Many people are denying it. It is a fine thing to have strong convictions, but it is a miserable sign of weakness when you try to force these convictions on somebody else. Almost every Party in this country professes to believe in democratic government, but there are a very large number of people whose actions, at any rate, belie their professed beliefs. Democratic government means that the people shall be allowed to judge, even if they make mistakes; it means that every point of view, no matter how stupid, is entitled to be heard. We are all agreed that there is no dispute between Parties as to that. What I want to suggest is that it is intolerance, and particularly mob intolerance, that is the greatest enemy of democracy and the greatest enemy of democratic government in the world to-day.
I am inclined to think, in fact I believe it, whether it be the intention of the Government or not—I impute no motives—that the passing of this Bill will be regarded by many people in the country as simply a surrender to that spirit of intolerance which is a thing which we ought all to condemn and fight. To put the matter in a nutshell: the attitude taken by the Minister here to-day is that because there are people who are aggravated when they see their opponents wearing particular colours or shirts and who cannot control themselves, therefore, the State, in the interests of order, should prohibit the wearing of these colours and shirts. Now, I believe that attitude is absolutely wrong. It is not, to my mind, an attitude by which you can get political freedom in this State. Certain persons say that they have been provoked into illegal action because they were aggravated at seeing badges or colours with which they disagreed: therefore, make the colours illegal. A certain enterprising shirt manufacturer in this country published a very clever and ingenious advertisement last week. He showed not only that he had a sense of humour, but, to my mind, that he understood something of the mentality of some of the people, at any rate, who support this Bill. He assured an interested public that his staff were working hard at the production of a shirt which would change colour at the right occasion, presumably, so that no one would be aggravated.
I seriously suggest to the Government that, before they try to pass a Bill making the wearing of colours illegal, they should make an effort to combine with the leaders of the other Parties in condemning and fighting this spirit of intolerance which has led largely to the breaking up of meetings. Now, I am not suggesting that the leaders themselves instigated that, but I do believe that there is enough feeling and spirit in the political leaders of this country who, if they combined—not necessarily jointly— could get fair play here for all types of political meetings.
I would like to draw the attention of the House to some of the specific provisions in this Bill which I think are extraordinary. For instance, you find in the definition clause that an association means "any combination of persons," presumably that means two or more. If the association is a political party none of its members may wear a uniform, which means any distinctive article of apparel. This would seem to me, if I have read the Bill correctly, to apply to all parties which in the opinion of a court at the present time would be regarded as political parties even if the Executive Council does not make an order under Section 4. But, apparently, the Executive Council consider that the ordinary meaning of the term "political party," as we understand it, or "associations ancillary to a political party" was not wide enough. Therefore, they are taking power to declare that a certain body, which may be two or more, with or without organisation and with or without name, can be regarded as a political party, and once the Executive Council say so then no one can challenge it and no reason need be given.
So far as I can see from reading the Bill, the prohibition in regard to uniform applies to all political parties and to all people whom the Executive think fit to call a political party. The wearing of badges, armlets, or any other distinctive sign or to carry flags does not apply to all political parties. The section only applies to any particular badge which a superintendent of the Guards, acting under the instructions of the Minister for Justice, may think it desirable to prohibit. If you are going to have a law made to prohibit the wearing of colours, well I think that is a mistake, but if this Bill or any similar Bill is going to become law, then I say that, in the interests of fair play and decency, apply it to all parties and do not give the Executive of the day—it may be this Executive or some other—autocratic power to, in their goodwill and judgment, say that it applies to such and such a body and not to others.
I would like to ask the members of the House, and particularly those who sit on the opposite side, do they really believe that it is a good thing to include a provision of this kind in the permanent law of this country. These powers could be very easily used against trade unions. It would not need a great stretch of imagination or conscience to say that the objects of a trade union are political. It could be used against religious denominations or churches who often have to take action which could be described as political. I do not suggest for a, moment that this Government would be likely to attack either churches or trade unions, nor do I suggest that there is any likelihood, as far as I can see, of an antireligious Government in this country, but it has happened elsewhere. One never knows what may happen in the future. We are being asked to make this a part of the permanent law of the country. It is not a temporary measure, something that will occasionally be brought into force. Members of the Labour Party are terribly afraid of a dictatorship, but I put it to them that this Bill, when added to the Emergency Duties Act and to the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 17) Act, all of which are law, would leave a new dictator, if one ever does come, extraordinarily little power which he would have to assume to himself.
Section 8 of the Bill is to my mind also very objectionable. Under this section any meeting may be dispelled by force because some persons, presumably more than one, are wearing badges or uniforms. That means that any uniformed people can make it impossible to hold a meeting by going there and insisting they will not go away. The net result would be that if any perfectly harmless non-political body were holding a meeting in the country you could have an organisation arranging to go in there in uniform and the police would be justified according to this section in breaking up the meeting by force. In Section 10, which is also much too drastic, any person may be arrested not because he is wearing a badge but because a Guard thinks he wore the badge at one time of what the Guard thinks is a political party. Section 11 gives power to remove a uniform or badge and the Guard may do so whether he arrests the man or not. In other words, it sets the Guard up as a judge to decide whether or not a man's shirt or badge is or is not illegal without having to bring the man to justice. I think that is an outrageous position. I am puzzled by Section 13, which prevents an appeal under any circumstances from the District Court. I should like to hear the Minister as to why he proposes to prevent an appeal to any court above the District Court.
I have only indicated what seem to me to be the worst features of the Bill although I could criticise almost every section. Indeed, there are only two sections which I would be prepared to give any support to. I agree with him that the use of political or military titles is highly undesirable, and I consider, personally, that all forms which suggest militarism in politics ought to be abolished and kept out of it. I agree with the Minister that if the Bill becomes law it should be obeyed. I have no sympathy with disobedience of law except on matters of personal conscience and then the person concerned takes the consequences honourably, and I think there is not any substantial section of opinion on its side. I am asked however to approve of the principle of this Bill, not because of its merits as legislation, but because it is necessary in the abnormal circumstances. That is the line taken by the Minister and it certainly was the line taken in the other House.
I have already dealt with the main argument used by the Minister that the wearing of colours is provocative and that therefore the Bill is justified. The other argument which is used very widely is that the wearing of special shirts has been the open and visible sign of movements towards dictatorship in other countries and that, therefore, steps must be taken to stop them in this country. I am not impressed at all by the arguments made by the Minister that certain European countries have taken action against the wearing of special shirts and colours. I cannot pretend to know the circumstances, but I have good reason to believe that the reason why steps were taken against the wearing of special shirts and acquiesced in by other parties, is that because there was a fear of a movement from outside which might be controlled from outside and, therefore, might endanger the State. I do not think that we have any reason to fear anything of that kind here. Whatever may be said for or against the Blue Shirts, it is a purely Irish movement which has not been suggested or organised from anywhere else. For my part I am totally and absolutely opposed to the method of government which is commonly described as dictatorship, and I confess I would be tempted to vote for this Bill if I believed honestly that it was likely to save us from this danger.
Dictatorships have grown out of mass movements of the people and the shirt or badge has only been the symbol, not the cause of the success of the movement. They have grown out of dissatisfaction with Governments and with political conditions coupled with the desire of young people to do something for their country. There has been a great deal in these shirt or Fascist movements which cannot be criticised. There have been discipline, good-fellowship, readiness to sacrifice and the desire to reform, which are excellent things, and these have given the movements a wonderful appeal to the best of young men and women after the demoralisation of the war. I challenge anyone to deny that a great deal of good has been achieved in both Italy and Germany as the result of the Nazi and Fascist movements. But for my part, that good has been achieved at the cost of individual political freedom, and it is a price which I, for one, am not prepared to pay in this country if I can help it. What I most object to in Fascism and Nazism is the assertion of the absolute supremacy of the State over the individual. They claim an allegiance to the State which I, for one, am only prepared to give to God. Little or no recognition is given to individual conscience, minorities have no right to organise, and even the expression of individual opinion against the Government is treasonable. Persons who do not share the opinions of the majority are dubbed antinational—traitors, undesirable people, who may perhaps be tolerated if they keep their opinions to themselves.
One of my co-religionsts in Germany was in jail for three months because he stated privately to a friend in a restaurant that he did not think Hitler should be in the position he is in at present. In a lecture in Dublin last week Sir Norman Angell pointed out that you cannot say that modern dictatorships are undemocratic. They are, he said, democratic in the sense that a lynching party is democratic, but not in the sense that a trial jury or a court of law is democratic. Ordered democracy requires the type of mind which listens to every point of view and then forms its opinion freely. It is the exact opposite to the democracy which shouts down minority opinion and is aggravated by the sight of a shirt which it dislikes. It is not so much individual dictatorship which I believe to be the real danger in the world to-day. It is the dictatorial state which, in the guise of popular government governs autocratically, suppressing, often by violence, all opinion, no matter how honest, which is opposed to it. The day when one man can ever act as a dictator, or govern the people as an autocrat, is gone, I think, for ever. Before you can get the dictatorial State made effective there has to be a great deal of preparation. The mass of the people have to be taught to forget all the old ideas of political freedom. Their feelings have to be worked up against some real or imaginary enemy, whether inside or outside the State, and mob prejudice and intolerance have to be allowed to develop. Usually you get extreme forms of narrow nationalism preached. Anybody who believes, as I do, that nationalism and internationalism are complementary, and that the very existence of nationalism is dependable upon international goodwill is, in the dictatorial State, regarded as a traitor. You had something very much the same in England during the war. The people were full of the kind of patriotism which was a mixture of fear and hatred, and anybody who did not believe in the theory of a war to end war, or who refused to believe in the stories of German atrocities, had a bad time of it.
An English lady, also a co-religionist of mine, who is well known to many people in this country, found herself in jail for six months because she signed a manifesto on behalf of a religious denomination in favour of goodwill. Is there any danger of this country becoming a dictatorial State? I think there is a real danger, but I do not believe you can prevent it by banning shirts or colours, and I am not at all sure you will not increase the possibility by any kind of action which forces organisations underground. The danger, to my mind, has not arisen suddenly. It has been going on for a considerable time, and the first cause, in my mind, has been that there has been not only a kind of row which comes at times from Party meetings but there has been a growth of mob intolerance.
To my mind the spirit which leads to the suppression of opinion creates the very condition in which the idea of the dictatorial State thrives. The second cause lies in the tendency on the part of a great many of our political leaders to depart from the fine nationalism preached by men like Thomas Davis, Mitchel and many others and to substitute for it a narrow nationalism which mixes up the idea of national freedom with the idea of a successful State as if the two were interchangeable. I believe the greater danger exists in the tendency in which all Parties have acquiesced more or less to give more and more power to the Executive. In a very short time you will have a position—you may call it democracy: it may be democracy of a kind—in which the Executive of the day will have practically complete powers over the people. With mob organisation and a sufficiently successful movement, it seems to me you will have a very short step to the dictatorial State.
I would like to suggest to those who are rightly afraid of a dictatorship that they go back to 1922 and compare the powers which the Executive had then under the Constitution with the powers which they now have. They will see that we have already gone a long way on the path. Now the Government asks us to pass a Bill giving them more autocratic powers, and we are to do so to avoid the danger of dictatorship. I suggest that is absurd. I have tried to make it quite clear that the reason why I oppose this Bill is because I believe the principles underlying it are all wrong—simply and solely because it is an attack on the Blue Shirt movement. I am not a member of the Blue Shirt organisation but I do know a lot of young men who have joined and I know them to be the very best of the citizens. I do not believe there is the slightest danger of that movement becoming a revolutionary movement. It is natural that the members of the Government here should be blind to its good points because it is politically opposed to them but I am satisfied that this Youth Movement, taking it all round, has been a good thing for the country.
It has made a great appeal to the young people, who have not been impressed by the promises of Fianna Fáil, or by its blandishments. It has given them something to think over. It has provided good fellowship and has broken down class distinctions in many places. As far as I can find out it is spreading in many parts of the country. Do you imagine that by taking away what has become recognised by these young people as their symbol or sign, just because it is aggravating to other people—which was the main grounds given by the Minister—you are going to ensure its having a lesser element of danger? I do not believe that. I think there are dangers in the Blue Shirt, as in every movement, but if they keep to their original ideal, and remember to encourage people to think for themselves, it will do untold good. The greatest danger you have in any movement is the same danger that you have in a closely pledge-bound political party. Loyalty to leadership is splendid. It is a great thing to subordinate honest opinions for the good of party, but it is a very bad thing if most people have no opinions at all, or cease to think for themselves. Then it can easily become a curse. I do not want to see the militarisation or the regimentation of politics. I do not want to see people forced into movements against their will. I do not believe that danger exists at present. There is danger in any movement of the kind. We see it in the Party opposite. Since this Government came into power we have had very few amendments to any Bills from their supporters. You could certainly count on the fingers of one hand the number of amendments that came from them to Bills introduced by the Government. When the previous Government was in office there was a continual series of amendments from this side of the House. I believe there was then keen Party discipline. I hope the Blue Shirt movement will avoid that danger. While there are dangers in this movement I am convinced that these dangers can be avoided. They will not be avoided by simply endeavouring to suppress them, or by taking away what is recognised as their sign or colour. If this Bill passes I believe it will be obeyed. I do not doubt that, but I am perfectly certain you will leave in the minds of those who obey a feeling of dissatisfaction and of bitterness which will not be good even from the point of view of the Party now in power.