certain discussions took place with regard to the possibility of arbitration, and certain discussions took place with regard to the possibility of negotiation, and, at the moment, there is no line of contact and no line of communication being pursued. Last week the British Cabinet decided to impose a special tariff on various commodities exported from this country to Great Britain, and, in view of the position that has been created the Executive Council have decided that it is necessary during the Long Recess that adequate powers be vested in them, to deal in such manner as to them may seem wise, with regard to what may be frankly called a reprisals attitude, in regard to the imposition of a tariff on such goods as may be coming here from British or elsewhere. The clauses of the Bill give a considerable amount of power to the Executive to act, and to impose such tariffs as they may think it desirable to impose, in view of the economic position that will inevitably be created by opposition on the part of the British. It is for this reason that emergency legislation is introduced. The Bill has gone through the Dáil. It is a Money Bill, and is now before the Seanad for consideration.

Recommendations may be made upon it, but I might point out that in this issue it is, in my opinion, up to all elements to stand behind the Government in strengthening its hands to take what action it may deem desirable to impose, in view of the economic this country. I do not know what attitude the Seanad may take upon it, but I submit that in any country in the world in a crisis of this nature, there would be, on the part of the Legislature, on the part of the people, and on the part of the Press, a closing of the ranks in defence of one's own country as against any aggression or any aggressive measures that may be contemplated by a particular country, and I submit that Senators' duty in this matter is no less than might be expected in any other country. We ask for these powers and we intend to use them. We intend to use them with care, with deliberation, and with the belief that in the crisis that has been forced by the imposition of this tariff, the Executive Council ought to be strengthened to deal with the problem from the standpoint of purely Irish national and economic interests. Care will be exercised to make sure that no undue hardship will be imposed upon the people. Various problems will arise from day to day, demanding immediate attention, and all of these problems will be dealt with in the light of circumstances—all the circumstances being considered, the fundamental being the well-being of our own people and their economic security. It is our duty, in so far as it lies in our hands, to ensure that adequate protection is provided for our people in their economic life. We propose to take these powers in this Bill and to exercise them judiciously and carefully, the fundamental idea being that the interests of our people are to be protected. I do not propose to labour the matter any further at this stage. After the debate I will be in a position to reply to any argument or to meet any statement or any criticism that may be levelled at the Bill as such, but we intend to get these powers and to exercise them in the present crisis. That is all I propose to say now.

Mr. Milroy

I want first of all to draw attention to the absence in this important crisis in the affairs of this State of both the Minister who should be responsible for the Bill—the Minister for Finance—and the President of the Executive Council.

Mr. Connolly

As a matter of explanation, may I say that the President of the Executive Council intends to be here for this debate? He intended to be here at 3 o'clock. He is, as one can imagine, extremely busy at the moment, but I hope he will be here within the next five or ten minutes. As regards the Minister for Finance not being here, it was felt that, in view of the fact that the President of the Executive Council would be here, there was no necessity for the Minister for Finance attending.

Mr. Milroy

The presence of either of these gentlemen, the President and the Minister for Finance, I hope, will not prevent the Seanad from making up its mind upon this matter. I do think that the presence of the President of the Executive Council is no reason why the Minister responsible for this Finance Bill should be absent. I do think, sir, that when this Bill was circulated to the members of the Oireachtas there ought to have been at the same time a medical certificate accompanying it as to the mental state of the members of the Executive Council. Because reading this Bill and looking at its provisions, one wonders—any intelligent person will wonder—if it is the emanation of criminal lunatics or whether it is from those who are so eaten up with neurotic egomania and bestridden by futile atrophying formulas that they cannot look at this thing normally. We have to-day in this Bill another phase of the policy of the Government being presented to this House.

Gradually the whole thing is coming out in the light of day and we are beginning to see what it is that the present Government aims at. It bears the mask of patriotism, but it is only the mask. Behind it anyone who can read between the lines of the speeches made by representative spokesmen of the Government should realise that the general policy of this Government is a hideous nation-destroying thing which is going to plunge this country into misery, chaos and destitution. When the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs appeals to this House that we should stand behind the Government in this policy and close up our ranks, I want to ask him is he inviting the country to unite in a determination to commit economic and national suicide? One would imagine from the speech of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that the Government deserved a vote of thanks for having brought this State into the condition in which it finds itself to-day.

It is difficult, sir, to speak with any restraint when you contemplate that after a few short months the present Government has brought this country into the direst peril which it has faced for generations. And the President of the Executive Council and his Ministerial colleagues are endeavouring to manoeuvre so that those who criticise their policy will be branded and regarded as playing the English game and acting in the interests of England.

Mr. MacEllin

Hear, hear!

Mr. Milroy

I say if there is any moral courage in this Seanad and if there is any real intelligence in this State that false position will not be created. The reverse of that is true. If to-day there is hostility growing, violent hostility, between British and Irish interests, if to-day feelings of mistrust, suspicion and enmity against this country are being re-awakened in Great Britain, it is not we who criticise the Government, but the Government themselves, who are responsible for that. Those who have made that situation must accept the full responsibility and those who are responsible, the real culprits, are those who occupy the Government Benches in this House to-day. In 1921 an honourable peace was made between the people of this country and Britain. An atmosphere of good-will and friendship was created——

Mr. Ryan

Under duress.

Mr. Milroy

—and a situation was produced in which any difficulties of the aftermath of the war on the settlement could be settled by peaceful accommodation and goodwill. On the 2nd of June in this House the President of the Executive Council made this admission. He was referring to the year 1921 and the conditions that ensued since then, and I interjected: "As a result of the Treaty," and the President went on:

I am quite willing to give to Senator Milroy or anybody else any credit that can be got for the policy they aimed at, and I am prepared to confess that there have been advances made that I did not believe would be made at the time. I am quite willing to confess it and it is because I do not want to see these advances—which I think have been made beyond what would be reasonably expected at the time—lost, that I am anxious that no retrograde steps should be taken at the moment.

Sir, that statement is an admission from the President of the Executive Council that in 1921 he was a bad adviser and his counsel was defective. If his advice had been taken at that time that settlement would never have been made; the Free State would never have been set up, and these advances which he admits have been won would never have been secured. If, in 1921, he had his way there would have been no settlement. We would have gone back to war or chaos or worse. These achievements which he admits have been gained would not have been secured and the hopes of this country would have been smashed for generations. If he was a bad counsellor, on his own admission, in 1921, he is a bad counsellor and a defective adviser to-day, in 1932. Though he has made that admission, we know very well that the policy of the President of the Executive Council and of his Government, if we can believe the evidence of our own senses, of our hearing and of our eyesight, is to get back to 1921, to get back to the conditions of another round with England. That is the mainspring of their policy and it is working out in this way, that the people of the Free State are to-day having another round, but it is not a round with England—it is a round with the President of the Executive Council. During the few brief months that the members of the Executive Council have been in office, all that atmosphere of peace and goodwill——

Mr. Dowdall

And servility.

Mr. Milroy

Servility? I would like to know on what side the servility rests. It is nearly time that some members of the Party, to which the Senator who interrupted belongs, learned something about civility and good manners. During these two brief months, all that was won under the Treaty and the structure of the State that has been built up, with painful effort and under great difficulties, are being brought into jeopardy. The President and his Ministers are adopting a policy which is jeopardising everything that is vital to this State and which is fatal to national progress of any kind. Not for many generations has there been brought into existence a set of circumstances which is more fraught with menace to the economic stability, to the economic existence of the State than that set of circumstances which these gentlemen, the members of the Government, seem to have deliberately gone out of their way to create. There used to be, after the Great War, a slogan in England amongst the English politicians that they were going to make England a land fit for heroes to live in. If the President of the Executive Council has his way, and if his policy succeeds, I think the Free State will be a land fit only for the ghosts of heroes to disport themselves in. I see where Deputy Norton, that errand boy without portfolio, has been informing all whom it may concern that we will have to tighten our belts. Looking at the rather corpulent rotundity of the Deputy in question, I have no doubt that a little slimming would do him no harm, except that, I hope, his slimming will be done vicariously.

Mr. Farren

He will use "nutty favourites."

Mr. Milroy

I want to know how I am going to reconcile that suggestion of Deputy Norton with the statement of the Minister for Finance, that, if the policy of the present Government takes effect, there will be no necessity to tighten our belts, but rather a necessity to loosen them, because we will have more to eat than we ever had before. If that is good policy, if it is sound logic, it was quite open to the present Executive to produce that. If the stoppage of the export trade is going to produce that happy result, why was it not done immediately they came into office, and, if it is going to produce that happy result, why are they looking for alternative markets in order to supply the deficiencies that are going to ensue as a result of the stoppage of export trade to the British market? We have all this situation of danger and difficulty and confusion produced, not because there was any necessity for it, but wantonly and without provocation or reason, and it has all been done with a pretence of desire for the industrial and economic welfare of this country. Any of us who know anything of the history of the economic life of this country can realise how the attempts to destroy the industry and commerce of Ireland by British legislation have been remembered with execration and spoken of with denunciation.

Colonel Moore

Do you say that now?

Mr. Milroy

The same thing is happening now, but those who are responsible for it are the members of the Executive Council of this State. These things are being done now and we are expected to regard those who are responsible for them as super-patriots, but some day there will have to be a reckoning for all this. What is the meaning, one wants to know, of all these outlandish antics that are being indulged in and that are bringing the economic fabric of this State into discredit? What is it all for? What object is to be gained by this?

We had the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs expounding, or professing to explain, this Bill. He has not uttered a word of explanation of the meaning of the Bill. Whether it was disinclination to encroach on the preserves of a Ministerial colleague, whether it was that he had not read the Bill himself, or whether it was that he was not competent to explain it, I do not know. Certainly, this House is entitled to have some explanation of this Bill. When the President of the Executive Council gets up to speak I hope he will not ride the whirlwind of a million words that lead nowhere but to further confusion, but that he will come down to brass tacks and tell us what is the meaning of the Bill and the meaning of the policy behind it. I do not know whether one can expect the President of the Executive Council to come down from the clouds or not. There is an old tale in Indian mythology of a god who was thrown by some superior deity so high into the heavens that, though he has been descending ever since, he has not yet reached the ground. I think the case with the President of the Executive Council is this: that he was thrown so high up in the political heavens in pre-Treaty days that, though he has ever since been descending, he has not yet come to the ground. I hope when he does come back to the earth the impact will not produce too severe a jar upon his anatomy, but I do hope that it will wake him up to what are the realities of life in this State.

We have heard talk, from spokesmen of the Ministry, of aggression by another country. A dispute has arisen unquestionably—a dispute upon a matter which is of considerable importance to the people of the country. Why has this dispute arisen? So far as I can find an explanation, it is this: that when the Fianna Fáil Party came into office their grievance was that they had no grievance and they had to invent one. In search for an imaginary grievance, they allowed themselves to be dominated by the crazy obsession of a fractious old gentleman who has ever since hung around their necks like Sinbad the Sailor's Old Man of the Sea. That fractious old gentleman in this present issue is the real leader of the Executive Council of the Fianna Fáil Party. He is leading them to their destruction. That, I am not particularly worried about. I am concerned, however, that he shall not lead this State to destruction. As to the matter which all the pother is about, I wonder would they take this comment as coming from a biased source? It is from The Framework of Home Rule by Erskine Childers and is rather pertinent and illuminating to the present discussion:

The Treasury, in their returns estimating the revenue and expenditure of various parts of the United Kingdom, debit the whole of this sum against Ireland and, moral responsibility apart, I regard it as necessary that, under Home Rule, Ireland should assume both the cost and the management of Purchase.

The State, then, or, if we choose so to put it, the United Kingdom taxpayers, are saved from loss, and make a good investment. There has never been the faintest symptom of a strike against annuities, and the only cause which could conceivably ever suggest such a strike would be the irritation provoked by a persistent refusal to grant Home Rule. Even that possibility I regard as out of the question, because there is a sanctity attaching to annuities which it would be hard to impair. Still, to speak broadly, it is true that Home Rule will improve a security already good, and that Home Rule, with financial independence will make it absolutely impregnable.

The Irish Government, as a whole, instead of the individual annuitants, would of course be responsible to the Imperial Government, would collect the annuities itself and bear any contingent loss by their nonpayment. To repudiate a public obligation of that sort would be as ruinous to Ireland as the repudiation of a public debt is to any State in the world.

Further than to quote that authority, I am not going to indulge in a discussion of the merits of this controversy. I am, however, going to say this: that it seems to me that behind all the comings and goings and pronouncements of the President there is a determination that, at any cost, there will be no settlement and no decision on the merits of this question; that he, having seen that he cannot secure the backing of the people of this State on the merits of his policy, is determined to plunge this country into a condition of chaos, confusion and ruin, so that in the long run they will say, "Well, let him have his way; we will no longer stand between him and his isolated republic."

Are we who hold those views, who believe that the present Executive are embarking upon a policy that is imperilling everything that we have in this State, that they are tearing down everything that has been built up within the last ten or eleven years; who believe that an honourable peace was made in 1921, and who believe that that peace should be maintained, to be branded as advocating English interests because we stand up in either House of the Oireachtas and tell the Ministry that they are following a wrong line of policy, that they are doing something that is not in Ireland's interest or accruing to Ireland's credit? I say that we stand here more jealous of Ireland's honour and Ireland's interests than the Ministers themselves. Let them indulge in their taunts. History will decide whether those who tried to smash this State in its infancy, whether those who tried to put every obstacle in the way of those who were safeguarding and building the State, and who, when they secured power, tried to overturn the State, are better patriots than the people who kept their word and tried to reconstruct this nation.

During the Treaty discussions, I remember a memorable sentence spoken by the late Arthur Griffith. He said:—"Is Ireland never to have a chance? Must it always be the historic past or the prophetic future? Is there never to be a living Irish nation?" That seems to be the decision which the present Ministry have arrived at. It is not merely on this Bill alone. As I said in the beginning, their whole State policy, their governmental policy in all its various facets is now being revealed. It is a policy that means the disruption of the State and the dishonour of the nation. It means that the only conception of an Irish nation which the President of the Executive Council has is some unreal abstraction, something that only a magician can conjure up, which has no relation to the living realities of the ordinary people of the country.

This Bill, which takes power, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs says, to invest the Executive during the Recess with extraordinary powers —I think that is the adjective used— this Bill which takes extraordinary powers, which is unprecedented probably in its provisions, is being put before us with not a single word of explanation, and there is a motion down to-day that it is to be passed through all its stages. Have we come to the condition when the idea of legislation, of Government by legislation, is being reduced to a farce? Ministers, when they get up to reply, need make no point about emergency legislation having been introduced and passed under similar conditions by their predecessors. There is no precedent for this kind of a Bill being expected to follow the course that the Minister evidently anticipates in the motion here to-day. This is a Bill which practically supersedes the Oireachtas in its essential functions— at least for eight months. It gives the Minister power practically not merely to put upon imports certain duties, to recoup themselves in their reprisals interchange, but gives them extraordinary and unique powers to tax the citizens within the State. And not a single word of explanation escapes the lips of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.

This House, I hope, is not going to give the Minister that free hand which he seems to anticipate. I would recall to the House that, on the eve of the last Recess, the President of the Executive Council was here and made a certain statement. Prior to coming to the House he had already taken action, or had sanctioned certain action being taken, but not a word of that was disclosed while he was before this House. It was when the House was adjourned that we learned in the evening Press that the first shot in this other round with England had been fired. The President has referred to this House elsewhere, and he seems to approach it as if he were approaching or coming into a hostile assembly. He seems to think that it is presumption and impertinence on our part to discuss this legislation. So long as we exist as a body, I hope we will take our duties as legislators seriously and in a responsible way, and I hope that we shall discharge our duties fearlessly with regard to what are the real interests of Ireland. I hope we shall not be swayed by the fear that irresponsible Ministers may brand us as agents of England or as spokesmen of England's policy. Again I assert that in our action towards this Bill, in our action towards the Ministry in this crisis, we are acting not in English interests but in Irish interests. I assert that we would be faithless to Irish interests if we did what the Minister has suggested—to rally round the Government in this crisis. The Government are the culprits in this matter. They are in the dock and they will have to prove their case. They will have to prove their defence before they get the sanction for this Bill in the way in which they ask it here to-day. I indict them as having played fast and loose with Ireland's interests. When the Oath Bill came before this House, I used a phrase which to some may have been regarded as rhetorical at the time. I said that it was a Bill to scuttle the State. Anyone who had seen the progress of Ministerial policy since then will know that it was a statement of literal fact, and that this Bill is only a part of the game that is being played.

One more word. One more quotation from a speech made by the President on 2nd June. He said: "I asked for a limited mandate in the General Election on behalf of our Party in order to make it possible for every section to express its will by the removal of this Oath. That was the first step. That is all we propose to do during the lifetime of the present Government, and I suggest that that is all that anybody has a right to demand from us." That was the first step. Even the President then apparently was not quite sure that the second step would be taken before this session adjourned. Apparently this is the second step, but, according to his own words, a step which nobody has a right to demand from the Government. Again, I repeat, this is only part of a policy. The crisis that has arisen between the two countries is a crisis that has been provoked by the reckless and irresponsible handling of matters by the present Executive. The dangers and difficulties that face this country they must accept full responsibility for, having brought them about themselves. We stand here not for the purpose of trying to extricate Ministers from their self-created difficulty, but to safeguard and defend the interests of this nation. For that purpose we are here as members of Seanad Eireann and from that point of view we shall make up our minds as to our attitude in this Bill, presented as it has been to us without one word of explanation from the Minister who took the responsibility of introducing it here.

Mr. Brown

I should like to intervene very briefly at this stage of the debate. I admit that I was disappointed at the manner in which the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs introduced the Bill. It is the most important and drastic measure that has ever come before this House. The speech of the Minister in moving the Second Reading of the Bill was to my mind wholly inadequate. He presented the Bill to the House as a Bill which in this economic crisis with England gives the Executive Council power to tax imports from England, to put tariffs on imports from England. Now that is the portion of this Bill that is far the least important portion and it is far the least dangerous. This Bill gives to the Executive Council in this country powers which were never given before in the history of Parliaments and it does it in such a way that they might continue not merely for the eight months that are mentioned in one of the sub-sections to Section 2 of the Bill but in such a way that they can be carried on for months, if not for years, if Parliament did not take the opportunity to deprive Ministers of these powers. The question for us to-day is not to go back on past history. It is simply to make up our minds what way we can properly deal with this Bill. To my mind there should be no question here of obstruction or delay. We are assured by the Ministry that this Bill is necessary in the crisis which I admit they have created but they tell us it is necessary and that if we deprive them of the weapon that this Bill will give them in this economic crisis they would not have fair play. I therefore think, though I say it with great reluctance, that we ought to give a Second Reading to this Bill at once. But it is a Bill which requires the most careful consideration before it leaves this House.

The dangers of this Bill are so many and so obvious that we cannot merely let it go through without comment, consideration, and, I submit, recommendation. Owing to the peculiar mode that was adopted in the other House, the peculiar mode of closure, this Bill received no consideration whatever in the Committee Stage. There was no Committee Stage and in all the history of the two Houses there never was a closure such as the closure which was adopted in the other House in the case of this Bill. On every other occasion on which the closure was adopted in the Dáil, a Time Table was made out and a certain number of hours or a certain number of days and hours were given to the Committee Stage of the Bill so that there would be an opportunity, notwithstanding the closure, of full consideration and necessary amendment, if amendment were necessary. On the one or two occasions when we had a closure motion on our Paper in this House, it did contain a Time Table which gave to every stage of the Bill adequate time for consideration. That brings me to the course we should pursue with reference to this Bill, assuming the House gives it a Second Reading. To my mind it is necessary that we should have a separate and adequate Committee Stage for this Bill. It received none in the Dáil and any real examination of the Bill must be given here. It takes away entirely from Parliament and puts in the power of the Executive Council entirely the whole economic government of this country and it does it at the beginning of the Parliamentary Recess. For three months, until the 19th October, the Dáil will not meet in the ordinary way again. Having regard to the provisions of this Bill and to the extreme danger to this country of its— I do not like to use adjectives—of its being administered in certain ways, I submit it is necessary, that there should be given power to the Dáil to call itself together in circumstances which may seem necessary for that purpose and there ought in this Bill to be a power for a majority of the Dáil by written requisition to the Speaker of the Dáil, if the House is adjourned for a period of say more than a week or fortnight, to call the Dáil together if they think it is necessary that they should do so for the purpose of considering the administration of this Bill. That is only one of the recommendations which I think this House ought to make. I intend myself to put down a recommendation of that kind. That is not a thing that we can do in a hurry. There are a number of other recommendations which this House will be asked to make, some of which in my opinion it should make. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that we should have time to reconsider these recommendations. I said before that there should not be any idea of obstruction or delay in this matter. All I am suggesting to the House is that we should at least take a couple of days, say until Wednesday next, for the purpose of doing what I have suggested and if the Executive Council still think it is necessary, without persisting in the Motion which is down in the name of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, I think this House ought to go so far as to give all the stages of the Bill on Wednesday. I think we ought to get time for the due consideration of amendments which could not be made in the Dáil and must be made here as recommendations.

Mr. MacEllin

There are two points made by the last speaker which struck me very forcibly. Senator Brown and Senator Milroy both agreed that President de Valera was the cause of all the difficulty which we are supposed to be in at present. I should like to point out that in its leading article to-day the Manchester Guardian gave the lie to that statement. Yet Senator Milroy and Senator Brown, who are two responsible members of this House, are in direct agreement with the diehard British members.

To-day's Manchester Guardian says:—

Friday's conference between Mr. de Valera and the British Government broke down, if we may judge by the statement issued from 10 Downing Street, without good cause. This statement, badly written and vague, describes the compromise suggested by Mr. Norton, the Irish Labour leader. It was that a body of four, two from Britain and two from Ireland, should present, after inquiry into the facts, a report or reports on which the Governments could then negotiate. The Downing Street statement complains that this procedure would have produced long discussions.

Obviously, they were not prepared to accept any proposal put forward. They wanted members of their own Common wealth to inquire and arbitrate. "Give England and England's point of view every consideration; we must bend the knee." We have been bending the knee for the last ten years and it is nearly time we stopped it. The life-blood of the people has been sucked white, paying a tribute to England amounting to about a quarter of our taxation. How could any country continue to do that and continue to exist? Senator Brown pointed out the unreasonable powers in this Bill. A Bill of a similar kind was introduced in the British Parliament in relation to this country. That Bill gave most extraordinary powers in connection with the attack on the Irish Free State. It almost got unanimous support in both Houses and there was not the whinge there that we had here from the last two speakers. It all comes to the question, what is the mentality—Irish or British? What is the real economic position to-day and where is it going to lead us? I admit frankly that we have been dependent on the British markets. But Britain's trade since her first set-back in 1921 has been steadily declining. Year after year, there has been a steady reduction in her exports. Year after year, as the natural consequence of being dependent on the British market, the price of agricultural produce went down here. The result is that we find ourselves getting uneconomic prices for the produce we are selling to that country. In that market there is more intensified competition and a more restricted market, so that the prices for the last couple of years have been uneconomic. The cause of that simply and solely is that they cannot afford to give better prices and that England is going steadily down. If we have no other economic policy than the policy practised by the late Government for the last ten years, with England's trade going steadily down and with no sign of any check on the decline, where is this country going to land itself? That is the position that faces this island. The sooner we set about examining that position and the sooner we rectify it and establish our economic independence the better for all concerned. That is what the fight is to-day between the Irish Executive and the British Government. It is a question of trying to eke out our existence in our own way, safeguarding the interests of our people and providing them with food and clothing.

The Irish Independent in its leading article last Thursday did me the honour of quoting a phrase I used in an interview which I gave to the Irish Press. I said, in that interview, that this might be “a blessing in disguise.” I think I have shown you where the present conditions, with Britain's trade steadily declining, are going to lead us. The writer of that article carefully misquoted me when he stated that I called this “a blessing in disguise.” He did not quote the whole phrase I used. I look on this matter still as a blessing in disguise, for the simple reason that I come from a part of the country where thousands and thousands of boys and girls have every year of their lives to trek off to the potato fields of England and Scotland to earn a livelihood and to keep their home fires burning. Why? The answer is obvious. Because we are not manufacturing our own requirements and because there is no work for them here. There are no factories here to provide them with their own boots and their own clothing. They have to go off to England and in that way try and provide themselves with the boots and clothes that they require. The 20 per cent. tariff put on by England last week is a clear demonstration that our whole policy here is lopsided. The sooner that is rectified the better. The trek of these unfortunate people off to England and Scotland to earn their livelihood must cease. I believe that this will urge on and quicken the realisation of their hopes and ambitions —to work in their own country. That is why I call this business “a blessing in disguise.” There is one thing I am satisfied about. If the Irish people make up their minds to put their own house in order, if they make up their minds to make the little sacrifices that they are now being asked to make, and not take the advice given in the leading article of the Irish Independent, which I criticised, all will be well. The same paper told us the other day that Britain was in a position to determine the prices and make the farmer here bear the burden, so that we might, accordingly, expect a reduction of 20 per cent. in the low prices already prevailing. I contradict that statement emphatically. I say— I know as much about agricultural conditions as any writer of leading articles in the Irish Independent—that we will not pay that 20 per cent. tax on our exports of agricultural produce. That much is admitted in to-day's Manchester Guardian. It is not even going so far as the Irish Independent.“It is imposed by us even though it may injure the British consumer.” So they do admit it may injure the British consumer. They admit they are going to pay their share of the tax they are imposing themselves. Time will prove whether or not, in the very near future, they are going to pay, and to pay at least 50 per cent. of it. We will be here to discuss these matters in the future, and we will then see who is right or wrong. I am quite satisfied about it. This is a matter where the Irish people should stand together, in their own interests, and to save themselves from the bailiffs who are going down the country squeezing out of the people of the country what they are not able to pay.

Mr. Wilson

They pay nothing.

Mr. MacEllin

I quite admit that, and there is no reason why they should pay. If the five millions of money that we pay to the British Treasury every year were retained here it would be a different story. Because it is paid to the British Treasury is the reason why the bailiffs are going round the country and why the shopkeepers are bankrupt in every town. The farmers are bankrupt and they can get no relief. That is the reason the bailiffs are up and down the country driving people from their homes, because the amount that we are asked to pay to England is impossible, for a country with a population of only three million. I come from a very poor part of the country. I am satisfied that the migratory labourers, of whom I spoke a while ago, were the backbone of the fight for freedom and that they did their duty much better than people who are in more sheltered positions and who, now, refuse to examine matters from these people's standpoint. It is for us, now, to stand together and, if we do so, I am quite satisfied we shall achieve success in the future.

Mr. Douglas

There are three main points of view from which this Bill is to be considered. It is to be considered from the point of view of the powers which the Bill itself gives to the Government, in its provisions; it is to be considered from the point of view of the cause which has led the Government to ask for this Bill, and it has to be considered from the point of view of the duty of this House, having regard to the fact that it is a Money Bill, and that we have only very limited powers in regard to it in any case. Take the last point first. I agree in the main with the suggestions made by Senator Brown in that I do not believe it would be wise or right to attempt anything in the nature of obstruction, nor do I believe it would be right for this House to take this Bill without any consideration whatever.

I am not at all certain that consideration given carefully, reasonably, without any attempt at Party issue, will not lead the Executive Council to see that improvement ought, in the public interest, to be made in the Bill itself. I think it was Senator Brown who said that this Bill gave the most drastic powers ever asked for to the Executive, in many matters. I have not enough experience to know how far this is the whole truth, but I have very little doubt that this Bill, plus the Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act, which is still law, undoubtedly will give to this Executive absolutely autocratic powers over every person, in this country, and over all property in this country.

After a careful examination of the Bill it seems to me that the Bill gives exceedingly little power to damage England, and an appalling amount of power to damage the people of this country. I am not suggesting that this Executive means to use it in that way. I am not even suggesting that they will use it in that way, but I say, before giving these powers to any body of men, we ought to consider, very carefully the reasons and the circumstances in which these powers are given and we ought, also, to consider whether any possible safeguard could be made.

I entirely agree with Senator Brown's suggestion that provision should be made by which a majority of the Dáil could call that body together. I am not suggesting that the Cumann na nGaedheal Party should be entitled to call the Dáil together, but I do say that circumstances may arise, in the working of this Bill, in which a majority may find it necessary to call the Dáil together, and to discuss what it is leading to, and I think any democratic Government, or any Government that pretends to be democratic, should welcome such a provision. Every party, and almost every group in this country, claims to be democratic. I have personally come to the conclusion that it is not true of any group, and that all it means is that we are democratic whenever the Government in power is one that we do not like. When we have our own Party, in which we believe, in power, we are willing to give them any powers whatever. I am making the Fianna Fáil Party a present of the fact that that applies to all of us. The Labour Party are in the same position, only they are prepared to give power to the Party with which they are in association even before their own people. I do not think an issue of this kind strikes the democratic masses very much. What does matter is that, rightly or wrongly, this country is in a very serious position. I honestly wish I could take the view taken by the last Senator. I wish I could see, in this, a blessing in disguise. I wish I could see rosy prospects for people here when the economic war is started. I believe there is not a single man in this House, on either side, who realises what an economic war would mean if carried on. Some of my personal friends spent a good deal of time in Central Europe, following the Great War, and they could tell you something of the economic side of war. I tell you it was far worse, and far more war, in the sense we understand it, than even the fighting that took place. It is not a matter for jest; it is a thing that is very serious.

The Executive ask powers here by which they can enter into an economic war and whether we give these powers, or support them, there is no use getting anything else into our minds except that it means the most serious consequences to the people of this country. I do not mind if I am called pro-British, as my friends were called pro-German, because when the war came along they opposed it. The present Prime Minister of England, whether you agree with him or not, was amongst them and was pro-German. Of course, we will be called pro-British. Personally I have no interest in Britain. The only interest I have is here, and whether this country declares itself a Republic or remains within the Commonwealth, I mean to stay here and be loyal to the country, but being loyal to the country does not mean entering into an economic war on an issue as to what the tribunal should be. Is the issue who the Chairman of the tribunal should be a sufficient reason for going into an economic war? It is not.

The members of the present Government believe that this country ought to be a Republic. They feel they are debarred from taking definite steps towards what they believe to be the right course. I know numbers of them personally, and I believe that that is their sincere belief. I really put it to them—and may I say so incidentally that I hold almost entirely the same views as Deputy MacDermot voiced in the Dáil?—that if there is going to be an economic war, and if they are going to take such steps, why not do it for a Republic and have done with it? We are now going to have the consequences of an economic struggle, when the people are going to be asked at the next election to declare for a Republic, and almost certainly another economic war will follow. That is more than this country can stand. I really beg the present Executive, at any rate when there is going to be a struggle, to let it be on the one main issue, separation from England. There will be no question then of the nationality of the chairman of the tribunal. Legal matters can be decided by legal minds, but side issues which are causing intense trouble will be relegated to the one issue which the people should be asked to decide. If I read the report correctly, I think the President said that he could not ask the people to declare for a Republic, because he did not know yet what attitude Britain would take if they so declared. We are going on with this dispute, not, mind you, about the land annuities, but about the nationality of the chairman, because we do not know what attitude Britain would take. We can dispute about that, but we will not ask the people to decide the major issue until we know what attitude the British Government will take. I do not think that is a fair or a reasonable position to take.

What ought the Government do? I agree with Senator Brown, although I cannot vote for this Bill, because I am not prepared to vote for this country going into an economic war, and I think the Government ought to make an effort to find a way out of this impasse. I have no sympathy with the British Government's claim that the chairman must be a member of the British Commonwealth. I think that is a ridiculous position to take at this stage, when they had gone so far, nor have I any sympathy with the attitude of the Government which says that on that issue we will go into an economic war.

Mr. Connolly

On a point of order. I think that this is an opportunity of calling the attention of Senator Douglas to the Bill.

Cathaoirleach

What is the point of order?

Mr. Connolly

The point of order has been precipitated by the Senator's remarks.

Cathaoirleach

I will consider the point of order.

Mr. Connolly

The point as regards the issue being a Republic is not involved when, as a matter of fact, the question before the House is a Bill to deal with an emergency tariff in view of the imposition of a 20 per cent. tariff on our goods by England. Therefore the Republic and other matters that Senator Douglas brought in are all irrelevant.

Cathaoirleach

I am afraid I will have to rule that such an allusion is relevant owing to the nature of the Bill.

Mr. Douglas

I can assure Senator Connolly that I have no wish to introduce any extraneous matter into this issue. I am only trying to show that it is not simply a matter of giving these powers alone but the issue which caused them. I say sincerely that a real effort should yet be made to avoid economic war, and to avoid going into the question of who started it, because I think that is the worst possible thing to have discussed now or at any other time. I will not go into the question whether we started it by withholding the annuities or England by putting on tariffs. According to Senator MacEllin the tariffs may not unduly injure us. As I am not an agriculturalist I do not know what the effects will be. I know, putting everything together, that we are getting into a war, if we are not in it now, and I say that our attention should be turned towards preventing it; that we should not be concerned with a possible blessing in disguise that has come the way, because I believe there can be no blessing in disguise from war. We know very well that what took place in the discussions, possibly of necessity, had to be secret. We know what both Governments did. We do not know what counter-offers were made or were suggested. I do not quarrel with that. It is difficult for a private individual or for a member of the House to make a suggestion, but it seems to me that this question of the nationality of the chairman should be forgotten on both sides; that the two Governments should get together, to see if they could find a man who would be a suitable chairman, whether he is a member of the Commonwealth or not. There are points of view that I think we should get away from in that regard. I should say that the British point of view is not mine. If there is to be delay, instead of disputing about the annuities they could be placed in the Bank of International Settlements or with some other neutral body. We are giving extremely drastic powers which will inevitably cause an economic war, and what for?—a small issue, after big issues have been agreed upon. I say that it is wrong to place the people in such a position.

Mr. Dowdall

On the points at issue the custodian of Ireland's honour, Senator Milroy, having exhausted his extensive vocabulary of vituperation for twenty minutes, asked: What is the policy behind the Bill? The policy which has made this extremely drastic measure necessary is that when two parties have decided to put a serious question to arbitration one side resolutely refuses or insists upon restricting the range of choice of the arbitrators. To my mind, in a nut-shell, that is what rendered this Bill necessary. Because when the matter for arbitration immediately arose the other side put legislation into immediate effect which inflicts upon the people of this country very serious losses. For that purpose it is necessary to be able to show that we are not in an absolutely defenceless position. The assumption behind the people of this country who oppose this Bill, drastic though I admit it is, is an assumption that this country is wrong. The British themselves do not go absolutely so far as that because they are prepared to put it to arbitration. But the little Irelanders who will give the benefit of the doubt to every country but their own insist and speak up and down the country that Britain is right to impose a 20 per cent. duty on this country.

Mr. Milroy

Will the Senator say what responsible person, speaking for the late Government Party, has made such a statement?

Mr. Connolly

The ex-Minister for Justice.

Mr. Milroy

That is not true.

Mr. Dowdall

Unless Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney is misreported he has said it.

Mr. Milroy

That Britain is right?

Mr. Dowdall

Except he is misreported. He is reported in the newspapers to-day as saying that Britain was right in imposing a tax of 20 per cent. on certain exports from this country. We would be very obtuse indeed if we did not read into the speeches which were delivered in the Dáil in the past week or two that that was the view held by those whose spokesman in this House is Senator Milroy. And it seems to me that at a time when practically the whole of Europe is belauding the Prime Minister of Great Britain for his efforts at the abolition and the remission of debts that this is the only country that should not even be considered with regard to the remission of debts. After all the people of this country, as was said in a newspaper published in England last week, did not burn down the Oxford University; they did not invade and ravage Wales. By common consent the country which if the reports which were circulated all over the world during the war were right, the country which burned Louvain and which invaded Belgium against a treaty obligation is to have its debts remitted and we are not, even where it is a matter of doubt, to have the benefit of the doubt.

By reason of the particular policy pursued by Britain, not for years but for centuries, we are, practically speaking, in a relatively very unfortunate position in having to dispose of our agricultural surplus in a single market. It is clear that any country that is in that position is in a very unfortunate position from the agricultural and trade point of view. I have heard such a country likened to a workman who has only one possible employer. In addition to having only that single market, we are also in the position that practically all the lines of carrying and communication and all the lines of financial brokerage and insurance are also in the hands of that country. If that country passes an Act of Parliament through its Houses, and almost immediately puts in force such drastic penalties on this country as 20 per cent. tariffs on to the value of certain imports, I really do submit to the members here that it is reason to this country to attempt to tie the hands of the Government, whom the majority of the people have entrusted with power to protect, so far as it is possible to protect, the people of this country.

Mr. Milroy

If we are to be tried for treason let us be tried now, tried by the people, not tried by the Fianna Fáil Government.

Mr. Connolly

By a military tribunal?

Mr. Dowdall

I do not advocate the trial of Senator Milroy for treason either before a jury of his own selection or by the Fianna Fáil Party or by a military tribunal.

Mr. Milroy

And I would object to the chairman.

Mr. Dowdall

I would submit seriously to Senator Milroy, and to those who may be disposed to think with him, to go really into and examine this case and see if there is not an arguable case and a very strong arguable case from the legal as well as from the moral point of view as to whether we should not hold possession of the land annuities. If the case is as strong as Senator Milroy and those with whom he is associated think, why was there so much secrecy and so much suppression of the agreement in connection with it? I quote from the speech of Lord Danesfort in the House of Lords debate on 13th December, 1926, in which he used this phrase:—"I urge upon the Government not to keep back any longer the agreement of 12th February, 1923. It would be offering a precedent affecting enormous sums of money between us and any other Government, the Free State or any other, if such agreement were kept back from Parliament for four years and no indication given as to these points, and if we were then to be told that it is unnecessary to publish such an agreement because it is now superseded." Why was that agreement suppressed, not only in this country but in the British Parliament? Senator Milroy quotes from Mr. Childers'Framework of Home Rule. It is very many years ago since I read that book. I have no quotations from it with me, but I would suggest to Senator Milroy to go down and look in the index of that book at two words, “Sinn Fein.”

Mr. Milroy

I know the meaning of these words all right.

Mr. Dowdall

Well go down and refresh your memory——

Mr. Milroy

There is no necessity.

Mr. Dowdall

——and see the almost prophetic words of Mr. Childers with regard to eventualities if Home Rule were blocked much longer. In the Manchester Guardian, which has been quoted here to-day we find these words: “Had there to-day been a dispute between Canada and Britain or between South Africa and Australia, and had either party, because of the character of the questions involved, desired a neutral jurist of high standing as chairman of the arbitral body, it is impossible to believe that any difficulty would have been made about the request.” It is not reasonable for either party in a dispute of this kind, involving vast sums of money, to suggest and insist on the restrictions of the range of this kind of arbitrators, more particularly having regard to what happened even since the Free State came into being. We do not want to have a repetition of such a commission as the Boundary Commission.

Mr. Counihan

I rise to oppose the Bill and in the few remarks I have to make on it I will endeavour not to say anything that would aggravate the situation. But I feel that I would be a false representative of the live-stock trade of this country and a false representative of the farming interests of this country if I did not do everything I possibly could to try to have this matter fixed up and settled as soon as it possibly can be. I do not wish to discuss the justice or otherwise of the case for the retention of the land annuities by our Government. But I do say that the offer made by the British Government is one which to the mind of any fair-thinking man should be accepted. And I say that if our Government had the best interests of the country at heart they would accept that settlement; and this present crisis should never have been allowed to arise. I agree with one statement made by Senator MacEllin and that is that the farmers and the agriculturists in this country are in a bad way. Agriculture is the only wealth-producing industry we have in this country. It is in a very bad way and the people engaged in agriculture expect and hope to get some relief from the present Government, particularly in view of all the promises they made, previous to the General Election. But what have they done for agriculture? They have given us this Bill which, to my mind, is going to rob us of our markets, which has created ill-feeling and is intensifying the hatreds which are already springing up between the two countries. What is that going to do for agriculture?

This Bill will also compel the farmers to pay double prices for anything they have to buy, and, for that reason, I think it should be opposed. That is the plain meaning of the Bill and I cannot understand why any farmer representative in this House, belonging to either Party, should support this measure. I do not know why the Government is adopting this policy but I want to tell them that they are heading the country straight for disaster. It is difficult for anyone to foresee the evil effects of this crisis, if it develops. The Bill gives extraordinary power to the Government— power to start an economic war, which, to my mind, is one of the most fierce kinds of war, an economic war with Britain, and for any plain thinking man who knows the circumstances of both countries, it is not very difficult to foresee which will suffer most. We are told that we can develop other markets for our agricultural produce. Why are not those markets developed now? The simple reason is that there is no other market for Irish agricultural produce to be found, and the Government know it well, but even if there was another market to be found, we do not want to change.

I do not wish to say anything against the citizens of other countries but I want to say this, and I hope that my words will reach our customers and our friends on the other side, that I assure them that the majority of the Irish people will have no satisfaction and will derive no pleasure from the knowledge that they are going to suffer the smallest inconvenience because of the attitude of our Government, and, I may add, of both Governments. I have stated that I do not wish to say anything that will aggravate the situation. If I wanted to I could rehearse a long litany of terrible inconveniences which have occurred since this tax was put on by the British Government, and I could recount a number of cases where serious financial loss has been suffered by farmers, but I am not going into that question to-day. There is, however, a matter to which I would like to refer—the Horse Show. I would appeal to the President to think seriously and try to arrive at some settlement before the time arrives for the holding of that event. The Horse Show is an institution of which every Irishman is proud and if this economic war is to develop, the Horse Show will be ruined. The Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show is the only market of the year in which the people who produce bloodstock in this country sell their goods, and, if this war is to continue, there will be no sale for bloodstock at this year's show. That is a serious matter and one which deserves consideration. I would appeal to the President to think seriously on the whole situation and arrive at some conclusion by which this war, which will lead us nowhere, and which must eventually be settled, after causing enormous damage, particularly to this country, will be settled.

Mr. Wilson

I am going to support the Bill and I think Senator Counihan made a misstatement when he said that he was going to oppose it.

Mr. Counihan

I made no misstatement. I am opposing the Bill.

Mr. Wilson

Very well. I realise that the Executive Council, in the position in which things are now, ought to be endowed with certain powers, but I also realise that the powers that they are asking are excessive, and I hope that when the Bill is in Committee we may perhaps reduce these arbitrary powers to something which would be reasonable, in civilised times, for an Executive to have. That does not mean that I would take from them the power of retaliation. Not at all. I am sorry that this position has arisen between England and ourselves, but it is not for me to say who or what is the cause of it. Our duty to-day is to try to get out of the tangle we are in, and surely we cannot do so unless our Government has certain powers to use, because Parliament will not be sitting at the time. Therefore, I think it necessary that they should have certain powers.

Somebody said that this is a blessing in disguise. It may be a blessing in disguise for some people, but it certainly is not for me, because I, unfortunately, have 200 cattle to sell. Although I am a tillage man, I think I am going to lose a considerable amount of money and nobody likes a thing like that to be considered a blessing in disguise. I hope the Government will recoup me, because I have paid my rent and my taxes and I deserve to be fairly treated by the Government, when I have been placed in this position through no fault of my own, but through Governmental action. This is practically an embargo, and, before I go any further, I want to say that this placing of 20 per cent. duty on our exported produce is not to be wondered at, at all. The British are merely paying us back in our own coin and they could have done it entirely outside the question of the annuities. For the last month or two we have been placing embargoes on everything from Britain, and if I were a Britisher, I would say: "Stop those fellows and make them feel what they are making us feel." Because of these tariffs, people engaged in industry in England are antagonistic to this country, but I am not to be taken as being against tariffs, although, if they raise the cost of living, the only people who will bear the brunt of that higher cost will be the farmers, because they cannot have a quid pro quo. Notwithstanding all the anti-dumping legislation, the farmer and his labourer will be the men who will suffer, as a result of this raising of the cost of living, but inherent in the programme of the present Government was the suggestion that we should rather change from our present economic system to a greater endeavour to till the land and provide work for our people.

I think Senator MacEllin, when he speaks of the migratory labourers going to England to look for work, has that in his mind. He seems to think that we can change from our present economic system and go back immediately to tillage. I am speaking as a practical tillage farmer. I believe that you can grow all the wheat required in this country, that is, 3,000,000 barrels, on 300,000 acres of land, or 10 barrels per acre. These 300,000 acres, added to our present tillage, will be all you will get if you adopt the system of supplying your own needs, because we have too many potatoes. I cannot sell potatoes in the Dublin market as they will not have them. I was told not to send any more as the place was blocked. We have no tariffs against potatoes from Northern Ireland, and in the fall of the season the North will send in £40,000 or £50,000 worth of potatoes and the price will drop. What are we short of? We have too much butter, too much milk, and too many potatoes, and the only thing we are short of is wheat.

Mr. Fanning

Money.

Mr. Wilson

If you have food, you do not want money. Three hundred thousand acres added to our present tillage is all the new economy is going to bring us. That will necessitate the reduction of our cattle stocks from 4,000,000 to 1,000,000, because we cannot export cattle, and 1,000,000 cattle will supply the needs of this country, giving us 300,000 every year to use. What are we to do with all the acres between 15,000,000 and the 300,000 added to the present tillage? We will have only 1,000,000 cattle. We cannot sell cattle. There is no place to sell them. They will not let them into England or into Germany. What will we grow on the remaining acres between the 15,000,000 acres in this country and the present acreage under tillage, plus the 300,000 acres, making allowance for the 1,000,000 cattle? Will somebody belonging to the new economic Party tell me what we are to do with the difference between the acreage used in tillage and what will be left if we give up producing stock? We cannot produce stock and sell them and pay a 20 per cent. tariff. Senator MacEllin, I think, said I would not have to pay any tariff on the cattle I am sending out, but I have my doubts that when I am in the market the buyer will not say to me that he has to pay £3 or £4 tariff on these cattle and that I will have to take a lower price. I hope it does not happen. I am sure the Government will not forget that, and I hope they will recoup the farmers for the loss which they will incur. Senator Dowdall spoke of this country being in a rotten position in having only one market. Denmark is in the same position to-day. She is sending all her produce to England because she cannot get it into Germany owing to the tariffs there. She is in the same position as we are now as regards England. No one can tell me that there is progress in Denmark. They are granting millions in loans and producing stock for which there is no price. Any person who is in a business for which he is not remunerated had better be idle.

A question has been raised about the secret agreement of 1923 about these particular annuities. That is not right. I believe I was taxed on the last day by a Senator as being the first man he heard speaking about these annuities not being paid. What struck me, and what would strike any man is, if the law was so strong that they should be paid to England, why was it necessary for England to have any agreement at all? Senator Linehan had many a talk with me as to why there was necessity for an agreement. If the law is so strong and so good for the British, why is there this agreement? We could never get any further, although we consulted lawyers and everyone else, and being only farmers everybody said we were looking after ourselves when we were only trying to see why it was. In any case, that agreement was brought up in the Dáil and there was a Vote on Account passed before these moneys were paid. I want to challenge that statement of Senator Dowdall. There was no secret agreement. It was a provisional agreement. It was spoken of in the Dáil and questioned. It was not questioned in the sense that it should not be paid, but more in the sense that we were really paying a debt and that it was in discharge of a debt.

I want to put this to the President, I look upon the President and the Executive Council simply as trustees of that money which they receive from us in the discharge of our debts. We should not be put in the position of losing, and the trustees if they do not pay the money are liable to us. That is my point of view. Somebody quoted Lord Danesfort saying something about this agreement. Everybody knows that Lord Danesfort is a great enemy of this country. Any question asked about the Free State by Lord Danesfort had venom in it. He must have had something in his mind against the Free State that he wanted to rip up and do damage to this country. That was at the back of anything he has ever done in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords. There is a means of hitting at England and they know it. We buy nearly 2,000,000 tons of coal every year from England. I do not want this economic war to go on, but I do not see why the Government should not be in a position to stop this coal coming in if we can get coal as cheaply from somebody else. We might be able to link up the buying of our coal with the selling of some of our produce. We are both going to lose by this and I do not want to go into this economic war. I hope, at the same time, that the Government will not be left in the position of being without a weapon.

I think also that this question of the Chairman should be settled on the lines suggested by Senator Douglas, Select somebody. It does not matter whether he is a German, a Jew, an atheist, or anybody else. If you can agree on the man, then both sides ought to be satisfied. These are all the comments I wish to make. I hope when the Bill reaches the Committee Stage we will have an opportunity of retrenching some of the powers asked for, and which I do not think are necessary. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs spoke of the Bill as imposing tariffs. The Bill deals also with varying, modifying and altering excise duties and varying and modifying and imposing stamp duties on any act or thing. These are peculiar powers. Under that you can put a legal stamp duty on a man going to Mass. It would be quite legal. I do not see why any body of men should require powers of that sort. In the Committee Stage, if they are reasonable, we will recommend them what is best for themselves and for us and I hope everything will go right.

The McGillycuddy of the Reeks

A measure of this kind, I am afraid, will only increase the hardships which this country is suffering as a result of the policy of the present Executive. So far as I can see, we seem to have approached this matter not as coequals but as inferiors, and we have gone a long way towards losing that dignity and credit which we gained by reasonable dealings with other nations outside. So far as I can see, it is simply this: A financial settlement was arrived at between two parties and was honoured for a period of ten years. Then an election came and as a result of it the Fianna Fáil Party came into power in this country. It fell to the British on the 23rd March of this year to inquire whether the payment of the land annuities in June was to take place or not, and the answer was "No." They protested. They went further. They said "We will reopen all the other financial questions if that will help." They suggested the method of arbitration which had been agreed on by all the members of the Commonwealth in 1930. They left it still open for further discussion, and when the annuities were withheld they proceeded to pass a law to recoup themselves to the extent of the default, and no more. With the assistance of the Labour Party in England and the Labour Party in this country, they have made, to my mind, every material advance which could be made for the proper approach to this question. Our Government, on the other hand, have replied to the effect "We do not know of any grievance," and when the matter was made more clear they said: "We will have none of your courts. We do not trust you. We want an honest man from outside the Commonwealth—the only place where we will find him." As an after thought, and under pressure from the Labour Party, we were advised that the annuities were placed in a Suspense Account. What does it matter, in a solvent nation such as ours, where the money is placed, if it is not paid? We had a further minor approach, again under pressure from the Labour Party. Then to make confusion worse confounded, when "the other round with England" really began, we have this Bill, of a dictatorial nature, introduced. We do not know how far it will go. All the side issues of the Boundary Settlement in the North and the hundred and one things which always arise can be brought up, but that is the situation in very simple words. I agree, to a great extent, with Senator Douglas that, but for the inexcusable delay of six months and the method of approach to this question the immediate imposition of the British duties would never have occurred. A settlement would have been made, and neither the British imposition of 20 per cent. nor this Bill, which is now before this House, would have been necessary or would have arisen. In 1922, the inability, so far as I can see it, of the President and his Party to compromise cost this country some £35,000,000. The policy which he has adopted now bids fair to cost us a great deal more even than the money represented by the annuities. The sufferers will be, not the politicians who since 1921 have been deliberately working against this State, but the workers and the farmers and business men, and in fact, everybody with a stake in the country. No parallel with this question will be found in the Boundary Commission, where economics, geography, creeds were mixed up with the question. That was a question which I do not believe any man, either inside or outside the Commonwealth, could have arranged to the satisfaction of either side, and certainly not to the satisfaction of the President's mind. This is a straightforward legal issue, and if we have right in it I do not see why we should not pick somebody from within the Commonwealth and honour the arrangements which have been made by our predecessors. The time will come when the Fianna Fáil Party will probably go out of power and they will be the first to complain of the consequences of the situation which they are supporting at the present moment.

Does this Government really believe that people like General Hertzog and the representatives of the other Dominions and the people behind them —the people with whom within the next few weeks we propose to bargain at Ottawa—do they really believe that those people are playing with loaded dice? There is no other explanation. There is no other explanation of those words from a responsible statesman, at the head of a party, to the effect that honest men are only to be found outside the Commonwealth. Do they really believe this? I do not believe they do. I see every indication that this situation is being deliberately engineered to hasten our march, not straight out of the Commonwealth, but back into our former condition. The President is perfectly honest and sincere. I admit it, and always have admitted it; but all his statements bear that out, and his actions, since he has been in power, such as the calculated discourtesies to representatives of the Crown and the method of approach to this issue and to the question of the Oath, confirm it. All these unnecessary things of which an educated man, with the brains which there are in the Fianna Fáil Party, must realise the consequences, all point in one direction. We should be quite clear that the issue is not the question of whether we have an Empire chairman or a foreign chairman for this commission. That is a matter which could be settled. The real issue before us, and the issue which should be broadcast to the people, is whether we are to remain members of this Commonwealth or to degenerate into a bankrupt, discredited, communistic republic. That is the issue before us and I hope the people will realise it.

Mr. Bagwell

In introducing the Bill before us, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said that he considered that there was really no need for this House to argue this measure and that the Seanad ought to support the Government in a national emergency and pass the Bill, in effect, without recommendations and modifications and that we ought to stand together to save our country in a national emergency. That the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs really believes that to be a true description of the situation, I find it very difficult to believe. I give him credit for more brains than that. What he said was quite good propaganda from the point of view of evading the real issue, and that is the absolute responsibility of the Government for the state of affairs in which we find ourselves and which has necessitated a Bill of this kind being brought in. We are being landed in a tariff war and it is a frightfully serious war. Once you have embarked on a tariff war you must have, I suppose, a Bill of this kind—I do not say exactly the same sort of Bill because I hope the Bill will be somewhat improved here if the Government see their way to accept some recommendations. The whole thing to my mind was entirely unnecessary and entirely avoidable. It is absolutely disgraceful that the country should be brought to such a condition when, without any sacrifice of principle or of dignity, the matter could have been settled without any tariff war.

I wish to say that what I am concerned about in criticising this Bill, or rather expressing my regret, because we cannot do very much with it, that the Bill should have ever come before us, is its effect on the welfare of the inhabitants of this country, the people for whom we are really responsible here. My concern is with my fellow countrymen. I wish to state that clearly in view of the sneers which have been directed at persons like myself who do not support the Government's policy, sneers that we are not true Irishmen whereas presumably supporters of the Government are true Irishmen. I know that is perfect nonsense. I am an inhabitant of this country just as much as anyone on the opposite side. I am a subject of the State and I hope a decent, loyal subject. I am a producer, a consumer and an employer and I have got as much right to express my criticism of the country being landed in a tariff war as anybody has to advocate the policy which has brought this country into that tariff war. A tariff war is only less harmful than a real war. You have trade held up and already it has been held up considerably. You have people unable to sell their produce. As a result of that they will have no money to buy what they want. They will not be able to pay their debts or to pay wages to the people whom they employ.

Judging by the different utterances of many of the Government supporters and members of the Government, one would think, and the country is given to believe, that the Irish Free State is well able to embark on a tariff war with Great Britain. That is a matter of opinion. I do not think so and time will show whether it is or not. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that this tariff war is bound to injure both sides, but whereas it will injure a certain limited number of Englishmen it will injure a very great number of Irishmen and to a very considerable extent. It will injure this country far more than England. In time it may bring permanent injury to the economic structure of the country. Every class down to the humblest people will be affected and less prosperous than they were. There will be no national triumph out of this. There will be less prosperity for everybody and, in my opinion, for many there will be less prosperity to the extent of real poverty.

Senator MacEllin said that in his opinion the system of trade which has gone on for a long time between this country and Great Britain was a bad system for this country and that the country should be more self-supporting. He is a prominent supporter of the Government and a prominent member of the House so I think some cognisance should be taken of what he says. He welcomes the Bill as a blessing in disguise. He welcomes it because it will interfere with and tend to stifle that trade which he says is part of an unsatisfactory situation. He says that we ought to make everything we want in this country. I do not believe in self-contained countries. Unless they have enormous natural resources inside their own borders they have got to import a good deal. Unless they have got an enormous amount of things such as they require, things that they want and cannot produce themselves, they are bound to have an import trade. The one great example of a self-contained country is the United States of America. It is not now very prosperous though some few years ago it was enormously prosperous. It is a country with very high tariffs, but look at its size and its enormous resources. Denmark, on the other hand, is a naturally poor country, and is a country which carries on an enormous trade with outside States. Supposing Senator MacEllin is right and I am wrong, supposing it is desirable that we should make a great deal more in this country and live in a much more self-contained way, in fact make what is in my opinion a precarious kind of livelihood in taking in each other's linen, supposing we were to do that, the right way to do it is not by embarking on a tariff war.

I really cannot understand how anybody could describe as a blessing in disguise the situation which has necessitated this Bill. However, we shall see whether it is or not. I believe we cannot get away with this thing, because I do not believe we can find other customers for our produce. That is where we are not equal in the struggle. I do not believe we can find other customers, but England can find other customers for her goods. They can also find other people to supply, in the course of time, what we cannot, and I think they are in a very much stronger position to start this internecine warfare than we are. I think this Bill as regards that part of it which involves restriction on the liberty of the subject may be a little improved as a result of such recommendations as may be made in Committee. I have not very much confidence that that will be the case, because anything we do here, the Bill having been certified as a Money Bill, is to a certain extent futile. I have spoken at such length because I believe it is our duty to speak our views on a matter of this kind. We are responsible to the country and this is a situation that will have an extremely bad effect on the country. I think it is right that I should say, speaking as an individual Senator and for a number of others, that we very much regret the whole thing. We do not believe in it, and we say it never really should have arisen. If the matter had been approached in a proper way it could have been settled without the necessity of embarking on a tariff war at all.

Miss Browne

As a representative of the farming community, I wish to join in the protest against this Bill. The farmers, of course, will feel the brunt of this very quickly and very keenly indeed. Undoubtedly all the people of the country will have a great deal of suffering inflicted upon them on account of the callous, irresponsible and reckless methods that the Government have adopted in managing the affairs of the country since they came into power. They went to the country with very flowery language on their lips and, I say, with deceit in their hearts, unless they were absolutely ignorant of what they would have to do when they became a responsible Government. They went before the people and promised them that taxation would be reduced by at least £2,000,000. They have already informed us that they have increased it by £4,500,000. They promised everything—heaven and earth—to the people if they would only give them their votes. There never has been— certainly not in this country—anything so deceitful as the manner in which the Fianna Fáil Party went before the people at the last election. What is behind all this? The land annuities, we are told. Our fathers, who negotiated the purchase of their farms and signed documents undertaking to pay, were honourable men. They reduced their rent by half and became owners of their lands. Certain people lent them money to do that. All the speeches and all the oratory that could be poured out in a hundred years cannot alter the simple fact that the people who purchased their land are bound in honour to repay that money to the bond holders—the people who lent it to them. All kinds of issues have been raised to cloud that simple fact. The Government has no right whatever to retain the land annuities. The British Government are only trustees for the people who lent the money. They have already paid the stockholders and, instead of taxing the English people to find the money, they are raising it by means of a tariff on Irish products. Fianna Fáil agents are going through the country telling the people—they do not know exactly what to say—to keep quiet and it will be all right. This they say at a time when the main industry of the people is faced with absolute destruction.

Why was not arbitration agreed to? I may be very callous, but I do not believe that there is any intention to arbitrate at any time. The present Government find themselves in an absolutely impossible position. They know everything is going wrong. The whole house of cards is tumbling down on their heads. They are simply going for a big crash. They do not want to arbitrate, because they know perfectly well that they have no case, legally or morally, to place before any Commonwealth court or world court. Whatever sympathy a Commonwealth court might have, surely people outside would not be able to understand the position? What would they think about us as a civilised people if that case were put before them? The Government know perfectly well that they have no case and they are afraid to go before an arbitration court of any kind. What is more, they would have no sympathy from any people. No country in the world, if we go down, as we will go down if this proceeds, will have the smallest grain of sympathy with Ireland. They will regard us as irresponsible children who ought to be whipped and sent to bed.

I oppose this Bill, so far as we here can oppose it. All our talk is useless. We may be able to do a little to give the people a chance, as we said before, of realising what is happening—to give the people time to appreciate that. We may be able to give the Dáil a chance of considering the amendments they were prevented from considering before. Otherwise, we cannot do anything. I protest against the Bill, as I protested against the policy of Fianna Fáil when I heard it enunciated. I said then that I believed that policy would bring ruin to the country. The ruin is coming more quickly than any of us could have imagined. I protest against the Bill because it is going to bring suffering to the people. It is going to bring intolerable and untold suffering to the people and it will ruin the whole economic structure of the country. The people who bring forward this Bill are the people who came here and told us that they were going to create nothing less than a Christian State. They came here as apostles of Christianity. We are not now heading for a Christian State. Any Christianity we have is going pretty fast and, so far as I can see, we are heading for a Communist State. If something is not done that is what we shall be landed into. We are told that we have peace in the country—a wonderful peace, which the country never knew before.

Cathaoirleach

I am afraid you are wandering from the Bill before the House.

Miss Browne

Then I shall not say any more about that. This Bill, which is brought in to retaliate on the British, is going to add still more suffering to the sufferings of the people under the Bill which the British have introduced, which is going to destroy our principal industry and rob us of £36,000,000 a year. Everybody knows it is nonsense—the Fianna Fáil Party know it is nonsense—to talk about alternative markets. They know perfectly well that they are not to be had. If we are landed into a Communistic State, it will be because the law-breakers are being allowed to have their way. Nothing is being done to interfere with them. I do not think that any of us can find words to express what we feel when we see the ground being swept from under our feet. The long years of toil which our fathers and grandfathers gave to build up this country are being brought to naught, and intolerable suffering is about to be inflicted upon our people. I am not a bit afraid to be called pro-British or anything else. They may call any names they like, but they are not going to deceive the people. The people who were deceived at the last election are having their eyes opened, and I defy the Fianna Fáil Party to go to the country at present and get the opinion of the people on their work.

Sir John Keane

I agree with several speakers that not much more can be usefully said in this House on this question. As the experience of the last few months has shown, talking to the Government, or trying to persuade the Government, is like talking to a stone wall. They have taken up a line and they stand pat on that line. They are impervious to argument. But the day of reckoning will come. We have, of course, our responsibility. We have to justify our action before the country and we feel that we can do that with the utmost confidence. We have heard it suggested that those who opposed this Bill are not true Irishmen. We had not before been called traitors but Senator Dowdall—in a moment of enthusiasm, I think—applied that term to us. I am sure we are quite prepared to stand our trial as traitors —especially, in a year's time. We claim, not in numbers, perhaps, but in interest, in responsibility and in our stake in the country to have far more involved individually, as employers and citizens, than most of those behind the Bill. Individually, as citizens and employers we may claim to have contributed, by peaceful methods, every bit as much towards the welfare of the country as the more clamant and supposedly patriotic section. I ask the House to consider that in this matter there are far higher and far deeper values than those of money. I am afraid a large section in the country look at this thing purely in regard to material values. We are inclined to say, "If we could get this £5,000,000 would it not be a great thing for the country? Would we not be able to do much better if we had it? Could we not remit so much taxation and would the country not be so much richer?" I ask the House to take a totally different view. I ask them to think, if in a spirit of repudiation or dishonesty, or by some means, not playing the game, we were to get this £5,000,000 would we be any better off? I say that if the tenants who have their land to-day at one-third of what they paid for it in the 'Eighties got it for nothing on these conditions then in five years' time again they would be more clamant and would again be declaring they could not pay. Decent behaviour and honest dealing will enable us to gain tenfold beyond anything that we would gain by repudiation. Let us ask ourselves this: If the consequences of this action is allowed to go will any Irishman ever lend a penny piece to the Government for schemes of development, for housing or for social reforms they may have in mind? They may talk about the capitalist system and try to repudiate it but I think you will find it fairer to live under than such a system as this.

The capitalist system is based on fundamental honesty and people who are not honest cannot live under that system. I suggest that we are not honest in this matter and I should like to say why. But before passing from that I should also like to ask the Government what would happen if they were in the position England is placed in to-day. Supposing England said to them: "We made an Agreement with you two years ago, and it was ratified by both our Governments but we do not intend to pay." Is it suggested, for a moment, that we here in this country, in such circumstances would act accommodatingly or kindly? Would not we be full, and rightly full, of indignation? I think that we would be the first people, and I think rightly, that would take steps to defend ourselves under such conditions. I suggest it is most important to try to get away from the narrow, insular view, and to try and take the view that fair-minded people in the world—and there are still fair-minded people in the world—would take in this matter. These things will be judged by statesmanship. That is the test which will be applied to the issue and how will it stand when examined by that test?

Senator The McGillycuddy dealt with that matter. Surely one of the tests of statesmanship is continuity of policy by successive Governments, each honouring the acts of its predecessors? Now the last Government—and nobody who is fair-minded can accuse them of being imperialistic—did not give way and dance to every English tune. At the Imperial Conference they rather took up the line of the left wing. Yet our Government agreed to arbitration, almost identically on the lines that the British Government now ask. They ask that inter-Dominion disputes shall be settled by ad hoc Tribunals composed of members drawn from the British Commonwealth. When the President says that agreements were made in secret behind closed doors and not known to Parliament, I ask the House to recognise that these proceedings of the Imperial Conference were ratified by the Oireachtas. Moreover, in the debates in the Dáil, at any rate—I have not examined the debates in the Seanad— not a single objection was raised to that very point as to the composition of the Commonwealth Tribunal.

Mr. Connolly

On a point of explanation, I think the President of the Executive Council, when dealing with that, was referring to the 1923 Secret Agreement, and not to anything that transpired at the Imperial Conferences.

Sir John Keane

I agree, he referred to the Secret Agreement, but one of the objections the President has all along to these inter-Dominion Agreements was that they lacked ratification by Parliament. My point is that these Agreements, with regard to Commonwealth Tribunals, have been ratified in the Dáil, and during these debates not a single member of the Fianna Fáil Party, which was then in opposition, criticised that item of the proceedings. I read this debate very particularly.

Mr. Dowdall

I think, though I am not sure, that in regard to that matter of the Tribunal within the Empire Mr. McGilligan entered a reservation.

Sir John Keane

I am open to correction. I have read the debates and could see no reservation entered. Perhaps the Senator is thinking of the Optional Clause. That is another matter. I am referring now to the Report of the Imperial Commonwealth Conference, 1930. That document I hold, and as far as I can see, it was ratified by the Dáil. In all fairness, the facts being as I have said, is it not only reasonable to ask the Government to carry out that policy in continuity and to agree to a Tribunal on those lines? I should like the President, when he replies, to let us know. This is a matter of great importance and we all want to know where we are standing, because we seem to be drifting into very vague and general issues. We began with the dispute being confined to the non-payment of the annuities. Now we hear people talking, lightheartedly, about a sum of £5,000,000 which we cannot afford to pay. Is it suggested, now, that not only are there annuities to be withheld, but that none of the pensions or other obligations which we specifically agreed to under the Treaty are going to be paid?

Whatever case there might be for the annuities, so far as I can see there can be no case whatever for not paying the pensions, and certain other charges that were agreed upon by the Treaty. If so, what is going to be the position of pensioners in this country? Is there to be discrimination made between pensioners abroad and pensioners at home? Where is the whole thing going to lead? It seems to me it is going to drift deeper and deeper into absolute confusion. I think the President should state, when replying, what exactly he has in mind, whether he is going to confine the issue to the non-payment of the annuities, or whether he is not going to pay anything until a dim and distant date, when some agreement might be arrived at. I should also like the President to tell us exactly with what voice the Government is speaking. At one time we were told this money is not a legal debt. I do not know if that is confined to the annuities and the pensions. The next moment we are told we cannot pay; that it is an intolerable burden. I am completely confused. The President talks of £330,000,000 being the burden on the ratio of taxable capacity of 66 to 1. Applying that to the Shannon Scheme would the President accept it that the Shannon Scheme, if carried out by Great Britain, would have involved an expenditure of £666,000,000? The national scheme of electrification on our lines would have cost Great Britain £660,000,000. Of course that is perfectly absurd, and I suggest that 66 to 1 as a figure cannot stand examination for one moment.

I do not wish to go into further questions, except to suggest that this is going to raise an appalling amount of further discussion. What will be the Terms of Reference to the arbitrator? Will they be merely on the legal position or involve a question of liability to pay? Before closing I would ask the Government, if they can, to see reason and moderation in this matter, and to call a halt. There seems to be a kind of spirit of national pride, which is quickly mounting up to a war mentality. We know how easy it is to inflame the masses by saying: "This is another issue, and another fight with our long and traditional enemy." We know how easy it is to go around the country pointing to our wrongs and our injustices, and to show ignorant people how grand it would be not to pay our debts, and to have five millions of money which we could give them in all kinds of services. I suggest to the Government that that appeal, whether made deliberately or whether made unwittingly, to avarice, and to the natural desire of any people not to pay their debts, is very wrong and of great disservice to the country. Surely the Government should weigh the risks in this matter, not only the risks of economic collapse, but what would happen when the fundamental wealth-producing classes are not only unable but further, are encouraged, I am afraid, not to pay their debts, and consider how that is going to react through the whole economic system, and be taken up by every class, not to pay their debts; how it is going to lead to wholesale dismissals, wholesale losses and, of course, great individual poverty and suffering; and how it is on that atmosphere civil war thrives. Surely the President knows enough of recent history, or anyway of history, to know that there are irresponsible people, only too ready to take advantage of the collapse and poverty of a people, and to offer glittering rewards, if they only throw the whole of the existing order overboard? Let the President beware that he does not let loose forces which he will be unable to control and lest he may not live to see the day when he, like Kerensky and many other men in history, will live to mourn the collapse and the ruin of their country.

The President

It is true that the Executive Council seek very wide powers in this Bill. We seek these wide powers because we want to put ourselves in the position in which we may be able to take any measures that suggest themselves as necessary in defence of our people. I would not like that Senators should think that these powers are being taken with any desire to hurt the people of England. They are not being taken in an aggressive spirit. They are being taken because a situation has been forced upon us when the Executive Council will need all the powers it can have in order to meet that situation properly. It gives me no satisfaction, and I do not think it will give any member of the Executive Council any satisfaction, to know that in this struggle the people of England will suffer as much as our people may suffer—none whatever. Our desire is to avoid this suffering on both sides, but in all I have heard, no one has suggested how it can be done. We have tried to do it. There is, of course, one way in which it could be done, and that is to surrender our rights in this matter, and to continue as our predecessors have done, paying over to Britain this enormous tribute of £5,000,000 a year. I have been informed that Senator Sir John Keane has questioned the applicability of the ratio of 66 to 1 that I used in order to get people to realise what this burden means to us. As well as I remember, that was given by Mr. Baldwin, when he was Prime Minister as the figure that had been arrived at by British Treasury officials as indicating the relative taxable capacity, and, in a rough way, show the relative power of the two countries to bear financial burdens. There may be a slight change in the figure to-day from what it was four or five years ago, but substantially it does represent the relative powers of the two countries to bear their financial burdens. This claim is more than £5,000,000, because we are paying directly five and one-third millions, and the total of the payments made as a result of the Agreements following the Treaty would on the average be about five and three quarter million pounds yearly.

But take £5,000,000 and multiply it by 66 and you get a payment of £330,000,000 a year, as being the equivalent payment by Britain of our demand. If the people of Britain were paying £330,000,000 a year instead of the £33,000,000 which they had been paying up to recently to America, and if the British people believed, as we believed, that that demand is not justified and has no real legal or moral foundation, then I leave it to yourselves to imagine what steps the British people would take to relieve themselves of that burden.

Of course, we have had here, as we have had elsewhere, the old pretence that we have been advising the people and that we are now leading the people in a campaign of repudiation of just debts. We heard the Commandments referred to in the General Election campaign, and it would, of course, be too much to expect that political opponents here should not try to use that again. We are told that the Irish farmers entered into a contract with the bond-holders. As every lawyer knows, that is all nonsense. The State borrowed money— the State at the time being the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland —for the purpose as it might borrow any other money; as it might borrow money for war purposes. The money was lent to the State on a State guarantee. The State was responsible for paying the dividends and meeting the sinking fund. On the other hand, the State, in pursuance of its policy, proceeded to give advances to the Irish farmers in one way or another; and the Irish farmers, having got these advances, were bound to pay back to the State the sums that had been agreed upon. There was a bargain between the farmers and the State. The State at the time was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. There was a dissolution of partnership, and at the very time that that dissolution was taking place or just prior to it—at the very time if we take the state of the law—one of the partners had given over to the other, for reasons which were well known at the time, the right to receive and retain the annuities which were coming into the common Treasury before that time. The annuities which were collected from the Irish farmers were given over as the property of the two Parliaments in Ireland, North and South. That was the position at the time of the Treaty. There was no revocation of that position at any time. I will not go into the whole question now, but I want to point out how ridiculous is the statement made that there was an agreement between the Irish tenant purchasers and the bond-holders. Senator Miss Browne made that absurd contention.

Miss Browne

What I said was that the Irish people were bound to pay the British Government, who paid it to the bond-holders. It comes to the same thing. We owe the money. The President is not going, by quibbling or twisting, to change my words. No amount of quibbling will alter the fact.

The President

I think the quibbling is not on my part. It is true that after making that statement it was suggested that the British Government were trustees in the matter. That is not the position at all. I would suggest to those who presume to talk on this subject first to acquaint themselves with the matter before they presume to instruct others.

Miss Browne

I am perfectly well acquainted with the question.

The President

Now we have to consider the Bill itself here. I make no excuse for it. We are deliberately taking the widest powers, powers that would cover any action that we thought might be necessary. We believe that such powers are necessary if we are going adequately to defend our people.

The next question is the economic situation and we have avoided that. I suggest that we could not continue to make those payments; and when Senators and others tell us of the misery that may arise or result from our policy it may be no harm if they ask themselves what is the misery that has resulted and is resulting from the policy of our predecessors? There is a line of action that would be forced on us probably in any case. The fact is that we are selling to one customer, that we are selling in one market; that that purchaser was bit by bit losing his purchasing powers, and in that market we were contending more and more against rivals in the situation better able to cater for that market than we were. The question is whether ultimately we would not be forced to take measures such as we may have to take now. I may come to that later. Again I say, what is it that we can do except surrender a just right that we have not done in order to avoid this crisis? Arbitration was offered. We said: "Yes, all right." We accepted arbitration but one of the parties to the dispute tells us that the arbitrators must be taken from their selection.

Mr. Brown

No.

The President

Well, what is the meaning of the difference then? Geographical selection if you like, political selection if you like, but it is certainly to be taken from a selection that is likely to be favourable to themselves. It has been suggested of course that this principle had been accepted at the 1930 Conference and that this principle was insisted upon, not with reference to this issue at all but in general. I can say for one that if I had been a member of the Conference I would have opposed that.

Mr. Milroy

Sure!

The President

I would certainly oppose any such principle being adopted. I am quite willing to admit in general that there are disputes which had better be settled, to use a simile, within the family. As a general principle that is right and something that is advisable. I probably would not have objected to it in that light, but that is in fact the only sense in which it was accepted and agreed to by our predecessors; because our predecessors in the Executive Council objected to the application of it in certain cases. All that was said and agreed to was that it was desirable that when there was arbitration it should be of that sort. I would like to point out that they are not in the form of agreements or contracts entered into.

Sir John Keane

I should like to read these words in the Report of the Imperial Conference.

Cathaoirleach

I cannot allow the Senator to make a second speech.

Sir John Keane

It is only just these words in the Report.

The President

If the Senator will be good enough to hand me the Report I will read out the words, so that he will be heard. I take it it is the marked passage?

Sir John Keane

Yes.

The President

This is paragraph D of the Report of the Summary Proceedings of the Imperial Conference. The Report of the Conference on the operation of Dominion Legislation contains the following paragraph and this is a sentence from it: "It was clearly impossible in the time at our disposal to do more than to collate various suggestions with regard, first, to the constitution of such a Tribunal, and, secondly, to the jurisdiction which it might exercise." I give you that as an introductory phrase. "It was clearly impossible, in the time at our disposal, to do more than to collate various suggestions with regard, first, to the constitution of such a Tribunal, and, secondly, to the jurisdiction which it might exercise." That is not marked by the way, but it is introductory to the marked portion—"With regard to the former, the prevailing view was that any such Tribunal should take the form of an ad hoc body selected from standing panels nominated by the several members of the British Commonwealth. With regard to the latter, there was general agreement that the jurisdiction should be limited to justiciable issues arising between the Governments. We recommend that the whole subject should be further examined by all the Governments.” That is the portion marked. I do not see exactly the point in it at the moment, from the Senator's point of view. I might make a great deal out of this, and, if I were arguing from the Senator's point of view, that is not precisely the paragraph I would mark, but it is excellent as indicating the purely tentative character of the whole arrangement. The matter was not fully examined. These were the suggestions, and, if there was going to be a definite contract to the effect that, whenever there was to be arbitration, the arbitral Tribunal should be constituted in that manner, I am certain that you would not have got agreement.

I look on arbitration and the retention of arbitration as a method of settling international disputes as of the greatest consequence to the world as a whole. I regard it as practically the only way in which wars can be avoided, and, because I do believe in arbitration as a means of settling disputes, I would not at any time be a party to accepting as a principle that there should be added to all the difficulties there are in securing the acceptance of arbitration, this further difficulty that the personnel of the Tribunal should be restricted to within a certain geographical area. On general principles, therefore, I would oppose it. I would oppose it, particularly, as a representative of this country, because the disputes that are likely to arise in the Commonwealth with us are likely to arise with Britain. Compare the position of the two countries in the Commonwealth. There is Britain, whose influence extends to the public life of practically every one of these. Great Britain is in a position to influence, in a way we could never hope for, the individual citizens of these countries. Now, human beings are human beings, and they are open to prejudice and bias and the rest of it. The very best judges find it extremely difficult, with all the care in the world, and full knowledge of themselves, to get away from personal bias, personal feelings, and so on, and you will have eminent judicial authorities telling you that the development of British law has been to no small extent due to the fact that the judges of the day lived, not in abstraction, but lived the lives of the people of the day and were influenced by the immediate surroundings and biased in that particular manner. That being so, how can nations, where there are big interests at stake, hand over the determination of these interests without the greatest care in examining the nature of the body that is going to determine the issues? I say that, as between ourselves and Great Britain, I did not use an unfair simile when I said that the dice would be loaded against us. As a matter of fact, even in a world Tribunal, a small country such as ours is, is bound to have the balance somewhat weighed against us.

Mr. Milroy

Our case is hopeless, then!

The President

We are not hopeless, but I would say that, in consenting to arbitration, the smaller and weaker power is always at a disadvantage.

Mr. O'Hanlon

Always.

The President

The alternatives may be still worse—I am quite willing to grant that—and I do not want anybody to take it that what I am saying is an argument against small countries arbitrating disputes with other countries. It may be better to arbitrate than to try otherwise to get their rights. The big battalions count in other directions, too, but what I say is that the representatives of a small country cannot lightly agree to any restriction of the personnel of their Tribunal, and it is because I take that view, that, so far as I am concerned, I am not going to accept that principle which the British Government is stating as a principle. First of all, I say that it is a complete misrepresentation of the whole intentions of that Report to exalt it into a principle. The very words I read indicate that, and, secondly, in our position, with the experience we have had, I do not think that any Government could satisfy itself that it was acting in the interests of the people, which accepted that principle and was willing to act on it.

I am not asking for restrictions in the case of Britain. I do not say to Britain that the person chosen must not be a member of the British Commonwealth or a citizen of one of the States of the British Commonwealth. I said nothing of the kind. It will be hard enough to agree on the personnel of that Tribunal with the whole world to choose from. Why restrict the choice? I do not say, on the other hand, and I want the House to be quite clear about it, that the person chosen must necessarily be from outside, but the British Government have now brought us into a position in which it will be almost impossible, and, in fact, would be impossible, to accept one inside, without appearing to accept what we do not accept, and that is, that that is a principle which is to be followed. I wonder why it is that those who are finding fault with us about our unreasonableness do not turn their attention to the unreasonableness of the other side? It is an extraordinary thing that, when we are dealing with Britain, we are always the party that is wrong, in the opinion of some people, here, in this country, and that, if there is to be any giving away, we must always give away and it is the British Government that must always take. I have been in fairly close contact, on more than one occasion, with British statesmen, and, on every occasion on which I came against them, their attitude seemed to be that, in the nature of things, we should surrender our point of view to theirs. You can see that report that has been published. Talk, talk, or something like that. Why did they not do something more than talk? If there is talk in a case like that, why should the burden of a financial solution rest upon our shoulders more than upon theirs? I repeat that we are anxious to find the settlement of this and we have sufficient intelligence to recognise that a settlement of it, if it is to be got, must be got in either of two ways: either by arbitration, in which somebody outside the two Governments would decide, or by negotiation in which the two Governments themselves would sit down, consider the matter, and come to an agreement as to what was fair and just. You can, too, I think, realise that when there are difficulties of this particular kind, with two parties sitting down, each of which is convinced that it is right, and that they happen to be stubborn, as in this case we are going to be, at any rate, because we do believe that we are right, then it might not be even possible for the Governments to be able to agree if they do negotiate. Therefore, again, you will find yourselves in the long run thrown back upon arbitration, so that really there is no peaceful way out of it except by arbitration. We say, "Then let it be arbitration, let us try to agree on the Tribunal with no restriction of the personnel, and let the whole of the financial matters be referred to that Tribunal; let all the facts and circumstances about them be taken into account."

We question every payment that has been made, except those payments that have been made in consequence of agreements that have been formally ratified by the two Parliaments. We are not going to be bound by secret agreements. Some Senators said that these agreements were not secret. I think I examined the matter fairly carefully and that particular document of 1923, as a whole, had never come to my notice until it was mentioned by the British Government in their despatch. Parts of it were referred to in the British House of Commons, and parts of it were referred to here, but they were spoken of as provisional agreements which were made to operate only for a time. The document as a whole was not revealed either to the British House of Commons or to the Dáil. It is an easy matter to find out whether it was or not. I say it was not. Anybody who disputes that can present us with the occasion on which and the circumstances under which that document as a whole was presented to Parliament. It was not presented. As for the Ultimate Financial Settlement, it was also kept secret for several months. It was never brought before Parliament and it was entered into within a week or two after a Resolution was passed in the Dáil in which it was stated that the Free State could not be bound in financial matters except by the express vote of the Dáil. I am sorry I have not got the exact thing here, but you can look it up. We question all these payments. We say that the Executive Council had no right to enter into an agreement to make them and make them while keeping the basis of the agreement upon which they were made secret. Such a thing would not be heard of in Great Britain. In the case of Great Britain, where the Executive has probably wider and more liberal powers than in any other country—even in the case of the United States there is the Senate—the Executive would not dare do these things, and make agreements and keep them from being ratified—the agreements that were made here with the Irish Free State—if it were a question of alienating the revenues of the State. As I say, we are questioning all these payments and we want all these payments to be brought in in the arbitration. I have already dealt with the merits of the land annuities. Our view is that these were the property of the Irish people and that any responsibility for meeting the dividends and sinking funds was taken over exclusively by the British Government, and the annuities received here from the farmers——

Mr. Milroy

By what Act?

The President

The Act of 1920.

Miss Browne

It was never accepted here.

The President

If I had been making the Treaty instead of those who were making it and I was dealing with Great Britain, I would have been cognisant of the fact that, according to the existing British law at the time these annuities were the property of the Irish people. There are some, of course, who want to pretend that the British accepted the situation here and were negotiating, and accepted the situation of negotiating, with the Government of an Irish Republic. We held that position and we maintained it up to a certain point. Until the Treaty was actually signed, the position was maintained. But the British did not maintain that position. Mr. Lloyd George's strategy from the beginning was this: "We have the 1920 Act in operation in the North. Theoretically it applies to the South. The people in the South are not coming into the Parliament of Southern Ireland. We will offer them something more in order to get them in." The whole of the Treaty was based, from the British point of view, on the idea of offering more to the people of Southern Ireland in order to make the 1920 Act operative. That was the basis of his whole scheme, and during all that period of negotiation there was nothing done by the British Government which interfered with what Mr. Lloyd George wanted to be the basic position. He wanted partition. He had got it operating in the North. He wanted to complete partition by getting it to operate here in the South. Anybody who saw that and knew it—remember, he was dealing not with people who accepted the position, as we wanted it here, but dealing with Great Britain, whose Government was operating in accordance with British law—would know that these land annuities were our property and that the responsibility for meeting the debt responsibility was that of Great Britain. If there is any suggestion that under Article 5 of the Treaty, which refers to the public debt, we took over the liability, then the answer to that liability is found in its cancellation by the 1925 Agreement.

Mr. Milroy

That has nothing to do with the annuities.

The President

The Senator apparently does not know what the 1925 Agreement was.

Mr. Milroy

I do very well.

The President

Will he tell us what it is?

Mr. Milroy

The point on which I interjected was simply to correct what I think was an inaccurate statement of the President, that the cancellation of Article 5 of the Treaty absolves this State from transferring the payment of the annuities to the bondholders through the British Government.

The President

The Senator is confusing the 1925 Agreement with a later agreement. The 1925 agreement was called the Boundary Agreement, and that is the one that cancelled any liability that may have been undertaken by us in virtue of the Article of the Treaty referring to public debt. I mention these things simply because I see that even in the Seanad there is the same hopeless ignorance of the whole situation which is displayed elsewhere throughout the country.

As I have said before, I have been in fairly close contact and have had an opportunity of judging of the attitude of mind of the people with whom we have to deal; and they are determined to make us yield in this matter. I go further and state this: that I believe that the whole of the British strategy at the moment is directed to this one point: that they hope that by pursuing this line of action they are going to get here an Executive Council more pliant than we have been.

Miss Browne

More honest.

The President

I think they are going to mistake the Irish people if they are building too much upon that. The Irish people are not going to be dictated to by any outside people as to what their Government is going to be. It is our duty to protect the interests of our people in this matter. We believe that their interests in this matter have been hopelessly neglected by our predecessors. We have to carry the burden now, that they have given way for a period of years through their own negligence either in not acquainting themselves with the position of their weakness or in continuing to make payments which were not due and which it is our duty to stop. Because there was no other way of dealing with it, we stopped making these payments.

Miss Browne

It is not stopping them—it is stealing them.

Miss Browne

It is not stopping them—it is stealing them. may take something from us at the pistol's point, but it is a very different thing giving it up under these conditions from giving it up as if it were due. We may not be in a position to prevent this money from being taken from us, but we are in a position to prevent its being given up voluntarily.

In every act of ours we have tried to act faithfully to the Irish people and to our obligations to defend their interests. We told the Irish people at the time of the election that there were two things which we proposed to do. One was to remove the Oath, and we went to do it. I think we have done it; because, no matter what Government or what Seanad may be here, that Oath will never again be a part of the law of the Irish Free State. The Irish people, in their own good time, will see to that; and we can safely leave it to them.

The next thing we said we would do was to retain these land annuities. We said we would retain them until Britain in a fair court had proved her right to them. We said that we would proceed in the matter exactly as a private individual would proceed who believed that he was paying away, or that he had been paying away, moneys which were not due. He would cease the payment and he would tell the person receiving the payments and expecting to receive them, that if he had a good case he should prove it. The suggestion made by the British is that we should pay them. No, we will not pay them over to Britain; but we are keeping them there ready to be paid over if Britain proves her case in a fair court.

I have been talking about giving way. In this matter, who ought to be the quickest to give way? Is it the big Power, to whom the £5,000,000 is a relative bagatelle? Or is it the small Power or small State where the sum of £5,000,000 corresponds to such a considerable portion of its revenues and constitutes such an important fraction of its income? If there is to be a giving way, ought it not to be on the part of those for whom the matter is not so much a matter of life and death as it is for us? When I was here before in the Seanad, objections were raised and it was said that my attitude was impossible—that I would not negotiate or meet. I have gone out of my way to meet; I have gone out of my way to negotiate. I have done everything possible to be done except to surrender the rights of the Irish people in this matter, and I am not going to go any farther in it. It has been suggested that this may be a blessing in disguise. "An rud is measa le duine ná a bhás níl a fhios aige nach gurab' é lár a leasa é.” That is the Irish of it. We may, at the moment, be very anxious about the situation. It may be a step—this putting a sort of embargo upon our trade with Britain in certain products —it may be a step that an Executive Council would be very slow to take on its own initiative. But, when we have not done it of our own initiative, when it has been forced upon us, it is encouraging to realise that the results of it will be to put this nation in the direction of securing a type of economy which will be better for its citizens and safer for the State as a whole. In the past, we always recognised that our weakness economically was the fact that we had but one market for the greater portion of our exports. We will be driven now, whether we like it or not, to try to get alternative markets, or to try to produce the things that will get a market in other markets. One thing that is not going to happen as a result of this is that more people will be hungry. One thing that is going to happen is that there will be more food in the country——

Mr. Counihan

Who will pay for it?

The President

——and it will be the business of the Executive Council to see that mouths that have been hungry will be fed. That is the direction in which we will have to move now—to see that people who have not had it, will have something to eat in the future—to see that the children who have not got milk will get it in the future and that the people who have not been able to get food before will get it. It is going to be hard work to bring it about.

Mr. Wilson

Those who own it will get nothing.

The President

Those who produce it will get very much more than they have been getting for some years past —producing under the cost of production, as they have been. We are going to bring about a condition in which people will feed themselves off their own soil and clothe themselves with the labour of their own hands, and if we have to sell at a sacrifice we will be inclined to keep our imports down to the lowest level so that the amount of our loss will be as small as possible.

Mr. Wilson

What about your revenue?

The President

The whole matter is not an easy one. I agree with the Senator. It is so difficult that no Executive Council would face it of its own initiative but those who talk of it as being a blessing in disguise say to themselves: "Very well, it is a thing which we would not of ourselves have the courage to do or our people the endurance to put up with, but in the pressure of external circumstances forced upon us they may be prepared to do it." If we do it, if we make a virtue out of this very necessity; if our people say to themselves: "We are not, at any rate in this country, going to continue on the lines that other countries have gone on, where unemployment and starvation are increasing daily in the midst of plenty, increasing even when the powers of production are increasing;" if we take this opportunity and use it rightly, then I do believe that the next generation will say: "We thank God for the day on which the British put that up against the Irish people and made them face the realities of the present economic situation, not merely in their own country but throughout the world." I believe the Irish people will face it.

We want the aid of every person in the country to do it right. Now is the time, if we have constructive minds in the country, for them to come forward and help us. Instead of getting help from directions in which we had expected it, we have miserable politics, miserable politics indulged in by people who hope by the defeat of this Government, they are going to bring back some of their friends. The Irish people have got a certain amount of common sense and they can see through the efforts that are being made by the British Government to play upon the situation here. We are going to appeal to the Irish people, and so far as our work can do it and our direction can do it and the help which I believe we are going to get from every decent-minded Irishman in a crisis of this kind, we are going to win through in it. The suffering, such as it may be, of certain classes is going to be made up by the foundation here of the sort of economic life that every Irishman who thought nationally in the past hoped for and prayed for and, so far as he was able in his own time, worked for.

Mr. O'Hanlon

I listened with very considerable interest to the President. If I might refer to a few remarks which he made in his winding-up statement, I should like to allude to his reference to the condition of things which has been brought about in this country by the 20 per cent. tariff on certain of our exports and the scheme of reprisals which is now being initiated in this country as a blessing in disguise. I was amazed in a sense to hear the President say that. He held that out as a desirable situation and said that the lot of the people of this country would be better. He said that mouths that are not now fed will be fed and that everyone will live happily in this Utopia which will arise out of the condition of things about which there is so much fuss and so much rumpus. All will be better! I wonder? I must confess that in my ignorance I surmised one thing from the statements which have been made—if there was to be food for all, full and plenty for all, I assumed that out of these powers which are going to be conferred on the Government there was likely to be confiscation and almost socialisation of everything. I find I am absolutely mistaken. According to the President himself—I hope he is correct —I am informed in this new orientation of things, the producers in this country are going to get more for their produce than they have been getting, that the farmers who thought it expedient and wise to sell on a foreign market, are going to get a market at home, and that, whereas in the past they did not get a price for their produce which would cover the cost of production, in future they are going to get the cost of production and something more. I want every Senator to mark that prophecy and I hope and sincerely pray that the prophecy may come true.

The President made a somewhat amusing and—I was rather surprised at him—a rather partial ad misericordiam appeal to the Seanad. He said: “Take the merits of the case away from the legal aspects. We are a small country, this amount of money, this payment per annum, means everything to us. It means relatively very little to England. Why should I give way? It means little to the other people; why do not they give way?” I can assure the President that if we are a poor, small people that we are likely to be much poorer as a result of this economic war upon which we are embarking. If we were to give way just a little to avoid what I consider are likely to be the terrible results of this economic war, I do not think the President would be departing from any of the principles which he enunciated to us here to-day. The President said he did not object to arbitration, but said that if the arbitration court, particularly in respect of the selection of chairman, were to be limited in respect of its geographical area, that the dice were likely to be loaded against us. He at once admitted that there were certain things which could best be decided within the family. We ask him, why not decide this within the family?

The position of the British Commonwealth of Nations is being called attention to at the moment. Senator Dowdall made a speech. I see his brother, who is in the Dáil, attended an anti-Imperialist meeting in Cork last night and made a speech. There were other representatives of the Dáil there. If they want to go out of the Empire, all right, but if they want to keep within the Empire, if we are within the Empire, and if the President says there are things which can best be decided within the family, I ask, why not decide this within the family and so save this country from the wreck and ruin into which it is likely to be driven by this economic war?

Mr. MacEllin

What is your opinion of the Feetham Commission?

Mr. O'Hanlon

If you want me to deal with it I shall. The circumstances in connection with the Feetham Commission were entirely different to what they are in respect to the Arbitration Court which it is proposed to set up. Feetham was England's nominee as chairman. The man appointed here will not be England's nominee. He will be the selection of the joint nominees of the Irish Free State and Great Britain herself. There will be an entirely different set of circumstances.

Mrs. Wyse Power

And if they do not agree?

Mr. O'Hanlon

If not, there is another situation and there is no arbitration. The President made another remark. He said the dice would always be loaded against the smaller, poorer and weaker nations. He says that we are always at a disadvantage in respect to arbitration whether inside the British Commonwealth of Nations or outside it. We are narrowing the point still further. The President has said—it is the first time I heard it mentioned by any responsible person—that we are at a disadvantage in appearing before any court, a court within the British Commonwealth of Nations or a court outside it. If it is only a question of degree, where is the vital principle in this matter? According to the President, it is only a question of degree; because we are a poor nation, a weak nation and a small nation, we are at a disadvantage and we are at that disadvantage whether the tribunal is constituted from within the British Commonwealth or from without it. Furthermore, the President said that the dice were loaded against us. I wonder are they? If the Chairman were selected from the recent Government of Australia or the present Government of South Africa or from leading statesmen in India, does anybody believe that the dice would be loaded against this country? Does anybody believe that these men, who have expressed their view in certain directions, would allow the scales of justice handed to them to fall lop-sided? Does anybody believe that? Of course not! Take the leading Australians or the South Africans. When have they expressed themselves as inimical to Irish interests or when have they refused to do Ireland justice when justice was demanded from them in respect of Ireland? The President made another admission to-day. He admitted that the Chairman of this Arbitration Court may not necessarily be from outside the British Commonwealth of Nations. I did not hear of that before. I confess that I am agreeably surprised to learn from the President to-day that he is prepared, if necessary, to accept as Chairman of that Arbitration Court a man who may come from within the British Commonwealth of Nations.

The President

This is a very important matter and I do not want it to be misrepresented. What I said was, that it was the British who were imposing the restriction and that my reply—if you look it up, you will see that it is not to-day that I said that for the first time-did not state anything like that —that the selection must not be from here or there. What I objected to was the restriction that it should be in a certain place. I want to be quite clear. I did not accept anything. Further— I am sorry to be interrupting but this matter is very important—on account of the British attitude now, having raised it in the particular way they have raised it, it is much more impossible to deal with the situation.

Mr. O'Hanlon

The thing which interested me is this—that the President is prepared to accept as Chairman of the Court a person who need not necessarily be from outside the British Commonwealth of Nations. That is interesting in itself and it narrows down still further the points of difference which are likely to eventuate in this economic war. I should like to make a short comment in regard to this "blessing in disguise" to which the President and Senator MacEllin made reference. Senator MacEllin said that Britain was losing her purchasing power. The President said that Britain was losing her purchasing power and that possibly this would be a blessing in disguise. There is one fact I should like the President and the Senator to advert to, and that is that in respect of the products which we export to Britain—which we have exported in the past and are likely to export in the future—Britain is not losing her purchasing power. Britain is purchasing these products, in the main, in greater quantities than ever. I ask them to examine that point. The President made some remarks as to how we would suggest that this matter could be dealt with. The Minister in charge did not take upon himself, in conformity with the procedure of the House, to explain the Bill. Yet we are asked to put forward concrete proposals as to how this should be done. Senator Douglas put forward one suggestion—that this money, which is lodged in a suspense account, might be deposited with some third party. No matter who is appointed as Chairman of the Arbitration Court, no great harm could then be done. Even if he came from within the geographical limits of the Commonwealth of Nations, there would be no great likelihood of the dice being loaded against us because we have many friends in high positions there.

Senator Connolly said it was up to all elements in the country to strengthen the hands of the Government. There is one way to have the hands of the Government strengthened, if I may say so with great respect, and that is to merit it. If I might venture to offer a word of advice to the Government—it will be too unimportant, I suppose, to deserve attention—it would be that they should have some little regard for the opinions of those who are opposed to them or do not see eye to eye with them in this matter. The view-point of the Opposition, who, in all likelihood speak for the majority of the people on this question, has not been regarded. Their view has not been consulted. If the Government is to get the support which a Government needs in a crisis, it should have some regard for the view-point of the Opposition. Senator Dowdall said that very serious losses would be inflicted on this country. I am rather puzzled by the inconsistency of the remarks upon this point. Senator Dowdall says that there are going to be very serious losses. Senator MacEllin and others say that there will be practically no loss, that this is a blessing in disguise. It is difficult for us, who are not in agreement with this proposal, to know exactly where we are, having regard to these views.

Mr. Dowdall

Particularly when you give a quotation without regard to the other things by which it was qualified.

Mr. O'Hanlon

Senator Dowdall then said that it was unfortunate that we had to export our surplus to one market. How is it unfortunate? Is it not rather a good thing, when we cannot discover any other markets, that we should have at least one market? Is it a fortunate thing that the markets which we are enjoying we should now be taking steps to lose and, in a sense, hoping to lose? Is it contended that that is a fortunate thing for the country? I ask Senator Connolly, when he comes to address himself to these matters, to have some regard for that point. Senator Dowdall likened the position to an employee with only one employer. It is better to have one employer than to have none. Has there been anything to prevent us from opening up markets as in the past with Germany, France and other countries? If these markets were available, was there anything to prevent us entering them?

It is not necessary for me to deal at any length with other matters which have been raised to-day. However, I ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, when addressing himself to this question later, to give attention to a statement made in the Dáil by the Minister who had charge of the Bill. The Minister, in summing up, stated what, he said, the real object of the Bill was. I propose to read the exact words of the Minister for Finance in the Dáil and I ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to tell us if this is the real purpose of the Bill. The Minister for Finance said:

The purpose of this Bill is not to wage economic war upon them, not to destroy England's industry, but to safeguard our own people against hunger and want, and to open up new markets for our goods if the British market is closed to us—

I ask the Senators to mark these words:

—and to recoup, from the hostages which British industry has given this country—to recoup our citizens for any loss which British penal statutes may inflict upon them.

I shall ask the Minister to address himself to these words and I ask him, what are the British hostages in this country that the Government is going to deal with? How do they propose to recoup themselves from these hostages? Perhaps he will inform us if it is his intention to deal with the banks, the Insurance companies and Guinness's? If the Minister would deal with these matters I would be obliged. Perhaps he would say something about the projected steps which, by way of reprisals, the Government intends to take in dealing with the crisis precipitated upon us, as the Minister put it? If the Government feel that they must have weapons to meet these tariffs I think that we should give them reasonable weapons. No one is inclined to deny them reasonable powers in this matter. On the other hand, if they want to go to extraordinary lengths and embark upon new lines of policy, and to get away with more tariffs, there is a democratic way of moving by asking the Dáil to meet before taking any further steps. I think that would be in keeping with the principles of modern democracy.

Dr. Gogarty

Never in my life have I heard such an utterance from any responsible person as I have just listened to from the President. It was like a voice from a mathematical madhouse, from some algebraical world of minus values where everything is upside down and all the quantities are negatives. It would be tolerable if it remained in its dimension, but it is terrible when such dreams overflow into life.

He solemnly suggests that this country, with all its poverty, would be better if it were poorer still. He would cure its poverty and feed its hungry on other citizens' butter and beef and by the loss of a market worth £32,000,000 a year. We were told some time ago by Senator Connolly, now Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, that in six years the whole world would be Communistic, but that he would save Ireland by anticipating the Commune by a Catholic Socialist Republic and ward off insolvency then by bankruptcy now. And now the President, like a mortician in consultation with this insolvency expert, says that it will be a blessing in disguise for the Irish people to react willingly or otherwise to the fait these two have accomplished between them. It is like the proposal to teach a crew swimming by scuttling the ship: or anticipating a ford by plunging into the morass.

I must confess that the last Government was open to criticism in that it allowed the two great industries it inherited, Guinness and Jameson's, to go on bearing the emergency and panic taxes of Lloyd George; that instead of releasing these great firms from British taxation and giving them a chance to increase still more, they left them burdened as they were. But this policy, questionable as it is, to my mind, would not be drastic enough for President de Valera. He would blot out their trade to make them better Irishmen; Guinness more Gaelic and bring Jameson to the proof. Here he is now looking forward with an enthusiasm, and a transfigured look, to losing all our market because it is a humiliation to have it, or to deal with England. This is a terrible mentality to let loose on any nation—the spirit that denies and the heart that recoils. He cannot face the actualities which attend all human transactions; he tries to get back again into the state of dreams. And so that his marketless vision should not be disturbed he would surround this country with a wall of brass past which there would be neither going nor coming. Indeed in the parts of this unexplained Bill there are provisions by which not the English, terrible, beef-buying English, but the bankrupted Irish will be impeded. By this Bill a man may be prevented from taking a holiday out of Ireland by this Mussolini of Miseries. This is a specimen of how a Republican interprets Freedom.

I cannot see that this will do what we are told it is intended to do: hurt the citizens of Great Britain. We are asked to "close the ranks" and to stand behind the Government in a "Crisis." Ireland is to be united by the results of a blunder and a self-made "Crisis." This is the "other round" with an absentee enemy by which the President was to show what he could do. What has caused the imbroglio? What is the cause of the "Crisis" apart from its being the avowed policy of the now President? It arose, not from an international problem, like a war debt, but from a breach of the civil or domestic law comparable to an act of bag-snatching, and it results, not in another round with England, but in an inglorious clash with Scotland Yard. It is a question of common honesty. It is an act that was born in dishonesty and perpetrated in the public high-way. I warned Senator Connolly when he was amending the story which his Party had told the electors, that is, that they would not have to pay the annuities, when he was changing that to the revised version that the annuities should be paid but not to England, not to those who lent the money but to the Fianna Fáil Government, that this policy could but lead to the annuities not being paid to anyone. Now he is certain that they must be paid, but into a "suspense account." He takes little account of the cost that this suspense is to the country. Capital is flying it. His Commune is coming nearer than he anticipates. If it overtakes him it will be of course someone else's fault. The Seanad's fault possibly. And the cure for this Crisis is to close the ranks behind rank nonsense. There is a Crisis in Wonderland but it can be cured by closing on the annuities and closing the ranks and presumably the banks afterwards. The poorer an Irishman is to become the better the patriot he will be turned into. Poverty is to be welcomed and is to be cured by a further dose. It is hard to know for what the ranks are to be closed. The Government policy as it is at present will make this country so poor that no help from the ranks will be needed. It may be that the ranks are asked to rally round the Government while it destroys the last vestiges of property and prosperity that this country possesses. It hopes so to distort common sense in an orgy of loot that poverty will take the place of patriotism; and honesty, decency and thrift will be the badges of a traitor. This is what has been more or less avowed when we penetrate the disguise and examine the President's "blessing." I never, as I said, heard anything like it. It is more wonderful than one of the Islands visited by Friar John. This is what the poor dupes who voted Fianna Fáil get for all the election promises—a "Crisis." This is the party who were to abolish unemployment, improve social conditions and reduce taxation—I have the leaflet in my hand. We were told that we were proportionately the most highly taxed nation in the world. Even though the last Government imposed an income tax of three and sixpence in the pound it represented so much a head more than any country endured. How was this remedied by the Fianna Fáil Party? By imitating the country in finance with whom it will not unite in commerce. By bringing income tax up to the British level, and helping us to pay by depriving us of the means of earning! The social conditions were improved and one "put up on" the old Government by a raid on the blind man's box in the shape of taking the money from the hospitals which the Sweep provided. This is what that other round has cost us up to now. This is what the Five Months Plan of the (rather contradictory) Catholic Socialist Republican Party has done. And now it is losing with hopeful and fatuous equanimity the nearest, best and easiest market which exists on earth. The Danes who devastated this country when it was theoretically a model to Europe, are to escape "another round," England is out of reach of the President's left scissors hook. Taxpayers and farmers are being substituted for the absentee enemy and a chance of trebling this country's prosperity and having houses for the people in sub-human conditions in horrible tenements lost. Nothing is to be made of the fact that we are good customers and better than Denmark, and should get better terms from our customers. This fact is being used to embarrass our buyers and with the chance of plenty within our grasp we are asked to tighten our belts. The country is to recoil from fact and opportunity into the ninth century, until the humiliation-minded President's honour is satisfied; until our Leonidas extricates himself from a meaningless Thermopylae by getting the Spartan women and children to "close the ranks." Meanwhile any chance of making this country free from the awful sub-human conditions in which at least fifty thousand of its Capital's citizens live is to be irretrievably lost. But the next generation will rise to praise the President. Praise! I do not often make suggestions and up to this I have not been asked to advise His Holiness; but if he is ever thinking of giving titular honours to our President he could call him not inappropriately "The Prince of Denmark," for he is as hurling-worded and as overwhelmed as Hamlet and he has done more for the Danish market and the prosperity of Denmark than the royal family thereof. "God has given you one pace and you make yourself another." Because, and this I say solemnly, the present policy, this "crisis" which the Government have caused can have but one upshot if persisted in-and persistence has become another mark of patriotism—it can but rally whatever there is to be enfevered falsely of national enthusiasm, not against England but against property holders here in our own land. If there must be this shadow sparring with Great Britain ten years after the British troops, according to the British interpretation of the Treaty, marched out of the Free State for ever, let it be somewhere else, somewhere where it will not be necessary to see an Englishman in every inhabitant of this country who has contributed to its prosperity and kept himself off the rates or off the Central Fund, somewhere where it will not be necessary to invent enemies and to oppose patriotism to property. I prefer to think that the President is preparing to act as a mortician of this nation from a series of misjudgments and mistakes, because I cannot imagine a conceit so colossal and a vanity so heartless and so megalomaniacal as would be ready to hide its incapacity in a smoke screen of the Irish homesteads. And to call that "resurgent Ireland!"

Instead of seizing the opportunity of Plenty, like a fanatical edition of St. Francis he is to wed his Lady Poverty —by proxy, of course—while we, who are hard set enough to live, are to tighten our belts. This is his "simpler life" proposed for a people who have never lived anything but the barest and simplest of lives! This sixpenny Savanarola, in a world of Woolworths, invites the nation deliberately to choose poverty which he promised in his election confidence trick to prevent: there will be food for all from the unsaleable property of other Irishmen; though it be nothing but a few seasons' purchase of what would have been a perpetual market. Already they say in Clare that the blacksmiths are shoeing the cattle so that they may gallop round the fairs on the look out for a purchaser. We are to butcher them at home and to grow corn in rivalry with the endless prairies of Canada. As yet the farmer is not required to grow tea. Ireland is humiliated by Lipton and Assam! This is the kind of nonsense which comes from a mind that would not only put the whole world back nine hundred years but ignores the differences of latitudes and the advantages to humanity of transport bringing to less endowed peoples the fruits of the different climes. To be consistent the potato introduced by Raleigh should be extradited and smoking taxed as a foreign game.

Life in Ireland had many idyllic characteristics while its markets for live-stock was assured. The soil of the country supported the people and they had not to live in factories by the work of their hands. Instead of hurting that market one would think that we should be asked to foster it. How can we, even if we should, hurt a country which takes only six per cent. of its total purchases from us? It stands to lose one-sixteenth of its food supply which the whole world from China to the Argentine is ready to make up, while we lose almost our whole market; and because it is almost our whole market we are asked to humiliate ourselves and to be independent of the soleness of our market by voluntarily presenting it to the South Americans and the Chinese. They will have the blessing of prosperity, we the disguise. Would it not be better to pay twice the amount of the annuities in order to double our £32,000,000 trade?

Now if the fight were fair we would all be in it. But even the people of this country who happen to hold land stock can take out a mandamus against the Government if the interest on the annuities is withheld. This is the issue which cannot be settled without a foreigner to decide. We were exempted from war debts because we undertook to guarantee equally with Great Britain these annuities. Considered in that light, the light of their being a kind of corollary to war debts, we could have opened up negotiations for the reconsideration of the rate of interest of the annuities or the annuities themselves. And this even though annuities are not in the same category as war indemnities.

Colonel Moore

Are war debts any more honest than any other sort of debts?

Dr. Gogarty

The annuities are civil and not indemnities or mulcts and are the interest promised on a loan withheld. They are subject matter for a mandamus.

Mr. Connolly

That is not so.

Dr. Gogarty

At any rate, they are now about to do us more harm than war debts, owing to the way they have been made the subject of a "Crisis" the cure of which is to be either Communism, national hari-kari or civil war. Our War Lord's other round will be again where he lost the first.

Let me tell the President something about the irony that meets the well-intentioned before his distaste for the hard humdrum poorly reported work of fostering a nation's business makes him forsake the desk for the ditch and take the field, the Irish field instead of taking by storm the British market. It is this—and it does not need Einstein to endorse it—a path too unswervingly pursued in one direction leads back to the opposite direction. A statesman who has no regard for the conditions on which a country's existence in the realm of Reality depends, let me say a patriot, but carries out his own policy whether it be an idea or an ideal regardless of the present needs of the people comes to be indistinguishable in historical results from, and confused in the memory of the citizens with, a traitor, as the saying goes, "in the pay of England." Therefore I tell you to have a care, President de Valera, lest your silhouette may come to be regarded as the most sinister which ever darkened the light in genial Ireland and that it may not be without ominous significance that, during the election, your name was written on the dead walls and the roofless ruins of this our country.

Colonel Moore

Let me say a few words before we end this debate. We had a very pleasant conversation from the last speaker. What seems to be patent in the discussion is that the people whe were speaking against this Bill are really speaking against the British Bill. Does anybody say that the Bill that is put forward now is going to impoverish the country? As a matter of fact it is the British Act that is calculated to do that. What is the result of this Bill going to be? The British say they are going to collect five millions a year from this country and we are going to get five millions a year back on account of these annuities and the rest of the money, so between the five millions on each side there will be no difference or loss whatsoever. We are going to get five millions and unless the British take ten millions from us they cannot hope to do anything better. I am very hopeful about the whole matter. I think this matter will end shortly. The President made a statement that the whole matter of this movement of the British and their allies over here is simply to get the President out of the way and bring in some one else who is more complaisant to them. I happened a few weeks ago to be in London and I attended the House of Commons. The whole burden of the discussion there was that the thing to do was to get rid of President de Valera and then everything would go on splendidly between the two countries. As I was listening to all that and as I heard these things I remember what we read about O'Connell, how he was called a big beggarman and every other sort of name. I remember reading about Parnell and the abuse that was showered on him. I remember the great deal of abuse we heard at one time of John Redmond, who afterwards became a saviour. We heard the same abuse of Collins and Griffith. This same Collins had a price upon his head. All these things are because the British do not like us and they want somebody over here who will give them whatever they want. I found in the House that was the beginning and end of their conversation and I can tell you that after spending a week listening to them.

Mr. Jameson

I suppose we are getting near the end of this discussion. We have travelled a very great way from the Bill which is before the House. From the speech of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs it is quite evident after his résumé of the Bill that it is hopeless for the Seanad to expect from him any real helpful statement in regard to the Bill. When I saw the President coming in I was very glad because I thought that now at least we would get a statement from the President as to the prospects of success in this war which is being waged. There was one other hope seeing all these negotiations that were going on, that we would at least have a prospect that there would be some chance of good feeling and good wishes to meet the needs of the case with little concessions here and there so as to avoid what we are apparently now face to face with, an economic war between the Free State and Great Britain. I am sorry to say that not a word that the President said held out the slightest hope that there was any prospect of such an ending to the present state of affairs.

Unless I am mistaken the President definitely stated that he had no idea whatever of meeting the demands of the British Government in this matter; that this Bill which is now before us was his method of replying to the British in settlement of the question. In his remarks he seemed to hold out the hope that a state of affairs could arise in this country by which our farmers could feed to the community all their produce and that the people of the Free State would have money to pay for it. Well, it is a beautiful dream but I do not believe that there is anybody in the Free State who really believes that such a state of affairs is possible.

Another thing which the President held out to us was the hope that he and his Executive Council could find a set of new markets outside Great Britain for the goods which our people are engaged in producing. Well now, I spent a great deal of my life in trying to establish markets in different parts of the world and it has taken years and years to do it. That anyone could hope that any Executive Council could possibly find another market for our agricultural produce or anything that we are manufacturing which has not already been prospected up to its hilt is only a dream. Whether or not they are going to get an opportunity of testing that I do not know. Apparently they are. We are going into this war now and that being the case I thought that the President would have told us, as most people would expect when war is being declared, what the indications of success are. One would have thought that he would have given us some idea of what the prospects of success are and how we are going to injure the enemy, which is Great Britain.

It is a perfect farce to talk of injuring Great Britain. Everything that we can produce can be brought into Great Britain in enormous quantities from all our competitors all over the world. Great Britain can get everything that we are able to supply. At the present moment Great Britain's ships are waiting with nothing to do. Does anyone here think that these ships will be plying between this country and England when they can take these ships now lying in the mud, send them to the most distant parts of the Commonwealth and bring in Dominion produce of exactly the same nature as ours? What chance have we against that state of affairs? We are not going to be able to sell what we are producing, and yet we are imposing an enormous number of tariffs upon everything that we want to buy. How can people possibly exist on such lines? We are in the position that we will not be allowed to sell the things we can produce because we are quarrelling with our customers and everything that we want to buy is being shoved upon us by tariffs.

And just consider the type of tariffs. A Bill like this makes it almost impossible to purchase goods. It will be impossible to buy any or all of the things that are absolutely necessary to the trade of the people manufacturing in this country. I must confess that the result of the debate this afternoon and what the two Ministers have said makes me perfectly hopeless about the future. It is certain that this country has got to go through a terribly bad time; that everyone of the producers in this country is going to find it impossible to sell his goods except at enormously reduced prices. I believe that these things will react on the people and that the poorer people of this country are going to have a shockingly bad time. That is as certain as anything can be. I had thought that the world was changing and that the declaration of war was a thing we were not going to hear in this country for many a long day. This is not a war in which lives are going to be lost, but the prosperity of the people, and the chance of the Free State living in any condition of prosperity, is gone when we enter into this war, and that is being done when the whole world is trying to make nation meet nation and compose their differences, and acknowledge the fact that no nation in the world can get on that does not trade with the rest of the world, and that any isolation of the kind can only be enforced by measures such as they take in Russia. That, of course, is foreshadowed in the President's speech. He said that the Government will take means by which everybody in this Free State will have plenty to eat. Who is going to supply them with the money to buy it and who is going to sell it to them? Of course, they can make the laws, so long as they are there, to compel the farmers to sell at a price on which they cannot possibly live, but I do not believe it is possible, with the people we have here, ever to consume what is necessary to keep our producers in existence at all.

That is the prospect that we are face to face with, and this is the Bill that we are asked to pass to enable that to be done. A Bill giving such powers to any Government is a most dangerous thing to pass. Again and again, from this side of the House, we have protested against the kind of measure which means coercion of the people, and giving, to the Government, powers which are utterly beyond the control of the Parliament of the country. Here we have an instance of it, coupled with a terrible quarrel, a desperate economic war—a war which does not merely involve the 20 per cent. We will lose any amount greater than that by all the interference with trade, the want of knowledge and inability to make a contract, or to do anything. We are being shoved out of the commercial world, and I only say these things because the country ought to know them, and we here in the Seanad should say what we believe are the consequences of the action which the Government is taking. We cannot interfere with the Bill. We cannot amend it. We can only make recommendations, but we can say that, in our belief, it is positively certain that this measure, and the action of the Executive Council, in dealing with this whole financial question, is bringing financial ruin on the country.

I was very glad to hear to-day that there was very little reference to the question of calling those of us who disagree with the policy of the Government British supporters and that kind of thing. It is not good taste nor good manners nor good argument, and the people know that perfectly well. It does not hurt us in the slightest. One must conclude from what we have heard to-day that there is no hope of the Executive finding out any other avenues by which they can settle this difference, and that we are really face to face with an economic war. If that is so, I think that our people will have to go through a very bad time indeed in ways which probably none of us ever dreamt of. It is evident that the President thinks that, after we come out of the valley, we may emerge into some state of competence, and that everybody will be able to clothe himself and get what he wants to eat and drink. It may be so, but the way to get to that position is not by destroying the trade of the country, and there is no question that this measure, and this action taken by the Executive Council, will certainly, for many a long day to come, absolutely ruin our industries and destroy the prosperity of the country.

Mr. O'Farrell

I think that nobody, except a most irresponsible person, can fail to approach this debate to-day without feelings of the most profound gloom. I was terribly sorry and disappointed to gather from the general trend of the President's speech that all hopes of a peaceful settlement are at an end. I had personally hoped that, although there seemed to be a break on Friday night, there was some door open, that the wit of man and the last resort of statesmanship had not been exhausted, but I am afraid that the President has left little or no hope that there is going to be any renewal of the negotiations with any prospect of success. It would seem, therefore, as if this war, or our part of it which is to commence when this Bill becomes an Act, is to be one to a finish to see who will last the longest.

If there were any prospects of a settlement I am afraid that the debate that has taken place here to-day would have done more harm than good. This is just one of those questions in which the least said by the average man, and even by the average member of the Oireachtas, the better for all concerned. I am one of those who try to be guided in my policy by the programme of my own Party. I do not like being a cypher and taking instructions blindly and swallowing everything thrown out to me by the members of any other Party, and I look to the Labour Party programme in regard to this particular item. In that, there is one paragraph with which I entirely agree, and which I wish had been followed in the early stages of this dispute. The President will place particular value on it, because the author of it is Senator Johnson, who is the principal adviser to the Government's delegation at Ottawa. He says:

Where lawyers differ as to the interpretation of the law, political parties are not qualified to pronounce judgment. The Labour Party would insist on securing for the Free State every advantage accruing from any international agreement to which this country is a party, that declarations of policy on issues between nations, particularly on questions relating to finance and debts, ought not to be made in the language of challenge and defiance. The jingo politicians of small nations, as of great, are notorious for the disastrous consequences of their leadership, financial and political. The chances of a favourable revision of the financial agreements with Britain have been seriously injured by statements made in the course of party controversy.

That was approved unanimously by the Labour Party Conference. It is true that members of the Labour Party have not strictly followed that course, but I think it would have been in the interests of this country if, right through, there had been a greater spirit of reserve in the language that was used in regard to what was a legal question and a highly moral question from the viewpoint of the relationships between nations. I hope that from now onwards, at least, both Ministers and members of the Oireachtas, no matter to what side they belong, will try to refrain from saying anything that might make the position even more bitter than it is.

The very serious nature of the conflict upon which we are embarking is indicated in the drastic terms of the Bill before the House. In the Dáil, Deputy Davin got an assurance that it was only a temporary measure and that it would be withdrawn at the very first moment of a settlement with the other side. The President to-day rather indicated that it was to be used in a permanent sense to effect a social and economic revolution. I would certainly welcome an economic revolution, but I should like to know the lines upon which it is going to proceed. I have of necessity had, with my colleagues in the trade union movement, to study proposals for economic revolution, and I cannot for one moment imagine that it can be carried out with the ease, the smoothness, and the efficiency which the President suggests; that everyone will get more for what he has to sell, and those who now are without shall have plenty to eat and to drink and to clothe themselves. I have read the works of most economists and, with my colleagues, have studied the best methods for trying to relieve the sufferings arising out of the capitalist system. I may say that, short of going whole-hog Bolshevik, we have not been able to arrive at a solution in the calm and easy way that the President indicates the Executive Council have. The nearest approach to which we could go is indicated in The Nation Organised. I shall be delighted if the Government accept that, and shall be more delighted if they are prepared to go beyond that, provided it means better results.

This Bill asks for powers which I think no democratic Government has yet asked for and obtained. The only justification for it is the fact that the British Government has got full and plenary powers in regard to the imposition of tariffs on traffic from the Free State. This Bill, unfortunately, goes much further and asks for similar powers and also additional powers in regard to excise and stamp duties, not only in regard to British trade, but in regard to the whole of our trade with every other nation. No disciple of democracy or anybody, except one who favours autocracy, could be expected to vote enthusiastically for this Bill, or with anything but the greatest misgivings. I suggest, before a measure of this kind was introduced, that at least the Labour Party should have been consulted, and, if they were, I cannot for one moment imagine their agreeing voluntarily to the drastic powers which are contained here, many of which must of necessity be quite non-essential. The dangers arising out of these are not only in connection with the immediate crisis, but because of the precedent that they set as far as future Governments are concerned. A Government, with a bare majority in the Dáil, can follow this precedent, wipe out at one stroke the whole of these protections for the community and for democracy that ages of struggle have won for them. The Constitution (Amendment No. 17) Act, passed in a period of panic by the late Government, is still the law of the land, and the present Government have power to bring it into operation by Order in Council at any time. Circumstances may arise in which they may think that is necessary, and that being done you have the last vestige of human liberty wiped out, and the whole constitutional, political, economic and social fate of the community placed in the hands of eight or ten people. That is certainly not a development that one welcomes.

Whilst I must give the Government the power to deal with the crisis, I certainly am not over-enthusiastic in giving them powers which I believe are not necessary, that they have not told us are necessary, and that no attempt has been made to show are necessary. As I said, the only justification for them is the effect of the similar legislation passed in Great Britain. In a fight of this kind we cannot leave our Government unarmed while the British Government are fully equipped for battle.

I cannot view with anything but feelings of gloom the prospect of the struggle. It is no consolation, good, bad or indifferent, to our people on this side who are suffering, to be told that the people on the other side are suffering just as much. They may suffer even more, but we are concerned with our people. It has been stated that the taxable capacity and, consequently, the financial resources of Great Britain are 66 to 1 of the Free State, so that if there is a loss of ten million pounds per annum inflicted on this country as a result of this war, it is equivalent to sixty-six times the amount inflicted on Great Britain. Therefore, the loss and suffering here, on that basis, will be sixty-six times the amount that it would be on the other side. It is a horrible commentary on the sanity of modern statesmanship that in a matter of this kind, where there is nothing involved but one point of procedure, there are no other courses left open but to resort to economic war. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and President de Valera can each of them go and tell the world that he is prepared to submit to arbitration. Each of them can say that categorically, and no one can deny it, and still the war must go on. There is a dispute over one point of procedure, and the resources of civilisation are seemingly exhausted.

Colonel Moore

There is the further question of handing over the money to Great Britain, which we will not accept.

Cathaoirleach

I do not think the Senator ought to interrupt at this stage.

Mr. O'Farrell

I do not know the Senator's point. I am not now entering into the merits of the dispute at all. I am only deploring our failure to succeed. I was going to suggest to the President that he might seriously consider the question of referring this matter to the Council of the League of Nations. It is an international matter. We are a member of the League of Nations; we have even a seat on the Council. Surely to goodness the question is of sufficient importance to refer it to the Council? There might be a truce whilst the Council was considering the matter. The Council has on many vital occasions saved armed conflict between two States. I am surprised that no really serious move has been made from any direction with a view to having this matter referred to the Council of the League. I would throw it out as an humble suggestion on my part that the President should himself take the initiative in a matter of that kind. Let us try and act for the moment, in any case, in the spirit of being able to effect a settlement rather than set out on a war the results of which may affect generations to come.

The whole thing may be a blessing in disguise, but, from my point of view at present, it is an impenetrable disguise if it is a blessing. It is very easy for people who are assured of a reasonable income, who are well fed, well groomed, and all the rest, to be prepared to fight to the last drop of somebody else's blood, or the last gasp of his starving children. But, behind all this, there is the grim spectre of suffering, poverty and despair. The real heroes and the real sufferers in this struggle, on both sides of the Channel, will not be the politicians who are photographed from twenty different angles every day. They will be the small farmers and the humble workers who will lose their employment and who will be crushed between the two millstones whilst the new economic order is being set up. I am always very slow, and I hope everybody will be very slow, to enter upon a war, if it can be avoided, where somebody else has to bear the brunt of the struggle. I am concerned with that aspect of the case, and I believe that the public conscience of the people of both countries will insist upon some sort of an arrangement being arrived at. Are we to take it that we are now to proceed on the assumption that there is to be no settlement except on the basis of one side or the other giving way? If that is the position, can we get any indication as to when the struggle will end, and with what result it will end? I have heard nothing to give any indication of what the position will be. The President will find that some of those who are slowest to urge him to enter into the war will be the last to squeal at its consequences. I have been speaking to some people, who have voted for this and that and the other thing, and their attitude very often seems to be to the effect that "I am doing this because otherwise I would be misrepresented." That is the person who is acting without conviction, and I never like to be in the position of supporting something in the justice and the merits of which I do not believe. I am supporting the Government in this Bill because I want to give a fair show to the Government and the country. I can assure the Government that I, and any over whom I may have any influence, will not be the first to squeal when the conflict is on. I do appeal, however, to the Government to do everything possible to try to bring about a settlement before we enter into the really serious phases of this economic war.

Mr. Connolly

Let me explain that, in introducing this Bill, I assumed that each member of the Seanad had got the Bill and had read it. I also assumed that each member of the Seanad had taken at least a passing interest in what had transpired during the week-end and prior to the week-end. The Bill, in view of that, was to me self-explanatory. Such criticism as we have heard here to-day was, on the whole, expected by me. I realised, as I realised long since in the Seanad, that one has to re-analyse a Bill when it comes to replying to such criticism as we got in the Seanad to-day. I have no desire to labour the matter unduly, and I certainly do not like to reexamine the Bill in detail twice.

We have heard a good deal of talk on all aspects of the Bill. We have been lectured about bad manners and good taste, and where we are lacking in good manners and so forth. Senator Gogarty, with his invariable cheap wit, or what passes for wit, has given us a usual performance—to my mind, an ignorant performance—not a responsible performance, but typical of him. Nobody in this House, who has listened to him, as we have listened to him for the last three or four years, takes him seriously either as a well-intentioned Irishman or as a man who gives any thought whatever to anything affecting the welfare of this country. He is merely a flippant dilettante who devotes his spare time to calling in to the Seanad to see how we all are, for which he gets no fee, except his remuneration as a Senator, and devotes the other portions of his spare time to libelling and blackening the name of this country in the foreign Press.

Dr. Gogarty

I should like to say that having telephoned the Irish Press I was informed that I was not persona grata with the people on the Press. Having been twice refused a hearing in my own country, I wrote an article in the National Graphic against the codology going on, and which I hope the Government will circulate.

Mr. Connolly

And which periodical has since disappeared from circulation, though whether following from the publication of Senator Gogarty's article or not I cannot say.

I say that he belongs to the type that loves to sneer at everything decent in this country. I do not propose to take any of his remarks seriously as a contribution to either economic or political thought. I have long since got over any such idea.

Senator Jameson and different other Senators have approached this matter in the spirit of indicting the present Government for launching a war. Their whole mentality is based on that. Their whole argument here is based on that—why should we precipitate a fight? Do they not realise that this imposition of 20 per cent. tariff imposed by the British on our agricultural exports to Great Britain was the first step in this economic fight?

Mr. Milroy

Not at all.

Mr. Connolly

Senator Milroy says "Not at all." I say it was, and that it has got to be met. The Senators who belong to both Senator Milroy's Party and Senator Jameson's Party are constantly anxious on all occasions and in all circumstances to impose the responsibility for everything which they consider wrong on the Executive of this country. They never for a moment consider whether it is worth while looking into the matter and seeing if there is any responsibility elsewhere.

Mr. Milroy

That is not true.

Mr. Connolly

I did not interrupt Senator Milroy by a direct contradiction or by anything else. He has talked a great deal to-day, and I think his contribution is very little removed from the quality of Senator Gogarty's contribution. I want to make it quite clear that it is this mind and this mentality in this country, both in this House and in the other House, that has been the only basis for the British in taking up the attitude they took up, and that their only argument—the only argument that really mattered in the British case—has been made in this House and in the other House.

Mr. Guinness

I should imagine that the British are very well able to take care of themselves.

Mr. Connolly

Apparently you do not always think so, and your colleagues certainly do not always think so. One can understand the retrogression of the late Ministry when one realises the pressure put on them in this House and outside it. We are not going to go wrong as a result of that pressure. We will go out first. Different Senators in this House have already, to my knowledge, attempted to play the game of England and to offer to facilitate the British Government. Members of this House have done that——

Sir John Keane

Name them.

Mr. Connolly

——and, to Deputy Cosgrave's credit, be it said, he refused to have anything to do with anything of that sort.

Sir John Keane

On a point of order. Should a charge be made generally against a member or members of this House?

Cathaoirleach

I think the charge should be specific.

Mr. Connolly

I do not choose to make it specific.

Sir John Keane

If the charge is not to be specific, then it should be withdrawn.

Mr. Connolly

If it is out of order to mention it, without being specific, then I am prepared to withdraw it.

Cathaoirleach

It is out of order so to mention it.

Mr. Connolly

Very well then, I withdraw it. We are talked to by Senator Milroy and by other Senators about committing economic suicide and about the 1921 "honourable peace." Was it an honourable peace? I say the agreement of 1921 was not an honourable peace, and that it was carried through under threat of civil war, which they presented and carried through by their Ministers here. Senator Milroy may shake his head, but he knows that is true. He knew that he resigned from the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation——

Mr. Milroy

Wrong again.

Mr. Connolly

That is on record— the fact that he resigned from the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation. Why? Because they were pro-Imperial. At least that was the excuse he gave.

Mr. Milroy

Not at all.

Mr. Connolly

Well, it was quoted against you at the time and it has never been denied.

Mr. Milroy

Get down to the Bill.

Mr. Connolly

He had the temerity here to-day to stand up and quote from The Framework of Home Rule, by Erskine Childers. We have been lectured about bad taste and bad manners, but of all people in the world that should have referred to Erskine Childers, the last one should have been Senator Milroy.

Mr. Milroy

Do you challenge the quotation?

Mr. Connolly

I want to point out here that when you quote from The Framework of Home Rule, by Erskine Childers, you have got to remember the period in which it was written. You have got to remember that Pádraic Pearse was willing at one time to accept the Irish Councils Bill and he was none the worse Irishman for that, but it is blasphemy to hear Milroy discussing Childers here. He talks about irresponsible Ministers. There is no such thing as an irresponsible Minister. The Minister has to take his responsibility and to carry it through. It is for the country and for the Government and the Party to which he belongs to deal with him if he does not do so, but a responsible Minister in this House is expected to lie down because Ramsay MacDonald and others threaten us with the big stick. If one is to become irresponsible by standing up here and declaring that one is an Irish Nationalist, that one stands for an Irish Republic— if that is irresponsibility then we are all irresponsible. Senator Brown insists that we created this crisis. I have already dealt with that. The crisis is not of our creation. We had a decided mandate at the last election, just as we had on the Oath——

Mr. Wilson

Not to lose the market.

Mr. Connolly

Never mind about losing the market. I can confidently say that the Senator does not worry about losing any market.

Cathaoirleach

I shall ask Senators not to interrupt. If any Senator wishes to make a point of personal explanation, he can ask to do so through me and I shall have answers given to him if possible. These interruptions must stop. You will please address the Chair, Senator.

Mr. Connolly

We have lost since the Free State came into being over 300,000 emigrants. The economic position of the country has not improved since that time. The President of the Executive has dealt in detail with the relative value of the burden on our community in comparison to what it would be in England on the same basis. He has made an unanswerable argument on that. We have been abused in this House and in the other House. As I say, arguments have been made purely from the British Imperial point of view in the other House, better than have been made across the water. It might be refreshing as a change to consider what is thought of some of these brilliant British statesmen, whom our friends admire so much in London when they go there. This is an extract from the New English Weekly of July 14th, 1932:

On the face of it, nothing could well be more clumsy than Mr. Thomas's handling of the Irish situation. To apply the sanction of a penal tariff to a Government that is fully prepared to arbitrate merely because agreement has not been reached on the personnel of the arbitrators may well appear as the act of a bully. Nor are Mr. Thomas's excuses, that no "foreigner" shall arbitrate for us, in the least degree valid since in scores of disputes ever since the Hague Convention, we have been proud to submit our case to world opinion. If Mr. Thomas were acting on his own, of course, there would be nothing less to be said than has been said by journals like The New Statesman and the Week-end Review. His present behaviour is characteristic of one of the worst leaders Labour ever had, and he appears likely to cost the Commonwealth in the enmity of Ireland as much as he cost his Union in the contempt of serious Labour statesmen.

As I say, it is refreshing to hear some point of view different to what you get in the Irish Times and the Independent. Ramsay MacDonald attended the Lausanne Conference and made a pathetic appeal for peace all over the world. He talked to us about reparations and the war debts and the hopes of Europe and the hopes of Britain to have these matters settled. He talked about capacity to pay and he talked a great deal, indeed, about the interchange of commodities in the economic life of all the countries involved. He concluded the Lausanne Conference, and what was the first thing he did? He turned his eyes to America in the hope that they would be forgiven their debts. Everybody in the world applauded Ramsay MacDonald, and I am sure nobody endorses what he said more than the people who are opposing us in this Seanad. They are always quite content to accept British statesmen's appeals for fair play. They are always quite willing to think that he has a good cause to go to America and ask for the remission of war debts. He may have, and world peace may demand it, but is it not a rather anomalous position to find us here in this State of ours with the stiff-necked attitude of the British Cabinet, that they will not even agree to a decent type of world tribunal, that they will impose 20 per cent. tariff immediately on us? What is behind it? Because they think we are still the colony we were. They are led to believe that we are the colony we were. They are led to believe that if they only keep a sufficiently stiff-necked attitude the de Valera administration will disappear and that Mr. Cosgrave will come in again. They are being encouraged in that at home and abroad, but it remains to be seen whether the people will really stand for that or not. This is a move on Britain's part, and I am willing to say here with all the responsibility of a Minister, this move on Britain's part is, in my judgment, partly a political move to put us out and to get a more pliant Government at their disposal here.

Senator Counihan discusses, as a live stock trader and a representative farmer, the whole position of the land annuities and he says we should accept the proposals put up to us. I do not want to go on repeating and releating, but what I do want kept in mind is this—that this is a retaliatory measure to deal with the position whereby 20 per cent. was imposed on our goods and we are not going to have it put across to us, not even by Senators here, that we are doing something provocative. The provocative thing has been done and we are going to meet it. I do not know whether Senator Counihan is a farmer or a grazier. He is probably both. There has been a good deal of talk here about a Utopia and how and what we hope to do. Nobody imagines that in modern life and with civilisation as it is being administered at present, there are going to be many Utopias, if any. But there is a responsibility on all statesmen at present—a recognised responsibility which people are facing up to everywhere with the exception of certain groups here. There is a recognised view that Governments have responsibility for their citizens, that the world is not what it was, that the grazing of cattle may not be the right thing or that it may the right thing within certain limits, that it may want another balance of trade to keep it in position—but the fact does remain that Governments are accepting responsibility for their citizens and that they are going to be forced to accept responsibility, whether they like it or not. We think, in this House, in terms merely of bank balances, of margins for exporters, of dividends for shipping companies or graziers' profits for taking a small beast from the West of Ireland and putting it on the lands of Meath. That position has gone. Whatever way it be done, we shall have to take responsibility for the life and well-being of our citizens here. We may be in a position to give them a decent living. We may be only in a position to keep them alive but, whatever the responsibility is, it is going to be faced. The time is rapidly receding when the question of gold reserves or bank credits or paper money is to be the only consideration. It may even come to a question of the proper distribution of work. It may be that the proper solution is three hours' work per day per man. I do not know, but I do know that the responsibility of statesmen at the moment is the well-being and feeding of their citizens and all other things will go by the board to achieve that, and must go. The alternative is revolution. And why not? Senator Guinness may smile but people have smiled before, and you are much nearer it, in my opinion, than you think.

Mr. Jameson

I do not think that anybody who is listening to the Minister will be in the least inclined to smile.

Mr. Connolly

I do not think it is a smiling matter. I think it is really true. Take the position with regard to the economic displacements that are taking place elsewhere. We know that pre-War Germany depended, as an economist put it in 1914, on "the delicately-swung balance of trade to provide one-third of the necessaries of life for the German people." They went through the War and they learned. They went through the aftermath of War and they learned. They went through the period of the payment of reparations and they learned. What is the position to-day?

Much more important news came from Germany last week than anything connected with the Lausanne Conference. Under the title of "A Self-sufficient Germany," the Times Berlin correspondent reported a speech delivered by Baron von Braun, the German Minister for Agriculture, and broadcast on the evening of July 6th. We record the exact date, because it is likely to become historic in the development of economic nationalism. “Nobody in the world,” says the Baron, “can force us to our knees by hunger to-day, as they did years ago. For the first time since the War, Germany is free and independent of foreign countries in her bread production. A few years ago it would have been thought impossible that Germany should grow all the wheat she needs. Thanks, however, to our propaganda, begun only two years ago, ... the most essential foods—bread, potatoes, meat and fat—are produced in sufficient quantity at home and can continue to be produced...on a scale adequate for the nourishment of a nation of sixty-five millions.”

What is the good of theorizing about cattle or about what we are going to do? We shall have to face up to the position as it arises. It is nonsense to talk about cattle being the right thing to-day or about wheat being the right thing to-morrow. What we want to make sure of is that, as the situation arises, there will be an Executive which will be conscious of the needs of the people and will deal with the situation accordingly. John Bull, through his administration, says "No," that he is going to decide to keep this country as a cattle ranch and that he is going to take three million pounds of land annuities and two million of other moneys from us which we cannot afford to pay. We are lectured about bad manners. Senator The McGillycuddy, and others——

The McGillycuddy of the Reeks

We did not mention manners.

Mr. Connolly

We are lectured about bad manners. There are no worse manners than misleading the people, and the best manners of all are represented by the truth. We have not misled the people and we do not propose to mislead the people. On the question of the Commission, we are asked why we are not content to accept an inter-Commonwealth Commission. It has been said that our attitude indicates a belief that there is not an honest statesman within the Commonwealth. That, of course, is utterly absurd. It is utter nonsense and those people in this House and elsewhere who say so know it is absurd. But we have had the Feetham Commission and, as the President has said, it would be practically impossible to get an unbiased view at present in the atmosphere that has been created. Apart from that-let us be quite honest and frank about it—there is a vital principle as to whether we are going to be at the mercy of the Commonwealth or not. We have got a limited mandate to-day and we are keeping within our mandate. You people are trying to bait the trap and make us say that we are going outside it. We are Republicans to-day. We definitely want complete freedom. We want friendship with Canada, Australia, and with Britain equally with friendship with Germany, France and other countries, but we are not going to be owned, body and soul, by any Government. We were given away entirely by an inter-Commonwealth representative, Mr. Feetham, from South Africa. At the time Mr. Feetham came here he had as good a reputation as any statesman of the Commonwealth has to-day.

I shall quote you an opinion as regards the British attitude on this question of the Imperial Tribunal:

Mr. de Valera, accepting arbitration, stipulates that the tribunal must not be completely Imperial. The British Government will only accept an all-Empire tribunal; it stands by the machinery suggested at the Imperial Conference of 1930. But the statesmen who devised that machinery declared themselves against "rigidity" and affirmed that they were only making "recommendations" about the tribunal "in order to facilitate resort to it." Had there to-day been a dispute between Canada and Britain or between South Africa and Australia and had either party, because of the character of the questions involved, desired a neutral jurist of high standing as Chairman of the arbitral body, it is impossible to believe that any difficulty would have been made about meeting the request. It is the Irish Question because it is the Irish Question and because the machinery of 1930 was accepted by Mr. Cosgrave's Government as a part of its consistent policy of cooperation with Britain that complicates the present situation.

Exactly. It is because it is an Irish situation that it is thrown at us that we cannot be like anybody else, that we are like the spoilt child, or the ill-mannered peasant and that we are ignorant. All sorts of things have been said to-day implying that attitude of mind. We may have our own way of doing things. It may not be the right way, but so long as we believe it is and so long as we have the support of the people, we will go on with what we consider to be the right thing.

It was asked to-day what we were doing or what we had done about the whole position. I am referring to the economic position. Why, it was asked, should we be risking the loss of our one market and why had we only one market? We have been four months in power, somewhat limited power, somewhat restricted power, in no sense aided by other people, except the Labour Party, outside our Party. Hampered by men, instigated by unfair opposition, arguing for the mentality across the water, only doing it infinitely more indefensibly than they would attempt, we are asked why risk the one market and why we have only one market? There have been ten years of the late administration, and I challenge anybody here to indicate any activity on the part of that administration to find alternative markets although they may have realised, or were realising, that an alternative market would be very desirable.

I think I have covered the various points raised. I have explained, although it should not have been necessary after the President's statement, our position in the matter and our definite line of policy, leaving aside the question at the moment whether that ultimate policy is going to lead to a Utopia or not. I have tried to explain how we feel our responsibilities and accept them. I want one thing made clear, here, and that is that in our activities with Britain, in our discussions about the land annuities, the nature of the tribunal and the possibility of arbitration or negotiation, we have shown no hostility or attitude of wanting a fight. We have gone to the very limit and extreme to try and find the basis where we can come to an understanding with those people. President de Valera crossed twice to London to discuss these matters. I may say, frankly, that on one of these occasions I was completely against his going. He went, and with infinite patience he argued, night and day, to try and prevent this thing happening. Senator Milroy may sneer, but that is his type. I can assure the House that efforts, far more than should have been made, by the President and the Executive Council have been made to get this matter amicably agreed. The position is now Ireland v. England in an economic fight.

We ask these powers, as I said, not that we want to use them or to go beyond the necessities of the moment, but we feel we have got to get these powers, and to come back and protect our own people. This measure was debated and voted on in the Dáil last week. The House has all the information and the matter is before it. Senators know every detail, and the suggestion that the Bill should be explained in greater detail is quite absurd. Any intelligent Senator interested in the country at all must have been through every clause of the Bill before he came here. The position now is that the Bill is before the House for Second Reading. All the explanation that was necessary to be made has been made, and we rely upon the House to approve of this measure, and we rely upon the House, apart from this measure, to give the Government the support they are entitled to, to face up to this position.

Question—"That the Bill be now read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.