When speaking on this matter Senator Milroy expressed the hope that the debate would not close without some other speakers following him. I question if I should have attempted to speak at all only for the covert and insulting attack that Senator Milroy has made on members of the old Corporation of Dublin. Just as the Senator was brave in the past, he is equally brave to-day, but he gave the show away as to what is in his mind when he mentioned the question of equality. This commercial register, or to give it its more correct term, this money register, was far more insidious in its character than the mere electing of five members to the Dublin Corporation. We heard the word ascendancy mentioned. In my opinion that register was a revival of class distinction in public affairs by the very worst element, the element of money.
As ascendancy has been mentioned, it brings back memories of ascendancy days with their bitterness, their bigotry and want of human kindness towards the lowly people of this country. This money franchise is the foundation, the encouragement and the excuse for Communists to build upon. It is an incitement to war between capital and labour, two factors that should run hand-in-hand and that no piece of legislation should disturb. Perhaps worse than all, this glorification of the moneylender, the profiteer and the combine make three factors which are generally conceded by everyone to have been a carse—an accursed curse of every country.
To get back to calm water, seldom, in my opinion, has the irony of fate been better exemplified than to find Deputy Seán T. O'Kelly sitting here as Minister for Local Government and Public Health, where Deputy Mulcahy formerly sat. Fate has another innings when we find placed on the shoulders of a Minister who, for over a quarter of a century was a member of the old Dublin Corporation, the duty, which I am sure is a pleasant duty, of removing the stain on the character of the citizens of Dublin which was placed upon it by the infliction of this money franchise, which was so vigorously sponsored by ex-Minister Mulcahy. Aye, and I remember well that it was passed with great glee by a most obliging and willing assembly. Is it not reasonable to ask why, and for what reason was this money franchise placed upon the City of Dublin? Why was it placed upon Dublin, above all, if it was the wonderful and bold adventure claimed for it by many Senators and many Deputies? Why were the other cities left out? I notice Senator Crosbie looking at me, and that gives me inspiration. Why were the business communities of Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway and other centres ignored? Perhaps Senator Crosbie, for whom I have a loving regard, in conjunction with my old friend Senator Dowdall, will supply the answer as to why the business community of Cork was ignored. What political sin did they commit that they were passed over? I am greatly afraid that some day the Senator will have a bad quarter of an hour with the business community and with the Press of Cork, led perhaps by the Cork Examiner, for not having taken a more lively interest when the Cork Municipal Act was going through and looking after the business community. Cork men may have their division, but there is one thing which stands to their credit: it is a case of Cork first and the rest nowhere.
One would imagine that it would be the aim of every Government, and the joy and pride of every Minister to keep intact the dignity, the honour and the privileges of this old city, a city dating back for so many centuries which is still, always has been and always will be the capital of Ireland, instead of having this monstrosity of a money franchise placed upon it. In my opinion the passing of this commercial register was a most unhappy piece of legislation, as it revived many putrid memories. Previous to the passing of the Reform Act of 1840 no one was elected to the City Council except those who were grandiloquently styled merchant princes. You will observe, a Chathaoirligh, that compared to the previous occasion we discussed this, I have mellowed in my description of them, but these sparking plugs of infamy, these thugs, and I say it advisedly, daylight robbers—the Minister will bear me out in this, as he knows it full well—pilfered the city's property, giving themselves long leases for 999 years, as the leases in existence to-day show. A favourite pastime with those who were on the money franchise at that time—the Minister again will correct me if I am wrong—was to amuse themselves by drawing lots for the citizens' property, the portion of the city which still retained that name, and then when their own evil designs were satisfied, they sliced out the citizens' property amongst their friends as in the case of the Pembroke estate, earning for the City Council the by no means prepossessing title of the rotten Corporation of Dublin.
I remember an incident which happened close on 50 years ago, which proves I am no chicken now, and which I frankly admit completely soured me all through my life, private and public, against a money franchise. There was a bye-election at that time in North County Dublin for a seat on the North Dublin Board of Guardians. There were two candidates. My father, God be good to him, took a passing interest in one of them. A week before the election it was discovered that the result would be very tight. The evening before the election, a gentleman, a real live gentleman, one of those gentlemen who show their superiority and their true blood by dropping the "Mr." and calling you by your surname, called into my father's office. He said: "O'Neill, if you get me £20 you can have my six votes for your friend." The money was not forthcoming, and the sequel to the election was that my father's friend lost by six votes. I am not going to say that will happen now, but it might happen, and it could happen, and the best way to prevent such corruption from happening is to do away with the money franchise which is the purpose of the Bill the Minister has brought before the House to-day.
In saying that I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not cast any reflection whatever upon the five men who were elected to the Corporation by this franchise. They were five good, solid, broad-minded and true citizens. I am not going to say they were anything better than the other members of the Corporation, but by their training they were well fitted to be members of the Corporation even though they were returned on this franchise. The fact is that three of them had been members of the old Corporation, the connection of some of them with it going back for 40 years. Two of them had been members of the Corporation when it was dissolved, but we have this startling fact that the great men connected with the commercial register had to fall back on the members of the old Corporation, with all its suggested imperfections, to represent them. Now does it occur to the sensible-minded members of the Seanad—I take it that we are all sensible-minded, including my old friend, Senator Milroy—what an anomaly this money franchise presents? As I stated here before the citizens of Dublin as a whole, with all the citizens of the State, are considered good enough and honourable enough to elect members to the Dáil to legislate for the country, to help the State, to elect a Government and to make and unmake Ministers. But now we have the startling fact, which for some reason has not been explained sufficiently, that the citizens of Dublin as a whole are considered not straight enough, not honest enough, and not capable enough, to elect the City Council as a whole. Another anomaly that this money franchise presents to me is this: Heretofore the Dublin Corporation was elected by wardens. The Minister will remember—both of us entered the Corporation about the same time—that at my first election I stood for the Rotunda Ward in which there were only 2,000 voters. That gave one an opportunity of knowing the people and of doing something for them. It earned for the Corporation the title of City Fathers. The members were a kind of father over the wards they represented. Then the spirit of combines came along and there was an amalgamation of wards, with the result that when I had again to face an election I had to go before 15,000 voters. At the last election, in the area which the Minister and I represented, there were 31,000 voters. Just think of it, a man like myself belonging to no political party—I suppose my political views are not mature enough for the acceptance of any of them—going out and fighting on my own at an election and canvassing, if you will, 31,000 voters.
In my opinion the object which this amalgamation of wards has achieved is this: that people, I will not say of independent means, but certainly of independent thought, have not the ghost of a chance in going forward for the Dublin Corporation. That anomaly appears much bigger, as I have stated, in the Greater Dublin Bill. The wards were turned into areas. There were five areas. I am not going to inflict on the House the number of electors in each area, but in the five areas there were 145,658 electors. I am sure the Minister has taken note already—it is impossible for him to get together all the threads of Local Government affairs in the short time he has been in office— of the further anomaly that under the Greater Dublin Bill Pembroke and Rathmines are in the municipal area for voting at municipal elections, but for Parliamentary elections they are in the County Dublin, thereby taking us back to what was so well known in the old days as the true spirit of jerry-mandering. Out of 145,658 electors, the commercial or money franchise with all its boomeranging, battering rams, machine guns and everything else that it could call into play, was only able, as the Minister has told us, to muster at the last election a total of 1048 electors. After all the talk of the great people they are, that the material and national salvation of the country would be destroyed if they were not returned, all they could muster was 1048 electors.
One need not be a great mathematician to work it out. On the one hand it takes 4,855 ordinary electors to elect a member of the Council, but under the commercial register a Councillor represents only 205 electors. That is, 4,855 ordinary electors have as much power as 205 electors on the money franchise. I never like to use similes except they are classical, but there is only one phrase in my opinion that would describe that situation, and that is that it is the absolute limit. Again may I ask, and I shall still wait for an answer even from Senator Milroy or any Deputy of the Dáil, why was this money register passed for Dublin City and Dublin City alone? I may get an answer later on, but one is always safe in remembering the opinions of the man in the street. We do not perhaps care much about his opinion; yet those who are seeking election are very careful to get the opinion of the man in the street. In saying this I do not wish to create any bitterness. The general opinion of the man in the street at that time was that this money franchise was passed to mollify the continual wail of the Chamber of Commerce. It was further passed as as a sop to the brotherhood with whose help it was hoped, as many expressed themselves at the time, "to prevent that damn rascal de Valera from getting into power." De Valera is now in power; the Oath has gone, but the money register has still to be removed.
A great many peculiar and original arguments have been used in favour of this money register. Some of them, in my opinion, step over the border line of decency, of tact, and of commonsense. I have here in my hand a circular from the Chamber of Commerce. I presume every other Senator has also received it. In the choice language that is used in that circular we are told that if the money franchise is done away with "such a position tends towards laxity and extravagance to the ultimate detriment of the city's business." We are told that the business community are the be-all and end-all, the brains of the city. We are told that by electing them into the Corporation, we shall have men who will be able to go to the banks, put a pistol to the heads of the Governors and Directors and make them give the Corporation everything they want. I might recall that Alderman Cosgrave, as he then was, was chairman of the most important committee of the Dublin Corporation, the finance committee. That was at a time of great danger when the British Government were at loggerheads with the Corporation, stopping grants and making the carrying out of corporative affairs almost an impossibility.
As a retaliation Dáil Eireann at the period—I am sure the Minister remembers it—made an order that no police rate was to be struck and that no income tax was to be paid by the Corporation or the citizens, placing the citizens in a position between the devil and the deep sea. If they paid their income tax they ran the risk of what was popularly known at the time as being "plugged." If they did not pay their income tax they found a gunboat waiting for them to take them away to lodgings in an English prison. With this state of affairs, money in the Corporation was running very short. In fact, there was a possibility of the public services being stopped. It was suggested—the reason I am going into this is to show that even in the days of the old Corporation the members were trusted by the banks—that the Governors of the Bank of Ireland should be approached.
I wish to place on record, to the credit of the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, that they acted a noble part towards the Corporation and towards the city at that particular period. Alderman Cosgrave, as he then was, the Town Clerk, and myself as Lord Mayor, called upon the Governors of the Bank of Ireland. My friend, Senator Guinness, if I might call him such, will correct me if I am wrong. I think Senator Guinness was chairman at the time. I do not know if my equally great friend, Senator Jameson, was a governor, but at any rate after hearing what I might call our wail of woe, Senator Guinness there and then said that the Corporation could have an overdraft of £100,000, with the addendum, which set me thinking and touched my vanity, that it was on the personal security of Alderman Cosgrave and me, as Lord Mayor of Dublin. The reason I mention this little incident is to show that neither of us was a merchant prince; we were both men of small business. But the Governors of the Bank of Ireland trusted the Corporation then and trusted the members then. I am satisfied that they will trust the Corporation equally well now without the help of the money franchise.
I regret keeping Senators so long but, as I said before, frankly I have had such hatred of this money franchise engendered into me in my youth that I would just like to say what I feel about it. One of the most peculiar arguments used in favour of this money franchise was put forward by Senator Bagwell, who is just going out. Senator Bagwell, when this money franchise was considered before, used the most extraordinary arguments in favour of it. They may not have been extraordinary to him, because men generally use extraordinary arguments who have extraordinary minds. He said that the greater the wealth, the greater the brains. I am sure Senator Bagwell will correct me if I am wrong.
