Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Jul 1941

Vol. 25 No. 21

Appropriation Bill, 1942 (Certified Money Bill) — Second and Subsequent Stages.

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

Minister for Finance (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

The Appropriation Act is a routine and essential feature of our financial system. In its general form it is sterotyped. It serves the twofold purpose of (1) authorising the issue from the Central Fund of the balance of the amount granted to meet the cost of the supply services for the current financial year, and (2) appropriating to the proper supply services and purposes the sums granted by Dáil Eireann. In the first respect, this Bill is complementary to the Central Fund Act, 1941, which authorised the issue from the Central fund of the proporation (£12,350,000) of the total of the Estimates for the current financial year which had been granted on account by the Dáil. The further release from the Central Fund provided for in Section 2 of this Bill will make available for the service of the current financial year the total amount asked for in the Estimates and Supplementary Estimates for the public services and granted for these purposes by the Dáil.

In the second respect, the Bill is designed to give final and statutory effect to the Vote on Account and to the Supply Resolutions agreed to on Report by Dáil Eireann following the detailed consideration of the Estimates and Supplementary Estimates in Committee on Finance. To that end, it provides that each grant voted for the service of the current financial year shall be expended upon the service to which it is appropriated as set forth in the Schedules attached to the Bill and in accordance with the Resolutions of Dáil Eireann. The Bill also provides for the formal appropriation of such of the supplementary and additional grants for 1940-41 as were voted after the Appropriation Act of that year had been passed. The Bill covers in addition the issue out of the Central Fund of the sum of £20 being the amount voted by Dáil Eireann to make good excesses on the grants for old age pensions (£10) and Gaeltacht Services (£10) for the year 1939-40. The Appropriation Act, like the Central Fund the Minister for Finance. The combined total up to the limit of which he is authorised to borrow is the total of the sum authorised to be issued from the Central Fund by both Acts.

Mr. Crosbie

I take the opportunity afforded by this Bill to ask the Minister and the Government to take certain measures which I consider are necessary to meet the economic situation in which the people of this country find themselves owing to the war conditions that exist all round us. Of late, the painting of gloomy pictures in the other House, and to a certain extend in this House, has become fashionable and mutual recriminations as regards the economic stress from which we are suffering have been very frequent and often deserved. Both these may serve a useful purpose in awakening the people to the realities of the situation and in clearing the fog of self-satisfaction that has enshrouded the country. Possibly it is not even now too late to clear the economic decks for action for the coming winter. We are faced here with a rather unique situation. On the one hand we have all the benefits of neutrality, but there are certain economic costs that have got to be meet and we must face up to that situation.

To my mind it is urgent that the price to the consumer of essential basic foodstuffs should be controlled. In considering essential basic foodstuffs or the necessaries of life, I propose taking as an example flour, oat-meal, potatoes and milk and to deal principally with the flour or bread situation. The ceral position, I understand, is not quite clear and at present it is only possible to calculate on rough estimate of harvest yields and imports. The Department of Agriculture estimate a production of 400,000 acres of wheat. Making allowance for moisture, shrinkage, and using an 80 per cent. extraction, which I understand would give better and more wholesome bread than the present extraction while being more economical in use and permitting of by products such as bran, etc., for animal feeding stuffs, that acreage should yields 1,500,000 sacks of flour or 60 per cent. of our requirements. The Department also estimates for 250,000 acres of barley which, with a normal yeild and making allowance for brewers' requirements, animal feeding and seed, should give us 572,000 sacks of flour from barley or 23 per cent. of our requirements.

The quantity of imported wheat which will be available is highly speculative on account of shipping difficulties, but for the purpose of the discussion we can take a conservative estimate of 10 per cent. or 250,000 sacks. This would then give us a flour produced from 60 per cent. of native wheat, 10 per cent. of imported wheat, 23 per cent. would have to be made up from oats.

These calculations, Sir, may not be accurate. Unforeseen circumstances may at any time alter them favourably or otherwise. It may prove possible to import more wheat than has been estimated, but what is quite obvious is that the cost of any thing that we import is going to be out of all proportion to the consumer's ability to pay; that is, if the extra cost is to be passed on to the consumer. The first effort of the Government, therefore, should be to take the necessary steps to prevent any of these extra costs being passed on to the consumer.

The price of flour or bread should be pegged to its present level—and many people consider that even its present level is too high. The Minister will undoubtedly plead the difficulty fully and so, I am sure, does every member of the House. In spite of whatever difficulties there may be, I consider it fundamental to our national and economic security. Our neighbours in Great Britain pegged the price of flour the moment the war started. The subsidy that they required was enormous but, evidently, they considered it absolutely necessary to the circumstances in which they found themselves. I do not suggest that we should slavishly follow the example of our neighbours across the water, but I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that, unlike our neighbours, we possess no war industries. That may be a very doubtful advantage that our neighbours enjoy; I think it is a doubtful advantage but, nevertheless, it does leave her in the position that if an industry there is forced to close down owing to the shortage of raw materials, there are war industries in which the unemployed workers can be absorbed. We are not so placed with regard to any industry that closes down in this country owing to the lack of raw material—and it would appear, from what we are told by Ministers and others, that there are going to be quite a number, if not actually closed down, on very short commons. We have no alternative industries, so far, for those people who will be unemployed to walk into.

That is, unfortunately, one of the prices that has to be paid for the policy of neutrality. The policy of neutrality is a policy that has been fully endorsed by the people and by both Houses of the Oireachtas. But the mere endorsement of that policy by the people does not relieve the Government, and does not relieve the Houses of the Oireachtas, from the responsibility of solving the problems that arise from it. In these circumstances, surely a very strong case exists for a subsidy. I know that subsidies are unpopular with Ministers and with Governments. In my opinion they should be given only under very exceptional circumstances and, even then, only for a limited period. The exceptional circumstances exist now and show every sign of becoming even more exceptional. Subsidies have from time to time been granted in an endeavour to place industries on a solid footing. This is no case of helping an individual industry. It is a case of preventing large sections of the people from feeling the pangs of hunger.

The Minister will ask—and he will not be alone in asking—where is the money to be found? Probably he will also point out that he has almost exhausted all the sources of taxation, and that many of his sources of taxation, the wells of finance, so to speak, are in danger of showing visible signs of drying up. He should not allow himself, in this emergency, to be hide-bound in financial matters. In the other House and, if my memory serves me right, in this House, he has claimed to be unorthodox. He has now got a golden opportunity to put any unorthodox financial theories that he may have been harbouring during his years of office into practice.

The Minister is in a better position than I am to tell the House the amount of money necessary to subsidise flour or wheat. The estimates that I have been given vary from £500,000 to £1,500,000. It has elsewhere been suggested to the Minister that he could cut his Army Estimate by £3,00,000. If the Minister does not feel inclined, or is unable, to make that cut this year, he might keep it in mind for the next financial year. The Minister might also consider that in this country there are numbers of able-bodied men drawing pensions. I do not suggest that he should deprive anybody of his pension, but some of these able-bodied men might be persuaded to take a cut in their pensions for the duration of the emergency. In the same way, if the Minister set about it, the members of the Oireachtas might see their way to take a cut in their allowances.

The alternative method of raising the necessary money to subsidise all essential foodstuffs would be by war of loan. Dyed-in-the-wool financiers, particularly bankers, will probably hold up their hands in horror at the suggestion —I think I see one of them holding up his hands in horror already—yet this method is the usual commercial practice and, as such, meets with the approval of financiers. Agricultural loans have often been advocated, together with industrial loans. When commercial undertakings find themselves in difficulties they tide over the difficuly period by borrowing. In these commercial transactions it sometimes happens that the security offered conservative financiers is not always as cast-iron as it appears to be, but even then, the conservative lenders take a risk and look upon it as a legitimate commercial risk. What is the difference between a banking transaction, such as outlined, which is in everyday commercial use, and the Minister for Finance borrowing in order to subsidise essential foodstuffs during a critical period? What greater security could the most conservative financiers ask than the security of the country?

The other problem that arises is that of fair distribution in the event of a shortage of commodities. National registration would appear to be a bogey to the Government and to the Minister, but it is a bogey they should face up to now rather than ultimately, as no machinery that I have yet heard of appears to be available to ensure a fair distribution of commodities during a shortage. If the Government would adopt this principle and stabilise, or peg, the prices of the basic essentials of life it should, I think, take to itself the necessary powers to enable it to make a complete, compulsory, and fair distribution, and to do this a national register is obviously the first step. As regards a sideline on distribution, I would like to hear from the Minister, at a later stage, whether he can give the House any satisfactory explanation or whether he has received from the people concerned any satisfactory explanation or excuse for the transport difficulty that this country suddenly finds itself in—the sudden collapse of our railway system. The Minister is the only person that I can think of who is in a position to find out how it happened and why is happened. I certainly have been unable to discover the reason.

Cathaoirleach

That I think would be a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Mr. Crosbie

I think that under a section of this Bill I would be in order in referring to it.

Cathaoirleach

Yes, reference, of course, is in order, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce did not, I think, get any notification that the Senator proposed to raise this matter.

Mr. Crosbie

Perhaps if I were to notify the Minister now that I intend to raise it on another stage of the Bill, he might be prepared to meet me. To conclude, I would again appeal to the Minister to remember that, as a result of his Budget and of Emergency Order No. 83, the wage to be received by workers is pegged. It is essential that the Minister should take concurrent steps to see that the worker is not bled. It is the poorest class of the community that will have to bear the burden of the food and fuel shortage during the coming winter. I would ask him to see, at least, that the price of the loaf is pegged.

Mr. Baxter

It is rather difficult to come back again on questions which have been frequently debated in the House. With some Ministers, one is always at the disadvantages that when you raise problems that you regard as of national importance your intervention is treated as being something that amounts to a piece of impertinence: that it is an effort on your part to misrepresent the national damage. Whatever the Minister for Finance, or other Ministers, may think, their approach to any problem they have to deal with ought to be the same as that justice should be done. Ministers should judge fairly those who address themselves to these problems, and ask whether or not the speakers are attempting to misrepresent the position and make things look worse than they really are: to knock us off our feet so that there is the danger that the people generally may lose faith, courage and hope; or whether their criticism is founded on fact, and is really an effort to point the better way of doing things to Ministers.

Listening to the Minister one sometimes gets the impression that he has something up his sleeve, which he never produces, to meet the arguments advanced here, but I would beseech him to understand that we are all as much concerned with the future of this country and of its people as any Minister. Our concern did not begin yesterday or the day before. For many years we have been trying to make things better than they are for all our people, and not thinking of any particular type. That is what must occupy our thoughts to-day. I think there will be general agreement, even though we have our grouses and our disagreements and are labouring under very considerable disabilities, that things could be a great deal worse than they are. Last year, when this Bill was under discussion, I said by way of interjection to something the Minister said when replying to our criticism, "please God we will again". The minister got very annoyed and very cross, but what I meant was that I hoped we would have the liberty to come here this year to discuss this Bill. I think we have a great deal to be thankful for that we have the liberty to be here to-day to discuss the Bill. I would ask the Minister to approach the situation as we see it. We are attempting to present it in a reasonable kind of way, with a sort of judicial balance, and all that we are asking of him is to consider whether or not our criticism has any foundation.

The aspect of the problem that I am mainly concerned with is the use that we are making of our land and what we are getting out of it. That is a matter that has most concern for the people of the country. Time and again I have made an effort to get the Government to change their line of approach to do so, I have not succeeded in taking the Seanad with me.

Peadar Mac Fhionnlaoich

Is fíor.

Mr. Baxter

I am not concerned now about Party politics. The times are too serious to have such things present to our minds. When war broke out, it struck me that we should take immediate steps to have a policy put into operation that would enable us to make the best use of our land, and get the Government to adopt it. At that time I introduced a motion asking the Seanad to agree to the fixing of prices for agricultural products. I did that when the first Compulsory Tillage Order was made. The Seanad, in its unwisdom, in my judgment, rejected the motion. Its action had considerable backing from Government supporters, let by the Minister. All sorts of arguments were advanced to the effect that what I asked could not be done. Twelve months later I put forward the motion again, pointing out that what I sought had been achieved in the Six Counties. I was able to point out that there had been increased food production there because prices had been fixed. By a majority, the Seanad decided against the motion. I was told that you could not fix prices, that there was no necessity to do so and that it would be unwise. What has happened since? A month ago an order was made fixing prices. What I urged should have been done before the seed of the 1938 harvest went into the ground for the following year could not be done, but it can be done in 1941. In my opinion that was an error of judgment on the part of the Government. What the Government are doing now should have been done in 1939. The Government should consider the farmers of the country. They have not been too kind to them.

If many of our farmers have remained on the land it is largely due to their marvellous tenacity and to their love of the land. Despite everything the Government have done to drive them from it, they still hold on and stick to it. I suggest to the Government that they should do something to make friends of the farmers and to restore faith and confidence in them. The Government could have done two years ago what they are doing to-day. That would have been of considerable help to our farmers.

I will return later to the question of prices. At the moment I want to deal with the preliminary returns which are available with regard to the acreage under crops. These figures will, I imagine, be subject to a final check.

As far as I can gather from the figures available, the acreage under crops this year shows an increase, over last year, of 300,000. Perhaps somebody else will check up on that. Perhaps Senator check up on figures which will enable him to check up on it, because I think it is of very considerable importance. Last year, as far as I remember, we were informed, in a speech made by the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures in the other House, that we had got something over 300,000 acres of an increase on the previous year. It is of interest to not that in the same year there was an increase, in the Six Counties, of about 260,000 acres over the previous year, while we had only got an increase of 300,000 acres in 26 counties. This year, we had an additional 300,000 acres added on to that, but from the statements made by Ministers we were given to understand that in order to maintain our human and animal population we would need anything up to an increase of 750,000 acres of tillage.

Now, we presume that Ministers knew what they were talking about and that they were calculating on the total food units which could be obtained from a certain acreage under wheat, oats, barley, beet, and various other crops, such as kale, mangolds, turnips and so on, and their calculation was that we wanted 750,000 acres of an increase in 1941 in order to maintain our human and animal population. Now, it happens that we have not got that acreage or anything like it. I am not blaming the Government because to do so, at the moment, would not get us another acre, but I am going to urge on them that in the situation which confronts the Government and which confronts all of us—because, if there is going to be hunger it will come to all of us, and I do not think there will be loaves of bread for sale in the shop windows while people outside are hungry, or that there will be pits of potatoes in the country while there are hungry men and women in the towns and cities: I do not think that will happen ever—I am going to urge on the Government that they will have to take certain action now to deal with the situation which will confront us during the coming months.

Some of us are reproached for making suggestions which appear almost to be silly or stupid because we say things that we believe to be related to the facts, but we are the sort of people who believe in being realists and in facing the problems which confront us. I think that the situation with regard to our area under tillage, and the danger which it holds for us, before another 12 months will have passed—even assuming that no invader crosses our shores—is so grave that the Government must now formulate a policy with regard to it, and as far as I am concerned I am just wondering whether the Government are contemplating it or not. It seems to me, on the figures that we have got, that from our own resources we can do nothing like maintaining our present human and animal population for 12 months to come. If the figures which Ministers have given us are anything approaching correct, it cannot be done. I believe that that situation has been precipitated for want of a more forward Government policy with regard to fixing and guaranteeing prices in 1939 and 1940, apart altogether from what they have done in the tail-end of the season of 1941. I think that it is lack of policy that has been responsible for a lower acreage under tillage than we should have had.

There were other circumstances of course, such as requirements of artificial manures and capital requirements of various kinds, for which we have been pleading and which we have not been getting. There were capital requirements of all kinds, understocked fields, with less farm-yard manure as a consequence and less fertility than was necessary to grow the kind of crops that you would want to grow if you were to adopt the proper line of crop rotation, and so on. I believe that if guaranteed prices had been given two years ago the position with regard to our tillage area would be better than it is, but such as it is we have got to see what we are going to do about it, and I believe that this is the time to think about it.

I can assure the Ministry that the situation in the country at present is very serious. According to the figures, the decline in our pig population is really alarming, from my point of view. I have not the actual figures here with me, but I doubt if our pig population was ever as low as it is to-day. I know that the figures show that at the moment our pig population is lower than it was even at the worst period in in the last war. There has been a drop of 25 per cent. in our pig population in 12 months, and that is very grave from the point of view of our internal economy, but the truth is that even the small number of pigs and poultry that we have in the country are not being even half nourished.

I could tell stories with regard to the types of breeding and the conditions with regard to muscle, bone and shape, in connection with our pigs and poultry, that are really alarming-and all because of the lack of rations and the balanced ration that we are not able to provide. That is a fact, but I want to put this before the House: that if we are going to be faced with a situation where we have only got food supplies for six months— I have not attempted to calculate what number of food units the area under tillage, of both root and grain crops, can provide us with, but even assuming that the harvest, with the help of God, will be as fruitful as it appears to be, and it certainly looks fruitful—if it appears that we are only going to have food for men and animals for four months or so, then the time to consider what to do with the animals is before the end of the next December. Nothing could be more unwise than to take a decision to carry on an animal population beyond our capacity to carry if we see no prospect of importing foreign foodstuffs.

We are going to be faced with a situation at the end of next winter or the beginning of next spring, when we will have hundreds of thousands of animals, which are now fairly well fleshed, coming off the grass reduced and emaciated and, as we say in the country, just skin and bone. Now, these animals will have eaten, during the winter months, much of the food that will be absolutely essential, perhaps, for human consumption and also essential for that portion of our animal population—particularly, dairy cows—which is the foundation of our whole live-stock industry. These animals will have consumed much of this food and will have reduced the productive capacity of all our stock to such a level that we will be able to sell nothing even to our own people at home, or to people outside the country either, because they will be in such a condition that people outside the country would not wish to but them from us.

Now, I have not anything like the information that is available to the Minister for Agriculture, but I suggest that that aspect of the problem ought to be considered very quickly. If we are going to delete our food stocks during the winter months at a rate that will clearly demonstrate that we are not going to be able to carry the present animal population on through the winter and spring and into the next grass season, then I think that the right thing for us to do is to decide now to get rid of them, whether we slaughter them here at home or get them sent out of the country for slaughter. I hold that we should slaughter, in that way, a considerably higher proportion of our young stock, that are now fairly well covered with flesh, than we would ordinarily slaughter, because I believe that that is essential unless we are going to create a very grave situation for our human as well as our animal population.

Now, I understand that we have made an order fixing the prices of grain. I am rather slow to enter into a discussion at this stage on the decision which the Ministry has taken with regard to the prices which have been made under the order, but I think that this will have to be faced.

I think that unless the Ministry make up their minds to raise these prices you will precipitate a situation which will be very unfavourable, not only from the point of getting an increased area under tillage next year, but from the point of view of those people who have not land of their own and who have not food of their own and are depending on what our farmers produce for their foodstuffs during the coming winter. I believe that unless those prices are raised you will not have the food coming on the market. I am all against taking up the attitude. that we must raise food prices to such a level as will appear to put the farmer into a position where he is a profiteer. I am dead against that. It would be bad policy for our farmers to take their stand on that position. But I think it would be a very sound policy for the farmers in their production of all crops to get reasonable security and a reasonable return in cash. If we can put our farmers in that position, agriculture will be much more stable and the stability of the country will be much more secure.

I think, however, the prices which the Ministry have fixed are not adequate to the situation which confronts the farmers. I think the net result is that you will not have the grain put on the market. Take wheat. A man who has wheat to-day has to sell it as 16/- per cwt. I cannot buy one cwt. of the worst good that a miller can get together at 25/- a cwt.—the worst food, probably no protein in it at all. I cannot get it; neither can any man down the country. I know men from Cork and kerry who have been trying for the last six weeks, or perhaps two months, to get grain sent to them from my part of the country. They have not succeeded because the supply is not available. It seems to me that if you are to provide the people in the towns and cities with food during the next year you will have to ensure that the food will come on the market. You cannot treat the farmers as the Bolsheviks treated the Kulaks. You cannot succeed in that and you do not want to do it. None of us wants to see such a situation precipitated, and nobody wants to create a position like that. It will not be happier or easier or simpler for any group. It is not by the prosecution of a policy like that or the presecution of a limited number of people that we will hold together and whether the storms which will confront us.

My view is that you have not fixed the prices for grain high enough to encourage the farmers to put the grain on the market after the experience they had last year. The industrious farmer, the type of farmer we have been taught to admire and to encourage in the past, is the man who does a bit of everything. He has dairy cows; he has calves and pigs and poultry and various tillage crops that are related to the capacity of his soil to produce. That farmer has been regulating his own farm. That farmer who has stock is going to hold off payment of his just debts rather than cash his grain; he is going to feed it to his stock which he knows, if they are well covered with flesh, will bring him a good return in cash. He will feed to the stock the grain that ought to be put on the market for the feeding of human beings.

That is a situation that you have to guard against, that probably a considerable quantity of the stock of wheat which we apparently will have out of the 490,000 acres will not come on the market. It may pass from one man to another. They may exchange a bag of wheat for a bag of barley. Man to another. They may exchange and the grain for other people will go short. I suggest that you want to do what you can to overcome that situation by increasing the price the farmer has been offered up to the present. I know all the arguments on the other side. I could make the argument very strong on the other side about the difficulty of the man who has to buy grain and feed it to animals to finish them for food to be exported out of the country. Our primary consideration apparently for some time to come is to be able to feed our own people and keep them warm and clothed. It seems to me that we will have to do that ourselves out of what we have, because others do not seem to be putting themselves do not seem us anything. If that is the attitude of the world, I am prepared to fall back on our own resources, on any number of things that I never thought we would be pressed into doing. In the sort of inhuman, barbarous existence to which man has been reduced, he must strike out as well as he can. If he is forced into the forest, he will have to strive to live in the forest.

I urge that the grain prices are too low and that they ought to be raised. I think it would be very wise if some of those prices were fixed in consultation with representative groups of farmers.

Cathaoirleach

Of course the Senator realises that that is a matter for the Minister for Agriculture and should not be debated without giving notice of his intention to raise the matter, as the Minister for Finance obviously would be in a difficulty in replaying.

Mr. Baxter

I confess that perhaps in a way I could not expect the Minister for Finance to go into all this, but it is a matter related to our whole financial position and the spending of the money which is embodied in the Bill before us. We are spending a lot of money on various services. I will not go into that. It may be that you will be faced with a situation that, in order to get the grain on the market, you will have to introduce a scheme of subsidy, and into that the Ministry of Finance will obviously enter and must enter. What I feel about it is that must cannot adopt the old stick-in-the-mud policy in relation to present conditions and hope to struggle through in that sort of way. I was urging that in my view an effort ought to be made by the Ministry to fix prices in consultation with representative groups of farmers because what you want is to restore confidence amongst the farming community. I am not talking about farmers who may differ politically from the Government or have differed from them. I am talking about farmers generally in relation to other sections of the community and the impression farmers have about the kind of treatment they get, whether it be some of the milk producers outside the City of Dublin or elsewhere.

I urge that if prices are to be fixed or if there is to be an alteration in the prices—and I believe there ought to be—you ought not to make the farmers sore, sick, disagreeable and unpleasant. This is not a time for unpleasantness. If you are to do anything, do it in time. I suggest that this is the time to face up to that. I know well that if you raise the price of grain above its present level the pig producers, who have all along kept in production by buying into their county more grain than they had been accustomed to produce themselves, will find it more difficult to produce. I would, if necessary, subsidise them in order to keep them in production. We have done that in the past and I would do that if it were necessary. The one thing to make sure of is that the man producing grain to feed our people will get reasonable remuneration for what he produces. I am not talking about price. That would be unwise.

I should like now to deal with our fuel position. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is present, and he has that job in hands now. I think he got it a bit late. There, again, it is a question of the Ministry not going a thing as soon as it ought to have been done. It is not necessary to know much about the question to know that you cannot get into bogs on Christmas Eve. On April 2nd I introduced a motion in this House authorities to take over bogs. I did not actually want to have the order annulled, but I wanted to have it discussed. At the time it was not suggested that I should be put out of the House, but I should have gone if the jeers, the sneers and the sarcasm of the Minister and some of those who supported him could have done it. That is not the way of approach to that problem. We must go down to the foundation. It was quite clear that Ministers did not understand the position then. They should have started providing the country with fuel before that. Their efforts were bound to be a failure when they did not tackle such an urgent question in time. In my motion I mentioned that if we were driven to it, apart from the employment that would be given, my information was that a considerable number of the unemployed could cut turf. Somebody told me that at one labour exchange in Dublin there were 100 turf-cutters available. That may or may not be true. I suggested that there were hundreds and perhaps thousands of men—many of them in my own county—who could cut turf and who should be employed to do so. The House will remember the ridicule and scorn that was poured on that suggestion by the Minister, who was supported by respectable but irresponsible Senators. A few days later I read in the daily newspapers that the Taoiseach had gone down to Lullymore Bog, in County Kildare, where there were 400 men from the Army cutting turf. More power to them! The trouble was that when Senator Baxter made any suggestion like that, of course it was only he made it and that was the end.

My complaint is about that sort of Minister approach to a tremendous problem. It was quite clear from the debates that took place in this House that some people did not understand what the production of turf involved. while there was underlying what they said considerable support for my approach to it. Here again we have, apparently, to fall back on our own resources. To a certain extent, possibly, the development of our bogs has been bedevilled by the conception of industrialisation which we have taken to ourselves as sound economic policy. I believe that our approach to that industrialisation has been completely fallacious. It sounds all right if we had the raw material, but it is very unsound when we have want to keep our people housed and warm we have the raw material to do so, and we do not want any of the immense machinery that is now on the bogs to produce our fuel requirements. It is clear that if we have to depend on mechanisation, as far as turf production is concerned, we are going to have to wait for a long time, and our requirements will not be provided during the period of the emergency. We must utilise other means. I suggest that they are available. I do not know how many men have left the rural areas to go elsewhere. Perhaps the Minister would have some figures, as they would be rather interesting now. I know that a great many turf-cutters have left this country, and that any of the coal produced as a result of their labour is not coming back here to warm the homes that they left. It was left to the people who remained at home to provide the turf, and if it is not hungry, because they will not have the wherewithal to cook their food.

I come to Dublin week after week and the train passes through miles of the best bog. I have been puzzled to know what we are doing when we had not thousands of men on that bog. It seems to me that instead of encouraging people with a few acres in the west, or in other parts of Ireland, to cut away bits of their holding, leaving them with uneconomic holdings, and depriving them of other essential commodities, steps ought to have, been taken to have men working in the huge bog areas in the heart of Ireland through which the main lines of communication pass. Something in that way may be done elsewhere but, as far as my eye could reach, I could see no sign of it in that area. One could hardly judge where a county boundary ended, but it was quite clear that there was a job there that only the Government could tackle.

Then there is the problem of finance. I could not understand why for such work we had to get county councils to borrow money at 5 per cent, and to pay interest on it, as the cost ultimately went on the price of the turf. In my judgment that work will turn out to be beyond the resources of county councils, as they are not equal to it. The winter will prove that. A bigger organisation was needed and a different type of machinery. We will not have an opportunity of discussing this question again for a considerable period, but we should get on with the job now. The bog areas that we should attempt to develop are the huge areas where the transport problem would be nothing like what it is in the county I come from, and in other parts, where turf has to be carried from the mountainside on the backs of donkeys. We should have unemployed people working there. I remember the Minister for Industry and Commerce suggesting a difficulty about provisioning people if they were put into camps now. I would make a bid to provide quantities to turf to secure fuel to cook the food of the men whom it is intended to put to work on the bogs next spring and summer, but you have to think about that now.

I believe that, next to our land, our bog resources are so immense that we ought to concentrate on them with all our vigour. We should be quite content that the muscle and brawn of our people are adequate to produce fuel equal to the necessities of the situation, if we tackle the problem with courage. Unless you can have imports of coal, you are going to be presented with an appalling problem before another harvest of turf can be taken off the bogs. With the present prohibitive price of turf in our towns, I do not know how the poor are going to carry on. I cannot see how they are to continue buying turf at 1d. a sod and I do not know where the pennies are to come from. It may be a matter of bringing our internal purchasing power into closer relationship with the goods we produce here, and of not relating it to standards outside, but I do not propose to go into that now. I urge on the Minister that the whole question of our bog development is secondary only to the proper use and development of our land, and that we could employ an immense number of our people on the production of fuel, not only for our homes but for our industries. We might very well reconstruct all our railway rolling stock and so on to meet the new situation. The Parliamentary Secretary, I think, cannot succeed in his policy, unless he makes up his mind that we are jolly well going to carry on on turf in the future, and on turf not produced by machines but by the people of the country through the machinery which they can largely make with their own hands and the vigour and energy which God has given them.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Flinn)

May I ask whether the Senator proposes that we should continue using turf wholesale when coal is again available?

Mr. Baxter

I do definitely, and I think that the sooner we can all adjust our minds to that point of view, the better it will be for the nation. It may take a revolution to bring that about and we may be passing through that revolution, but my feeling is that the Parliamentary Secretary cannot succeed in his task, that he will not get the equipment necessary—financial equipment, mental equipment, and the backing of his colleagues—unless we are prepared to say that that is to be the policy in the future. We do not know what the world will be like when the war is over, and we may have very strange readjustments to make, and it would not be any harm to be preparing to make these readjustments from now on, because it can be seen quite clearly that, with our fodder position as it is, we may, as I have said, have to do away with a great many of our live stock, if some of our people are not to go hungry before another harvest in 1942, and it is probable that for a very long period ahead, much succour will not come to us from abroad.

I know that some of these questions may be matters for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but he is not here. What is perturbing a number of us at the moment—we may manage to have enough food and to provide ourselves with fires of some kind—is what we are going to do for light. What the Minister and his Government propose to do for us in that respect is quite beyond me. I do not know whether I am typical or not, but, when the light of the sun goes, I have to go, too. When I come in from the fields, having stayed there for as long as a man can do anything in the fields, when I come in from the hayfield or from whatever other occupation I am engaged on, I try to do something with Parliamentary documents—I do not like to come up here and know nothing of these Bills; although some people might be quite prepared to take it easy, I want to know what they contain, and what Ministers have said about them—I can read just as long as there is light—I may go outside and read—but when the sun's light goes, I must go. That is the position of people all over the country.

The stories one hears of the plight of the people in respect of sickness and such matters are truly alarming. The people are without light of any kind and that is my own problem at the moment. If any of my family, children or anybody else, became ill, I do not know what I should do, and I wish the House could have seen me a few nights ago trying to give a bottle to a cow with another person holding a lighted match. That is not the way in which these things should be done. The situation is one in which the individual hardship is very considerable. What it will be like in the months to come, goodness only knows, but one would like to have some information as to whether it is going to improve, whether there is any hope of our being able to look forward with any real confidence to an improvement or where we stand at all.

For people in rural Ireland, the position existing at the moment in respect of the scarcity of paraffin, candles and such things, is very serious. I know it is very much easier for the people in the towns and cities who have been provided with the Shannon scheme on the credit of the country as a whole. It must be remembered that the credit of the land was a considerable factor when we were borrowing the money for that scheme, because if the interest on the capital for the flotation of the scheme were to be paid only by the earnings of the people in the towns and cities, I do not think it would have been carried out. That is something which ought to be remembered. The Ministry have failed lamentably and some of us would like to know if there is to be any redress in the matter. I have tried to see whether I could get any concessions, but I could not—at least, so I was informed. The Government's policy is a policy which we should like to be able to back. The Minister need have no doubt about that. It is not my habit to say things to people merely to please them. It is more important to say the unpleasant thing, if it is true, than to say the pleasant thing just because it is almost true, but the situation facing us is so serious and grave that we should like to be able to say: "We are backing the Government because we believe they will pull the country through"; but we have not got much evidence on which to base that confidence. I have to-day given evidence of views which I expressed and propositions which I put forward which were turned down only to be accepted later, but accepted at a rather late stage.

We are spending a lot of money. I am not extravagant—I cannot afford to be extravagant—but I never think money wasted when value is got for it. I am not against the Government spending a good deal of money, provided we are getting value for it, but I do not think we are getting the value we should get if the Government's plan were better thought out, if the Government would occasionally listen to suggestions and if Ministers were not so much inclined to treat everybody as a simple—I will not add the other word, but the Minister knows what his own attitude here has frequently been. He would like to tell me that my statement is suitable for the cross-roads, but these days are not days when one wants to talk at the cross-roads. The people to whom one would speak at the cross-roads would ask: "What about oil and candles; what about the price of barley and wheat; and what are we going to do with the pigs and poultry for which we cannot get food?" They will tell you about Ministers and Deputies and Senators, but that is not a healthy atmosphere and not a healthy tone for the country. Those of us who have experience know that it is not the basis on which to make the best fight for the nation's rights. We want a rather different tempo, and I think the tempo of the Government itself should be different.

Mr. Foran

In the first place, I want to put a question to the Minister for Finance. If he is not able to answer it now, I hope that at some further stage of this Bill he will be able to tell us what steps the Government is taking to deal with it. We have heard the problem of the farmer, as represented by Senator Baxter. But the townsman is also very seriously affected by the present situation, and nobody more so than the unemployed workman. When I say the unemployed workman, I mean the new unemployed, the man who believed he was in a permanent position of security against unemployment. Factors over which he had no control have thrown him into the ranks of the unemployed. This type of man had several commitments. Many of them had purchased houses on the instalment system. Many of them also were paying fairly high rents, and living in fairly comfortable houses. Those people are now becoming unemployed, and I should like to know what steps the Government is taking or is likely to take to ensure that they will not be evicted from their houses, because that is quite on the cards. There is another type of semi-unemployed workman. A scheme of rotational employment has been instituted, in order to share the amount of work that is available. This means a very drastic reduction in the earnings of a large number of people. Naturally, their first duty is to maintain their families on whatever money they have, and they will be unable to pay their rents. That is a very serious matter, and it is likely to become more serious in the immediate future.

I hope the Government will make some arrangements to ensure that those people will not be evicted from their homes, as well as being more or less divorced from the other necessities of life. In Northern Ireland and in England, steps have been taken to ensure that persons will not be evicted from their homes because of inability to pay rent due to unemployment or reductions in wages. The situation here is very serious, and I hope that immediate attention will be given to it. I do not want to stress any further the horrors of seeing large numbers of people in the City of Dublin or in any of the other cities and towns in Ireland being thrown out of their houses. Things are going to be bad enough in other respects without having large numbers of evictions.

That brings me to the point raised by Senator Crosbie, who advised the Government to adopt some system other than the present orthodox one in dealing with finance. I am afraid that many of the financiers and bankers of this country are not doing enough to meet the present emergency. They do not realise the far reaching effects of allowing things to develop on the present lines. If they insist on regular interest of 5 per cent. and so on, and if human needs are to be measured by the pound sterling, things are going to be very bad in the country. I think we all realise that we are on the eve of a crisis; this winter will bring it about.

Much talk has been indulged in regarding the supply of turf. I want to point out that a supply of turf is going to be of very little use to the tenement dweller in the City of Dublin. Great numbers of those people depend on gas for their cooking. If there is no gas available, then, even if food is available, the situation will be very serious. I am told that the supplies of coal available for the production of gas are very limited. I hope that is not true, but I am informed that the stocks are running very low. Great numbers of workmen's houses are dependent on gas. They have no other means of cooking, and turf is going to be a very poor substitute for gas in the City of Dublin.

Senator Crosbie also mentioned an extremely important matter for the working people of this country in general when he talked about fair distribution. There is no fair distribution at the moment. Long ago, we advocated a system of rationing, and there was very little response to it except in regard to tea. We have the rationing of tea in operation to-day. The working classes are strictly limited to their ration, but the people who have money can buy tea at 8/- a pound. There is plenty of tea available for them. Against that, we have Order 83, limiting wages. What chance have the working people, with their limited income, of competing for the food that is available? The people who have sufficient money can go in and get all their requirements, while the people in the slums of Dublin are unable to procure enough tea to supply the ordinary requirements of their families. Amongst them, rightly or wrongly, tea and bread have been the main food for many years. Now their supply of tea is limited, and in the near future we are likely still further to limit the necessities of life. As I said, we believe that this winter will bring about a crisis. We also believe that from the Government right through every walk of life in the country there is great complacency. The people do not seem to realise how near they are to the crisis, and, if anything can be achieved by our efforts here, the Government should certainly be advised—and should heed that advice —to give serious consideration to the position.

With regard to light, Senator Baxter has described the position in the country. A similar situation exists in the cities, except that the position is far more acute. Supplies of paraffin have run out, and we cannot substitute for that. Generally speaking, the situation is such as to warrant every political Party rallying behind the Government, organising our resources to the best of our ability, and distributing our supplies as fairly as we can amongst all the people of the country. As Senator Crosbie said, if we cannot do that under the ordinary orthodox financial system, then we will have to resort to an unorthodox system, even if that means setting up an internal currency outside the banks altogether, because the needs of the people are more important than the interests of the banks or of the financiers of this country. If the crisis comes, the banks and all the resources of those institutions will not be of much use to the people. In general, I hope the Minister will take serious notice of what I have said, and particularly of what I have said about the large number of evictions which are likely to take place in the City of Dublin if some steps are not taken to avert them.

Peadar Mac Fhionnlaoich

Tá dhá Mhír ins an Bhille seo nach dtaithneann liom, sé sin Uimhir 53 agus Uimhir 67 de Sceideal B, Cuid IV. Tá baint aca le chéile agus ní thig siad le chéile go ró-mhaith. Is suarach an méid a luaidhtear ar son foraoiseachta sa chéad Mhír agus tá suim measardha mór san darna ceann. Deirtear san darna ceann gur le haghaidh obair do sholáthar do dhaoine atá díomhaoin atá cuid den airgead. Agus anois, nách seasann an Fhoraoiseacht amach mar obair dóibh sin? Is dóigh liomsa go mba cheart an £1,000,000 a bheith sa Chéad Mhír agus an t-airgead atá sa chéad Mhír a bheith ins an darna ceann. Is fíor, faraoir, nach bhfuil ullmhúchán déanta le dul ar aghaidh leis an obair sin ach cad chuige nach bhfuil? Nach raibh am go leor againn le fiche bliain anuas an t-ullmhúchán sin a bheith déanta againn? Nár thuigeamar an scéal? Nár thuigeamar go maith go bhfuil an tír lom i gcrannaibh—níos luime ná aon tír eile san Eoraip, nó b'féidir ar domhan? Agus marar thuigeamar an gábhadh atá le crannaibh agus le hadhmad, cinnte tuigimíd anois é.

Cha raibh go fóill an dearcadh ceart ag ceachtar Riaghaltas nó ceachtar Aire ar an cheist seo. Measann Aire Tailte fá láthair, sílim, gur leor 800,000 acra de thír na hÉireann a bheith faoi chrainn. Níl aon tír san Euróip i muinighin a laighead sin foraoiseachta. Dar le daoine eile—agus tá mise ar aon intinn leo—go mba cheart aimsiú ar 3,000,000 no 4,000,000 acra de thalamh na tíre seo a bheith fá fhoraoiseacht. Ach dá nglacamaís le meastachán an Aire féin, áirmhighim go dtógfadh sé ós cionn 100 bliadhain leis an 800,000 acra féin do shroisint má théighimid ar aghaidh mar atá ceaptha i mbliana nó mar chuadhamar ar aghaidh anuiridh. Tá sé sin go ró-fhada. Tá eagla orm nach mairfidh mé féin leis an toradh a fheiceál mara mbéinn im' Oisín.

In aimsir Sinn Féin, nuair a bhí Art O Gríobhtha ag faisnéis dúnghaois dúinn, agus a lán eile ag aontú leis, ar an obair ba cheart dúinn a dhéanamh ins an tír seo, nuair a gheobhfaimís an tsaoirse le n-a dhéanamh, tá cuimhne agam go luigh sé go mór leis an ngábhadh a bhí le foraoiseacht ins an tír seo. Is cuimhin liom go háithrid ceathar nó cúig de phoinntí dá shoiscéal —déantúisí dúthcasacha, feirmeóireacht, níos mó daoine do chur ar an talamh agus luighe le saothrú na talmhan, tuilleadh aire a thabhairt don iasgaireacht ins an bhfairrge mhóir, comh maith leis na haibhneacha agus na locha ins an tír, foraoiseacht agus báid tráchtála. Sin iad na rudaí ar chualamar go minic fútha. Fuaireamar roinnt saoirse 20 bliain ó shoin, a shásuigh Art O Gríobhtha marar shásuigh an t-iomlán againn. Ar chuma ar bith, fuaireamar saoirse go leor le dhul ar aghaidh leis an soiscéal sin ins na 26 Conntaethe.

Cén fhaid atáimid ar aghaidh leo? Tá cuid mhaith déanta fá dhéantúisí dúthcasacha agus tá beagán dul ar aghaidh againn mar gheall ar fheirmeoireacht le cúpla bliain, b'fhiú nach bhfuil mise sásta, ach oiread leis an Seanadóir Baxter, leis an dóigh a bhfuiltear á dhéanamh. Ach níl aon chéim ar aghaidh ar fiú trácht air leis na rudaí eile, leis an iasgaireacht nó leis an fhoraoiseacht nó leis na báid tráchtála. Fágadh an fhoraoiseacht go mór faoi Fho-Roinn a bhí ag obair nuair a bhí Riaghaltas na nGall i bhfeidhm annseo. Tugadh beagán spriocadh dóibh, b'fhéidir, agus beagán misnigh, ach ní tugadh mórán airgid dóibh, agus níor hathruigheadh an dearcadh nó an dúnghaois a bhí aca. Fuair mé lideadh beag ar an dearcadh sin agus an dúnghaois atá ag Fo-Roinn na Foraoiseachta annseo le gairid, nuair a bhíos i láthair ag léigheacht a thug oifigeach den Fho-Roinn uaidh. I ndiaidh na léigheachta, labhair árdoifigeach na Fo-Roinne agus dubhairt gur "conservative policy" a bhí aca. Ag cainnt don léigheachtaidhe annsin, chuir sé leagan eile ar an rud céadna agus dubhairt gurb' é an sluagán festina lente. 'Sé an Ghaedhilg a chuirfinn ar an dá shluagán sin: “Dúnghaois malltriallach,” agus is dóigh liom go bhfuil sé fíor, agus gur dúnghaois malltriallach dúnghaois an Riaghaltais féin i dtaobh foraoiseachta.

B'éidir go ndeirfear liom annseo gur mío-thráthamhail an t-am é seo leis an cheist seo a thógbháil, le linn práinne an chogaidh, nuair atá gach rud ag éirghe gann againn, agus b'éidir gannchuid bídh agus rudaí eile ag bagairt orainn. Má seadh, admhuighim sin, ach níor cheart dearmad ar fad a dhéanamh de rud a bhaineas go dlúth le saoghal na hÉireann. Is ceart an cheist a choinneál os ár gcomhair, agus os comhair an phobail; agus a bheith ullamh le scéim mhór náisiúnta do chur ar fághail dá luathas a bhéas muid saor lena dhéanamh. An méid a rinneadh go dtí seo—chan fhuil ann ach nidreacht, no niobláil, ar an cheist. Budh cheart a dheich n-oiread a dhéanamh. Budh cheart na milliúin punta do chur ar fághail, nó creideamhaint agus bannaí an náisiúin do chur ar fághail don obair. Ní bhéadh cailleamhain don náisiún ann. Ní rachadh pingin den airgead nó den iasacht as an tír. Rachadh sé i bpócaí lucht oibre—cuid mhór aca díomhaoin fá láthair. Agus bhéadh an toradh agus an t-aisíoc ag fás. Agus ní ró-fhada an lá go dtigfeadh an toradh sin, no cuid de, ar ais.

Is iomdha feidhm a baintear as adhmad diomaoite de chlára a bhaint as, no praiseach páipéir. Bíonn mionchrainn agus géaga crann úsáideach le cuaillí fhághail agus adhbhar sconnsaí agus eile; agus ar na haimsiribh seo, bíonn brosna agus adhbhar teineadh ag teastáil uainn. Bíonn mórán ceárd ag baint leis, mar atá sampla againn sa bhFionnlainn agus sa Ghearmáin, taobh amuigh de fás na gcrann féin.

Is iomdha leithscéal a gheibhmíd ón bhFo-Roinn gan a dhul níos túisge leis an obair—cuid aca amaideach go leor. Deireann siad: níl an talamh seo, no an talamh úd, fóirstineach dá leithéid seo de chrann; ní fhásfhadh crann ar bith ar thalamh ró-árd nó ró-íseal; tá sé deacair leadhb talmhan fhághail mór go leor gur fiú coill do shuidheadh air, abair 300 acra no níos mó, agus mar sin de.

Níl mise ag moladh go gcuirfí crainn ar an talamh is fearr sa tír, nó ar aon talamh ar féidir barr measardha maith eile do bhaint aiste. Ach tá, deirfinn, 5,000,000 acra talmhan sa tír seo nach fiú mórán mar tá sé, agus deirim go bhfásfadh crainn de chinéal éigin uirthi. Fásfaidh siad ar réidh sléibhe nó i ngleann sléibhe. Chonnaiceas féin iad ag fás go hárd beagnach ar bharr sléibhe, cuirim i gcás, i nGleann Cártha i gCo. Liathdroma agus i nGleann Bheathach i dTír Conaill. Tá cuid mhaith de thalamh íseal nach fiú mórán do chuireadóireacht.

Maidir le seilbh fhághail ar an talamh a d'oirfeadh don fhoraoiseacht, ní fheicim aon dóigh eile le n-a fhághail gan ró-mhoill ach a ghabháil ar mhaithe leis an náisiún. Is annamh a bhíos na háitreabhaí ró-fhairsing ar an talamh úd, agus iad beo bocht, a fhurmhór aca, agus ní bhéadh sé ródheacair cúiteamh macánta a thabhairt dóibh ar thalamh níos fearr, nó mar lucht tuarastail ins na coilltibh.

Tá sluagh mhór daoine, lucht oibre— cuid aca a bhí díomhaoin roimhe seo— ag obair ar an mhóin fá láthair, agus támuid bródúil asta. Ach i gceann míosa no sé seachtmhaine eile beidh séasúr na móna thart agus beidh séasúr an Fhómhair thart. Cad a bhéas ar siúl aca i rith an Gheimhridh? Dá mbéadh scéim foraoiseachta againn, rachadh na daoine sin ag obair agus do bheadh tuarastal aca ar feadh an Gheimhridh gan scilling costais ar an tír sa deire thiar thall.

Molaim glacadh leis an tairgsint seo: agus tá súil agam nuair a thiocfas a macsamhail de thairgsint romhainn ins na bliadhanta atá le teacht, go mbeidh a dheich n-oiread d'airgead ag teastáil ón Riaghaltas, agus obair na foraoiseachta ar shlighe a leasa mar is cóir. Tá cuid mhaith mío-shástachta sa tír seo fá'n dúnghaois malltriallach seo, an "conservative policy" agus an festina lente.

Mr. M. Hayes

I should like to congratulate Senator McGinley on his translation of the words "conservative policy". It was an excellent translation and I enjoyed it. I desire to raise a few particular questions about the City of Dublin, rather than general questions. On the general question, it might be said that this Bill shows us the state of our national housekeeping and that the features of Appropriation Bills since the present Government has come into office have been increases in expenditure of which the present Minister for Finance has professed to be proud. One would not begrudge increasing expenditure if it were, in fact, solving our national problems. What we have been having during the past nine or ten years is increasing expenditure without the solution of any of our problems, political or economic or even cultural. At the moment, our unemployment problem persists. It would exist in much graver form, and with much graver intensity, but for certain safety valves which, I am sure, the Minister has taken into account. One of these is the number of men who have gone into our own Army—upwards, I think, of 40,000. Another is the number of men who are leaving this State to join the British Army or to work in England. Every time one comes in contact with the unemployed in Dublin and every time one visits a country town one is convinced of the increasing numbers going across to work in England and of the increasing sums of money coming back from them to help to tide over the difficulties at home. I feel that the situation, when these things end, will be a very difficult one. Taking time by the forelock, some thought should be given now as to what the position will be after the war when these three outlets will no longer be available. A number of commissions of inquiry of various kinds have been set up. The Government might not, perhaps, set up a commission of inquiry to deal with this problem but they should, at least, take thought of the position when unemployment resumes its normal, or its abnormal, magnitude after the war.

I should like to support Senator Crosbie in part of what he said. Almost a year ago, I asked this House to approve of the setting up of a national register of consumers. I said on that occasion that if a national register of consumers was found to be necessary—and I thought it would be —it would also, I thought, be found impossible to avoid subsidising essential foodstuffs so that, in a time of want, everybody would get his minimum share, at least, of the essentials of life. I think that we must actually come to that.

Unfortunately, as Senator Foran said—this matter was, I think, already adverted to by Ministers in the other House in a sympathetic way, showing that they were interested in the problem—we have now a completely new type of unemployed men, people who never dreamed that unemployment could overtake them except in a crisis of world magnitude such as the present. These are people with commitments, people who must be treated in a different way from others who were seasonally unemployed and who had, by no means, as great commitments as commercial travellers and others now on the list of the unemployed. In Northern Ireland and in Great Britain they have taken action with regard to the eviction of these people.

I wonder whether the Minister for Finance has ever had any estimate made of the cost of compiling a national register of consumers. Great play was made by the Minister for Supplies against this idea of a national register on the score of cost, but the cost of arranging for the tea ration, apart from the printing, was not very great because the work was done, generally, by the Local Security Force, and done for nothing. I wonder has any estimate been made of the cost of preparing a national register of consumers or a national rationing scheme.

I rose, particularly, to ask the Parliamentary Secretary who is now in charge of turf development some questions about the City of Dublin. I put these questions in the same spirit in which Senator Foran referred to the matter. In the coming winter, as he said, we shall have a very grave situation. The public will stand for the most drastic steps, and all political Parties and all types of people in the State will support these steps if they seem to be such as will bring about the desired result. Leaving out the question of food, we have in Dublin City two other problems—the problem of fuel and the problem of light. I know the city fairly well, and the number of tenement rooms and even the number of houses that have neither gas nor electric light as an illuminant and which have to depend on paraffin is surprising.

I think it was the present Minister for Industry and Commerce who said here—it seemed unbelievable but, perhaps, the Parliamentary Secretary has figures on the subject—that nearly half the population were dependent on some illuminant other than gas or electric light. We are told that both electricity and gas will be rationed or that consumption must be reduced. But a considerable number of the population of Dublin who have neither gas nor electricity will, so far as one can gather, have no light at all during the long winter months. That, from the point of view of public health and for other reasons, is a very serious position.

With regard to the question of fuel, a motion was moved by Senator Baxter on 3rd April dealing with turf production. That motion was moved not so much for the purpose of having the particular order annulled as for the purpose of obtaining information. I disclaimed on that occasion, as I should like to disclaim now, any knowledge of the intricacies or technicalities of turf cutting, but I did ask the Minister for some information about the City of Dublin. Reading the debate since, it seemed to me that he really gave no information at all. He put the position this way—that the Government had a long-term policy with regard to fuel production which would bear fruit this winter. There was a clear promise that the Government had foreseen this business and that their long-term policy would result in having a fair supply of fuel this winter. I hope that will be so. It does not matter who gets the credit for it, so long as the fuel is there.

The Minister said that we import about 2,500,000 tons of coal and that we produce about 4,000,000 tons of turf. Naturally, the Minister did not bind himself to the figure regarding turf production because those who produce turf for their own requirements do not weigh it and cannot give a proper estimate of their production. In order to supply our needs in the absence of coal imports, we should require 5,000,000 tons of turf extra. Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us how much turf, it is estimated, will be available at the end of this turf season —presumably, the end of next month? I read some of the Dáil debates but I was not quite clear as to how much turf it was estimated would be cut this season to make up that requirement of 5,000,000 tons. Assuming we get the turf, there are serious questions regarding transport to Dublin, storage in bulk in Dublin and distribution to small consumers. For the moment, I am not going into the question of people who have money to buy turf. There are many people living in tenement rooms who, even if they had the money—a great many of them have; all those living in tenement areas are not destitute—have no space for more than a bag of coal and no space for the storage of turf.

We were told that it would take, roughly speaking, two tons of turf to give the same results as one ton of coal, and that you would require roughly four times the space for turf that you required for coal. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, when asked about the question of transport, said that the main question was to cut the turf and to have it and that the transport question would become comparatively simple. I think the transport question has been found to be by no means as simple as the Minister thought. He also, in a rather airy manner, waived aside the question of distribution and storage of turf by saying that that would be undertaken by the ordinary commercial companies which now deal in coal. My information in the city is that turf when it is available at all is very, very dear and that the coal merchants supply turf only to their ordinary consumers who previously bought a ton or half-a-ton of coal. I wonder whether there is any scheme in the Minister's mind or in the Parliamentary Secretary's mind— because, if so, we should be glad to hear of it and glad to assist in it—for meeting the situation which seems to be approaching us in Dublin City where, apart altogether from the question of employment or the money available, a very considerable section of the population will, assuming they have food, have no light and have very little fuel with which to cook food. That situation will apply to a very considerable number of people. I do not know whether any census has been taken to discover how many, but, presumably, if one deducted the numbers given in the returns of the Electricity Supply Board and the Gas Company from the number of households, one would find how many. Something in the nature of communal cooking must be resorted to and I wonder whether any machinery has been devised to meet the situation which will be upon us in less than two months.

It was principally to ask these questions that I rose to speak on this Bill: how much turf is expected to be available to replace the 2,500,000 tons of coal formerly imported; what prospects are there of getting that turf and what prospects are there in Dublin of getting it distributed to the smaller consumer? The bellmen who handle coal in small quantities do not seem to be handling turf. A great many of what are called hucksters' shops are selling in uneconomic quantities at a very high rate though not apparently with any great profit to themselves. It is absolutely essential, apart from subsidies, that fuel should be made available to people who have neither gas nor electricity with which to cook. I feel that this is something which is entirely outside the range of politics, entirely outside any criticism of anybody but something which will be a real problem when we reach the winter months in this city. I am not encouraged to think that it will be solved by the attitude of the Minister for Industry and Commerce last April. Quite obviously, he was thinking on his feet when defending the Turf Order and making debating points against Senator Baxter and other people. When he was asked about the question of transport his attitude was, "It will solve itself; let us get the turf cut and it will solve itself". That is a problem that will arise in other places probably as well as in Dublin but it will certainly arise in Dublin City.

Senator Baxter thinks that we ought to go back to turf entirely and he said that we ought to adjust our minds to that. We shall have to adjust a great many other things besides our minds if we are going to use turf solely. We shall have to adjust our grates, our ranges, and to some extent, our furniture. All that can be done and as Senator Baxter says it might be good for us. While, however, we look on the dark side it might be no harm to thank God that after two years of war we find ourselves in the position that we have been touched only to a very limited extent physically by the war and of being able to take counsel with one another as to the best way to solve our problems. I should like to hear whether the particular problem of the city's fuel supply has been considered and what steps it is proposed to take to solve it. If the Parliamentary Secretary or the Government has a scheme for dealing with that problem, I think they will be able to call upon the assistance of all classes of people, engaged in business, politics and otherwise. I should like to hear of that scheme.

Professor Johnston

As this Bill authorises salaries payable in connection with the Ministry of External Affairs as well as other Ministries, I had thought that I would be in order in discussing some of the aspects and implications of our accepted policy of neutrality.

Cathaoirleach

Before the Senator proceeds——

Professor Johnston

I know what you are going to say, Sir, but, before you make your ruling, perhaps I might be allowed to say that if I had done so, I would have summarised my remarks in a little rhyme.

Cathaoirleach

Before the Senator proceeds further, I wish to make a statement and give a ruling. I had been given notice of the Senator's intention to raise the subject-matter of neutrality and I have informed him of the ruling I intend to give. In my view, and I am supported by precedents of earlier years, matters of such fundamental import should not be debated on an omnibus Bill, such as is the Appropriation Bill, but should come forward on specific motion leading to a clear-cut decision by the House. In view of the number of administrative matters which can arise, a decision of that character could not be obtained on an Appropriation Bill. Accordingly, I rule that the policy of neutrality cannot be debated on this Bill and must be raised by way of substantive motion of which due notice has been given to all Senators.

Professor Johnston

I accept your ruling, Sir, but I want to make it quite clear that I had no intention of advocating any departure from our present policy of neutrality. I wished merely to discuss certain aspects and implications of it. There are plenty other things about which one may legitimately speak in dealing with the Appropriation Bill. One of them, I think, is the policy and actions of the Ministry of Supplies. My own contact with the Ministry has chiefly been in connection with the matter of petrol for use in my private car. In that respect I was able to get more petrol than I required last year, a certain amount in January, and then none at all for a few months. However, I paid the tax for my car for the whole year in January thinking that I would in that way strengthen my prospects of obtaining petrol when petrol became available. But, when I found there was no prospect of petrol becoming available, I demanded back three-quarters of the annual tax, as I had a right to do. Meanwhile, the Department of Supplies sent me coupons for four gallons of petrol for use in the month of May, coupons which I carefully kept. If I had been fool enough to use them, I would probably have been committed to not getting back the refund of motor tax to which I was entitled. I again wrote demanding back the £7 10s. and, after some delay, I got it back. Within a day or two, which shows the close co-ordination that exists between the Department of Supplies, the Department of Local Government, and the Department of Finance, I received a somewhat impertinent letter from the Department of Supplies, wanting to know what had become of the coupons which they had sent me and threatening me with all sorts of pains and penalties if I did not return them intact instanter. I replied on the other side of the note they sent me, in the space in which one could write:

"‘What have you done with my coupons?'

Said Mr. Seán Lemass

To the motorist, whose motor car

Had been put out to grass.

Then answered back the motorist,

Now turned a cyclist, ‘Please

Take back your blank, blank coupons,

Enclosed, mise, le meas!'"

Since then I have heard nothing further from the Department of Supplies with reference to the petrol coupons or the car tax. I dare say diplomatic relations between that Department and myself are now severed. However, that does not worry me.

Another, perhaps more important, matter should be raised at this stage and that is whether any private motoring at all should be allowed. Now that I am no longer a private motorist, I can raise this question with a clear conscience, but not without, perhaps, uncharitable people impugning some of my motives. I raise the question not only for myself, but at the request of a farmer who farms in a large way. I want to retail his experience with reference to the question of getting petrol and paraffin from the Department of Supplies. I think I may do so most conveniently by reading, for the information of the House, portions of a letter which this farmer sent to the Department of Agriculture on the 19th June last. I am sure the Department of Agriculture is doing its best to facilitate my friend.

I am making this matter public in this way, not with any intention of criticising the Department of Agriculture, but merely in the hope of securing more efficient action by ventilating the matter in every possible way. Writing to the Department he stated:

"Even if you can do nothing, I think it is a matter that should be brought to your notice. I farm in a fairly extensive and decidedly up-to-date manner. Except for one horse, I am entirely mechanised, my former horse work being done by two tractors, a trailer and a lorry. When my tractor is not in use, I do a good deal of outside work to help my neighbours. I have a tower silo for the past 15 years or more and rely on grass ensilage as one of my main crops. Not counting first-crop hay, I till one-third of the farm, which comprises 200 statute acres. I got 350 gallons of paraffin in May and had a fair amount in hand at the end of the month, but, no warning having been given by the Ministry of Supplies, I did a good deal of outside work in the first half of this month and kept the tractor hoe going through the root crops. No permit having come and my grass silage being nearly ready for cutting, I went yesterday to the Ministry of Supplies to be told there was no paraffin available except for the corn harvest. Had due warning been given of this, and had not the supply of petrol to private cars encouraged one to think fuel was available, my grouse would not be so serious, but I do not feel that I or those like me are being fairly treated and I think I may justifiably expect you, as Minister for Agriculture, to see that we get fair play. If paraffin is as short as seems to be the case, not a drop of petrol should have been issued for private motoring. This petrol could have been used in tractors instead of paraffin and, if the Government had foregone the tax on it, the cost to the farmer would not have been excessive. It is not fair to ask us to till all we can and, while pleasure cars are running about the roads, to tell us there is no fuel with which to finish the job".

That letter was written on the 19th June last, when my friend was told by the Department of Supplies that there was no paraffin available. After the letter had been closed and made ready for posting, a paraffin lorry drove up to the house and the driver offered to sell him all the paraffin he wanted if only he had the permit which that day the Department of Supplies told him he could not get because there was no paraffin available. That seems to indicate a rather chaotic state of affairs in the Department of Supplies.

He suggests, and I would be inclined to agree with the suggestion, that it would simplify matters if the Department would only make some kind of forecast as to (1) what supplies of petrol are available, (2) what supplies are probable, and (3) what supplies are unlikely, so that everybody who has to use petrol in connection with his economic life could make arrangements accordingly. In this man's case he would not have used petrol or paraffin for some of the purposes for which he did use it if he had foreseen that he would have been left short of either fuel for the necessary purpose of putting grass into his tower silo, in that way carrying out the policy of making young grass into silage for winter feeding, which is now advocated so strenuously by the Minister for Agriculture and which is being adopted so widely, but yet not widely enough, by farmers all over the country. I suggest that these points should be investigated not alone by the Parliamentary Secretary but by the various Departments that are concerned with these matters.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Flinn)

Senator Baxter was the first to raise the question of fuel and he did it in the spirit of one who wants to find the solution of a difficult problem. I think that is the spirit in which practically everybody in the country is approaching this problem. Incidentally, people are possibly using this problem as a vehicle or an opportunity to express the most revolutionary sentiments on the subjects of finance and economics. It is very encouraging and edifying to find that the more conservative people have previously been in the matter of economics, the more revolutionary they are to-day. There is a sort of competition in heterodoxy. Everybody is prepared to say, without hesitation, that anything whatever that is demanded must be done.

That has been my own view, expressed in those words, over a long period of years—that everything that is necessary should be done—but my experience is that those who do express those sentiments, express them only up to one point. They stop dead when they are asked to vote the specific obnoxious, objectionable and unpopular taxation which is required to carry out that policy. Why I am stressing this is, if we are going to express opinions of that kind about the things the Government must do, that the Government must be prepared to see that other people do, and the cost that the State must be prepared to envisage and undertake, then everyone who expresses such sentiments must envisage for himself some means of raising the funds which are required. When anyone is advocating policies of that kind, he must then take the responsibility of being prepared to vote for those precise obnoxious and unpopular taxations which will be required.

In addition to those precise, obnoxious and unpopular restrictions upon individual liberty and freedom, which may be required to carry out a public policy, a whole lot of things in this State and in other States can be done if we are prepared to throw all the resources of all the people—by that I mean our individual incomes and capital and our individual liberties— into the pool to be used, as the State may determine, as the most efficient in a particular emergency in order to get work done. Unless we are prepared to do that, unless we are prepared to envisage those specific consequences, and unless we, as individuals, are prepared to be ordered to go and do certain things whether we like it or not: unless we, as individuals, are prepared to be told that this proportion or that proportion not merely of our incomes, but of our capital shall be taken and used at the discretion of and for the purposes of the State in carrying out those policies, then we are not entitled to advocate them. Cheap revolution—I am not now saying that in any sense disrespectful to anybody—in the sense of declaring that you are a revolutionary, is a very poor thing, but the revolution of men who are prepared to envisage the sacrifice of all the conventions, as they knew them, and who are prepared to envisage those sacrifices made by themselves as well as by other people—that is the real thing. I have always believed in a doctrine which is expressed in a quotation the source of which I do not know. I have been looking for it for a long time:—

"I am all in favour of pulling down those things that are shaken in order that those things that must not be shaken shall remain."

It is necessary, sometimes, in a storm to cut away the mast, to cut away the rigging, and it is often important to cut away dead wood. Now, those are the things that every man in his conscience must be taken as envisaging when he says: I am prepared for revolutionary action; I am prepared for anything which is necessary to be done. I am warning the House in that sense, because I believe that, before this emergency has passed, a great many of the things which, conventionally, we have regarded as part of our private possessions either in the form of means or in the form of liberty, in the form of conveniences or things of that kind, may have to be put into the pool and used by the State in the interests of the community as a whole. Therefore, I hope that when responsible men use the word "revolutionary" in future they will use it with that knowledge and with that intention.

It would be possible to have produced in the State, even in the last year, a considerably larger quantity of fuel for the winter if that idea had really been understood, but it is the greatest possible illusion to imagine that the attitude of mind which exists at this date in relation to turf existed three months ago, five months ago or nine months ago. There has been a revolutionary change in the attitude of mind of people in relation to the importance and value of turf. There has been a revolutionary change in the outlook of people in relation to the size of the necessity which they are going to have to face this winter. The Turf Development Board carried over from last year a very large stock of turf. They could not sell that turf up to December. There was no sale for it, and they could not sell it at any price. They could not get rid of it. It was only in the months of February and March that, even in relation to the existing stocks of turf, there was any possibility of a real sale. Now, that is not so far away. It brings us very near the dates 25th March and 2nd April. On 24th March a proposal emanated from my office that a new organisation should be set up for the purpose of the wholesale cutting of turf in order that there might be an alternative supply over the winter. That proposal was accepted by the Government on the next day. On that particular date I was charged with the personal responsibility of seeing that that work was done. The point at any rate made by Senator Baxter that the order given on the 9th June was too late does not operate.

There were certain technical and administrative difficulties in assimilating the actual position and the technical position publicly, but the House may take it that from the 25th March the whole of the organisation which now exists, and which was concerned in producing turf did exist and was functioning. It functioned under an order issued on the same date, but independently, by the Minister for Local Government giving power to the local authorities to take over and use bogs. From that date every effort that was humanly possible was made wildly in advance of public opinion to get people out on to the bogs. Every day from that date we were looking for men. The number grew, roughly speaking, at the rate of 500 men a day. Additional men went out on to the bogs every day during that time. It was due to the most rigorous searching, canvassing and fighting to get men, so that Senators may take it that the position of enthusiasm which we all have now, the appreciation which we all have now of the value of turf, did not exist at that time. As a result of that effort, we had built up, by the 11th of last month, to the maximum point of 32,500 men who were employed by the county surveyors, and, roughly speaking, 20,000 men who were employed by other organisations, mainly on bogs taken over by the county surveyors under the order of the Minister of the 25th March, making a total of 53,000 men out on the bogs cutting turf. What have they cut? In the possession of the county surveyors at the present moment there are, as far as we can estimate, between 1,000,000 and 1,100,000 tons of turf. There are probably 400,000 or 500,000 tons of turf in the possession of auxiliary organisations, and there is reason to believe that more turf has been cut in most of the areas in Ireland, apart from that amount, but a census has not yet been taken and, until that has been taken and we are in a position to make a fairly correct estimate, it is not possible for me—it would be wrong for me —to attempt to allocate to the different districts in Ireland that amount of turf which we think ought to go.

Mr. Baxter

Would the Parliamentary Secretary say how much of the quantity in the hands of county surveyors is required for the institutions within their own counties, and how much of the total 1,100,000 tons is surplus?

Mr. Flinn

That again would be an estimate.

Mr. Baxter

Yes, but could the Parliamentary Secretary give a rough estimate?

Mr. Flinn

It would be quite easy for me to make a wild guess, but I do not propose to make that wild guess. What I propose to do, in a short time, is to estimate as accurately as possible what the amount is. I do know that the number of counties in the Twenty-Six Counties that will have any considerable amount to spare is very small, and that some of the counties, which we regarded as mines, have none at all to spare. My idea is to treat this simply as a problem in which we are all engaged and all involved, and in which we have got to see what we can do to help—a problem in which we will have to share the responsibility for, possibly, very unpopular things that may have to be done in order that fairness and equity may be assured. There is an idea, for instance, that a whole lot of turf, of which Kildare is full, is being kept out of Dublin. There is no surplus turf in Kildare, and that brings me to the difficulty that Senator Baxter had. Senator Baxter said that he had travelled all through the country and saw hundreds, practically, of miles of good turf.

Mr. Baxter

I said, acres of bog.

Mr. Flinn

I would go so far as to say, miles.

Mr. Baxter

Yes, I suppose that would be right.

Mr. Flinn

But the difficulty is that there are not any people there. Now, I have put up in the House, on various occasions, a series of coloured maps, and if members of the House would only spend a quarter of an hour studying these coloured maps they would get to know more about this country, and would save themselves more misunderstanding in relation to the social and economic issues concerned, than anything that I know. There are 3,000 electoral areas in the Twenty-Six Counties. There are 280 that have not an unemployed man in them—that is, a person on the unemployed register— and there are 1,100 or more which have less than five per electoral area. A large part of those 1,100 electoral areas, in which there are no available men to do the emergency cutting of turf, covers the best turf areas that we have. Now, our problem for next year, undoubtedly, will be to get men somehow into the good turf areas which are near the high-consumption areas. In Galway they had about 4,000 men employed. In Donegal they had over 4,000 men employed. They had only 400 in Kildare—between 400 and 500— under the county surveyor, because the men were not there, and the problem which we will have to face next year, the very uncomfortable problem which we will have to face next year, is getting men there, maintaining them in areas in which there is no accommodation, and extemporising that accommodation under circumstances in which the supply of the materials, out of which that accommodation is going to be created, is short, and in relation to which supply there is definite and real competition for other national needs.

Of course, the 13,000 people who are on the unemployed register in the City of Dublin loom very large in people's minds. Well, the City of Dublin should have made an attempt. The City of Dublin, a very wealthy body and a body whose necessity is governing and dominating this fuel crisis, should have made an attempt themselves, but, practically, they did not, and, whether or not, if they had, any very large proportion of those 13,000 unemployed would have proved suitable on that bog, is a matter of question. Now, this year has been a year of investigation and of experiment, and in about seven or eight cases I have artificially stimulated the employment of urban and borough labour on bogs. In some cases it has been satisfactory; in some cases it has been very unsatisfactory, not merely in its output, not merely in its own performance, but in its effect upon the performance of the rural labour and organisation around it. We have been making that experiment—a painful and a costly experiment, but one out of which we are getting a certain amount of information.

Mr. Baxter

What about leaving these fellows without any fire? Would not that have some effect?

Mr. Flinn

It seems very easy to suggest something like that.

Mr. Baxter

At any rate, it might be tried with some of them.

Mr. Flinn

Well, a lot of things may have to be tried, but I hope other things will be tried before that. When it comes to next year, the production will have to be made near the places of consumption because we now know that if we were to produce, in the places in which it is normally possible, the amount of turf which would be required for these eastern areas, it could not be transported. We have produced in Donegal, this year, from about 230,000 to 250,000 tons of turf. Next year, with the preparations founded upon the work which we have done this year, we could produce 500,000 or 600,000 tons of turf there, but we could not get it into the eastern counties, spend the whole year doing it, and absorb the whole of the transport. What is going to happen, apparently, or what ought to happen, is that when those districts have cut the turf which is required for their own districts they shall be induced by one means or another to come into temporary accommodation, which will have to be designed and built for them during this winter, on the bogs near to the eastern counties. Now, that is going to be a very costly experiment. We may not find it easy to induce them after we have built the houses, but that sort of experiment will have to be undertaken, and the House will have to stand over the responsibility of the success or failure of that experiment being made now.

Senator Baxter said another thing with which I thoroughly agree. He said that it was wrong, absolutely and outrageously wrong, to encourage men to cut away that small portion of bog which was the heritage of their fathers, and without which they could not go on.

Mr. Baxter

And you are the first on that side of the House to say it.

Mr. Flinn

Well, we do more than talk. We act. The whole of the 230,000 tons of turf which has been produced in Donegal this year—every ton of it—has been produced from virgin bog. Fifteen hundred miles of new bog faces have been created in Donegal this year in virgin bog, in order to get that 230,000 tons. The same thing has happened in Galway. There has not been a ton of turf, cut by the county surveyor, of the 150,000 tons which will be at his disposal, which has not been cut in virgin bog. An instruction has been given to county surveyors that they shall not buy turf from any man who is in the position that Senator Baxter speaks of which would be to his detriment.

Mr. Baxter

That is good.

Mr. Flinn

The only case in which a man under those circumstances is encouraged to cut turf over and above his requirements for this year is when we envisage giving that man an opportunity to leave that part of the country next year to go and cut turf elsewhere for someone else. I think that that will represent the feeling of the House. I am not objecting in any way to Senator Baxter having made that remark; it is a perfectly natural remark. There are odd cases of that kind that stand out, and a man is entitled to feel annoyed about them. But the House is also entitled to know that, in the main, that is not happening and that every possible precaution that can be taken is being taken to prevent that happening.

As I said, the position in relation to Dublin and to the eastern counties is this: we are now making a census of each county in relation to the turf which it possesses and an estimate of what it requires for its own use; and the rest of the turf is being regarded as a pool which is to be transported in bulk to the centres of consumption. The first thing is to get it here and get it here as nearly as possible in the proportions to which the particular districts would be entitled of the total. Then the question of distribution will come up, and I hope to see an arrangement under which the whole of the fuel resources are taken into account in that distribution; that is to say, the amount of turf which is available, the amount of wood which is available, the amount of coal which is available, and the irregular and uncertain incomings of these things in relation to their mere gross total. Up to a quite recent period there were very competent judges, I mean trade judges, men on whose opinion I would have invested money, who had a fairly optimistic outlook in relation to this autumn. I did not share that optimism and I think that all the evidence recently is that the position is definitely deteriorating; but again, that might change. If, however, we have no coal, then no amount of turf which is in the country at the present moment and that can be transported into the eastern counties will be sufficient to prevent hardship, and the amount which will come in will be of such a character as to impose upon those who have charge of social order in the State the responsibility of seeing that it is economically and fairly distributed.

The price at which it will be distributed is again not one of the things as to which there is any great room for optimism. As Senators know, we introduced a segregation order as between the turf and the non-turf areas for the purpose of enabling that accumulation in the places where it ought to be and that division to be attained, and the price order which was issued in regard to the City of Dublin was part of that arrangement. Now turf could be got in Kildare and contiguous places of that kind and with an efficient commercial organisation, transported to the City of Dublin and sold at the price set out in that price order. But, when you take turf collected on a bog in Donegal, 30 miles away from a light railway, which has to be carried by lorry to that light railway, carried over that light railway, transferred to the main railway and then carried here to Dublin, you can imagine that the price of the turf eventually may be very considerably different from the price which was set in relation to that small segregated amount. I have a case now of a certain county which produced finished turf at 9/- per ton on the side of the road. The first lorry transport of that turf cost 13/6 per ton, or 150 per cent. of the prime cost, and then it was only at the beginning of its journey.

Mr. Madden

What would be the cost in the aggregate of the material and of the transit?

Mr. Flinn

The lorry transport in that particular case was 13/6 per ton. I am only mentioning this in order that the House may not have any illusion about the size of the problem. Our business is to see that the largest amount of turf it is possible to produce this year is produced; that the largest proportion of that turf available in the turf areas is in fact transported, in the proportion in which it should be transported, into the centres of consumption which cannot produce turf themselves. Thereafter, it is our business to see that that is distributed as fairly and honestly as we can as a social duty and as a moral obligation. I think that that is a policy in which the Dáil and the Seanad are prepared to back the Government.

As to next year, if we start with the knowledge which the people now have of the necessity for fuel, if we start with the entirely different attitude of mind which working people will adopt in relation to going on to the bogs, then we might start this year and cut at the end of February or the beginning of March, instead of at the end of April or the beginning of May. Although the turf cut at the end of February or the beginning of March may not be ready more than a couple of weeks before the turf which is cut at the end of April, yet we may have a total production of turf in the country very much greater than we have this year. That will mean that a lot of people are going to do things they do not want to do; a lot of people may have to be transported from their homes; a lot of people may have to put up with inconveniences of one kind or another, and the income of those who are better off may have to be scourged for the benefit of those who have no income. The time may actually come in relation to the necessities of life, food and fuel, that when people go for them they will not be asked whether they can pay for them, but what they have done to try to produce them. It is in that attitude of mind that the House must, in my opinion, face both the food and the fuel problems of next year, and it is in that attitude of mind that members of this House must say they are prepared to face revolutionary changes in fiscal and other questions that will deliver the goods.

Mr. M. Hayes

That means that less than half the estimated increased production of turf is available?

Mr. Flinn

Is visible at the moment.

Mr. M. Hayes

Less available.

Mr. Flinn

Quite possibly.

Mr. Quirke

If the House intends to adjourn for tea perhaps this would be a suitable time.

Mr. M. Hayes

It might be desirable to hear the Parliamentary Secretary's reply to questions now with a view to avoiding further speeches.

Sir John Keane

I realise the exceptional character of the present times, but I cannot divorce myself entirely from the commercial aspect of all our problems. I am unable to find any accounts of the Turf Development Board. Can the Parliamentary Secretary give any indication, or can he at a future date tell us how much this turf is actually costing on a commercial basis under machined conditions which, of course, will require a very large outlay of capital?

Mr. Baxter

When the Parliamentary Secretary speaks of planning for next year's turf production, am I to understand that that is in anticipation of a great deal of work being done on drainage and road construction from the end of the harvest and during the winter months?

Mr. Foran

Is the Parliamentary Secretary speaking authoritatively when he says that the people will be ensured a supply of commodities and food?

Mr. Healy

The position in the city is very grave, when we take into account the fact that the long nights are coming and that poor people cannot get candles or a pint of paraffin oil. Can the Parliamentary Secretary say how soon some results may be expected as a result of the development of the Poulaphouca electric scheme?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

That question has no relation to the Parliamentary Secretary's function.

Mr. Healy

I only wanted to hear a discussion regarding the position that obtains in the City of Dublin.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Parliamentary Secretary has made a statement on the turf position, and he is ready to answer questions arising out of that, but not questions that range over the whole field of the Appropriation Bill.

Mr. M. Hayes

I understand that the machinery for the Poulaphouca scheme is in Switzerland, and if Senator Healy can get it out we will all be delighted. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that there were 13,000 men on the unemployment register in Dublin City, that Dublin was a rich unit, but that it had not done anything to produce turf for its needs. I wonder what the Parliamentary Secretary meant by that? Does he refer to the Dublin Corporation? He said that Dublin was a powerful and a rich unit but that it took no steps to produce turf.

Mr. O'Callaghan

What is the attitude of the Government towards the provision of firewood? Will the same facilities be given for providing firewood as were given for turf? A good deal of the timber here is only fit for firewood, and in the present emergency the question of using it should be considered.

Mr. MacCabe

Will the Parliamentary Secretary favour the drainage of bogs early in the spring or during the winter months? That would provide work for the unemployed.

Mr. James Johnston

Does the Parliamentary Secretary intend to take any steps to see that poor people will get a share of the turf that county councils and parish councils are distributing, part of the cost of production of which has been borne by the State? County councils, county surveyors and parish councils collected money and the turf produced has been distributed to those who put down some of the money. I want to ensure that turf will be available for people who are not in a position to put down money for that purpose.

Mr. Flinn

As to roads and drainage for 1942, the arrangement made this year was that any county surveyor who was in the position to certify could go ahead with any drain or road which would either in 1941 or 1942 produce an amount of turf which was commensurate with the cost. About £100,000 has been provided for that purpose during portion of this year, and when this turf-cutting season is over, it is intended to engage in active preparation both on drainage and on roads for the purpose of getting at turf, because there are places in which that could now be best done.

Mr. Baxter

Is there to be joint action taken by the Board of Works or will it be left to the county surveyors and county councils?

Mr. Flinn

I think you will find complete co-operation between the Minister for Finance, who is really the important person, and the various bodies through which his benevolence may be made active. Senator Sir John Keane asked in relation to accounts costings. This year it was purely a question of getting away the best we could, and as rapidly as we could, without much preparation, and in a good many cases with staffs unaccustomed to turf.

The costs of the whole of the turf cut by all these organisations will be accurately kept. The intention is that, at the end of the season, the whole of the information ascertained by means of these costs will be pooled for the purpose of finding out the best method of dealing with the work next year, and I hope that when we come to make a statement at the end of the year, we shall be able to give, in very considerable detail, the costs of production of turf in the different parts of the country.

Senator Hayes asked what I meant when I said that Dublin was a rich and powerful community. "Rich and powerful" is an expression which does not, I think, require any very large amount of explanation. It is a part of the country which has probably a lesser weight of unemployed on it than almost any portion of the country. That is an amazing statement, but if the Senator will do me the honour of examining the coloured map which I shall put up again for the edification of Senators, he will find that Dublin, and even Dublin Borough, is a light-coloured area compared with the problem possessed by the black areas of Donegal, Connemara, West Kerry and West Galway. Dublin, either through its corporation or any other organisation it chose, should have done what, to some small extent, some organisations in Dublin did—should have gone down and taken bogs, and, by employing Dublin labour, actually increased the amount of turf available. The mere calling out by Dublin that they were prepared to find money to buy some of the convenient turf that was wanted for other people, and which they did not themselves attempt to produce, was not helping the problem. I am only saying that now because, next year, when we come to view the problem, with the Kildare bogs close to Dublin, Dublin itself may have to envisage the problem of how much of its own labour it is prepared to provide on the bogs for the purpose of cutting turf for itself, and I hope it will follow the example of some of the other parts, and, in the measure of its greater wealth and opportunity, next year try to give a very good example.

The matter of timber was raised. What is happening in relation to timber is that the Department of Lands is cutting some 100,000 tons of timber and arrangement is being made by the Department of Supplies to cut probably another 100,000 tons. That is being treated in the same way as national turf. At present, it is being sent into the boroughs and accumulated in stocks, under control, to be distributed as and when the necessity requires in the way in which it is best. I cannot say very much about the position of the parish councils. What I do know is that in every case in which they have applied to us for permits to bring turf from the turf areas into the non-turf areas, a considerable proportion of it has been earmarked for distribution to people in necessity, and the degree in which that particular social obligation is observed in relation to the application for a permit would have a considerable amount of influence on the fate of any such application. I think that possibly next year something more different might be done in relation to the parish councils. My experience is that they are either very good or they are very bad. Some of them are extremely good and have done good work, and a good many of them have just talked. So far as those who have shown that they are prepared to do more than talk are concerned, and, in the measure in which they are prepared to do more than talk, I think some system should be worked out under which they would be helped in doing good work. To what extent that can be done, or under what procedure that can be done, I do not know, because it may get you into considerable difficulty. To the extent to which it is possible, I have no doubt that it will be favourably considered.

Mr. Foran

Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would reply to the point I raised?

Mr. Flinn

I think the Senator put a general and highly philosophical point, that necessity should be paid for by service rather than by cash. The position may arise in which such a thing would occur.

Mr. Foran

May?

Mr. Flinn

May well arise, and I certainly think that, by next year, whether it is individuals or the local community, they will certainly have the obligation, when they call for service out of the limited and insufficient pool of fuel or food, to say that they themselves have tried to increase that pool.

Sitting suspended at 6.10 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.

Mr. Madden

I should like to contribute one or two points with reference to turf production to this debate. It was very instructive to hear the discussion to-day on the various heads, and I was very much impressed by, and learned much from, the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary. I was, more or less, surprised when he told us that the number of unemployed in the various centres was relatively small. There is a tragedy being enacted at the present time; I do not know whether it is the case in other counties, but it is certainly the case in my county. I do not know whether it is due to a certain decoy system that young Irishmen are leaving the country at this critical moment. It is really tragic that agricultural workers—men employed regularly with the farming community— should be leaving in this way. Within the past month, quite a large number mysteriously disappeared one morning, leaving the cattle unmilked and the crops unattended. That was a very serious matter. It was brought under my notice and I got very definite and convincing proof of the facts. At the last meeting here, I submitted some of these proofs to the Minister for Justice. What has been done since I do not know, but the circumstances amount to tragedy.

I, as a unit, with a number of others, represent an agricultural community. Having been elected, I feel that I have an administrative duty, as well as a moral obligation, to the various sections of those people. During my whole career, I have had in administration a special line of sympathy for the poor whom you have always with you. It is for that section I stand up this evening. I am sorry the Parliamentary Secretary is not here. Though the particular point with which I want to deal may not be entirely relevant, in the judgment of some Senators, I feel it is. Nobody can question the splendid co-operation of the county councils in assisting the Government through this crisis. Our council, realising our obligations to the State and to the people, contributed in the early part of the year £18,000 for seeds for the workers and needy farmers. When the public bodies accepted responsibility for co-operation in producing the maximum supply of turf in their counties, my council contributed about £33,000 for that purpose. We had also to budget for nearly £20,000 under the head of home help for the poor. That burden represents in the aggregate about £60,000, which has to be added to the estimate of nearly £300,000 to meet the demands of local administration in my county. We must strike a proper balance and must have due regard to the various elements in my community who have to meet that charge. The workers and the poor have contributed in rates to the sum I have mentioned.

The Parliamentary Secretary made a very excellent speech but the greater part of it in my opinion was directed towards picturing the developments that will take place in peat production next year. I know that the county surveyors, and indeed all of us, have learned a great deal from the work that has been carried out this year. I have taken a very personal interest in this matter myself, so much so that on five different occasions I travelled 30 or 40 miles with the assistant county surveyor to examine the situation on the spot. I saw the difficulties confronting those who were developing the bogs. I saw the virgin bog sodden with water; I saw men trying to release the water held up there and I saw hundreds of men compelled to stop work because water released by other men working at another place flooded them out. These are some of the colossal difficulties which these workers have had to face, but the experience which they have gained has been very beneficial.

There is one point in particular which I should like to put to the Parliamentary Secretary. Not next year but this winter a terribly serious problem will confront us. I speak subject to correction, but I would say, judging from the crowd of men that I saw working, that in our county there must have been from 2,000 to 3,000 men engaged on this work. They worked at high pressure, putting every ounce of energy into their efforts and with good results. Notwithstanding that, the county surveyor told me recently that when all the public institutions in the city and county have been supplied, he can see precious little, or perhaps none at all, for general distribution or even for pooling and distribution in other centres to which the Parliamentary Secretary referred to-day.

In the area in which these bogs are situated, one finds a number of small struggling, hard-working, industrious but uneconomic land holders. In former years these men, often with the assistance of their sons, cut a certain quantity of turf and when that turf was saved they conveyed it in horse carts or donkey carts five, ten or even 20 miles to surrounding towns where they sold it. During the winter months, they brought the turf in donkey loads or pony loads to adjoining towns and with the money realised from it they bought essentials for their households. What happened this year? These very people who had been so unaccustomed to regular and continuous work, found themselves earning up to £6 a week. If there were two or three boys in the house they could easily earn 30/- a week each. That was an income surpassing anything they could conceive in their wildest dreams in previous years. It had, however, one disastrous result, that less turf was cut by them than in former years and that meant that there was less turf for distribution in these areas. Mark you, these were the people who supplied the poorer classes in the towns with small donkey loads and pony loads. These poor people had to buy in small quantities from week to week because they could not purchase a quarter or half a hundred.

How are we going to meet the problem that now confronts us? This is a matter that has given me considerable trouble. Parish councils all over the country visualise the terrible disaster that faces the extreme poor during the coming winter. Yesterday I was in a bog—Senator Quirke can bear me out in this, and I am sure a similar condition of things prevails in other parts of the country—and I should like to give the Seanad some indication of my experience there. A quarter of turf in bogland language represents about five kishes, and five kishes of turf are regarded as equal to five horse loads. Turf is usually made up in quarters, half-hundreds and hundreds, bearing in mind the number of kishes. A poor man in other years could buy 25 kishes of turf for about 50/-. I bought a hundred 12 months ago at £12 and, for poor people who might not be in the same position as I happen to be in, it would be a couple of pounds less.

Yesterday I questioned a number of people who had turf to sell, as distinct from the county council turf, and they told me they were charging 30/-. I do not blame them. It is their harvest and it is an opportunity that will, perhaps, never come their way again. The prices range in various places from £24 to £26 and £30. I saw lorries of turf coming into my own town and people paid as much as £7 10s. for the turf. My line of argument is this: It is all right for people who have the money to buy the turf, but it is not all right for the extremely poor people, the people for whom I stand up here. I talk for the people in the back lanes of our towns and for the agricultural workers. How are they going to get fuel, which is just as important as other commodities? During the coming winter there will be many cold, shivering children. They will have bread to eat, but no fire.

Senator Johnston touched on a very pertinent point. There is plenty of timber through the country. A few days ago I had a letter from the parish priest at Monasterevan asking my permission to allow the local parish council to take ponies through my property at Monasterevan. By doing so they would be facilitated to the extent of saving about three miles. It was a great pleasure to me to be able to accommodate them. They are getting all the fallen timber from the Earl of Drogheda. Another beneficent and humanitarian gentleman in my county —all honour to him—is Lord Dunraven. He has given the parish council in Adare five acres of magnificent timber. The summer is fast fading out and we are on the threshold of a new winter. There is no use in talking about the next winter. God knows what king will reign next winter, or what Parliament will be here—if there will be a Parliament here at all.

I urge the Government to see what can be done to meet the requirements of the poor. This is an all-important and very urgent matter. A horse load of turf comes into my town and what once could be bought for 7/6 is now fetching 30/- and the turf-men are intercepted a half a mile outside the town by the people who can buy turf. What about the poor men in the back lanes? I must say that in regard to many of the poor the Government have undoubtedly done good work in the way of housing. It is a great achievement to see wretched hovels disappearing to be replaced by neat dwellings. But, unfortunately, some of these people are obliged to live on home help. Some get 4/- a week and out of that they have to pay 3/10 for rent. In such circumstances where are they to get fuel? Are we again going to put a cross on the shoulders of the rural ratepayers, as well as making them find £19,000 for home help? Are we to ask them to double that in order to give the poor fuel for their fires? What have many of them been burning for the last two or three months? They have been obliged to burn burraun. The smell is obnoxious, if you like, but it is a fact that they have had to burn it.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that many things may have to be put into the pool. It is time he thought of that particular problem and also the question of regulating prices. Prices are soaring and some people do not know what to ask for turf. I have heard some people asking £35 a hundred. We have paid out £33,000 for the production of fuel, but we can give none of it to the poor because we have no jurisdiction. Where are we going to get fuel for them? The Parliamentary Secretary says that there will be little surplus fuel. Some briquettes came to my town and people had to pay £4 10s. 0d. a ton for them. Even these were snapped up by greedy hands, but the poor, whom we always have with us, were not able to buy them.

The Parliamentary Secretary made an excellent speech and I learned very much from it. I am sorry he is not in the House, because I should like him to have heard some of the things that I have indicated. I have given cases that came under my own observation, cases in which I take a keen personal interest because they concern that section of the community which during the last quarter of a century I have done my utmost to help.

Liam O Buachalla

I must admit I have not very much to contribute to the debate. As a matter of fact, I have nothing at all to contribute to it, but certain points emerged in the course of the discussion to a few of which I should like to refer. What I shall say may not be of very much help to the Minister for Finance or the Parliamentary Secretary, but at the same time, as I have said, there are certain points that, in my opinion, need to be cleared up. In the early part of the evening I thought that we were going to get something useful when Senator Crosbie referred to the possibility of providing money in some easy fashion or, as I expect he had in mind, providing the necessaries of life for all and sundry. He hinted that it was time we got away from orthodox ideas in regard to finance. I think he hinted that the Minister for Finance had somewhere up his sleeve a very useful plan of an unorthodox kind. Some people are fond of reading poetry and some people are fond of reading detective yarns. We all seem to have our fads. For my own part, I have a fad for reading financial schemes, orthodox and unorthodox. I will be glad, when I can get hold of that particular scheme which the Minister for Finance is reputed to have up his sleeve, to have an opportunity of studying it. I hope there will be more in it than in anything I have come across so far. The net contribution of Senator Crosbie on the matter was to suggest, himself, something very orthodox, namely that the Minister might provide the necessary finance out of borrowing. Well, there is nothing very new or unorthodox in that, and I feel sure that if money can be borrowed the Minister for Finance will not fail to borrow, if borrowing will solve, or get us over, our difficulties.

A good deal has been said, and a good deal of time taken up, over the question of turf. Some people have declared that a great deal was learned here this evening from what has been said by the Parliamentary Secretary on the matter. I suggest that a good deal of our time could have been saved if some of us had been interested enough to study the proceedings of the Dáil last week and for some weeks before, and had taken the trouble to study carefully the speeches made on this subject in the Dáil by the Parliamentary Secretary. If that had been done it might have been found possible to discover some points arising out of his speeches that needed clarification, or we might have found some points worth while raising that would have been of some help to us here this evening. Instead, a good deal of the time spent on this subject here this evening was, in my opinion, sheer waste of time.

The one point that I want particularly to refer to, and the only point really that I am concerned with, is the suggestion that was made this evening that some of us unthinkingly opposed the idea of the utilisation of the Army for the provision of essential fuel when the matter was mooted here in the latter part of the spring. I remember the occasion very well. I remember the suggestion being made that the Army should be utilised for the production of turf. I do remember the Minister on that occasion pointing out that the Army could not be used for the production of turf. I, for one, agreed with him, and I think all of us on this side of the House and many on the other side agreed with him that the Army could not be used for the production of turf. Now anyone who will throw his mind back to that period will remember the uneasiness that existed. He will remember the work and energy that was being put into the work of organising, equipping and training the Army. He will remember the hundreds of bridges and other vital points that had to be manned, that had to be guarded; he will remember the feverish activities that were going on to provide housing and other accommodation for the Army; he will remember the hundreds of outposts that were being created and of men being rushed to them. Any man who has paid any attention at all to the question of equipping and training an army, who realises what it means in these days to train and equip an Army to a high state of efficiency, will realise how impossible it is that the Army could be taken from its essential purpose and function and turned over to work on the bogs. We have got to make up our minds whether Ireland needs an Army or not. If we have made up our minds on the need for an Army, then I do not care what Senator makes the suggestion, the bog is no substitute for the barrack square, for the range and the field in the training of that Army. It was no new suggestion, that a number of men would have found themselves unfit to undertake the rigorous duties of the regular or volunteer Army. They would have been useful on fatigue work, they would have been useful on the bog. We all realised that, and I think we realised it a good deal earlier than the date at which the motion that was in question this evening was put down. It has been realised by a great many that as far as possible, men of that kind should be brought together and put on essential work such as turf and other work of an urgent kind. As a matter of fact it is because people realised that, that the whole idea of the establishment of the Construction Corps arose. Why I refer to this matter at all is because I would not like it to go out or to go on record that those of us who agreed with the Minister on that occasion did so simply because he said he could not put the Army on to the bogs; that we agreed with him simply because he was the Minister. We agreed with him because we had considered the problem and because we knew he was right in saying that he could not ask that the Army be taken from its own definite and essential function.

Senator Madden is a very imaginative man. He told us here something I think we know very well, namely, that we have the poor with us, and according to the gospel we shall have them for all time. But on a certain point I think Senator Madden was somewhat inconsistent. If he cares to use his imagination a little more I think he will be able to render a signal service to those poor people who are so dear to his heart. He mentioned various titled people who have offered timber. I know there are very many people in this country who, if approached, will give timber and give it readily. For the information of Senator Madden, and in order that he may be able to do something to help the people in his district, I will mention what is being done to provide timber fuel to the poor in a district near Dublin. A certain parish council made a census of the poor in the parish. They then sent responsible people around to landowners and others and asked them to give some trees for fuel for the poor. In every case timber was offered and accepted. This parish council then called together the poor people in question. I was present at the meeting which was held in the school. There was a large attendance. The parish council put it up to them that they would have to do something themselves in the matter of providing fuel. The parish council on behalf of these poor people had got so many trees. These trees were standing. The council proceeded to divide up the poor of the district into various groups. They formed one group of people capable of felling trees, another group consisting of people willing and capable of sawing up the trees, and then formed a group from among these people who would be willing to provide or work on transport of one kind or another, donkey and horse carts and lorries if they could be got from certain people, and so on. As a result of these efforts many hundreds of tons of timber are being made available to these poor. I suggest to Senator Madden that if timber is available to the extent he mentioned in his district there is no earthly reason why he could not give a lead to those people, put them to work and get them to provide the fuel which we all realise is so essential. These are the only things I have to say on this stage of the Bill.

Mrs. Concannon

Our first reaction to the impact of the colossal figures set forth on the forefront of this Appropriation Bill is one of dismay, that the supply services of a small State like ours—three-quarters of our country— should be obliged to make such heavy demands on our people. At the same time, we must recognise that we have to be thankful that the demands are not much heavier, nor made in respect of things more precious than money: the lives and the bodies of our young men, the homes and livelihood and lives of our people, and we should take the occasion, as Senator Hayes has already done, which this hour of national stocktaking affords, to give humble thanks to God that for two years we have been saved, by God's great mercy, from that active participation in the war, involving the worst terrors of war which, in the two years of its tragic course, has left so many countries, once rich and flourishing, now desolate with the desolation of ruined cities, of untilled, war-ravaged fields, and homeless, starving populations. Nor should we forget to thank the Government, whose wise planning and foresight—and the fundamental policy directing them—have done so much to keep us free from attack, and to make our declaration of neutrality a reality hitherto respected and unchallenged by all the belligerents.

It is true, indeed—and this Appropriation Bill very forcibly reminds us of it —that we have not escaped all the consequences of the war. The very size of this Appropriation Bill is an eloquent reminder of what the war means to us. It is true, too, that the consequences of the war have come upon us in a shape that we did not envisage when we first took measures, two years ago, to meet the emergency. We envisaged then, I think, a possible invasion with its train of consequences, the active defence of our soil, the cutting of communications, the necessity of each region fending for itself, and depending on its own resources. The emergency has come upon us in another form, and perhaps we have not been sufficiently quick in realising that, and in making the necessary changes in the machinery which we then devised. That the emergency has come, as I said before, this Bill is a stern reminder. It has come in the shape of a blockade, with all its consequences, such as shortages, which people are already beginning to complain of. We feel not only that, but there has been a great increase in unemployment caused by the want of petrol and coal, and there are also the inconveniences in connection with tea. These things are the consequences, and we ought to feel that that is the way the emergency has come upon us, so that plans may be made to cope with it, and such changes made in the machinery as would help towards dealing with it. At the same time, we should not forget how much worse off we would be if, for several years past, this country had not adopted a courageous policy of self-reliance and tried to develop, in a sane way, the resources of this country and to exploit them.

We would be much worse off if that policy had not been adopted, and, since we have followed that course, we may, perhaps, through the great mercy of God, if He gives us good weather for our crops and our turf, escape the worst consequences of the blockade, although not its inconveniences. Certainly, we have to face a great problem of unemployment. That is the worst thing that the emergency has left us, but at the same time we must remember that we have resources of our own, and if we are saving, and if we develop these resources, we will be preserved from the worst consequences of the blockade. I think it has now been proved that that is the only policy for us. I think there is very little difference of opinion about that.

Another thing of which we ought to be proud is that we are united to face the problem. Nothing could be more disastrous, if there are dark days before us—and the Taoiseach and Ministers have never ceased to remind us that that is possible—if we had to face these dark days with a divided nation and a defeatist morale. The most deadly shortage that we could experience is a shortage of morale, and we should put our trust in God and do our best in every way to develop our resources and share them among our people. I have a few suggestions that might be made in that connection. Since the emergency has come in a way that, perhaps, we did not expect, there are certain parts of the machinery, which was designed for another type of emergency, that might be available now. The fact that the emergency has come upon us in a different form from what we envisaged does not mean that it is any the less real, and I believe that at least a part of the machinery we devised originally could be brought into activity to deal with the present emergency. Why, for instance, should the regional and county commissioners not have come forth from their dim background and assumed three dimensions in their sphere of action? I am glad to see that the regional commissioner for Mayo and Galway, and the Galway County Commissioner, have given evidence of their existence by inaugurating, with the approval of the Western Bishops and the aid of appropriate organisations, a drive for the salvage of waste paper. The shortage of paper can have very serious consequences.

Now, I think that there may be other things to be salved, and other ways in which we might help to remedy our big national crime of waste. If the regional commissioners came into action they might stir the parish councils into more active life, and I think the parish councils might be able to help to solve a problem that has been touched upon to-night, and that is in connection with the provision of light in the country districts. In my young days, we were very familiar with tallow candles, and I remember, myself, when I was a girl at a convent school, working hard for an intermediate exhibition, that the hour of extra study, for which we were allowed to stay up after our companions had gone to bed, was illuminated by tallow candles made by some of the lay-sisters. The candles, I remember, were rather smelly and they needed frequent snuffing, but they did their job and we won our exhibitions, and thus helped to finance our education. I do not see why the parish councils could not organise the collection of fats and so on for the making of these candles, if the country people are to be left without light, as they are threatened at present. The making of these tallow candles is very simple, and I am glad to know that there is going to be a demonstration at Ballsbridge of the making of these candles. It is the sort of thing that should be revived, and people could easily learn it. We have not paraffin wax, but we have paraffin, and, therefore, there is no reason why our winter should go unlighted, and I think that the tallow candle, indeed, could be used as a sort of symbol of anti-waste and of resourceful self-reliance and falling back upon our own resources. If we make proper use of our own resources in that way, in the country places during this winter, we may come through the night of that winter to a much more cheerful dawn than any of us have yet seen, and have no more Appropriation Bills for £41,000,000.

The McGillycuddy of the Reeks

Perhaps I might be permitted to say a few practical words about turf on the question of policy. I have just come out of a room in Dublin where there is a grand turf fire burning, and a big scuttle of turf standing on either side of the fire. Now, between cutting and footing, spreading and stooking, clamping the turf and finally ricking it and carrying it, it would probably take a man a couple of days to produce what will be burned in that room in Dublin in one night. The moral of that is a very simple one: that the turf that is cut by the labour of the country requires conservation.

So far I have seen no propaganda whatever on the part of the turf controller with a view to educating the town liver in the appropriate use of turf. It is a most important matter. If you cut 1,000,000 tons of turf and it is wrongly burned, you will only get half the value; whereas if it is burned in the right way you will get the full value from it. There are three cardinal rules in regard to the use of turf. One is to put it as near to the floor as you can with the minimum of draught. The second one is to put the sods together exactly as the Red Indian puts his sticks. The third is, when you leave the room at night, instead of allowing the fire to go out, to flatten out the turf and cover it with ashes. This may seem an unimportant matter, but in our present situation, and having regard to the fact that the town liver cannot know those things—I expect the Minister knows them all right, because he has been down to Kerry and other places where they burn turf —they should be drummed into the people who will have to use the turf. A very considerable alteration in fireplaces may be required, but not at great expense, because a great many of them can be just pulled out and put on one side. But, unless you do that, an enormous amount of the money which is being spent on producing turf will be wasted and, what is more, the turf which has been cut at the expense of that money will not go anything like as far as the people expect. The people will get sick of it. They will say that it burns away in a minute while coal will last, and there will be discontent and disappointment. If, on the other hand, they are definitely taught how to use turf, I think it will be a great success.

Mr. O'Connell

I am sorry I was not here for part of the discussion on this Bill and especially for the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary in which he dealt with the question of the provision of fuel. But there is one question which I should like to ask: whether any consideration has been given to the matter of the provision of fuel for schools during the winter season. At the best of times that is a problem in itself, but now, owing to the scarcity of fuel, it will be a bigger problem still. I should like to ask whether any consideration has been given to that problem. If not, I should like to press on the members of the Government to consider the matter and to see, whether through the machinery of the county councils or of the parish councils, that attention will be given to that matter and steps taken to see that the schools will be provided with fuel during the winter.

Mr. Hawkins

When Senator Crosbie was speaking to-day he objected to the painting of gloomy pictures. One would think that we had a competition to-day in the painting of gloomy pictures, because one speaker outpassed another in painting those pictures.

Mr. M. Hayes

The Parliamentary Secretary outpassed us all.

Mr. Hawkins

I do not object to those pictures being painted, because I believe that it is right for the Government and public representatives to put the position before the people as clearly as possible, so that they will understand it. When the Prime Minister of another State took office he did not start out by painting a rosy picture for the people; he promised them blood, tears and sacrifice. He did that in order to bring the people to a realisation of what was before them, and I think the same thing is necessary here. All the statements made in the past and all the appeals made to the people have not had the desired effect. The people seem to think that the Government and Government speakers desired to paint those pictures and that the position is not as bad or will not be as bad as they state.

If the appeals made by the Taoiseach and other Ministers last March and April were heeded seriously by the turf-producing community and by other people who could have gone into the production of turf, we would not be threatened with the serious shortage of fuel with which we are now threatened. Statements were made to-day with regard to the production of turf—that it was undertaken too late and things like that. I think the real position is that the people did not take the matter seriously enough. When power was given to the county councils to acquire bogs, people who could have gone out to produce turf on their own account did not do so.

I am sorry the Parliamentary Secretary is not here now because I think there were a few mistakes made by the county councils. There should be a rule or regulation made next year that any person in possession of a turf bank would not be employed on a county council scheme until he had his own turf cut. I know that in County Galway people have been employed as gangers and general workers under the scheme who have allowed their own turf banks to remain uncut. That should not be allowed to occur next year. There is no doubt that more efficient gangers and more efficient workers than these could be got and we would have more turf produced. A regulation should be made that a man who is the possessor of a turf bank should not be employed on a county council scheme until such time as he has sufficient turf produced for himself or his turf bank cut. The same thing holds true, I think, with regard to gangers generally throughout the country.

It would be well if the Minister for Local Government, who is the Minister responsible, took serious notice of the type of people generally employed as gangers and workers in the counties. Very often a man with a large family living in a labourer's cottage is refused even an ordinary day's work on the roads. He would be quite capable even of doing the work of a ganger. Another man who has 20 or 30 acres of land will be employed while he is left idle. In a number of cases, not alone are the occupants of labourers' cottages allowed to remain idle, but the men who are employed usually leave their own land idle, because they are not able to do the two things.

Senator Crosbie also suggested a scheme of subsidies for food for the poor. A sum of £125,000 has already been provided for food allowances for those in receipt of unemployment assistance, old age pensions, etc. I do not agree with Senator Crosbie's suggestion as to where the money for these subsidies would come from. One of the things that politicians would naturally suggest at public meetings is that the Army should be reduced and also the allowances of Deputies and Senators. That is all very well, but at the present moment I suggest that we should not curtail our expenditure on the Army. We are not alone surrounded by warring nations, but one of those nations is in actual occupation of a portion of our country. Therefore, I think this is the wrong time to suggest any curtailment of the expenditure on the Army. Furthermore, we would only add to the numbers unemployed.

Senator Baxter made the usual speech, in the course of which he recited a long litany of reasons for not having produced the food that we require, particularly wheat. The Senator omitted to mention one of the principal reasons for that state of affairs, and that was the propaganda that was carried on for a number of years against the growing of wheat. I was surprised the Senator did not refer to that. That propaganda took different forms, one being that the land here was not suitable for wheat. People were told that certain areas were not suitable for wheat growing or that land in Galway or Meath would not produce wheat. Like the scare that was spread about Communism some years ago that propaganda continued.

Another form of propaganda was that it would not pay farmers to grow wheat. They were told that it would not pay to grow it at 35/- a barrel, then at 40/-. If it was 65/- they would be told the same thing. Those whom it paid to grow wheat at 35/- must have made more money when they got 40/- a barrel for it. Some farmers are, however, still convinced, owing to this propaganda, that wheat is not paying them. I admit that Senator Baxter is now advocating what Fianna Fáil was advocating. I might say that he is more of a Sinn Feiner than Senators on this side of the House as regards the production of foodstuffs. The Senator asked the Parliamentary Secretary to tell the House if he was planning for five or ten years ahead as regards turf production, pointing out that there was no use in planning to develop bogs if immediately the war ended we could get sufficient coal.

We have now to try to get the country out of the difficulties that it is facing. In Galway there is as regards turf more or less a standstill order, and I believe that that order is too strict. The turf is on the bog, but I should like to see some arrangement made whereby it would be brought into large centres in each county. There is a danger owing to the scarcity of petrol that later on turf may be left in the bogs. It would be much more convenient if turf could now be taken to large centres and stored. As far as Connemara is concerned, railway lorries could deal with the transport from Galway or Clifden and transport it to Dublin and secure return loads. Owing to the standstill order that cannot be done at present. The Parliamentary Secretary would be well advised to set up some organisation to deal with that matter. Some coal merchants are not inclined to purchase or to store much turf. Under the Emergency Order farmers were compelled to till their land, and county councils were given power to take over bogs, while coal merchants who have made a living by the sale of fuel are compelled to stand still. In Galway and in other places merchants have stores for timber, cement, and other goods, but these stores are now empty. I do not see why when county councils can take over bogs these stores are not taken over and some organisation set up so that turf could be moved from the bogs and stored there. The argument against that is that turf can be stored in the open. That is rather expensive, because it has to be ricked up.

I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with the development of the bog at Attymon which is convenient to the railway. A promise was given that that bog would be developed. The county council are cutting some turf there, but nothing like what could be got out of it. In Galway a number of people have lost employment, including bus drivers and others who were never unemployed in the past. Some of them had entered into arrangements to purchase houses, as well as insurance, etc. I suggest that some court should be set up where cases of that kind could be dealt with before the position develops. One of the items in this Bill in which I am interested concerns sea fisheries and the inland fisheries. The Corrib Fishery Association applied for a grant, and I understand the Minister for Agriculture has agreed to give one. I hope he will be more generous in that respect next year. A great deal more could be done to develop the fishing industry, particularly in the line of curing herring and mackerel. Now that we are threatened with a serious shortage of food, there should be some organisation set up in a centre like Galway to go into that business. It will not, of course, be a very paying business because it will have no export market, but, in respect of our own people, it would be worth considering.

Sir John Keane

I did not intend to say much on this Bill until I heard Senator Foran speaking earlier. I really could not sit here and allow what he said to remain unanswered. The Senator would think it a very funny thing if I began by saying that all the methods of craftsmanship, like stone-masonry and Senator Campbell's trade, printing, were wrong. Yet, we heard Senator Foran say that the whole monetary system is responsible for all our trouble. "Five per cent. and that sort of thing", I think, were the exact words he used. Some people do not take the Senator seriously, but he is a leader of public opinion and he has a certain responsibility to the country and to his own class for their savings and for securing that their labour and their toil are not dissipated. If the sort of stuff that the Senator wants to put over on the public were to be put into practice, we would have the most terrible orgy of inflation. Money would lose all its value. Listening to the Senator, one would think that bankers, or some other people, with pound notes in their hands should stand at the street side and give money to every passer-by.

It is very dangerous to put that sort of stuff out because it is put out with utter disregard, and no knowledge whatever, of the technique and methods of banking. Half the people who talk like that would not know the difference between a dollar and an escudo, and they certainly have made no attempt whatever to understand the basis on which what we call orthodox finance is built up, and not only that, but they cannot point to any places where these methods which they advocate have succeeded. That sort of thing was tried in one of the States of Canada and it was a most ghastly failure. Of course, these people blame somebody else. In the case of Canada, they blamed the central Government because they could not get their hands on the currency.

I can sum up the claims of orthodox finance very briefly. I might say that it stands for freedom to work and the duty of man to produce, to save and to adventure these savings for the good of humanity, so that work may be provided, new wealth produced and mankind enabled to enjoy a higher standard of living in all lands as the outcome of labour and risk. The basis on which that whole thing is built is a stable currency, stable monetary values. It is very dangerous to deal with this matter in this light-hearted, cross-roads, hustings manner. It is a science, into which a body of experts have inquired. They were by no means all bankers. There were some bankers among them, because you would not have bankers excluded from an inquiry into banking, and there were continental experts and business men, and, by a large majority, they said that the banking system was sound and had stood the strain of wars. We might add that it is standing the strain in England of the greatest war the country has ever faced.

I feel that it is only one's duty to put up a defence for methods which have proved themselves as the result of experience. If they are tampered with, the savings of the poor people will be the first to feel the effects. Loose statements are made that at present the banking system is not serving the community. I wish that people who make these statements would give chapter and verse for what they say, because, from my knowledge of banking, it is serving the community to the fullest extent at present. So far as I am aware at least, no applications for credit for institutions for production or the holding of stocks have been refused. I do not suggest that everybody has got what he asked. Bankers are business people and cannot give money to everybody, irrespective of their credit-worthiness, but I do say, with full responsibility, that credit-worthy demands are being treated by the banking system now with very great sympathy and with full knowledge of the responsibility which the banks owe to the community at present.

Another point to which I want to draw the attention of the Minister is in relation to the issue of statutory rules and orders. These rules come out after the date on which they become operative, and I have in my hand an order—one of several to which my comment applies—Order No. 294. On it is stated: "Given under my official seal, 11th day of June." As a Senator, I did not get that order until a month later. I do not know exactly what the machinery is, because there are certain things to be done under the order long before the order was in my hands, and in the hands of others. Would it not be possible for these orders to be issued at the time, or a very short time after, they take effect?

Mr. Campbell

In a debate which has ranged over a very wide field, the most interesting thing to me said was the sentence used by Senator Baxter in which he envisaged a position in the near future when loaves might be displayed in windows for sale, while hungry people outside looked in at them. That is a danger signal to which we ought all give attention. What Senator Baxter envisages, I expect, is that the people will see that food there and will not have the wherewithal to purchase it. That is a problem in itself—and it is one to which the Minister and his colleagues ought to give serious consideration— but there is another problem which I have not heard adverted to this evening, that is, the continued export from this country of essential foods and commodities which we need ourselves. There are exports of food at present in the shape of butter, bacon, eggs, potatoes and vegetables. Even scrap iron, a commodity which is very vital and necessary, not alone for our industrial enterprises, but for defence itself, is now being shipped out. We are threatened with an actual shortage of bread, and I understand that over £100,000 worth of potatoes were exported during the first quarter of this year. Now that the potato crop is due, I think the opportunity should be availed of severely to ration flour while we have a plentiful supply of potatoes. Furthermore, I suggest that the Government should embark on a scheme to induce people to use substitute commodities for flour.

One would not object to these exports if we were getting anything in return. We are not getting tea to any extent, and coal and oil are denied us, as well as many other commodities essential to our industrial life. I do not want to follow Senator Sir John Keane in his dissertation on banking and banking methods, but all we are getting in return for these exports is a written acknowledgment of debt, which is of no use to us. We are not getting the essential imports we need to keep our industries running to normal capacity. With regard to the butter supply, at this time of the year, it is usual for butter exports to be shipped out of the country. It is only in later months that our butter is put into cold storage, and the amount of butter put into cold storage at the end of October determines the amount that will be available for carrying us through the winter. The position, I think, is doubly serious this year, because the supply of margarine is running out, and the commodities necessary for the manufacture of margarine will not be available in the future. I think the Minister ought to give serious attention to that point.

On our food supplies generally, I think it is essential that the Government, when they are of opinion that these supplies are necessary to carry us over the lean time we are approaching in the coming winter and spring, should prohibit the export of food from this country.

On the subject of turf, I shall not delay the House unduly, because a great deal has been said on that subject to-day. A problem does, however, arise in the City of Dublin in respect of the supply of turf to poor people. Turf is hard to store, and it would be necessary during the winter months for either the Government or Dublin Corporation to establish centres where turf would be readily available to the people. It would be impossible for a number of people to store that commodity about their houses. Senator The McGillycuddy has already given an example of the difficulties in that connection. It is essential that the Government should arrange for the establishment of these stores and centres, in the poorer quarters of the city particularly, where turf will be readily available to those who need it.

Another matter which will present difficulty will be that of cooking with this commodity. It will be necessary to establish communal cooking centres or feeding centres at which people can get their food already cooked. That will, I think, result in the economical use of fuel for cooking purposes and leave more fuel available for heating purposes in the homes of the poor. The Minister should give some attention to that aspect of the question. Senator Hawkins and Senator Foran have already referred to the difficulty which people have in meeting commitments into which they have entered in regard to house purchase. The Government might well give attention to that problem, too. The Government should amend the Rent Restriction Acts, bring them up to date, and provide that no rent shall be raised above the level obtaining in September, 1939. Some poor people are being subjected to demands for increases of rent. They are not able to meet these demands and I understand from investigation that that problem is becoming graver every day. I do hope the Minister will amend these Acts and provide that people who are unable to pay rent, as a result of unemployment or part-time employment, will not be evicted. That has been done in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and I see no reason why the same arrangement should not be made for the people of this State. Although we are neutral in this war, the same difficulties attach to our situation as would attach if we were at war. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to the points I have made—the question of the export of food, the necessity for making provision for the easy availability of fuel supplies, the fixing of the level for house rents based on the level in September, 1939, and provision so that people will not be evicted from their houses because of inability to pay rent, due to unemployment resulting from the war.

Mr. Kehoe

The House might possibly congratulate itself on the high level of the prolonged debate which we have had on this Bill this afternoon. This occasion, as on the occasion of debates on the adjournment elsewhere, is generally used as an excuse for criticism all round and the universal slating of whatever Government happens to be in office. The debate here to-day has been maintained at a high level and for that we ought to be thankful when we notice the acrimonies which develop in other places—very far distant from this House, of course.

My contribution to this debate will be short and I do not know whether my remarks will tend to produce acrimony or not. Some things were said with which one found oneself in disagreement. I heard a very estimable Labour colleague—we are all colleagues in this House—slated a few moments ago because of some unorthodox ideas which he held on finance—unorthodox from the banking viewpoint, naturally. Senator Sir John Keane assumed that Senator Foran was not fully conversant with the technique of banking. Some of the farmers have been fully conversant with the technique of banking since the last Great War. During the last Great War the average farmer was halted on the street, pulled in by the coat-tail to a bank and asked deferentially: "Do you want that farm; if so, we are behind you?" That was all right when money was plentiful and cheap. Led by the lure of cheap money, the farmer bought the farm. Then came the slump which the bankers, being financial experts, should have known was on its way, whereas the ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry could not have known it. The bankers knew that every war in Europe since the world began has been followed by a slump. The average farmer, who was not expert in economic theories, could not be expected to know that and he paid the penalty of his ignorance. The last Great War collapsed suddenly and the banks, Shylock-like, insisted on their pound of flesh, with the result that many of the farmers of Ireland were forced into a state of insolvency. There we have the technique of banking.

We hear a good deal about credit-worthiness. Of all the clichés in this State, not excluding the "exploring of avenues" and the "finding of formulae", the worst that has cursed every Legislative Assembly is that of credit-worthiness. Senators and Deputies who have to fill forms for unfortunate farmers who want a loan from the Agricultural Credit Corporation have to answer a long list of queries, the purpose of which is to show that the applicant is credit-worthy. If he were credit-worthy in the sense that he could answer these queries honestly, he would not want money at all. That is a cliché pure and simple, coined by banking economists to evade, in many instances, obligations which they owe to the community. Senator Foran, being a Labour man, could not be expected to be fully conversant with the technique of banking. The only knowledge of banking which the average person in the country has is derived from being placed on the grid-iron, put a series of questions and, finally, found not to be credit-worthy, from the banking point of view. Since the last war the banks were more responsible for reducing the credit of farmers than was the so-called economic dispute with England. We could bring witnesses to testify to that, but nothing will satisfy certain banking experts when the arguments adduced militate against their own theories. From a purely unbiased point of view, it may be said that Capitalist and Labour are agreed on one thing—that both abuse capital.

Senator Campbell's speech was, as usual, to the point. He spoke of our exporting commodities to other countries and getting nothing in return. I may give one instance of our exports which might be more suitable if the Minister for Agriculture were present, but which the present Minister might convey to him. As well as husbanding our present stock of supplies we should not permit good milch cows or heifers to leave the country, if we have any means of keeping them here legally and constitutionally and, of course, making good the loss to those concerned. The pick of our flocks and herds are going across the water, with the result that the parent stock will become depleted to an alarming extent both in quality and quantity. After all, milk is the staple nourishment of our people, and I respectfully submit that steps should be taken to ensure that our best cows and heifers be not allowed to leave the country. That is an old standing sore in this country.

Allusion was made to the gloomy prophecies made in this and in the other House. The Government itself, we were told, indulged in some very doleful prophecies which may be justified or which perhaps will be justified by the future course of events. The lot of a prophet, like that of a policeman, is not a very happy one, and our prophets in this instance have been criticised for taking an unduly pessimistic view of the future. It may be well that they have erred on the side of gloom, as I think our people are not really as alive to the situation as they should be. We as a people are in the habit of taking things very easily, and of waiting for some final catastrophe to precipitate us into the abyss before arousing ourselves to the seriousness of the situation. Lest any such catastrophe should overtake us, it is no harm if the people be reminded over and over again of the dangers that surround us. It takes quite a lot to shake up the average Irishman. Nothing short of an earthquake will shake him up from the state of complacency which he generally adopts towards matters which do not immediately concern him.

In regard to the question of using the Army for the cutting of turf, I am not an expert on turf production, although everyone nowadays professes to know something about turf in its various stages of development, from the earliest processes of pressure to which it was subjected 2,000 years ago to the present day. Turf in the district where I come from is really at a premium. Nevertheless, I do not think the Army should be called upon to cut turf. Apart altogether from the fact that the Army is a highly specialised organisation with a specific function, I do not like the idea of using the Army to compete against ordinary labour. I do not know whether that aspect of the matter has been considered. There is plenty of work for idle hands to do on our bogs. We have a very large number of unemployed, and they should get first preference on this work.

Turning to the question of using timber as fuel, I was much interested in the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary that a couple hundred thousand tons of timber were to be made available as fuel. Of course, necessity knows no law. Our firesides must be replenished and the poor must not be left to shiver during the winter but I would point out that timber is an uneconomic fuel and that our reserves of timber are not inexhaustible. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see that the want of fuel is not made an excuse for destroying large quantities of forest trees and that scrub timber, of which considerable quantities are available in parts of the country, together with trees in awkward situations or trees which mar the scenic amenities, should be utilised for this purpose. The wholesale cutting of forest trees should not be allowed simply on the excuse that certain people require them as fuel. Timber unless used in conjunction with turf or coal is by no means an economic fuel.

In the speech of Senator Mrs. Concannon—a very beautiful speech, if I may say so—she alluded to the possibility that we might have to fall back on the old-time expedients of tallow candles. I do not know whether she mentioned the rush dip but she thought that tallow candles would be an excellent substitute for the ordinary paraffin wax candle and she spoke of the use of these candles in connection with the winning of exhibitions in years gone by. I do not know whether tallow candles and exhibitions go together, or whether the use of tallow candles would enhance the intellectual capacity of our students, but the fact of the matter is that the supply of tallow is very limited. That would be one snag in the way of the widespread use of tallow candles. I presume the Government has this matter in hand and that they are giving it all the attention possible but I do not think that the supply of tallow would be more than sufficient to go a very infinitesimal way towards solving that problem.

I think these are the only matters on which I desire to speak and the exigencies of the present situation must be my only excuse for intervening in this debate. Senator Madden has put forward a self-evident proposition. The Senator ought to realise that poverty is not the prerogative of any one or two districts in the country. Poverty exists in the back lanes of Wexford, in the slums of Dublin and in various rural districts in the country just as in the Senator's county. We have all problems and they are not peculiar to any one county but I think none of us should have any particular reason to grouse. As Senator Mrs. Concannon has stated, there is much for which we should be thankful. Of course, sometimes we take things very much for granted but at least we have been saved from the rain of bombs and incendiaries. If we bear these things in mind and consider our comparative immunity, we should think more kindly of one another and do our best to help the Government for the time being instead of criticising it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Many suggestions were made in the course of the debate of value and of interest. Many matters were discussed but I do not think that Senators in raising points of interest to themselves, and of general interest too, anticipated that I would be in a position to answer fully, or maybe in some cases answer at all, the questions that were raised. We had the privilege of having the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance here and I think the House will agree that his speech was an instructive and an illuminating one. I was glad to hear Senator Madden and other Senators express appreciation of the value of the Parliamentary Secretary's contribution. I was told during the adjournment by several other Senators how highly they appreciated the useful and practical information that the Parliamentary Secretary has been able to contribute to this discussion. In addition to the Parliamentary Secretary, I think we would require to have the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Supplies and, on one or two questions that were raised about rent and rent restrictions, we should also want the assistance of the Minister for Justice in this debate as well. Of course in the office of the Minister for Finance information is pooled to a large extent because the position, so far as expenditure of money is concerned, is that everything has to pass through the mill of the office of the Minister for Finance. In that way the Minister must know something about all items that call for expenditure. I would suggest, however, with all respect and humility that that does not mean that the Minister for Finance should be able to stand up here and answer right off any question that might be put forward, without notice, on any of the thousand and one subjects that are encompassed in the Book of Estimates or the Appropriation Bill which is a summary of the Book of Estimates and other items of expenditure.

Other Ministers for Finance might, perhaps, do better than I, but I must say that I do not feel myself equal to answering in a detailed way many of the questions that have been addressed to me. I will, however, take care that the various suggestions that have been made and the various questions that have been asked relating to matters not specially within the province of the Minister for Finance or his Department, will be brought to the attention of the Ministers and Departments concerned, and perhaps Senators will be kind enough at some other time, when the opportunity offers, to remember the matters they were interested in and, with the permission of the Chair, renew their suggestions and questions to separate Ministers, who will probably come prepared to answer them.

I was glad that one or two Senators called attention to the size of our expenditure. It is a very big bill, £40,900,819. As Senator Mrs. Concannon mentioned, it is certainly a very big bill for this part of the country. The memories of some Senators will go back to the discussions on the Home Rule Bill, when the taxation of Ireland was £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 — something in that region. Of course, the value of money was admittedly different. We remember the vigorous protests and the public meetings and demonstrations about the additional taxation that was being imposed upon us and how this country was not able to bear another penny. Of course, it was right that we should protest against anybody but ourselves imposing taxation. We have the right to do it, and we have done it pretty well—all Governments. I get protests every hour in the day, not alone from the Opposition, but from Fianna Fáil supporters. I have protested, particularly as Minister, against Fianna Fáil piling on expenditure.

I wish some Senators could have heard me when I was fighting like the devil against a variety of things— excellent things in themselves—for which I was asked to find money. I have had to fight hard and strong very often to try to get reason into the minds of people who wanted us to launch out into additional expenditure that, in my opinion as Minister for Finance, we could not bear. I took a hand in inducing the Government to expend very generously with regard to a number of things which are thrown back at me now, in this and the other House, not alone from the Opposition Benches—mostly from there—but also by Fianna Fáil supporters. I will not refer to it as improper expenditure— nobody says that—but we are told that it was expenditure that was extravagant. The money mainly went on housing and public health services. As Minister for Local Government, I pressed for all I was worth to have money spent on houses. The Government accepted my view and they did spend money on building houses. Not alone do I think that we got good value for that money, but we got more value than can be properly estimated in money. That is my belief.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the size of this bill. It is an enormous bill, but I think that, on the whole, we will get good value for it. There may be items here and there on which we might make savings if, with calm, unbiased minds, we had time to go through them, but I doubt if we would save a great lot. We are getting by way of revenue this year £35,630,000. At the time the Budget was introduced we arranged to borrow £4,542,000, but before the year is out, in one way or another we will probably have brought that figure nearer to £10,000,000. That borrowing will add to the difficulty of the Minister for Finance when organising his Budget finances next year. It is elementary—I need not emphasise it, because I am sure everybody realises it—that every £1,000,000 we borrow adds considerably to our debt and therefore adds to the difficulty of running the country. A certain amount may be borrowed for what is called reproductive expenditure. There is then a certain amount of capital expenditure that may not, for many a long day, produce any return and there is a considerable amount which will be allocated for emergency expenditure. These are certain things forced upon us by reason of the emergency that has now lasted for nearly two years—it is likely to last for at least another year —for which we have to make provision.

The Government cannot borrow £1,000,000, much less £10,000,000, without paying for it. Interest has to be paid on borrowed money, and even supposing we were lucky enough to be able to borrow at 2½ per cent. or 3 per cent., the interest charges on £30,000,000, even without making provision to pay off any part of the principal, would amount to a considerable sum, all of which has to come out of the pockets of the taxpayer. We cannot borrow to pay off our borrowings. Our national debt at present is costing us, roughly, £600,000 a year in interest charges. Senators can easily calculate for themselves what it would cost the State if we were to borrow another £8,000,000 or £10,000,000, and how much the interest charges, provision for sinking fund and so on, would add to our indebtedness. All that has to be provided out of taxation. I refer to these matters first of all to remind members of the House of the difficulty of our problem. We are a small country and not a rich country. Already our bill to run our household for 12 months is nearly £41,000,000. That is a heavy load.

I do not object to people being critical, and I like to hear them make suggestions. Our debates would be dull and uninteresting if everybody could get up and say: "We have got everything we want, there is nothing that we need, our conditions are so good that we do not need to spend any more." I do not know that we will ever arrive at the stage when we will hear speeches on that line delivered in either House of the Oireachtas. I do not object to people telling the Government of their shortcomings, or where they have omitted to do certain things, or where they have done things in a way that, in the view of some individuals, was not the right way. I would like to assure Senator Baxter—I think I did so here before in the course of another debate—that I do not object to criticism. Not at all. I do not even object to unfair criticism, but I like the opportunity of being able to reply to it. If anybody cares to put it so, I have no right to object, but, as a matter of fact, I do not object to criticism. I have always been used to freedom of speech, and I like to see other people enjoying what I like myself. Let them have the benefit of it, too. I hope that we will continue to have the benefit of that for many a long year in this country.

Mr. Baxter

I hope so.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I think Senator Baxter said, in the opening part of his speech, that I have something up my sleeve for him. He is entirely wrong. I want to assure him that I have not, for him or for any other member of this or the other House. I think that he and all Senators will agree that if there is vigorous criticism they cannot object to a vigorous reply, and I try to deliver that when the opportunity arises. I may or I may not succeed, but I do the best I can. I do not always produce arguments to suit particular Senators. Senator Baxter said that I did not produce arguments to suit him. No, but I produce arguments to suit myself, and if they happen to answer the Senator so much the better. They are my arguments. I listen to Senator Baxter's arguments, and naturally he selects the ones that suit him best. I certainly do not resent that. The Senator spoke about tillage. He certainly knows more about that subject than I do. I do not claim to know much about tillage, the growing of wheat and oats and all the other interesting things associated with our main industry.

Mr. Baxter

You are all the richer in your ignorance.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am not invincible in my ignorance all the same. I am always willing to learn. The Government may not have done all that they might have to prepare for the situation which we find ourselves in to-day, but certainly nobody can deny that the Government did try, over a number of years, to get more agricultural production. There was propaganda in and out. I have heard some people say— members of the Oireachtas—that we had propaganda ad nauseam on the question of increased tillage. I listened to the Minister for Agriculture speak in the Dáil last week on this year's harvest prospects. I have here an extract from the speech he made on the 23rd July as reported in the Irish Press on the following day. The Minister, in the course of his speech, said:

"The wheat crop will be the largest since 1847, and the root and grain crops were a record."

That is something to be thankful for, and yet that production is not going to give us anywhere near 100 per cent. of our requirements. But, at any rate, it is something for which I think we are all deserving of credit. Even though he may have objected to our vigorous tillage campaign, it is probable that Senator Baxter, in proportion to the size of his farm, did his share in bringing about that increase.

Mr. Baxter

Nobody has ever heard me, in this House or outside of it, object to that. I challenge contradiction of that statement.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I am glad to hear that. If the Senator says that, I accept his word, but in that case the Senator was not in step with his Party.

Mr. Baxter

Do not misrepresent my Party.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not want to misrepresent the Party at all, but I say the Senator was not in step with the Party. Take the Party and its leading spokesmen—I do not say there was any formal resolution of the Party on the matter—what was its view? I leave it at that. The Minister for Agriculture, in the same speech, said that the farmers "had done a colossal amount of work in regard to tillage"—that is true—"and they did it for patriotic motives. The Government do not want to take advantage of that and ask them to do it without adequate compensation." That is where I come in, on the question of compensation. As Minister for Finance I have something to say to that. When the Minister for Agriculture came before the Government to ask for guaranteed prices for agricultural produce, he had to prove his case, so far as I was concerned, in order to get the guaranteed prices that he succeeded in getting. My view is that they are good prices and generous prices.

I know, of course, from resolutions which I have received, and which I have seen referred to in the Press, that they are not the prices that satisfy all farmers although, again, I heard the Minister for Agriculture say in the Dáil that he had consulted well-known tillage farmers on the prices, and I think I am not misrepresenting him as saying that he found that they did— possibly, with reluctance—accept the prices. I think he said that he consulted his consultative council. So far as I remember, he was cross-examined in the House as to whether that body accepted his prices, and I am not sure what answer he gave, but I think he side-stepped the question, as far as I know.

Mr. Baxter

He hand-picked that council.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

But he did say that many of the men on that council, and many of those who were interested in tillage, accepted his prices.

Mr. Baxter

Many of those men are members of his own Party.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Oh, now, when it comes to a question of prices, whether it is a matter of selling a cow or a pig or a field of oats, a farmer is a farmer any day in the week.

Mr. Baxter

I am afraid he is not.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

With all respect, I think the Senator is wrong. There are farmers on all sides of the House, perhaps in the Labour Party. Go with your cow or your pig into the fair, and no matter from whom you are buying or to whom you are selling, the farmer will fight as hard a fight as he can to get the best price he is able to get, no matter to what Party he belongs; and what is true of the cow and the pig in the fair is equally true of the farmers when they are sitting around the council table fighting with the Minister for Agriculture about what they regard as an adequate price for their produce. I think Party is very quickly obliterated in these circumstances. I have heard farmer members of my own Party in the Dáil "slating" the Minister for Agriculture for not having given 10 or 15 or 20 per cent. higher prices.

Mr. Baxter

Yes, particular men in his Party.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There are certain members who do that, and farmers who do that, and I think it is well known that where the farming community is concerned they stand as a body. Take the Sugar Beet Association as an example. I have had to meet representatives of that body, of all Parties, on the price of beet. What attitude did they adopt? Did they come there as members of different Parties, with different prices? They did not. They came together, agreed on a price, and all went out to get that price, or as near as they could to it, from the Government of the day.

Admittedly, as I say, the harvest will not be as big as the times require, but it certainly is a very far cry back from the 490,000 acres of wheat, or whatever it is at the moment, that is now grown in the country, to the 25,000 acres of wheat nine or ten years ago. If that propaganda and the preparations for the growing of wheat had not continued in season and out of season for the last nine years, we would not have anything like the 490,000 acres this year.

Mr. Baxter

You could not have it but for the war. It is the war that did it, and nothing else.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Undoubtedly, the war had something to do with it, but war or no war we would never have had it if that preparation had not been made.

Mr. Baxter

That is a debatable point.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

We would not have had the machinery there. We could not have got the necessary machinery going in two years to bring us up to 490,000 acres of wheat. That is my opinion. I agree with Senator Baxter that we are facing a grave situation for our human and for our animal population. We are facing a serious situation, but with the harvest prospects such as I believe they are, and such as Dr. Ryan has described them to be when he says that the wheat crop will be the largest since 1847 and that the root and grain crops are a record—with the root and other grain crops added to the wheat crop. I think I will adopt the advice given to me by a distinguished man, Deputy Cosgrave, and hold out for the country a hopeful future as far as this year's harvest and this year are concerned.

Mr. Baxter

I am only anxious to get clear on this: is it the Government view that from the harvest, or from the area under cultivation—the harvest is not in yet, but we hope for the best—we are justified in believing that we will have sufficient food for our human and animal population?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I think, Senator, we will scrape through. I think we will.

Mr. Baxter

Well, if that is the Government view, I am glad to know it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

And with an additional prospect of something in the wheat line coming into the country.

Mr. Baxter

It is good to know that.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It is hazardous, I know, but I think we will scrape through.

A Senator

Weather conditions have to be taken into consideration.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Oh, yes, a lot depends on things which we cannot control. As I say, I do not know the agricultural problem. It is not a subject on which I am able to speak with authority. I can only go on the information that is open to Senator Baxter just as it is to me, and no more.

Mr. Baxter

It is not open to me.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I was told in the Dáil, on the last day, by Deputy Cosgrave, that the tone of the speeches of the Taoiseach and some Ministers was too gloomy. Perhaps he was right. There were some gloomy speeches here to-day. Senator Hayes says that the Parliamentary Secretary's speech them all for gloom.

Mr. M. Hayes

Yes. Hear, hear!

Mr. O Ceallaigh

It is well, however, always to put the situation with truth, to put the situation, as we know it, with truth, before the country, and if truth means gloom, well then the country had better have it. But I do think that we are going to be able, under God's providence, if we succeed in saving a good harvest, to pull through satisfactorily and have enough food for our people and enough feeding stuffs to support our animal population as well. I hope so. I think the prospects are good. On the question of prices, the Minister for Agriculture, in that same speech from which I have quoted, said again that there was an increase of 33? per cent. in the price of wheat compared with pre-war, and, granting that there was an increase in the cost of production of wheat, he said that he did not think it was 33? per cent. So that, even on the admission that there has been an increase in the cost of production— again, taking the figures from the Minister for Agriculture—that additional cost has been met in the guaranteed price that has been provided for the growers of wheat this year. We would all like—myself included—higher prices for the farmer for his produce. I should be very happy to be in the position of being able to agree with members of this House and of the Dáil when they ask for increased prices for agricultural produce. We are often reminded of the importance of the agricultural industry in the economy of this country. Its importance is second to none—that nobody can deny.

Peadar MacFhionnlaoich

An bhfuil na feirmeóirí ag tuilleadh airgid?

Seán T. O Ceallaigh

Creidim go bhfuil, ach ní aidhigeann siad é. If we could afford it, it would be good for the country as a whole, because the farmers generally are spenders—they do not hoard up a lot. Although they are thrifty people, they spend a good deal of money, and the whole economy of the country depends to a large extent on the success and prosperity of the farmers. Therefore we should like to see them well paid. But the Minister for Agriculture and the Government in this matter have pursued a middle course. The farmers want very much increased prices if they can get them, but we cannot afford to give them all that they demand, at any rate, and maybe it would not be right to give them all that they demand. But there are others, like Senator Crosbie, who want large sums of money spent in other directions. Senator Crosbie would like to have lower prices for foodstuffs; at any rate, he wants foodstuffs subsidised. Senator Baxter wants higher prices for the foodstuffs produced by the agriculturists. We have tried to find a via media, and of course that pleases neither side; it never will please the two sides. We have to try and balance one thing with another, to balance the position of our agriculturists, and what we think we can afford to give them with what the country can afford to pay, and strike as just a balance as we can. That, I think, we have done in this case, though I know there are farmers and farmers' organisations who will not accept it that the prices we have offered them are all they are entitled to.

I am sure I will not be expected to deal with the turf question, and the many aspects of it that were discussed. As Minister for Finance and a member of the Government, I have taken part in many discussions about turf, the production of turf, and the popularising of it. As to the science or art of turf cutting and turf manufacture, these are things with which I am not acquainted. I have had to burn turf. In that connection I was glad to hear the practical suggestions made by Senator The McGillycuddy. They struck me as useful practical suggestions. If I might respectfully suggest it to him, I think that if he embodied them in an article for the newspapers they would probably be of value.

The McGillycuddy

I suggest that they would come very much better from the Minister. An article in a newspaper is not very much good.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not know the subject, and I dare not speak on it, although we do not always confine our speeches to subjects on which we are authorities.

The McGillycuddy

The turf controller must be an authority on it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

The Senator evidently knows more than I do about that subject and, therefore, the information would be of more value coming from him than from me. Dealing with another matter that was discussed, namely, the question of light, I did happen to live in an all-electric house where electricity was used for lighting, heating, cooking, and everything else, and I know what it is to be left without any power for lighting, heating or cooking for two or three days. Although I am sure I would not be classed in the category of the poor people whom Senator Foran talked about who will have no firing, I mention that to show that I have some experience of what it is not to have sufficient heat in the house to boil a kettle of water or cook an egg.

Mr. Baxter

May be there was heat or a fire in a neighbour's house.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

There was not. We had no gas even. All those modern inventions are not all that they are advertised to be.

Sir John Keane

Hear, hear.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Senator Sir John Keane thoroughly approves of that. I was interested in the speech of Senator Crosbie. I had reason to discuss the question of the subsidisation of foodstuffs several times during the last year. The matter came up at different times for consideration and discussion. When I saw that the Senator had put a motion on the paper, I had a further examination made of the subject and had it gone into in even greater detail than before. Might I say that the Emergency Powers (No. 83) Order that was referred to did not arise out of the Budget, although it was mentioned in the Budget statement. It was prepared a considerable time before the Budget, but it was not put into operation until that time. It was referred to by me in my Budget statement and it came into operation on the day the Budget was introduced. Beyond that coincidence of time, it had no particular relation to the Budget.

Mr. Crosbie

The Budget statement was the first time the general public got to know of it and that was why I mentioned it.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes. Senator Crosbie brought it into the discussion and I think he suggested that the order was cited in justification of the need for the subsidisation of essential foodstuffs. However, the order is only one of the measures which the Government have deemed to be necessary in order to mitigate the effects of the economic emergency. It is not, therefore, some additional burden which has been imposed, but rather a measure designed to protect the community generally against the danger of rising costs. Rising wages followed by rising prices would in turn give rise to further wage claims, with the inevitable result of a continuous increase in the cost of living. Those of us whose minds go back to the last war realise what occurred then as a result of the continuous rise in cost, in wages, in profits and the collapse that occurred with disastrous effects, particularly to the poorer classes of the community, after that inflationary period had ceased to operate. Here the economic emergency springs from causes outside the control of the State, due as it is to the interference which war has caused with the normal flow of imports and exports, resulting in a curtailment of supplies of raw materials for our industries and consequent unemployment, and also in a rise in the prices of such commodities as can be imported.

Situated as this country is, and dependent as it is, for so many essential commodities on external sources, it is inevitable that the war will affect all members of the community, and that all will have to make sacrifices. No one can expect to retain his pre-war standard of living unimpaired and Government policy has been directed to an endeavour to spread the burden equitably over the community. I was interested to hear Senator Foran talk of certain classes who had unlimited means, and who would be in a position to provide themselves with all sorts of food and other essential commodities as against the poor, because they had unlimited means, while the poor, having no means, would go short. As Minister for Finance I have examined many classes and many cases, and I do not think there is any class in this community to-day that has what would be described as unlimited means. It is well for all Parties to remember that heavy sacrifices are being made by every class in the community to-day. With heavy taxation, the greater the income the greater in proportion is the sacrifice demanded by the State. It is correct to say that for those who are very poor, very little sacrifice puts them into the poverty line. What Senator Foran had in mind, maybe, was that the people he referred to, perhaps as a result of the war would never go hungry. Even on what are called wealthy people nowadays taxation is so heavy that there are not so many of them to go out of their way to purchase tea if it were offered to them, as is suggested, at 7/-, 8/- or 10/- per pound. The money generally speaking is not there, even for such a sought-after commodity as tea.

The Emergency Powers (No. 83) Order by its stabilisation of wages and restriction of profits, is one of the measures designed to prevent any section of the population from achieving immunity from the effects of the emergency at the expense of less fortunate citizens. No one would raise objection to wage increases provided that such increases occurred side by side with, and were proportionate to, increases in the productive output of the country. In other words, in the event of an increase in the national income as a consequence of increased production within the country, labour might equitably expect its due share of the national pool. The position is very different when there is a contraction in the volume of goods and services produced. In such circumstances it becomes necessary to ensure that those in secure or highly-protected employment should, in common with the rest of the community, suffer some reduction in real income. Any hardship involved will be infinitely less than that which falls upon those thrown out of employment in consequence of the war.

The increased cost of living has weighed heavily on the poorest sections of the community, such as the unemployed, the widows and orphans and the old age pensioners. To mitigate the effects of the rise in prices there will shortly be introduced a scheme of allowances in kind to recipients of unemployment assistance with dependents, old age pensioners, blind pensioners, dependent children of blind pensioners, widows and orphans under the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts, and recipients of disablement benefit under the National Health Insurance Acts. The scheme applies to residents in incorporated towns—i.e., towns with a defined boundary and in charge of a corporation, urban district council or town commissioners. The amount of the allowance in kind to be granted to or in respect of every eligible person will be as follows:—3½ pints of milk a week; ¼ lb. of butter a week; 2 lbs. of bread a week.

The cost of the scheme is estimated at £325,000 for the remainder of the financial year, beginning September 1, when the scheme, I hope, will come into operation. For a full year the cost is estimated at £535,000. The number of beneficiaries and their dependents who will be entitled to assistance under the scheme is estimated at 119,000 in the current financial year. If there should be an increase in unemployment the number of beneficiaries and their dependents will be correspondingly increased. Increases have also been granted in the rates of unemployment benefit payable in respect of dependents of insured contributors under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. The rate for an adult dependent has been increased from 5/- a week to 7/6, and for a dependent child from 1/- a week to 2/6. The cost of these increases to the Unemployment Fund is estimated at £92,000 for a full year.

Provision is being made also for a subvention towards meeting the cost of additional food which boards of assistance may grant to such of the necessitous poor as they may consider entitled to it. It will be seen, therefore, that the Government have been alive to the necessities of the poorest section of the community, and are taking such steps as financial considerations permit to compensate them for the rise in the cost of living. Further, the scheme of allowances in kind, by providing for fixed quantities of food each week, which are essential, will ensure that the additional assistance being granted will remain unaffected by any further rises in the cost of these commodities. That is a point I should like to stress, because there has been much discussion and criticism in the Dáil of the coupons, as they are called, for food. It was suggested by many speakers that money ought to be granted instead of tickets for food. The Government's desire was that food of the most nourishing kind should be made available to those people who are entitled to it under the scheme and not money. If food became scarce, it would be better for the people themselves to be certain that they would get that food; that they would have first claim on it, rather than have money which as far as buying nourishing food is concerned might be of no value.

Dr. Doyle

Am I to understand that these coupons will only apply to the cities and urban districts?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

Dr. Doyle

So that the rural districts are ruled out.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes. It may be advanced that by the subsidisation of essential foodstuffs the same relief would be afforded to the classes mentioned, and further that workers in receipt of relatively low rates of wages who are affected by the increase in the cost of living would also benefit. Subsidisation could not, however, be restricted so as to benefit particular sections of the community. The reduced prices which subsidisation would bring about would necessarily apply to the whole community. Moreover, it is doubtful if subsidisation would bring relief to any appreciable degree. I had a variety of articles of essential foodstuffs listed and examined and I got figures as to what the cost would be for subsidisation to a certain extent.

I did not include one item which the Senator mentioned, oatmeal, but in the final list which I made out, there were included bread, flour, fresh meat, bacon, butter, and milk. These were regarded by our people as essential foodstuffs. Probably they regarded tea as an essential foodstuff also, but, as we cannot get it to-day, I did not think of including it in any scheme of subsidisation. For these items, a subsidy of about £5,500,000 per year would be required to reduce the current prices as follows: bread by 1d. per 2lb. loaf; flour by 9d. per stone; fresh meat by 2d. per lb.; bacon by 2d. per lb.; butter by 2d. per lb.; and milk by 2d. per quart. That is the modest reduction in the prices of these articles by subsidisation, and, taking them all together, it would cost us £5,500,000 per year and that, as the Senator will agree, is a considerable sum.

Mr. Crosbie

May I ask whether the Minister estimated what it would cost to peg these items at their present prices?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

These are the present prices.

Mr. Crosbie

I thought the Minister's calculation was on the basis of a reduction of the present prices?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I took the prices of these commodities as they are in the market to-day. The price of bread would be reduced by 1d. per 2lb. loaf; flour by 9d. per stone; fresh meat by 2d. per lb.; bacon by 2d. per lb.; butter by 2d. per lb.; and milk by 2d. per quart; and to make these reductions would cost £5,500,000 per year, on the basis of subsidisation of everybody, because the difficulty of subsidisation is that you cannot select the people to be subsidised. If you reduce the price of these items by half these amounts, the cost would still be £2,750,000. If we leave out butter, on the basis that people could get margarine—and I am afraid that it will not always be available—and fresh meat, it would reduce the total sum by less than one-third. It is estimated that the subsidisation of foodstuffs on this basis would result in a fall in the cost of living index figure of 13 points, or 6 per cent. The price reductions would result in a reduction of 8.3 per cent. in the expenditure of poor persons, and to secure a reduction of even that small sum, to reduce the cost of living in respect of these items by 8.3 per cent. would cost £5,500,000.

It will be abundantly clear that the assumption of an additional burden of the magnitude indicated would necessitate drastically increased taxation on top of the additional taxation imposed by this year's Budget. It would be necessary to increase still further direct taxation, and in this connection it is perhaps not as fully appreciated as it should be that undue increases in the rates of taxes such as corporation profits tax and income-tax are likely to have most serious reactions on the provision of employment. Further, it would almost certainly be necessary to lower the existing income-tax exemption limits so as to render liable to income-tax wage earners heretofore exempt from liability to pay income-tax. It would be necessary also to increase indirect taxation, with consequential adverse effects on the very classes it is desired to benefit. If I came into the House with an additional 4d. or 6d. an ounce on tobacco and additional taxation on beer and spirits —the taxation on these items is high enough now, goodness knows, and they are the items from which we get the greater part of our customs revenue— imagine the reception my proposals would get! Imagine my facing the Dáil with enormous increases on these items from which we get the greater part of our customs revenue and which would have to be included! I think the House realises the extent and the weight of the taxation on these items at present.

It is, therefore, clear that the cost of the subsidies would have to be met to a great extent by those who would benefit by them. There is no magic formula which would allow foodstuffs or any other commodities to be subsidised, and yet not entail the imposition of burdens which would offset in large measure the benefits conferred. To meet the cost by borrowing would only aggravate the problem, as borrowing would merely tend to set up an inflationary movement which would in turn react on prices. Subsidies granted out of taxes are free from this complication. Borrowing, therefore, could not in the national interest be accepted by the Government as a sound method of financing a scheme for the subsidisation of foodstuffs.

That the subsidisation of foodstuffs is advocated seems to indicate that Senator Crosbie is satisfied that the existing price level of the essential foodstuffs which would be selected for subsidy is reasonable, having regard to the cost of production. But subsidisation, unless directed to stabilising prices at fixed levels, would not protect the consumer against further increases in the cost of these foodstuffs, which might arise if, as a result of increased taxation or other circumstances, the cost of production increased; also if stabilisation of prices of essential foodstuffs at particular levels were aimed at, any increase in production costs would entail a corresponding increase of the subsidy and a consequent further increase in taxation, which, as already pointed out, would react adversely on production and employment.

Senator Crosbie reminded us that subsidisation has been introduced in Great Britain in regard to certain foodstuffs, but conditions there are different from those prevailing here. They are so different from the viewpoint of supply of essential foodstuffs that British experience can only be taken to a very limited extent as a guide to policy here. This country is likely to be faced with the problem of considerable unemployment and a surplus of certain foodstuffs normally exported, whereas in Great Britain there is likely to be a shortage of manpower and foodstuffs. Furthermore, it is a remarkable fact that notwithstanding the subsidies on foodstuffs in the United Kingdom the percentage increase in the retail price of food between August, 1939, and May, 1941, amounted to 24 per cent. as compared with an increase of 25 per cent. in this country.

The Government have adopted the policy of allowances in kind to the unemployed and to other necessitous members of the community, as being the limit of provision for easing the burden of increased prices that financial considerations permit. Further arrangements are being made for the establishment of communal feeding centres in the county boroughs and for their operation, should the need for them arise. These measures will help to tide over for the period of the emergency the necessitous members of the community and will have the solid advantage that the benefit of them will be restricted to the sections of the community which need them most. The benefits conferred by a costly system of subsidisation, on the other hand, would apply equally to the well-to-do as to the poorer consumers and, as already pointed out, could be secured only by means which would be likely to have adverse consequences on all sections of the population.

The subject of subsidisation has been mentioned to me so often, and people have urged it with such enthusiasm, that I was pleased when Senator Crosbie put down his motion because it gave me an opportunity of going fully into the matter. It had been considered, as I said, more than once last year by the Government, and particularly in connection with the Budget and what is called the Standstill Order. Weighing all the arguments for and against, considering the circumstances of this country and comparing them with those of other countries like Great Britain, where subsidisation has been in practice, we were forced to the conclusion that subsidisation would not be a wise method to meet the urgent and serious problem we are up against.

There are many items to which I should like to refer. Senator Cú Uladh talked interestingly and at some length on the question of forestry. Like him, I read, admired and believed in the programme which Arthur Griffith used to lay before us with regard to forestry, as well as to a number of other matters.

I still have my interest in that matter, but I have to meet the situation now with a certain amount of responsibility, and I have to provide the money for dealing with it. In the case of forestry, as in the case of many other things, we are not able to provide all the money we should like. Forestry has to take its place in the line, and it has to take what can be spared for that interesting and much-desired development. It would have been of the greatest possible advantage to us now if we had had three or four times the amount of afforested land that we have. The last Government, probably for the reasons which I have given in our case, found difficulty in dealing adequately with the problem. We have considerably increased the amount of money provided, but I know it is not enough to satisfy many people who are interested in the development of forests. I am afraid, however, that we shall have to rest content, for the time being, with that amount.

In reply to Senator Hayes, I have not got an estimate made of the cost of a national register. Perhaps when I attend again in this House, I may be able to give some information on that matter. Senator Johnston was interested in petrol supplies. I am afraid he will have to address himself to the Minister for Supplies on that subject. It is not a matter on which I am able to give him or the House any reliable information. Senator Hawkins and Senator Madden made useful suggestions, which I shall have conveyed to the Departments concerned.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take the Committee Stage now.

Bill passed through Committee, and reported without recommendation.

Agreed to take the Report Stage now.

Bill received for final consideration.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be returned to the Dáil."

Mr. Crosbie

Is the Minister in a position to give the House any information as to the mishandling of our railways by the people responsible, and does he intend to take any steps to put the gentlemen concerned on trial for the situation they have permitted to arise?

Mr. M. Hayes

I raised a specific question this evening with regard to the position of certain people in this city who are not customers of either the Gas Company or the Electricity Supply Board. We had answers to various questions by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. I said this evening that, if gloomy statements were ever made here, the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary was gloomiest of all. There are two ways of looking at a gloomy statement. From the point of view of the Minister for Finance, if a member of the Opposition makes a gloomy statement he is a pessimist and engaged in anti-national activities. From the point of view of the Minister for Finance if a Parliamentary Secretary, or a Minister, makes a gloomy statement he is telling the grim, naked truth and doing good work.

The Parliamentary Secretary was very emphatic and elaborate on certain definitions of revolution which had nothing whatever to do with the debate. He gave us some accurate information but no consolation. In the debate on turf production on the 3rd April, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that we should require 5,000,000 tons of turf to make up for the 2,500,000 tons of coal which were our normal import. The Parliamentary Secretary made clear this evening that, whatever plans there may be for next year, this year he is only sure of 1,500,000 tons of turf and the most at which he can hazard a guess is 2,000,000 tons. So that, in spite of the fact that the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that there was a long range policy which would bear fruit this winter, our position now is—whatever may be the case next year—that we have less than half the amount of turf we require.

On the occasion of the debate in April, I asked whether transport could be assured to get this turf to Dublin and other centres. The Minister for Industry and Commerce in easy, debonair fashion said: "Let us get the turf and the transport will be comparatively simple.". The Parliamentary Secretary, in the course of his gloomy speech this evening, made quite clear, as I understood him, that we could have no hope of transport of turf from the areas where it has been cut to the City of Dublin. He suggested that, next year, the people would have to be brought from the areas where they normally cut turf to the areas contiguous to the cities and towns where turf exists. For this year, he gave us no hope. He told city dwellers that they belonged to a wealthy society which should have made some effort to supply itself with turf. Nobody reading what the Minister for Industry and Commerce said last April—it was most consolatory; it was glowing; it was promising—could have conceived that we would have any difficulty in this regard but, so far as we can see at the moment, a great many people in the city will have neither light nor fuel during the coming winter.

The Parliamentary Secretary made no comment on the question of distribution or the question of storage. All I have to say is that if that is the situation, it is a very serious one. It is one which no person can regard with equanimity and one which may have very grave consequences, indeed. If there were any scheme, as I said this evening, for supplying these people with fuel, apart from light, we could all participate in the operation of it. We heard nothing from the Parliamentary Secretary regarding that except the statement that this was a rich community which could have supplied itself with fuel and which did not do so. That is a lamentable state of affairs.

Mr. Baxter

The Minister made reference to my statement with regard to the area under tillage. I inferred from what he said—I should like to be corrected if I am wrong—that, in his view, with harvest prospects as they are, we shall have enough food from our own fields for our human and animal population to scrape through. What I want to ascertain is whether that is the Government view based on information they got or whether it is merely the Minister's view here this evening gathered from the statement made by the Minister for Agriculture. This is a matter of very grave import, because my opinion is—and I have stressed it at some length—that we ought not to feed to animals food which is essential for our human population, only to find later perhaps that there is not sufficient food available for our human population. That is something that should be examined immediately. We ought to have some approximate calculation of the food units we are going to get from our fields, and measure these against the needs of our human population and the animals we have in the country. There should be no guess work about that. Otherwise it may precipitate a very grave situation. This is a matter that should be dealt with at least this side of Christmas. If the view which the Minister has expressed is his own opinion, it is one thing; it is another matter if it is something which is based on a statistical examination of the facts.

I should like to deal with other points made by Senators when they came to deal with what I said previously, or what I was purported to have said, but perhaps it is not necessary to go into all these matters at this late hour. I should like particularly to deal with one point. Without mentioning my name, Senator Buckley spoke on the question of utilising the Army for turf production. May I point out that what I said was that it was well worth while examining the possibility of putting men who are serving in the Army on this job? I did not put it forward as a policy that should be definitely adopted at once, but as something that should be examined.

The Minister has given the House a long statement with regard to the difficulties of subsidising the purchase of food in this country. As I listened to him I was struck by the close resemblance his statement had to a statement made by the acting-editor of the Economist over the radio recently. He adopted the same line of argument— the danger of inflation, increasing prices, etc. I hold that in order to get food the Ministry will have to take steps to encourage the production of food and to encourage the farmer to put that food on the market. Senator Kehoe here to-night raised a point about the danger of permitting our dairy stock to be freely exported.

That is one aspect of this problem of subsidising food prices. Probably Senator Kehoe knows as well as I do that to-day farmers are selling cows in the market from £20 to £25, but if the ports were open to-morrow, these cows would be worth from £60 to £65 in English pounds. I prophesy that by Christmas they will be going £70 per cow. In this connection the decrease in our cattle population in recent years is worthy of note. We have 8,000 fewer cows and heifers-in-calf this year than last year. That is one type of stock in which there has been a drop in numbers despite the fact that we have not been exporting such stock recently. Had the market been open, considering that milk is only fetching sixpence per gallon, you can imagine the level to which the cow population of this country would have fallen. Cattle would be bought freely up to £60 per cow. I am just wondering where we are going to get milk for the poor in our towns if that should happen. You may then be forced into a policy of subsidising the purchase of food, however much you may dislike it.

I would urge on the Minister that it would be very unwise to rely too much on the argument of inflation, because while we are sending goods out of the country, to some extent prices inside must be related to the external value that is put on such commodities. I realise that it is rather difficult for the Minister to answer the questions which I have put in regard to the available supplies of food. It may be outside the purview of Ministerial policy but it is vital to our existence in the year 1942. Unless a survey be made of the food that is available so that we can be certain that we shall have sufficient food for our people and that we shall keep here only stock for which we are likely to have sufficient foodstuffs, we shall be confronted with a situation the gravity of which none of us can at the moment realise.

Mr. Quirke

I do not think the House was quite fair to the Parliamentary Secretary. So far as anybody could gather from his speech, I think he was very definite about one thing. That was that any figures that he or anybody else could produce at present in regard to turf production could only be regarded as approximate figures. Anybody who has gone through the country—as I am sure Senator Hayes has—and who has seen turf being cut here and there, will agree that it is practically impossible for anybody to estimate with any reasonable accuracy whether a particular area was producing 100 tons or 1,000 tons. It is hard even for the average person to make a reasonable guess.

With regard to the gloomy picture which the Senator said was painted by the Parliamentary Secretary, I do not think it was quite right to interpret his statement in that way. He certainly explained as best he could, and made a very good job of it in my opinion, the position in which we would find ourselves if imports of coal were completely stopped. He explained the gigantic difficulty which would confront a city like Dublin in such circumstances. We can, however, I think, look forward to some imports of coal and even though our production of turf may not be sufficient entirely to replace our former imports of coal, we shall still be very far from the position visualised by Senator Hayes.

Mr. M. Hayes

There are, of course, some stocks of coal in the city. That is a favourable factor.

Mr. Quirke

There are, and there are also very considerable stocks of turf in the city. With regard to the question of transport, even to-day a shipload of turf arrived in the city. Turf has been stored for the last couple of months to meet a real emergency, and while I do not want to create any feeling of undue optimism—it would be very foolish to do so—I do say that if we can only economise to some extent, we shall get through all right. Perhaps I should not say so, but many of us have learned to economise since this war started. I know that as far as my own home is concerned, at any rate, we have learned to get along with little more than half of what we normally required. If everybody does his best to cut down consumption we shall get through all right.

Mr. M. Hayes

There is a class in Dublin who cannot do that.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I have very little further to say on this Bill. I can only repeat, in reply to Senator Baxter, that I am not an expert on agriculture. I cannot speak dogmatically on the subject and I think he will have to address his questions in detail to the Minister for Agriculture. I am going on the speeches which I heard from the Minister for Agriculture, and I quoted certain sentences from his last speech in regard to our production here.

Mr. Baxter

I am satisfied with that.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not claim any more authority than that. With regard to Senator Hayes's comment on the Parliamentary Secretary, if the Parliamentary Secretary said that there was no hope of transport to bring turf to Dublin, then I think he misrepresented himself. I do not think he said that. As a matter of fact, turf has been coming into Dublin by the hundreds of tons every day for the last month.

Mr. Baxter

Being stored?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes. All available methods of transport are being used to the fullest extent. Senator Quirke probably knows more about it, and he said that has been operating for the last two months. I do know, however, that hundreds of tons are being brought in, and it is not true to say that there is no hope of transport to bring turf to Dublin.

Question put and agreed to.