When we adjourned last night I was dealing with a few specific points relating to the various sections of the Bill which had been raised by Senator Douglas and Senator Honan. I think I disposed of most of them and I will come now to consideration of the general criticisms of the Government's budgetary policy. In general, these criticisms may be reduced to two heads, (1) that the amount of taxation is excessive; and (2) that the tax scheme has a number of features which are inequitable as between one section of the population and another. Senator MacLoughlin opened the attack by referring specifically, I think, to the Entertainments Duty which he said we had increased by 50 per cent. I do not suggest that that was the whole burden of his speech, but the greater part of it as you, Sir, will remember, was devoted to a commentary upon the verses of Omar Khayyám. I confess the demands on my time have not afforded me the same opportunity that Senator MacLoughlin seems to have enjoyed, of refreshing myself with Fitzgerald's quatrains. But I do seem to remember — and I am sure the Senator will forgive me if my deficiency leads me to misquote — a couple of lines as the Senator prosed along through a desert of inconsequences and occupied the time of the Seanad in going back on matters that were buried in the remote and distant circumstances of the past. I recollect one or two lines which I think might be aptly applied to that part of the Senator's speech. If my memory misleads me, and if I misquote, I must crave the indulgence of the House. I think the Senator is a mighty sniper at the Government and therefore he will recognise how apposite the lines are in connection with some of the criticisms. Omar speaks of the mighty hunter:—
"And Bahrám, that great Hunter — the wild Ass
Stamps o'er his head, and he lies fast asleep."
I must say that a certain feeling of drowsiness affected me as I listened to the Senator's dissertation upon this garden by the brink of the brook, with which he occupied the attention of the Seanad. But, leaving his budgetary quotations aside, and coming down to one or two specific points he made, there was a reference to the Entertainments Duty which he said we have increased by 50 per cent., particularly on the poorer seats. I can only conclude that the Senator has been placed under some misapprehension by the ill-founded criticisms of this particular tax which appeared elsewhere, because, in fact, there has been no increase in the rate of tax on the cheaper seats. So far as these seats are concerned the inclusive charge for which is less than 1/- the rate of increase has been a good deal less than 50 per cent. It is only in the much more highly-priced seats that the full increase has been imposed, and even if we had increased the Entertainments Duty on cinematographic exhibitions by 50 per cent., I think that is quite a justifiable imposition in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. It is an amusement and a luxury, and I think when it is remembered that live shows as they are called are completely free of tax, and that those who frequent the cinemas, if they merely want amusement, can get it elsewhere, outdoor or indoor, or at ceilidhes, there can be very real substance in the criticism that Senator MacLoughlin founded upon that fact.
With regard to the tax on sugar, one would think up to this year sugar had been a commodity which had gone untaxed. The position is that in the year 1931-32 the then Administration derived no less than £1,426,000 from the tax on sugar and sugar preparations alone. The amount which we hope to get this year, even after we have imposed this additional ¼d., will be only £800,000. In order to encourage the sugar beet industry, and to afford some assistance to our farmers, we have deliberately forgone no less than £625,000 for the revenue which was formerly derived from sugar. Even with the additional impost which we have put on in this Budget, it has to be remembered that in February, 1932, the average retail price of sugar in the Saorstát was 3.37d. We can take it that generally the price of sugar was 3½d. per lb. In 1935, before the present Budget was introduced, and in the same month, the price of sugar was 3.46d. on the average. Again we may assume that it was sold generally at 3½d. per lb. Even with the additional tax which we are putting on, and after having relinquished £625,000 of the sugar duty, sugar will be only a ¼d. a lb. dearer in 1935 than it was in February, 1932, the month before we came into office. When we consider the magnitude of the industry which we have developed and extended, and the additional employment which has been given, not merely to farmers, agricultural labourers and people on the land, but to people in factories as well as in all the other industries, on the railways, in the quarries preparing the lime, in the sack factories, and 101 subsidiary trades that are benefiting because of the foundation of this industry, it will be admitted, even if people do have to pay a ¼d. per lb. more for sugar, and if we had to make good with this tax some part of the revenue which we have lost by reason of the encouragement which we have given to this industry, when these facts are taken into consideration it must be admitted that the extension of the industry has justified itself in every detail.
It is going to be of enormous benefit to the people, particularly to farmers and farmers' sons, who are finding employment in the growing of beet and afterwards in the factories turning the beet into sugar. I do not think any person who has any regard for the psychological effect which the establishment of these large factories has had in the areas in which they were established will say that the price we are paying is too high. That deals also with the criticism Senator Jameson had to make of our policy in regard to the growing of beet sugar. It has been said that I referred on one occasion in a certain way to the sugar beet factory. Senator Miss Browne reminded me of that. I scarcely needed to be reminded of it at this stage. It is old music in my ears, that I referred to a certain undertaking as a white elephant. It was a white elephant in the circumstances which existed at that time. That was early in the year 1932 when we were subsidising that factory very heavily. I think, speaking from memory, that since the establishment of that factory we paid in subsidies alone to the proprietors almost £3,000,000 — nearly 50 per cent. more than it has cost us to buy back that factory and to establish three additional factories. Substantial profits were being earned by that factory — both profits directly disclosed and indirect profits which those who owned the concern derived from that ownership. Every penny of these profits was going out of this country, and the people of this country were feeding the "white elephant" with these profits. I am not going to say that the experiment did not, to some extent, justify itself. It did show that sugar beet could be grown here on possibly as economic a basis as it could be grown anywhere in Europe. I do not want to be unfair to the people who had the courage to start the factory and to show what could be done in regard to the industry, even if I must say that their courage failed them at a certain point and that they did not think the extension of the experiment would be justifiable. At the time at which I was speaking, that factory, from the point of view of the people, was not an economic proposition. We have changed that. All the profits now derived from the factory are being retained in this country. The whole share capital of this undertaking is owned by our own citizens. With the exception of the wages received by the technical staff, the wages paid are paid mainly to citizens of this country. A large part of the building work has been undertaken here, and I have not the slightest doubt that, henceforth, the fact that there are openings in these factories for young people with engineering and scientific training will be a great incentive to our universities and other institutions to provide facilities for techincal study which did not exist before these factories were established. The position has changed. Instead of having a white elephant as an object of pleasure or of worship, we have now a useful beast of burden. It is now earning its keep, at any rate, and it was not doing that previously.