The Minister for Supplies has asked me to inform the House that he cannot be here this evening as the debate in the other House will be concerned practically altogether with supplies, and his attendance is essential in that House for it.
National Register of Consumers—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That, in the opinion of the Seanad, a national register of consumers should be prepared forthwith with a view to the immediate rationing of certain essential commodities.— (Senator M. Hayes.)
The Minister spoke on the last day, so I suppose that as he is occupied in the Dáil we can continue without him. I listened to what the Minister had to say very carefully and I may say that with regard to certain statements he had made as to the security of our supplies in one or two cases, he gave quite an adequate explanation of how the future did not turn out quite as rosy as he had expected. At the moment, the proposal in our resolution relates to the necessity for a national register of consumers. So far as I understand the position, the method has been that where commodities are short the implementation of something in the nature of a national register is imposed upon retailers. That, to my mind, is a thoroughly bad system. The Minister argued that the setting up of a national register would involve an enormous amount of expense. He referred to the taking of the census. The machinery that produces the census is there already. If you consider the taking of a census, forms are left in various houses and there is no particular reason why the people should be anxious to complete them. I myself have a certain feeling against a census, possibly going back to that part of the Old Testament which I studied when I was a boy, in which the King of Israel was punished for the taking of a census, no doubt because it implied a tendency towards totalitarianism which was condemned at that early date. But as I say when the census paper comes round, you are not interested in signing it because you do not get anything out of it. Apart from that, there is the register for elections. The rate collector calls to your house and asks you for the names of the inhabitants, their ages and so on. That is done every year and there is not much trouble about it. In the case of a national register, we will consider later the necessity and desirability of it. Was the picture drawn by the Minister as to the enormous labour and expense involved actually a true picture? I do not think so. The national register can be taken as easily as the Parliamentary register is taken every year. We have Civic Guards, rate collectors and people like that who take these things in their ordinary stride. Now, it is quite true that very often when the register is formed for election purposes, there are omissions from it. Usually, the people concerned realise that their names are not on the list only when they go to vote and they are rather sore about it.
In the case of a national register, where it is known that it is being formed and that the distribution of restricted commodities will be related to the names on that register, the people automatically will become helpful. Suppose they are slack about it, —as they tend to be slack—when they go along to the shop with which they are in the habit of dealing, they find that they need ration cards to get, for instance, tea. They are not going to sit down quietly at home without tea. They are told promptly that they must get ration cards before tea can be given to them and they apply for the cards. The story about the expense and the complications, when we have the machinery for the taking of a census and of the Parliamentary register ready at hand, leaves me completely unconvinced.
The alternative to the national register is to operate the restrictions through the retail shops. Now what is the position there? Some people, the well-to-do people, have accounts with big shops. They are known in them as regular customers, and the business they give to the shop makes it in the interest of the shopkeeper to be as nice as possible to them, even if it is necessary to the point of giving them more than the decreed ration of the restricted commodity. Just before the Minister was speaking, I came down a small street in the city and I saw some brand of tea which I had never heard of before on sale there. I found a number of small shops also selling tea. I believe that the poorer people go to one shop for a small quantity of tea at one time and to another shop the next time. They are not regular customers of a particular shop, as in the case of those people who have accounts, and, as I say, the person who comes in occasionally for a couple of ounces of tea is not a great acquisition to the retailer. From what I have heard of the present restricted rationing, as far as well-to-do people who deal with big multiple shops or chain stores are concerned, they are in a position automatically to produce their bills to show that they had bought so much tea during the past year and that they are entitled to get such a proportion this year. In such cases, you will find that the shop is most anxious to oblige them. So far as poor people are concerned, I have heard of many poor people who have not received the rations they are due to get under the Government order, and I have heard of many people who are able to get much more.
To begin with, you go to the shop and you are allowed so much per member of the family. The shopkeeper is not in a position to say whether you have six or eight or ten persons residing in your house. They know there has been a good order coming from that house all the time and they are naturally anxious to give their customers as much as they can. When some poor person comes in whose face is unfamiliar, they have nothing for that customer.
The Minister in his statement explained how he had given glowing promises of plentiful supplies and how afterwards he was faced with a situation of inadequate supplies. He made a very good case for it, and the truth is that I quite agree with the Minister. There is a certain shortage now and we have got to be prepared. Personally, I am not going to be too critical of the Minister if, in six months' time, many of the things we are cheerful about at the moment are not available in such quantities as to allow of unlimited distribution. In the interests of order and of justice, it seems to me that a national register is necessary. It is unfair to the retailer that the work should be put upon him. The Government has the machinery for taking a census and the Parliamentary list. The Minister made no case whatever on that side.
As I said, you must be prepared for a great number of other commodities going short. We have at the present moment a shortage of petrol. There is only a limited number of consumers of petrol. The suddenness with which they sprang the shortage of petrol on the consumers worked out unjustly. A great many people had registered their cars knowing that they had got so many coupons in the past and, suddenly, without any notice at all, although I believe notice could have been given, there was no petrol available and they had paid their tax for no purpose except to increase the State revenue. There was a certain complaint in the speech of the mover of this motion which indicated that the Minister had not been far-seeing enough in the matter of supplies.
We need not go back on the past now but it does seem to me with the warning he has had of the mistakes of the past he should look to the future a bit. As I said, it might easily happen—in fact it may be expected— that there will be shortage in directions which the Minister does not anticipate. When everybody is provided with a ration card, difficulties such as people changing their addresses will be removed. Senator Hayes last week referred to the cases of students in Dublin going home when their colleges close. No matter what the shortage may be they can take their cards with them and obtain their supplies in the local shop. The local shop will find that the number of customers they had on their books is now increased. With these cards, these local retailers are able to claim a further supply of that commodity and Dublin shops will not need so much because they must relate the quantity they distribute with the number of cards presented to them. I do not see how the Government expects to run any sort of equitable arrangement for the distribution of goods the quantity of which is restricted unless they have something on the lines of a national register. When the Minister came here last week, I was quite prepared to hear him say that they had not seen the necessity for any such register but that things had moved so quickly and so disastrously—he did, in fact, say that—that now they were going to put the machine in motion for the formation of a national register and that, as one commodity after another became more restricted, the cards held by the various consumers would be so arranged that they would be able to draw the appropriate ration. I simply fail to understand why the Government objects to this plan. It has been carried out in Great Britain and we have the advantage here that we are able to benefit by other people's mistakes. We always come along after other people. When a thing is undertaken for the first time certain flaws are found, and these are remedied as a result of experience.
As the Minister has already spoken in the debate, we shall not hear him again but, since we met here last week, a speech made by him provides ample argument for the institution of this national register. What arrangement does he think he has made for meeting the wants of poor people who go from one shop to another and who are not known to the assistants of the shops with which they deal? As regards the commodities which are short now, it is quite easy for anybody who is known in a shop and who may have an account to be supplied with more than his due. I agree with the Minister that the number of things short at the moment are very few. But one judges that, before the year is out, there will be a shortage not only of tea but of bread. I do not want to go over the list of other things, the supply of which seems to be jeopardised, but one can reasonably expect that a number of commodities will be short before the year is out. The whole situation is so uncertain that, though we can say some things are short and other things are liable to be short, we can hardly say of any commodity that it will be available in unlimited quantities six months hence. As the Minister has spoken, we can only re-urge upon him the necessity for taking this course.
The Minister and the Government have always purported to have particular concern for the poor people. If order be not got into the situation, the whole weight will be in favour of the rich getting more than their due share and the poor getting less than their due share. With regard to the register, there are certain things in respect of which some classes should be given a bigger ration than others. As mentioned here last week, amongst people of low income the quantity of bread consumed is higher than in the case of the well-to-do who have a more varied diet. The first step is to form the register. When the register is nominally formed, there will be a great number of omissions, but there will be every incentive to persons not on the register to hasten to get their names on it. The cards distributed should be of such a nature as to provide the machinery for the distribution of newly-rationed commodities as these commodities become short. Having regard to the different forms of consumption by different classes, there should be an arrangement whereby a bigger ration per head, say, of bread, would be given to those people in whose diet bread predominates. The Minister spoke against the application of a national register. I hope he will come in to-day because, since last Wednesday, he made a speech the content of which went still further to prove how necessary such a register is. It is for that reason that I feel eminently justified in seconding this motion, even though the Minister has spoken against it.
I am strongly of opinion that the time has come for a national register. In spite of the reasons given by the Minister for Supplies, I am not convinced that it would be impracticable to provide some such machinery now. The Minister went entirely on the assumption that it is quite impossible to do anything of this kind without having more civil servants. He could have used exactly the same argument when it was proposed to set up the L.S.F. or the A.R.P. service. With common sense organisation, it would be possible to provide a national register by voluntary effort and I think it would be a very good thing for the people if they had to combine for the purpose of achieving it. I agree that, if the register were formed, it would have to be dealt with by civil servants and the checking up that would be necessary from time to time—regarding people who had failed to obtain cards, etc.—would probably have to be done by civil servants and not by voluntary effort, though voluntary assistance could be given even then. The Minister failed entirely to appreciate the spirit that exists at the present time and also failed to appreciate the desirability, in the crisis which we are now facing, of voluntary effort. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that this country is going through the next nine or 12 months without extreme hardship, if we are simply to take the line that one must hang on the Government the whole time, or if the Government is to take the line that it must do everything. My opinion definitely is that the industries that have been most active themselves and which have hung least on the Government have been the best off. The Minister for Supplies more or less hinted at that in one of his speeches recently.
The Minister complained of criticism and said it was comparatively easy to criticise now, in the light of the information that we have which we had not got and which he said he had not got some time ago. I quite agree. This war has followed lines quite different to anything any of us can remember, or which we could reasonably have expected, and it became pretty obvious right from the beginning that we would have to deal with the unexpected all the time. I entirely agree with Senator Fitzgerald when he says that there is no use in placing too much importance on any speech made by any of us or by Ministers now, even though made in perfectly good faith in the light of the position to-day. Any of us who have to face, outside this House, questions of supplies for industry involving employment of very considerable numbers, know quite well that we have to live from day to day and do the best we can with the situation as we find it.
The principal quarrel that I have with the Department of Supplies and with the Government as a whole is not that they have not been trying to do their best but that they have failed to adjust the machinery of government, which was excellent in peace time, to the circumstances of a world war. Most of us know—particularly if we are dealing with supplies—that, as a rule, if we have twenty-four hours to decide as to what steps we will take, it is longer than usual. The machinery of checking and passing a licence from one Department to another and files of two or three civil servants, is a procedure which, to my mind, will not work in time of war. The more serious complaints that I have found have almost always been due to delay, and that delay is the essence of the Civil Service system which we have and which we took over, more or less from England. It is not good in war time and I do not think it will work.
I agree to some extent with Senator Fitzgerald, and I agree entirely with him when he pointed out that rationing by shopkeepers is impracticable and must be unfair. I do not at all agree with him when he thinks that the well-to-do customer who pays in three, six or nine months, is the kind of person on whom the shopkeeper smiles beningly and that the shopkeeper does not value the poorer cash customer. From my point of view I would rather have the poorer cash customer any day. It is for that reason that the rationing by shopkeepers is essentially unfair, because the person who does not pay promptly and who ought to get off worst is the only one of whom there are particulars registered. The cash customer is not on the books, but may be, to some extent, recognised. In the very essence of things, he will be treated unfairly. While I recognise that, in regard to certain commodities, it is not practicable to work on a ration card, I am strongly of the opinion that where it is possible it ought to be done. That is the only way that will give satisfaction.
I hope that I am wrong, but I am afraid that the next three, six or nine months will see a very considerable increase in unemployment. That, of itself, must naturally cause intense discontent. If you are going to add to that the feeling that the essentials which an unemployed man finds it hard enough to buy are not available to him and are not being fairly distributed, I suggest there is danger that that discontent will become even more serious. I would urge on this House to pass this Resolution as a suggestion to the Government. The Minister did not say he had decided against it: he said that he was considering it and did not see his way yet to undertake the national register. I noticed that, I think, two days after the debate here, he went to a Fianna Fáil club and made another very interesting speech—assuming that it was correctly reported, though we know that Ministers are censored sometimes as well as other people. He said there that no Party desired a National Government. I do not know whether that was intended as a hint or not, but it was interesting to me.
As Senators know, I have been strongly of the opinion for considerably over 12 months that there should have been a National Government. My principal reason was, not that I wanted to see some of my political friends associated with, shall I say, my political enemies, but that I was convinced that, when it came to rationing and the distribution of supplies, things would have to be done which could not be done by a purely Party Government.
I am still of the same opinion, but I do not think that a Minister in the Executive of the day which has a majority in the Dáil can give as his reason that there should not be a National Government that the other Parties are not in favour of. It would be wrong, to my mind, in a democratic system of government for minority Parties who have not got a majority to demand a change of Government, and the responsibility for good or evil lies on the majority and on the Government elected by them. It may not be that it is too late now, but I am convinced, at any rate, that it will not be to face the shortage when it comes. There will be a very considerably larger number of articles of which we will be short before the year is out.
It will not do to face it by giving the shopkeeper so much and saying: "You ration it." I say that that is impracticable. If the Department say they have no staff, the shopkeeper has none either. The best trade is largely with the poor and that trade is largely cash and records do not exist. The prices are cheaper where the bulk of the trade is for cash, and shopkeepers cannot possibly keep a register and sell at the same price. If you put an elaborate system of rationing on the retail trade you will simply add to the cost, and it will not succeed. I do not think that is the way to deal with it here. In conclusion, I would urge on the Minister for Education who is here, that he would see whether he could not put strongly before the Government that they should consider whether a voluntary effort by a national appeal to provide this register would not be possible and would not be the best way of carrying it out.
At the outset of Senator Hayes's introduction of this motion he made a remark that I think all of us probably agree with, that we should have an equitable distribution of what is available to all classes of all citizens in so far as that could be achieved. It is because I believe that such an equitable distribution cannot or is unlikely to be obtained without the establishment of a national register of consumers—or, at any rate, the collection of such information as would be provided by such a register or might form the basis of such a register— that I am supporting the resolution. One might have gone further on the lines suggested by Senator Hayes. He said that we wanted an equitable distribution "to all classes of our citizens." I believe we should go further and say "an equitable distribution to all our citizens." A general classification is good. I will make a suggestion in a moment or two as to the necessity for a finer classification, if not a national personal register such as Senator Hayes has proposed. In any scheme which would determine the amount of supplies that citizens should get, it is not the personal interest of the citizens concerned that should be most considered, but it is the public service and those who require supplies to use, certainly personally, but at the same time for the public service, should have some more consideration than those who use them for personal gain, without its being a necessary part of the essential public services.
In the debate which took place recently in the Dáil on the question of supplies, it was stated that those who were getting supplies of petrol personally, were regarded as persons in essential public services in three or four classes—doctors, clergymen and veterinary surgeons. That is a good beginning, but it does not go far enough. That enumeration of these classes does not recognise any great difference either from the point of view of the essentiality of the services or the point of view of the requirements of the professional men engaged in different lines of work. I cannot conceive that in ordinary times when we are free from such grave trouble as there is at present in the country, there would be the same need by a veterinary surgeon in relation to his services to the community, for an adequate supply of petrol, as there would be, for instance, for a medical man or clergyman, and, certainly, the bulking together of the members of a class simply because they are nominally members of the same profession does not at all meet the needs of essential services. There are many clergy who have no occasion to leave their residences at all in the pursuit of their professional duties, and many who have very little use for a supply of petrol. There are some doctors who would be in the same position, although not in the same proportion, and in ordinary times veterinary surgeons do not have to cover as much ground in the course of their professional duties as medical practitioners have to cover.
During the last few weeks I have had a very large number of appeals— I almost said they were innumerable, but that would be an exaggeration— particularly from country practitioners of medicine who were concerned not so much, perhaps, for their own convenience, but from the viewpoint of the difficulty they have in carrying out their essential public duties for the service of the community, which duties have to be very definite. There is no use in looking back 20 years or so when these men did their work in a horse and trap. There are no horses in the country for such a purpose now, and for the past generation and a half, at least, these men have been accustomed to do that work by using a motor car, and that cannot be replaced suddenly. At the present moment, in some cases, it is impossible to carry out properly the work of caring for the needs of the sick, and particularly of the sick poor to whom their first duty is due as dispensary doctors. The ordinary country medical practitioner as a dispensary doctor has to subordinate other claims to those of his dispensary patients. As a result of the mere lack of fuel it is impossible to carry out these duties if they have, as they very often have, to cover enormous areas of the country, and these men need a much more adequate supply of fuel, probably, than any other professional workers in the country.
There is another matter that cannot be overlooked and which it is necessary to emphasise, and that is that in times of war there is a great danger of world-wide epidemics occurring. Such epidemics and diseases are not limited to the countries that are actually belligerent. When such an epidemic starts in one country it is quite likely to be carried around the world and carried to countries that may be at peace. All of us remember what happened 22 years ago, towards the end of the last great war, when a terrible epidemic, the influenza epidemic, swept all over the world and when far more people were killed as a result of it than as a result of the direct operations of the war. The ravages of that disease were not limited to the belligerents. That epidemic searched out and swept through every country in the world and caused far more deaths than the war itself. Such things may happen again with other epidemics, and at the present moment the country medical practitioners in Ireland find it impossible, in many areas, to meet the demands of the normal, average amount of work. If such an epidemic as the influenza of 1918 were to break out here, it would be utterly hopeless for our medical practitioners to attempt to cope with it unless they had the means of travelling around the country. They will find it nearly impossible to deal with such an epidemic unless they have petrol. They will be overwhelmed by the amount of work, and our people may be dying wholesale without the possibility of relief.
I mention the influenza epidemic because we are all familiar with it and with the way in which it spreads, but there are other diseases that may very easily be brought over here, other epidemics that may spread. I believe that our public health authorities and our Department of Local Government and Public Health are quite awake to the danger of epidemics breaking out, perhaps, in the belligerent countries, and spreading to this country. If the evacuation scheme is to take place the dangers are increased enormously: not merely the danger with regard to the evacuees themselves, but the danger of their carrying the disease through the different parts of the country where they are housed. I am speaking of this phase of the matter because it is the one with which I am most familiar. The Minister has stated that it is impossible to differentiate further as between different cases or classes. I admit that it would be difficult and that it would require a considerable staff, but if we are to protect ourselves against very grave dangers, such individual investigation and differentiation would be necessary. If it is impossible to carry out that in regard to the whole gamut of substances or commodities of which we may be short, then I would suggest to the Minister that in regard to the particular case of which I am speaking some such differentiation as I have mentioned, coming nearer to the personal classification, is necessary. There is no use in bulking people together because they belong to a particular profession, unless they are actually and actively engaged in it and engaged in the particular work that requires particular commodities.
I would appeal to the Minister to reconsider that, and it is because I think that a national register would lead to a more equitable distribution in regard to other commodities as well as in regard to petrol that I am urging him to reconsider the matter and, if possible, make arrangements for the medical services of the country to be carried on. If any emergency from the medical point of view were to occur, these services certainly could not be carried on with the present distribution of petrol.
I had not the advantage of listening to the debate on this question last week, and so I was not aware whether the Minister, in his statement, gave any satisfactory answer to a query which is disturbing the minds of some people. They want to know how, in the case of evacuation, the present system of rationing could be co-related to the change of population that would result. I think that is a question that demands consideration, and for that reason I should like the Minister who is present to mention it to the Minister for Supplies.
Another question that I should like to ask is whether school dentists would be entitled to petrol for their cars on the same basis as other professional people, or on some basis. I know of one dentist in Galway, in a district which is not easily reached by train— in Connemara. There is no train there, and the bus service is not very satisfactory. As a result, it is not easy for this lady to carry out her duties. At present she is informed that she does not come under any scheme, and I think that this is a matter that could be mentioned to the Minister with advantage.
I do not wish to say much on this subject except to lend a certain support to the idea of the motion standing in the name of Senator Hayes. I had rather expected to hear something as to the activities throughout the country of parish councils. I think if parish councils are sufficiently encouraged they will go a long way to replacing any civil servant or any other essential individual that may be required and I think they would do it satisfactorily and on a voluntary basis. Every detail of life's requirements can, I think, be looked after through their agency and with their support. I would like to know if the Government is in a position to tell us as to how their activities are being pursued throughout the country. I should personally like to see them having some statutory authority and, if it is possible, I suggest the Government should consider on what lines and how far statutory authority may be given to them.
With reference to those things of which, I suppose, we are short in the country at the moment, I think the register is desirable. I am not satisfied that the Government expected to have to introduce the rationing of petrol quite so soon. I think, even on the Government, the thing came with too much haste. It was something that I think, was not anticipated and, therefore, one must overlook certain shortcomings. Nevertheless it is being pursued without, perhaps, sufficient consideration. To my mind, the idea of excluding all private cars is not happy. There are individuals with small industries, whose cars are used, not for pleasure, but for their own industry, whose residences may be outside, perhaps, a three-mile limit from every service that they need. The telephone may be two or three miles away; hired cars, which get considerable petrol, are two or three miles away. Their churches, schools and every other thing that is essential for them cannot be reached. Some of their family may be ill. Some of them may be maimed. To my mind, many goods which are non-perishable material, could satisfactorily be conveyed by horse-drawn vehicles instead of lorries and the consequent saving would warrant, I think, a distribution of perhaps two to four gallons per month of petrol to residents in rural parts of the country which are wholly inaccessible. Parish councils, therefore, could supply I think satisfactory lines on which a more broad distribution might be made. They could consider the needs of rural Ireland and alternative methods of conveyance for articles which a slower form of transport would suit. I think we ought to avail of every opportunity to encourage parish councils. I look on them as a very great asset if they are properly worked. If they are not properly and efficiently worked, I think encouragement should be given to the Government to see that they are constituted according to the best interests of the country.
I hesitate to take part in this debate, but before coming to closer quarters with the motion, to which I desire to give general approbation, I would like to remove certain misapprehensions that seem to have arisen on the last occasion that I had the honour to address this House. Following on my remarks, the Minister in charge developed a fit of parliamentary apoplexy and devoted at least ten minutes of his remarks to abusing me on the ground that I and the likes of me had been governing this country for the last ten years or more and that we were the cause of all the trouble in which we now find ourselves. I want to make it quite clear that I and the likes of me have not been governing this country for the last ten years or more and that we are not in the least likely to be governing it in any forseeable time in future. At the same time, we do accept a general responsibility to make our contribution, by way of good counsel and advice, to the people who are responsible for governing the country and we do so with no desire to score debating points or to say, "I told you so" or anything of that kind, but merely with the desire to be helpful in a time of national crisis in which it is the duty of every section of the community to be as helpful as they can.
The motion itself deals with the desirability of creating a register with a view to the rationing of certain essential commodities which are likely to be in short supply. Of course, if a thing is short, it is only right that it should be rationed and that the distribution of it should be on the basis of need and not merely on the basis of price and ability to pay a high price, but the whole question of the commodities of which we are going to be short and of what we should do with them seems to me to resemble in some way the policy of prescribing the best method of cooking a hare before the hare has been caught. I would like, Sir, if I may, to discuss this problem from the point of view of general economic policy and from the point of view of the circumstances which are likely to make those commodities which are now short even shorter or, perhaps, to make those commodities which are now short available in greater quantity than they now are available. In that connection I would like to say that I welcome the fact that the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures accepted a suggestion of mine, made on the last occasion I addressed this House, and has gone to America with a view to obtaining necessary supplies from that country. I can only say that we all wish him God speed in that enterprise. The whole position about sufficient supplies is governed by the difficulty of getting those supplies and we may as well face the fact that we cannot get those supplies which can only come to us from overseas without the goodwill of England and America or, if you like, England or America.
It may be that the situation will develop in such a way that, so far from its being a question of rationing an inadequate supply of tea, it may be a question of doing without tea altogether. The same remark applies even to petrol. If that should, unfortunately, be the final development of the situation, we would be compelled to re-adjust our whole economy in such a way as to do our best to maintain the national life, living entirely on things which we can produce within our own national frontiers. That might be a necessary economic policy but it would not be a desirable one and it certainly would be a most uncomfortable one for all concerned, for it would mean a grave dislocation of existing economic relations and serious hardship during a period of transition. There may be some people who would welcome a national economy in which we all had to war bawneens and smoke dudeens with Irish tobacco in them, but at the same time we may as well face the fact that if that should come to us it would mean a serious reduction in the standard of life for most of us and a good deal of acute discomfort and a good deal of transitional unemployment.
I suggest the Senator is going somewhat outside the terms of the motion.
I do my best to keep to the terms of a motion, but I am trying to get at the factors which are really governing the whole problem that the motion is dealing with. Some degree of adjustment of our national economy is likely to be necessary in any case and there are two alternative policies of readjustment. Both of them would mean greater emphasis on agricultural production and, in view of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of getting imported industrial raw materials, it would mean some degree of abandonment of our recent industrial development and an effort to employ more of our people in the country rather than in urban industry.
Assuming then that owing to the difficulty of obtaining industrial raw materials, industry as a whole must contract, agriculture will have to be emphasised to a greater extent than before. In our agricultural production we may follow one of two policies. We may reorient our agricultural activity at the expense of those parts of it which produce export products with a view to producing at least a sufficient supply of these agricultural products in which we are now deficient, typical products of that kind being wheat and sugar. In doing so, we would certainly alter our agricultural economy but we would not necessarily expand agricultural production as a whole. In fact, the result might well be a degree of contraction in the total volume of agricultural output and not expansion. In that case, we would have, in addition to the contraction in industry, a contraction in the total agricultural output, though with a different pattern of output, and we would have a contraction all round in our economy. In that situation, I apprehend the gravest economic difficulties and a situation full of revolutionary and unpleasant possibilities.
There is a second, and a preferable, policy of readjustment which would also concern our agriculture. We could, I think, readjust agricultural production in order to place greater emphasis on those agricultural products of which we normally do not produce enough ourselves—with greater emphasis on wheat and beet—and at the same time we could aim, as far as possible, at maintaining and expanding the production of those other agricultural products which we normally export. If we readjust our economy in that way, we shall go some distance towards solving the problem of supplies and at the same time, while our agricultural pattern will be different from what it was, our total agricultural output may well increase rather than diminish and so provide opportunities of absorbing part of the labour displaced from industrial activities which have been threatened by a shortage of supplies. The problem of supplies, if looked upon solely from the point of view of national egoism, is quite likely to be insoluble because we cannot solve the problem of supplies which must come to us from abroad without the co-operation of our neighbours. So that the problem is really bound up with the question of what is going to be our attitude towards our neighbours. When I say "our neighbours," I mean specially our British neighbour. That problem is both a moral problem and an economic problem.
A Chathaoirligh, you have been very tolerant and the House has been very tolerant. I wonder whether the speaker will now come to the motion on the Order Paper?
I am afraid the Senator is getting still further away from the terms of the motion on the Order Paper. I would ask him now to address his remarks to that motion—"that a national register of consumers should be prepared forthwith with a view to the immediate rationing of certain essential commodities."
Surely it is permissible for a Senator to argue that an increase in our supplies is a factor in determining whether the setting up of such a register is essential?
My point is—
On a point of order, Senator Johnston has been speaking of agricultural commodities that will probably become available within 12 months. We presume that this motion deals with a register which has to be set up immediately and that we shall not have to wait for the next crop of wheat before we set up such a register.
The word "immediate" is included in the motion.
The point I am trying to make is that whether we get supplies from abroad depends on whether it is worth while for our neighbours to go out of their way to let us have these supplies. We can make it worth their while if we adopt a policy which will permit of the maintenance and expansion of our exports to them, whereas if we adopt a purely egoistic policy, it may not be worth our neighbours' while to concern themselves with facilitating us in getting supplies. Therefore, I say our attitude to our neighbours is one of the governing factors in this question. It is both a moral and an economic question. Morally, it could be put in this form: are we going to be behave after the fashion of the Good Samaritan, or are we going to emulate the Priest and the Levite? That is a question which everybody must decide for himself.
The Chair suggests that that raises an issue which is outside the terms of the motion.
I accept your ruling, but I regret that the point of view which you have accepted should be so limited in its outlook on the motion. However, economically our bargaining power with regard to getting these deficient supplies will be greater if we adopt an agricultural policy which aims at maintaining and expanding the export of agricultural products whilst increasing the production of such crops of which normally our production is deficient. I think I have said all that I am allowed to say, but not all that I intended to say, so I shall now sit down.
I rise to impress upon the Minister for Supplies the necessity for ensuring a sufficient quantity of fuel for threshing machines in the harvest and also sufficient supply of fuel for tractors and other power-driven agricultural machinery. If these supplies are not available, it will be disastrous for our whole production in the autumn. I should also like to join with Senator McGee in his plea that some petrol should be supplied to farmers who own motor cars. I know of several cases in which these motor cars are used as vans and these conveyances are an absolute necessity to farmers who at the present time live miles away from any bus, train or other mode of conveyance. I have no sympathy for those people who have alternative means of transport, but in many cases farmers have no means of going about their business. They are completely cut off, and this is a matter which, as Senator McGee has stated, should get sympathetic consideration from the Minister. For instance, I could go up to a taxi stand in O'Connell Street to-day and get a taxi to take me to Leinster House although there is an alternative tram service that could leave me almost at the door. It is quite a different matter in the country where a farmer might be six or eight miles from any other way of getting around to do his business or of coming to town, and still he is debarred from getting any quantity of motor spirit. I think, like Senator McGee, that it deserves sympathetic consideration from the Minister, and that he should try to devise some means of giving small quantities of petrol to such farmers.
We thoroughly support this motion although we believe that it does not go far enough. However, it is the best we can do at present. The problem appears to us in this way: the unemployed and the working-classes are already rationed in this country—the unemployed, to the extent of the dole, to try to maintain themselves and their families. That is very rigid rationing, I can assure you. The great majority of the people who are working for wages are rationed, inasmuch as their wages will not permit them to provide their full family requirements each week, much less to lay aside any reserves. In these two classes you have the great majority of the people of the country rationed very rigidly already. In order to ensure that even those rationed portions will be available later on, we believe it is time that all sections of the community were rationed. It is unjust and unchristian to allow people who have a certain amount of money to be able to secure more than they want and to indulge in luxuries when other people, as I say, are very severely curtailed.
There would be no injustice to any section of the community if all were bearing the burden and if all sections were rationed. Unless the Government are prepared to take action by legislation in this direction, forces within the country may assert themselves in a way that will bring about rationing in a very different form. Every other day there is a shortage of flour, petrol, coal, and so on. The amounts of these things available are contracting. Certain people may have the wherewithal to lay in reserves. When the crisis comes, they believe, they will be able to get away with their stocks and hoardings while other sections of the community have no reserves whatever. We suggest that now is the time to bring in rationing in order to ensure that the stocks and supplies we have will last as long as possible and be divided as equally as it is feasible to distribute them. We are in favour of the motion but, as I said, it does not go far enough. A lot more could be said on the matter, but it has already been said by many people in the House and there is no need to take up the time of Senators further after saying that the great majority of the people of this country are already rigidly rationed.
Nílim chun morán a rádh ar an gceist seo mar ceapaim go bhfuil sé fé láthair i lámhaibh an Riaghaltais.
As I understand the situation, the rationing question is under consideration by the Government at the moment and, presumably, we are all in favour of its being applied, if there is a necessity for it. It is only fair that the most helpless section of the community should receive as close consideration as those who are better situated. With regard to the point raised by Senator Mrs. Concannon, in reference to the changes in the population of certain areas, I think it lends itself to an easy solution when rationing is proceeded with. In this city, many people have changed from the heart of the old city out to the suburbs and, as I understand the position, when rationing cards are issued, those people will have the right either to register their cards in the old areas which they have left, or in the shops in the new suburban districts where they now reside. I think that is the position. Probably the Minister will clarify it in his closing remarks. The first things to call for the closest rationing will be tea, coal and, possibly, flour—commodities that all these people use, and in respect of which there seems to be the greatest danger of shortages at the moment. Tea is required by all, and I hope it will be possible to see that it is equitably distributed to meet the needs of all sections. Then we come to petrol.
I heard Senator Counihan referring to the fact that farmers required a lot more petrol. I think, Sir, that the present position may be blessing in disguise—in fact, it is a blessing in disguise to the farmers. According to Senator Counihan they want petrol for their private cars and their vans. I remember the time when I saw them driving in their smart traps into the City of Dublin and taking the goods from their own farms to the market by horses. Senator Counihan referred to Sackville Street. Sackville Street, mark you——
And why not?
Why not, asks Senator Crosbie. Well, Senator Counihan, like myself, was reared in the county which gave us the great O'Connell, and I think his name ought to be good enough for Senator Counihan instead of using Sackville Street. I do not think there is much more to be said in this discussion. As I understand it, the Government is already dealing with the matter. We are all in favour of equal dealings for everyone and I do not think there is any need for long discussions about it.
I think that most of us will agree that a national register would be a most valuable document if it could be produced for the purpose in view at the moment. However, a hastily compiled register may only effect inequalities which would leave the situation worse than it was. There are more reasons than the equitable distribution of commodities why a national register may be of great service. If properly compiled, so as to classify all our man-power, it would be a still greater service. In my opinion, and it is the opinion of many, the man-power of the country is, in a great way, wasted by reason of the fact that, in a time of emergency like this, it is not classified to serve the most useful purpose. One thing that is obviously wrong is the lack of classification of men in the national service. Everyone is greateful and proud of the way the young men rose to the occasion when called upon for national service. It is amazing to find that a number of middle-aged men, with wives and families, answered the call at some expense to themselves while a great number of young men who are not required at home failed to offer their services. In many other ways, a national register would be of great value but, as that may be somewhat outside the scope of the motion, I shall not labour it further.
A great deal has been said about tea. There, I am not quite sure of my ground. It has, I think, already been stated in the Press that householders are to be presented with cards on which the persons in the family are to be enumerated and that these householders may register at any shop, whether they have been dealing before at that shop or not. In this way, they will get the full value of their card. Even if that was done—I hope it will —it will help towards equitable distribution. The petrol question has been a burning question and, having some connection with the trade, I may say that I think the amount of petrol available is fairly distributed, according to the needs. There are cases which, if examined by the Minister, would, I think, receive special treatment. Even if a car is registered as a private car, it may be a very valuable commercial car. Recently I met a traveller for a small progressive industry employing about 250 hands. He had no petrol at all for his car and he was trying to get around by train and bus, with the result that he could not cover half the ground he used to cover. The 250 employees in the factory were entirely dependent on the result of his travels. If he did not send in orders and money, the factory would collapse. They would not have any work. If that case were brought before the Minister, I am sure he would give it special consideration. This traveller had to visit a religious community about fifteen miles from the town where he resides. The house of this community is situate in a very remote part and is not served by rail or bus. A gallon of petrol would bring the traveller in his eight h.p. car there and back but, as he had no petrol, he had to hire a hackney car which consumed about two gallons of petrol. That was a waste. I am sure that the Minister would be prepared to examine a special case like that and give it the consideration it deserves.
I was not here to hear the mover of the motion explain how he proposed the national register should be compiled. If I knew that, and thought it was a good way, I would support it. The only speedy way in which it could be compiled would be by the Guards or rate collectors. The rate collectors are very efficient and they could tell you the number of people in virtually any house in their area. With a little help, they could do this work much faster than any organisation of which I know.
Listening to the debate, one would imagine that all that was necessary to provide the people with sufficient supplies of rationed commodities was to set up a national register of consumers. I am afraid that that is not so. We are inclined to take a leaf out of the book of this other State which is so often referred to as "our neighbour across the water". Because they have introduced a national register of consumers, it is urged that such a register would work successfully here. But we are an agricultural country. How could we ration farmers in their supply of bread? The majority of these people have their own wheat and oatmeal. If you rationed bread in the morning, one section of the community would have an advantage because they have their own supplies. That might also refer to many other items than bread. In respect of another section— those who are, unfortunately, unemployed—you would want to reduce their supplies very much before you would get them below what they are at present.
Demands were made on the Minister the last day and to-day for supplies of petrol for this profession and that profession. Every Senator and T.D. has, I expect. been approached to make representation on behalf of some interest for additional supplies of petrol. One would imagine that the Minister for Supplies was withholding a supply of petrol. We must be practical and realise that the Minister for Supplies had no more control over the supply of petrol than I had—and that was very little. Control is in the hands, I understand, of a combine and all the Minister had to do was to see that the supply was distributed as equitably as possible.
It has been proposed that retailers of tea pay a tax of about 10/-. The wholesalers have also to pay this tax. That presses hard on the small retail shop. In Galway City and outside, a number of people run small shops. Many of them are widows and are just managing to exist. If they have to pay this tax of 10/-, it will probably drive them out of the tea business, because the little business they have in tea would not justify the payment of a 10/- tax. Their customers will be driven into the wholesale shops. Therefore, you are taking customers away from these small retailers and forcing them into the big wholesale shop which has only to pay the same tax. I suppose the money has to be got somehow, and I suggest that 10/- be levied as a general retail tax rather than as a tax on one rationed commodity.
Senator McGee referred to parish councils. I am very sorry to have to state that we are exaggerating the great benefits that these parish councils have brought us since they came into existence. We did expect that many of them might do good work but, up to the present, except in very few cases, I fail to see that they have done anything other than what Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael clubs would have done, and that is to ask the Government to do such and such a thing. The last appeal I would make to the Government is that, in place of bringing in a national register of consumers, they should set about a national register of the people, see what works the people are capable of being put to and do everything to ensure supplies of food and fuel. Those are the principal things. Are we organising ourselves?
We expect there will be very little coal in the country in the near future. What arrangements are we making now in that connection? I understand that it will be necessary to produce something like 200,000 tons of turf for the coming season and the present work of the turf board covers something like 180,000 tons. Are we organising the unemployed to obtain the balance? How many lands are at present occupied by people who have not complied with the Tillage Order, and what arrangements are being made to put those lands into cultivation? These are questions which could be more usefully considered than this setting up of a national register of consumers. I fail to see what great benefit it would be. I do not see that it is going to serve the purpose which Senator Hayes had in mind when he put the motion on the Order Paper.
Like many of the other speakers, if I felt that a national register could be brought into operation within any reasonable period of time and could be made effective, I would be inclined to vote for it. Notwithstanding that, I intend to vote against the motion on the Order Paper, for the simple reason that, in view of the statements made here by the Minister for Supplies and the statements made elsewhere, I am not satisfied that it would be good business to rush into this procedure at the present time. To begin with, the system of a national register has been tried in England and, although they had been making preparations for it for a couple of years, or for at least one year before the war, they still find the machine very far from satisfactory, and they have not been able to get the results which they originally expected from it.
I am in thorough agreement with most of what Senator Hawkins has just said, in so far as I believe that it is not really a question here of the rationing of essential commodities but rather a question of increasing the supply of essential commodities by increased production here in our own country. On the question of rationing, I believe that the psychological effect would be good in so far as it would create a state of mind wherein various people would believe that, as a result of such a scheme, they were getting a fair deal. Let us examine the situation from that angle and even go back on the experience which we have had here in the past three or four months.
We had a system of rationing in connection with the petrol supplies and a certain number of coupons were issued to people. They felt very happy about it, patted themselves on the pocket, and said they were all right. What was the result? The next thing was that when they produced the petrol coupon—which is pretty much the same thing as the ration ticket— they found there was no petrol. I am quite sure several people here would be inclined to say that it would be different in the case of ordinary commodities. Well, "doctors differ, but patients die"; at any rate it has been proved to the satisfaction of most people that nothing which it was in the power of the Minister for Supplies to do could have changed the situation one iota. The people had the petrol coupons in their pockets and found they could not get the petrol. In the same way, if other people had no money in their pockets they would think that if they had money they could buy anything; but, no matter how much money people may have had in their pockets, they could not get petrol.
The best and most effective thing would be to create a state of mind in the country that we could meet the situation better by improving the production of essential commodities here. I am quite prepared to see a situation develop here where several things which we have been accustomed to will not be available in the future. Many of those things we can do very well without. We did without them only a few years ago and regardless of the present conflict, we will probably have to do without them in the future, too.
For example?
Grapes.
That is no trouble to us.
It was the first thing that came into my mind. I saw a notice in the paper the other day that no more grapes were available. Certain people would feel that that meant the end of the world.
That would be sour grapes.
Other people say that if they cannot get tea they will die. Now, there are several people who can get along very well without tea and I happen to be one of them myself.
Can we do without cotton?
The night would scarcely be long enough if we were to discuss the various items, and the Minister who was in a position to do so put the points very fully before the House. In any case, there are things which, if we had them, we could use, but which we can get along without. However, we must have the essentials. The most important would be potatoes, which we can produce in surplus quantities, and wheat which also we can produce even to a surplus. There may be a shortage of these things but, if so, it is our own fault. When I say that it is our own fault I mean that it is the fault of the people as a whole, not that of the Government or of the Minister for Supplies. We should do everything we possibly can, in so far as it is in our power, to encourage the people, not by panic legislation, but by placing clearly before them the position as it is to-day and giving them the knowledge that is available as to the shortage of certain things, so that they may replace those things by producing alternatives on their own farms and allotments.
That would be grand news for the unemployed.
It would be grand news for the unemployed and the employed if they could be given an assurance that the people realise what the position actually is and if they were given an assurance that the people are prepared to put their shoulders to the wheel and produce those necessities. I believe that can be done, and the most useful job we can do in our public and private capacities would be to encourage that production in every way possible.
It is rather regrettable that the Minister has not been able to be present here to-day. I confess that, up to the moment, none of the speakers on the Government side have made any convincing argument whatever as to why the House should not accept this motion. The trouble about the position in which we find ourselves is that the greater and more varied the efforts of the people speaking in the of the Government to clarify the position, the greater the fog in which we seem to be immersed. The Minister himself seems to have a different technique for every occasion. The last day here he urged as a reason against the acceptance of a motion by the House—or conveyed the impression—that we were rather comfortably off, that there were so many things of which we had no fear of going short, that we did not seem justified in setting up a national register for the few commodities of which we might have to go short. He said that he, personally, did not agree that the most effective method of rationing would be on the basis of a national register of consumers. He continued:
"In our present circumstances and in the circumstances that we can foresee, rationing upon that basis will not be the most effective method of controlling the supplies of the limited number of commodities which may be in short supply. It is necessary to remember that our conditions are fundamentally different to those of Great Britain. In respect of a wide range of food stuffs, not merely is no shortage anticipated, but there is more than sufficient to supply all our own requirements."
He went on:—
"Concerning meat, milk, butter, eggs, bacon, vegetables and other foods of that nature, all of which are rationed in Great Britain, we are producing more than we ourselves consume."
I would almost say that the House had a comfortable feeling, after the speech of the Minister on that occasion; but a couple of nights afterwards he went out to a meeting of a Fianna Fáil Cumann in town and told them it was most important that everybody should realise the magnitude of the economic crisis, as everyone would need to cooperate to the extent of considerable personal sacrifice.
Now, these are really two voices, and the Minister has, I believe, shaken the country's confidence in him very considerably because of the situation into which the country was precipitated over this matter of supplies. We listened to the Minister's cooing for a very long time—that all was well, that we had plenty of everything, that they had provided plenty of everything, and suddenly we found the opposite to be the truth.
When did the Minister say that? When did he say that we had plenty of everything?
He said it so often, and contradicted everybody who disagreed with him so often, that it should not be necessary for the Senator to ask that question.
If the Minister said it so often, Senator Baxter, at least, should be able to tell us of one occasion.
He said it in August, 1940.
Senator Hayes mentioned it the other day, and if necessary I shall read it out of Senator Hayes's speech. If Senator Quirke wants me to do so, I shall read it to the House, but I do not think that is necessary. There is not any doubt about the fact that the country is facing a really grave situation, and I am afraid that the country is not facing that situation with the confidence that is necessary in such grave circumstances, because we are not clear as to where we stand. We have the Minister telling us here, as an argument against setting up this national register, that there are really so few commodities of which we are likely to be short that there is no need for a national register. My view is that we have not yet reached the worst, and that we may land in it much more quickly than we realise. At any rate, we ought to be prepared for the worst, and one way to prepare for it, in the last analysis, is to have a register of all the residents of the country, great and small, young and old, and when supplies become really so short that nobody can get enough of them, people will then be prepared to apportion supplies to rich and poor alike with such a degree of consideration of all, whether rich or poor, that people will see that justice is being done all around. You cannot do that without a national register, and I think that the House here to-day should agree that a national register should be set up. Senator Johnston, earlier in the day, in my opinion at any rate, made a very valiant attempt to travel along a line of country and to urge a policy by which our supplies in this country in future could be considerably added to. I would say to some of the people who interrupted him——
The Senator was not interrupted.
They raised a point of order.
That is not an interruption.
Well, at any rate, it had the effect of curtailing or, shall I say, limiting the argument of Senator Johnston, which would have been a good thing to hear in relation to this motion. Now, the motion asks that "a national register of consumers should be prepared forthwith with a view to the immediate rationing of certain essential commodities". Senator Hayes wants it done immediately because there are certain essential commodities in short supply and because the conviction is growing in the country that some people can get more of these commodities than others.
That is so.
What are these commodities?
Tea is one, and the feeling is growing that if other commodities become in short supply also, certain people will be able to get as much as they were getting before while others will not be able to get as much as will be necessary for their sustenance.
That is so.
In circumstances like these, people will complain. Senator Johnston proceeded to argue how our food supplies could be increased. Is anyone going to suggest that Senator Hayes had in mind, in the setting up of this register, that it was just going to be operative for the short period between this and the next harvest? Nothing of the kind. He wants it immediately, but if it is wanted now, I suggest that it will be wanted later on, and probably for 12 months after the next harvest. Senator Hawkins and Senator Quirke made a plea here to-day in this connection. I think that Senator Quirke said that one way to face the situation was for everyone to try to do what they could to get the people to increase the quantity of essential commodities. Now, that is so. On a few occasions here I did my best to convince the House that there was one way in which you could get an increase in the quantity of essential commodities. I did not succeed, but I believe it will be proven yet to Senator Quirke and all others who argue against my way that that was the right way and the only way. At any rate, while we are in the position that we are in at the moment, with supplies of certain commodities running short and with the possibility of others running short, I think that the one way of dealing fairly with our community as a whole is to have them registered. We are told that we are going to have a kind of register in regard to tea. I am not arguing against the method taken in that regard, but I think that a little more energy and courage, with a little added cost, would give you a national register which would be requisite in connection with the difficulties and dangers we may yet have to face, and I think that we will regret not having such a register when we are precipitated into that position.
When the Minister tells us that milk, meat, butter, eggs, bacon and vegetables are available here in sufficient quantities, I wonder whether he knows, exactly, what the position is. I wonder does he know what will be the position in regard to bacon before next harvest, or whether we are going to have such supplies of bacon that everybody will be able to get as much as they can buy. I think that we will not, and I think that it is a matter that is worth studying and examining. No doubt, anybody who talked about going short of butter last year would have been thought crazy, but there would be no point whatever in putting Senator Quirke or myself down to a meal of milk, meal, meat, butter, eggs and bacon, because it would be a very unbalanced ration. It is no use putting pepper and salt on the table, because if you get nothing but milk, meat, butter, eggs and bacon, you will get up a hungry man.
You will be all right.
You will get up a hungry man. It is against a situation like that that you will have to guard. I think that the Ministry have fallen down on their job and that neither they nor their supporters realise the dangerous pass to which this country is coming, and coming, perhaps, sooner than they anticipate. The Minister did not tell the House the other day about the dangerous position in regard to wheat. He indicated that it was in short supply, but he told the Fianna Fáil Noel Lemass Cumann how careful we had to be about buying our bread. Senator Quirke talks about what we can do in the matter of growing potatoes. We can grow potatoes, certainly, but what does the Senator think with regard to the supply of potatoes available in the country at the present time? Have we ample quantities of them in the country to carry us on until the next crop of potatoes is available? I think that neither he nor any member of the Ministry, nor anybody else in the country, has the remotest idea. The Minister was telling us that we have got to use wheat and bread sparingly. I gathered that he was almost suggesting that you can do with bread once a day. Well, we may be faced with such a situation as that because it is going to be so scarce. I suggest to the House, to the Government and to their supporters, that if they do not look into the situation very quickly with regard to the potato supply in the country you may find yourself in the position that a great many of our people will have to be eating bread not merely once or twice a day, but three times a day, because the supply of carbo-hydrates from the potato will not be available.
This question of supplies is much more difficult and complex and much wider in its implications than one would be led to believe from the speeches we have heard here. It is not merely a question of a drop of petrol for the farmer to bring him ten or 12 miles to fair or market, nor is it even a question of a few lbs. of tea, nor of the 10/- licence that a retailer will have to pay. You have the foot-and-mouth disease at the present time and the closing down of fairs and markets, and that will be responsible for using up a large quantity of carbo-hydrates for animals that human beings may require before the next harvest. I suggest that nothing has been done by the Ministry to measure that position. In every part of the country we are using potatoes and grain, feeding them to stock, which may be wanted for the people. What can be done about it?
There is a serious situation facing the country. I saw that a question was asked yesterday in the Dáil of a Minister with regard to the export of potatoes and the Minister gave a reply that the quantity of potatoes exported in December was six tons. I know that hundreds of tons have been exported out of the country since December. Hundreds of tons have been exported out of one county. I am not suggesting that potatoes or anything else should not be exported. Nothing of the kind. Farmers must sell to live, but what I am suggesting is that there are regulations prohibiting the export of foodstuffs even to other parts of the 32 Counties. I do not know whether the regulation applies to potatoes, but my view about it is that if the farmers have a surplus of anything which is essential for the maintenance of life in the Twenty-Six Counties at the present time, it ought to be bought up by some purchasing organisation from the farmers and held in the country against the scarcity which people in the towns and cities of this country will experience before the end of June next. Apparently, even the Minister did not know a thing about it in the Dáil yesterday. It is not any wonder that people have fears about the manner in which the Ministry are facing up to this situation, which is, undoubtedly, very grave.
The truth, of course, is that the farmer will not be the first to go hungry but, on the other hand, the farmer does not want to see any man hungry. We all know quite well that there are forces that cannot be controlled. We have no experience yet of what it is to attempt to control hungry men and women in this country and that is a situation which should not be permitted to develop. The next evil to being hungry is the feeling that the food that is available for distribution is not being fairly distributed and whatever expenses or hardships have to be incurred to convince the people that justice is being done and that there is an equitable distribution of the available supplies should be incurred in order to make the people feel—the poor people especially who never get too much—that they are getting what they can get in the circumstances. The register, it seems to me, is the one way to do that.
There are all sorts of considerations entering into this supply position which, one feels, the Government are not turning over at all. Senator Quirke referred to our capacity to grow potatoes. We are short now and we are going to be short of supplies in the next few months because the production from our own land last year was not as great as it might have been. It would have been much greater if the Government and its supporters had done their job. They did not do it. They did not give the guarantees and securities and encouragement to farmers and the farmers did not take the risks. They did not try to stake their credit. We could have had more potatoes, barley, oats and perhaps more wheat, more pigs, and so on, and more butter.
Who is going to suggest that the position is going to be much better this day 12 months? It has been argued, with truth I think, that we require a certain area under cultivation to produce the minimum requirements for our humans and our animals. I do not believe we are going to get that, and I believe in 12 months' time we are going to be short again, that is, if no supplies come to us from outside. These are considerations we ought to examine now because now is the time to do it. Let us remember that there were imported stocks in the country at the end of last season. We are not going to have any reserves at all next season. We will be entirely dependent on our own soil for our requirements to carry us to the harvest of 1942. I do not think it is humanly possible to get as much tillage as we want for that, and I think it would be advisable for the Government to consider the question of a change over from one particular crop to another. Wheat and beet are talked a great deal about, but I would-rather have ample stocks of wheat and potatoes than ample stocks of wheat and sugar, and I would rather sit down to a breakfast of potatoes and no sugar, and the same for my dinner and the same for my last meal in the evening, than to sugar and no potatoes. The Government are banking, I take it, on growing about 60,000 acres of beet. That would give us, I think, 100 per cent. of our requirements. I suggest that it might be very good policy for the Government, even now, to consider the advisability of a change over from say, 60,000 acres to 40,000 acres of beet. That question ought to be in the course of examination from the point of view of our supplies for the future. If you discover that the area under wheat—and you ought to be examining that immediately—is not coming up to anything like the acreage you require, and if our carbo-hydrates cannot be made up to our utmost demand from barley, oats and potatoes, I say it would be much better to change over from trying to get the maximum area of beet to trying to get the maximum area of potatoes, to take 20,000 acres off your beet acreage and change over to potatoes.
Potatoes at a yield of ten tons to the acre—and you will get at least ten tons off these farms—would represent 200,000 tons of potatoes. 200,000 tons of potatoes, available by the end of May, would be a tremendous addition to the food supplies in the country. I am afraid we will not have them. I do not know what we will have. I am afraid we will be short, but I am thinking not alone of the shortage now but the possible shortage next year. Now is the time to think about it and I urge as strongly as I can that we are not going to have all we want for 1942 any more than for 1941 and, if there is to be a choice of the crops we are to grow, we ought to grow the more essential ones first. We ought to try to have something of everything, a little of everything, rather than too much of one crop and not enough of another. I suggest to the House again that the man or woman who would be put down to a ration of meat, milk, butter, eggs and bacon one day after the other would be very hungry throughout the year.
Senator Hayes' motion is the way to secure equitable distribution of the food supplies and other supplies available at the moment. It is wanted urgently now and it is wanted for the future as well. It is better to give our people the belief and confidence, even at this late hour, that the Government are going about this thing in a vigorous and methodical way. The Government should do something to restore confidence that is gravely shaken—and justifiably shaken—and to encourage other people who want to work with them and help them to take the country through the crisis we all are convinced it will have to pass through. But it will not pass through satisfactorily and energetically if we have only a babel of voices and no strong direct lead being given by the people in the responsible position of Government who ought to be giving us the plan.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Does the Minister wish to speak?
I do not think it is in accordance with precedent to speak a second time.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Have you spoken already?
No, but the Minister for Supplies has spoken.
The Minister has a constitutional right to speak if he so desires.
I think it is in order for the Minister to speak if he wishes.
I was going to make some of the points that Senator Quirke made and which had been already adumbrated by the Minister for Supplies, that is to say, that no decision has been taken not to go ahead with a national register but, from the point of view of the rationing of food supplies, it is not felt that at the moment we should decide to prepare a national register for that purpose. Like my colleague, I am not ruling out the possibility that later on it may be found necessary but, in spite of what we have heard from Senator Baxter, I still believe that the Government is not quite so much out of touch with the country as to believe that there is going to be an acute shortage of foodstuffs generally or something approaching the disastrous situation which the Senator seems to have in mind. We know that in every year we produce far more foodstuffs in this country than we consume. Our difficulty in fact always has been to get a fair return for our surplus. In spite of all the difficulties that have been created, I think the position still will be, in the case of a great many commodities, such as, for example, butter, that we shall still be producing more than our actual requirements.
It seems rather difficult to understand why we should contemplate having a national register for the rationing of ordinary foodstuffs, if it has been demonstrated, as in my opinion is the position, that in the case of only one commodity, that of tea, is there a serious shortage at present and that that situation is being dealt with by a system of rationing which admittedly is experimental but which, in any case, the Minister for Supplies thinks will achieve more or less the same result as a more complicated and much more costly and extravagant system would produce. I think that some emphasis should be laid on the fact that there is no guarantee whatever that even with the most perfect and most carefully thought-out scheme of rationing that could be brought into operation, poor people are, in fact, going to be able to get even what is prescribed on the ration card, if it should turn out that there will be a shortage of that particular commodity. I think if more regard is had to the state of affairs in other countries where rationing schemes under war conditions have had to be introduced, Senators will possibly agree, if they make inquiries, that the system is by no means perfect in that respect. I quite agree that from the psychological point of view it has its advantages, but if there were a general feeling in the country, which might easily be created by uniformed or unfair criticism, that really there is a very serious situation, people might begin to buy up foodstuffs in such quantities that they might create a really serious shortage.
Obviously one of the points which the Minister for Supplies has had in his mind all the time, since the war started, was the necessity of avoiding the appearance of panic. One may criticise the Minister—I do not think rightly—but let us suppose that the criticism in the opinion of those who make it is just, that he painted an unduly favourable picture of the position. If the Minister uses some words or other which give the impression, more than is necessary, that the situation is very acute indeed, that he is afraid that there is going to be a terrible shortage of commodities, very serious repercussions are going to follow. Anybody charged with the responsibility of accounting for national supplies must be careful of what he is going to say. It may easily mean that undue hoarding may take place at a critical time making the situation far more difficult for the poorer sections of the community who have sufficient difficulty in getting supplies already. It may also mean that employers, who feel rather doubtful as to whether they are going to get supplies to enable them to carry on their business, their factories or their shops, and who have been turning over in their minds for some months past whether they should not let their employees go, may say: "Well that is fairly definite in any case." If they put the interpretation on the statements of Ministers that some Senators have put, I am sure a great many of them would have dismissed their staffs long ago. In this matter the Government has to keep a constant watch on the employment position. We know that position is in grave danger of deteriorating, but we must not take action merely on account of abstract principles, unless we feel that such steps are absolutely necessary and that there is no danger of their making the position worse.
While at the beginning of the war the tendency was to attack the Government for having a rather panicky outlook and being unduly fearful as to our position, I think the tendency now seems to be in the opposite direction. People seem to be rather anxious to blame the Government for taking an unduly complacent view.
Who attacked them for being panicky?
Up to the present we have got on fairly well. It is quite true that unless we are very careful with our bread supplies up to the coming harvest we may have to cut down supplies and people may not be able to get their ordinary supplies of bread.
What will they eat instead?
So far as food is concerned, I do not think the situation is very serious and the fact that it is not serious is really brought home in a very striking way by Senator Baxter when he tells us that if one got up from a meal of milk, eggs, bacon and potatoes—and I am not aware of any country in Europe at present except this one where such a meal could be obtained—one would be hungry. The Senator ought to read how his grandfather and grandmother were fed, or even his father and mother. He would find that on two of these comestibles, milk and potatoes, they managed to exist and to live lengthy, if not wealthy, lives and bring up families without their suffering any acute hunger.
I did not mention potatoes in connection with meat, milk, butter and eggs. I said that if you got up from a meal of milk, butter and bacon you would rise hungry.
In any case milk, eggs and bacon, even without the addition of butter, would be a very wholesome diet.
Do we take it that the Minister for Education regards that as a balanced diet?
It is much better than the diet which people are getting in most countries at the present time. I think that on this matter we ought to have regard to the very fortunate position we are in as compared with other countries. We should not allow ourselves to indulge in childish fantasies. We ought to have our feet placed very solidly on reality and remember that no matter what Government is responsible or what efforts are made to make plans in advance, some catastrophe may very well occur which will change the whole situation.
But is not that the very reason for having a register?
It is not reasonable to say, for instance, as some Senator said, that 150 pounds of tea were given to one individual. I submit that a Senator carrying out his duties as an ordinary individual would report that man. We all heard of such cases last year. We know that these things are exaggerated. We know that if ten people out of a community of 50,000 get more than they are entitled to, the other 49,990 are going to have a serious grievance, but is that any reason why we should go around and publicise the fact that four or six or ten people out of the community got more than they required if we knew of it?
Is there anything illegal in one man getting 150 pounds of tea?
It is to preclude the possibility of such things happening that the motion before the House has been introduced here. Not only am I aware of that instance, but I have seen £75 worth of foodstuffs taken away in haste in a lorry, for fear there would be a regulated price imposed by the Government. I see in my own business every day that people who come in with money seem to be able to get all they want, while the poor have to live from hand to mouth. I thought the position was put very clearly by Senator Foran to-day. With the pittances they are getting under the heading of dole, which has now been determined as from a certain date in rural areas, large sections of the community are living from hand to mouth. They come in from day to day with the little money they have to buy what they can get. I know other places where large quantities——
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is Senator Madden making a speech or simply interrupting the Minister?
I am not making a speech.
I suggest that it is open to Senator Madden to make a speech after the Minister has concluded his remarks.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
He was certainly making an unprecedentedly long interruption.
Senator Baxter introduced a number of questions which I do not think it is necessary for me to go into. Among other matters, he seems to blame the Government entirely for any defects in connection with tillage. Surely that is not a reasonable position? I fail to see what more the Government can do. It does not matter, as has been pointed out before, what prices the Government may fix. People will still clamour for more. They have been accustomed to do that and to feel a grievance because any figure, no matter how high in the sky you may go, is not accorded to them. And again, they are inclined to nurse grievances when it is pointed out that as tillers of the soil it is not merely themselves they are providing for. It is their bounden duty, and every member of the Oireachtas will stand behind the Government in seeing that the requirements of the urban population will have to be provided for also and their wants taken into consideration.
The Senator, I noticed, in spite of all he said about the situation not being good and likely to be worse next year—a thing which no one is likely to deny—did not tackle the question, for example, of our live stock. If the Senator is so deeply anxious to assure himself that foodstuffs will be conserved, and if the situation is so critical as he would lead us to believe, it is certainly extraordinary, if he sees the interests of those who do not live on the land and who have to procure food by buying it, and if he knows that food is being wrongfully used, that he does not take steps or advocate a policy which would lessen the use of foodstuffs or of agricultural produce for animals, for example, as against human beings. In spite of the rather long and defeatist speech to which the Senator treated us, I notice that he did not touch on that important question. It is a well-known fact that in other European countries which had been dependent to a larger extent on foreign foodstuffs than we have been— nevertheless, we had also been dependent to a great extent on foreign maize —large numbers of stock had to be slaughtered, irrespective of the consequences. We have not reached that position. As in the case of rationing, one could also deal with its possible bad effects on the economic situation. Obviously the Minister for Agriculture, or the Government, is not going to recommend it to farmers, and even if he does recommend it to-morrow, will the farmers listen to him, to destroy their live stock——
We had too much of that already.
——in order that the food which the stock would consume would be made available for human beings? That is a matter which, I am quite sure, the Minister for Agriculture has under consideration and I do not think it is quite fair to suggest that matters of that kind are not being considered.
The fact is that if this system of wholesale rationing is going to be introduced, you will inflict a very serious burden on the community, unless the Government is satisfied that the situation demands it. If the Government is not so satisfied, and if through a vote of this House this register were to be set up, the only advantage it seems to me that could possibly be claimed for it would be the rather doubtful one that people would have the feeling, at any rate, that they were all being treated alike, but the Minister for Supplies has given as his opinion that that is not the position. He has shown that in fact there is no guarantee that the poorer people, who already have difficulties, will be any better off. There is the question of substitutes being available to wealthy people. There is the question of evasion and there is the point, to which Senator Hawkins directed attention, that we are in an agricultural country, where, I think, more than half the population are said to be living on the land. How is it suggested that you can ration them in regard to the foodstuffs they produce themselves?
I think, in reference to the remark of Senator Johnston, that the visit of the Minister for Co-ordination of Defensive Measures to America should not give the impression to any section whatever that wheat can be got from the United States. That would be a most unfortunate impression, because I do not think it is very likely to occur, but, in case there should be the slightest question that there should be any hold up agricultural production, or in our spring campaign, which is pretty late already and has met with very unfavourable circumstances up to the present, I would like to emphasise that there is no certainty whatever that foodstuffs will be obtained from across the Atlantic. I will call the attention of the Minister for Supplies to the other matters, such as the question of the provision of petrol or coal for threshing machines and tractors, and to a number of other points that were mentioned.
I think that Senator Hawkins's point, with regard to the huckster's shop, is rather an important one. You have this small type of shop which, as was stated in the Dáil to-day, is selling only a few pounds of tea in the week, and this small shop is going to be brought into a national rationing scheme in the same way as the large store. It stands to reason that there must be a certain amount of standardisation for all these small businesses. You cannot possibly provide sufficient inspectors to ensure that the circumstances of each small trader will be provided for unless you create an organisation in which you will have many thousands of officials who will be contributing nothing whatever to production but who, at enormous expense, will be carrying out work which, possibly, could be done in another way. I am not quite sure that it could be done by voluntary methods. I agree with the Minister for Supplies, and I think anybody with experience of administration in these matters will also agree—particularly in so important a matter as the provision of bread or foodstuffs for the people—that it would be absolutely necessary to have the greatest accuracy. If there were inaccuracies or if the work was not done properly, people would have grievances. To sum up, I do not think that a national register for rationing is necessary at the moment. If it is found necessary later, it will have to be introduced.
What is the Minister's estimate of the time it would take to carry that out?
It was suggested at one time that it might take considerably more than a year. In Great Britain, the register was not compiled solely as a register of consumers. Regard was had to the question of employment in different types of war work and particulars had to be taken of the capacity of those registered in that respect. If we were to have a national register for one purpose, we should have to see that it would be fairly complete so that it would be useful from the point of view of employment and production. If it is to be dealt with from that point of view, it will take a considerable time.
My intention is to support this motion, although I am not yet absolutely convinced that such a register as Senator Hayes advocates is needed for rationing purposes only. I support the motion because I believe that there are many other important purposes for which such a register would be extremely valuable and also because I am not satisfied with the amount of enlightenment Government spokesmen have given us in this debate about the whole situation. I am not convinced that they are not even now— in spite of some very serious words uttered by the Minister for Supplies outside this House—looking upon the situation with somewhat more complacency than they ought. There is a possibility of shortage in this country of certain important foodstuffs. There is the certainty of the shortage of petrol and, for the time being of coal, but we may find ourselves, before the end of this war, short of other things to which we have hardly been giving a thought. Senator Johnston mentioned, in an interruption earlier to-day, cotton. There are countries in Europe where it is not merely a question of rationing food but of rationing something which touches the poor almost as closely as food—clothes. How do we know we shall never be in the situation in which we shall have to ration clothes, as is being done in Germany? We cannot take anything for granted. We have got to be on the safe side. We have got to provide for a much more catastrophic situation than has arrived now or than we can see any immediate likelihood of developing.
The Minister said that some people have accused the Government of being panicky and pessimistic. I do not recollect anybody accusing them of that at any period of the war. Certainly, I never did. I do not think it is at all a good thing for a Government to be panicky. But I think it is a good thing for them, in the privacy of their own counsels or their own minds, to take as dark a view of the situation as is taken by a pretty pessimistic person and to be prepared, so far as they can be prepared, for the worst. I do not think it would cause any panic in the country if a register such as is proposed by this motion were prepared. The Minister says that the Government have taken no decision not to go ahead with the preparation of such a register. If you take no decision not to go ahead, you not infrequently remain as you are. You have to do something a little more positive than merely not deciding not to go ahead. I cannot help thinking that Ministers are rather shrinking from a laborious and, I admit, expensive undertaking. I think they should cease to shrink from it unless they can bring more cogent reasons against it than they have done hitherto.
This proposal has been spoken of in this debate as if it were an English innovation. In point of fact, there must be some such sort of register in almost every country in Europe affected by the war. Continental countries have universal military service and, for that reason, they must have registers of man power, at any rate. This is not just a peculiarity of England which we are being called upon to follow with servile imitation. The system of rationing all sorts of commodities, based upon information in the possession of the Government about individual citizens, is a system that is now widespread over Europe. If we get into a more serious situation in respect of supplies than we are now in, there is hardly any way of avoiding the administration of our affairs on a similar basis. The other day the Minister for Supplies argued that any rationing of certain commodities like milk, bacon, butter, eggs and meat would be definitely against public policy because it was desirable, from the point of view of the State, that as much as possible of all these things should be consumed. I should like to be sure that that was said after full consideration. Are we really being encouraged to indulge our appetites to the full and to eat as much eggs and bacon and such things as we can possibly swallow down? Are we really behaving as good citizens if we give the greatest rein to our appetites in respect of that particular range of commodities?
That was the implication of the speech of the Minister for Supplies, and I rather doubt that it is true. I should rather think that it was not true, from the psychological point of view referred to by Senator Foran— that while unemployed people are unable to get many of these things, others of the community are instructed that it is their duty to spend money in buying them and consuming them to the largest possible extent. I feel that there is there a discrepancy that hurts my sense of justice. I wonder whether it is not really desirable, from the point of view of the State, that we should all economise in respect of these commodities as well as every other commodity, that we should not consume more than we need of anything in times like these. We should thereby accumulate savings. At least, those of us who can refrain from buying commodities can accumulate savings which would be to the advantage of the State when it comes to making greater and greater demands, as I am afraid that time must come, in the financing of the expenditure for the times in which we live.
Senator Johnston has pointed out that our supply situation in regard to commodities coming from outside must necessarily depend to a considerable degree upon the service that we are able to do to the people in Great Britain by exporting goods to them. Is it not desirable that, in regard to all those commodities which the Minister mentioned and of which he says we produce a surplus, we should make the best of that surplus by exporting it to Great Britain and by getting in exchange for it such things as coal that we cannot produce ourselves in anything like the quantity that we require?
A Leas-Chathaoirligh, I know most of the members of the present Government for a fairly long time—some of them since I was a boy —but whenever I hear them in public they never cease to astonish me. One wonders whether it is simply plain common-or-garden ignorance or simplicity, or whether they have been deceived by their own propaganda. It is hard to know what explanation there is for the astounding statements made by them from time to time. The Minister for Supplies is an excellent debater. You, Sir, and I, and many of us here, have heard many speeches from him which you can hear in any University Society any evening you go to any debate. He is an excellent person for putting up arguments and then knocking them flat on the ground for his own satisfaction. He did the same thing on the last occasion when he was here in the Seanad.
The Minister for Education told us to-day, as the Minister for Supplies told us on the last occasion, that there is no danger of a shortage here because we are a food-producing country and always produce a surplus. Surely the Minister for Education knows that we must continue to export our food products in order to obtain raw materials for our factories and certain other essentials. Surely he is not so simple as to think that we can carry out our national services without such essential supplies or that we can let our life run on as it does at present without grave consequences, without the creation of hunger and unemployment and the closing down of our factories—old ones as well as new ones? Surely the Minister for Education knows that in this country we have a certain number of industries. The argument of the old Sinn Féin Party and the Cumann na nGaedheal Party and the Fianna Fáil Party to improve our industries was that we ought not to be dependent entirely on agriculture, for a variety of reasons. We have the industries but we are not self-sufficient. There is no such thing as self-sufficiency for us and our factories depend on imports. To get those imports we must export and, if we are to go on in our present way and not ration ourselves in our own interests, we will be in a very lamentable economic position shortly. The idea that, because we have a surplus of meat, there is no need to ration it, is one which ignores some of the fundamental points of Irish economics and some of the most important factors in our life. Similarly, for example, we talk about our food surplus. We used to import into this country about 3,000 tons of maize.
More.
Or more, as Senator Baxter tells me. Perhaps I am understating the matter but, at least, we use that much for the purpose of producing cattle, bacon and so on and exporting it, getting a good price and importing stuff for our factories and for our own use. We have not got that import now and the situation we are in is an entirely different one from that which the Minister puts so simply. I would like to know who attacked the Government for being complacent. I do not think anybody did. What I attacked the Government for on the last occasion was that, when notice was served at Munich in September, 1938, that there would be a European war, the then Minister for Industry and Commerce who is now Minister for Supplies went to the trouble of telling everybody—all whom it might concern —that he had plans prepared and pigeon-holed to meet every emergency. He had no plans, and he has given no evidence that he had any plans, and that is why he is being criticised.
He had pigeon holes.
Yes. He had any amount of pigeon holes, but no pigeons. Does the Minister for Education think that any businessman dismisses his staff through fright? Does he not know that a businessman keeps his staff on as long as there is any prospect of making money out of them—to put it on the lowest possible consideration? We have been asked why we would not suggest that every member of the Oireachtas should stand behind the Government in its policy. I believe the Government is incompetent and have always believed that; and everything they do confirms me in that view. However, we are in a crisis at the moment and they are the Government and I am prepared to stand behind them in co-operation to feed the people or take any measures that may be necessary.
The difficulty of standing behind the Government is that you do not know where to stand, that you cannot find where the Government is standing. This motion is put down to try to find out on a very important matter just where the Government is standing, so that we can line up behind them. Having listened to the debate, to two Ministers and to members of the House, if I wished to take my stand behind the Government at the present moment I would not know where to go. All that the Minister for Education, Senator Quirke and others said to-day is that the Minister for Supplies knows what he is doing and we have got to trust him. That is not the way to talk to adults; it may be the way to talk to children. There is no use saying that we must take what the Minister for Supplies says and follow him blindly. This motion is put down in order to see that whatever we have will be used for two purposes, namely, to keep people in employment and to ensure an equitable distribution amongst all our citizens.
I said on the last occasion, and I would like to repeat, that I believe every class in the community would be prepared to make very serious sacrifices to attain these two ends, both from the point of view—as Senator Foran has said—of Christian charity and common decency and from the point of view of practical politics. If we do not succeed in keeping people in employment, or in equitable distribution of the goods we have, it will be very bad, not alone for the Government, but for every single one of us. If there is anybody who thinks that, owing to his position, he can escape the consequences of widespread unemployment and inequitable distribution, he is hiding his head in the sand and he is a fool. He is not fit either for office or for ordinary business.
In this motion there is one method of achieving one object, by the making of a national register. There has been a certain amount of debate on that point. We have had over two hours' debate to-day and we had a lengthy speech from the Minister for Supplies on the last occasion. What arguments are put up against this national register? There is only one—that it would be expensive. Just imagine, in a state where there is a war and where we are budgeting for £40,000,000 and from a Government which has steadily and progressively, ever since they went into office, increased the burden on the people, the argument put up that we cannot afford a national register. We were not told what that cost was. Surely, if all these arrangements have been made which the Minister for Supplies has said so frequently he has made, then he has calculated both the cost of a national register and the length of time it would take to make it out. I do not think he knows either the one or the other. Having told us that he will not do it because it is too costly and too cumbersome, he then hedges—and the Minister repeated it to-day—that "no decision has yet been taken." That might be a headline over our Government building. It should be written over every Government office. "No decision has yet been taken" should be inscribed in letters, but not of gold—unless you could get Wicklow gold—and in both languages; and, mind you, I could supply the Minister with an excellent translation of that "no decision has yet been taken" as the hallmark of this Government's lack of policy since the war began.
Let us take, for example, this register. He will not have it now, but he wishes to save himself, especially if things get worse and he may need it. Surely a national register is one of the fundamental things that every State ought to have in war time, not only for rationing but for many other reasons. Surely, owing to this urge for voluntary service in the Local Security Force, the Local Defence Force, the A.R.P. services, and other services— an urge due, largely, I think, to the efforts of people who supported the Government from Opposition Parties— surely in a situation where so many people are offering their services voluntarily and where so many people are available for work, it would be possible to give us a national register of consumers without the enormous expense and without the loss of time of which so much has been made. Even if it would not be possible to do it by volunteer services, surely, in view of the money that the Government has literally buried in our bogs, and buried in many a foolish and stupid enterprise, they could find money now to employ somebody, apart from volunteer workers, to give us this very important piece of machinery for dealing with our problems. But they cannot do that because they cannot make up their minds.
The real meaning of the motion simply is that we ought to have certain objects in view and that this piece of machinery is essential as a preliminary. I think that not one single argument was made by either of the two Ministers here or by anybody else here against that piece of machinery being prepared. As I said before, the history of the whole thing is this. We have had strong reassurances from September, 1938, up to August, 1940, that everything was all right, and in every case propaganda was made to the effect that everything was all right because of the Government's activity. I often think that the Minister for Supplies has great qualities. If I were a man of business I would make him the advertisement manager. He would be splendid at advertising and propaganda and putting things across, but I would not make him the manager in charge of the production of the goods, because he would be bound to make a mess of that. He would be splendid for propaganda and publicity, but not for anything that requires close and persistent lines of thought. As I say, we had these reassurances, and then suddenly we had a shortage in the case of petrol and tea. Then we had a shortage with regard to wheat, and no action is taken and no decision is given until some time when the Government has formed a new plan or decides, as it very often turns out, not on something that they will do themselves but something that they will compel other people to do.
If it is true, as the Minister said, that he knew there was going to be a shortage of petrol some time, what plan had he to meet it? Obviously, he had none. What plan had he to meet the tea shortage? We were told on a Wednesday that there was no shortage but, on the following Tuesday, I think, the Minister or the Minister's leader said that there was a shortage, and then we had the effort to shelve the Government's responsibility for rationing in the matter and place it on the tea retailers, just as in the case of petrol and bread. In the situation that exists, the people concerned should be compelled to economise, and without any apology by the Government or the Parliament for compelling people to do these things, with the two objects I have in mind of keeping people in employment and ensuring equitable distribution.
There is a certain hollowness and pretence in all this talk about practising economy and public requests to petrol consumers to exercise economy in the use of petrol. On the afternoon of the day that the Minister was giving us advice to economise on petrol, what was the car with which he is supplied doing? It was following a hunt—the Minister, by the way, was not in the car—and, as Senator Quirke knows, that is one of the most wasteful ways to use up petrol. An allusion was made yesterday evening in the Dáil to the case of a man suffering from paralysis who asked for a gallon of petrol a month and cannot get it. He cannot get it. He cannot leave his room or go to Mass, but from his window he can see a big Dodge car every morning coming to fetch a Parliamentary Secretary to his work, coming back at lunch-time, and going back again. I think that that Dodge car, bringing a very hefty, fine specimen of manhood to and from Government Buildings would use up more petrol in a day than that unfortunate man would use for a whole month. The people who talk so much about economy have no idea of economising on what is supplied to themselves. It is a cynical, self-satisfied and, from the point of view of the country, a disastrous outlook.
I think that we should have this scheme of rationing, not by households. On the last occasion I asked the Minister several questions and got no answer to any of them. What is the procedure for the tea rationing at the present moment? I understand that every household is going to be given a form and going to register with the retailer. How will you ensure that certain householders will not register with two retailers? The same applies in the case of coal. You are asked to reduce your consumption of coal, and so are the retailers. What about the people who have three retailers, as some of them have, and not the most desirable sections of the community either? At the present moment, if the Minister for Education, or his colleague, the Minister for Supplies, were in touch with the people in Dublin who are dependent on a weekly wage, he would know that these people are very effectively rationed, as Senator Foran said, and the fact that they are rationed releases supplies for the people who can buy. I want to suggest that we should have a register, not by households but by individuals—a register which could be made applicable to other commodities besides tea. Soap, for example, may be scarce. Senator Foran said that the motion did not go far enough. I, for my own part, would be quite prepared to go as far as this in regard to essential commodities: that not only should there be a strict scheme of rationing, but a controlled price, even if it were necessary to give a Government subsidy to the controlled price, in order that everybody in the country should have at least a minimum supply of certain essential commodities.
I do not think there is any other method we can adopt, and if we are in a dangerous situation the least we can do is to be all in the dangerous situation together, and we ought to do it, and the Government ought to do it, with a good grace. There are very serious hardships ahead for us and no thought has been given to them. The Minister for Supplies went to his favourite meeting-place—his favourite political meeting-place—a Fianna Fáil Club to tell them about the state of the country and he made an allusion, for example, to coalition government. One would imagine that there is somebody in this country who objects to co-operation with this Government. I do not think there is anybody who objects. The only thing people want to know is, what does the Government want done? Nobody, however, is going to co-operate with them on the basis that you must shut your eyes, open your mouth, and see what Fianna Fáil will send you. That is their scheme for co-operation and, apparently, the Minister's scheme for co-operation is that if things get worse he may ask somebody to help him.
I think we ought to have this national register prepared in order to cope with the present situation, and to have machinery ready to cope, so far as we can, with another situation. We must get down to realities, and not be deceived by phrases like "self-sufficiency", because we are not self-sufficient. Our factories must close if we cannot get imports and we cannot get imports at all if we have not exports. Something else must be given to the people in this connection rather than glib speeches, pert retorts, and this thing of putting up slick debating points for the purpose of knocking them down. I suggest that glib speeches, pertness, and slick debating points are no substitutes for resource and foresight, and we will have to abandon that kind of thing and co-operate with one another on a basis in which we would know exactly what we are co-operating about, and by devoting serious thought to a problem instead of looking at it from the point of view of Party propaganda and political trickery.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is the motion being pressed?
Yes, Sir.
Question put.
The Seanad divided: Tá, 22
22; Níl, 22.
Tá
- Alton, Ernest H.
- Baxter, Patrick F.
- Butler, John.
- Campbell, Seán P.
- Counihan, John J.
- Crosbie, James.
- Douglas, James G.
- Doyle, Patrick.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Foran, Thomas.
- Hayes, Michael.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Johnston, Joseph.
- Keane, Sir John.
- Kelly, Peter T.
- Lynch, Eamonn.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- McGee, James T.
- Madden, David J.
- O'Connell, Thomas J.
- Parkinson, James J.
- Rowlette, Robert J.
Níl
- Blaney, Neal.
- Byrne, Christopher M.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corkery, Daniel.
- Goulding, Seán.
- Kennedy, Margaret L.
- Lynch, Peter T.
- Mac Fhionnlaoich, Peadar
- (Cú Uladh).
- Magennis, William.
- O Buachalla, Liam.
- O'Donovan, Seán.
- O'Dwyer, Martin.
- Hawkins, F.
- Healy, Denis D.
- Honan, Thomas V.
- Johnston, James.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- O'Neill, Laurence.
- Nic Phiarais, Maighréad M.
- Quirke, William.
- Stafford, Matthew.
- Tunney, James.
Tellers:—Tá, Senators Baxter and Crosbie; Níl, Senators Goulding and Hawkins.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
Twenty-two Senators have voted for the motion and 22 against. As I understand the Chair has a casting vote in such circumstances——
On a point of order, is it not the case that where there is an equal vote a motion moved by a member is not carried? It must be carried by a majority.
Has not the Cathaoirleach, or the Leas-Chathaoirleach if he is in the Chair, a casting vote in the event of an equality of votes?
Leas-Chathaoirleach
He has.
That may be so in the case of an ordinary vote, but is it so on a motion of this kind?
Leas-Chathaoirleach
On all matters upon which there is to be a decision. As this is an important matter, which I think should not be carried by a casting vote, and which should be considered if necessary a second time by the House, I propose to vote against the motion. I therefore give my casting vote against the motion, which I accordingly declare negatived.
I think we can start compiling a new register. If the Cathaoirleach had been in the Chair the Government would have been defeated.
Leas-Chathaoirleach
That does not arise.
Motion accordingly negatived.