Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Mar 1940

Vol. 24 No. 9

Central Fund Bill, 1940 ( Certified Money Bill )— Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Finance (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

As Senators are aware, the Central Fund Bill is a routine feature of our financial system, and is required to implement the Ways and Means Resolutions passed by Dáil Eireann. It is designed to authorise the issue from the Central Fund of the total amount of those supplementary and additional grants for the present financial year which were not covered by the Appropriation Act of 1939, and the amount of the Vote on Account for the coming financial year. It also makes provision for borrowing by the Minister for Finance and for the issue by him of such securities as he thinks fit.

Senators will already have observed from the Volume of Estimates the total net provision for the Supply Services in respect of the year 1940-41 is £30,511,359. The net provision for 1939-40, including Supplementary Estimates, is £31,422,626. The original net provision for 1939-40 was £30,248,897, but to this figure there must be added £370,000 for Supplementary Agricultural Grants, giving a new total of £30,618,897. This £370,000 was taken into account in the 1939-40 Budget and, after the necessary legislation had been passed, was provided by Supplementary Estimates.

As compared with the revised total of £30,618,897, that is excluding all Supplementaries except that for Agricultural Grants, the provision for the coming financial year is down by £107,538, or, making allowance for the fact that the Estimate for the Tariff Commission was not moved last year, we find a net decrease over the whole Supply Services of £106,788, as at the outset of the two years.

This decrease has been effected at a time when, arising out of the war, various factors have operated to render increases in expenditure in various directions inevitable. I do not think that this reduction of £106,788 would have been possible in the circumstances were it not for the activities of the Economy Committee coupled with a careful examination in my Department of all items of expenditure, in co-operation with other Departments of State.

Taking into account the Supplementary Estimates in the current financial year, the total of the decreases in the various Votes amounts to £1,360,849, while the total of the increases amounts to £449,582.

Mr. M. Hayes

I suppose the Minister is to be congratulated upon what he has just read to us, but I am afraid he has not touched any of the really important things which this Bill indicates. It is a Bill which shows how much money we intend to spend in the year 1940-41, apart from such Supplementary Estimates as may be brought in between this and the end of the financial year. The Bill represents, I think, too, the shattering of one of our national illusions, which was that an Irish Government would run the country more economically and more efficiently than the British Government. There was only one thing in which the moderates and the extremists in my lifetime were united. Both the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Sinn Féiners were violent and loud in their denunciation of the grand imperial scale upon which Ireland was being run by the British Government. The Minister and his colleagues made full use, a more vigorous and even better use of that particular phrase about their predecessors in office, alleging that they were running the Twenty-Six Counties upon a grand imperial scale. But this Bill gives an indication of a grander and more imperial scale of expenditure in the Twenty-Six Counties than has ever taken place in our country. It gives evidence of that expenditure, apart altogether from the war, because it is quite clear from the Books of Estimates from 1932 to 1939 that, apart altogether from rumours and dangers of war, the policy of the present Government was to increase expenditure. I quite agree that economy is by no means a question of how much you spend, but rather a question of how much you get for your expenditure. Our position here is that we have consistently, every year since 1932, spent more and that at the end of eight years now, in spite of having spent more, we have not succeeded in solving any of our problems, nor indeed have we gone any great distance towards solving these problems.

The whole picture is not presented in this Bill, because this merely provides what the Government has to spend on Supply Services. There are other services for which the taxpayer in his capacity as ratepayer has to pay a considerably greater amount now than eight years ago. Roughly speaking, the expenditure of the State has increased by about 50 per cent. during that period, and taking the year beginning on the 1st April, 1940, the expenditure from local rates will be up very close to that figure. If I might give a simple example—a person living in the City of Dublin, in a house valued at £40 paid, prior to the Minister's advent to office, 3/6 in the £ on £33. After the 1st April next, the same person will be paying 6/6 in the £ as income tax on £50, that is on five-fourths of his valuation. Therefore, merely on the valuation of his house, he will be paying more than three times what he paid previously. He will also be paying more than £40 in rates as contrasted with £27 or £28 prior to the Government's taking office, so that not only is our expenditure for central services up, but largely as a result of Government policy, expenditure on local services has also increased enormously.

Apart from the fact that our general costs have increased there are in the minds of many people serious misgivings as to whether we are getting value for the money thus spent. If we could say, in spite of this expenditure, that we had solved, or were near to solving, some of our problems, the situation would be more comforting. Without wearying the House with figures or without going into details, I might say that the fact emerged from the debate in the other House, in regard to unemployment, that for five years before 1932, something more than 11,000 persons were put into employment every year. From 1932 to 1939, the present Government in spite of tariffs, in spite of increased expenditure, in spite of increased relief works, had not succeeded in maintaining that rate of increase in employment. I know that figures are difficult to understand, that you have to make adjustments of various kinds in various ways, but I think it would be perfectly fair to say that, having made all necessary adjustments in the various ways in which they need to be made, the Government, in spite of all its expenditure and in spite of its tariff policy, has not succeeded in putting as many extra people into employment as its predecessors did with fewer tariffs—although with a considerable number of tariffs— and with a lower Government expenditure and a lower expenditure on local rates. If that is so, it is a very serious position. You must remember that in the employment figures since 1932 there is included considerable employment in building trades, building of a nature which was not certainly economic, however necessary, and that that has swelled the figures for employment in recent years.

I feel at the same time that it is not so much a question of fixing the responsibility in any of these matters as of pointing out that no people and no State can continue to take a particular line with its finances without getting into difficulties. The credit of this country, as the Minister stated—and I agree with him—is good. It has many financial considerations entirely in its favour. From the point of view of a small State, it has advantages, enjoyed, at the present moment of war in Europe, by very few of the small States. I think the Minister himself indicated that he is alarmed at the rate of present expenditure, worried that it should continue, and at the likelihood of being unable to maintain, at the same time, our social services. There used to be a fallacy that the rich could pay, but it is now clear that, through the operation of the Land Acts and various other factors, there is really no rich class in this country that can be made to pay for the running of the country.

One of the greatest dangers of our increasing expenditure, to which must be added the interest we have to pay on the added national debt since 1932—no matter whose the blame is, the results are certainly serious—one of the difficulties of our present situation, which was indicated in the debate here yesterday, is that having got into difficulties the people or the voters may adopt certain quack remedies. That is a common thing. The danger of our increased expenditure with decreased production in many cases is not only to the wage-earner but also to those who are in the unfortunate position of having no employment and who benefit by what are called social services. The resources of the country are not limitless and, unless a halt is called to what is happening, there is a danger to wage-earners and to persons benefiting by social services. There is a very considerable danger, perhaps the greatest danger of all, to the very industries which our present Government have established in the country. I think the Minister will agree with me, and all experience everywhere agrees with it, that it is not possible to run a very high tariff system with, at the same time, very high taxation and high central and local expenditure. The three things cannot go together. These industrialists, who in the main are the sort of people that, when their own industry is going well, feel that everything is going well, who feel that because their industry is going well everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, are beginning to feel that the situation is such that their own industries are imperilled. That spirit is a bad thing for the country in general, apart from being a bad thing for individuals. I am sure that quack remedies, the suggested changing of our currency or the manufacture of paper money, would leave our last state worse than our first. I am not even sure that if we could get all good money, and spend good money solely in the country, it would be a solution, because our progress depends more upon our character and upon our capacity to pay our own way than on getting money anyway, or of spending money in any particular direction.

The great danger of continuing an expenditure which the country cannot afford is that it may lead to a situation when democracy, about which we were once so sure and about which so many doubts are expressed to-day in many places, may come to grief. The Minister knows, and we may as well face up to it, that spending is popular and failure to spend is not popular. But some democratic person must take the responsibility of indicating to the people where we are going and how our progress in that direction—if you call it progress—should be stopped. I have the feeling that if that is not done with courage by the Minister, we will eventually come to the position in which some kind of financial dictator will set our finances right in a crisis, and with measures which, in the circumstances, are bound to be much more harsh and much more unjust than the measures which the Minister might find open to him at the moment. These, of course, would not be popular measures by any means. They may involve a great many people and a great many classes in sacrifices, but I think it would be much better to face up to that than to let the matter drift as it has been drifting, and allow it to be solved in a moment of crisis, when our capacity for solving it would be much less than I think it is at the moment.

There are a great many ways in which our national freedom has not turned out to be what we thought it would be, and there are a great many ways in which it could be lost. We can see cases in the newspapers of small nations who lose their independence, or part of their independence, by military conquest, but it must be remembered that you can lose your national independence also by financial foolishness and come under somebody else's yoke in a financial fashion so as to entirely deprive you of the liberty and the powers which have been won and which, if properly exercised, are capable of solving our difficulties. I should like to suggest, therefore, that this Bill is certainly a signal of alarm, but that a people which has survived so many difficulties as ours can solve even this financial problem; but that if it is not solved, in spite of its unpopularity, by a democratically-elected Government, it will fall for solution in a much more drastic and much more objectionable and unnational manner later on. I think we should be all agreed that the problem is one which needs solution, and which is difficult to solve, when you have to come out and talk about it at elections. The Seanad is perhaps fortunate in that its members have not to depend on that kind of vote and it would be well if we could face up to seeing whether, as the Minister is perturbed about the situation and as we are spending money and not solving our problems, we could arrive at a solution which would enable us to spend less money and perhaps, with the spending of less money, make more progress towards a solution of our problems.

Mr. Hogan

I confess to a sense of utter bewilderment in rising to make a few remarks on this Bill because I cannot disabuse my mind of some of the things I heard here yesterday evening and which I assure you, Sir, are quite relevant to the matter under discussion to-day. I was amazed to hear Senator O Buachalla say that the total number of unemployed was in or about 40,000, and I was amazed further to hear him contend that the Labour Party was assuming the sole right and responsibility of sheltering the poor. I want to assure the Senator that we have no desire to prevent him from throwing his mantle, or the unsold blanket he told us about, over the poor to safeguard them from their hardships.

He was more or less supported in his contention that there was only 40,000 unemployed by that well-known defender of the distressed and the unemployed, Deputy Hugo Flinn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, and my bewilderment is increased because I went to the Dáil after hearing these statements here, and heard the Minister for Finance tell the Dáil that they had put 60,000 into employment during their period of office. I think that is in or about the figure he mentioned, but we were told here by Senator O Buachalla and the Parliamentary Secretary that 40,000 is the number. The Parliamentary Secretary also told us that when Cumann na nGaedheal was in office the number of unemployed was also in or about 40,000, and that, therefore, the figure was more or less static and did not change. My bewilderment can be very readily understood when I hear the Minister for Finance say that the Government had put 60,000 into employment, and when the Parliamentary Secretary tells us here that the figure during the Cumann na Gaedheal period of office was about 40,000, and still continues to be 40,000.

I wonder if Senator O Buachalla or the Parliamentary Secretary ever learned how to read the figures given by the Minister in his abstracts and returns? They are very interesting, and, in all humility, I took Senator O Buachalla's advice and went back to the statistical abstract. I find that in 1938, the last figure given, the claimants for unemployment benefit, that is, unemployment insurance, numbered 20,355; applicants for unemployment assistance without means, 28,454—a total of pretty nearly 50,000—and similar applicants, with means, 36,777. It is very interesting to try to find out what "with means" means officially. It means, in a great many cases, that the Minister's officials go into a district and find that an applicant for unemployment assistance has probably a labourer's cottage, half a dozen hens and maybe a goat, and all these things are set down as "means." That method of tinkering with the problem is certainly not facing up to the issue. Does the Minister realise that there are thousands of boys leaving school who never got an opportunity to put an unemployment insurance stamp on a card, and so can never qualify for unemployment insurance? There are hundreds of them, to my knowledge, who have left school and who never got the opportunity of putting a stamp on a card in order to get the usual half-crown for one week. Even if we take the figures the Parliamentary Secretary is so keen about and say that 40,000 is the number, we can multiply that figure by three for dependents, which gives us 120,000 people on the verge of utter destitution. That is the position we have to face, whether it is a question of 120,000 people actually unemployed, with dependents, or 40,000 multiplied by the number of dependents.

When the Parliamentary Secretary said here that he was prepared to give all his ability, all his power and all his honesty of purpose to the solution of unemployment, I thought it would be no harm to make some kind of attempt to analyse the facts underlying that statement. Last year the Dáil voted £1,500,000 for unemployment schemes. Yet, if you look up your Appropriation Accounts, you will find that £197,000 of that was returned to the Treasury as unexpended. How, therefore, can one accept the sincerity of a Minister who says that he is prepared to do his utmost for the solution of the unemployment problem when, the Dáil having voted £1,500,000 for that purpose, he returns close on £200,000 of that money to the Finance Minister as unexpended. Even if we are to accept the figure of 40,000 persons unemployed that has been given, there still remains the fact that for last year there was £200,000 unexpended. Therefore, if you take the figure for this year, of £1,400,000, for the solution of unemployment, the total given this year is only about £1,200,000 for the solution of that problem.

The Government has issued an order —the Employment Period Order. That is the most amazing expedient that I ever heard of to reduce the amount of money paid in unemployment assistance. The 6th of March is the date that counts. Let us say that, on the 5th of March, there are 320 people unemployed in a town that is not urbanised. Let us take the case of a town in my own county. On the 5th of March there might be 320 men entitled to unemployment assistance there and, of that 320, let us say that 100 are single men. On the 6th of March—as if somebody wielded a magic wand—these 100 men, if they are single, are put out of unemployment assistance and, presumably, are assumed to be employed. Does the Minister contend that, overnight, 100 single men in that particular area have got employment on the land? I should love to think that that were true, but I am afraid that the facts are against it, and that all it means is that these 100 men will have to get some other means of relief. In other words, it is only a method of transferring from the National Exchequer to the local rates the onus of maintaining all these people, because the work is not to be had there. In knocking these people off on the 6th of March, it simply means that the Government say in effect: "We refuse to provide for this from the National Exchequer, and you must go on the county rates, because the local people have no work for you and cannot give you work."

There are just a few other matters to which I should like to refer, and one in particular, on which I endeavoured to focus attention previously in another way. It is a long time ago since we were told that, in order to deal with the vast employment that was to be created here, we would have to have a lot of our exiles returning. Now, I think the Minister said in the Dáil recently that there were about 20,000 people returned to this country. With regard to these 20,000 people, I do not know whether or not they came back to take advantage of the industrial resurgence that was promised by the Ministry, but I do know that any of them who come back sick or unwell are not entitled to National Health Insurance benefit until six months after they come back. I think that is a matter that should be taken up very seriously by the Minister. Up to some months ago he was in charge of National Health Insurance; it came under his Department at one time, and I am sure that he is perfectly well acquainted with its administration. Let me put the case of a man who has been in employment in England for three or four years. All his National Health Insurance stamps go into a big British Assurance Approved Society. Now, let us say that he falls ill and comes back here. That insurance society will only pay him now 26 weeks' National Health Insurance benefit, and if it should be necessary for him, or for a girl who, let us say, has been in domestic service in England, to go into a sanatorium here, he or she will get no unemployment benefit while they are here unless by the good grace of the insurance society in England. I have known of such cases here, and probably other Senators here are aware of them. Certainly, members of the other House have had such cases brought to their attention, and I think that the Minister should take up that matter with the authorities in Great Britain. Even an ordinary commonplace Senator like myself took it up, but the answer I got flung at me was that that is the regulation and nothing can be done. I am sure, however, that the Minister will find it possible to do something better in connection with that matter.

There are some other matters upon which I should like to touch. One is that the amount that is being spent on the distribution of estates is not at all in accordance with the present need for the division of land. We were told by the Minister for Agriculture here that where these estates could not be divided immediately, they would be handed over in various forms, either by way of apportionment amongst unemployed workers or small farmers, as allotments, for the raising of crops. I know that nothing has been done, at any rate, in the county from which I come, in that direction, and I do not know that any preparation has been made to do anything in that direction. I do know, however, of large tracts of land in County Clare that would produce excellent crops, and that could be taken over easily, and there are hundreds of people there able and willing to grow crops and produce food on these lands. I think that the Minister should press on his colleague, the Minister for Lands, the necessity for dividing up these lands and putting them into production of one kind or another so that it cannot be said that land was left idle while the people were in need of food.

Of course, there is also the eternal question of army pensions and the slowness in dealing with these pensions. I think that it is time some of these people should be told definitely whether or not they are entitled to pensions. I know cases of people who have been before the pensions board three or four years ago and who are still waiting for their pensions. It is time that a definite "yes" or "no" should be given in these cases, and not be keeping them in this suspense. They should be told definitely whether they are entitled to get a pension or not. I know that there are difficulties. I quite appreciate the difficulties of an army that had to be run on lines very different from those of a definitely organised army. I know that, possibly, it is very hard to get definite evidence of the activities or inactivities of some people, but I say that after four years it should surely be possible to have all this evidence collated and a decision reached upon it.

My main purpose in rising to speak, however, was to ask the Minister whether the Government intends to do something towards the solution of unemployment, beyond voting money in one year and then bringing back £4,000 or £5,000 of that money into the national treasury the following year. The problem of unemployment is so serious that anything one can say about it would not be too severe. It may be necessary to take risks for the solution of the unemployment problem, but I think the Minister himself knows that no risk we can take in order to solve that problem would be as dangerous as the danger inherent in the problem itself. It is my belief that the Government are not taking that problem seriously enough. We have been told that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but it seems to me that the only music we hear from the Government at the moment in this connection is the music made by the blowing of their own trumpets.

Mr. McGee

Some of the closing remarks of the last speaker remind me to ask whether we may hope to hear the report soon of either of the commissions appointed a year ago—one on Agriculture and the other on Drainage. In the county I come from, not one citizen would be left unemployed if the activities of the Drainage Board followed a line of common sense, and if steps were taken to implement some decision of that Board which would permit of work being done. Huge tracts of first class land lie flooded, even to-day, after the rains of Sunday and Monday; and that has left the position as bad as it was after the floods of torrential rain five or six weeks ago.

I do not know whether that commission was established for ornament or for use, but we have heard nothing from it for the last eight months. It seems to be almost a year ago since I attended myself; we came forward and gave whatever evidence we could, yet nothing has been done. The county councils are held up and cannot collect the drainage rate as the citizens will not pay. The Board of Works seems to be an institution which intends to continue in silence as it refuses to implement the decision in any way.

In regard to the Agricultural Commission, I do not wish to have a feeling of jealousy regarding my friend Senator Baxter, who can come each day to take the evidence; but I think one year is long enough to take evidence and that we should have some report. I can sympathise with the Minister in the difficulties which confront him in the huge sum he has to find in order to finance the country. Sometimes I ask myself where it is going to stop. Personally, I would not like to confine myself to a small and narrow view of it: I prefer to urge the Government to see that every citizen whom it employs in every sphere pulls all his weight for the welfare of the country. Sometimes, I am not quite satisfied that that is being done.

Any person living along the Border will obviously see questions arising in everyday life which do not appear as happy or as favourable as they would desire. Both of our Governments functioning here since our institutions have been established should have tried more to make life in this part of Ireland the envy and—I feel called upon to say, the spite—of the citizens of Northern Ireland. Our laws should be implemented in such a way as to make the majority of our citizens there anxious to come in and particularly the majority who are in sympathy with us in many spheres of life. Our land laws in particular should give to the citizens of this country the same terms of life as the land laws in Northern Ireland.

I am not satisfied with the words of the Taoiseach when the national debate was inaugurated by, I think, Senator MacDermot, that, having regard to the derating in Northern Ireland and the halving of the annuities here it was 50-50 on which side one should look for an equal in the economic life of the nation. I am perfectly satisfied that the farmers of this side of the Border are not in as strong and secure a position as the farmers across the Border. Their wages may be something similar, but it is a terrible slur on a Christian country such as ours to find an agricultural wage of something like 30/- or 35/- a week being the sole reward that might be held out to the agricultural labourer to-day. Candidly, as one who has to depend on the loyalty of these men, I do not see how we can hope to make our life a success or how we can evoke good loyal service, or have loyal men working for us, on that wage. The State should do something which would permit the agriculturist to pay a far higher wage, particularly to the numbers of young people reared in these homes.

There are two other services I should like to mention, one of which is the Broadcasting Service. In many ways, it is excellent, but, to put it politely, its announcers are not at all times pleasing. The very best service should be extended; it is availed of by a great many of our citizens. We know, for instance, how we are tempted to follow the brilliant announcer whom we hear from Rome, occasionally—I would not like to quote London—and that that voice is much clearer and sweeter to listen to.

As regards our courts, that is one instance where one may question whether sufficient watch is being kept on the position. Vast sums are voted for the High Court, yet four hours' service in the day is what the learned judges give. I confess, as one constantly going there, I have nothing but admiration for the High Courts sitting in Dublin and should like to congratulate the Government—and this Government in particular—on the appointments made, just as well as its predecessor. I should be delighted if I were able to congratulate myself that all down throughout the country in the Circuit Courts and District Courts, the self same atmosphere obtained. Not having sufficient experience of our administration. I do not know what steps should be taken to call attention to what, to my mind, are defects. Certainly the Ministers have been functioning now long enough to know and examine the position and to see that the service rendered in the name of justice is justice all through and that it will command the respect and admiration of every citizen in the land.

On the walls throughout the country I see notices advertising loans for farmers. In the eighties and nineties we tackled the landlords and got our reductions there. What, then, is the need for these loans? I do not wish Senator Counihan to say that I supported him in looking for loans. When I see these notices I ask where have we got after 20 years of home government and why our farmers should not be in a position to get loans to educate their children without having to go to the county councils for scholarships. Why should they not be in a position to employ, if necessary, their own doctors, without having to look for red tickets and partake of charity all the time?

I would draw the Minister's attention to these few remarks and ask him to give them consideration. Whilst I deplore the excessive taxation that we all must endure, I would deplore still more inefficient service. The Minister has the means at his disposal now and I am sure that he will avail of them in seeing that the best results are obtained for the country.

Mr. Baxter

This Bill gives the Seanad a chance to review the policy of the administration in regard to the method and the manner of imposing taxation to find the money which they are going to spend to keep the machinery of Government running. The Minister is perturbed, and I think rightly so. It is a sign of returning sanity that there is perturbation in the Cabinet about the dimensions of our Budget for 1940-41. We are going to spend a very great sum of money. I do not think there would be justification for perturbation if he were satisfied that the imposition of this burden on the people was not almost beyond their capacity to bear it. That is what was troubling the Minister and what is troubling all of us. After all, the burden of taxation is a relative thing. The rich man is reluctant and, perhaps, more than reluctant, to carry his burden than is the poor man, but for all of them, rich and poor, the amount which they have to contribute out of their resources to-day towards Government expenditure is really something that to them, and to all of us, has become alarming.

Quite clearly, the Governmental system now is collecting from the people of this country altogether too high a proportion of the return which they get for their productive effort. Our productive effort in this country to-day is not at all keeping pace with the demands of the Government for the money which they want to spend, and it seems to me that if Government policy has failed at all, its great failure has been due to the fact that despite the fact that they have collected much more in taxation than their predecessors did, the use which they made of that money to put people into productive work has been such a failure— they have taken so much out of every branch of industry and put nothing back—that the burden is every year getting heavier and heavier, until some day, in the not far distant future, you will be just asking for something you cannot get. What will happen then neither you nor any of us can prophesy.

Senator McGee, who has just sat down, pointed to one very extraordinary fact—the posters which he referred to, telling the farmers they can get loans. If farming and agriculture in this country was on the solid foundation on which Government policy should have placed it long ago, the farmers of this country would not be wanting loans or wanting to borrow to the extent to which they seek to do so to-day. But, Sir, we have built up in our short period of home government, a type of bureaucracy which seems to most of us living down the country to be just there sucking the life-blood of the people who have the courage and daring to remain down the country and not crowd into Dublin. Having imposed all these burdens on the people we want in production, they are making all our lives so much a nuisance and they are imposing such a tyranny on us, and attempting to regulate our every activity to such an extent to-day, that we are no longer masters in our own houses. We can no longer claim to own the things that are our possessions and all this futile effort of government by thousands and thousands of civil servants, all very excellent people in themselves if you meet them individually, but, collectively, through the system of government they have built up, they are nullifying the productive effort of the people of this country. Hence we have the situation that in every end of the Twenty-Six Counties, people are now put in the position that they must look to the Government for everything because the Government is taking so much off them, taking so much of their earnings and so much of the spirit which they want for enterprise through all this regulating of their activities, that unless Government policy is going to be changed or altered and those millions put into productive effort, this Minister or his successor will very soon reach a point when he will be levying taxes which the people will not be able to pay.

Now, Sir, £31,000,000 or £35,000,000 is a very large sum, but it would not be a very large sum, in my judgment, to impose on the people of this country if Government policy was of the right type, if Government expenditure instead of being, as somebody said here the other day, one of "patching patches," was the kind of work and the kind of expenditure that would put men working, creating goods they could sell, enabling thousands of them who are to-day both in the national sense and in the local sense not able to make any contribution at all to bear their share of the demands for national and local taxation which have to be made now on those who are themselves only limping. If that was not the situation now, this demand of the Minister for this year would not appal us as it does.

The Minister, of course, and others, say that financially the country's position is sound. Well, I suppose you could say that a man who had a deposit in a bank and kept it in the bank, while his farm, as we say in the country, was going to the dogs, growing rush and furze, undrained, his stock going off and so on, that so long as you saw his deposit was intact all was well. But the realist would know that was not a fact, and sometimes one wonders whether the complacency with which we declare all is well in the financial world is, so far as we are concerned, a point of view which is merely based on the fact that we have considerable savings accumulated. Would we not be much better off if we had not those savings when we use them for taking credit for saying that all is well? In my opinion, all is not well—it is far from it. It could be very much better. I believe it is not beyond the capacity of the people of this country to make things better. What are the facts? We had a discussion here last evening on a certain aspect of financial administration in this country. The Minister was not present, but I think I would agree that you can go on raising taxation and raising it to a very high point indeed, if at the same time you are engaged in profitable production. A great many of our people are not engaged in production at all. Some are no longer engaged in profitable production and, so far as one can judge, Government policy is doing very little, very little indeed, to assist them in engaging in profitable production. The one industry to which we could look in my judgment for a considerable extension of profitable production and to which we must look in the future, anyhow, is agriculture. I do not think anyone can argue that production there is increasing. From one year to another the income might be a little bit more, because, for one reason or another, world prices are rising, but the volume in production is not increasing nor, indeed, is there any more profit in it.

Senator McGee referred to the fact that our agricultural workers can only be paid 30/- or 35/- a week. I wonder does Senator McGee hear all the complaints we hear because of the fact that a recent decision of the Wages Board has actually raised the wage of these unfortunate people by 3/- per week, while at the same time nothing has been done to raise the total income of the farmer who is paying the wages? I do not want to be misinterpreted in making that statement.

Unless you are prepared to look facts in the face and state them bluntly I do not think we are ever going to get anywhere, and the truth about it is that we have raised the charges on the people of this country who are our main producers. National taxation is higher than it has been since this State was established. Local taxation also is higher, and is going to be higher in all the counties this year than it has been for many years. In my own county I do not think we have ever had to strike a rate as high as that which is going to be levied this year. The wages bill is definitely increased, while neither on cattle, eggs, butter nor any other branch of agricultural activity is the farmer getting any more to-day than he was getting in November last.

Sir John Keane

Surely, he is getting more for sugar beet and wheat.

Mr. Baxter

He did not get anything more for sugar beet or wheat this season than he got last season, or, at least, very little more. He is going to get it next season. The truth is that his prices are all going to be raised next harvest. But what has he got to do? He has got to go on spending all his money in the meantime. I do not know just where it is going to come from. I do not want to be taken at all as quarrelling with what Senator McGee said, because, in my judgment, the way to make it possible to keep agricultural workers, and to keep all our workers in the country is to raise the standard of living for all.

Mr. McGee

I am in absolute agreement.

Mr. Baxter

If you see people in Dublin who will not work at £3 a week you cannot but pity the fellow in the country who has to work for 30/- a week. It is very difficult to understand a country where those contradictions can live side by side. It is very difficult for us in the country to understand the people in Dublin, and to know what they want, but I think it is much more difficult for the people in Dublin to understand us or our problems. Quite definitely, in my judgment, they do not understand our problems, and I do not think that there is very much evidence that they are learning to understand us.

I said here yesterday evening—and I would challenge anybody to contradict it—that there is scope in Irish agriculture to-day to employ 95 per cent. of the people who want work in rural Ireland. When I talk of rural Ireland I am talking of the towns, because even in our country towns what can 95 per cent. of the people do but handle shovels and picks and spades? And that is the only type of employment you can provide for them. There is ample opportunity for labour of that kind on the land to-day. I said further here last night that if that labour were put to work on the land its products could be sold to-day.

Senator O Buachalla referred to New Zealand and to Denmark in a discussion here yesterday evening, but they have done things in New Zealand and in Denmark—certainly in New Zealand—which we could not do. They have put capital into their land in New Zealand which we have not put into ours. I want to put this to the Minister: The Government engaged in an economic war here. Many of us thought at that time that that policy was unwise. Anyhow, that is behind us: but what were the consequences of that war? During those years £25,000,000 was taken from the farmers and transferred to England. Had there been no economic war in those years, the most which would have gone to England from the farmers would have been about £12,000,000, not more than £13,000,000. But £25,000,000 was taken from the farmers, and in addition they lost much more than £25,000,000 in that period, because their stock depreciated in value and their land depreciated for the want of nutrition which they should have supplied and were unable to supply. All that was done in order to get rid of a debt of £70,000,000. The Government got rid of the debt of £70,000,000 by extracting from the farmers about £40,000,000 in four or five years. I would not think that that would be a tremendous national tragedy at all, great as the loss was, and disastrous as it was for the farmers at that time, if, when that debt had been cleared, the Government had come back and put some of that capital that had been wiped off back into the land. What has been done? Not a thing has been done about it. If men are idle in this country to-day, men who can only handle picks, and shovels and spades, the main reason is that the land of Ireland is undercapitalised and the difficulties of finding capital to put men working on it are so great that it is beyond the capacity of the farmers to do it. Because we have not got that type of production, we have not the purchasing capacity which our people ought to have if they are to bear the burden of taxation which is imposed upon them. Consequently, people speaking as Senator Hayes has spoken will indicate what the citizen in this town has to bear to-day by way of local and national taxation as against what he carried a few years ago. That cannot go on for ever, but that situation can only be changed by Government policy facing up to it bravely. You have got to have faith in the future, and you have got to have faith in your people or they will very soon lose faith in you, and probably lose faith in democracy as a whole. There are strange enough rumblings in this country just now, and one does not blame and cannot blame men who have not worked for quite a long time, and some who have never worked, and do not know what work is, and perhaps are not too anxious to engage in it. But when they are allied with decent men both in the city and the country who want work and who cannot find it, who want more food and who cannot get it, who want a higher standard of living and are unable to provide it for themselves and their families, it is natural there would be strange rumblings. Idleness is the mother of mischief in every land. There are people in this country unemployable, just as there are people in other lands unemployable, and they are worse in Dublin than anywhere else. There must be thousands of people to-day who would work if they got work, and thousands of people idle in Dublin to-day who would have stayed in the country if there was work for them in the country. The country is the place to keep them.

The problem for this Government and for successive Governments is to so regulate Government policy as to make it possible to find employment for the people in the country. The Government have put enough upon the ratepayers. They have put burdens and obligations enough upon them, goodness knows, under relief grants, time out of mind, and made the local ratepayer make his contribution towards a common fund to provide relief work. It is time there was something provided better than mere relief schemes. We are never going to solve the difficulties that are ahead of us here and we will never be able to bear that burden of taxation in the future unless our people can be engaged on something other than relief work. There is plenty of scope in this land to-day, in my opinion, to employ 95 per cent. of the people, and the kind of work there is to do is just the one kind of work that 95 per cent. of them can do. I believe that money could be spent in putting these people to work and that they could provide goods which could be well sold and which would well justify their employment.

I suggest that is our real task. Putting patches upon patches is bad work for any Government in this State. We have done very revolutionary things, some of them very stupid indeed, but it may very well be that, even taking our wise actions with our folly, they all mark the road to progress of one kind or other. I do not think the Ministry should wait for another year to do something big in this respect.

Senator Hayes makes references to suggestions that are made, some of them foolish, in the matter of trying to see where money could be provided to make things better, either by way of getting our pound away from the British pound or doing something which other people regarded as much more foolish, but whatever the Ministry do, they must do something. They are doing nothing at the moment beyond collecting moneys and adding thousands of officials to thousands of others. No one can turn down the country now, without having an inspector of one kind or another visiting him. We have too much of the wrong kind of inspection and none of the right kind of inspection. We could spend the money which we are spending on inspectors much more wisely if it were left with us. If you left a great deal of the money, which you are taking from the people, to them to spend in their own way, the country's work would be much better done. That, at any rate, is what a great many people in the country feel. I think you are failing in your task. It may be that you have not completely failed, but I do not think you are satisfying your own supporters any more than ours. Faced with the situation in which we find ourselves, and with the difficulties of the time, but at the same time knowing that we are not in the frightful position in which we see a country like Finland, to-day weeping over its lost liberty, it should be an encouragement to the Government to try to pull itself together and give the country a lead. I think they would find that the country would rise to it and that the people, even out of their very depleted incomes, that are growing less every day, would provide the extra money that is required, if they felt that the Government has made up its mind that the present trend of taxation must definitely come to an end.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I think I mentioned on a former occasion that the one representative of the Government who should not be here on this occasion is the Minister for Finance. We get up and speak here about conditions in the national schools or conditions in the Army, or on matters connected with some other Department, and we find that the Minister here has really nothing whatever to do with these Departments. We urge economy in this direction or that, but, as I have said before, our representations cannot have much effect in the absence of the Minister in charge of the Department concerned.

I might also say en passant that there is nothing more cheering to me than when Senators on the other side of the House accuse me of getting up and of making speeches for Party purposes. That is a most cheering suggestion, because if I say unpopular things, and Senators tell me that it is done for Party purposes, it reassures me that the people of the country are facing up to unpopular things. However, that is only by the way. It is a recognised thing in our economy that a proportion of equality is achieved by not merely compelling a man with a large income to pay the same proportion of his income in taxes as the man with a small income, but also something in excess of that. It is recognised that if you say that a man with £500 should pay a quarter of his income, it would be equitable to take from the man with £1,000 one-third of his income. I think the same principle applies in regard to nations.

If this country produced annually twice as much as it does, it might be quite suitable that the taxation should be not merely twice as much, but that it should be more than twice as much as it is. If you take the amount of taxation about to be imposed this year, one-third of which we are about to vote for the Government's immediate spending, together with the amount collected in taxation by local bodies, you will find that it amounts to an enormous sum. We usually speak of taxation in relation to the figures of 1931, but if taxation in 1931 had been higher than taxation now, we would still have to examine the taxation for the current year to see whether it was for the good of the country that this amount of the national income should be taken to be spent by the Government. Usually when we speak of high taxation the reply is: "If you reduce taxation, that means that you must reduce social services. Nobody will suggest that we should spend less on educational services or that we should reduce our social services." I want to be quite fair to the Government. I quite agree with Senator Baxter that no farmer is able to carry on his work without some official coming in on him, but, in effect, it is the people who have demanded that. There is a natural tendency amongst the people at all times—and it is eminently the position at present—to shirk their responsibilities. If you have a man who made a mess of his life, you find that he leans up against the door-post and says: "See the mess I am in. What is the Government going to do about it?" In the same way, Senators get up and ask what the Government is going to do for the farmer. That represents a very unhealthy state of affairs, although I admit that there is a special case for the farmer. The Government, by its wrong-headed action, definitely injured the farmer when he was working his land. The Government, for political reasons, destroyed his livelihood to a large extent, and equity demands that the Government should make good the injury it has done. But the moment you ask the Government to do that, you must recognise that, as you are putting the responsibility on the Government, you must give the Government appropriate powers for fulfilling its responsibility. You must recognise that the Government has certain rights.

I agree that the way to seek popularity in this country is to go out, as the Government Party did, and say: "Vote for us and we will do everything for you and give you everything." But in our time, when we helped the farmer, it was by means of coercion. We put a law into operation relating to the type of bull which he might keep, with the result that we improved the quality of the stock in the country. We also passed a law in regard to the conditions under which butter was produced. We held that if a man was making butter carelessly, exporting it, and getting a bad name for Irish butter, that man was acting unjustly to his neighbour who spent himself in trying to manufacture the best butter he could. When the careful producer sent it over to England, he found that because it was Irish butter he received a lower price than the quality of his butter would otherwise have justified.

As I say, we remedied all those things. Fianna Fáil then came along and said: "Vote for us and we will give you a guaranteed price and a guaranteed market. Every person engaged in agriculture will get £16 a year. Vote for us and you will be relieved of your annuities." Naturally when the working farmer was told that he would no longer have to pay an annuity and that he would get all these other concessions in addition, he fell for the bait.

I remember some years ago in the Dáil there was a resolution put forward demanding that the Government should guarantee for all the people either work or maintenance. Now I probably supported that myself, because in a particular set of circumstances which one must assume are not normal or natural it might be necessary for the Government to extend its normal activities. Strangely enough—and it may be said that it is crassness in me which makes me always disagree with what the Government say—I, more or less and in a very conditioned way, felt that roughly something could be said on that line at that particular moment. The Government said that they were accepting that in principle, but the one thing I did not agree with was to accept that in principle, because I realise that, as man has a natural command in him to preserve his own life, the first duty to provide his maintenance is on himself, and not on the Government. I had to recognise this also, if we are going to say, as a principle, that the Government must guarantee the people productive employment that I do not see how I could guarantee to people productive employment, unless I was able to run productive industry. Consequently, if you set out, as a general and universal principle that the Government must guarantee employment, it seems to me that the Government says: "Very well; in order to do that we must build our own factories, and man them, and give you jobs in them." If you say that the Government must guarantee maintenance, it must be appreciated that when a man draws the dole in the shape of so many shillings a week, what he is actually doing is receiving the fruits of another man's labour. There is nothing to give to anybody except those things which are the result of men's labour. When people talk about making this country, and every other country, blossom with roses by some simple manipulation of currency, my mind turns rather blank, because I know that when I consume something I am consuming implied human labour, and I have really no right to it unless I own something of equal value to give for it and unless my productive activity is directed to producing something equivalent in value which I pay for it. If the Government is going to guarantee maintenance, that is to say, if the Government guarantees that it will give every one of us the results of human labour, it can only be in a position to fulfil that guarantee if it is in a position to command human labour. If we are going to impose these burdens as universal principles upon the Government, we must recognise that the fulfilling of that responsibility which we impose on the Government requires that the Government shall not only have the power to command the citizens to labour, but that it shall have the power to command the individual citizen to do a certain type of labour. I notice, in relation to this argument, that if anybody suggests doing anything about old age pensions, the beautiful, noble and generous people rise up and say that it is a scandal to take this from these poor people. I want to assert that when a father and a mother have become old and are no longer able to provide for themselves, the immediate duty of providing for them falls upon the children whom they provided for and whom they have brought up and put in a position to earn money; but we have allowed to grow up amongst us the idea that when a farmer with 60 acres or so reaches 67 or 68 years, he hands that land over to his son, and at the age of 70, or the age of 65, if we could have it, turns round to general society and says: "Now provide for me."

I feel that the Government all the time is increasing taxation. It defends itself by saying: "Look what we are spending on education." We are spending £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 on education, and when I go round to political meetings and see those opponents of mine at the edge of the crowd and think of the money being spent on trying to cultivate some sort of discipline and intelligence amongst them, I feel like asking why we are pitching these £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 away. I am perfectly satisfied that we are not getting, in education, value for money, but the Minister who is here has no responsibility whatever for that. When it comes to old age pensions, I am called a most hard-hearted man if I suggest that the State should only butt in with old age pensions when the grown up sons and daughters of these old people are themselves unable to provide for them. When it comes to unemployment, I am not satisfied that the palliatives put forward by the people who concern themselves so much about unemployment and the condition of the people on the dole— and though none of the Senators on the other side will believe it, I am just as concerned about them as Senator Hogan or anybody else, because unemployment is threatening the whole order of society here and condemning a number of our own people to subhuman conditions—are any good. I think that if the Government is going to provide doles, we shall, at a given point, have to recognise that the Government has the right to say to these people: "You have to work and do the work which we impose upon you." We legislate here, with these beautiful kind hearts of ours, absolutely in vacuo. I think it was last year that, without weighing up the value of the national production, or ascertaining how far that production divided amongst the whole people provided a standard of living which we thought the people entitled to, we got up and, absolutely in vacuo, decided what hours a week certain classes of society were to work and what number of holidays they were to have during the year. If we were not dealing with real things, I could get up and say that every farm labourer should have not less than £5 a week and not less than six weeks' holidays. Certainly if some people are deserving of 20 days' holidays, the farm labourer deserves ever so much more, and if it is equitable that some men should get £3 or £4 a week for their skill and labour, the farm labourer ought to have £5 or £6. But we cannot do much for the farm labourer. His labour is applied to the land; the farmer sells the product of his labour which brings in a certain amount; and the actual value which accrues to the farmer through the labour of that man, as things are, is only equal to the wage which is given to him, and, in that relationship, it may be an eminently just wage which the farm labourer is receiving.

Meanwhile, if that labourer could be so lucky as to get a job under the Dublin Corporation, or behind a counter in a shop, he would have shorter hours, guaranteed holidays and require less skill and less knowledge. It is no good taking me up on details, because I could go very much more into detail which would condition nearly everything I am saying; but if a man in a shop serving out seeds under one condition is working 60 hours a week, and getting £2 a week and, under another condition, is working 40 hours a week and getting £3 a week, it will be realised that he is actually producing less and getting more. His services ultimately go to the farmer, and it really means that the farm labourer, who is working with the material which that man is selling, is going to get only what he got before as a result of his working for longer hours. The difference will have to be made up in his working longer hours. The alternative is that he will have to accept less, that is, if other things remain stationary. I do think that in this country it is no good saying that there are so many thousand unemployed, and asking what extra dole is going to be given. It may be that you will have to say—and, mind you, even the trade unions may have to change their whole position in the matter—if you find that these men can be productive nationally, but wages and conditions being on a certain standard, their production will not be equal to the reward they receive, and they are a burden then on the general community—that there are only two alternatives before the country: either to accept a lower general standard of living or to increase productivity. It may be that productivity may be increased by some intelligent methods of production and, very probably, it may be increased by harder work for each given hour a man works, or by a man working for longer hours, but there is only one solution of the trouble of this country, and that is increased production. When I speak of increased production I mean that the raw material is taken and human labour applied to it, the difference between the value of that material in its raw state and its finished state, after labour has been applied to it, taken all over the country, being what I call national income, and the average national income is that amount divided by the number of people. The average national income in this country is very much on the low side. As a matter of fact, I have heard men arguing Communism, and talking about justice, and I have pointed out to them that if there was that exact distribution whereby you take the complete value of our national production and give each his one-three-millionth part of it, they would find that they were getting much less than they are getting now. Yet, they were shouting about Marxism. Here we have a definite evil in the level of our production, and one of the causes—I do not say the sole cause—of the unemployment we have in this country is the fact that our taxation is so high.

This will work in a spiral. It has gone up steadily ever since the present Government came into power—with their large hearts—wanting to please everybody and, possibly, to get their votes. The more unemployment there was, the more there was need for the provision of social services, and the more you increase the latter the more you have to increase taxation; but the more you increase taxation, the more you depress production, and the more need there is for increased production, the more that production is depressed by increased taxation.

I hope I am not hurting the feelings of any of the Senators behind me, but I should like to point out what is happening at the moment. You have a war in Europe at the moment, and we are paying for the effects of that war to a large extent. For instance, an article which we bought from England six months ago for £1 now costs 30/-. The reason for that is that practically everything being produced in England at the moment is being directed towards the prosecution of the war. The result of that is that we now have to pay about 30/- for an article from England that cost about £1 six months ago, and that puts up the prices for everybody here also. The result is that the cost of living is increased. Then comes the question of the workers who say that, since the cost of living has gone up by, let us say, 10 points, therefore, they must have an increase in wages. If they get that increase of wages, the cost of the commodities concerned also goes up and, consequently, the cost of living goes up further, and all it means is that you move continuously in that spiral. The result of the whole thing means increasing taxation, and that has a depressing effect on production, is increasing the misery of the people who have to bear the burden, and, instead of making for greater production, tends to depress it.

I am not too chary of hurting the Government's feelings—I do not think anybody will accuse me of that—but I do feel that we are not going to get anywhere until strength of character is learned either by the general populace or by the Government, and I think it is much easier for a small, compact body, such as the Government is, than for the people generally, to learn or acquire that strength of character. That means that the Government, without having any regard to the clamour made by their supporters or others in the various constituencies, urging them to go in for greater expenditure, have got to ask themselves this question: "In the light of the insurmountable facts in this country at the moment what have we to do to remedy the situation?" One of the things they have to do is to decrease taxation. I admit that when they do that, one of the consequences of such action undoubtedly will be the creation of an amount of criticism of their actions. I do not think that such criticism would terrorise me, nor should it terrorise the Government, but at any rate, I do feel that the Government has got to face up to the situation. I know that the Government had to face a good deal of clamour from almost every quarter for more relief and more doles, and that they are being asked why the doles are not being given out more freely, and so on. The fact is, however, that they have got to face the situation as it exists, give a guide to the whole country, and tell us that we have got to exist on national production and national work in all its forms.

We have a certain income coming from the fruits of accumulated savings of past generations. That has decreased, because in the last eight years or so the actual and real value of these savings has been diminished as a result of the economic war, and so on. Certain impositions, proposed to be put upon the country this year are definitely harmful to the people of this country in my opinion. Take the case of the Army. The cost of the Army has been multiplied, and the Minister for Defence was indignant yesterday because I said that the Army, when it was under me, was perfect, and was not perfect under him. If the Minister says that the Army, which is now costing about £3,500,000—I think it would be nearer to £5,000,000, having regard to the figures of last year—is nearly as good as it was when I had it, and when it cost a little more than £1,000,000, I think that is really flattering, but, flattery or not, I do say that the danger facing this country at the moment is not a danger of foreign invasion. Senator Mrs. Concannon talked yesterday about the British Army in the north of this country. Of course, there is the British Army there, and there is also the American Army on the other side of the Atlantic, but I think we ought to exercise a sort of prudential judgment on that question. If we thought it possible that, let us say, the Americans were going to attack us, or that the British Army in the North were coming down to ravage this country, we would have to consider that possibility. When people talk about the British Army being in the North, it must be admitted that it is there, but have we any sound reason for taking out of the pockets of our unfortunate people millions of pounds and to pour out these millions of pounds, just in case some form of mania might take possession of the British Government and impel them to say that, because it is not enough to have to fight Germany, they should come over and fight us here?

The effect of all that expenditure is cumulative. It has the effect of depressing the whole productive capacity of this country, and that is not the only case. It has been nice and popular for many years to say: what a splendid body the Civic Guards are! Now, the cost of that body has gone up. I am not satisfied about that. I think that anybody who goes around the country—anybody who goes around the villages and towns of this country, or who lives in them—has heard enough to be satisfied that we are paying for what should be a very extraordinary, powerful and effective police force, and that we should get as good and well-ordered a police force as we are paying for. What I mean by that is a police force that would perform the functions of police in a country such as this. I am satisfied that we should have an efficient police force at a much lower cost to the country than the present cost. I think that no Economy Commission can really work properly unless it can go into the matter of efficiency and of the functions of the various Departments of Government. The same applies to the Army. I think we could have as good an army as the purpose of this country would require, on a much lesser figure. I also believe that we could have a much better police force, with a much smaller number of members, so long as you had the right people as members of such a force; but how can you expect a police force here to be a good police force in the present circumstances? The very first duty of a Government, as represented by the police, is the protection of the human beings within the State in their lives and property. Some reference has been made to our broadcasting service in this connection. I imagine that the qualification there was that there was something tantamount to a sob in the voice and the implication of tears in the eyes. This was with reference to the "calamity" that happened through two men being executed in England.

At the same time, it must be remembered that certain people are responsible for the protection of the lives and property of the citizens, and if a policeman should be killed in the discharge of his duty, I am not going to profess that it is a national "calamity" that a murderer should be executed for that. The police are employed in order to prevent people from being murdered here, and if they believe that, in taking that serious risk of losing their lives in going after these people, the Government's reaction to that would be that it would be a calamity that anything should happen to the man who murdered a policeman, is it human nature to expect that policeman, as a servant of the State, to go out and risk his life in order to keep men from performing certain actions? Is it expected that these men should go out and risk their lives in such a case, and then have the answer given to them: "Well, that is that; it could not be helped, and it does not matter"?

We are simply pitching money away at the moment in giving any money to that Government on these terms, because the Government by its activity, and by a certain looseness with regard to the giving away of money—although they may not have exactly advocated it—are giving way to a completely new system of government. We have people here at the moment—just as is happening all over the world—who are demanding a constantly increasing standard of living. Since the 19th century, it has been accepted that through the use of the machine one could multiply production indefinitely, and that, somehow or other, if things were organised and you could press a button, everything could be done for you, and people would not be obliged to work.

We have improved our social conditions since then, there are shorter hours of labour, and so on, but you have to weight up whether it is possible to have shorter hours of labour for the degree of production in this country which will give people a certain standard of living; and, if that standard of living requires longer hours, you have to weigh up whether it is better to have shorter hours and a lower standard of living or longer hours and a higher standard of living.

We are here criticising the Government. The Government has authority and responsibility to direct their activities, in the light of their own good judgment and in the light of the facts, to pursue the policy which is best for the people. At the present moment, and for the last ten years, they seem to me to have disregarded that. I am not saying that their predecessors were absolutely perfect, but I think the present Government policy represents a disimprovement. The Government has that authority, and the job is one that is clear. It is to establish that order which will best provide for the national well-being. They should not listen to the clamour. The Government has almost naturally to be undemocratic. Certain Departments of the Government—that having the giving away of land, that dealing with relief schemes and doles—are always faced with clamour from Deputies. The Government can turn round when there is a clamour to reduce taxation and say the Deputies were trying to increase it.

The primary responsibility is on the Government, yet I have noticed Ministers come in here and try to shirk that responsibility by saying that the Opposition said so and so. An Opposition has almost to be naturally irresponsible, but this Government has been fortunate in having an Opposition which always adverts to the real difficulties of the situation. The Government cannot shirk its responsibility. The Minister knows, as I know and as Senators know, that this taxation is oppressive and that it is nationally evil. The Minister knows that when any attempt is made to diminish that taxation, there are going to be vested interests clamouring against it. It is the Government's job to face up to those vested interests and then we will have a certain lesser responsibility to give them certain support. Meanwhile, I have every sympathy with this Minister, and especially with his predecessor, who was on the job much longer, who has every Minister coming to his Department and wanting more money for this, that and the other. He makes the best case he can, but the clamour of Ministers, Deputies and people in the country oversways him and leaves the country moving in a downward spiral on account of the increased taxation and the diminished production. There is a constant clamour for greater amenities and there is less opportunity to provide them. The responsibility is the Government's, and I feel perfectly justified in saying to the Government that the total bill, without going into details— is one which is definitely burdensome upon the people.

By saying that it is necessary to meet the cost of the social services they are actually condemning themselves, as they have created a situation in which they are faced by a number of men who are unable, not through physical incapacity, to support themselves and their aged parents, and those men can only live here by the fruits of one man's work being arbitrarily taken from him by the Government and given to another man who does not labour at all.

Mr. Cummins

For 17 years we on these benches have watched the experiments of two successive Governments in trying to deal with the problems that faced the nation when they took over political control and in trying to face the economic question that confronted them since. Undoubtedly, the problems they had to face were big ones, when we consider that the great majority who had to take up the work were new to such problems. It is true that they were not strangers to political problems—that has been so in this country from time immemorial— but the economic problems were possibly new ground for them. While we are making any amount of allowances for the mistakes made, still we must point out that, at the end of 17 years, a total of no less than 350,000 people have left the country. They were of the best blood and muscle, and the best type of youth in the country. They have left it, and why? Because they could not get employment in their own land. They had no special desire to leave the country so dear to them, but the exigencies of the case condemned them to do so. That drain has been going on for 17 years and at least 350,000 people have left our shores, never to return. That is a tremendous loss to any nation. I do not know that there is any country in the world with a similar population which has had such a drain on its resources. If you reckon the worth of those people in pounds, shillings and pence, it means at least 350 times £1,000 lost to our nation in that period. I was amazed to hear yesterday evening, from the opposite benches, the suggestion that unemployment and the difficulties of the Government arose to some extent from the high standard of life in this country, while we have at the present moment 10,000 people living in destitution in the City of Dublin alone.

Sir John Keane

But the others are living on too high a standard.

Mr. Cummins

They may be. We know a large amount of people are living on a very high standard. If they shared with the others the amount of wealth which is lying useless in the banks or which is squandered on high living we might say there was a possibility of our standards of life being better. I was surprised to hear Senator Buckley refer to the high standards of living, while he knows perfectly well that, at the present moment in the City of Dublin, within 100 yards of where he stands, 10,000 people are on the border line of destitution. In the whole country, even the most moderate figures show that between 110,000 and 120,000 people are totally unemployed or in semi-employment. That is even worse at the present time, as from the 7th March, no help can be given to those people who are labourers in the country, notwithstanding the push that has been made for bringing the land under cultivation. In my constituency, I know that, at the present moment, hundreds of men are only partially employed and are prohibited from getting any help. Town unemployment is bad but town unemployment can be remedied only by first devoting attention to the country and to our agricultural life throughout Ireland.

I say that the Government simply continue to tinker with the problems as they have been tinkering with them. We heard of the quack remedies, as was suggested by Senator Hayes, that were proposed by some people who advocated a change in the currency and a change, necessarily, in the system of exchange. That may be a fantastic doctrine but, mark my words, if the remedy is not supplied in some other way, that fantastic doctrine, as some people call it— I do not call it that—will take roots and I believe it might be a very good thing if it did take roots.

Before leaving this question of unemployment, there came from the very same side of the House a very violent and unjustified criticism of trade unionism. Anybody who has any idea of the trade union movement in Ireland or England, or any other of the civilised countries, will readily agree that it ranks next to religion as the greatest civilising influence in the world. When that gentleman from the Government Benches, who professed to be a trade unionist, said that trade union leaders were responsible for strikes, he did not know what he was talking about. If they had been responsible for strikes alone, then democracy indeed would have got a very poor show in the world. Kings and States, Emperors and Governments have so adjusted their legislation from time to time as to meet the just demands of trade unions. I am astonished to hear such a charge from the ranks of Fianna Fáil. Trade unions will make mistakes and governments will make mistakes but, in the main, 95 per cent. of the work done by trade unions is Christian work and civilising work done for the good of the community at large. It is a pity that a very large class in the country, the rural workers, have not trades unions to support them in their claims.

It was stated by a former Government that it was not the business of any Government to provide employment. Senator Fitzgerald repeated that statement in a modified form to-day. He says that it is not the business of the Government to run factories.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I did not say that. I said if one is right the other is wrong.

Mr. Cummins

We did not ask the Government to run factories. We asked them to make the position easier for the running of factories but there are numbers of public services which we say would definitely be better run by the Government than by private enterprise. There is the transport service for instance and the fisheries, of which both Governments made a very bad job for some reason or another. Perhaps it could be ascribed to the trades unions that the people were not putting their best foot forward and going to sea, or that we are not sea-minded. The fishing industry was more or less in the control of the Government, yet we hear complaints on all sides that fish cannot be got in the City of Dublin. It has been commonly alleged—let me hope that it was because they were not marketable— that fish has been dumped in the sea to keep up the prices in Dublin for the benefit of the capitalist.

Before I leave this point about trade unions let me say that the Cardinal— Cardinal Hinsley of London as he now is—speaks in the highest terms of trade unions. He says the unjust work of the industrial machine which the practice of Christian charity could do so much to remedy becomes more evident. One vast item of our national expenditure is a label "social services" and we pride ourselves much on social services. But why those social services? For what reason do they come?

From the reason that the industrial machine is not properly worked and provision has to be made for those who are racked on that industrial machine. That is the reason for social services. We have them in this country and if the machinery were properly adjusted then our social services forced upon us would be very much lighter in this country and in every other country. It all comes about, he said, because justice——

Mr. MacDermot

Has the Senator been quoting the Cardinal all this time?

Mr. Cummins

Just at this moment.

Mr. MacDermot

I am afraid I could not make out when he stopped quoting.

Mr. Cummins

I will give you a précis if you wish.

Mr. Fitzgerald

We do not like précis.

Mr. Cummins

He said all war comes about because justice is not at the root of industrial relations and because Christian charity does not rule.

Acting Chairman

Would the Senator be good enough to make that quotation available or give the name of the book or paper in which it is published?

Mr. Cummins

Certainly. It was a quotation from Cardinal Hinsley, and it was published in some of the papers a short time ago. I will have it on the Table of the House if any Senator desires it. I could also quote Dr. Browne of Galway. I have not heard a better exposition of the rights of the worker than that given by Dr. Browne in the very diocese from which the distinguished Senator comes. I wonder if he has not read that before he attacks trade unionism in this House. You say what are our remedies. Senator MacDermot gave us the opportunity of producing our remedy, and he challenged us here to do it, and, now that we have the Minister for Finance present, let us produce some of the remedies. I shall be very brief, but it is not an easy matter to promulgate the doctrine of a Party in the short time allowed here.

Mr. MacDermot

There is unlimited time here.

Mr. Cummins

Thank you. As I have said, successive Governments have failed to deal with this question of unemployment. In the towns and villages there is great unemployment, and in the country there is semi-employment. The result of this difference between social conditions in the towns and those in the country has been a gradual drift to the towns. The social services, as you know, are much more useful in the towns, and the social services which our soft-hearted Government—note of interrogation after "soft", please—have given to the towns have brought our people from the country in great numbers. Even the factories established in the towns have had the result of bringing in the country workers who are sometimes looked upon as more efficient workers. I do not say that they are more efficient. Perhaps they are better fed on healthier materials and lead healthier lives in the country. Instead of inducing people to come to the towns, all our efforts should be the other way, and migration to the country should be encouraged. We want the Government to do that, and they have not been doing it.

Recently the Labour Party agitated for a Bill to enable rural workers to become the owners of their own homes. The Government went a certain distance, and they acknowledged the principle of the Bill was a good one. But what has been the result? After almost three years of the working of the 1936 Act, and after the urging of many of the tenants to purchase their homes and settle down, speaking from memory, only about 10 per cent. of them have given any indication of a desire to purchase their homes under the conditions imposed by the Act. Now they ask for 50 per cent. reduction. Other sections of the community, the agricultural section of the community, have got, between abatements and judicial reductions of rent, at least 75 per cent. to 78 per cent. reduction. We want simply 50 per cent. for those who never got a single reduction under any Act that was passed for 50 years.

Sir John Keane

Was not the primary basis of these rents very low indeed—1/- a week for a cottage and half an acre of land?

Mr. Cummins

So were the wages very low at the time—8/- or 10/- a week. Even for a ploughman in the country that is what the wages were. The wages of a first rate ploughman would not be more than 10/- a week. Senator The McGillycuddy of the Reeks will support me in that, I think. So, in proportion to the wages that they were earning, the rents were not so low. I do hope that the Minister understands the fact that he has not made the Bill encouraging. About 10 per cent., on an average, throughout the country—in Wicklow, I think, it has been 1.4 per cent.—have indicated their desire to purchase after three years; in Carlow about 4 per cent.; in Donegal and Cavan, where other persuasive agencies are active towards the purchase of holdings, the number is over 50 per cent. but, taking the average figures we have got, I think about 10 per cent. of the whole. I would ask him, in all earnestness, to give that concession to the cottier tenants, and I believe it would be the means of keeping people on the land. They would be prepared under the grants that are available to put up additional accommodation to make a real home of what is at the moment only a place of sojournment, to make a real home for themselves and their families so that the families when they do migrate to the towns, would be induced to return home and at least spend their holidays with their parents. At the present moment they have not the inducement or the accommodation to do that. I do not think that any young boy or girl could spend their holidays in a more desirable way than out in the country if they had domestic accommodation with their own parents. I believe it would be a very valuable asset that could be reckoned in with the proceeds of the tourist traffic to this country. I must ask the Minister to give some little attention to that matter, and, if he does, I believe he will find that it will bring reward.

This patchwork policy, adopted by both Governments, has not made any headway. Nothing but a very sweeping change in their methods can bring it about. I should say, with all due respect to the bankers here, that a change in the banking system or the relation of the banking system to the community at large is very much required.

Sir John Keane

The bankers, Sir, are not averse to a change, but they would like to know what precise form of change is suggested.

Mr. Cummins

I would suggest that a development commission be set up. I am not in favour of further commissions. I believe there are many in the Government offices at the present time who would compose, with other assistance—I would not preclude outside aid —a developmental commission; that this commission should be the medium through which loans would be granted and that it should be a non-profit-making institution, at least, that it should pay its way, but that no profit should be made. We know that much of our money is lying idle. In the British Treasury at the moment £300,000,000, as some people put it, are lying idle. We know that Hospitals Trust money is deposited in British securities that could be working here at home, and we know that a few millions of pounds given to that developmental commission would be a tremendous asset to the country.

Mr. MacDermot

Who is to give it to them in the first instance?

Mr. Cummins

I should say there should be a change in currency and exchange, if necessary.

Mr. MacDermot

The money is to be printed? Who should give them the money?

Mr. Cummins

I should say a change in currency, if necessary, and if the banks do not come to their rescue, that the Government should take the bit in their mouths and get on with the job. The money is there and can be released—£300,000,000 of it.

Mr. MacDermot

The money of the citizens?

Mr. Cummins

Yes. We will not go into the details.

Mr. MacDermot

Do go into it.

Sir John Keane

All we want is the details.

Mr. Cummins

This whole monetary system is with us since the Act of Union, and was founded to restrict the activities of Ireland, and to make Ireland a pastoral country, to produce animals and men for export. That is what the system has been doing since the Act of Union. That is what it has been doing and continues to do to-day, and so long as we are bound to that system of exchange——

Acting Chairman

May I point out to the Senator that we spent a while discussing the currency question. I think it has been overdone.

Mr. Cummins

At the outbreak of war the Government found itself without a policy to relieve unemployment. Industries in many cases were highly disorganised for the want of raw material. Men were thrown out of these industries. I must say the Government did make some fair provision, but the war has been threatening for a considerable time, and they should have done more and more on those lines. What would be the duty of the Government? Not to set up factories, not to provide employment, but to supplement employment by afforestation, a large and extensive scheme of arterial drainage, land division, which has now practically ceased for some reason or other. There is no use in saying that they are dividing the land that is in the hands of the Commission. That, I understand, has not been done, and most of the officials of that Department are employed as inspectors in other Departments to see that the tillage order is being enforced.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

How many did the Deputy say are employed on that— most of them?

Mr. Cummins

I should say a good number of them. I have not the number. That is an office secret, I suppose.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I think there might be about ten.

Mr. Cummins

I take the Minister's word, but my information was that there were more.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That would not be most of the officials.

Mr. Cummins

The Government's function should not be to provide employment, in the wide sense of the word. It would be merely supplementing employment.

A statement affecting another body of people has been made here, that it was the duty of children to provide for their parents when they grow old. The Government is not providing for the parents. Who hopes that a man can live on 10/- a week? It is only supplemental help, just as the employment which we ask them to give would be supplemental. We do not want the State to take over every form of employment. We only say that where private enterprise fails, then the Government should step in. Afforestation, arterial drainage, land division, co-operative agriculture, if necessary, these are some of the means we suggest. I am sure Sir John Keane and the Government had a long and serious talk about the money problem, and the Government put before him the very dangerous position, a position bordering on something akin to revolution that exists, for which the banks could easily find a remedy. If there were war in the country to-morrow, millions of pounds would come from some source even to defend this little nation of ours.

Sir John Keane

It would come out of the pockets of the people.

Mr. Cummins

I should say that whatever money would go to that non-profit-making board which we would set up would be paid back to the people who gave it to them, with interest. Much of the trouble arises from the fact that a great proportion of the money required for housing has to be paid back with heavy interest. These are some of the points I should like to elaborate, but I am afraid I have already trespassed too much on the indulgence of the House.

The McGillycuddy of the Reeks

There is only one thing on which I can agree with Senator Cummins, and that is, that when the rent of a cottage was 1/-, the wages of a ploughman were on the average 8/-, without any other emolument. The whole tenor of what I propose to say is somewhat different. On the occasion of the last financial debate we had in this House, the Minister, in reply to my remarks, questioned my sense of responsibility. I think it is now my turn to question the Minister's sense of responsibility in coming here in the present circumstances and asking us for a total of £22,000,000 on account. For years past the Government have been forcing us to live to the utmost extent, if not to a higher extent, that the national income would justify. I use this term in its economic meaning. Now, at a very critical time, when war is constricting our trade and hampering it in every way, we are taking a very much bigger part of our national resources than ever before to maintain what has been for a period of years an experimental policy of enthusiastic young legislators who have got control of this country—all done with other people's savings. These savings would normally finance an immense amount of employment at a reasonable wage.

In introducing this Vote on Account in the Dáil, the Minister said that he had made all possible savings and that they amount to £911,000, but when you look at the Estimates you find that certain Departments have increased their demands by as much as £449,000, practically half a million pounds. These Departments include Forestry, Primary Education, Office of Public Works, and so on—all things in which, I suggest, in an emergency like this it is quite reasonable to call a complete halt until things are better and we see our way out of the wood.

On the other hand, the savings are made up, at any rate, so far as £300,000 is concerned, out of agricultural bounties. The cessation of these bounties is simply a direct consequence of the settlement of the economic war. We all know, in spite of the Estimates, that there is quite a considerable amount of camouflage associated with them because Supplementary Estimates can be brought forward throughout the year which could bring the total of the Estimates up to almost any figure which the Dáil could be persuaded to vote for Government expenditure.

I think the country should be made fully aware of all the circumstances. Instead of coming here, and asking for a Vote of £22,000,000 on Account, the Minister should have come here and told the people what is happening. He should have said: "Owing to the increased cost of living, to the increased cost of every class of article, raw materials, clothing and food, my Estimate in comparison with other years, instead of being £22,000,000 really represents a demand for about £26,500,000, and my total estimate which I am going to put before the Dáil in a short time really represents £6,000,000 more, on the same basis of comparison, than in other years." He should also have said: "Owing to the increased cost of living, which is going to continue during the period of hostilities in Europe, the cost of government is going to increase, and there will be a decrease in the value of money and in purchasing power in this country. I warn you that, at the same time there will be an immense increase in rates and in the cost of local government throughout the country, all of which has got to be provided by the people, whose physical effort has collected the savings which will pay the labour to carry out the functions of production in this country." He should have gone on and said: "These figures, combined, will go a very long way, during the next year, towards exhausting the reserves which you have in this country at present." With reason, I think he might have finished up by saying: "I am no longer worthy to be called thy son." Even then, I think we should be very slow in killing the fatted calf or getting out the best bottle of wine from the cellar to celebrate the fact that the Government is seeking powers to borrow £11,000,000, over and above what the indebtedness of the country is at present. I think we all know what the people thought of the last effort at borrowing in this country.

Now, the circumstances of the present moment are so unfortunate that although I should like to be constructive, it is extraordinarily difficult to put forward any proposal to improve matters. Various proposals have been put forward such as that suggested by Senator Cummins, all of which would mean an immense additional expense. To meet that additional expense no means could be found except the printing of money. I do not know whether Senator Cummins wants to do that.

Sir John Keane

He does.

The McGillycuddy

If we had kept to the £20,000,000 mark, which I consider would be more or less the amount that our national income justifies us in spending in any one year, at the present moment we would be in clover. We would have all the millions which in the last seven years have been taken from the people, admittedly by their will and by their elected representatives, and squandered directly or indirectly in these experiments. We would be able, without the slightest difficulty, to save ourselves from further taxation or to float a loan for £20,000,000 and employ every single soul in the country on productive work. The situation, as I see it at present, makes constructive suggestion almost impossible. The only suggestion I have to make is that these Estimates should be gone through again, that they should be brought down by savings in personnel and by other drastic cuts to somewhere near the £20,000,000 mark, and that a halt should be called to any new expenditure except that designed to avoid and reduce unemployment. I think the argument which is constantly advanced in relation to Partition applies to a great extent here, that the British started Partition and they must get us out of it. In this case, the Government has got us into a frightful mess and they must find the remedy.

Mr. Hawkins

I was very disappointed on hearing the speech of Senator Cummins. I thought he was going to expound to us some new system for ending this all important problem of unemployment, and I was rather disappointed that he did not give us the particular plan he had in mind. However, I do not propose to put forward any solution, either, but to make some remarks on various points. With regard to land division, I understand that it is the policy of the Government that no land be acquired over and above that already on hands. The point I should like to make is that the division of land should rather be carried out on a regional basis, and that the Land Commission should avoid dividing one holding in a particular district and, in two or three years time, dividing another holding. I think that all the land available for acquisition in a particular area should be acquired at one time and divided at the one time, so far as possible.

With regard to housing, from statements made, I understand that the Government's policy is that the present housing drive should go on and, as the present Housing Act expires at the end of this month, I think it would be well if we had a statement as to whether it is the intention to extend the Act. If so, I suggest that it be amended so as to enable persons anxious to erect dwelling houses in urban areas to become entitled to the grant. At present, there is a large amount of unemployment amongst tradesmen in urban areas, and, while the extra employment given in the way I suggest might not be very great, any employment of the kind which can be given should be given, and I think the Government should consider the extension of the grant to houses built in urban areas. I think the Minister, last year, promised us that, in the next Housing Bill, provision would be made for assisting building societies and public utility societies. That should not be lost sight of because if we had building societies available here, as they have in England and other countries, it would take the responsibility of erecting a certain type of house out of the hands of local authorities and leave them only with the responsibility of erecting houses for what we might call the uneconomic tenant, the person who cannot pay an economic rent.

I think Senator Cummins referred to labourers' cottages. That, in my view, is one of the best means of getting the people back to the land. There is the case, which, I think, came to the notice of the Minister when he was Minister for Local Government, of Tuam where the Town Commissioners built a number of houses which were occupied by people from rural areas, people who left the land and went to live in the towns. The Galway Board of Health some time afterwards, built labourers' cottages in the rural area and these people immediately went back to live in the rural area. It went so far that a request was made to the Department that no further houses should be built in or around the Tuam rural area by the Galway Board of Health, because the houses in the town were becoming vacant by reason of people going to live in the country.

There is one great want in these cottages and this matter would be more a matter for the Local Government Department. The cottages are erected and provision for a turf-house made, but no provision is made for the keeping, by the incoming tenant, of poultry or a pig, and, in rural Ireland, it was the custom in olden times for the people, as it were, to pay rent by the pig. A person going into a labourer's cottage has now no means of keeping a pig, and he usually cannot afford to build a piggery. I suggest that if any further cottages are built, provision should be made for a proper piggery and poultry house—if not a piggery, at least a poultry house.

We have heard a lot in the past about afforestation, and I notice that from time to time the Forestry Department issue advertisements in the Press, stating that they have a certain amount of timber for sale. Senators, unlike Deputies, are not in a position to set down questions for answer, and it is perhaps all to the good that we have not got that privilege, but I should like to ask the Minister now how the price of this timber compares with the cost of planting and the general cost of bringing a tree to maturity for sale. There is another question in that connection—the price at which this timber is sold by the sawmills which purchase it. I am interested in the matter for the reason that people have complained to me recently that, on going in to buy timber, they were told there was nothing in stock but native timber, and the price of that timber is in excess of the price of imported timber. I think that is a matter which should be inquired into. Another question which seriously affects rural areas, and particularly the County Galway, is drainage. I know there is a commission considering this matter at present, but I suggest that they be asked to report immediately with a view to the preparation of plans on whatever recommendations they make, so that those engineers who are at present unemployed, and those who are about to leave the universities, may be employed on this very useful work, which will take years to complete before drainage work can be started. The preparation of plans and levelling operations which are part of such a vast scheme as the Corrib drainage, would be a means of giving employment on work which will have to be undertaken later on to our young engineers, many of whom are at present unemployed.

Mr. MacLoughlin

I confess that it is with some hesitation I intervene in the discussion on this Bill. When last I spoke here—I think it was on the occasion of the Supplementary Budget —it seems that I hurt the over-tender susceptibilities of a couple of Senators. One of these Senators, Senator Campbell, was of opinion that I did not pay sufficient reverence to the head of the Government, and accused me of introducing acrimony and bitterness because I described the Taoiseach as a bigoted teetotaller. I assure the Senator that I did not intend any bitterness whatever, and I am not convinced that I was wanting in idolatry in my reference to the Taoiseach. If anybody said of me that I was a bigoted teetotaller, I should blush at the flattery and marvel at the lack of veracity. I am quite sure that Senator Campbell and Senator Hawkins, whose indignation took 24 hours to become articulate, said things of the head of the previous Government which were less complimentary than I said of the Taoiseach. In any case, I do not remember having read any public protest from either of them when Mr. Cosgrave was described as a leper, and when a Cabinet Minister said from a public platform that he should be spat upon as a traitor. But now when any criticism, even of the mildest type, is levelled at the head of the present Government, his admirers seem to be as thin-skinned as the lady with the school-girl complexion who was accommodated with a bed of roses, and who complained that they had raised blisters on her.

I hope on this occasion to placate these touchy Senators by quoting, with all due reverence and abasement, a speech made by the Taoiseach on the subject of State expenditure. Here are the inspired words of an inspired leader at an inspiring meeting in the inspiring centre of Belmullet in 1931:—

"There was a crying need for economy in the government of the country. They were being governed as if they were a great empire. The imperial standards set up by England, whose coffers were stored with loot from other countries, were being maintained here. £1,000 should be sufficient attraction for high posts. If a Fianna Fáil Government got into power they would see that these big salaries were cut."

When the Taoiseach made that speech, the Supply Services of the State were costing £20,000,000 odd. To-day we have Estimates before us for £30,000,000 odd. That is a difference of a trifle of £10,000,000, or more than £1,000,000 for every year Fianna Fáil has been in office. I should like Senator Campbell to measure out for me the blessings of the Fianna Fáil Government as against that figure of £10,000,000. In the other House—just about the time the Taoiseach made his Belmullet speech—he made another speech in which he related the number of unemployed on the register in 1926 to the number of unemployed as returned in the 1926 Census. He then took the figure of registered unemployed in 1931, and working on the same basis ascertained that the total number of unemployed in the State was about 60,000 or 65,000. To-day the number of registered unemployed is nearing the 120,000 mark. We have, in fact, doubled the number of unemployed while increasing expenditure by half.

That is a record which I commend to Senator Campbell, who is, I understand, a Labour Senator; at least he comes here in Labour trappings. So far as I can see, the only service the Taoiseach's Administration has conferred on this State is to be found in the inspiring presence amongst us of a number of new legislators with highly original ideas. I am sure the presence of these distinguished statesmen is easily worth the expenditure of £10,000,000. I have ceased to hope for any attempt by Fianna Fáil to implement their economy promises. Since they came into office I have not heard of a single man with a salary of £1,000 a year who has suffered a reduction, and I have heard of a great many people who are now receiving— I would not say "earning"—£1,000 a year, who were much less fortunate previously. In this connection I find an item of £9,000 down this year for the Tourist Board. Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to tell us how much of this sum is represented by salary and what salary it is proposed to pay the principal officers of this board.

I was surprised to find recently that one of our most distinguished publicists was refused this information when he sought it from the Department of Industry and Commerce—as he had a perfect right to do as a taxpayer and ratepayer. This gentleman who, at a recent function, was claimed as an old friend by the present Minister for Finance, was informed that "it would be contrary to practice to furnish particulars relating to the remuneration, allowances for expenses or period of employment" of members of the Tourist Board. Why should there be any "hush-hush" about salaries and conditions of employment of officials paid out of public funds? Is it to hide the fact that the salaries contravene the £1,000 a year limitation laid down by the Taoiseach as sufficiently attractive for high posts?

I come from a tourist county, and we are interested there in the manner in which the finances of this board are to be dispensed. We are also interested to know why it is necessary to incur this expenditure at a time of financial stringency like the present, when unemployment is mounting by leaps and bounds, and especially after the statement made by the Minister for Supplies in this House last July when he said that "if there should be a war it would kill the project of developing the holiday business in this country for some time".

Another item about which I confess to a certain curiosity is that of £20,000 for Secret Service. In the days when we were aping the ways of an empire, and competing with a loot-strewn country in grandeur, we spent £1,409 in Secret Service. What is the cause of the increase? Why are we now spending so much more on spying than we did in 1930-31? £20,000 is a lot of money to anybody but a Fianna Fáil Senator— to him it is a mere bagatelle, or, as the Minister for Finance described it, a mere flea-bite—and I should like to be assured that we are getting value for the money. What were our highly-paid spies and Secret Service men doing on Christmas Eve when the Magazine Fort was almost carried off? If we are spending £20,000 on spies, surely it would be reasonable to expect that one of these expensive fellows would have stumbled across one of the 15 or 20 lorries which made their way to Phoenix Park from all parts of the country that night? The spies during the Cosgrave régime were like the T.D.s—not so well paid as the Taoiseach's spies, but they seem to have done their work more efficiently.

Again, I would like to know what is happening about the coast watchers whom we are paying 30/- a week for straining their eyes—to whom do they report, and what is done with the information? We have a number of these long-sighted people in my area, but what practical purpose they serve I have never been able to discover. They do not even know themselves.

The Minister might also be good enough to state the total number of civil servants employed by the State on 1st January last. I understand that a census of civil servants is taken on that date, so that the information should be readily available. I am aware that in 1938-39 there was an increase of 3,000 civil servants in ten departments, and I am curious to know whether the Government is still adding to the Civil Service as they are adding to the Army and the police.

Finally, might I ask the Minister to explain why we have two Ministers for the Army—an active and a sleeping Minister, as well as a Parliamentary Secretary who, I must say, is the most alert of the lot. One of the Ministers, I know, is co-ordinating something— but what is he co-ordinating, or why is he not afforded some useful means of earning his salary? We have in this Government the spectacle of one man filling three Ministries and two men filling one. Why not transfer the superfluous Army Minister to one of the Taoiseach's Ministries? After all—if I may say so without shocking Senators Campbell and Hawkins—the Taoiseach has not been so brilliantly successful in any office as to warrant his holding three.

I congratulate the Minister for Finance on his audacity in coming to this House with Estimates totalling £30,000,000 after the many luminous articles which I used to read in The Nation on the subject of national economy at a time when the Estimates totalled £20,000,000.

Mr. MacDermot

Before the Minister replies, I should like to ask him what, perhaps, he may have revealed elsewhere, but what I have missed if he has revealed it elsewhere, that is, what has become of the Economy Committee and its findings. Are the recommendations of that committee reflected in the Bill that is to-day being presented to us, and is the public ever to be told exactly what those recommendations were?

I do not wish to make anything approaching a speech on this Bill, but there are just one or two observations I feel inclined to make on it. I suggest that the amount of money that we are called upon to provide, and the purposes to which that money is to be put, give remarkably little support to the surprising view put forward yesterday by Senator Lynch that if misery and the destitution in this country are worse at the present time than ever before in its history, they are due to a rigid adherence in our legislation to the principles of the Manchester school. If the members of the Manchester school had been given a view of our expenditure and its objects I think they would have dropped dead in a fit, and if we were to strike off from our expenditure all the items that would be anathema to economists of the Manchester school, our annual Budget would be very modest indeed, compared to what it is to-day.

I think the Labour Party and others ought to take to heart that we have never been spending as generously on social services as we have been during the last ten years. As a result, according to their own statement, there has never been so much misery and destitution as there is at present. I do not accept that statement; I regard it as an exaggeration; but this much I think we can say without any doubt: the vast expenditure on social services has made nothing like the impression that it was expected to make upon poverty and destitution. Nothing like it. In the view of the Labour Party that only proves that there has not been enough expenditure, and the remedy for the situation is more and more expenditure, and if there is not enough money in the people's pockets to pay for such expenditure, they are prepared to resort to the printing-press.

Surely, there are other possible inferences to be drawn from the state of things which members of the Labour Party themselves describe. May it not be that the whole idea of raising the standard of living of a country and producing the greatest happiness for the greatest number by vast Government expenditure is a mistaken idea, and that, so far from regarding everything that is a social service as something sacred, something which must not be touched, and on which no economy must ever be made, we are called upon to consider seriously, even in regard to social services whether economy ought not be introduced and enforced, unpopular as such action might be? I have no great sympathy with those in the ranks of the regular Opposition who make violent attacks upon the present Government because of extravagance, as I have seen them year after year, when measures were introduced that involved a large expenditure of money, not merely voting for those measures, but seeking to make them even more expensive than they were as originally drafted.

Mr. MacLoughlin

For instance?

Mr. MacDermot

I do not propose to give instances here, but I can assure the Senator that they occurred in the Dáil.

Mr. MacLoughlin

It should be easy to name them.

Mr. MacDermot

It should, if I had a better memory, but it applied to measure after measure passed in the Dáil. I think you will find that is true as regards widows' and orphans' pensions, unemployment assistance, and others. The whole tendency of Opposition criticism has been not that the Government is too extravagant, but that it is too cheese-paring, too mean and niggardly in its attitude. It is only at the time of the year that the bill has to be footed that the enthusiasm for economy comes to life. In other countries as well as in this, one of the great evils of our times has been, that during the last 50 years, the Government of the day, in a democratic country, when facing up to the desirability of cutting down expenditure, receives no help from any Parliamentary Opposition. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of the democratic system that economy is unpopular. Economy in general may be praised but it is unpopular in particular, and no Opposition is prepared to share the burden of that unpopularity with the Government. At least, the thing happens so rarely that the occasions on which it does happen scarcely count.

Yesterday there was a large measure of consent on the debate in the Dáil than I have ever seen before, from reading reports in the newspapers, that this country has reached the limit in the matter of expenditure and that unless we can find some way of making industrial and agricultural production larger and more efficient than it actually is, we shall have to harden our hearts and reduce rather than increase our expenditure in future. I think that the Labour Party ought not be the last to face that reality and that they ought to consider that, even to the poorest of the poor, it is all-important that the general wealth of the nation should not be reduced. On the contrary, every effort should be made to increase it. The Labour spokesmen are inclined to concentrate on questions of distribution: they think production is all right—I actually heard the Lord Mayor of Cork say that in the Dáil a few days ago— that there is no problem as regards production, that the whole problem is one of distribution. All our legislation, and our taxation, for years past has proceeded on the basis that we are to concentrate upon redistributing what wealth there is in the country. Perhaps that process of redistribution has tended to decrease the general wealth and, accordingly, to leave less there to go round among everybody who has got to be found a decent livelihood. None of us, I hope, is lacking in compassion for poverty and destitution or for suffering of any kind and those who believe that economy ought to be enforced, believe that that should be done in the interest of the poor at least as much as in the interests of anybody else. The speech of Senator Fitzgerald this afternoon contained a good many points that are worth our consideration. Perhaps I might sum up the general drift of them in this warning to those who value democracy and especially to members of the Labour Party, that if we impose upon the State totalitarian obligations towards individual citizens, the only end of that can be totalitarian powers—in other words, dictatorship.

Sir John Keane

My difficulty in joining in a debate like this is that I try to approach the question from rather an egotistical point of view and say to myself, if I was in the Minister's position, what should I do? That is very difficult to answer. I do think I am justified in casting back a little and looking to my own, perhaps, personal record and my actions at the time over a series of years in this House in events that have brought us, I am afraid, to this rather sorry pass. As the House knows, I consistently opposed these measures aimed at hastily creating artificial industries. I am amused to hear the charge from the Labour benches that what we are suffering from to-day is the policy of the Manchester school.

If there is one outstanding item in the policy of the Manchester school it is free trade, and who could accuse this country of free trade? Have we not gone recklessly, heedlessly, and without consideration to impose industry over industry without any examination of its implications on other industries? Did the Government not sweep aside the little protection that their predecessors had set up against this reckless action, in abolishing the Tariff Commission? If I might say so, the main source of our trouble to-day is that our primary wealth-producing industry is hampered by the burdens cast upon it by all these artificial and exotic industries set up regardless of cost and of the burden on the community as a whole.

Coming back to what I said originally, you have to face that situation. You have done it. You have set up these vested interests. You have entrenched capital—a strange condition in a democratic country where labour is such a considerable force— to the detriment of the community by setting up these industries and narrowing the market for the people's needs. The unfortunate thing in a democracy is that you cannot go back, and even at this last moment I am doubtful if the Government is fully alive to the limitation that you cannot go back. I asked the Minister, or his predecessor, if he would carefully consider making a lot of the appointments in this emergency on a temporary basis only. I would like the Minister to answer: have all these appointments been made on a temporary basis or are we saddled again with a large number of permanent establishments which will be a burden on our finances for all time?

And again, quite recently—I do not want to go back over the past—was it not a totally unjustifiable extravagance to set up two Ministers for Defence? I fail to see what the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence has to co-ordinate. We were told it was A.R.P., but that seems to have faded into the background. You see a few desultory people digging trenches in Merrion Square and other places, but it seems totally devoid of reality and a terrible waste of money. It is evidence of lingering and waning enthusiasm and ill-considered action. There, at least, is one definite case. Bearing in mind the heavy burdens which have been imposed everywhere, why have a Minister for Co-ordination of Defence when there is practically nothing but the Army to co-ordinate and we have practically no air force? You do not want a Minister to co-ordinate one service.

There is only one thing I feel you can do in practice. Undoubtedly, in a democracy where you are relying on popular support you cannot disregard what the people, the masters, are thinking. You cannot sweep away a tremendous lot of that expenditure but you can at least do something to improve the position, and that is to concentrate on one wealth-producing industry—that of agriculture. Undoubtedly you are handicapped very much indeed by all these increased costs of living and all these artificial burdens of home production. You can, however, concentrate on it, and there is no limit to what you might do there.

Senator Buckley referred the other day to the larger output of butter fat in New Zealand. I think also that the increase in production in Denmark has been phenomenally high. There has practically been no increase in production here yet. I cannot believe that our farmers are so stupid, or lacking in enterprise any more than in other countries. There is something wrong in the way that the whole problem is approached. It is very hard to say what it is, but there must be something wrong. There is enormous scope for increased production and improved technique. Senator Counihan will tell me that the trouble is credit. Not a bit. I believe that the large bulk of our farmers and those who have the better technique have got the money all right. They have savings, and they only require confidence and an appreciation of the importance of increased production.

Mr. McGee

Does Senator Sir John Keane suggest that the farmers have sufficient resources at the moment?

Sir John Keane

I think they have.

Mr. McGee

How many have the Bank of Ireland turned down? I am surprised at that statement.

Sir John Keane

There are quite adequate resources among the farming community, and there are remunerative prices at present which should be sufficiently encouraging to them, especially with the unlimited market for increased production on the other side.

Mr. McGee

And unlimited credit, according to the Senator.

Sir John Keane

If we could, by a miracle, impose the Danish system on this country to-morrow, and if the whole of our present population were spirited away, the Danes, with their highly developed co-operative societies and with their very much better technique, were imposed in our place, there would be an enormous increase in production with our resources—with only the existing resources available. I do not set the store which some Senators seem to set on this cheap credit and more money. I know some cases are not always the most deserving. There may be a demand for credit, but in many cases the resources are there, although the enthusiasm or the desire to improve seems lacking. If I were in the Minister's position, I should concentrate on that kind of propaganda that I have heard so much about, in bringing demonstrations and improved technique home to the farmers throughout the country. I think there might be some form of travelling lorries, or demonstration lorries, people going around lecturing. What I should really like to see is the demonstration farm. It is not a new idea, I have been advocating it ever since I entered public life. I think that these county instructors, instead of advising some other manure for potatoes or how to deal with some individual crop, or what to give to a sick hen, or how to deal with a debilitated cow, should be in charge of a complete demonstration farm, which would be complete in itself, a going concern, doing the ordinary percentage of tillage and keeping the ordinary stock that the ordinary farmer is expected to have. They should demonstrate to the countryside what can be done. Simple accounts should be kept which could be published and seen, and farmers going there and seeing a paying farm, run more or less under the conditions in which they are living themselves, where the soil would be the average soil of the country, would say: "This is convincing; this is the output of crops, and this is the output of milk, butter and so on. We know it is paying. That is something we can believe in and we can go back and follow on these lines." The Department somehow, I do not know what the reason is, say it cannot be done, that it is not their business. In my opinion, that is the right way to set about the problem. If that idea were developed something might be done in the very difficult position we are in. We have here a higher standard of living than the country can afford.

There are two things we can go all out for. One is not to incur further obligations such as extra Ministers and extra pensionable civil servants. That is one thing. It will not take us very far. But the great big thing is to go all out for trying to improve our agriculture by some practical means, by improved technique. There is unlimited scope there, and we have the example of New Zealand and the Danes and other countries to show it can be done. That is my contribution to this debate.

Mrs. Concannon

I think the improved and increased agricultural production which Senator Sir John Keane pleads for would not be possible without the help of the woman. Therefore, I would like to say a few words about the education of women and, as so much of the Estimates deals with education, I think it is quite in order. Something like £4,000,000 a year we are to pay in education. Everybody is asking whether we are getting value for that money. I think the Government has that question in mind, and I am sure they are examining the situation very closely. I do not wish then to devote much time to the general question of education; that would take too long. But I would not like to leave this without considering the importance of training women in what is for most of them the natural sphere—domestic work, work in the homes, making them good wives, good mothers and, in a farming country like ours, good farmers' wives. I was glad to see from the Estimates a little note indicating that a Coláiste Tighis will probably be opened this year. There has been a great difficulty up to this in getting trained teachers of domestic economy. There were only two training schools which took in only about 12 or 13 new students each year. Therefore, girls who really had a taste for domestic economy and could have done very good work had no opportunity of training unless they went to Belfast, Edinburgh or London. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that that Coláiste Tighis will soon be opened, and how many teachers it can turn out.

At the same time, I think that the whole educational system, the primary education of women, should be examined. As far as I can make out, there is nobody at the head of affairs in the Education Office who knows the slightest thing about it. I do not think there is a woman in the higher ranks of the administrative service of education, and it is impossible for men to know what would be good training for women. For the whole country really it is fundamental that there should be good training for women. The labourer who has a good wife—she will have poultry and pigs, and she will make a comfortable living, and she trains her children well. She trains them to be hard workers. She trains them to look out for opportunities and to seize them. There are plenty of opportunities in this country, but the people are getting too indifferent They have not the energy or the foresight to seize them. I think that largely depends on the women. The women of the country make a country. "A nation is what its women make its men," somebody said. Therefore, to my mind one of the most important things we have to deal with is to provide good education for women. I hope that the Minister will impress on his colleague, the Minister for Education, how vital that is.

Donnchadh O hEaluighthe

Aon fhocal amháin: I wish to refer to a point made by Senator Mrs. Concannon with reference to providing domestic training. There is a school in the course of completion—as I am sure Senator Mrs. Concannon knows— which I expect will be ready for students before next September. That school is being built in the City of Dublin, at the corner of Talbot Street and Marlborough Street. It is a school for training domestic teachers.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

This is my first time sitting through a discussion of a Bill of this kind in this House, and I was under the impression, perhaps a mistaken impression, that global figures and general policy would be dealt with here. The Bill, of course, itself gives total figures, global figures, so to speak, and it does not go into detail on any Department of the Government service. A number of questions have been directed to me by Senators from all sides of the House, and I am afraid I will have to ask the Senators to wait until they have the Ministers of these Departments before them and then seek to get that information. If I had the information, I certainly would not hesitate to give it.

Mr. Fitzgerald

The Minister realises that we do not have the Estimates before us here. That is really the reason these questions have been put to him now.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I realise that, but the Ministers have to come here from time to time, and these questions could be put to them then. I could chance my arm and give an answer to some of these questions, but it would not be a responsible answer, and, in many cases, would not be a complete answer. Whatever information I have, I would be quite happy to give, but quite a number of questions were raised upon which my information would be incomplete, and perhaps it would be better not to attempt to give any.

Senator McLoughlin raised one question about the new Tourist Board and the amounts of the salaries. If I had the information ready I would give it to the Senator. I do not see why he should not get it. Any member of the Dáil or Seanad is, I think, entitled to any information of that kind. When money voted by the Oireachtas is being discussed, and Senators ask for information as to what amount is paid to a particular individual, I certainly would not think it proper to refuse to give such information.

Senator Sir John Keane asked about appointments. I am not quite sure what appointments he had in mind. I did not catch exactly what he said. He said something about emergency appointments. I think he was referring to the growth since the emergency in the number of appointments, and wanted to know if the appointments to these posts were of a permanent character, and if the persons appointed would be a drag on the State later, from the point of view of pensions. As far as I am aware, if I rightly understand his question, the emergency appointments that perhaps he has in mind are in all cases temporary appointments.

It is true, as stated by several Senators—Senator Hayes said it and other Senators followed on the same line—that this Government is spending a good deal more money than was provided in the Estimates, year by year, during the regime of the last Government. But I think if the former Government had continued in office until now, that Government in all probability would have spent a great deal more money than it spent in the last year of office. I suggest that it is a reasonable proposition. I do not suppose they would probably reach the figure that we have reached but there has been a change in the attitude of mind of people towards their Governments and a change in the views of Governments in general all the world over, as to their responsibility to their peoples in recent years. There has been a remarkable change in the last ten or 15 years. There is a new philosophy of life that involves all citizens of the State and certainly involves Governments as well. It is, I think, well summed up in two words that have become fairly familiar—social justice. The principles underlying these two words have been adopted and put into operation to some extent by almost every Government to-day. Perhaps this Government has gone farther than some Governments. It has gone farther than many Governments but not so far as other Governments have gone in that direction. In the course of trying to operate, and put into practice, the ideas of social justice that permeate the minds of peoples of all over the world—perhaps that is too large a statement, but they certainly permeate the minds of peoples of a large part of Europe and America—undoubtedly additional expense has had to be imposed upon the people.

I do submit, and I think it is a fair proposition, that even the last Government, with their ideas of economy in public expenditure, would have been forced, with the full development of social ideas, to add very considerably to their annual Budget even if they had existed as a Government up to this day. I do not offer that as an excuse because I am not running away from what the present Government has done. I, personally, adopted the ideas of social justice laid down for me by the head of the Church to which I belong. I cannot say that exactly what I proposed was correctly interpreting the ideas that were set out on the matter in the Papal Encyclicals, starting with that of Leo XIII, but there were ideas expressed in these Encyclicals as to the responsibility of Governments towards the people they govern. All I think I can say is that the Government have adopted these ideas and have tried, perhaps sometimes not very successfully, to put them into practice.

Mr. MacDermot

Did they only adopt these ideas when they came into office?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Oh, no.

Mr. MacDermot

I was just wondering whether that had any effect on their views on national economy before they came into office.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

A person has always a very different viewpoint when he is in opposition from that which he has when he is in office.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I must protest. I think it is most unseemly that the Minister should make a statement that the Government's policy is that laid down by the Head of the Church. The Head of the Church does not aspire and does not purport to lay down Government policy. The Minister's statement implies that opposition to the Government policy is opposition to the teaching of the Church. That is clearly against all charity. My own opinion is that the Government has not fully digested the Encyclical.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is the Senator's opinion. I say we have studied it. I personally have made a study of it. For a considerable time I was in charge of the Department of Government relating to local government and social services. I know my colleagues made a study of these Encyclicals. I am not saying that the Papal Encyclicals laid down advice or theories for Governments, but they laid down principles of social justice, and it was for the individuals forming Governments all over the world to interpret them as far as they could, or as far as they were able. Perhaps Senator Fitzgerald would give them a very different interpretation.

Mr. Fitzgerald

There is one thing about which there cannot be any contest, and that is, that you should not subordinate the higher end to the lower end. You are attempting to subordinate the end of the Church to the lower end of a political party. That is definitely condemned by the Church.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I know the Senator is an authority on theological matters and I am not. I do not attempt to act as commentator on these highly metaphysical subjects on which the Senator so often lectures us.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

It is about time that I suggested that the debate is not concerned with theology.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I suggest, then, that the Minister is out of order.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not think I got into the sphere of theology or metaphysics.

Mr. Fitzgerald

You claimed to be an agent of the Church operating here.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I hope it is clear now that I am not. I do not want to engage in what my friends of the Labour Party would call "scabbing" on these jobs. To some extent, as I say, we tried to operate the principles of social justice. That lead to some of the additional expenditure that is represented by the increase in our Budget Estimates as compared with eight years ago. I think that Senator MacDermot is right in stating that you cannot hope to deal with the question of poverty by adding constantly to the amount of social services.

You cannot wipe out poverty and starvation in that way, and no matter how this Government increased or doubled up on the question of social services, I am afraid that, at the end of ten years' increased expenditure in that direction you would still have the poor with you and you would still have poverty and unemployment. But there is something between that, which is an extreme picture, and making some effort to see that nobody in the country will die of starvation. I think we have tried to do that, and I think we have succeeded in doing it.

I have just totalled the figures in the Book of Estimates of social service items which have been increased in the last eight years, and I find that we have added £834,000 to the amount paid out on old age pensions. That is a large sum of money out of our resources. We have added £450,000 to widows' and orphans' pensions. I got terrible criticism when I introduced that Pensions Bill in the Dáil, because, as I was told, I was not doing quarter of what should be done, but still, £450,000 is a large sum of money. Unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance have been increased by £1,134,000, and employment schemes, over and above the relief schemes in the Votes in 1931-32, have increased by £1,244,000. That makes a total of £3,662,000. Somebody said that we had increased expenditure by £10,000,000. That sum of £3,662,000 has gone on social services, and, as I say, if the former Government had remained in office, they would probably have added to the social services then in existence. They might not have gone as far as we have gone and they might have gone further in the last eight years. They would have restored the shilling taken off old age pensions and probably would have broadened the basis for the awarding of pensions, as we did, and they would have improved blind pensions, as we did, and so on.

Mrs. Concannon

The Minister might mention the sum expended on the provision of milk for necessitous children.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That comes to £90,000. There are other items which we could add in the way of social services, but certainly about £4,000,000 has been added under that heading during the last eight years, and I know that there has been a consistent and persistent demand for further expenditure from all sides. My own Party is dissatisfied with these social services; the Labour Party is thoroughly dissatisfied with them; and I have had representations over and over again from Deputies and Senators in regard to them——

Mr. Fitzgerald

I see that, but I say that it is the Government's responsibility.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

——and we will have them again. If there happened to be a change of Government to-morrow, I do not think the new Government would reduce these social services.

Sir John Keane

Hear, hear! They would not.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I have given particulars of £4,000,000 out of the £10,000,000. There are other items which seem small, but we can take the global figures. There has been an increase of 5,000 civil servants, and of £1,400,000 in total cost. Let us leave that aside, however. We can be criticised as much as you like on that, and I am not mentioning this to escape any criticism. Take the old number of civil servants. When that Civil Service was formed in 1922-23, most of the men and women were on the lower scales of their salaries. The same applies to the Gárda Síochána and the Army. If we compare the numbers of the Gárda to-day with the numbers in 1932, and follow the careers of the individual men, leaving out even the men who got promotion—if we take the man who went in as a Gárda in 1923 and compare his salary now with his salary when he entered, it will be found that it has meant a very big increase on the annual Budget. The same applies to the Civil Service. I must ask to get that increase. I have not got it, but I know that it is considerable, without speaking at all of increased numbers, and that would have arisen if there was no change of Government.

Other items have also been increased in comparison with 1931-32. There is an increase this year in respect of public works and buildings of £655,802. That includes, as I mentioned in the Dáil, a sum of at least £175,000 or £250,000 for schools, and Senator Fitzgerald, I am sure, will remember, as a member of a Government, the clamour there was and the deputations there were for the erection of new school buildings. I think that according to the latest figure I have seen, there are 300 schools at least which are described by the country medical officers of health as insanitary and unfit to put children in, and I do not think that any Government will face cutting down the money for new schools. New schools are being built at a greater rate since we came in than in the days of the previous Government, but if the previous Government had remained in office up to this day, they would have had to increase the rate of building of schools as we have done. The figure for Agriculture has increased by £309,000 odd. I do not know what that includes, but it certainly includes, to some extent, the subsidy on butter. There is a subsidy of £329,000 on butter which was not in existence in 1931-32. I have listened to Deputy Bennett, who represents a creamery constituency in the Dáil, expressing dissatisfaction that the subsidy on butter is not doubled, and he claims it to be a great injustice to the farming community that it is not vastly increased. And he speaks for that element of the community.

Of the increase of £293,000 for the Gárda Síochána, I cannot tell the House exactly how much is attributable to the natural increase in the salaries of those who were appointed to the Gárda in 1922-23, without referring at all to new appointees. If there was never a man added, and leaving out the question of promotion, the natural and ordinary increments of salary have caused a considerable increase in the cost of the individual Gárda as in the case of the individual civil servant. His salary is higher now than it was 14 or 15 years ago. In Local Government, there is an increase of £683,933 over 1931-32. That is largely made up of the £90,000 which Senator Mrs. Concannon referred to for free milk for necessitous children, of about £470,000 for housing grants and subsidies, and of additional subsidies for public health schemes of all kinds. I think our public health services— waterworks, sewerage, child welfare, school inspection and so on—compare very favourably with those of any other country in Europe. There are some countries which are better organised and which have done better work in some directions in regard to public health than we have. Some of the northern European countries are better organised and have done better work, but take one country of which I have seen a good deal. In the rural districts in France, the conditions in regard to public health services, are, in many cases, 100 years behind ours. I think Senator Hayes, who knows that country, too, could bear me out in that statement.

All the same, even though we have progressed, there is an imperative demand from all the local authorities all over the country that we must spend more money on our public services. There is that demand all the time, without any pressure at all from the Government or from the Ministry of Local Government and Public Health. I know, at any rate, that there was not a board of health in the country that was not clamouring, when I was Minister, for more and more money, and asking us why the deuce we did not produce more money in order to enable them to do three or four times more work in the way of waterworks and public health schemes during the year than they had been doing.

In the matter of primary education, there has been an increase of £168,000, in the case of secondary education, £135,000, and in the case of technical education, £139,000. I marvelled at the temerity of two members of the Dáil, during the two or three days when the Central Fund Bill was under discussion there, in demanding the cutting down of the educational services.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Hear, hear! They cost a lot.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes, they cost a lot.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Senator Mrs. Concannon and I are both satisfied, at any rate, that we are not getting value for the money.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Not getting value?

Mr. Fitzgerald

No.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, I am not an enough of an authority on that question, and I think I should like to hear Senator Michael Hayes speaking on that matter, because I think he is more of an expert on that question than Senator Fitzgerald, Senator Mrs. Concannon or myself.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Senator Mrs. Concannon has expressed that view.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, I do not know.

Mr. Fitzgerald

She says that we did not get enough value.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, perhaps she is right.

Mr. M. Hayes

And we have a decreasing school population.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes, that is right, but the salaries and expenses have gone up. Then, we come to the expenditure on Lands. There has been an increase of £969,000, or practically £1,000,000, in that regard. Hundreds of thousands of acres of lands have been divided during the last eight years— without going back further, when a lot of land was also divided—and I think I can say without exaggeration that there is not a day that the Dáil meets when there are not half a dozen questions down for the consideration of the Minister for Lands—from all sides of the House—asking why this or that estate has not been divided. I believe that the officials of that Department are working honestly and hard, and that they are giving good value for this service in the Land Commission, but, judging by the questions that are asked and the discussions that take place in the Dáil, they cannot satisfy the clamour that exists for the division of lands. I do not think that they can go on at any more rapid rate than they are going at present, and I should hate to contemplate any higher expenditure on that one service alone, but still the clamour is there all the time.

Sir John Keane

Might I be permitted to ask the Minister this: Is not the whole point at issue here that there will always be that clamour, and that there is no stop to it? Surely, however, it is the business of the Government to stop that. That is why we charge the Government with being too weak in yielding to all this pressure.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, the Government have yielded to many of the requests for these services. Let us take Forestry. Forestry is a good service in itself, and I do not think anybody has anything to say against it. It is a reproductive service, but the drawback is that it takes an awful long time to get results from it. I think that a lot of us here, if not the majority of us, will be a long time in our graves before anybody will see the result of the forestry work that has been done within the last seven or eight years.

Sir John Keane

Better than the Land Commission, at any rate.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The increase on Gaeltacht Services amounts to £8,000, the increase on Army pensions amounts to £389,000, and for the Army £2,108,000. All that makes a total of about £6,250,000, and that about accounts for the difference between the Book of Estimates for the year 1931-1932, and the present Book of Estimates. Undoubtedly, as I said, there has been increased expenditure, but although there has been in many ways increased expenditure, and a giving way to the clamour that exists from all sides—from all sides outside the House as well as from all sides inside this House, and in the Dáil—although, as I say, there has been increased expenditure and the demands of those who have been clamouring have been met to a great extent, yet they are still clamouring, and a stand must be made somewhere.

Senators

Hear, hear!

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The resources of the State are not inexhaustible, and it must be remembered that we have had heavy costs put upon us within the last few months, since the outbreak of the war in the beginning of September last. That has meant an additional cost for the State in many ways. It meant additional costs for many additional services, and also new services have had to be added. There has been a very big increase in the cost of living since then, as a result of the outbreak of war, and that has had its effect, directly and indirectly, on the Government services as well. With all these additional outgoings, I am afraid it must be admitted, as some Senators here have reminded us, that we have not got increased production, and unless we can get increased production I do not see how we are going to keep on increasing and increasing the handing out of money.

Sir John Keane

Hear, hear!

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is my position. Increased costs here at home, and increased services, make it more difficult for us to export at a profit. Even before the war started, the effort to preserve the value of the Irish £1 required constant watching, and I can assure Senators that it has not been an easy task since then. It is, therefore, wise for everybody to bear that in mind, and if only these words of mine, that, as Minister for Finance, I say, as to the necessity for careful watching, will have some weight with those who are making these persistent demands for increases in all kinds of expenditure—increases in salaries, wages, and profits—then these words will not have been wasted.

During the last few days we have had lengthy debates in the Dáil on comparisons between the numbers of people put into employment by the present Government's economic policy and the numbers put into employment by the previous Government during its period of office. The same subject has been raised here, although not exactly to the same extent, and I do not know that I am called upon to enter into it here. I think I would only be going over the same ground that I went over in the Dáil, and perhaps that would not be of interest to the House. With regard to the detailed questions that I have been asked, I shall request my officials to call the attention of the various Ministers to the questions concerning their Departments, and perhaps the Ministers concerned will be able to find an opportunity of giving to Senators the information they asked me to give them that I am not able to give them at the moment.

Mr. MacDermot

Before the Minister concludes, perhaps he can tell us something about the Economy Committee.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I can say that it was a committee set up to give advice to the Government. It was not suggested to them that their report was confidential, but I did ask them, as I was asked in the Dáil, whether I should publish their report. I asked the committee their view. They were called together, and they met a day or two ago. I have not got their report yet, but was told verbally to-day that their recommendation to me is that the report is not to be published.

Mr. MacDermot

Is there any objection to stating the total amount of the economies they suggest?

Mr. Fitzgerald

They may not have stated a total amount, but may have pointed out the directions in which economies should take place.

Mr. MacDermot

Has there been time to consider and accept or reject that report?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Government has gone through their recommendations; it has accepted some, and, I am sorry to say, it has rejected most.

Mr. MacDermot

Rejected most of them?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I could not tot up the items, but I think the total rejections were larger than the total economy recommendations that the Government accepted.

Mr. MacDermot

Was the rejection 75 per cent.?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I would not attempt to give the Senator an accurate figure, but, as has been said by several Senators, economy is most unpopular. It is just as unpopular with the Government as it is with Deputies or Senators, especially when it comes down to the particular items. We are all happy to see economy practised, and we recommend it to the other fellow, but when it comes to ourselves we see good reasons for not adopting it.

Mr. MacDermot

It becomes false economy then.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes; "Penny wise, pound foolish."

Mr. Douglas

Is it any more unpopular than taxation?

Mr. Fitzgerald

The Government itself is unpopular.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

All Governments are unpopular.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take the Committee Stage now.