Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Mar 1941

Vol. 25 No. 7

Central Fund Bill, 1941 (Certified Money Bill)—Second and Subsequent Stages.

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

Minister for Finance (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

As Senators are aware, the Central Fund Bill is required to implement the Ways and Means Resolutions passed by Dáil Eireann. Its general form is stereotyped. It is designed to authorise the issue from the Central Fund of the amount of the Vote on Account of £12,350,000 for the coming financial year, and of the total of the Supplementary and Additional Estimates for the present financial year which were passed subsequent to the enactment of the Appropriation Act, 1940, and which amounted to £4,111,167. In addition, the present Bill covers two Excess Votes totalling £18,803 8s. 5d. in respect of the year 1938-39, and authorises the issue of that amount from the Central Fund to make good the supply granted by Dáil Eireann. The Bill also makes provision for borrowing by the Minister for Finance, and for the issue by him of such securities as he thinks proper.

As I have already mentioned, the amount of the Vote on Account for the coming year is £12,350,000—i.e., something over one-third of the total net provision for the Supply Services, which, as Senators will have observed from the Volume of Estimates, is £35,322,791. This figure represents an increase of £697,755 on the total net provision for 1940-41, including Supplementary Estimates; or an increase of £4,811,432 as compared with the original net provision for the current year. The increase is attributable solely to the higher provision for the Army, the 1941-42 Estimate for which exceeds the current year's provision (including Supplementary Estimates) by £1,404,498, or by £4,957,908 if the Supplementary Estimates are excluded. In fact, were it not for the increased provision for the Army, the Estimates Volume would reflect a net decrease over the whole Supply Services.

I do not wish to minimise, in any way, the formidable total of the Volume of Estimates for the coming year. It may not, however, be amiss for me to mention that during the passage of the Vote on Account I was taken to task, not, as I might have expected, for the largeness of that total, but for decreases, reflected in this Volume, in the provision for certain Services, in particular the decrease of £400,000 in the Estimate for Employment Schemes and the decrease of nearly £144,000 in the Estimate for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance.

Senators may wish me to refer briefly to those decreases. As regards Employment Schemes, all I can say is, that the Estimate of £1,000,000 for the coming year represents the amount which, in the light of past experience, and on the basis of past expenditure, it was estimated would be spent in the coming financial year. If we were to include in the Estimates Volume (which, let it be remembered, is prepared long in advance of the commencement of the financial year) additional amounts to cover contingencies which cannot clearly be foreseen, we should have the total of the Estimates Volume inflated to an enormous and unreal figure. The course followed, and the only course which could be followed, is to estimate on the basis of probable expenditure in the light of the facts available at the time the Estimate is being prepared. As I have already stated in the Dáil, there are schemes for the provision of employment at present under examination, and if I am satisfied that proper employment can be provided I shall not stop at the £1,000,000 now provided for Employment Schemes in the Book of Estimates.

In considering the decrease of £144,000 in the Estimate for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance, it should be remembered that, in the Budget for the current financial year, a reduction of £125,000 was made in the Estimate figure shown in the Volume. The apparent decrease of £144,000 should, therefore, be reduced to £19,000, and this latter figure is more than accounted for by an increase of £31,000 in Appropriations-in-Aid. In reality, therefore, the effective provision in the Vote for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance instead of being decreased by £144,000 is increased by some £12,000 odd.

The Estimates for 1941-42 as compared with the current year's Estimates, including Supplementary Estimates, show increases on 27 Estimates and decreases on 42 Estimates. Four Estimates show no change. The total of the increases on the several Estimates is £1,836,632, while the total of the decreases is £1,138,877. I propose to comment briefly on the principal increases and decreases, other than those to which I have already referred.

Vote 7—Old Age Pensions—shows an increase of £140,500 due to a large increase in the number of pensioners.

Vote 10—Public Works and Buildings —is down by £93,160. There are decreases of £5,000 on sub-head A—Purchase of Sites and Buildings, £124,010 on sub-head B—New Works, Alterations and Additions, partly off-set by increases of £25,000 on sub-head C— Maintenance and Supplies, £9,500 on sub-head F—Fuel, Light, Water Cleaning, etc., and a net increase of £2,190 on the group of sub-heads relating to arterial drainage. Under sub-head B the main decreases are £195,500 for the Dublin and Shannon Airports which are nearing completion, and £59,000 for various new works for the Department of Defence, partly off-set by an increase of £75,000 for national schools. The increase of £25,000 on sub-head C is mainly in respect of painting work which was postponed in the current year but which must be carried out in 1941-42.

Vote 30—Agriculture—shows a reduction of £55,375. The principal decrease, £64,742, occurs under sub-head N (1)— Diseases of Animals (Ireland) Acts— and is due to the expectation that the present heavy expenditure necessitated by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease will not be repeated in 1941-42. There is a reduction of £16,400 in the provision under sub-head M (5) for improvement of the creamery industry, owing to the non-recurrence of heavy capital expenditure on creameries in the present year. Appropriations-in-Aid are up by £14,578, due mainly to the increase in repayments from the Employment Schemes Vote in respect of the administration costs of the farm improvements scheme, thus off-setting in part the increase of £16,770 under sub-head M (11). The salaries sub-head A shows an increase of £7,039, due to normal increments and additional staff for (a) compulsory tillage and (b) the farm improvements scheme, the costs of the latter being recoverable under Appropriations-in-Aid from the Employment Schemes Vote. Grants to county committees of agriculture under sub-head H are up by £8,060, due in part to an automatic increase in the normal grant following increased contributions by local authorities, and in part to an increase in the special grant for lime. Sub-head M (7) is up by £11,995 in respect of allowances for the storage of butter for winter requirements, etc.

Vote 33, Gárda Síochána, shows a decrease of £33,934. This is due mainly to the provision for expenses of the Local Security Force under sub-head O being down by £72,787. In the current year there was heavy expenditure on clothing and equipment for Group A of the force (now the Local Defence Force), which will in future be provided for in the Army Vote. Sub-head I is down by £5,100 owing to non-recurring expenditure incurred during the current year on reserve stocks of fuel. Similarly, sub-head N is down by £13,157, due to non-recurring expenditure in the present year on wireless equipment and safes for the custody of official documents. There are partly off-setting increases of £22,230 under sub-head A, and £22,808 under sub-head P. The increase under sub-head A is due to the expectation that there will be fewer vacancies in the Gárda force during 1941-42 than in the current year, and the increase under sub-head P, Capitation Grants for the Local Security Force, is due to an anticipated increase in numbers and to the provision for payment of the full grant of £1 per man in 1941-42. Appropriations-in-Aid are down by £3,460 owing to a fall in percentage payments from the Road Fund.

Vote 41, Local Government and Public Health, is up by £18,487. The increase of £3,374 under sub-head A is due to annual salary increments. Sub-head L (1) is up by £4,160, due to an extension of the scheme for the provision of school meals and to rising prices therefor. The increase of £9,250 under sub-head N, for treatment of tuberculosis, is also due to rising costs and prices. There is also an increase of £70,460 under sub-head S (1) in respect of contributions towards loan charges of housing schemes undertaken by local authorities. These follow more or less automatically on the additional housing schemes of local authorities. There is an off-setting decrease of £70,000 under sub-head S (2), due to a fall in applications for grants for private houses, etc., in urban areas.

Vote 46, Primary Education, shows a decrease of £29,706. Sub-head A (1) is down by £2,329, due to a fall in the number of men students in training colleges; and sub-head A (3) is down by £4,647, owing to a fall in the number of pupils and professors in preparatory colleges. Sub-head C (1) shows a reduction of £16,100, owing to a fall in the number of principal and assistant teachers. Appropriations-in-Aid are up by £2,800, due mainly to a greater yield from securities in the Pension Fund.

Vote 52, Lands, is down by £115,135. The main decrease of £102,305 occurs under sub-head I, Improvement of Estates, etc., and is due, in part, to less activity in land division, and also to shortage of materials. The reduction in activity is very largely due to the taking away of a great many of the staff of the Land Commission for work in the Department of Agriculture due to the tillage campaign, and also due to shortage of materials, in part. The decrease of £7,455 on sub-head A, Salaries, etc., is due to the non-filling of vacancies in the examiners' branch and the inspectorate staff.

Vote 53, Forestry, shows a reduction of £43,991. The main decrease of £20,000 occurs under sub-head C (1)— Grant-in-Aid for Acquisition of Land. As indicated in a footnote to the Estimate, however, it is estimated that an unspent balance of £10,000, out of previous Grants-in-Aid, will be on hands, and available for the acquisition of land, on the 31st March next. In last year's Estimate it was anticipated that the balance on hands on the 31st March, 1940, would be nil. Appropriations-in-Aid are up by £20,110 due to greater demand for home timber and increased prices therefor.

Vote 55, Industry and Commerce, shows a decrease of £38,351. We are not at present participating in the New York World Fair and hence the reduction of £7,880 under sub-head H H. Only a token provision is being made for Contribution to the International Labour Organisation involving a reduction of £4,435 under sub-head I. The L group of sub-heads which provide for grants to the Turf Development Board, Ltd., show a net reduction of £20,380. The main reduction is in respect of Clonsast Bog, for which a substantial amount of working capital had to be provided in the current year. This becomes automatically available in the future according as sales are effected. There is a partly off-setting increase of £7,630 in the grant for Lullymore Bog to provide for the making of briquettes.

Vote 61, Post and Telegraphs, shows an increase of £27,708. The salary sub-heads A (1)-A (4) show a net increase of £11,270 due partly to normal increments and partly to the substitution of members of the staff who have joined the Army. The difference between their normal pay and Army pay is paid from this Vote. Sub-head G (1) Stores—and sub-head G (2)— Uniform Clothing—are up by £6,520 due mainly to increased costs. Sub-head I (1) and I (2)—Salaries and Travelling Expenses of the Engineering Establishment, are up by £14,642 due to the ending of a big programme of capital works the cost of which in past years was charged to the Telephone Capital Account. The agency payments under sub-head N (3), which are up by £7,650, are recoverable in full from the British Government under Appropriations-in-Aid. There is an increase of £6,145 under sub-head Q (2) in respect of equipment and maintenance charges, etc., for civil aviation and meteorological wireless services. The provision for engineering materials under sub-head K is down by £17,171 due mainly to non-recurrent expenditure in laying in large reserve stocks during the present year.

Vote 64, Army Pensions, is up by £68,044. The main increase of £74,323 occurs under sub-head K and is due to additional awards of Military Service Pensions under the 1934 Act, made recently or expected to be made during 1941-42. There is a partly off-setting decrease of £8,968 under sub-head G —Wound and Disability Pensions and Gratuities, etc.—due to a fall in the provision for new pensions expected to be granted in 1941-42.

Vote 66, League of Nations, shows a decrease of £11,940, due to the fact that only a token provision of £10 is being made owing to the suspension of the normal activities of the League.

Vote 68, Agricultural Produce Subsidies, shows a reduction of £89,100. £250,000 is provided under sub-head M (7) of the Estimate for Agriculture in respect of allowances for the provision of butter for winter requirements, etc. In previous years provision was made for this item in the Export Subsidies Estimate, which Estimate is now replaced by the present Estimate for Agricultural Produce Subsidies.

Mr. Counihan

I am glad of the opportunity which the Minister's presence affords to raise the question of credit for farmers, particularly as we have not the pleasure of seeing the Minister very often in this House. In a motion recently discussed in the Seanad, a request was made to the Minister for Agriculture to set up a committee to inquire into the matter of frozen loans and to make recommendations for the provision of credit for farmers. The reason for the setting up of such a committee was very clearly and ably set forth by Senator Professor Johnston and Senator Baxter, but, in my opinion, they stressed too much the question of the settlement of frozen loans. The question of frozen loans is not at all as important as the matter of immediate credit for farmers. I agree with the statement made by Senator Sir John Keane that a good many of these frozen loans have been settled by the banks themselves and, I will admit, very liberally settled. I understand that there are very few farmers now affected by those frozen loans. Most of them have been taken over by the Agricultural Credit Corporation and, from what I understand, they are paying for the advances they received from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I believe that what Senator Johnston and Senator Baxter Complained of was the policy of the banks in dealing so generously with farmers who would do nothing but tell them to go to hell while giving no consideration whatever to many honest farmers. That is a policy which puts a premium on dishonesty. It is demoralising all the members of the community and is discouraging the payment of lawful debts.

We all know that there are thousands of honest, industrious farmers, who bought land at peak prices and who were encouraged by the banks to do so. They paid exorbitant rates of interest for many years out of working capital on these lands. They are now without credit or capital and they will not get the smallest consideration from the banks. This is the class of cases which, I think, Senator Johnston and Senator Baxter want considered by the committee, and which, in my opinion, should be considered. I was surprised at the opposition of Senator Sir John Keane to the motion. It is difficult to understand why he objects to a conference consisting of two or three representatives of the banks nominated by the Banks Standing Committee, two or three farmers' representatives, one or two economists, and a representative of the Department of Finance, the Department of Agriculture, and the Land Commission and the director of the Agricultural Credit Corporation.

Cathaoirleach

The Senator will understand that it would not be in order on this Bill to re-debate the merits of that motion.

Mr. Counihan

I am making a request to the Minister to set up a committee to inquire into the matter. I think that that is relevant to the Bill, as there is a question of credit for farmers raised by the Bill.

Cathaoirleach

The Senator may proceed on those lines.

Mr. Counihan

I believe that if such a conference were set up it would devise a scheme which in a very short time would settle this question and restore to the farmers their independence, encourage production, relieve unemployment, and leave the farmers prosperous and contented. More than 12 months ago I proposed in this House a scheme which I am convinced would meet the farmers' needs for credit without any loss to the State. The Seanad recommended that the Minister for Agriculture should ask the Commission on Agriculture which was then sitting to consider the question, but that was not done. I now ask the Minister for Finance to call such a conference as I suggest. The conference cannot do any harm, and it will not cost the Government any money. It would consider my scheme in a very short time, and if it could not agree to the proposals which I have made, it would, I am sure, devise some scheme of providing credit which is very badly needed for the harvest.

I shall explain the scheme which I have proposed by giving an example of how it would work. Let us take the case of a farmer who prior to 1933 was paying an annuity of £100. Under the 1933 Land Act that farmer got £50 of his annuity remitted. I propose now that that £50 should be capitalised at 20 years' purchase and given to the farmer in the shape of bonds bearing interest at four per cent. I am assured by the highest authorities in the banks that the banks would be prepared to advance 90 per cent. of the market value of these land bonds at three percent. interest if the bonds were lodged in the name of the bank. If we assume that the bonds were issued at par, that would give the farmer £900 working capital. The farmer's liability on the £1,000 worth of bonds would be £900. The interest and sinking fund due to the Land Commission would amount to £50, while the interest to the bank at three per cent. on the £900 advanced, would amount to £27, bringing his total liabilities to £77. We have to deduct from that, however, the dividends on the bonds—namely, £40 which would leave the net liability which the farmer would have to meet for the £900 credit, £37, or four per cent.

I am assured by the Land Commission that the redemption of an annuity of £1,000 would be less than £50 a year and, as the ordinary farmer would not require the whole £900 for the whole year, he will only have to pay interest on the amount he would have withdrawn, and that would be, perhaps, for six or seven months, which would leave the interest he would have to pay to the bank at less than £27. So, on the whole, the farmer would have his credit and the bank would have perfect security for the loan. If a farmer were fortunate to get this advance from the Agricultural Credit Corporation on the usual terms, which is 20 years, it would stand him £80 a year or, if lent for the purchase of stock on a 10 years' basis, it would stand about £140. It would cost him more as they were charging, up to a few months ago, 6 per cent., and the interest on the loans is now 5 per cent. Those are plain figures which anyone can understand, and I assure the House that they are a correct statement of the facts. Deputy James Dillon, who approved of my scheme, believed that the bonds should be the sole property of the farmer, and that there should be no claim against them except for the amount awarded for credit on them. Senator Johnston believes that there should be a portion—or some amount of the bonds—reserved for paying off debts by the farmer and should be sold immediately. However, all those details can be worked out if we have the conference, so I appeal to the Minister to set up that conference and to let the people work out a scheme which would be satisfactory.

Everyone must admit now that credit for farmers is the life-blood of our agricultural industry, and that it must be found if we are to increase production. I trust that the Minister will not turn down the request which I am making, and I hope that Senator Sir John Keane will withdraw his objection to the setting-up of this conference. I am not asking for that to which Senator Keane objects—a commission on agriculture, or something that would be long-drawn out, like the Banking Commission, and which would hear a lot of evidence. The people whom I am suggesting could sit around a table, and I am certain that they would either agree or disagree, or start to formulate a set scheme, in two or three sittings. At any rate, it cannot do any harm. It would not cost any money. If the Minister would invite them to come they would come, at their own expense. We cannot do anything without the co-operation of the banks, and I hope that, for that reason, Senator Keane will withdraw his objections.

Mr. M. Hayes

If the Minister could be sure that Senator Counihan was right—that this scheme would cost the State no money and would make the farmers happy and contented—I believe his answer would be a foregone conclusion. He would have a conference to investigate this scheme. Seriously, the scheme put forward by Senator Counihan is one which I, personally, am not competent to judge. It did receive substantial backing and, in the present extraordinary circumstances, it would seem that it would be well worth investigation by competent people. The Senator is asking for such an investigation, and I believe he should get it.

With regard to the Central Fund Bill, the Minister has given us very many details. It would be easy to go into these details and fail to see the wood owing to the careful examination of the various kinds of trees. I do not propose to do that. It should be made clear—and I am sure the Minister will agree—that the only thing certain about our expenditure for the coming financial year is that we have to pay this £12,000,000. What else we may have to pay, nobody knows; and it would be difficult to estimate it. There is, perhaps, a certain sympathy due to the Minister since he has to budget in such an uncertain and difficult situation. He says that the increase is due entirely to an increase in the cost of the Army. I notice that while last year in one of his moods— and he has many different moods— concluding the debate he boasted that this Government has always increased expenditure and would also continue to do so, this year in a rather mild way he says that except for the Army the Estimates show a decrease.

I have no doubt that, in the details of the Estimates, the Department of Finance has been doing its job in endeavouring to make decreases and that there are small decreases here and there. Senators and the public should be clear that what causes an increase in expenditure is rather Government policy than anything else, and naturally so. The Minister has to budget for a scheme of expenditure in a war situation, after seven years of a policy which involved—and was proud to involve—increased expenditure every year. Perhaps one would not object to increased expenditure if one could see the results of that expenditure around, but we have been in the position—and we came into the war situation in the position—of a country which had been steadily increasing its expenditure and which had not been increasing its productive capacity.

Just for a moment I should like to touch upon certain important matters in a brief way. We had a number of problems to solve and the Minister and his colleagues assured us they could solve them—political, cultural and economic problems. Our position, however, is that we have spent a great deal of money and arrived at a position where it is difficult to carry on and to know where we can get more money when we need it very sorely. At the same time, we have not solved our political, cultural or economic problems. We have not solved the political problem of Partition, nor even the political problem within the Twenty-Six Counties of having the ordinary courts functioning, as distinct from the Military Tribunal, to try political offences.

In respect of our expenditure on education, we have not improved our position from the point of view of the Irish language or of education generally. From the point of view of economics, we have not been able, in the number of years since 1932, to put the same number of new people in employment as were going into extra employment every year from 1927 to 1932. That is a very remarkable position, considering the extraordinary expenditure.

With regard to our present situation, there are a few questions with which I would like to deal and on which the Minister might, perhaps, be able to give us some information. We have been told on several occasions, and again recently, by the Minister for Supplies that the Government, like other Governments, foresaw the war and had made every effort to obtain supplies and to ensure their equitable distribution. I will not deal now with the question of distribution at all, but examining the returns of imports, it is very difficult to see what was done to get us supplies. Our imports in 1937 were £44,000,000, and they were less every year after that. In September, 1938, notice was served and accepted that a war was coming, but, since that period, we did not import any more, and it is very difficult to see, therefore, what arrangements were made to deal with a war situation. It certainly does not appear in the trade returns and it surely is not possible that we got stuff in without paying for it, or that it was not included in the trade returns. I know, of course, there was an index price figure, but, up to 1939, that index price figure did not vary in such a degree as to make any appreciable difference in the figures quoted for the bulk prices of imports. That is one question. Where do we find any evidence in the trade returns that efforts were made by the Government to provide for an emergency?

The second question suggests itself from another remark made by the Minister for Supplies here, and it is this: in July, 1940, after the fall of France, people were asked to lay in certain stores. That was regarded as a national duty by people who could do so, and the Minister gave an excellent and a very worthy explanation of that request made by the Government. I understood from him, and it was generally thought, that ships which were due to be sent to France were diverted to this country instead, but what has never been made clear, and I wonder if the Minister for Finance could make it clear now, is what did we get in the way of extra imports and supplies about that time? We know that supplies were put into storage in private houses and elsewhere at that time, but there is no evidence that we got anything more into the country or, that if we did, we know where it is?

With regard to the cost of the Army, there is this to be said: the cost increased every year from 1932 onwards. It would be reasonable to say, I think, that in the situation that then prevailed from 1932 to 1937 or 1938, the getting of equipment, that is modern equipment, might have been undesirable because equipment goes out-of-date very shortly, and there was then no immediate sign of war. But, Sir, in 1938, there was a sign of war, and yet we reached the beginning of the war in 1939 with an Army the cost of which had increased very substantially for the previous seven years, but, apparently, the armaments of which had not increased at all in proportion.

One would wonder what was done to provide us with a properly equipped Army in the period between September, 1938, and September, 1939. What was it that was bought, or what amount was expected which would put us in the position of having a modernly equipped Army? I do not want, of course, any military secrets, but I do suggest that nothing at all was done, and I would like to suggest also that the reason nothing was done was this: that a Minister was in charge whose whole purpose was to avoid buying Army equipment from England. He failed to get it anywhere else, and he ended up by not having it at all, and by being removed from his position. Our extraordinary situation now is that the Minister whose neglect gave us an Army which had not modern equipment when it needed it most, has now, after 18 months of war, gone to America to seek that equipment after that particular period of neglect.

As I am on that, the Minister for Finance, I think, is an authority on Protocols and the arrangements that should be made between States or countries which observe these things. We are told by our own Government here that a Minister has gone to America on an official mission to the American Government to seek certain types of supplies, but the President of the United States of America was reported a few days ago in our newspapers as saying that he was not aware of the reasons for our Minister's visit to the United States, at least, he was not aware officially. Surely one would expect that he would be aware officially? Is it possible that we did take up the stand of sending the Minister to America without acquainting the State Department of all the particulars? It seems difficult to believe that would be so, because it would be extraordinary if we did not acquaint the State Department before broadcasting the news of the visit to American citizens.

Apart from that, the other question which occupies people's minds at the moment is a question upon which the Minister himself touched in the other House. That is the very often repeated request for co-operation with the Government by all citizens and all Parties. Co-operation implies work on two sides. It requires two parties to it. It requires, I think, mutual confidence, mutual respect, and a certain number of convictions held in common. It is very easy for us to recognise the Government's legitimate title to govern, its authority, and the respect which, as a Government in office, it deserves, the scope of its authority and its operations, but it is not easy to have confidence and respect for any particular Government and it is difficult to see what, even at this eleventh hour, is now being done to win co-operation.

I have yet to learn that the Government takes anybody into its confidence beforehand about any of the things it wants to do, and, in particular, any of the important things; that anybody in this country, except the members of the Government, knows any more than he can see by the newspapers as an intelligent reader of what is happening or what the Government proposals are. In that situation what does the demand —perhaps I should use the word "request"—for co-operation mean. It is that the Government wants the help of everybody to carry out the Government's policy—not the Government's policy as it might be amended or improved, let us say, by anybody's advice and assistance. They simply desire that their own policy, declared by themselves in their own time and in their own way, should go through, with the assistance and co-operation, and indeed a word of praise from all concerned. That is the kind of co-operation which, with the best of goodwill and the best understanding of our national needs, it is very, very difficult to give.

Take what is being done about our present problems. In the matter of supplies, and the distribution of supplies, I think we have no sure touch, no decision reached or carried out, either with or without consultation with others. We have been told that a national register is something which is not going to be carried out now, but it may be carried out in the future when the situation alters for the worse. I wonder could the Minister for Finance tell us whether his Department has made any calculation as to the cost of preparing a national register, and the number of persons who would have to be employed, assuming that the work would have to be done entirely by paid labour? I think it was mentioned somewhere—I have not got the exact quotation—that it would take 1,000 civil servants. I wonder?

In any event, seeing that we have had plans already prepared for a couple of years, it should be easy to say now what the cost of a national register would be and what time it might take to prepare. I see no serious effort to deal with a situation created by a shortage and no plans of any kind except to increase the cost of government, and even no rational approaches to any other persons in the State outside the Government, except a mixture—I suppose I should call it a delicate mixture—of vulgar personal abuse combined with dignified appeals for co-operation. That, I think, will not get us anything more forward in our present situation.

I began by saying that this Bill does not give us any indication of what our total expenditure may be. It is difficult to do that and it seems to me that, apart altogether from the Army —one wonders about the Army—there will be other things to spend. One wonders about the Army whether the actual addition of men is in fact the best way to give us an efficient defence. But apart from the Army, we have another situation in the country which will, I think, call upon us for more expenditure and that is a position in which a section of our population will find it impossible to get certain necessaries. I think we shall have to adopt a system of rationing these necessaries in a very rigid manner and of adding to rationing a provision by which for even the poorest sections of the community the price will be such that they can get what they require of these essentials. I am afraid, therefore, that from the point of view of finance and expenditure we cannot in any way hope for a reduction but rather for an increase. Certainly, if we are to avoid an enemy within our gates, who may be more hurtful to us in the long run than any enemy from outside, we shall have to ensure that if certain things go short the poorer sections of our population will get at least the bare necessaries of life. Whether we have to do that by subsidising prices or not, I think we shall have to do it in any event. But what we are faced with is a situation in which our expenditure is difficult to estimate and in which for years we have been spending money on purposes none of which we have accomplished.

I mentioned a figure of £44,000,000 for imports and yet when we import £44,000,000 worth in a normal year, 1937, of this Government's operation, and when it would appear that our great crying need at the moment to keep our factories going and to keep our people at work is more imports, we have people able to get up and say that a policy of self-sufficiency has been in operation and that it is a pity we have not gone further on the road. It is difficult to know how people in charge of important things such as finance can allow themselves to be, one might almost say, doped and deceived by phrases and by propaganda. We are not self-sufficient.

We have spent a great deal of money and, incidentally, put a great deal of money into certain people's pockets, in our futile effort to be self-sufficient, and now we find ourselves in this very grave difficulty wondering whether our taxable capacity is not going to be materially reduced and our expenditure therefore reduced, simply because we cannot get more imports. That is the situation to which we have been brought by a certain amount of muddled thinking and by a policy which has succeeded in increasing our expenditure steadily year by year but has not increased our productive capacity and has not increased our employment.

Sir John Keane

I do not propose to take up the time of the House by arguing or discussing what I did or did not oppose in reference to Senator Counihan's motion. My recollection is that I only opposed some rather fantastic and dangerous scheme for bringing these frozen loans within a formula. My reason for my opposition was that it would be to the detriment of the farmers if the matter were approached in that way at all. I have no objection to a conference to examine the question of credit for farmers. In fact I think the matter need not go to a conference at all. If the Government think credit for farmers is necessary they can simply guarantee securities in certain cases which the banks or other institutions do not like to accept. It would be quite simple if the Government really wanted to do it in a straightforward way. I do not know if a conference would get you any further. I have no objection to a conference and no objection to the examination of that rather ingenious scheme which Senator Counihan has propounded. But I have an objection to one thing. Are you going to further increase the annuities when in some cases the farmers are not paying their annuities at present? I cannot help feeling that farmers who want extra accommodation are at present in arrears with their annuities.

What I want to bring out is a rather different matter, of which the Government, I think, have had notice. It is the question of trying to ease the hardships imposed by rising prices in respect of those who are unfortunate enough to have to seek home assistance and outdoor relief in some form or other. The suggestion I have to make is that the Government should take an interest and show sympathy and give necessary assistance in this matter of communal feeding. In ordinary times I should say that the whole basis of State assistance for the general feeding of sections of the community is unsound, but I think the present emergency puts the whole matter on an entirely different basis. Above all, those in want must be adequately nourished. If it cannot be done in their homes it must be done in some other way.

I understand there is a certain number of voluntary institutions already working in this matter, and I understand the Government have been in touch with these institutions. What I am afraid of is that the whole question will get on to a file and that it will be tremendously slowed down by the safeguards the Government may consider it desirable to impose on the expenditure of public money. I do feel that if anything is going to be done at all it should be done as quickly as possible. I believe if the whole matter is left largely to voluntary agencies it will go forward much more quickly than if the Government impose conditions and generally try to co-ordinate the activities of these bodies. I am fully in sympathy with the necessity of protecting public moneys, but I think the amounts would be comparatively small. I do not think they need be big; I should imagine that two or three thousand pounds probably would be quite sufficient to provide the capital equipment that these feeding centres would require. If that is done, I believe—and the experience of England shows—they can be placed on a self-supporting basis. I would ask the Government to approach it in that manner: to make the fullest use of voluntary organisations, to impose the minimum of restrictions and conditions on any small grants. I do not ask for anything more than small grants for equipment that they may see their way to give.

I ask the Government also not to segregate those who probably can afford to pay for these meals out of their own money from those who have to get them through the means of assistance. I would suggest that these voluntary organisations be allowed to operate on whatever charges they find necessary to cover their expenses—I understand they are seeking to make no profit—and that those who come under the home assistance committees should be given tickets on which they can get those meals at a reduced figure; or, if public assistance authorities think fit, they need not themselves pay at all but the poor law authorities should pay direct. I do think it is most important to avoid this question of segregation and not to allow people who are getting these meals in the form of assistance to feel that they stand separately or that there is any stigma of poverty attaching to them.

I do not think there should be any restriction on those who like to use these voluntary organisations. In England, no difficulties are put in the way of people getting their meals in these communal centres. There is no means test or anything like that imposed. I feel that this is doubly important in view of what may happen. If organisation is pushed on, a good deal of the work necessary in the unfortunate event of air attacks, and what follows from them, would be already done. Provision for this special system of feeding would already have been made, and a great lot of valuable experience would be gained. It would be available in case of emergency, whereas if it had to be organised hurriedly, it would be likely to be badly done.

I understand there is some legal objection or prohibition of home assistance being given in kind; that it can only be given in money. I may be wrong in that, but I was informed by one who is prominently connected with the administration of this system, that that is so, and that relief in kind cannot be given under the present law. If that is so, it should be remedied. I presume it could be done by order. I think we all agree that in these times communal feeding is necessary. Under that system, people would be able to get meals at lower prices. Communal feeding would also save the consumption of fuel in the homes of the poor. Indeed, all people are faced with difficulty there. In summer time, of course, no fires will be wanted where a communal feeding system is in use. I hope the Government will be sympathetic with this matter and not approach it too punctiliously. The only way it can be properly done is by voluntary organisations. A great deal of good can certainly be done in that way. There are various people and various bodies such as the Red Cross and the St. Vincent de Paul Society in existence, well qualified to carry on that work. Let them come along spontaneously and get going with the minimum restrictions, and they will go far to supply the meals.

Mr. McEllin

In existing circumstances, of course, it is very hard to get away from things that matter in connection with the safeguarding and the security of our country, but there is one point that I wish to mention. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to a matter which has been appearing in the papers for some time concerning stockbrokers. We have had evidence recently that, either through stupidity or neglect or insolvency, a certain stockbroker in the South of Ireland——

Sir John Keane

On a point of order, is not the Senator discussing a case which is sub judice?

Cathaoirleach

The case is sub judice and cannot be discussed.

Mr. McEllin

I am not discussing the case. I am only trying to insist on the necessity of safeguarding the interests of stockholders or investors.

Cathaoirleach

The Senator should not refer to a matter which is at present under investigation. He should not mention a specific case.

Mr. McEllin

I will leave that now, but I would like that the Government should give the matter consideration and the principle involved. There should be some control and some security for people who invest their money in such circumstances. I will leave it at that. With regard to the whole general question of credit for farmers which Senator Counihan mentioned, it must be remembered that in existing circumstances, and in view of the future of the country, any money made available to farmers, and put into production, is bound to be returned very substantially. But, when you come to the question of giving credit to individual farmers there must be some prospect that the money so advanced will be put into production, and that not only the interest, but the capital also will be paid back. We have in Senator Counihan's suggestion something to the effect that credit should be advanced to a farmer for the purpose of paying off debts that he had already incurred. If that is so, part of the capital advanced to such farmers would be thrown away, without any prospect of reproducing itself.

Mr. Counihan

The Senator must not have listened to what I said or else he would not make that statement.

Mr. McEllin

I listened carefully and I understood that he advocated that credit should be given to a farmer who had already incurred debts. If a farmer had not already incurred debts his credit would be good anywhere, as a general rule. I never knew a farmer not seriously in debt, who was refused credit by anyone. If a farmer is not able to get credit anywhere it is because he is already in debt. If such a man gets an advance the temptation is to pay off the debt that he has already incurred.

Mr. Counihan

And why not?

Mr. McEllin

He will be in no better position to pay the next man who comes along to whom he owes money. And what is more important, instead of putting the money advanced to him into reproductive work, he uses it to clear off debts he has already incurred, and the result is that money is dead and lost and the man is back in his old position. I think that is a good argument. You must make sure that if a farmer is to get credit now he must be in a position to put the money he receives into production and that money is not advanced merely for the purpose of paying off debts. Steps should be taken to insist that the farmer who gets credit should utilise the money for the purpose of increasing production.

Senator Hayes raised the question, generally, of supplies. There seems to my mind to be a general misconception with regard to what the duties of the State, and the Department of Supplies are in regard to these matters. Before the outbreak of the war I have personal knowledge of the fact that the Department of Industry and Commerce sent warning to industrialists all over the country that they should lay in substantial supplies, and warning them that they could not guarantee what the future might be, as war might break out at any time.

A number of industrialists took very careful heed of that advice at that particular time; so much so, that they laid in substantial supplies and maintained those substantial supplies during the war period since. They availed of every opportunity there was for getting further supplies, but that surplus was maintained since the beginning of the war, and they got very substantial assistance from the banks to enable them to do so. On the other hand, I have a quite distinct recollection—we might as well be frank in this matter— of speaking to a lot of directors and managing directors of companies in this country a month or two prior to the war, and the general trend of the conversation of some of these people was: "Oh, you cannot take that kind of talk seriously; these fellows are going round because they have nothing else to do," and so on. That is what happened, and some of these people are already in trouble with their industries, and have had cause to regret that they did not heed the warnings, and some of these are the very people who are most inclined to blame the Government to-day, trying to cover up their own negligence. So long as they have somebody to abuse, or somebody to make a cockshot of, by way of relieving themselves of the responsibility, they do not mind, and they will be as abusive as they can.

Now, that is not fair either to themselves or to the people who are working, and have been doing their best to meet the situation. I do not want to defend the Government, but I say that that attitude is not fair. So far as the Department of Supplies is concerned I, at any rate, have always found that where I gave them sufficient notice of the supplies that I required, generally speaking, they were either able to tell me that there was very little prospect, or else they were able to deliver the goods. At least months before the crisis occurred I knew exactly where we stood, but in no case or at no time was the Department of Supplies an official buyer for any particular industry.

That was not their business, but the general line of argument against the Department of Supplies to-day is that they did not supply individuals privately with the supplies they required to keep them going. The Department of Supplies was never intended for that, but I presume that the business of the Department of Supplies was to set up contacts with London or anywhere else from which these supplies originally came, and to arrange for shipping space or other space, if possible, to secure that supplies would be delivered to our people. So far as I know, however, the Department of Supplies was never intended at any time to be purchasers for any private individual or concern—it is possible that I am wrong, but that is what I understood—except, perhaps, in certain special cases where they set up separate companies, such as Grain Importers, Limited, for the purpose of importing commodities, or other exceptional cases of that sort.

Accordingly, we have to draw the line in making these general attacks on the Department of Supplies, and we have to realise that the enterprise and resource of the individuals or group of industrialists must be maintained. They must take the initiative, and it is only by maintaining the initiative and foresight on the part of the purchasers, coupled with any assistance that the Department of Supplies might be able to give them, through contacts which the Department have with other Governments abroad, that our industrialists can be kept going. That is the proper system and the only system. Now, with regard to the general spirit of co-operation, my view, at any rate, is that there is more of a spirit of co-operation among the ordinary people of the countryside now than ever there was. There might not be a spirit of co-operation between the Leaders of either of the big Parties in this House or the other House because, judging by the fire that they have directed at one another, one would be led to believe that the war had started here already—even before it has come to this country at all.

Mr. Baxter

The Senator is not a great peacemaker himself—here, sometimes, at any rate.

Mr. McEllin

Oh, I can always shake any man's hand if he is big enough to shake mine. Anyhow, the people down the country have a general feeling of a spirit of co-operation. They have their parish councils, and in some areas these parish councils are working particularly well. I know of some of them that have acquired very large stocks belonging to the council for the use of the people—stocks, not of money but of kind, stocks of tea, butter, flour and so on, at the disposal of the council. These are people who are taking the work very seriously, but you have other parish councils who are only interested in passing resolutions and condemning the Government or somebody else for not doing everything for them.

In one case you have a standard of interestedness and in the other case you have a standard of disinterestedness. You have the people who are more interested in passing these pious resolutions, blaming other people, and all the rest of it, as distinct from the conscientious people. There is no section of the community to-day in a better position to maintain the poor or the starving, in the case of any dislocation of supplies, than these parish councils, and there is no excuse in the world for any parish council in Ireland not having a reasonable amount of supplies, to tide them over a few months, at any rate. If you had that, I think you would be over three-fourths of your difficulties as far as feeding the people is concerned.

You have also had plenty of evidence with regard to ordinary voluntary workers here in the city in response to appeals by the Departments concerned. You had an illustration of that with regard to the arrangements for the evacuation of women and children here in the city. Undoubtedly, a number of these civilian teachers and others worked day and night without any remuneration—they got abuse more than anything else— and worked very conscientiously for months on all these schemes for providing for the women and children in the city here. You have other people down the country at the present time working in connection with the Local Security Force. You have clergymen, teachers, and so on, going around from house to house making arrangements in that connection. There is an enormous amount of voluntary work being done, and that is the best and clearest example of how conscientiously the people are thinking and how they are co-operating in this work, and it shows that they are not interested in the ordinary political whims that exist up here. The work is going on quietly and surely, and these people are not blowing their own trumpets or playing bands, announcing what they are doing. If the public does not generally appreciate what a tremendous amount of work is being done, nevertheless, I myself feel that we have made very effective arrangements, all things considered, and that a very good machine has been created that will help this country over a great many of its difficulties.

After all, there is no use in minimising these things or going all out to abuse either the Government or its officials in view of all the circumstances and all the amount of work that has been done. I know that mistakes have been made and, goodness knows, we are all inclined sometimes to have a skelp at the Government or at a Minister, now and again, with regard to some particular matter or another. Generally speaking, we are in a very strong position. We have a grand Army and the members of it have worked very hard.

I visited a barracks recently and the tremendous amount of work that was going on there was a revelation to me—the efficiency, the detail with which the officers and men had studied everything connected with their work and, more than anything else, the grim determination behind their outlook. It was their grim determination that impressed me most. I think it only right that we here in this House, even though we may feel some disappointment in regard to general administration should, at least, give some little encouragement in the way of paying a little deserved compliment now and again to the officers and men in the Army from the Chief of Staff downwards, for the tremendous amount of work they must have put in in the past 12 months. Nobody can form an accurate idea of the amount of work entailed in organising that Army. Yet all that has been accomplished without any serious dislocation, abuse or corruption. I am quite satisfied, from the study I personally made of conditions within these barracks, and from the grim determination displayed by our soldiers, that should any aggressor attempt to invade this country, the fighting ability of the men now in the Army will surpass even anything demonstrated by Irish soldiers in the past.

I should like that to be clearly understood and I should like to see from the opposite side, as well as from this side of the House, some words of encouragement for these men. A little bit of praise and encouragement in difficult circumstances may act as some compensation for the hard work which the men in the Army have undergone in the past 12 months. I should like it to go out from this House now to every man in the Army that we are proud of them and that we look to them with confidence, to their leadership and to their determination, to keep this country secure from all danger in the future.

Mr. Douglas

I think it was on this Bill last year that I expressed the opinion that we should be likely to get through the difficulties facing us during the ensuing 12 months much more effectively if we had a national Government. I do not propose now to re-develop these arguments though nothing has occurred since to cause me to change my mind. I can say, however, that I do not know of any of my friends who would want to take the position of the present Minister if, by any chance, there was to be a change. I think that whatever criticism we may have to advance in dealing with the general policy of the Government, one must appreciate the colossal task under these circumstances which falls upon the shoulders of the Minister for Finance and his Department. Many of us view with very grave misgivings, and not without a certain amount of fear, a possible addition to unemployment and a possible addition to our difficulties by the increase in taxation which now seems inevitable. The task of imposing that taxation so that the burden may be placed where it can do least harm and where it can best be borne will require a great deal of skill. I am perfectly certain that we wish the Minister the best of luck in planning the future. That we shall be able to deal with on a later Bill.

In this Bill, our duty is to deal with the general policy of the Government, particularly with matters which may involve expenditure or on which desirable expenditure has not been made. The Minister, on more than one occasion, complained that in debates of this kind he is always told how to spend more money but very seldom told how he can get any more. I do not propose to suggest any specific expenditure, but at the same time I feel very strongly that Senator McEllin, though I did not agree with quite a number of his remarks, was right when he said that the people in the country are more ready to co-operate and work together to-day to get this country through the emergency than they have been for a very long time. That is perfectly true. The tragedy to my mind is that we have not a really effective method of giving political leadership to that genuine desire to co-operate and to work for the country. I believe that there is less interest at present in Party politics in the country than there has been at any time since I entered public life. Perhaps there is less interest here also, but here that lack of Party feeling does not exist to the same extent as in the country.

I do not want to take away from anything that may be said or has been said with regard to the question of defence, but I feel that defence is not a matter that can be taken alone. The State policy is to try to keep out of this war. We cannot keep out of the effects of the war. That is generally admitted, but it is not enough simply to provide for military defence. I think the same determination, the same sense of conscience, the same feeling of absolute importance, must equally apply to seeing that during this period the population of this country suffers the least possible moral or material, but particularly moral, damage. If we simply allow unemployment to grow, as it looks like growing at present, and deal with it as we dealt with it in ordinary times, I believe the moral effect will be definitely bad. Whatever be the need to spend money on military measures, I believe the need is no less compelling to devise some means by which those who are children during these years, or those who may be born during these years, will not suffer intensely simply because they happened to be born during this crisis. I see no reason to expect a speedy conclusion to this war, no matter how much we may hope for it, and we shall have to find some way by which we can share the burden which the war has thrown upon us, some way by which we can get out of old customs and find methods by which prompt action can be taken and by which all sections will be able to work. I believe the people are ready for these new methods, but I believe that somehow or other they lack leadership.

The first thing I would like to abolish immediately would be red tape. I wish there were a shortage of supplies of red tape at the present moment. It takes far too long to reach a decision. I think it was a week ago that Senator Hayes wished to place a notice on Government buildings, in regard to red tape—"no decision has yet been reached." In times of emergency, in business you are forced to make a decision often in 24 hours, and sometimes in less. That does not mean that you do not make mistakes. When dealing with an utterly unprecedented set of circumstances, this Government, or any other Government, whether a national or a party Government, is bound to make mistakes, whether a particular matter is on 20 or 30 files, or on only one file. Some way must be found by which matters which are immediately urgent can be dealt with by one or two people, and at once.

Those of us on the Opposition side have a certain duty to criticise, but we must be extremely moderate, and I, for one, would be perfectly satisfied not to criticise at all, if I felt we could get prompt decisions on matters which ought to be decided promptly. The tendency to have checks and to weigh things in the balance is excellent in peace time. It is the basis of our whole Civil Service system which we took over from England. To my mind, however, it will not work at the present time. It is extremely disconcerting, particularly for people who have responsibility in business, to find that matters which seem to us of the utmost importance are still under consideration.

For instance, it is months since we had a speech from the Minister for Industry and Commerce with regard to war risk insurance, in which he assured us that the matter was under consideration by the Government. That was a matter in which there were pros and cons, admittedly, but a prompt decision—and by prompt I mean within a reasonable time—should have been made one way or the other. I am perfectly convinced that, in many industries at the moment there would be far larger supplies, and that it would have been easier to arrange the necessary credit if there had been some reasonable and effective system of war risk insurance. Perhaps it is not too late now, though I am pretty certain that we cannot get all the benefits we could have got.

I have been amazed during the past week by the very large number of people who have spoken to me with reference to the debate on the question of a national register. The majority of people many of whom were supporters of the present Government have asked me how the Seanad can be opposed to such a scheme. There is a lot of feeling that we who are here are unwilling to face up to the fact that whatever supplies are available must be shared alike, by some method or other, and that the people who are poor must get whatever is necessary. It will be a danger to this State if, even admitting the difficulties, we once let it get into the heads of the ordinary people that they are not getting a fair share. Apart altogether from actual justice, I believe it would be bad for the State as a whole.

There is one other matter to which I would like to refer—one which is causing a certain amount of concern, though it is different from those of which I have spoken already. In a broadcast to America on St. Patrick's Day, the Taoiseach stated that both sides in this war, in blockading each other, were blockading us. When abbreviated in a newspaper heading it read simply that Eire was being blockaded by both sides. Both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Supplies have made statements on similar lines quite recently. I consider that a statement of this kind, made in a general way without details and without full explanation, is calculated to do a great deal of harm, and may have the effect of increasing the difficulties of manufacturers and others who are trying to get supplies which are essential to the carrying on of certain of our industries.

Germany has declared that Ireland lies within the zone which she is blockading. This was an open statement and Germany cannot possibly take any offence from a statement to the effect that measures which she is taking in this war mean that our ports are being blockaded.

Great Britain has also stated that she will do all in her power to prevent any trade whatsoever with Germany or with countries occupied by Germany. This is, of course, nothing new, and has been the position for a considerable time. But statements made this year that Éire is being blockaded by both sides are misleading, and to my certain knowledge have caused resentment amongst people who are our friends in Great Britain.

To blockade a country means to prevent, by force, ships from reaching our ports, and when a newspaper heading states that the Taoiseach says that we are being blockaded by both sides, it is taken by people in Great Britain to mean that we are accusing Great Britain of using force to prevent ships with supplies reaching our ports, and this causes resentment especially amongst firms in Great Britain with whom we trade, and who are still selling goods to us.

I want to state here very definitely that, as far as my experience goes, it is quite untrue to say that Great Britain is blockading us. The companies with which I am connected are still obtaining essential supplies from Great Britain, and the only supplies that we are finding difficulty in obtaining are those of which there is an acute shortage in Great Britain. Some time ago I referred in detail in this House to an agreement made between cotton textile manufacturers in Éire and cotton textile manufacturers in Great Britain. An essential part of this agreement was to the effect that our manufacturers would not be placed in a worse position in regard to supplies of yarn spun in Great Britain than British manufacturers making similar goods.

This agreement is being kept, and I have every reason to believe that it will be kept in the future. British cotton textile manufacturers have had to reduce production because of shortage of supplies, and quite a number are actually closed down. We are still carrying on here, but we know that the supplies of yarns available will be considerably less than last year, because it will be the same with British manufacturers.

I have been asked quite bluntly by a representative of the trade in England what our Government mean by accusing England of blockading us when they are doing everything in their power to see that we will have our share of supplies. In a retail business with which I am connected supplies have been arriving regularly from England, and continue to arrive almost every day. I have given my own experience to show that we are not being blockaded by England, as it is best to speak with first-hand knowledge.

I am, however, in touch with many other manufacturers and merchants, and believe that I am speaking for a very large number when I say that we are most anxious that it should be made clear that we are not being blockaded by Great Britain, and that we greatly regret that a wrong impression has been given to those with whom we are carrying on business in Great Britain on most friendly lines.

I suggest to members of the Government, when they are referring to the war situation, that they should carefully consider if there is any danger of misunderstanding or resentment among our friends in Great Britain, or in any other country with which we are dealing at the present time—countries one can say, without infringing our neutrality, that we recognise are carrying on under great difficulties and with great courage and great fortitude.

Mr. McGee

Listening to the speech of the Minister, I heard him lay particular emphasis on the present happy position with regard to the Army in this part of the country. I am perfectly certain that there is no member of the House who is not proud of the Army. I trust that no political party is going to attempt to tell us, on this day of God's year, that we are blessed with anything in the nature of a political army. I think the Army, as it exists, is something that all Ireland has been proud of, and will, I trust, be proud of. It has been formed, I think, with its defence forces and its Local Security Forces, broad-based on the will of the entire nation, and if the present Government is in the position of making it the best Army this nation could possibly have, I am sure that everyone in this Ireland of ours will congratulate them, and will help to the utmost to promote their ideal.

Of late, my attention has been called to the fact that there has been some administrative change with regard to the Local Defence Force. It is not applicable in my immediate locality, but I am informed that the Local Defence Force is not now associated with the Gárda but is under the control of the Army, and where the Army is situated a distance of 10, 12 or 15 miles away, the Administration should see that its meetings and marches do not take place without Army officers being present. I suggest to the Administration that this matter should receive a little attention from them.

I am left with feelings of regret, like many others, that it is impossible to hope for a curtailment of expenditure and, as the Minister in introducing his Bill here this afternoon stated, he has heard in the other House, perhaps, regret that there is not more money being spent, rather than less, which would be the natural inclination of a conservative mind. For my part, I deplore wholly the proposed or suggested reduction in the provision for unemployment which we have seen announced. I do it on many grounds, but particularly, on the possible association of that reduction with the fact that the Minister might be inclined to call for further demands on the local rates. Statistics published about six or eight months ago show that unemployment has grown and multiplied in the past year, particularly on the holdings of from 30 to 35 acres down to five acres. That development indicates that the amount of sustenance and support to be derived from 30 or 35 acres previous to this year is not now there. When I tell you that the rates from the rural parishes of my own native county have risen from £53,000 in 1936 to £85,000 in 1941, it will be admitted that it is time for us to call halt.

I noticed in the remarks of the Minister quite recently that there has not been time to read the Drainage Commission report but, it must be apparent to the Ministry that in drainage there is ample room for the spending of thousands—I might say millions—of pounds. In the policy that has been pursued during the last 20 years—certainly in the past eight or ten years— not only has no money been spent on drainage but other lands have become unfertile and, even in my part of the country, I might say, ruined. I think that a decent grant for employment on drainage works is very much overdue. The need for tillage at all times should be evident to any Irishman, but why compulsory tillage must always mean compulsory loss is something that passes my comprehension. Yet, it has been so, even with the best of us, on some of the best land. For the past eight or ten years, I am sure that the Ministry meant the best when they advised us to till intensively. Many did that. I do not know that we were wise in our day and generation because the stored fertility of the soil in some instances—I might say in many instances —would have provided sufficient manure of itself to grow wheat and potatoes in the critical times in which we now live.

While I welcome it, I think it is time that this Research Council was established, because I am perfectly certain that the resources of our country, fully explored, are bound of themselves to support the population. But, to my mind, there always seems to be something to retard the efforts of the best minds and brains that are being brought to bear on these resources. I suggest to the House that that was never more evident than it is to-day. This new Research Council has on it a gentleman named Dr. Drumm. Now, in this year of grace it is well known that the constant tillage which takes place in counties like my own cannot go on without artificial manure, and it is also well known that artificial manures cannot be got. This may be —I cannot tell—because the manure people may have kept out manures as the millers kept out wheat, but, if they did, there is consolation to be gained from a journal known as "Irish Industry." On page 39 I find it stated that Dr. Drumm said at the meeting of the Federation of Manufacturers that the need for fertilisers could be adequately met from the superphosphate made from 750,000 tons of the Clare phosphate deposits. He without fear of contradiction said that the phosphates in Clare were as good as anything that could be got from North Africa.

Now, we want 1,000 or 2,000 tons in Louth, and every county in Ireland can do with the same amount, but these people, according to information I received only on Saturday last, are still working on a small scale. Why, in the name of God, is there not application made by some Government Department to ensure that the number of persons employed is increased by thousands in that area to relieve the present situation? If it is worth while establishing a Research Council and bringing in one leading individual who states that the materials are there, why, in God's name, are they not being utilised? The employment that would be given in Galway or Clare, or wherever it is, is a small thing, but the employment that would be given on every Irish acre of tillage land, apart altogether from the food it would produce, is so great that it is almost sufficient to make a man gasp to think that our Administration, at this time of the year, is not doing something to multiply that supply.

Everybody knows, or ought to know, that another very great source which adds to the depleted income of rural Ireland is the cattle trade. I think, in this House, certainly elsewhere, I have congratulated the Government, but particularly Mr. Twomey and Mr. Adams, on the agreement that was reached for the export of live stock, in January last. If reached earlier we would have been in a happier position, but even in January, it was better late than never, and everybody concerned deserves to be congratulated. Everybody knows, too, that we have recently had a hold-up in the cattle trade due to disease, a circumstance which is outside anybody's control and about which everybody should be sympathetic. But what is the position? A Government Department makes an announcement that cattle held until the Spring time of this year would in each successive week and each successive month fetch a higher price and, at the present time, from 55/- to 57/6 per cwt. should be obtained. Cattle have been kept for that. We are now in the month of March and the self-same administration sends out buyers and they buy stock at prices less than 50/-, and in some parts of the country as low as 45/-. Surely it is not beyond the power of the Ministry to state that the fixed price is there and must be given, and surely it is not beyond them to see to it that the unfortunate producers get the benefit of an Act that they themselves implemented.

Recently, here in the debate on the Children Bill, somebody said that the subject of education should always be approached from the point of view of the child. What child? What about the child that has to pay? Is he to get no consideration? Is it always to be the case that one child is to get some benefit for nothing and that there is no consideration for those who have to foot the bill? On another occasion we heard that farmers should change their technique. That is grand talk, something to admire. I see even Senator Quirke ventures to smile. It is very easy to whistle the tune but who is to pay? Change the technique. With what? You will not change it with empty hands. You will not get a 1,000 gallon cow for nothing. The Minister who attended here on the debate on Senator Baxter's motion asked us all to loyally co-operate. Might I say "Amen" a thousand times over. But all the co-operation must not end with the residents of rural Ireland. We ask that the present Ministry see to it that town dwellers and rural dwellers, and all citizens, do their best to relieve unemployment. But do not put all the burden on rural rates because by that means you are simply creating more unemployment. There is nothing more desirable than co-operation amongst every citizen in the land; there is nothing more admirable. If you do co-operate broadly you will secure a measure of justice and the State will become more stable when that is done, and the people certainly will not be ready to join in any highfalutin' revolutions that we hear so much about. But if you prejudice the people and if you believe that all the strawberries and cream are to be withheld for "ourselves alone" and there is none for the plain farmers and labourers down the country, they certainly will be resentful.

Mr. Goulding

This debate has rather disappointed me. Usually in the debate on the Central Fund Bill we have to listen to very severe and very often unjustified criticism. So far, this debate has not been of that kind and I am very glad. It is pleasant to find that in this period of our history everybody is anxious that co-operation should prevail and that, as far as it can be done, everything should give place to the welfare of the people as a whole. We are facing a very serious situation in this country, perhaps the most serious that has faced this country since the middle of the 19th century and the difficulty is that so many people in the country will not see the danger until it is right upon them. We hear complaints made against the Department of Supplies that owing to the negligence of that Department there is a danger of shortage of certain things in this country but I think those of us who are familiar with the country will admit that that danger is due to false optimism being prevalent in every county in Ireland. The average man and woman will not see the danger until the danger is on them. More than 12 months ago they were warned to lay in supplies of essential commodities; again and again they were appealed to over the radio and in the Press that there was a danger of a serious shortage should the war continue. But the people appeared to treat that warning very lightly; they appeared to think that things were not as bad and that, with the help of God, they would not be so bad. The old saying is really very true, that God helps those who help themselves. We in Ireland, I am afraid, are too fond of relying on Divine Providence all the time instead of giving the co-operation that is so essential if we are to save ourselves from disaster.

There has been some criticism, of course, of Government action in the past few years. Senator Hayes, for instance, told us that the policy of self-sufficiency had not been a success. I cannot agree with that. I admit that the policy of self-sufficiency has not been an entire success but so far as it has gone I think it will do a lot to save us from disaster in the coming crisis. Were it not for the policy adopted a few years ago, the policy of producing more food from the land, for instance, of endeavouring to provide ourselves with a number of articles that we were in the habit of importing, I think we would all admit the situation to-day would be far more serious. At least we are not in the position we found ourselves in during the last great war when many of the things we now have in fair abundance were almost unobtainable. Many of the things we are making in this country to-day are not entirely dependent on foreign imports. A number of them, of course, are.

Senator McGee referred to the fact that this country was a country of enormous resources and hoped that the new Research Council would discover these resources for us. Frankly, much as I would like to agree with that, I cannot. I believe that to a great extent we will have to depend on raw material from foreign countries for the success of an Irish industrial revival. We are not a rich country from a mineral point of view. We have not the great resources of some countries in Europe and America.

To that extent, of course, I agree that perhaps it is not quite possible to carry out self-sufficiency to the full. But to some extent we have raw material. During the last war we bought leather, but upper leather and sole leather were very difficult to obtain. There was only one tannery operating in the South of Ireland, and the only sole leather to be obtained had to be obtained through British Government permits. At the moment we are in a position to supply all the sole leather we need, and, to a great extent, that sole leather is made from Irish hides. I do not want to labour this point, but I quote this example to prove that to some extent the policy of self-sufficiency is in existence.

Now, with regard to taxation, of course we do not like heavy expenditure. We are all taxpayers. We realise that the burden of taxation for the next two years is likely to be very heavy; we deplore it, but we cannot help it; we cannot have it both ways. If we want social reforms we must pay for them. And unless there is some way of providing money outside that available at present, we will have to agree that we must pay for these things in money for years to come. I am not conversant with the new theories of money and finance. Many of them are chimerical and fantastic. It is possible that some method may be discovered of paying for goods other than by money as we know it. If such a policy could be discovered, very likely it would please us all. But for the moment we have to make up our minds to pay in money for the things we get.

It has been stressed in this debate up to the present that the cardinal evil we are facing at the moment is unemployment. Whatever the system of finance or taxation may be, we must take care that there will be no danger of a repetition in this country of the years '46 and '47 and '48. Whatever may happen, or whatever sacrifices are made, nobody must be allowed to die from starvation. Instead of spending too much time on questions of taxation, we should be considering what can be done to avoid anyone dying from starvation, whether we are in or out of war. Everyone—farmer, shopkeeper, professional man—should be prepared to face up to that. It is all very well for people of independent means, living in comfortable surroundings, to look calmly at the situation, but it must be remembered that things are far from normal. A man in comfortable employment to-day may look at things through certain rose-tinted glasses, but if trouble comes his way the glasses change their hue. I am very much afraid that in the next few years, or it may be months, many thousands of men who never knew what it was to be unemployed, may find themselves in that unfortunate position. Every effort should be devoted to the solution of that problem. These people must not be neglected and while every effort must be made to keep us from invasion by a foreign enemy, and while we will have to agree to the expenditure necessary to ensure that end, we must also be satisfied to incur even greater expenditure if necessary to make sure that our people are at least fed.

There is no use dwelling upon the past. Some of us agree, others do not, with the efforts of the Government in the past. Whatever may be the views as to what was done in the past, there can be but one view with regard to the immediate future. People know the danger they are in of being disemployed to-morrow or the next day. If the economic situation worsens it will be bad for every one of us, and of course infinitely worse for people with no means of support. The best efforts of the Government, therefore, must be used to cope with the situation and to see that the people do not unduly suffer.

Mr. Madden

We are now considering expenditure which has reached a colossal figure and which has to be met and borne by the people. We are told that about 65 per cent. of the people who have to find the money come under the category of agriculturists or farmers. I suppose it is approximately correct that about 75 per cent. of the whole people employed in this country are living directly or indirectly from the land. I think it must be admitted that the agricultural industry, so far as this House is concerned, has received very scant consideration. I do not know how many times Senator Counihan has tried in a practical and intellectual way to focus the attention of this House on the condition of things in that industry, upon which the economic structure of the State depends. Senator Baxter also has tried to focus attention on the condition of the agricultural industry. He has moved motion after motion in this House, only to be withdrawn at the end of the discussion, until the thing has become nauseating. I am afraid, knowing the condition of agriculture and the hardships imposed upon it, that this present Budget will mean a staggering blow. It is quite obvious that the whole condition of agriculture has received nothing but perfunctory consideration by the Executive authority. It appears like applying twopence worth of sulphur to cure a cancer. The sort of palliatives that have been applied show that this House does not realise the condition of the agricultural industry at the present moment, and what it has to face in the immediate future. I pointed out here before that I come from one of the most important dairying counties in the country, although some Senators described us as the laziest and sleepiest farmers in the world.

Mr. Baxter

Only one Senator said that.

Mr. Madden

Well, we shall not quarrel about it. I come from a dairying county, which has the most complete and successfully-industrialised dairying industry, not alone in this country but in Europe.

Professor Johnston

That is saying a lot.

Mr. Madden

Yes, that is saying a lot. We have 48 factories, and each of these has from one to four auxiliaries, controlled, owned, and directed efficiently and economically by the farmers themselves. The dairy industry, as you know, necessitates much capital outlay. It entails high cost of depreciation; it employs much labour both on the farms and in the creameries; it is the foundation of the store and fat cattle industry, and assists largely in the pig and poultry industries. For these reasons, therefore, it should receive preferential treatment from the Government. I pointed out here a few weeks ago that the warble fly inspectors last year got instructions from the county council to make an exact return and comparison of the number of cattle in my county as compared with the year before, and I pointed out that the amount of cattle was less in 1940 by 42,000. You can at once visualise the serious reactions that 42,000 less cattle will have upon the economics of the county and of the country as a whole. Mind you, the members of the agricultural committee in my county—of which I am not a member, although I was a member for years—when they saw that reported in leaded type in the newspapers, questioned the accuracy of my statement and gave instructions to their official to investigate carefully the figures, as stated by a Senator in this House, as to the depreciation and loss in cattle in one year compared with the preceding year, and to give the reasons. I have here the results of that inquiry, and they are even more tragic. According to the report, the milk gallons in 1939 compared with 1938, were 1,810,868; in 1940 compared with 1938, they were 4,473,508; and in 1940 compared with 1939, they were 2,662,640, or in other words a difference 4,500,000 gallons of milk in one year.

Senator Counihan, knowing as he does, from his experience and his close contact during a whole life with the agricultural community, the conditions that exist, has stressed over and over again the importance of asking the Government to do something to stabilise the industry and to rehabilitate the condition of the farmer. I am tired of pointing out here that on every farm you have five, six or seven cattle that are unproductive. The farmer has not the wherewithal to renew these cattle, and he has too much dignity and pride to admit that he is unable to do it by sending them to the bone-yard or to the Roscrea factory. That is the position that obtains, and no farmer in this House can deny that it is so. We, in our council, have given about £20,000 this year, and we have given it on the personal guarantee of the farmer himself, in order to supply him with the essential seeds, and also for the purpose of helping the workers. If we, as a county, were able and willing a few weeks ago to vote £20,000 this year, and did so in perfect good faith and on the signature, the word and the bond of the individual farmer, in a time of financial difficulty and stress, to enable him to meet the demand of the Government for increased production—if we had that confidence in the diligence, honesty and integrity of the farmers, surely the Government ought to rise to the occasion and give them some of the £35,000,000 or £40,000,000 to rehabilitate their conditions and particularly to rehabilitate the dairying industry in our county.

Another Minister told us here some time ago, and it was repeated in the Dáil, that they were considering setting aside £2,000,000 for the development of Clonsast Bog. I asked, could not the Government find £1,000,000 of these £35,000,000 or £40,000,000 and have this equitably dispersed and distributed amongst the miles and miles of virgin peat the development of which is so absolutely essential in view of the danger in the forthcoming winter of being unable to obtain fuel from across the water? Not five miles from where I live, as far as the eye can see, north, south, east and west, there are miles of undeveloped peat which the farmers are unable to make use of because there is no proper access to the peat, and the farmer or anybody else must do without a fire unless he can make a passage through the bog or bring lorries four or five miles. There is all this beautiful peat fuel undeveloped, and the farmers cannot develop it for themselves in this hour of dire necessity and danger. Was it ever dreamed or heard of that a Government that practically got into power as a result of their definite and specific promises to the agricultural community: "We will do a certain thing for you if and when you put us into power"—could treat the farming community as they are treating them? I have a little old document here——

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Then do not produce it.

Mr. M. Hayes

Is it the Fianna Fáil plan?

Mr. Madden

I will produce it, Sir. "A Fianna Fáil Government, standing solidly for Ireland's rights——"

Mr. Hayes

When was this?

Mr. Madden

I think it was 1922.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think it should come under the Statute of Limitations.

Mr. M. Hayes

It is probably 1932.

Mr. Madden

Speaking of the moneys that were formerly being sent to Britain, they said: "We will use these moneys for the provision of complete de-rating." Has anybody any doubt about that?

Mr. M. Hayes

That is 1932—promises up-to-date.

Mr. Madden

Of course, I can see that my friend over there in the corner, Senator Quirke, is saying to himself "I shall answer Senator Madden by saying that we gave half the annuities."

Mr. Quirke

No, I was going to say "Why bring that up?"

Mr. Madden

Well, it is very essential, considering the condition of agriculture in my county to-day. You did give half the annuities, but the annuities were terminable and the rates were not terminable. The rates have gone beyond the normal capacity of the ratepayer to meet them. Again, what good was the halving of the annuities to those who held their land in fee simple, or to those who bought under the Ashbourne Act, or to those people who had paid in 37 years of the Land Acts? Accordingly, I say that the Government ought to implement their promises, particularly now when we see the appalling condition of agriculture, and when there is an intensive drive, legislation being passed, and everybody roaring from every house-top to go on ploughing and producing more food. I speak thus because of the position of the farmer to-day. Speaking for my own county, which is one of the richest and finest dairying counties to be found anywhere, I can say that the number of unemployed is increasing steadily because, through conditions over which the farmer has no control, he is unable to continue or unable to pay labour.

Speaking as a member of a board of health, having serious undertakings there and knowing the conditions of the poor, and knowing that we had to strike a budget of £20,000 to meet their modest and trifling requirements, should not the Government do much more than it has done? We have had to include nearly £20,000 in our budget to give home help. Perhaps I might avail of this opportunity to correct Senator Sir John Keane and tell him that that is going, not only in money but also in kind. There are some of these people to whom we cannot give any money because they would use it injudiciously, and consequently we put them down for certain foods or commodities that they may use, or anything they may like to get. Just imagine, in this year, the amount for unemployment being reduced by £400,000! Of course, I may be corrected by the Minister, but I heard it mentioned in the other House that in this particular year, when the increase ought to be twice that at the other side of the Budget rather than on the debit side, it is £400,000 less.

Again, there is another thing that has happened quite recently. The rural workers no longer have any dole, and the only people who have the dole are the workers in the towns. The rural workers are supposed to go and produce food. Now, the 12/- or 13/- that they got helped them. They gave a couple of days' work in the week to the farmer, which they were entitled to do under the Act, and they had the security of these few shillings for the other days in the week when they had no work from the farmers, and that helped to keep themselves, their wives and little ones.

The only section excluded from that Order are those in the towns and villages who know nothing about agriculture, and who very likely would not work at it if they did know anything about it.

Again, you have the agricultural community badly hit by reason of the fact that fairs and markets were suspended in certain areas for a considerable time. A fair is being held in my town to-day, but the principal fair on which the people in that area rely was the original March fair which had to be postponed. There the people usually sold their store cattle to men such as Senator Counihan, who brought them up to the rich lands of Dublin to be finished off. I would, therefore, make an earnest appeal to the Minister that something should be done on the lines indicated by Senator Counihan to rehabilitate agriculture which is in a very depressed condition at the present time. The farmer lives so close to the irresistible forces of nature, that it is sometimes believed that he has not sufficient strength or virility to oppose the evils of a machine-made Government which seems to have little sympathy for him, but, nevertheless, everybody seems to be looking to him in this crisis to help the country through to better times. Even £1,000,000 could do a tremendous amount of work if it were set aside to promote agricultural development. I remember the previous Minister for Finance in 1932 raided the Guarantee Fund to the extent of £750,000 for a purpose far less praiseworthy and the farmers have been feeling the effects of that even up to the present day. Their condition at present is such that something will have to be done to stabilise the industry if the country is to emerge successfully from the present crisis.

Mrs. Concannon

Unlike my friend Senator Goulding, I am not disappointed with this debate. In fact, I am very pleased with it and I think the Minister should be pleased because it has dealt with the realities of the very serious situation which confronts us. The discussion on the Central Fund Bill every year gives us an opportunity of reviewing our national housekeeping. This year our housekeeping is particularly difficult. Outside our doors, hunger, want and other dangers beset us. These are the things we must bear in mind and that must be uppermost in our thoughts when we speak on this occasion.

A great deal of stress has been laid on the necessity for production. Advertisements appear in every paper asking the farmers to produce more wheat, more potatoes and other crops. The necessity of producing more fuel is also emphasised but very little attention has been paid to another important matter—the necessity of avoiding waste. I think it is particularly necessary in Ireland that this should be stressed. We are given to being what we call "flaitheamhail". If one gets a girl from the country, she puts down a pot of potatoes for a small family that would nearly feed a townland and that is considered the right thing to do. I do not know what happens to the surplus potatoes in the town. In the country they are fed to pigs and chickens but in the towns they go to waste unless some person is at hand who can put the surplus potatoes to use. We ought to try to train our people to avoid waste.

In this matter I speak as a woman to the women of the country and I suggest that they should organise a league such as has been a great success in America. It is a league to ensure that nothing shall be wasted. We need an organisation of that kind very badly. Take paper for instance. In Dublin there are collectors of paper. We read every day that materials for making paper are getting very scarce, yet all through the country paper is thrown out as if no use. It litters the streets and it is used to light fires in a wasteful way.

I do not see why, in Galway and in our principal cities, there should not be a collector of waste material. I do not know that there is any such collector in Galway but I have been storing paper in the hope that something would be done. So far however we have heard nothing about it. Our regional commissioners might get busy about that matter. Whether they are doing anything I do not know but we have not seen much of them, so far. If instead of regional commissioners, we had military dictators, who would tell people what to do and make them do it, it would be much better. The regional commissioners approach the people in the country regions in far too mild and gentle a manner. People should be compelled to do these things. We shall emerge from the ordeal very much stronger if we have to bend to a little military dictatorship for a limited period.

Mr. Madden

A proletarian dictatorship.

Mrs. Concannon

Not exactly. So much for waste. If no use is made of an article which is capable of being turned to some use, I call that waste. It is not waste if you get people to cut down their clothes for the poor. If every family that is fairly well to do would adopt a family that is finding it difficult to obtain the necessaries of life, it would help to ease matters in many districts. Clothes are going to be very scarce and that is an idea that might be adopted with advantage in many cases. The greatest waste of all is the waste of man-power, known to us as unemployment. I am glad to know that no speaker spoke here to-day who did not stress the dreadful evil of unemployment and the fact that we must get away from red tape if we are to solve this terrible problem. The danger from without is not as great as the danger from within if we have hungry and discontented men. The remarkable thing is that there is plenty of work for everybody, work that calls to be done, if we could organise ourselves in such a way that we could bring men to the work that needs to be done. It is a grave problem. I have no solution but I think something should be done about it and that action of a positive kind is needed in dealing with it. I was very glad to read the letter which appeared in the Sunday Independent from Mr. Wylie. It set us all thinking. Contributions of that kind are badly needed in the present crisis.

Another great waste is connected with the health of the people. For that reason I believe Senator Sir John Keane did a useful service when he spoke of communal feeding. In most cases there is just a vague idea of what it means, but if the necessity for it arose there would be no machinery. I do not see why voluntary organisations like the Vincent de Paul Society, the St. John Ambulance, the Knights of Malta and the Red Cross should not conduct, as part of their programme, an experiment in communal feeding because there are plenty of hungry people to be fed. We might start with the children.

There is another thing which I should like to stress and which, from a woman's point of view, is very important. It is that, in the period of plenty of certain things, when potatoes, eggs and butter are abundant, we should see that plenty of eggs, etc., are preserved and that the people are taught not to waste in the plentiful times but to look to the future. They should be taught to preserve eggs and to see that there is plenty of safe storage for food all through the country. It is no good having cold storage for butter if a few bombs can destroy it. That is one of the things that the Minister should look after.

We must also avoid waste of opportunities. That would occur if a body like the Seanad—people of experience, with a real interest and a real stake in the country—would not put a little heart into the people to nerve them to face the ordeal before us. It is for that reason that I am glad there has been so little carping criticism. There is nothing so destructive of public confidence, nothing that will put people in the worst frame of mind to face dangers and hardships than the sort of talk that is abroad regarding the Minister for Supplies. He, like anybody else, is a human being and makes mistakes, but at the same time he does his work. We should not be harping always on the things that were not done. If we have any criticism to make, why should we not go to the Minister and tell him and not have these things broadcast about him? It is said that the country is in an awful mess, that there is neither head nor tail in the Government. It would be most unfortunate if that impression were allowed to be abroad. Therefore, I deprecate it and am very glad that there was not much of that in the debate to-day.

Professor Johnston

I move that the Seanad adjourn now for an hour.

Mr. MacDermot

I would like to protest against the habit of adjourning, especially in times like these. I think there is no other legislative Assembly in the world which is in the habit of adjourning for a meal.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The adjournment is suggested for the convenience of the Minister. It is a matter for the House.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I was not consulted, Sir.

Mr. Douglas

Where the Minister is likely to sit through a long debate, it has been agreed to, but in any other case it has been the general feeling that there should not be an adjournment.

Sitting suspended at 6.5 p.m., and resumed at 7 p.m.

Professor Johnston

A Chathaoirligh, I am sorry I was unable to be present at the beginning of this debate, because I missed the Minister's speech. However, I may say that if I may judge from the general tone of the debate, the Minister must have been in one of his mildest and most disarming moods and I, personally, am loth to do anything that would alter that mood in any way. I am sorry, also, that I missed most of the remarks made by Senator Counihan with reference to his famous scheme—it is primarily his scheme, no matter how much I personally have been associated with its advocacy—but I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us in the course of his reply that some serious step will be taken to give effect, not necessarily to this precise scheme in all its forms, but to some policy which will have the effect of making available in large provision, credit for agriculture and especially for that section of our agricultural economy which is prevented from expanding its productive efforts only by lack of that necessary factor, namely, credit.

I think a conference representing the various interests, including, of course, the banks as well as the farmers, should be called to study this problem and should consider, among other things, the problem of frozen loans. It should consider that problem not with reference to any cast-iron formula, but in the hope of assuring an equitable solution on the merits of the cases, in so far as they can be ascertained with reference to each concrete case. But, from the public point of view, the real importance of that conference would be to seek to enable a greater flow of credit from the banking system in the right directions towards the right objects of agricultural production. I think if the Minister will facilitate the calling of a conference of that kind he will have done a great day's work for the nation.

On a Bill of this type it appears to be almost impossible to be irrelevant, and, that being so, I may, perhaps, be pardoned if I make a few more or less incoherent remarks about a number of points that have occurred to me in the course of the debate. I wonder whether the Minister has noticed in the Press recently a scheme associated with the name of Judge Wylie. That scheme seems to me to be an effort by a very distinguished layman, who was also a very distinguished judge, to make people generally realise that circumstances have forced us into what might be called a kind of Sinn Féin economic situation, and, therefore, that a definitely thought-out and actively-planned policy of economic Sinn Féin is enforced upon us by those very regrettable circumstances. I am not going through the merits or demerits of a Sinn Féin economic situation as it stands, but, when the facts are what they are, I think an honest attempt to make the best of them with a view to minimising the necessary dislocation and suffering that the nation will have to pass through in any case, deserves not only the sympathy of every citizen of goodwill, but the active interest, and, I might also say, the sympathetic support of the Government of the day.

I would like the Minister on behalf of the Government to say whether the Wylie scheme is under Government consideration and to what extent the authors of that scheme may count on the friendly co-operation of the public Departments and the State. I realise fully the fact that certain aspects of that scheme seem to involve so fundamental a degree of economic planning of our whole economy, that no Government could allow that degree of planning to take place without taking full responsibility for the planning itself, because it is not a matter which could be done entirely on the responsibility of a voluntary agency. So it really is one of those cases in which a Government must make up its mind as to whether or not it approves of a certain dynamic economic programme, and, if it approves of that dynamic economic programme, then the extent to which the voluntary agency of the kind of guild of goodwill, to which Judge Wylie refers, can be used is entirely a matter of means, a matter of convenience for all concerned, including the Government.

In my comments on that scheme I have had the temerity to write to the Press and to make certain definite suggestions which I think are worth consideration, not only with reference to the present emergency but with reference to public policy from a long-term point of view. I suggested that if we wanted to safeguard all our people from the danger of actual starvation, which is a very real danger for thousands of our people at present, both in the country and the towns, the State ought to guarantee to all our citizens as an elementary civic right a certain minimum provision of potatoes and a certain minimum provision of sweet milk. I suggested a half-point of milk per person per day and a lb. of potatoes per person per day. But, of course, I also was aware of the fact that people who have an acre of land or more are well able to grow their own potatoes and I am not suggesting that people in that position should get for nothing potatoes that they are perfectly competent to grow themselves. And equally I am aware that people who have five or six acres of land or more should be in a position to supply their families with milk the whole year round and they naturally would not be able to claim the benefit of free milk on this half-pint per person per day basis. So that the number of people who would be beneficiaries of the public bounty in the form of potatoes and milk would be perhaps not more than 1,000,000 or 1,500,000, and unless my arithmetic is completely at sea, I reckon that the cost to the Exchequer of a scheme of that kind would be in the region of £3,000,000 a year.

Of course, that looks like suggesting a definite increase of £3,000,000 a year on the taxpayer, and so it is, but it would also be a reduction in the milk bill and the potato bill of an important section of the community. The total reduction in the milk bill and the potato bill would possibly be more than £3,000,000, because if the public undertook the responsibility of distributing potatoes and milk in that kind of wholesale way they could make such important economies in the cost of distributing these things that the total cost to the taxpayer would be less than the amount which the ex-buyers of potatoes and sweet milk are now paying as private citizens. So that the increase of the public taxation would be to some extent balanced by a decrease in the payments people have to make as consumers of potatoes and milk and, to some extent, a degree of economic waste would be eliminated, which amounts possibly to well over £1,000,000 a year, in respect of uneconomic distribution of liquid milk and potatoes.

Having suggested that which looks like an addition to the public burden— although I do not think it is and I think as a measure of insurance against real want it is something which should commend itself to us all in the present crisis—I now want to make further suggestions which, if adopted, might lead to real economies in the financial sense with reference to our public expenditure.

There are numerous forms of pensions and relief. Personally I could not put names on all of them but I know there are probably at least half a dozen ways in which individual citizens can claim to draw money from the State in the form of unemployment money, military service pensions, old age pensions, etc., and the most important characteristic of all that financial arrangement—if it can be called an arrangement—is that each of these payments comes to its recipient from a different source. I mean there are at least half-a-dozen public institutions which are concerned with distributing the State bounty to the beneficiaries of it among our citizens. The result is that certain families get perhaps far more than they need for their comfort and certain other families, not so well able to wangle things or not so familiar with their legal rights, do not perhaps get as much as they need for their human requirements. I think the problem here is partly a problem of the system of administration, and what I suggest here is that what we need is a kind of local focus in every parish in the country and that, say, the chairman of the parish council of every parish in the country should be officially informed of all the payments from all the public institutions, both State Departments and local authorities, which are going to all the members of all the families in each parish. There you would have at least one person, occupying a public position, who would know what was going into what household and in that way you would have the knowledge, of a fact which I believe is perfectly true, that certain households are getting more than is necessary from the human point of view and certain other households are in real want. The fact that certain sections of our citizens are so successful in wangling relief of one kind or another or in making good their claim to pensions of one kind or another diminishes the resources from which other, perhaps more needy, sections of our citizens might also claim relief if they only knew the right way to go about it. The first step in making a more economic distribution of the bounty of the State would seem to me to have somewhere in every parish some person who knew exactly what was coming from public sources and where it was going and what the human requirements of every family in that parish really were. I suggest if you had that knowledge which could only be obtained by the reorganisation of the whole administration, you would be able to make a lesser sum of money, both national money and local money, go much further in bringing needed relief in cases of real destitution.

It has been said recently that professional economists are inclined to worship the mere existence of sterling balances and that the whole policy advocated by them in the years before the war was "Pile up sterling balances". I am not going into that at length, but I would like to say this: if at any time before September, 1939, any public official had asked me whether it would be a wise thing to turn, say, £10,000,000 worth of our sterling assets into wheat, stored up in our granaries here, having been imported from abroad, cotton, coal, petrol, artificial fertilisers and timber, or if any public authority had consulted any professional economist as to the wisdom of thus using some material proportion of our sterling balances before 1939, I am quite certain the professional economist would have said, "By all means do so. You could not do a wiser thing". And if nothing was done, or if nothing adequate was done, on those lines, at all events the professional economists are not to blame. They did recommend a similar policy in England which was not adopted to an adequate extent there either. But the same considerations apply there as here and, so far as professional economists are concerned, in the years before the war they would far rather have seen us piling up stores of necessary raw materials in our country than increasing to the maximum degree our sterling balances.

I think one of the matters which might be considered by that agricultural credit conference would be not only the expansion of agricultural production in the direction of the things of which we are normally deficient, such as wheat and beet, but also the maintenance and, if possible, the expansion of our export products. That part of our economy is important in many ways. It is important as a principal source of our agricultural income because in normal times about half our agricultural production is exported and must be exported, and also our natural resources are such that it is easier to expand certain products which are export products, for example, poultry and bacon production, than it is to expand other products which we need for our own consumption, such as wheat.

The expansion of egg production and bacon production under present circumstances is primarily a question of more potatoes and more barley and oats grown at home. The position would seem to be that about 20 years ago we were growing about 400,000 acres of potatoes. In recent years the acreage dropped down to rather more than 300,000 acres of potatoes. We need 100,000 acres to provide for the table potato requirements of our population of about 3,000,000. The produce of the balance is available for animal feeding, and is an important source of animal feeding in the production of poultry, eggs and bacon. Instead of a little over 300,000 acres of potatoes I want to see 500,000 acres or over this year, and now is the time to get that work done; and instead of a beggarly 80,000 acres of barley I want to see 200,000 acres and equally the amount of oats crop will have to be raised to something like 800,000 acres. If we had that we would have made adequate provision for the feeding of our own people, and would have created an elastic surplus available by way of export. If we had an elastic expansion of that kind of export product we would have something with which we could bargain with our neighbours.

We would be doing our neighbours a good turn and we would be able to say to them: "We are trying to expand our export products to your people, so what about letting us have enough coal, petrol and cotton which come to us from abroad!" These problems are our problems but they are also the problems for our neighbours.

In some respects the price policy pursued by our neighbours would not encourage us to expand the production of our export products for their market. I already referred to their price policy in respect of the feeding of fat cattle. It had the effect of making us export about 1,000,000 cwts in live weight less than we would have been willing and able to export if they had fixed a price that made it worth while to finish fat cattle here. I think our neighbours are in a position now to appreciate that the more we export the better it would be for them and the better will be the position for our agriculture and that this partly depends on their price policy. In other respects their price policy seems to discourage our efforts to accommodate them.

I happen to be interested in the production of eggs to the extent of possessing some 50 egg laying poultry. I consider I am doing rather well if I can get 2/2 a dozen in Dublin, but I am told that the price in Belfast has come down to 3/- recently which implies that the wholesale price is more than 2/2 up there, so that I think the price fixed by the Ministry of Food for eggs that happen to have the stamp of Northern Ireland is definitely higher than the prices paid for exactly the same quality produced down here. If they want to encourage the export of eggs to their market they should see that our price is the same as in the Six-County area. If they could be induced to do that they would help us to develop an agricultural policy which suited them as well as us.

On general economic policy, on the assumption that the shortage of supplies is a factor of increasing importance, and that no solution is forthcoming for it in the next six months or so, we have to face a situation in which it will be impossible to employ perhaps 100,000 or more of the people now employed in our industries, and it may be necessary to reorient our policy back again in the direction of agricultural production. The only thing we can be sure of in the process of transition is that a great deal of people are going to have their incomes reduced quite apart from a number of those whose incomes may disappear. In the next six months I apprehend a situation in which the national income both in money and in kind is likely to be less than in the previous 12 months and I think the Minister should be very chary about the methods raising the necessary taxation. If you attempt to raise the rates when the national income is falling the general yield will be less than before. The French made that mistake in the early years following 1931 and finally they only succeeded in making bad worse. Having regard to the difficult period of transition we may have to face up to, I recommend that we should not raise the rate of taxation in the next six months or so, in order to give a chance of expansion to that section of the industry that can expand.

If that policy resulted in enabling some sections of our economy to expand while others must contract you might reach a position in about six months when you could get additional revenue from taxpayers whose incomes had been increased after the transition. If a policy were developed by which agricultural income increased by five or ten millions in the next 12 months, then after the next six months I would advise a policy that would make this expanded income make a real additional contribution to the Exchequer. That will not be popular so far as the farmers are concerned but I am not asking for popularity from the farmers or from any other section. I am trying to suggest a sound method of approaching the problem with the information available. That is all I want to say at the moment, and I hope the Minister will deal with some of these suggestions in the course of his reply.

Liam O Buachalla

A Chathaoirligh, ní mar gheall ar go mbraithim gur féidir liom mórán cabhrach a thabhairt don Aire a eirighim le bheith pairteach sa diósbóireacht seo. Is amhlaidh gur mian liom poinnte nó dó a bhí á phleidhe tráthnóna a phléidhe a thuilleadh.

For two reasons, the question of the Army has loomed largely in this debate to-day. One of them is that, were it not for the extra burden imposed on the country on account of the expanded Army, the Minister for Finance would be in the happy position of being able to inform the country that his Estimates and his demands on the country would be less this year than last year. The other reason why the Army has loomed largely in the debate is because, to-day more than ever, we realise to what a great extent our safety and our security are dependent on it. I want to join with Senator McEllin and other Senators in paying tribute to the spirit which is animating our soldiers to-day and has been animating them for the last 18 months.

As a member of the Oireachtas, I could not become a member of the Army, but at the same time I was anxious that, should the need arise, I would be fit to take my place with the Army, or with whatever other forces might be brought into being by the Government for the defence of the country. In order to equip myself, since I could not become a member of the Army, I made it my business to approach the Army authorities in Galway to see if I might get the advantage of a course there. Through their kindness and courtesy I was able to attend a short course in the First Battalion, with the result that I came to very close quarters with Army conditions and with Army problems. It is because of the experience I had there that I join to-day with Senator McEllin and the rest of the Senators in paying the highest possible tribute to the results that have been achieved by the officers, from the top down to the N.C.O's., in making and moulding the Army into the excellent organisation it is to-day.

The Minister for Defence to-day, when he brought in the Army Bill, referred to the need that there was, and is, for retaining the services of officers and N.C.O's. who were due for retirement in the course of the emergency. Anybody who has had any experience of, or any close connection with, the Army will realise how urgent the need has been and is for the retention of the services of these men. Very many non-commissioned officers, and officers, are really teachers, and they are called on to perform teaching services of the most technical and the most difficult kind. To the men charged with teaching in the Army I want to pay the highest possible tribute that I can. The men under whom I had the honour to train for a short time did their work solely in the Irish language, and it was a marvel to me the efficiency of these men, not alone in their profession but in the Irish language. It astonished me to see the extent to which these Army officers and N.C.O's. were able to take young men coming in with only, in many instances, a smattering of Irish, and get through their work efficiently and, not alone to make good soldiers and good Irishmen, but to make good Irish speakers also, in a very short time, of the material which came to their hands.

I hope—it is not the charge or the responsibility of the Minister for Finance—but I do hope that somehow it will come to the notice of the Minister for Defence that it is imperative that he should keep up to full strength the 1st Battalion, which is composed of Irish speakers. Every inducement should be put in the way of men to go into that particular battalion, and even to establish similar battalions. I hope nobody will take it as unfair of me if I refer to one battalion more than another, but speaking from the particular knowledge I have of it, I can say that the standard of teaching there, and the spirit of comradeship and of co-operation that is to be seen right through it, from the highest to the lowest rank, is really an encouragement to anybody to go in and serve in it. Not alone that, but I hope that when conditions make it possible, both the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Defence will see that these men, who have done such excellent work for the Army and who have done such excellent work for the Irish language in the Army, will be suitably rewarded. They could do their work in English, but they undertook to do the very difficult work of taking raw recruits and training them, not alone in arms and all branches of military service, but in training them in the Irish language. They do that willingly and without thought of recompense; I know that, but just the same it must impose a certain strain on them; it does impose a burden on them, and because of that I feel that the nation should recognise their extra service as soon as ever such recognition can possibly be given.

The Army is our great bulwark to-day. I hope that every officer in the Army will remember that not alone does he owe a duty to the nation in keeping out any stranger or any invader that may attempt to come in, but that the officers will also realise the charge that has been laid upon them by the men of 1916, and of every age, who fell for Irish freedom. That charge is that they have not only to make a first-class fighting machine but there is also a duty on them to mould and make a great national force also. I have every confidence in them and, as I say, I want to join heartily in the tribute that has been paid to them, and to assure them that we appreciate everything they have done and everything that they are doing, and that we have the utmost confidence in them with regard to the future.

There is no telling what is going to happen, but I think we can be sure that unemployment is going to loom largely in the future a good deal more that it has loomed in the past. I hope that young men who, unfortunately, may happen to be thrown out of employment, will realise that there is no need for them to be unhappy or uncomfortable or unemployed; that there is room for them in the Army. They will enjoy every minute of it and there is no fear of their going rusty between their joining and such time as we can get back to normal and they can be absorbed in civil employment again.

The question of supplies has been referred to also. The question of supplies has been dealt with very often recently, but very unfairly, I must say. It is a year and a half ago since war was declared, and it is only to-day, practically speaking, that the people have began to feel anything in the nature of a pinch, and that pinch is being felt only in regard to very few commodities. I remember, about a year or so ago, when the question of supplies was being discussed, I made a remark at the time which, I think, raised a laugh. That remark was to the effect that the great trouble in the matter of supplies was that the Minister for Supplies had been doing his work too well. If the Minister for Supplies had done his work less ably at that time, people would have come up against the pinch earlier, they would have realised the urgency of the situation, and they would have done more to help him than they did. I think it is a great tribute indeed to the Minister for Supplies—and I want to join in the tribute to him—that despite the difficulties, he succeeded in carrying us through as he has done up to this without scarcely any inconvenience or dislocation being experienced. In the matter of supplies, I think it will have to be admitted that no effort was spared by either the Minister for Supplies or any member of the Government in warning the people as to the dangers and in appealing to them to lay in stocks and stores as far as they possibly could.

A great deal has been made of the shortage of petrol, and quite rightly, because it is true that it is causing very grave dislocation. But will anybody deny that the Minister for Supplies and other Ministers as soon as they discovered last summer that there was a danger of shortage of supplies, appealed to everybody to lay in every possible gallon of petrol they possibly could?

Mr. Douglas

Last summer, petrol was rationed and everybody got only a limited amount.

Liam Ó Buachalla

I should have said before the summer rationing came in. I think the Senator for the correction.

Professor Johnston

It came in immediately after the war.

Liam Ó Buachalla

When it was made clear that there was likely to be a great scarcity, Senators will remember the rush there was on every kind of container that people could lay hands on. What really happened was that people who stored this petrol kept it in reserve only for a very short time. They were shortsighted and in a little while they started using their stocks and stores instead of leaving them by. Then, when the real shortage came, they found that they had used what they should have conserved. To blame the Minister for Supplies for the shortage is, to say the least of it, hardly fair. That is typical of what happened in regard to other commodities.

I should like to say that what Senator Mrs. Concannon stated in regard to waste is timely and that every effort should be made to check waste of every conceivable commodity. Again, on the question of supplies, Senator McGee referred to the scarcity of artificial manures, and pleaded for the working of the Clare deposits. Senator McGee is not just a simple country farmer. As well as being an extensive farmer, he is a man closely connected with industry and commerce, and it surprises me to know that he was not aware that the phosphatic rock in Clare was being developed. It surprises me to know, interested as he is, as a farmer, in the need for supplies of artificial manures, and interested as he is in supplies as a merchant, that he did not know just a little more of what was happening in regard to that particular supply. The rock has been worked for quite a time and quantities of it—sometimes as much, I think, as 100 tons a week— are being taken over to Galway and there converted into artificials. But the people working it in Galway are finding difficulties. The rock, it is true, has a high content, a valuable content, but it is very difficult to work. It is unusually hard and it is therefore difficult to work. Not alone that, but I understand there is a considerable amount of moisture, if that is the correct term, to be found in the rock which makes production very difficult. Whatever the reason may be, the people converting it find that to produce artificial manure from it is rather costly. The Senator mentioned the fact that Dr. Drumm had declared that the manures could be made available. I think we all agree with Dr. Drumm that they can be made available but, I am afraid, it will be at a very high cost. Dr. Drumm investigated this problem himself together with some other responsible chemists and authorities, but I do not know that he has made any report available as to the possibilities of the industry. We can all declare, of course, that manures can be won from the rock, but whether they can be won at an economic price is another matter and, even in war time, economic prices do count.

The Minister is entitled to some help from us. It is all very well to tell him that he should spend more money on this, or more money on that, but none of us, I think, told him how he might get that money. I do not know very well myself either how he is going to get it, but I have sufficient confidence in him and in the people advising him to believe that if the money can be got, he will get it and get it without causing undue strain on the national economy. I would suggest to the Minister that industry in this country should be able to help him a good deal now. Some of us have been arguing that Irish economic and industrial history shows that Ireland is capable of becoming a first-rate industrial country, and that if it has not done better in the past, we can point to the reasons for it.

It is not a matter of mere guesswork; we can point to definite reasons for it. I suggest that the history of industrial development in this country in the last ten years proves further that the country can become a first-rate industrial country. Irish industry in very many instances can become so efficient that very high profits can be earned. I believe that industry is entitled to a fair reward but I also hold that industry is not entitled to undue reward and I regret to say it would seem that undue rewards are being taken by many Irish industries at the present time. I suggest seriously to Irish industry, in view of all the help it has got, and in view of the excellent position in which it finds itself, that it might come to the help of the country now in time of need.

On the question of unemployment, I should like to make a remark or two. The unemployment we will have in the future will not be quite like that which we have had in the past. Up to this it was mainly in the rural areas it existed and it was of a type that could be readily absorbed. That will not be the case in future. If conditions with regard to supplies of raw materials do not improve, skilled workers—tradesmen and craftsmen—will feel the pinch. That raises a very much more difficult problem for us than the problems we have had to face so far. Just think of asking, say, a foundry moulder who is unemployed if he will work on a drainage scheme! Just think of, say, a cooper who may be thrown out of employment through lack of demand or perhaps through the taking of supplies of raw materials which ordinarily went into use in his industry for, say, the production of flour and so on! If that man is unemployed, to what can he be put? It is the same right through all the trades likely to be affected. Think of the clerical workers who have been trained in their particular callings; to what can they be put? It will, I suggest, be very difficult to cater for the type of unemployed we will have in the future, as compared with that with which we have had to deal in the past.

Mr. MacDermot

Is the Senator speaking of the near-term future?

Liam O Buachalla

The future in general—near or far. There is no knowing how long this problem will last or what turn developments may take. I would like the Minister for Finance and the other Ministers concerned thoroughly to examine the whole question of the expansion of the Construction Corps. That will not solve all the problems—I cannot see that the Construction Corps will take the place of regular industry—but I am making the suggestion in the hope that it may help the Government. Times may become so difficult, that the half a loaf will be better than no bread. The solution will certainly not be an ideal one. But from what I know of the Army and the Construction Corps if the worst comes to the worst, no man need feel uneasy about taking his place there. If unemployment develops to the extent which we fear, I hope that—if we must develop and extend the Construction Corps—it will get a good deal more help, sympathy and support than the initial effort has received.

Senator Douglas this evening referred to the debate on the national register and implied that we, on this side, opposed it. That is hardly the position. On this side, I think we are agreed that a national register may be desirable, but we were satisfied, from the statement of the Minister as well as from our own investigations, that the establishment of that register is not called for at the moment. We realise that conditions are not the same in this country as they are across the water. Here we have a rather simple economy. We have somewhat less than 3,000,000 people to deal with. We produce food in abundance. On the other side, there is approximately 40,000,000 people and there is scarcely any food production whatever there. The conditions are totally different and, for that reason, we do not feel that the establishment of a national register is desirable just now. It is hardly fair that it should go abroad that we were opposed to it. We were satisfied with the assurance of the Minister that he had the possibility well in mind and that, if the need arose, a register would be formed.

Senator Johnston referred to the question of sterling balances and mentioned that it arose out of references made recently in the other House to the matter. I should like to say that I, for one, have never been opposed to the liquidation of those balances and to their being brought home whenever possible. I have always admired the present Government for their efforts, day in and day out, to provide opportunities for bringing these balances home or at least to retain here any further funds we might accumulate in this country and for which investment opportunity was being sought. When history comes to be written, I believe it will show that they had to contend with a considerable amount of sabotage. Many attempts were made to spike their efforts to create favourable openings here so that at least some of those sterling balances could be brought home. Senator Johnston has said that, if we had been asked, when the war was declared, whether it would have been advisable to invest £10,000,000 in stores, we would have said "yes", but I do not know that any of us went out of our way to advise the Government to do that. It is very easy to be wise afterwards.

Professor Johnston

Before the war was declared—a year or two before— would the Senator not have said "Yes" equally?

Liam O Buachalla

I am to be taken as saying that, as far as I am concerned, I was anxious at all times to see as much of those balances liquidated and brought home in any form as would serve the nation.

Professor Johnston

In the form of wheat, for instance?

Liam O Buachalla

Yes, in the form of wheat, or anything that would have served the nation. I do know that the Government got from the Opposition very little encouragement or help in their effort to create opportunities for the bringing home of these balances, or the holding here of whatever funds we might accumulate in the country.

Professor Johnston

May I interrupt the Senator to say that the Government deliberately forbade the importation of agricultural fertilisers during some of those years?

Liam O Buachalla

The only other remark I want to make is, so far as I know, the banks, at the request of the Government, did make funds available for the bringing in of supplies— in other words, the Government did arrange with the banks to provide funds to enable Irish industrialists and Irish commercial people to invest money in stocks and stores. If these funds were not availed of to the extent they should be availed of, it is hardly fair to blame either the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Supplies. I suggest that when we are attempting to fix blame, we ought to be reasonable and apportion the blame where it is due.

Mr. MacDermot

Sir, To me one of the most interesting items in the Minister's speech was his reference to our continued membership of the League of Nations, and his mention of the fact that we were providing a token Vote in consequence of that membership. In order to be a patriot, it is not necessary to be an isolationist, either to the extent of disregarding the moral issues that are facing the world in general at the present moment, or to the extent of disregarding the impact of what is happening elsewhere upon our material circumstances. It has lately seemed to me only too often that these things are being disregarded, and that they are being disregarded by the Government. They are being disregarded by individual Ministers and they are, above all, being disregarded by the Censorship which is so big a factor in the management of Irish affairs at the present moment.

Membership of the League of Nations implies that we still adhere to the principles of the Covenant which was the foundation of that League. That is a Covenant to give all possible help to nations that are the victims of aggression. We adhered to that Covenant notwithstanding the fact that we felt a grievance about ourselves being partitioned. We have continued to adhere to that Covenant since the present Government came into office and it is, indeed, one of the most striking things about the policy of the present Government that, in spite of many isolationist utterances, both before the war and during it, they have adhered to our membership of the League of Nations and they have adhered to our recognition of the British Crown as an organ for external affairs. I suggest that the fact that they have adhered to these things ought to prohibit them, and prohibit any of us, from taking up the grimly isolationist and indifferent attitude that seems now to be the fashion, about world affairs, about our relations to our neighbours and our relations to the various countries that are involved, or are likely to be involved, in the present war.

Reference has been made by Senator Douglas to a broadcast to America made the other day by the Taoiseach. I had intended to speak at some length on the subject of his allegation in that broadcast that we were being blockaded by Great Britain, but what Senator Douglas has said makes it unnecessary for me to enlarge on that subject. It is, in any case, an unpleasant one. But, I wish to add my voice to that of Senator Douglas in protesting against a statement which seems to be as devoid of tact as it is of accuracy.

Now, when we remember that we are pledged by the Covenant of the League to give every possible help to nations resisting aggression, even if we take the line that we are in no position to implement actively that undertaking, that we are too weak and too far, perhaps, from the scene of action to give effective help to nations resisting aggression, we ought not to go so far as to adopt an attitude of complete indifference on the subject of such aggression. The broadcast, to which Senator Douglas referred, implied, to my mind, that all that was at stake in this war was a policy of— I think the phrase was "Imperial adventure—Imperial adventure," and it was natural from our history and in our present circumstances that we should not wish to be involved in imperial adventure.

It seems to me that that is a line which ought not to be taken by anybody who remembers that we undertook international obligations when we entered the League of Nations and that this war was started in fact, and beyond all cavil, by an aggression against a country with whom history gives us a great deal of sympathy, namely Poland, and that that aggression still continues and has been enforced in peculiarly horrible forms. I am not arguing at this stage—I am not raising at this moment the question —whether we ought to be formally neutral, but I do say that some indication ought to creep into our speeches, ought to creep into public utterances, above all to people of other countries, that we are sensible of the fact that aggression has been committed and that our sympathy is due to the numerous nations, starting with Poland and going on with small countries like Holland, Denmark, Norway and Belgium.

Mr. Tunney

And Ireland.

Mr. MacDermot

Let me remind the Senator of what I said at the beginning, that we entered into the Covenant although we knew the situation with regard to Partition. It was the same then as it is now and, consequently, we cannot be heard to say that the Covenant means nothing to us because we consider that wrong has been committed against ourselves. The duty, at any rate, of sympathy, if nothing more, still remains. When we go to the length of creating an atmosphere which changes the whole character of the war from something that it really is to something that it is not, then we are actively denying the obligations that we undertook.

In a recent Lenten Pastoral, an allusion was made to the plight of Poland, and particularly to the plight of the Catholics of Poland, by one of our Bishops and so little of sympathy was there in the heart of the Censor for the people of that country that the whole of the passage in question was suppressed. One might be able to bear with that were it not for the fact that in at least one other pastoral, issued at the same time, a passage was allowed to be published which gave a totally different account of the character of this war and implied that it was a war that had been undertaken to remedy an unjust distribution of the raw materials of the world. I suggest that that represents a partisanship on the part of the Censor which is not only entirely in conflict with the principles of the League of Nations and the obligations we undertook when we entered the League of Nations——

Liam Ó Buachalla

I wonder if the Senator is in order in discussing this matter in this way?

Cathaoirleach

I have allowed the Senator to make reference to it. I hope he will now pass on.

Mr. MacDermot

As I was saying, Sir, I suggest that the international obligations that we undertook and the principles that we accepted in our international affairs ought to debar us from partisanship of that kind, if they do not even compel us to do something more. In the same way, I think the sort of appeal that was made to America in the Taoiseach's broadcast is little likely to succeed if it shows no consciousness whatever of the existence of the sort of issues to which I have referred.

But in this matter I am not suggesting that we should pay no attention to any except idealistic motives. I would also appeal to material motives. Senator Ó Buachalla has just been telling us that he foresaw a possibly brilliant industrial future for this country. So far as the near term future is concerned, it must be evident to anybody who thinks for a moment that it depends upon the arrival of necessary raw materials; that the arrival of those necessary raw materials depends upon two things, one, the extent to which the British succeed in mastering the German blockade—the German blockade no less of this country than of England, a blockade utterly unprovoked so far as we are concerned —but also on British and American goodwill. And if he looks to the long-term situation with regard to Irish industries, I presume he is thinking of us as an exporting country, and he is thinking that after this war is over we may be not only exporting agricultural produce but industrial products as well——

Mr. McEllin

And you in addition.

Mr. MacDermot

——and exporting them presumably to our nearest and biggest market. If that is the case, surely it must be enormously important to us that Great Britain should not be completely defeated and impoverished and stripped of everything she possesses by this war. And that again is a consideration which should deter us from having anything in the nature of pro-German bias in our speeches, in our broadcasts.

Mr. McEllin

I question that remark about making pro-German speeches. I never heard pro-German speeches in the House.

Cathaoirleach

Senator MacDermot.

Mr. McEllin

The policy is pro-Irish and nothing else.

Mr. MacDermot

I regard any statement about the character of this war which falsifies it in the German favour as being a pro-German statement, whatever the intention may have been, and I suggest that there have been too many of such statements.

The Government are constantly calling for Irish unity in support of them and their policy. I am very conscious of the value and the importance of such unity and I have spoken strongly in advocacy of it in this House in terms that were perhaps even exaggerated, seven or eight months ago, but I cannot see that such unity is going to be of any value if it is built up on illusions and false pretences and if it will fall to pieces on the first contact with reality and I am greatly afraid that it is on that sort of terms and conditions that unity is at present being promoted.

Why should the Irish people be deceived? Why should the things be concealed from the Irish people that are being concealed from them? When Archbishop Mannix or when some Irish orator in America makes a speech praising the policy of our Government in relation to the war, it is given prominence in the Irish newspapers and especially in the Irish Press. I am not complaining of that but surely the Irish people have a right to know that other Irishmen are saying other things. We accept the principle here—I admit reluctantly as far as I am concerned— we have to accept the principle that the Government has the right to censor us here very severely, that we are not allowed to go on record as saying something that it is thought might involve the country or involve the Government, and incur the enmity of one of the belligerents, but the same considerations do not apply to the utterances of people outside this country. For instance, when the English and the Northern Ireland newspapers the other day carried an item that 129 prominent Irishmen of the United States had sent a cable to Mr. De Valera complaining of Irish policy in relation to the war, why should not the Irish people be allowed to know that?

Mr. Quirke

Because 129 people out of 120,000,000 do not count, any more than Senator MacDermot counts here.

Mr. MacDermot

The Irish people are as capable of coming to that conclusion as the Senator is. I do not know whether those 129 people spoke for themselves only or spoke for large numbers, but at any rate, it is an interesting item of news and it is beyond me to imagine why the Irish people should not be allowed to know it. In the same way, when Mr. Henry Harrison, Mr. Maurice Healy and Gen. Hubert Gough were issuing statements on the same subject, I do not attach undue importance to any of these three gentlemen myself, but I think it is childish that the Irish people should not be allowed to read what they said and it shakes one's confidence in the whole policy and outlook of the Government that things like that should be hushed up.

The other day there was a landing in this country in County Wexford of a gentleman from an aeroplane, and all the Government condescends to tell us about it is that he was a stranger and that he landed from a German aeroplane, or that he said he did, by parachute. I suggest that the Irish people are entitled to be told much more about the incident than that. Back in May of last year, it will be recollected, in the house of Mr. Held evidence was discovered, consisting of a number of articles, of a German parachutist having been harboured there and having brought with him 20,000 American dollars. In June of last year a man called Karl Andersen was arrested on his way from Tralee to Dublin. He also carried a large amount of American and English currency.

Mr. McEllin

Do you object to their being arrested?

Mr. MacDermot

In August, two or three men were arrested near Skibbereen and were found to be in the possession of incendiary bombs and of £850 in English currency. They again were Germans. In December, a man called Fritz Langsdorf, again a German, was arrested in Dublin and sentenced for refusing to give an account of his movements. And now we have a stranger landing from a German parachute in Wexford. It is rumoured —I do not know with how much truth —that this stranger is also a German, and this stranger also brought with him a quantity of money. We keep talking of British aggression because of the presence in Northern Ireland of a Government which is at any rate supported by the majority of the people there, even if we think, as I do, that the boundary line has been entirely wrongly drawn, and we complain of the presence in Northern Ireland of troops that possibly we will be only too glad are there if things come to pass which the series of incidents to which I have referred suggest may come to pass. It is not for nothing that German agents arrive here with money, and besides those five or six people that have been caught there may be others who have not been caught, and I suggest that that sort of incident ought not to be soft-pedalled and hushed up in each case.

Mr. Campbell

When discussing this Bill the scope of the debate can be very wide but I would ask the Chair is it in order that a Senator should use this debate to initiate a discussion on censorship? I submit it is entirely out of order.

Cathaoirleach

I suggest the Senator should now bring to a conclusion his observations on that particular subject.

Mr. MacDermot

They are coming to a conclusion, Sir. I am sorry to give so much annoyance to Senators but I do so from a genuine sense of duty. I believe the country is being taught by suppressions and misrepresentations to take an entirely wrong view of the situation, a view that will prevent us all from acting as a united nation with effect when the moment comes that we have to do so. At the time when the Opposition agreed to send members to form part of the Defence Conference, I rejoiced at it and I felt warmly in favour of every effort that has been made since the beginning of the war to get together a national Government if it could be done. But I am inclined to doubt now whether the Defence Conference has been any use at all. For one thing, one of the absolutely fundamental elements of defence is the question of supplies and, judging by the debates that have recently taken place in the Dáil, the Leaders of the Opposition attending the Defence Conference knew nothing about the supply situation any more than the ordinary public. It seems to me that if they were not kept informed about such matters as petrol and wheat that they, as a Defence Conference, were not worth much. Furthermore, I have the feeling that by being there in the Defence Conference they put themselves in the position of conniving at the sort of thing that is going on in the way of censorship, to which I object and to which I think they object, to the perhaps unwitting partisanship, but nevertheless partisanship, that is shown in the treatment of news.

Mr. McEllin

You are a shocking hypocrite. You are a thorough blackguard, a thorough scoundrel. That is what you are.

Cathaoirleach

Senator McEllin must withdraw that expression.

Mr. McEllin

I am sorry I cannot withdraw it. I will leave the house.

The Senator then left the House.

Mr. MacDermot

I am extremely sorry any Senator should feel so much emotion about the things I said. I never had any intention of exciting anger or irritation. But when I read the statements made and realise the manner in which the censorship is worked——

Cathaoirleach

I must intervene again. I have allowed a certain latitude on censorship but in view of proceedings at a recent meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges I again suggest to the Senator that he should now bring his observations on that subject to a conclusion.

Mr. Hayes

I have little sympathy with Senator MacDermot in certain cases but should not our procedure be based on reality? Has the Committee on Procedure and Privileges any power to make any provision that would restrict a debate on the Central Fund Bill?

Cathaoirleach

Senator MacDermot may continue.

Mr. MacDermot

I will say no more about it. I implore the House to remember that the question of poverty and starvation will not end with the war. The battle for future Irish prosperity as well as for Irish freedom is at present being fought on the waters of the Atlantic and above the waters of the Atlantic. In paying a deserved tribute to the spirit of our own Army, to their courage, unity and comradeship, we should also not forget how deeply our material fortunes are involved in the issue of the battle of the Atlantic; and while not now pressing my views as to whether in this war we should be neutral or not I wish to urge that not only because of moral issues bound up with our membership of the League of Nations but also because of our material interests, we should not allow our utterances to create an atmosphere from which such considerations are excluded.

I have only two more items that I wish to mention. I would like the Minister for Finance to give us more light on the general question as to whether we are recommended to lend or to spend. Some of the recent speeches of the Minister for Supplies would seem to suggest that he wants us to spend as much of our income as we can, in order to keep the wheels of industry running as smoothly as possible; and that we should consume as much as we like of commodities of which we are producing a surplus in this country. If we do that, it is obvious that we will have less money to respond to the appeal of the Minister for Finance when it comes to raising loans to finance the war. In England they have taken a very definite stand in favour of lending as opposed to spending. Everyone is advised to economise on non-essentials and to lend to the country. Is that to be our policy, or is it not? We have had very little guidance on the subject.

I would like to mention also the subject of petrol. Though they insist in England on spending as little as possible and economising as much as possible, they have managed to use the petrol they possess so as to keep the maximum number of motor cars on the road. In other words, the private motor-car owner gets a little. I do not suggest that the convenience of persons who use petrol should come before the interests of the State; but I think it is worthy of consideration, when the Government wants so much revenue, whether private motor-car owners should be driven off the road. Very little in the way of a petrol ration would keep them going, and it might be worth while keeping private car owners on the road. To do so would save a large number of people employed in garages from being thrown out of employment. I would like the Minister to induce his colleague, the Minister for Supplies, to consider that matter.

Senator Quirke rose.

Mr. M. Hayes

Before Senator Quirke goes on with the debate, Sir, I should like to know whether there is any provision in our Standing Orders to deal with a Senator who flouts the authority of the Chair as Senator McEllin has. After all, there was no heat in this debate, but the Senator used two words about Senator MacDermot and, when ordered to apologise or to withdraw the remarks, he refused and, when leaving the House, repeated his remarks. Surely, there ought to be some method of dealing with that particular situation? Otherwise, our debates here will fall to an extravagantly low level.

Cathaoirleach

We shall have the matter considered, Senator, at the next meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.

Mr. M. Hayes

Very good.

Mr. Quirke

With very few exceptions, the debate to-night has been more or less what might be described as a pleasant party, and I am sure the Minister has every right to feel happy in the knowledge that there were very few of what one might call genuine criticisms of his Bill. Numerous speakers handed compliments around, here and there, and I must say that I should like to join with those who paid a tribute to the efficiency of our Army. I should also like to join with those who paid a tribute to the farmers of the country for the part they have taken, and continue to take, in building up supplies for our people. I should, however, like to add one more to that, and pay tribute also to the tolerance of the people of this country who have listened patiently over the years, and particularly over the recent months, to speeches like the one we have just heard from Senator MacDermot.

Mr. M. Hayes

They have not listened to it. That is the snag.

Mr. Quirke

No! However, I happen to be one of those people who is not likely to lose his temper over a speech like that.

Mr. M. Hayes

Hear, hear!

Mr. Quirke

It more or less amuses me, and when I listen to Senator MacDermot, I wonder if he really takes himself seriously, or if he realises that the people of the country do not take him seriously? I also wonder if he is taken seriously across the water when he writes his articles to the papers, and when bits and scraps of his speeches are reported in those papers I wonder if the people over there realise, as we realise here, that he represents nobody?

Mr. MacDermot

The Senator need not worry. My speeches are not reported across the water.

Mr. Quirke

I am talking in the past tense. It is not the Senator's fault that they are not reported across the water now.

Mr. MacDermot

I do not know what the Senator is implying.

Mr. Quirke

I have tried to puzzle the thing out for myself, and I wondered why the Senator should get it into his head that what he says is of any importance. Perhaps it was because of the fact that when he went to America on his recent trip his friends sent him several cables asking him to come back immediately. I wonder if he really thought that it was because they set any particular value on his presence in this country, or if he did not realise, as anybody should, that the only reason they appealed to him, for God's sake, to come back was because they felt that he was letting them down.

Mr. Baxter

It was the Taoiseach put him in here. Do not forget that.

Mr. Quirke

We are not discussing that.

Mr. Baxter

It is a fact, nevertheless.

Mr. Quirke

In any case, I do not think Senator MacDermot's speech will have the serious effect some people seem to think, and when this war is over, and when 999 out of every 1,000 of the people have done their bit in this country, I think Senator MacDermot will go down to history in this country as "the man from God knows where".

Mr. M. Hayes

Senator Quirke's history is very weak. The "Man from God knows where" was a very noble man—a noble man who died for Ireland.

Mr. Quirke

I am talking about another sort of man from God knows where—"The remittance man."

Mr. M. Hayes

There is only one.

Mr. Quirke

I am not talking about the original "Man from God knows where". God forbid that I should compare Senator MacDermot with that man, who died for Ireland.

Mr. MacDermot

I suppose, Sir, that if I were to allow Senator Quirke's remarks to go unchallenged, they would be taken as admitted, and so I wish to say that they are by no means admitted.

Mr. Quirke

I did not expect the Senator to admit all that, certainly. However, to pass on to something more racy of the soil, we come to Senator Madden. Senator Madden was also amusing. He is generally amusing, but when he comes along and trots out the phrase that there are miles of undeveloped peat in the County Limerick and that the Government are doing nothing about it, it takes me back to the days of my childhood, which is a long time ago, and reminds me of a little rhyme I used to hear then: "When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be; when the devil was well, the devil a saint was he." We need not go very far back in our history to remember the time when, if not Senator Madden, other members of his Party, were going around talking about the money that was being thrown into the bog-holes. Also, we had, if not Senator Madden—definitely, not Senator Madden himself, with regard to wheat anyhow, because he has been producing wheat himself— several other members of his Party telling us about the disastrous policy of the Government in growing wheat. I should like to hear anybody to-day having the nerve to stand up and condemn the policy of growing wheat and winning turf. However, I am glad to see that Senator Madden is interested in the thing, and I am doubly glad to be in the position of being able to tell him that something is being done about it and that he will know about it very soon, and I hope he will throw his weight into this thing as he has done in the case of various other things in his district, and that other Senators will follow his example.

Regardless of what may be done in the production of food, I believe it will be of very little use if we have not some means of cooking that food, and I believe that every Senator, when he goes back to his own district, should get in touch with his parish council and get them to work on the winning of turf and make sure that the area covered by his own parish council will at least be provided for in the way of fuel in the coming winter. Now, Senator Hayes made a few very unfortunate remarks. He starts off with a reference to recent speeches in the Dáil, and says that he saw no approach to any other persons outside the Government in this matter except a mixture of vulgar personal abuse combined with dignified appeals for co-operation.

Mr. M. Hayes

Surely, I did not start off like that?

Mr. Quirke

Well, what can you expect from a Tipperary man, anyhow?

Mr. M. Hayes

That is right.

Mr. Quirke

Now, that comes very badly from Senator Hayes. First, on the occasion of the last meeting we had here, in my opinion at any rate, and in the opinion of most people, I think, he departed from the ordinary rules of parliamentary debate in order to strike below the belt.

Mr. Douglas

On a point of order. Is not that a reflection on you, Sir, which ought not to be allowed?

Cathaoirleach

Perhaps I was not in the Chair at that particular time.

Mr. Quirke

Of course, Senator Douglas would come to the rescue of Senator Hayes.

Mr. M. Hayes

Mind you, I can manage grandly by myself.

Mr. Baxter

You can manage Senator Quirke anyhow.

Mr. Quirke

We had Senator Douglas coming to the rescue with the suggestion of setting up a coalition Government, and I am sure that what Senator Douglas had in his mind for that coalition Government would be such a combination as Senator Hayes and Deputy Frank Aiken, the Minister for Co-ordination of Defensive Measures.

Mr. Douglas

As a thought reader, the Senator is rather a failure.

Mr. Baxter

He is a bad reader, generally.

Mr. Quirke

This business of a coalition Government has been threshed out here time and time again. A few months ago there were a few people who believed in it, but the farther we get and the more we hear speeches like that made by Senator Hayes, in his unjustified attack on a man who is a long way from here trying to do his best to save this country from starvation or worse than starvation, the less people we will have in favour of his suggestion of a coalition Government.

Mr. M. Hayes

I did not make any suggestion of a coalition Government. I shall have to teach Senator Quirke Irish, since he does not understand English.

Mr. Quirke

Not Senator Hayes's English. Senator Hayes then went on to ridicule the appeals of the Government for co-operation, and he asks, what do we want co-operation for? Is it to carry out the policy of the Government? Surely to goodness that kind of speech will not do any good at the present time. It would be far more creditable for Senator Hayes, if he joined with others in making an appeal to those whom he represents and with whom he has considerable influence, to throw in their weight in carrying out the policy not of the Government, not of the Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil Parties, but the policy of the country as a whole at the present time. The policy which is being pursued is the policy of the overwhelming majority of the people, regardless of Party divisions and it is ridiculous for any Senator to make use of his position in this House to try to cause disunity, when unity is the one thing we need if we are to survive at all. He asks: "What is this unity for?" All I can say is that we want unity and we want the co-operation of the people to produce more food and to produce more fuel to cook that food. We want the co-operation of the people also in standing together to oppose any enemy no matter where he may come from.

Mr. Baxter

I shall not pursue the line followed by Senator Quirke which is merely a continuation of the attitude adopted by Senator McEllin. It is a great misfortune that members of the Government Party in this House cannot realise that here we have a deliberative assembly and that no matter what political party a Senator may belong to, he has the right to express his opinions so long as the Standing Orders permit him to do so. Senators should also realise that it is not justifiable to counter these views by personal attack. I am not going to make any comment on the speech made by Senator MacDermot.

Mr. Quirke

Do you approve of it?

Mr. Baxter

My view is that his speech should be met by argument and not by personal abuse and that Senator Quirke and his colleagues would stand much higher in the estimation of the House and of the country generally, if they met that case with reasoned argument. I am expressing no view on Senator MacDermot's speech, or as to whether or not he should have addressed himself to these questions but I have no doubt in my mind as to his right to do so. Whether or not he was justified in referring to these matters, he is at perfect liberty to do so. There is also the consideration, which should be overwhelming to the mind of Senator Quirke and his colleagues, that Senator MacDermot was a nominee of the Taoiseach in this House.

I know no more involved method of dealing with the problems that confront the country than that adopted by Senator Quirke. I have said to him before that his Party was the Government Party and that the Government has a big job of work before it. If you want help on any job, if for instance, you are out in the fields and you have more to do than you are able to do and you want the help of your neighbour, you do not ride down on your high horse and try to horsewhip him into helping you to sow a field of corn. In this measure for which the Minister is seeking the approval of the House, there arise a great many considerations not only for the Minister but for the House and the country as a whole. It is no use pretending that the position of the country is other than grave. In my view the position in the country is really grave. The demands which the Minister for Finance has to make are the heaviest ever put on the populace here. In my opinion the populace were never less able to carry that burden of taxation than this year. I attribute that fact largely to the policy pursued by the Government which in my judgment has been full of faults, weaknesses and failings.

I cannot at all agree with Senator Buckley when he preaches the doctrine that the Minister for Supplies and the Government generally have done everything that was possible, that there is very little room for criticism and that, on the whole, they have delivered the goods. He reproved members of the House for questioning how the Minister for Supplies did his work. We shall hope to hear from the Minister for Finance as to where the extra supplies are which came into the country, if they were obtained at all, and where is the record of the extra imports which the Minister for Supplies was able to secure for us. I feel myself that the position which confronts us now is so serious that orthodox methods of dealing with our problems will not at all meet the needs of the situation. I say that because, as far as I can see, there is no record anywhere of the success of Government policy in so far as success is to be measured by the capacity of the people of this country to bear the burden of taxation which is being put upon them by the Minister to meet the exigencies of the present situation. There is no evidence of the success of Government policy in the sense that the people are better able to carry this burden than they would have been if Government policy had been different.

Senators have referred to what has been achieved by a policy of self-sufficiency. Will somebody show us how far the policy of self-sufficiency has strengthened us to meet the problems that confront us now? Looking at agriculture what do we find? I suggest that the Government's policy in regard to agriculture has weakened the whole fibre of the nation, reduced its power to pay, reduced the national income and left it to-day much poorer than it would have been, had the policy which some of us advocated in this House been pursued. We find from a table supplied by one of the members of the Banking Commission to that body, Professor Duncan, who, I think, was supported by another economist, Dr. Kiernan, that in 1929 agriculture accounted for 52.3 of the national income, in 1931 for 42.2, in 1933 for 29.4, in 1936 for 38.5, in 1937 for 39.9, and in 1938 for 40.5. In 1931 the figure was 42.2 and in 1938 it was 40.5. That surely contains evidence of the failure of Government policy despite the pursuit of the policy of self-sufficiency. That shows that the agricultural industry, on which the whole structure of national economy is based, had a lower net income in 1938 than when the Government came into office. That lowering of the agricultural income has had very serious consequences for the nation at a whole. There is no use in saying that you can build up the industrial arm when you are weakening your agricultural arm day by day. It seems to me that the situation which confronts us now is one in which we are going to have more and more taxation of people whose income is becoming less and less. In the first place, our income, as far as one can observe, will be lower. The return of our agricultural community this year may not be much more than 50 per cent. of what it was last year. One cannot see just at the moment what it may be but, as far as exports are concerned, they are at a standstill at present. The failure of our Minister for Supplies, and the position with regard to our supply policy as a whole, is so appalling, when you know the conditions in rural Ireland, that one just cannot see the light at all.

This foot and mouth disease—which, apparently, the Minister for Agriculture has not got under control—has brought trading in the agricultural industry to a complete standstill and on top of the fact that our exports are nil at the moment, we have had the statement now from the British Minister of Agriculture to the effect that, even if the foot and mouth disease were finished to-morrow, they will drastically reduce the imports of store cattle from Ireland, because they will not feed them over there. The result of that is that no one can calculate what our income from cattle will be this year. Clearly, the income of the agriculturists will be very much lower this year than last year.

In addition to that, on account of the supplies position, there will be an unemployment problem of such a magnitude that even now I do not believe our imagination can carry us to a realisation of its possible limits. With a position like that coming upon us so swiftly, one cannot be other than perturbed as to what plans the Department has to meet such a situation. It seems to me that the question which the Minister has to answer is, "What will be done to raise the national income to a level at which it will be possible for all our citizens to have three meals a day and as much left over as will make the contribution to the Exchequer of the dimensions which the Minister demands?" That is the problem, put bluntly but briefly. Unless the Minister has some plan other than any that has been disclosed up to the present, the country will have to face as grave a situation as any faced by any other country in Europe at the present time.

As far as supplies are concerned, the Department does not at all appreciate the consequences of the shortage. Even in the matter of agricultural production, it does not seem that the effect of the foot and mouth disease has been appreciated in regard to the amount of supplies which will be available for human consumption. I saw a fair yesterday in my home town. There were not less than 600 or 800—possibly 1,000—young pigs in that town, from eight to 14 weeks old. I imagine that not more than 150 of them were sold and the balance were taken home to small farm places which have been accustomed to keeping more live stock than they were able to find or produce food for on their farms. They are now facing a situation that no supplies are available to be purchased and if they can keep them at all they are to be kept by feeding to them food which probably may be essential for the maintenance of human life here. That is part of the problem up and down the country.

That will have other consequences as well. It seems that, by July next, possibly one bacon factory will cure all the pigs that the country produces week after week, and hundreds—perhaps thousands—will be unemployed as a result. That situation is being accentuated day after day in a way which the Minister does not realise. We may as well face the fact that, despite anything Senator MacDermot may say about the line that ought to be pursued by this nation, the majority of the people assented to a policy of non-belligerency. While there are individuals here and there who have different views about it, I have no hesitation in saying that the consensus of opinion is that non-belligerency should be maintained. In its maintenance very great problems will have to be faced.

Mr. MacDermot

I am sorry to interrupt the Senator, but I wonder if he wishes to imply that I have argued to-night in favour of belligerency. I was arguing really in favour of non-belligerency, as opposed to rather unfavourable neutrality.

Mr. Baxter

I am not going to cut off into that line of debate. As I see things, we will have internally here rather disturbed conditions for ourselves, for various reasons. Incomes will fall; for some people incomes will be cut off, and for a great many people food will be short; for some it will scarcely be procurable and for all, even with money to buy, it will be difficult to get. We should face up to this situation and see that whatever burdens have to be borne shall be shared equitably. If the Government fails to do that, government itself is failing. A few people may have to go hungry, but if the number of hungry people reaches mass proportions it may not be possible to keep them quite. I am quite convinced that, with imagination and courage on the part of the Government and co-operation on the part of the people, it is possible to organise a proper exchange of services, in order to employ many who are not employed to-day. Co-operation is only possible, however, when you are in support of the policy that is being carried out and when you have confidence that the people who carry out the policy are the best who could be got.

It is possible to give incomes to people who have none. It is possible to increase the national income and, accordingly, increase the capacity of our people to bear burdens which national government and non-belligerency impose upon them in these days.

I would like to hear from the Minister what plans, or what effort he himself, and his Government, are making towards the carrying out of such a scheme as that, because, obviously, it is imperative —it is absolutely essential. I have stated my views very frequently in this House. As far as Government Senators are concerned, I might as well be talking to the statue of Queen Victoria outside, but I am quite convinced that if my arguments had carried weight and had received the support of Government Senators to which they were entitled, we could have enough food in this country to keep our people from being hungry and to feed our animals as well. I am quite convinced about that. I know what I can do myself, and I know what my neighbouring farmers can do, if they know they are going to be paid for their work.

I have heard other Senators say that they do not believe in that method of guaranteeing prices, yet in the same breath, almost, they ask for increased prices for certain commodities which is exactly putting in other words what I asked for. There is a shortage of supplies in this country to-day. Men have talked about wheat. I put this to the House: I have always held the view that we could grow wheat. I know equally well that there are great tracts in this country that cannot grow wheat, and that there are other areas that can grow it, but not economically, and that in the country generally you cannot pursue a successful policy of wheat-growing unless you have cattle at the same time to keep your land fertile, not alone by the bounteous use of farmyard manure, but by the addition of fertilisers as well. In my opinion, we ought never to have embarked on what the Ministry regarded as this extensive wheat policy of theirs. Mind you, I have not found fault with it generally, but, if we had not embarked on it, the possibility is that the supplies of wheat in the country last autumn would have been much greater than when we were growing a greater proportion of our needs at home. I think it is a distinct possibility that we would have had a greater stock of flour in store if we had to import it, because I am satisfied the importers did not do it owing to the restrictions and regulations you had to impose to carry out your policy.

It is my view, after a great deal of thought and consideration, that the only way to ensure that we get the maximum quantity of food produced from our own land is to tell the farmers that they are going to be paid decent prices for their work. You cannot go to the farmer, any more than to anyone else, without telling him at the beginning of the year, as precisely as you can, what he is likely to get for his produce at the end of it. If you put a Minister into his post, a civil servant, a banker or a road worker, you will find that they would not go very far until they were told what they were going to get. Every man likes to know what price will be available for his time, and the farmer is the one man who is not being told by the Government. I have put up that consideration before and I stand by it. I know the consequences of it in Northern Ireland. It has had amazing results.

It may interest the Minister to know that in 1939 or in the beginning of 1940, the Six-County Government asked for 200,000 additional acres under tillage. Prior to asking that, they announced guaranteed prices, not only for wheat, but for oats, potatoes, barley, flax and for milk as well. Six-County farmers are being paid ¼ to ? a gallon for their milk, while, for the last four or five months, our own farmers have had to be content with 6d. or 7d. a gallon. The result of the Six-County Government's policy in asking for 200,000 acres and telling the farmers the prices they would pay, was that they got 260,000 acres. In the Twenty-Six Counties, Ministers were talking about 1,000,000 acres and they did not get 300,000 acres under the plough. I say we would have got it if we took the same steps as the Northern Government. To-day, we would not have to slaughter immature pigs because of a shortage of feeding stuffs for them—we would have the food.

The national income, and certainly the agricultural income, would be much higher, and you could bank on that, than you know it is to-day. That problem is still there, and it will continue to confront us until we give stability to the industry of agriculture, and until the farmers can produce more and put more people to work on the land. We must raise the national income of the farmers, stabilise the economy of the country generally, and give the confidence to agriculture which it has not enjoyed for a great many years.

Along with the work of providing food, I agree with Senator Quirke that we need to provide fuel. In the past, we have been exporting for the purpose of importing and coal was one of our large imports. Apparently, we are not going to get adequate supplies in the future, and some of what is coming in is not as satisfactory as it is required to be. It is true to say that there is fuel in abundance in this country. I do not think you can wait on the machine-made fuel, or on the kind of organisation the Government has set up. The way to do it is to get, now, every man who can handle a sleán in the country out to do his share. In my opinion, men able to cut turf are just as essential for national defence as men with guns and, perhaps, even more so. I believe it would be well worth the while of the Ministry to take a census of the position, to see how many men in this country can cut turf or use sleáns—aye, even to transfer them from one county to another, and put in others to fill their places for the time being, to provide us with the fuel the country may require and may not be able to get before next year.

But, it should be borne in mind that if you are going to get turf cut, it is no good starting on the 29th June. I do not know whether the Minister knows that, but it is very important. I think you could put many thousands of people on the work of providing fuel for ourselves which Scottish and English miners provided for us in the past. Somebody may ask where is the money to come from. Perhaps the Minister would tell us something about the Report of the Banking Commission? Is anything being done about it, or is there any other plan for providing money more cheaply than the present bankers who are charging 5 and 6 per cent.? I think that the dangers many people have foreseen in inflation are not anything like as bad as the dangers of starvation, and I would rather run the risk of inflating a bit—employing more people and providing the means by which they could exchange their goods and services and take the risks—rather than sit still and do nothing.

What terrifies me most is that the Government are not half enough alarmed about the situation that confronts us. I do not want to be an alarmist. I know all sorts of things have been said in this House and outside this House about the case I make but I prefer to be a realist and to face up to the facts. It is much better. If you try to evade the issue it is only piling up greater danger. It would be much better for the Government, as I have said, to adopt all the unorthodox methods, to get on with the job and to get people working than just to sit and wait and hope for something to turn up. In these days, with turmoil and upheaval in men's minds, in the present world situation, the situation is one which I think the Government would be very unwise to permit to develop here. Auxiliary bodies or well-meaning citizens outside or any group of people cannot do this. Only the Government, with its power of organisation, its power to make money available, and its power, if it will exercise courage and imagination and display the spirit necessary to win co-operation, can get these things done. The work is there to do, plenty of work, and I suggest if the Minister wants to find the money which he requires he will be able to do that only by taking extraordinary steps to increase the national income this year. If he does not, it is going to drop to levels that will stagger him.

There is one further point I want to make before I conclude, and that is in regard to the appalling danger which, I think, threatens the country due to the foot and mouth disease. Personally, the consequences of the spread of this disease stagger me. The restrictions extend now to an area in my own county, the poorest area in my own county. I have been talking to people who are within that area who cannot move any of their stock, who cannot move hay or straw or anything like that even within the area. It happens to be an area in which the food available for man or beast is limited at all times. What is going to happen there after another month if the restrictions continue is beyond me to answer. The food supplies for the cattle will be completely used up. The land will not be providing anything until right into the month of June. I think that is a situation which the Minister ought to examine with a view to seeing what can be done about the problem. These things cannot be left unattended to.

With regard to the spread of this disease, I do not like to say it, but I have the feeling that some of the farmers are altogether too lackadaisical with regard to taking the necessary measures to having the disease stamped out. Unless the farmers do everything possible, go to all extremes and are prepared to subject themselves even to what might be regarded as injustices, in order to stamp out the disease, the consequences for this nation may be very terrible. Where farmers are negligent and where farmers do not take all the necessary steps to have the evidence of the disease immediately reported so that it may be tackled and dealt with with vigour and energy, my view is that these people are doing the community and the nation a grave injustice and that action ought to be taken which would ensure that farmers will in no case cloak the presence of disease and get away with it. I do not know whether this has taken place or not but it is most extraordinary that the disease is spreading from one part of the country as it is, enveloping, slowly but dreadfully, one province after another. If it goes on for two or three months more, if our exports continue to be restricted, if our supplies continue to fall, as they are falling, day after day, the food problem for the citizens of Dublin will become more acute than they can anticipate at the moment because farmers down the country will be using up all sorts of food, even the potatoes and other foods, which they probably ought to be keeping for their families and for the people in towns and cities who will not have food for themselves. I would like the Minister to draw the attention of the Minister for Agriculture to that point. I think a statement with regard to the responsibility of farmers in that matter ought to be made so as to give all of us encouragement and to make us feel every effort is being made, not only on the part of the Ministry, but by the farmers as well, to grapple with this disease, for if we cannot overwhelm it, it will overwhelm us.

Mr. E. Lynch

As the hour is getting late and as various aspects of this subject have been discussed at very great length here this evening, and as I am sure the Minister will require all the time now available to deal with the various points raised, it is not my intention to dwell very long on the matters under discussion. However, there are certain aspects of the Bill before us this evening to which I would like to call attention. The Bill affords an opportunity to discuss practically every aspect of Government policy from the League of Nations to the law of diminishing returns, but, I think, although that discussion was of an extremely widespread and varied character, it did disclose that there was a crisis in the future before the country and a very serious crisis at that. Some of us in this House are extremely concerned for a certain class in the community and if the statements we have listened to here this evening from responsible Senators indicate clearly and closely what that position is likely to be, then I say the situation is serious and will require very great consideration from all of us. I think, in addition, we will require a very full statement from the Minister here this evening in regard to what the Government has in view by way of plans to meet that situation.

A blockade has been referred to. Unquestionably, the action of both belligerents in this war is having a very serious effect on our industries as a whole. A statement made by Senator Goulding, I think, is to be taken notice of, which was to the effect that nobody should be allowed starve in this country in the approaching crisis. It is a serious situation if Senator Goulding is of opinion at the present moment that there are people who are likely to starve in the near future. The chairman of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce recently—I hope I am quoting him correctly; I have not got the statement by me—but I think he said that within six or nine months we would have 250,000 unemployed in this country. That is a serious statement. References by employers of industrial workers are made daily in the Press in regard to raw materials. If the source of our industry, namely our raw materials, which have to be imported, is cut off, then unquestionably there is going to be created a very serious industrial, financial and economic position for the country as a whole. It is probably statements of that character that influenced the minds of Senators this evening when they spoke about an approaching or impending industrial crisis and of the dire consequences, economically and socially, which they anticipated would flow from the position which was about to be created. I am sure the Minister and the Government are sensible of this approaching crisis, and I think we are entitled on this Bill to know precisely and explicitly what the Government propose to do in view of the circumstances which we understand are approaching. I notice that the Estimate for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance is down this year as against the sum provided last year. If these are the only methods by which the Government proposes to deal with the economic difficulties which are anticipated, then I think we can conclude here and now, that this method is no solution, and cannot be looked upon as satisfactory to meet the difficulties ahead of us. I presume, therefore, the Government have other plans, and I say that we should be told in the debate on this Bill what these plans are.

Speaking, I think it was last July, I asked a similar question as to what was proposed to be done in the event of this country's trade being cut off from Great Britain and of our incapacity to export our ordinary goods in order to maintain our economic life. The difficulties I felt we were then approaching are nearer now, and debates here and similar debates elsewhere show conclusively that there is not a section or a class of people in this country, rich or poor, which is not seriously alarmed by the approaching difficulties.

I would like if time were available to pursue some of the economic theories and arguments propounded here by certain learned Senators who are supposed to be extremely skilled by reason of their profession to deal with economics. Professor Johnston spoke upon the subject and endeavoured to propound the solution that we should have greater production of agricultural goods in the country so that they might be exchanged for coal and other materials required by the industries of this country. If greater production would meet the situation why, I ask, has the present situation arisen? Surely, if Senator Johnston reflected that the great difficulty with regard to supplies is largely a question of transport then even if we had greater production of agricultural goods we would be up against the same difficulty of transport because of the difficulty of getting raw materials to keep our industries going? Therefore, it seems to me utterly fallacious to talk on these lines or to propound a remedy along these lines.

The Senator also suggested that the Minister for Finance should go easy with taxation. I think he meant that if we come up against the law of diminishing returns the Minister will get less in taxes and consequently will only worsen the position. He also suggested in that portion of his speech that we should increase production. If increased production is not exported in exchange, it is to be presumed it is meant for internal consumption. There will be more employment if industrial supplies are cut off? It is difficult for some of us to see where the money is to come from to purchase this production. I think however we ought to have a statement from the Minister when he speaks as to how it is proposed that the supplies produced are to reach people who are not in a position to purchase them because of the fact that they are unemployed. Senator Baxter also stressed that aspect of the problem and called for more and more agricultural production to raise the national revenue. These are all high sounding phrases. I would like to know what they mean in actual practice.

If our foreign trade is cut off, and our imports of raw material restricted, how are we to secure that this consumption of agricultural produce is to come into the hands of those who are denied their ordinary means of livelihood if unemployed. It seems to me that increased production on the land and little or no production in urban industry would give you a very unbalanced economy in this country. If that is the case how do you propose the economy would be balanced so that those not in a position to purchase by virtue of being unemployed shall be able to purchase the ordinary necessaries of life? In other words how are you going to provide, in the words of Senator Goulding, that those who will starve because they have not got the means of livelihood will be kept from starving?

That is briefly the impression this debate has left on my mind. All the factors in the case have been stressed and perhaps overstressed. There were tentative phrases and solutions as to where we might go outside orthodox methods. It seems to me if the problem cannot be dealt with by ordinary laws of political economy or ordinary financial methods some other methods must be adopted if the people are to receive the fuel, the food and clothes, etc., necessary to their material existence. Some Senators have spoken tentatively upon these aspects of the case but I think they have not gone sufficienly far to satisfactorily state how that problem could be surmounted, or to state what plans they had in mind. I trust that when the Minister comes to deal with the Bill now he will let us know what is proposed to be done by the Government because, unquestionably, that is the kernel of the situation. No matter what may have been said about the League of Nations, the Censorship, and all the other semi-relevant matters that were dealt with here this evening the important thing is that there is an economic crisis developing in this country. That has been the outstanding feature of the debate. What is proposed by the Government to meet that economic crisis now or in the future?

Mr. Hawkins

This debate has dragged on rather late and I shall not delay the House very long. I only wish to draw the Minister's attention, as other Senators have done, to the items where a decrease has been made in the Estimate. Under three or four headings we have this occurring, particularly in regard to housing grants, unemployment relief grants, unemployment insurance, land division, and the Forestry Department. I think that all those I have mentioned are so closely linked or connected with the giving of employment that it is rather unfortunate that there should be a reduction. So far as the housing grants are concerned, at the present time many people, tradesmen and craftsmen of various kinds, are being knocked out of employment, and I would urge on the Minister and the Government that they should face this question boldly. We have the raw materials of building, as it were. We have the cement, the slates, the timber; we have the land, and we have huge numbers of people looking for employment, and even with a threat of invasion hanging over our heads we should face the position boldly and do all we can to create employment at the present time, not alone in building but in other directions. I think that local authorities and private individuals should be encouraged to go ahead with building Last year, I think, we were promised a more extensive and comprehensive Housing Bill. I hope that when that Bill comes along later, greater facilities will be given to building societies and greater grants given in urban areas. In cities like Galway, as everyone knows, we have a number of tradesmen being knocked out of employment. These people have big commitments, in regard to rents, rates, insurance, and so on, and they cannot be very well fitted into other types of employment.

As regards the Forestry Estimate, the only reason I mention it is that we spend a good amount of money on this Department each year, and while it is very essential and very useful to have a certain amount of forestry in the country I fear that we are not making proper use of the trees we have. There is no firm, or at least I think there is only one firm in this country, that has proper plant for the treatment of our native timber, for the seasoning and drying of the timber under circumstances that would make it of the best use. That is a thing that could be undertaken by the Forestry Department. I think that 300 acres is the smallest acreage they will take, but when it comes to the cutting of these trees there they should have one of these plants for the seasoning, drying and proper treatment of the timber.

Various appeals have been made to the Minister for Finance in connection with loans for farmers, but if it were possible I should like the Minister to consider the position of our local authorities and the position of the people in the cities. In Galway City, as many Senators know, the rates are 32/6 in the £ at the present time, and if there could be any means of making cheap loans available, so that the local authorities there and in similar cities could redeem the loans purchased at high rates of interest, it would ease the position, considerably. I do not know whether it is possible or not, but something will have to be done towards relieving the people in our cities at the present time.

The Minister, speaking on unemployment relief work, said that there was, I think, £1,000,000 being allocated for that this year and that if schemes were put up the money for these schemes would be forthcoming. We would all agree with that, but like other Senators I think we shall have to tackle this question of fuel very seriously. It is estimated, I think, that something like 2,000,000 tons of turf will be required this year. That is a big proposition. It is a big proposition to supply our towns and cities, and the Government should set up the necessary machinery immediately. As a matter of fact, I think that a county commission for works of production like that should be established and that that commission should have the duty of taking over our idle bogs and lands that are not in cultivation, and should also have the job of providing the ways and means of work for unemployed people who are anxious to work. Now, that cannot be done by people who know nothing about turf. You have got to start making arrangements about the 1st April, and continue from that on. I do not believe that this work should be left in the hands of the Land Commission or the Turf Board. They have a certain amount of lands and bogs under their own charge, but I do not think this matter should be left in their hands. Neither are we going to solve the problem by issuing an appeal to parish councils and similar bodies to do it. You must go out immediately and organise this thing, and not only organise the cutting and saving of the turf, but organise its distribution and sale to the people also. You cannot depend on the ordinary coal merchants for that. I believe that you will have to set up a purchasing body in each of our towns. At the present time, I understand that in Connemara there are some thousands of tons of turf—that is probably an exaggeration, but so I have been informed—lying there since last year. If that turf is not purchased immediately from these people you cannot ask or expect them to cut more turf this year. You may appeal to them but they will not do it. The Government should make arrangements immediately to purchase this turf, either through the Army or through some purchasing board which could be set up to take the turf off the people's hands and give them some encouragement to cut turf for the coming year. If you give them that encouragement I believe they will do all you want, but if you do not, then they will not cut more turf.

This thing of relying on the parish councils will not do. You may have a good parish council in one place, and that depends very often on having an energetic parish priest and energetic, efficient people at the head, but if you have not something like that there is very little to be got from the parish councils. I was all for parish councils at first, but I am rather beginning to change my mind as I go along, when I see some of these parish councils carrying on in the same way as some other organisations, and expecting the Government to do everything for them. I think it would be better to put somebody in control in each county, either the county commissioner or somebody else, and give him full authority in the matter of organising food production and the provision of employment. There are plenty of unemployed who would do the work all right if the work were there for them.

We have had a number of appeals being issued from time to time for increased food production, but there is a type of person, I think, who has been left out with regard to that appeal. In many of our towns and cities there are people in possession of holdings of land, and while all our appeals go out to the farmer, I think that we have forgotten the type of person to whom I am referring. In some places they may not have sufficient land to bring them under the Compulsory Tillage Order, and in other cases they would find some other excuse, such as that it was dairy land and so on, but these people have a certain amount of land and they are not doing what they should do. Some of them are not even producing enough for themselves and their families, although they have sufficient land to enable them to do so and also to have something left over for the poor.

I should like to associate myself with Senator Sir John Keane in what he said. I think that his suggestion with regard to communal feeding in our towns and cities deserves serious consideration, and something will have to be done along that line as the position which the Senator foresees is almost upon us at the present moment.

Mr. O'Dwyer

Many points have been discussed in this debate, but I think there is one thing that merits our attention more than anything else, and that is the question of food production from the land. It is 12 months ago now since it was discussed here before, and it was pointed out how necessary it was that the food required to feed our people should be produced from the land during the past year. I am afraid that has not been done and, worse than that, I very much doubt if enough will be produced this year to feed our people during the coming 12 months. That is the one great task which lies before the country. The one great task that lies before the country is to see that food sufficient to feed the people is produced. That in my opinion is more vital than industrial production, fuel production or defence. The question of producing sufficient food transcends every other problem in the very real blockade that has come upon us. If there is an abundance of food produced in the country, it will be an easy matter for anybody to distribute that food in such a way that nobody need starve. Though other industries may fail, one thing that can be made certain is that nobody need starve. If there is not sufficient food produced on the land, it does not matter what money remains in the country or what industries are working, people will have to go hungry. What is still worse, if we go short of food we may not be in a position to maintain our neutrality. The essential point, therefore, is to see before it is too late, as it soon will be too late, that sufficient food is produced within the country. For that reason I think the Government should spare no effort, no matter how drastic, to see that the Tillage Order is enforced and that credit is provided to enable seeds, machinery and in fact every available facility to be placed at the disposal of farmers.

Another point that I should like to put before the Government is that, notwithstanding increased tillage, there has been scarcely any additional employment provided in rural districts as in recent years much of the tillage is done by machinery. There is, in fact, great unemployment in many rural districts and I think, therefore, that unemployment assistance should be given at least to married people during all periods of the year. I know that in some cases unemployment assistance has been abused very often but in the case of married people it is very seldom abused because they cannot afford to remain on the dole if any work is available. I think also the time has come when the Government should seriously consider the question whether agricultural labour should not be subsidised. The position at the moment is that the price of agricultural produce, especially such of it as is exported, does not afford a living wage and, of course, a labouring man cannot work without a living wage. It seems to me that the Government will have to consider the question of giving a subsidy to cover the margin between what is an economic wage for the farmer and what is a living wage for the labourer. As I have said before, the real problem, however, is to produce all the food we possibly can on the land during the next few months.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I agree with the last speaker, and with other Senators who have spoken in a similar strain, that one of the most urgent problems, if not the most urgent, now before us is the production of food. I was glad to hear several Senators emphasise that. Senator O'Dwyer, Senator Johnston, Senator Baxter, Senator Madden, Senator O Buachalla and Senator Quirke all agreed on that point. I think the Government has done all that it could reasonably be expected to do in the way of urging the importance of this matter on the country and particularly on landholders.

For many months past, I have listened occasionally to radio talks by the Taoiseach, by the Minister for Agriculture, by the Minister for Supplies, and I have seen frequent speeches by other Ministers and, indeed, by other members of the Dáil and Seanad of all Parties, reported in the newspapers putting before the community as a whole the urgency of this problem. I do not know whether any further urging or appealing to the landed community, rich or poor, is likely to have any greater effect but, nevertheless, perhaps it should be persisted in up to the last hour that it is possible to sow food of any kind for man or beast with the possibility of reaping it in the harvest of this year.

I do not think that there has been any neglect in that matter. Long before Christmas speeches were made by Ministers. There have been special reasons since then for greater pressure being brought to bear on the community as a whole by everybody responsible—and primarily the Government is responsible in this matter —to get the country to realise the urgency of the matter and how essential it is that everybody who has land should cultivate it to the fullest possible extent so that every variety of foodstuffs for which people can get the necessary seeds and manures should be produced. The greatest difficulty probably will arise over the matter of wheat. Nobody knows at this moment whether we will be able to produce enough wheat for our needs this year. Different opinions have been expressed. Some in authority have expressed doubt on the matter, but even now I understand, although I am no authority on agriculture, there is still time for the production of spring wheat. I hope that the advice given by so many responsible men here to-day and which has also been given by the various members of the Government, from the Taoiseach down, will be heeded by those who have it within their power to grow food of all kinds, particularly wheat. I hope they will see to it that no opportunity will be lost while there is yet time for the sowing of wheat.

I was interested in a couple of references of a personal nature that were made in the early stages of this discussion. Senator Hayes, I think, made a veiled reference to something that took place in the Dáil last week. Possibly the same thing was in the mind of Senator Johnston when he referred to the fact that he hoped I was in a mild mood. I think I am nearly always mild. I am one of those people who are referred to as being like a dangerous animal—when he is attacked he defends himself. I defend myself, perhaps not with all the dignity that I am told ought to surround my office and myself in that office. Perhaps I am at fault, but who is it that does not err sometimes? I defend myself— if not in the choicest language always— and that cannot be regarded as a grave error. I do not think I ever showed bad temper in this House. I often get hard knocks here and, probably as long as I continue as Minister, I will again; and I do not object to that, but I try to give as hard as I get. And if the other fellow gets a good one in, I give him credit and say it is one up to him, but some time or other, if not immediately, I will give him a good welt if I can. I have given a few and I have reason to know that they have left their mark—maybe some of them have left their mark on me, too.

Mr. Douglas

That is not a new interpretation of the Golden Rule?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, I am a human individual, very human. I listened with the greatest interest to the debate here to-day. I got much advice and I was asked for a great deal of advice. I was requested by many to expound theories and plans and programmes, but I think I will forgo the pleasure of developing plans and programmes in any detail, or at great length, to-night. Probably, I will be coming here again, if God spares me for the next few weeks, and will have to meet this House and debate—and defend, probably—the formal propositions of the Government in the way of the annual financial Budget. It is usual for the Government spokesman to outline the financial programme for the year and all that that connotes, when the Budget is introduced. It is now in preparation and, as Senators here have reminded me, we are passing through an unsettled and difficult situation. It is not an easy time for any Minister for Finance. Senator Baxter recognised that fact and said he would not like to be in my shoes.

Mr. Baxter

Not just that: I said the Minister had a big job and a hard one.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It is a hard and a difficult job. We are not living in normal times. Senator Counihan would like credit provided for farmers in liberal measure by the Government and would like to see the farmers "made prosperous and contented." So would I, but who is going to achieve that? Senator Hayes recognised the fact that if the Archangel Michael came down and was Minister for Finance, with all the whole financial powers of the 32 Counties at his control, he would not make the farmers prosperous and contented to their own satisfaction.

Mr. Baxter

That is a defeatist policy from the beginning.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I was interested in Senator Counihan's suggestion and had a private chat with him earlier. He is a good propagandist and an enthusiast in his subject. He tried to get a promise from me, even before I heard his plan outlined, that I would be sympathetic. He will not mind me saying in a kindly way that he is a sympathetic kind of fellow and one likes listening to him. He makes a good impression, but it does not follow that, sympathetic as I may be towards his projects, the Minister for Finance will promise right away that the suggestion which the Senator thinks would make the farmers happy and contented will be adopted. I was pleased to hear Senator Sir John Keane give his conditional blessing to the proposition of a committee as proposed by Senator Counihan but, as I said to Senator Counihan outside, I wonder if the Minister for Agriculture has been convinced that the scheme is a good one. After all, he is the Minister whose duty it is to look after agriculturists and I think one ought to convince him first. If that can be done, I promise to be sympathetic.

I do not know what has happened between the Minister for Agriculture and himself, or whether the proposition has been formally put before him, but that is the first fence to jump and, if his horse is able to get over that and comes along to me, I will not turn it down without due, serious and—as I promised him and as I say to the Seanad here—sympathetic consideration. I do not promise that I will be likely to go within a long distance of anything that would seem to make the farmers as a whole prosperous and contented. We were told here to-day that this Government had not succeeded in increasing the productive capacity of the country. We tried hard and did succeed in some directions. Even in many directions we did not succeed to our own satisfaction. We did not get much help in some directions from many of the Senators here, nor from Senator Baxter, nor Senator Hayes— I do not know about Senator Douglas.

Mr. Baxter

We never worked harder on our land than during your regime.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I never worked on the land, and do not be throwing that at me. I do not know anything about it except what I learned as an ordinary common-sense, and, perhaps, more or less educated person, but, as to work on the land, I cannot speak with anything like or near the authority of Senator Baxter. But, it is a fact that we tried hard to get more tillage of every kind in this country, and it is also a fact that some Senators, and Senator Baxter's Party as a whole, did their damnedest to stop us getting extra tillage in certain directions. I do not think anybody can deny that. We tried to get extra wheat grown, and we succeeded largely. We have not succeeded in getting enough. We would be in a much happier position to-day if we had succeeded, first of all, in being able to get people to keep the cultivation they had of the various things they grew on the land, and to give us in addition the extra tillage we wanted, particularly in wheat. Senator Baxter knows how fun was made of that wheat policy by some of his leaders. Deputy Dillon threw all the scorn he could on it. Many a time I have listened to him during general elections and by-elections around the country making these speeches, and, after all, he is an important man in the Senator's Party, and he was not alone.

Mr. Baxter

Does the Minister not know that what determines the farmer in what he will do is the price that he will be paid and not election speeches?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

On that one point, the price paid for wheat, I heard the Minister for Agriculture say in the Dáil during the last few weeks that in the many county committees of agriculture that he visited and met since Christmas in connection with this tillage campaign, not one farmer said that he was not getting enough for wheat and nobody repudiated that in the Dáil.

Mr. Baxter

But, you are paying 40/- a barrel now.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am not going to go into that matter now. The Minister made that statement in the Dáil and there was not attempt to repudiate it. He stated that in answer to Deputy Belton, who wanted 50/- a barrel. As I have said, we would be in a much happier position to-day if there had been greater support for the wheat campaign. It is not much use going back on it and I would not do so if the thing had not been adverted to several times here to-day. If we had a great deal more wheat we would be certain of bread to eat anyway.

Mr. Baxter

If you had potatoes and oats.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I agree. We ought to have more potatoes. There will be good prices, I am sure, for potatoes, oats and barley.

Mr. Quirke

There is a good price now.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is a good price now, I understand.

Mr. Baxter

That was not said in time.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The question of supplies in general and the Minister for Supplies came in for a great deal of criticism, not always too complimentary, to-day. I do not intend to go into the question of supplies or to defend the Minister in his policy. That was debated at great length in the Dáil recently and it might interest Senators, particularly Senators Baxter and Hayes, to hear that I have it from a colleague of mine in the Government, that immediately after the debate in which Mr. Lemass defended himself on his policy of supplies, two members of the Fine Gael Party told this colleague of mine that they never heard Lemass make a better speech and never did he defend himself with better effect or more convincingly. They said they were disappointed that the speaker of the Front Bench who followed Mr. Lemass did not recognise that fact. That was the impression Mr. Lemass's speech made on me.

Mr. M. Hayes

In the Dáil?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes. I said after he had spoken: "Lemass has wiped the floor with those who criticised him."

Mr. Baxter

He can certainly make a good speech.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am telling you that, as one man to another, and I told him that.

Mr. Baxter

You are a simple man.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am not so simple at all.

Mr. M. Hayes

He is nearly as simple as Senator Counihan.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am not so simple and nobody ever took me in this House or anywhere else for a fool. I am just as ready to tell Mr. Lemass so if I thought he failed as I would be to tell him that I thought he had been a success.

Mr. Douglas

But you would not tell us!

Mr. Baxter

Oh, no.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I would not get up in the House and criticise him, and you would not expect that from me.

Senator

Oh, no.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I have a note here —I think it is from Senator Hayes' speech—regarding the fall of France. I heard the Minister for Supplies that night in the debate tell the House that we got several shiploads of wheat after the fall of France, as a result, probably, of the fall of France. Wheat that was going to other parts of the country was diverted here. I could not say how many, but I know that ship loads came. I would want to be a walking encyclopædia or several encyclopædiae rolled into one, if I were to attempt to answer many of the questions that were levelled at me during the course of the debate to-day. There are very few Ministries that did not come in for notice and, as I said about the Minister for Supplies, it was not always complimentary. I do not pretend to be able to answer in detail many of the questions that were put up to me. The Army and the Minister for Defence were criticised by Senator Hayes; perhaps more the Minister for Defence than the Army, and I think he was referring to the gentleman who was Minister for Defence before he became the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures. He seems to be a kind of bête noire with some of the Senators here, may be Senator Hayes in particular. He did a good job as Minister for Defence and I hope he is going to do a better one now in America in his capacity of envoy there to get us supplies.

Mr. Douglas

We all hope so, anyhow.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It will not all depend on him, but we have a very sympathetic people in the United States. The people of the United States, in general, have always been sympathetic with this country, not alone the Irish there, but the people of the United States in general, and I am sure he will be warmly, courteously and helpfully received there. In that connection Senator Hayes made reference to the fact that the President of the United States had stated that he was not aware officially that the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures was going to the United States. All I can say is that everything that the protocol lays down that should be done on such an occasion was attended to properly. And more than that, I know there were conversations with the American Minister here who knew, long before the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures left our shores, all about his visit. The American Minister was kind enough, long before, to write and supply the Minister with letters of introduction recommending him and recommending his mission, and I know that the Minister here was as courteous and as kind and as helpful as a man could be, though I do not know what official dispatches he sent over the wire or otherwise to his Government. I am satisfied he did his duty officially, fully as competently and as well as could be expected of him or any other man in his position.

Mr. M. Hayes

Was it not a matter for our Minister in the United States?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Our Minister in the United States, likewise, was fully informed both by telephone and by cable, long before the event and, to my knowledge, had formally notified the Secretary of State of the United States of the intended visit by the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures. What more could be done?

Mr. Madden

It is no harm to have that clarified.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Both Senator Hayes and Senator Baxter dealt with the question of co-operation with the Government. I have spoken on this subject more than once and I, personally, and speaking on behalf of the Government, have stated that the Government is anxious for co-operation. I have been assured by Leaders of the Opposition that co-operation will be given, but if I am to take the word of Senator Hayes, and more particularly Senator Baxter, such co-operation is not likely to be forthcoming. Senator Baxter said co-operation is only possible when you are in favour of the policy and when you have confidence in the persons who are carrying out the policy of the Government. If we do not go any further than to listen to the speech of Senator Baxter to-night, how could we expect him to believe in the policy of the Government? He does not believe in it; he has never believed in it. I know that Senator Hayes is even more emphatic. I have heard him say so many times over—not alone more emphatic in his disbelief in the policy, but more emphatic in his want of confidence and belief in the capacity of the individual members of the Government, probably individually and collectively. I think I am not wronging him in saying that. If then I am to take Senator Baxter's statement, co-operation is finished. There is no chance of getting it. He does not believe in the policy and he has no confidence in the individuals.

Mr. Baxter

I do not see the policy. That is my trouble.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

He knows enough about it to criticise it anyway.

Mr. Baxter

To criticise want of it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Do not hedge.

Mr. Baxter

I never do that.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

But I do not expect that the Senator, even in that statement of his that I took down carefully, expects us to take him 100 per cent. seriously, because I think that he realises the seriousness of the situation that this country is facing——

Mr. Baxter

Fully.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

——and which is facing the Seanad and the Dáil and the people as a whole as well as the Government. We do not know what is going to be in front of us this year or maybe next year. We cannot tell. Senator Baxter himself stressed the seriousness of the situation and questioned whether the Government fully realised it. I think we are not entirely devoid of imagination but while we do realise that we are facing, and that we are going to face still more, a serious situation, maybe it is that we do not fully realise all that may be in store for us. I hope the worst that some of us can imagine will, with God's help, be spared us, that we will not have to face some of the things that maybe are in Senator Baxter's mind and are in my mind and the minds of other members of the Government. But even if the worst does not happen, the situation for us as a people, the situation of the Government having the responsibility, is likely to be a heavy enough burden to carry. The Government would like co-operation but it can only carry out to the best of its belief the policy that it stands for and believes in, such as it is. It may not be worth much according to some Senators, but there it is.

There has to be a Government. That Government has to be selected by certain rules that are laid down in our Constitution, and the Government that is in office, which happened to be in office when this world crisis arose, is a Government that was not elected in a haphazard fashion. Senators here, even those who are most bitterly hostile to the Government, admit that the Government has been duly and properly elected, subject to all the constitutional rules and regulations and the various statutes that lay down how the Government is to be elected. That has happened on several occasions. It has gone before the people and the people have expressed their will. For good or ill, this Government is there and it has the confidence of the people. It has secured that and it retains it and whether Senators are pleased with the Government, in its policy or in its personnel, they have for the time being to put up with it and make the best of it. Nobody asks Senators in the Opposition to change their views; it would be foolish to do so; nobody expects that of them. I do not think the words Senator Baxter used in describing what may happen were exaggerated—not according to my ideas of what may be in store for us—and in this grave crisis I think the Government is entitled to expect such amount of co-operation as will help to see the country safely through the grave dangers and difficulties that may face us before many months are over. Senator Hayes said that co-operation implies work on two sides. I agree. But he cannot expect that the Government is going to somersault politically in this stage of its history, in this time of crisis——

Mr. M. Hayes

Not at this stage. I quite agree. That is perfect!

Mr. O Ceallaigh

——and scrap all that it has said and done so that it may get the helpful co-operation of Senator Hayes and his Party. I have just said I do not expect anything of the kind from Senator Hayes' Party but we do nevertheless expect such co-operation and help and suggestion, including criticism, including, if you like, any amount of criticism. I do not resent, and no person in the Government is foolish enough or should be foolish enough to resent, criticism. Certainly I do not. Senator Hayes said we have not made ourselves self-sufficient.

Mr. MacDermot

There is no distinction between self-sufficiency and complete self-sufficiency?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There is. Self-sufficiency is a relative term. I do not know even if the Government were in office for 100 years that it would succeed in making this country completely self-sufficient. Possibly the countries nearest to that position are France and the United States. I am sure in proportion to their population and means that they have to import, at least in the case of France, millions of pounds' worth of materials of all kinds. They did their best to reach a well balanced economy in France. We are many miles away from being nearly as self-sufficient as France or America. Probably we could never succeed in being self-sufficient because we have not the natural resources. Nevertheless, we stand for self-sufficiency. This Government has already gone quite a good way along that road. We would now be in a very sad way indeed, with regard to certain materials that we require, but for our policy.

Mr. MacDermot

What does the Minister mean by self-sufficiency?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I said complete self-sufficiency. I qualify it with these important words "complete self-sufficiency." We cannot have that.

Mr. MacDermot

Is there complete self-sufficiency any place?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Self-sufficiency has come to connote a relative term.

Mr. Lynch

Bishop Berkeley I believe described it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

He lived a long time ago. I do not know whether it is in that connection that someone talked about muddled thinking to describe our policy. But could anything be more muddled than the thinking of the Front Benchers in the Opposition Party who signed a report in 1929 stating that wheat could not be grown in this country. The late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Hogan, Lord rest his soul, was one of the signatories and the others were Deputy McGilligan, who was then a Minister, and Deputy Brennan, who is also on their Front Bench.

Mr. Baxter

Do you mean that the report stated that wheat could not be grown economically: grown without a subsidy?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Senator should get the report and study it. That was the substance of the report. It was used as propaganda to prove to the country that the growing of wheat was a farce, and could not be accomplished.

Mr. Hayes

Was it not also proved to the country that we could reduce current expenditure by £3,000,000?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Oh, as usual, the Senator wants to run away from the question of wheat and draw a red herring. Why did he raise the question of wheat? Now he is getting what he asked for.

Mr. Hayes

I do not think I said anything about wheat. I do not want to deny anything I did say.

Mr. Baxter

I talked about wheat.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It was raised in connection with the question of self-sufficiency and muddled thinking, and, I think, to bring in wheat is relevant with all respect to the Senator, and particularly to bring in that report which he does not like.

Mr. Hayes

I do not know anything about that report.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Well, the Senator had better get it; it would be well worth reading.

Mr. Baxter

We will have it here at the next meeting.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It will be quite welcome. Senator Hayes wants me to get on to a subject where I will not tread on his toes, but I am not going to follow his red herring. Senator Sir John Keane talked about communal feeding and recommended that efforts should be made to see that in the likelihood of certain eventualities here people would not be left without good and cheap food. I happened to meet the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Defence, during the interval, and I knew that he had been charged with responsibility in connection with A.R.P. and other services and that he had been dealing with the question of communal feeding. He assured me that the setting up of communal kitchens had been the subject of examination by the Department, and also by the Department of Local Government for the past six months. The Department of Defence has ordered, and I think has secured, a number of field kitchens. Efforts are being made to secure other equipment of that kind to meet such an emergency as the Senator has in mind. The Parliamentary Secretary has had committees set up and meetings have been held. I have here a copy of a report of a meeting held only a few nights ago where a number of these people— doctors, social workers, and dieticians representing a variety of such organisations as Senator Sir John Keane had in mind, discussed the matter raised by him. I wish to assure the Senator that it has not been lost sight of.

Sir John Keane

Does not the Minister think that these functions would be more properly the work of the Department of Local Government and Public Health? It seems rather an anachronism that they should be entrusted to the Department of Defence.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence is charged with A.R.P. work and, in that connection, he was brought up against the question of the supply of food in emergencies, but on the question of the supply of food he is in close and intimate touch with the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, the Department of Local Government and Public Health, and the various local authorities—in Dublin, at any rate, and I think in other parts of the country—on this very subject, and they are all cognisant of what is being done and the debates that have taken place, and they have representatives on the committee.

Senator Sir John Keane asked about relief in kind. It is possible, legally, to give relief in kind and, from time to time, that system is adopted, and has been adopted, by different local authorities. Many Senators discussed the question of unemployment and reminded us that, bad as it is now, it is likely to be worse in the months to come. In that connection, Senators called attention to the fact that on the Vote for employment schemes, and on other Votes that are set out in the Book of Estimates, there were such reductions in the amount provided as would lead to a serious reduction in the numbers of people likely to be employed this year as compared with last year. Now, I do not believe that there will be one man less employed on the employment schemes because of the reduction that was made in that Vote. It was not for that purpose that reduction was made, but I was informed that it was expected that on the 31st March, this year, nearly £600,000—that is my recollection of the figure, and I know that it was well over £500,000 anyway—would be handed back, would not have been spent, and that a similar amount, although not quite so large, was handed back last year. I said: "Why swell the Estimate, and why put in figures there that would make it appear to be a large and generous figure for employment schemes, when that money is not likely to be spent before the end of the financial year? Give me a figure that you will spend and I shall put it in"; and that is the figure that is there.

I said in the Dáil, and I repeat it here, that the question of the unemployment situation, and its likely development in the months to come, is under close examination at present. One man, a Parliamentary Secretary, has been told off to deal with that matter, and he has a committee working with him, giving all its time to the question. I anticipate that before long certain schemes will be put before us, and if these schemes are such that we find that they are realisable and practicable and will give employment, as far as it can be found, for certain types of people, money will not stand in the way, within our resources. In this connection, Senator Lynch, Senator Johnston, I think, and other Senators stressed the fact that certain types of men will be thrown out of employment—some have been thrown out of employment already—such as skilled tradesmen and craftsmen, and that it will be difficult to deal with them. It will be difficult, and at the moment I do not see how they are going to be provided with employment. That is a situation we are up against. At the moment, I cannot see how highly-skilled craftsmen, who have spent their lives in certain trades, are going to be put on other work, whether of a skilled or unskilled type. You cannot expect these men, any more than you can expect clerks, commercial travellers, or people of that kind, to go out with a pick and shovel. They will not do it, and you cannot expect them to do it; but that is the problem. I said before in the Dáil, and repeat it now, that they cannot be allowed to go hungry. The Government stands over that, and we shall have to find some way of dealing with the problem, but, hungry, they and their families cannot be allowed to be.

I was glad to hear the tributes paid to the Army, by Senators McGee, O Buachalla, and others. I believe that the Army that was there before the crisis, and the largely increased Army that is there now, as well as the Local Defence Force and the Local Security Force, deserve our confidence. They deserve every credit, particularly the new men who have come along and volunteered or offered their services to help the nation in its time of difficulty and defend our shores, if necessary— offering everything they had, most of them. The men who were already qualified, the older officers and noncommissioned officers, who were able to take these raw recruits and untrained men and make such excellent military material out of them, as I understand they have succeeded in doing, deserve our sincere thanks.

Peat is another matter that was referred to by several Senators. That was another matter about which this Government got a lot of criticism. There has been very considerable development, and a lot of money was spent—I believe it will be found to have been spent usefully—on the development of bogs, but I do agree with the several Senators who stressed the fact that it will be necessary for every individual who has a turbary anywhere to work that turbary to the fullest possible extent this year and to start work from the earliest moment the weather will permit so that he himself, and the country as a whole, may have the necessary fuel to pass us over this year. Our supplies of coal have been very short in recent months and, as I think one Senator reminded us, the coal we have got has not been anything to boast about—some deliveries of it anyhow—and even at that it is pretty stiff in price. That is so, but we cannot complain about that—at least, we can complain all we like about it, but we cannot remedy it. That is the situation: we cannot remedy it. As a matter of fact, I think that those who supply us with coal would be quite happy to give us more coal and better coal if they were able to do so. That is my opinion.

Mr. Baxter

They are not blockading us in that, anyway?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

On the question of blockade, I might as well deal with it now. I think it is not correct to say that the statement made by the Taoiseach was misleading. As the Minister for Supplies said, and as the Taoiseach himself said, we are, in effect, the most blockaded country in Europe. In saying that, I would not charge, and I think I would not be correct in charging, either of the great belligerents with attempting to squeeze us economically, consciously or willingly—blockading us from supplies that normally should reach us. They have not done that, to my knowledge.

Mr. MacDermot

But they sank Irish ships. Have they not sunk Irish ships?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Our ships have been sunk, but ships of all nationalities have been sunk, have they not? We are blockaded, in fact, and seriously blockaded. There are many things that we badly need here and we cannot get them; we have not got them, and probably will not get them. We are blockaded in that sense, and while, as I say, I do not believe there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the belligerents to blockade us, blockade is a very serious thing. We are not being blockaded in that deliberate way, but the effect is the same.

Mr. MacDermot

Has not a blockade been declared against us since the beginning of the war?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We have been informed that certain areas of the seas around our coasts are mined and that they are dangerous areas for ships to pass through, but we are a very small and insignificant little country. The greatest nation in the world, America, has not dared to send her ships into that blockaded area.

Mr. MacDermot

There is no analogy because we are in the area that is blockaded.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We are, unfortunately.

Mr. MacDermot

And the Minister's colleagues have announced that if we had a mercantile marine most of our ships would have been sunk by now.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Probably they would.

Mr. Baxter

Is that not a deliberate blockade?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Not deliberate against us any more than against any other nation which has ships in that area. This is a very ticklish and dangerous subject. There are people in the country who would like to get responsible people—may I say, myself and others—to make statements on one side or the other that could be used and placarded for propaganda purposes against one side or the other. I am not going to be led into anything of the kind. I have my views and my sympathies. They are very strong views. I have sympathy with all brave peoples who are suffering, who have had to make such horrible sacrifices and who have been crushed. I know, and everybody in this country with a knowledge of our history ought to know, what oppression and aggression mean. I have sympathy particularly with small nations, but we are in a very ticklish position, a very dangerous position. We have declared neutrality. Though that neutrality is not liked by many people in the Dáil and in the Seanad, we, all of us, ought to walk warily, watch our step and, particularly, watch our words so that we shall not give cause for offence to one side or the other and involve ourselves and our country in very serious consequences. Senator MacDermot evidently dislikes neutrality.

Mr. MacDermot

I dislike the particular form of it which the Government have been lately adopting.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

If I may say so, with all respect, I do not think the Senator's speech helps matters. Honestly, I do not. I do not object to a man criticising censorship; I have done it myself, but which of us, Senator MacDermot, Senator Hayes, Senator Baxter or Senator Quirke, if we were in the same position as the Censor, could satisfy everybody? Could you satisfy anybody? I think that you would satisfy very few people. I would satisfy very few people, I know, if I were in charge and I think the same applies to Senator MacDermot. I think Senator Hayes would be more ruthless even than I.

Mr. Hayes

I would have great fun preparing the answers.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am afraid I am keeping the House unduly long. I read with interest the long letter of Mr. Wylie to which Senator Johnston referred. I seldom read long letters, and I very rarely read speeches, even my own. At any rate, I glanced at the Times on the morning the letter was published. I usually just run down the news and the births, deaths and marriages. That is the sum and substance of my reading of the newspapers. If there are any splash headlines about politics, I read the matter to which they refer.

Mr. Douglas

And the financial notes.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I have to read the financial notes whether I like them or not. I have to keep in touch with them and they are not always the most interesting part of the newspaper. I had to put aside Mr. Wylie's letter, but I took it to bed and read it over carefully.

Mr. Douglas

Was this another dream?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It kept me awake long enough to read and to ponder over it. I would agree with Senator Johnston in describing it as very good Sinn Féin policy—a policy of self-reliance. If only more people would read it, and if they would not alone think but act on the lines of self-help and self-reliance of the type suggested in that very interesting letter, I think the country would be very much better off than it is. There is too much harping on the Government all the time, too many questions such as: "Why did not the Government do this, that, or the other?" Goodness knows, there are many things which should be and which are not done, but there are a thousand and one other things which could be done by citizens for themselves which they will not do. There is too much waiting to be spoon-fed. I should like people to read that letter again. I hope that Mr. Wylie himself will not stop at the writing of the letter.

Mr. MacDermot

He is holding a meeting at the Mansion House on Friday night.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Good. I hope something practical comes out of it. It will be a good example to many other citizens. I was interested in Senator Johnston's recommendation that the State should guarantee supplies of milk and potatoes to the extent of £3,000,000. I was all the more interested when, later on, he went on to warn the Minister of the awful consequences of increasing taxation. How are we going to spend £3,000,000 and the many hundreds of thousands recommended by other Senators, good and all as the schemes may be, without increasing taxation?

Mr. MacDermot

Borrow it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Suppose we borrow £3,000,000 how are we going to pay the interest on it?

Mr. Baxter

The interest on it need not be more than ½ per cent.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

You could not do that. Suppose you paid 2½ per cent., that would be something within reason, but look at what £3,000,000 at 2½ per cent. would cost. That must be paid by the taxpayer—not alone the interest but the sinking fund to wipe out the loan. There is nothing you can do in that way that will not result in some additional taxation on the people.

I should like to say a good deal more but the hour is late. I shall conclude by thanking you for the debate, which interested me. I can sincerely say that I profited by it. I shall gladly remember the advice given to me. Suggestions made from all sides were, I believe, prompted by an anxiety to be helpful. I should like to have an opportunity of referring to the remarks of many other Senators who spoke, but I shall preserve the notes which I have taken and I hope to have an opportunity on some occasion in the future of referring to them at an earlier hour.

Mrs. Concannon

There is just one question which I should like to raise. Everybody spoke of the importance of securing as big a harvest as possible from the land, but nobody said a word about the equally important harvest of the sea. Herrings saw us through many a year, and I hope that, when the May herring fishing comes along the fishing will be encouraged, and that adequate provision will be made for curing plenty of herrings and other fish.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I shall call the attention of the Minister for Agriculture to the Senator's remark.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining stages now.

Bill passed through Committee, received for final consideration, and ordered to be returned to the Dáil.