Some of my colleagues feel that as it is not possible for the Taoiseach to be here, this motion should be adjourned until it is convenient for him to attend. However, as it is on the Order Paper so long, I think we should carry on the discussion and, if the course meets with the approval of the House, that we should adjourn before we complete the discussion, in order to hear the Taoiseach's opinion at his convenience. If that meets the wishes of the House, I would be prepared to continue now.
Election of Panel Members—Motion to appoint Select Committee.
The Chair can give no guarantee that the Taoiseach may wish to express an opinion at a later stage of this motion. The Senator should understand that clearly.
It would be well that Senator Counihan should understand the position, as perhaps he did not hear what has just been said. It would be contrary to the procedure here to do what he suggests. He should either move the motion in the ordinary way or postpone it.
I move:—
That a Select Committee, consisting of nine members, to be nominated by the Committee of Selection, be appointed to consider the method of election of the forty-three panel members of Seanad Eireann, and to make recommendations as to any legislative changes they consider necessary in the present system;
That the quorum of the Committee be five.
I am sure we all regret that it is not possible for the Taoiseach to be here, as we are all anxious to hear his views on the present system of nominating and electing the panel members of the Seanad, particularly as many of us believe that the whole plan was, strictly speaking, his own creation. I know it is a difficult job to produce a plan which would give complete satisfaction to everybody. Many plans have been tried out since 1922, and none of them seemed to give complete satisfaction. First of all, we had 30 members nominated by the then President of the State and 30 nominated and elected by the Dáil. Of the 30 members nominated by the President, 15 were elected to hold office for 12 years and the remaining 15 for six years. Of the 30 members elected by the Dáil, 15 held office for nine and the other 15 for three years. We then had Senators elected by a special register of the people of the Twenty-Six Counties, which was to be the permanent form of election; but that plan proved so unsatisfactory that it was abandoned after one trial. The next plan was one whereby members were elected by the Dáil and Seanad. Now we have the fourth plan, which everyone knows about.
I think it was agreed generally that the first plan produced the most representative Seanad, and that the second plan proved too expensive and most unsatisfactory; I think it was admitted that the third plan was the most acceptable, while the present plan, most people admit, is the worst of all. It has pleased nobody. Even the Taoiseach himself is, I believe, disappointed in its results. Many people complain that the Seanad, as at present constituted, is only a replica of the Dáil, that the panels are a failure, that the nominations and elections are too much on party lines, that a candidate not taken up by some political party has as much chance of being elected as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle.
I believe that a Select Committee of the Seanad could devise a plan to rectify those faults in the present system. We are all anxious to have the most representative people in the different vocations elected to their respective panels. The form of election does not matter so much as the selection and nomination of the candidates. I am perfectly convinced that some form of selection board, to examine the qualifications of the candidates for the different panels, should be set up. I am sure that every responsible member of any political Party would be glad to be relieved of the responsibility of nominating Senators.
I am only concerned with the panel members and I am interested particularly in the agricultural panel. I should like to say that I have no fault to find with the personnel of that panel. My complaint is that they are indifferent to matters vital to the best interests of agriculture. I have tried on two or three occasions to get members of that panel to meet to discuss important agricultural problems, but I could not on any occasion get more than three or four members to attend the meeting. The majority of the members have no independence and are too subservient to the wishes of the Government. It is a matter which we should try to rectify and something should be done to make Senators more independent of the Government of the day.
The best Senators are independent of the Government of the day.
On one side of the House.
The best side, obviously.
But they are not the majority. I think that object could best be achieved by having all Senators elected for a definite number of years except the 11 nominated by the Taoiseach. I think that those should go out at a general election. I do not want to discuss now any plan for nominating and electing the Seanad as I think it is better that that question should be left to the Select Committee which the motion proposes to set up. We have still in this House many members who were elected to the first Seanad and who have been elected by the forms of election which have been adopted since then. I am sure, from their experience, these Senators are as well qualified to devise a plan for electing a Seanad as any commission which could be set up. In any case the recommendations of the committee which I suggest would be useful to the Government in considering the report of the Vocational Commission or any other plan for electing a new Seanad, for I am convinced that there is going to be some alteration in the present method of selection or election of members of the Seanad before the next Seanad is appointed. For that reason, we should try to put our own house in order and get members to say what we think should be the best form of nominating and electing Senators.
I formally second the motion.
Might I ask the mover of the motion a question? What is his justification for saying that the Taoiseach is himself responsible for the system of election outlined in the Constitution, the system under which the present Seanad was elected?
The motion is now in order to be debated.
Would the Senator answer the question?
The Senator may reply when he is concluding.
I should like to congratulate Senator Counihan in getting off so lightly after making such an attack on the House in general. I think it was completely uncalled for.
He has not got off yet.
I have always been an optimist, and I hope somebody will tell the Senator what he thinks of this attack which was directed not so much against this side of the House as against the other. I think the other side of the House will resent his statement. The suggestion that the third plan pleased nobody is, I think, an uncalled for statement to make. I think that any system which would be put forward would have its faults, but, generally speaking, I think that this House is as representative as any House which could be got under any other system. It may have its weaknesses here and there, but its good points far outweigh its bad ones. With regard to the various difficulties which Senator Counihan suggested he experienced in getting the various groups or panels to meet, so far as I remember any time the agricultural panel was called together, I think there was a reasonably good attendance. We discussed various matters from time to time, and on every occasion there was a reasonably good attendance, and a very lively discussion on the matters which came up for consideration. With regard to the motion itself, I am opposed to it for various reasons, in fact for several reasons which I had not thought of until Senator Counihan spoke.
The critical part of the Bill to regulate Seanad Elections is the provision it makes with respect to nominations. In the Act of 1937, that responsibility is divided between the nominating bodies and the members of Dáil Eireann, although in each case the candidate must have the qualifications required by the Constitution and by law. It would require a convincing argument to satisfy me——
Might I ask from what document is the Senator reading?
It is a typewritten document. I regard the subject as of sufficient importance to read my speech.
I thought the Senator was quoting from some document.
It is an ordinary typewritten document. It would require a convincing argument to satisfy me that the division of responsibility for nominations was not a wise one. It might not be desirable that the Dáil should have the power to nominate the entire panel membership, and the same remarks apply equally to the nominating bodies although the candidates nominated may have all the qualifications required. There is room for more than one opinion as to the qualities, apart from qualifications, which make a good member of the Seanad.
The obvious defect in Senator Counihan's proposal is the fact that the committee, if constituted, would have no powers. How are they going to take evidence? They cannot insist on the attendance of witnesses, and any decisions they might come to would represent merely the opinions of such persons as would choose to give evidence. Before departing from the existing system for giving effect to the Constitution, it is reasonable to expect that there should be clear evidence that the system has failed by reason of inherent defects. This Select Committee is not in the nature of a commission of inquiry. It is merely to consider the method of election. That presumably does not mean alternative methods of election; there have been many alternatives suggested from time to time—all of them with very obvious defects. Before the committee can prove that legislative changes are necessary, they surely must have evidence on which to arrive at a conclusion that a change is necessary. How is it proposed that the committee should proceed to get the basis for a recommendation for legislative changes? What that evidence is cannot be forecasted. The Seanad has no voice in its constitution, since it was not in being at the passing of the Act. Possibly it may be advanced that the arrangement whereby the Dáil nominates persons on sub-panels should be of a transitional nature and that the time has come to recast that portion of the Act. Direct representation by representative functional or organisational bodies was contemplated, but I think was abandoned.
In the Second Reading speech the Taoiseach stated as follows:—
"If we should become organised in that way in the future there is no provision in the Constitution so that a measure such as we are now proposing could be amended to allow representative functional or organisational bodies when formed to elect their members directly on to the Seanad and reduce by a corresponding number those elected on the panel system. We are not organised in that way and in the main, I think, there are no statutory bodies to which we could hand over the power and the right to elect members directly on the Seanad. Consequently, we have to try to get this functional Seanad by an indirect method," etc.
The conditions have not since changed except to the extent that in the meantime a Commission on Vocational Organisation has been set up. Until the commission has presented a report it would be wrong to set up any commission to attempt to effect changes in the constitution of the Seanad. It is, therefore, entirely premature to suggest that the system of the constitution of the Seanad as laid down in the Act of 1937 should be recast.
The document which was read by Senator Quirke, and which he read so quickly that I could never quite get its full import, sounds to me very much like a document which would be prepared by a civil servant. I do not really mind that, but I think we should have been told what view it represented. In the absence of that, I will give you my own point of view. I think this talk about vocational representation in this country has been extraordinarily misunderstood and garbled in every way, and I think that one of the worst things introducing that effect has been the constitution of the Seanad. What I understand by a desirable form of vocational body is this—and such a form of body has a certain recommendation to us from very important documents emanating from the Pope—in Quadragessimo Anno there is very definite reference implying approval of something in the form of a vocational council. Senators will remember that the Pope then goes on to point out, with regard to an individual case, what seems to me to be definite disapproval. He says that many people think that the form he had referred to was considered as a further aggrandisement of the State, further State imperialism, extending beyond the proper sphere of parliamentary government. My idea is that it would be a good thing to have a vocational council, but I cannot think of a vocational council as otherwise than bad if it is the direct imposition by the Government on society of that council.
Various very important documents have indicated that under the State there should be associations related to vocational activities or the productive activities of the people. It has been indicated that these organisations should, themselves, be representative of two types, namely, the workers and the employers. In that regard we see that our trade unions as we have them here are not the type of vocational organisation that we would aspire to. If you had every productive activity in this country organised within itself— organisations of workers such as trade unions and organisations of employers —we would still not have reached the point where we would have the means for producing a proper vocational council, because as between workers and employers there should be a corporation which would be representative of both of them, and it should be from such a body that the representation should come.
Another thing that seems to me to be important is that if you have a certain number of productive activities in the country so organised, but not all of them, the country is still not ready for what I conceive to be an appropriate vocational council. One of the recommendations of such a vocational council is that during a period of historical movement the tendency has always been in the one direction, a most undesirable direction, and that is of the State constantly enlarging its sphere of activity and constantly encroaching into realms which are not its business.
And likely to continue increasing.
That is a doctrine of despair as far as I am concerned. I am not contesting the prophecy of the Senator, but to me it is a very gloomy prophecy, because it prophesies something more evil than the present situation, and I think it is my duty to try to hinder it as far as my weak words can.
You are a prophet of despair yourself.
I am not pretending to be optimistic. If you had all the bodies in this country, representative of workers and employers in corporations, each corporation acting to settle its own affairs, and if you had this central corporation in which all these bodies were represented, you would have representatives covering the whole of the productive or economic activity of the people, and, to my mind, only when you have it in that complete form would that body really be desirable, because the proposal generally advocated is that in all relations to vocational activity, both inside the corporations and between them, the government altogether should be regulated by the council of the corporation. I will give you a crude illustration. Suppose, in the making of motor cars, the production of wheat, and the making of tables, you have corporations. In the individual corporation relating to the making of tables the workers might come along and say: "We want X pence per week," and the employers might say: "We will give it to you, but we will charge extra for the table." That has been largely the history of the 19th century. First of all, you have the hard-fisted capitalists grinding the workers, and then you have the workers, realising their power in organisations, putting pressure on the employers, and then, when the employers saw the power they had, they made a deal with them and said: "Yes, we will increase wages, but we are not going to lose; we are going to put it on the consumer."
It seems to me that that movement was feasible in so far as those industries capable of rationalisation were concerned, but in the case of agriculture where a man has to co-operate with nature, you had a totally different situation, and my reading of it has been that the whole course of development has been in favour of industrial labour and town workers, and has left agriculture out of it. For instance, if a manufacturer of shoes finds that shoes are being produced at such a rate that the market is overcrowded and tends to depress the price so that he cannot make such profit as he desires, then all he has to do is to turn the key in the factory, and say: "We will reopen on the 5th November next." In the case of the farmer producing wheat in Canada, who finds that his crop is going to be exceptionally great, he cannot say to the grain: "Stop growing until the 5th November." He has to let the grain go on, and when the grain grows, if he has a particularly large crop, say 100 barrels, where normally he had 50, then he would not get the price even of 50, so that you had a situation in Canada of men burning wheat, because the greater quantity of wheat, when it was available, would not yield the price of the lesser quantity when the greater quantity was not available.
I remember at the time we had nice, pious, moral people in the world saying what an appalling situation it was that they should be burning coffee in Brazil and feeding wheat to the railway engines in Canada. Not being one of those sentimental, well-meaning people, I felt that if I were a farmer in Canada I would reply that I had given my labour for 12 months, and put the savings of years in the land to produce this crop of wheat, and it was now proposed to me that far from receiving payment for all my labour, the net result of my year's work should be that I had decreased the amount of the savings I had accumulated. I might have said: "I am ready to meet you. I am ready to give my wheat for nothing, provided that the men who are going to load it into the elevators, the men who are going to load it into the trains, the men driving the trains, the men putting it on the ships, the men driving the ships, the men going to unload the ships, and the shop boys behind the counter are all prepared to work on the same terms as I am."
Of course, a proposition such as that would not have had any wide response at all. It seemed to me that the farmer in Canada burning his wheat, and the coffee producer in Brazil burning his coffee, were actually people acting in the same way as a striker or a locker-out. In a strike in a boot factory, the men making the boots want to get a bigger profit from it, and so they cease making the boots. In the case of the farmer, the whole production has to go on. As far as the boots were concerned, they were simply murdered before birth, but the farmer had to let the crop grow to fruition and destroy it afterwards. In the case of the boots, the crop was destroyed in the negative way by not allowing it to come into being.
I come back to my idea of the council. If you had every activity in the country represented you would, first of all, in the corporation have discussions between the employing side and the workers' side as to what was fair wages. In considering what was fair wages only in relation to this affair, they could fix it at any price they liked provided they were able to get that price out of the public to cover their profits. It seems to me that when you would have all organised, the council or corporation, in fulfilment of the functions and exercise of the powers residing in it, could operate in such a way that the motor-car producer would say he wanted so much money, or so many barrels of wheat, for his motor car, but the agricultural people would say: "What you are proposing is that men who have the good fortune to be employed in the service covered by your corporation by working one hour, shall have the right of buying, as the fruit of their labour, the produce of seven hours of men working on the land, and that is against justice." I do not know whether I am conveying what I have in mind that when you have a corporation representative of every section of the community, within itself there can be that discussion and decision as to what is a proper ratio between bushels of wheat, a mahogany table and a motor car. But, if you only have a section of the community organised, and you have the carpenters and the plumbers and the motor-car makers and so on in the corporation, and if they are going to have the power that is appropriate to a council or corporation in fixing what they consider to be justice, they would be in a position to enforce gross injustice on those others who were not so organised and represented.
As I mentioned on other occasions, to look on this as a vocational council, and to have representatives of labour, per se, in it was perfectly ridiculous. Everybody here, if he is representing any vocation whatever, is representing labour, and the representation of labour, without representation of manufacturers and others, is in itself one sided, and any power so granted is calculated to produce, not justice, but injustice. Now, I will come to my idea about a vocational council. First of all, it should have nothing whatever to do with anything which is a specifically legal decision in regard to government—nothing whatever. In this so-called vocational council, every Bill which goes before the Dáil has to come to us for consideration. As a matter of fact, if we were a vocational council, we would have nothing whatever to do with anything that is appropriately called political in the country, but we have.
Secondly, as far as Government and the political legislature are concerned, it should have nothing whatever to do with the economic activity of the country, and we know that the Dáil has quite a lot to do with it. In creating the Seanad in its present form we have merely tended to confuse people's minds. There is nothing vocational about us—we know that perfectly well—and if we were vocational, it would be disastrous. Did you ever know anything so absurd as having as a nominating body some town tenants' association I have never heard of? I am not sure that being a town tenant makes one a representative of any particular organisation, and I cannot see why town tenants should have any say whatever, except as part of a larger body, in nominating anybody to the Seanad. We are not a vocational body. If we were, we would be harmful, unless we were so organised as to be completely representative of every vocational organisation in the country. We should have total control over the vocational activities of the country to the total exclusion of the Dáil or the Government, except in this regard, that when you want to get economic equilibrium of justice where, for instance, the manufacturers of motor cars and the representatives of agriculture failed to come to agreement as to what ratio there was between bushels of wheat and motor cars.
Then the vocational body should appeal to the juridical entity of the State, and the State, that is, the political Government, as a juridical entity, judging between the rival claims of the two organisations, should exercise this function to decide. That seems to me to be the position adverted to by enlightened people who have seen in the creation of vocational organisations a means of improvement of the economic position of the world. One of the good purposes of it, particularly in so far as it had religious advocacy in Rome, is to take away the activities from the Government which Governments have arrogantly allocated to themselves. As a matter of fact, we are a part of the political Government of this country and our function is that of the ordinary Second House. What I would like is this: I do not see that you can have a proper vocational council, a vocational council that is otherwise than misleading and a probable machine for injustice, unless the society, or the people in Ireland itself, out of itself, organises itself into corporations, and when that is done the State will agree to pass over to a council of such bodies as are contemplated, all those economic activities that the Government has so wantonly, arrogantly and, as I may say, imperialistically, taken to itself. I do not see at the moment that we can hope for any immediate vote to have a desirable vocational council. It should come from among the people. If you look at Quadragesimo Anno, you will see that where it was arbitrarily imposed by the political Government there was a very definite indication of disapproval of that action. Nevertheless, I can see that although it might in more perfect conditions be non-permissible and undesirable, the Government might consider how best it would encourage the promotion, within society itself, of such corporations. Now, as far as the Legislature of this country is concerned, I have always thought that it was desirable to have two Houses in relation to the political government of this country.
I think it was Senator Quirke who said that there was no good in asking for too much perfection from anybody, and there I am at one with him. It may be remembered that, when there was a proposal to abolish the Seanad as it then was, all the faults and blemishes of the then existing Seanad were pointed out. Then we were told in the Dáil that, if anybody could get up and propose a system which would produce a perfect Second House, there was nobody more ready to accept it than the then Government. Just note the false arguments in that. The first question was: is a Second House desirable or not? The action that was proposed to be taken was the abolition of the Second House and the retaining merely of a Single Chamber Government. The question for the people to decide was: is it better to have a Single Chamber Government than a Double Chamber Government, and will the condition which will result from the Act now being brought forward be an improvement, that is to say, will a Single Chamber Government consisting of the Dáil only be an improvement on a Double Chamber Government consisting of the Dáil and the Seanad then existing? I quite agree that we cannot expect a perfect Seanad.
What I have been leading up to is this: first of all, if we are to consider how the Seanad should be elected, I want to see to it that this ridiculous red herring of alleged, bastard vocationalism will not be used as a weapon —as was done with regard to the present Seanad—to propose a system far from being approximately the best but more approximately the worst, as I think was the case with this Seanad. I myself would be quite ready to say: "Let the Taoiseach himself nominate a second body, provided the second body will be what we are, that is to say, a body with legislative functions in the purely political sphere and not in the purely vocational sphere." Senator Counihan has proposed that a Select Committee of nine members be appointed. I do not know whether or not I want that done, because going around this country and talking to the people I find that the whole idea is that vocationalism has something to do with the Seanad, and that somehow or other the Government was calling particular representatives, corporations, county councils and so on, to elect a vocational council. Let it be recognised that we are either going to be a political legislative House, a Second Chamber, or there is going to be a council of corporations.
If the idea is a council of corporations, I do not even believe as many people do in trying to reach it gradually through the means of a legislative House. We should not have proposed to have a vocational legislative body until the total organisation and the total functioning of vocational councils is and has been for some time operative in this country. Consequently, when people get up and talk about this as a panel of representatives, I take no notice whatever of it. Is not that just as well? Do we want to stress it? I figure on the administrative panel, and, when it comes to putting down qualifications on paper, I think I will show as good a qualification of experience in administration as any member of this House, so when I speak on this matter I have no fear that I am living in a glasshouse. There is another panel, misnamed the cultural panel. If anybody came into this House and listened over a sufficiently long period to hear every Senator speak, I wonder would he be able automatically to pick out those who are on the cultural panel? It does not matter a bit, because the thing was complete humbug, but for Heaven's sake let us get away from humbug.
We are now an ordinary Second House of a political Legislature. Let us bear that in mind. I remember at one time down in a certain constituency an old man was speaking to me about the elections there. This was long before the Treaty. At that time there was no proportional representation, so the constituencies were much smaller. There was no universal suffrage, so a less wide section of the community voted. The consequence was that the total number of voters there was about 2,000. I see Senator Goulding looking at me; I imagine he must think that I am referring to his own neighbourhood. On that occasion it was pointed out to me that, with a couple of thousand voters, it would be a simple thing to give a couple of "bob" for a drink to practically every voter. One of the things that can be said about proportional representation is that it has made it pretty well impossible for anyone to be able effectively to bribe the number of voters operating in his individual election. How many were required to elect a member to this Seanad? I am not saying that the elections were not held perfectly properly; temptation, I admit, does not make a sinner. But it does seem to me to be a system which would certainly not be watertight against forms of corruption.
What I really got up here to say was that I am afraid of a committee being formed consisting of people with all sorts of ideas about vocational bodies and about the Pope himself having approved of vocationalism. For Heaven's sake, if we are going to have a committee, let them knock vocationalism out of their minds right away, because before you can do anything you must have a total reorganisation of the whole productive activity of the people and a reorganisation of the people so occupied. I myself will certainly argue and put up any fight I can against any proposal to create a vocational council until the vocational activity of the people of this country is totally organised in corporations, and is functioning so long that it will be capable of producing representatives to form a really vocational body here. That is the reason I have taken up the time of the House, because time and again since this humbug about a vocational Seanad was put up here I have heard ridiculous and ill-conditioned remarks. Even when I said that, in a vocational council, nothing would be more absurd than to have representatives of Labour, per se, I heard the very hair bristling at the napes of the necks of my Labour colleagues behind me. I was not arguing against their being here, but I certainly think that to have representatives of Labour, per se, in a vocational council controlling the whole economic activities of the country would be disastrous.
I am not altogether sure that I am glad I gave way to the previous speaker, not because I would have wished for the world to have prevented the House from getting the benefit of his extremely interesting address on vocationalism, but because it does not make it particularly easy to follow on the specific matter of the motion moved by Senator Counihan. As far as the more learned part of Senator Fitzgerald's address is concerned, I think it was extremely interesting, and will probably be even more elaborated when we receive the promised report from the Commission on Vocational Organisation in this country. As far as the second part was concerned—I think it was not quite so learned—in which he came down more or less to the motion, I am in complete agreement with him. The only surprise I got was to find that there is one member of this House who considers it necessary to explain at considerable length that this is not a vocational Seanad. It seems to me very obvious. Frankly I do not know anyone to-day who pretends that we have a vocational Seanad. The reasons why it is impractical and impossible are probably very much those suggested by the Senator himself.
The fact that we have not got sufficient vocational organisation to permit of the election of a vocational council, apart from the question whether that vocational council should be a Second Chamber of the Legislature or not, does not affect the contention that it might be highly desirable, even within the present Constitution, to consider whether some improvements could not be made in the composition of the Second Chamber which, in my opinion, will have to be a political body for many a long day. It will have to deal with 90 per cent. of its problems on political lines, because they will be problems that will affect the political life of the country. If he considers the two principal speeches we have heard to-day, I think that Senator Counihan will be convinced that, however good his idea, it would at present achieve no useful purpose. When Senator Quirke reads his speech—I have not the slightest objection to his doing so—one believes that it has more inspiration than when he delivers a speech which is not written. I, therefore, gather that Senator Quirke's speech represents the general attitude which would be adopted by half of this House. If that be so, what use would there be in appointing a committee of nine, as suggested by Senator Counihan? It is quite obvious that we have not reached a stage at which we could sit down to consider this question with some hope that, if we did agree on some scheme, action would be taken. If the members of the committee did not believe that, it would be very difficult to get them to devote their minds to the problem. If you add to that the general attitude of Senator Quirke and those who generally act with him and Senator Counihan's own complaint, that too many members of this House are not free to act and vote as they might think right, it would be futile to appoint a committee of nine.
I do not believe that this is the worst possible Seanad, nor do I believe that it is the best. I do not believe that the present method of selecting a Seanad is the best method, nor do I believe that it is the worst method. The attempt to introduce a certain element of vocationalism, which could only claim to apply to a few of the panels, has not helped, but I do not think that we have necessarily got a much worse Seanad than we might have got from the last method, assuming the electorate was as it is now. The Dáil had in the selection of the present Seanad and the last Seanad too much say. A big drawback is that all the members of this House retire at the same time.
I think that that is a bad arrangement in connection with a Second Chamber. It would be better to have one-third of the members retiring at a time. With the very limited powers of delay which this House possesses, I think it is quite unnecessary that the whole Seanad should go out at the same time. If there were a readiness amongst Senators to come together and discuss these matters and if there were a possibility that, if a good scheme resulted, the recommendations of the committee would be acted upon, I would support Senator Counihan's proposal, but I do not believe that these conditions exist. Senator Counihan did not go into much detail. I was completely puzzled by his idea of having a selection board to select Senators. As much time would be spent in providing political machinery for the selection of the selection board, with all the same difficulties and abuses, as would be spent in the selection of Senators. The founder of the Constitution of the United States conceived the idea of an electoral body to elect the President. The idea was that they would get a better person by that means than by direct vote. Everybody knows that the President is chosen by direct vote long before his name goes before the body which, theoretically, has been elected to choose a president. I cannot, for a moment, believe that Senator Counihan or anybody else could discover a way of selecting a selection board which would select a good Seanad. If that could be done, you could select the Seanad by the same method.
The motion of Senator Counihan presupposes that this House, after its experience of this particular scheme for creating a Seanad, would like to sit down in all seriousness and hammer out a better scheme for the selection of the 43 panel members. This is not the kind of thing that, even if one had a majority, should be decided by majority vote. I think that Senator Douglas was right when he said that, when Senator Quirke read his speech, it must have had a certain amount of inspiration, even though it was not very inspiring.
It is not right to assume that there was any inspiration behind what Senator Quirke had to say.
I did not imply anything of the kind. I drew my conclusion so that, if I was wrong, Senators could point out that I was wrong.
I do not see anything wrong in the suggestion that there was inspiration behind Senator Quirke's speech.
You suggested that the speech was inspired from this side of the House. I have seen several members of the Opposition reading speeches from behind their chair, time and again, and we did not assume that there was anything ulterior in their doing so. When a Senator on this side reads a few lines of his speech, it is suggested that he has some ulterior motive, or that there was inspiration from outside.
I never suggested anything of the kind. I suggested that his view would represent that of the majority of the House.
Senator Counihan read the whole of his speech, but no reference was made to the fact.
That is Senator Counihan's practice. I do not know why we should be so thin-skinned. Senator McEllin is amazingly innocent. Senator Quirke, leader of the majority party here, rises in his place to deliver himself of a prepared oration, which is very unusual for him, and if Senator McEllin thinks that he did that without seeking advice or counsel from any citizen outside, he is very innocent for a West-of-Ireland man—more innocent than the politicians of Tipperary or Dublin. The point that Senator Douglas makes is quite sound. If there is not some sort of general agreement to do this job properly, there is no use in entering upon it at all. The situation in regard to the Seanad is not so bad as many people thought—and I was one of those who thought so—it would be when this Seanad originally came into existence. There is difficulty in electing a Second House of Parliament. A great deal of literature has been written on that question; and a great many efforts have been made in different places and in different ways to obtain a suitable Second House, and not one of them was very satisfactory. The present Government did not like the Seanad arranged under the first Constitution. The Taoiseach developed the point of view that there ought to be no Second House in the Parliament. He was supported by Senator Quirke in that— entirely on Senator Quirke's own responsibility, of his own free will, and without inspiration from anybody.
The Taoiseach then changed his mind and provided us with a Second House. What is really wrong with this, as a Second House, is that it is supposedly vocational, and that elaborate machinery has been set up to give it a vocational appearance, while, in fact, it is not vocational at all. To that extent—I am not going any further than that—it is a fraud and a humbug.
It is not true for anybody to say that he was elected because of his particular eminence in a particular vocation—and we all know it—and it is not fair to the public or to nominating bodies outside that elaborate machinery should be very cunningly set up with the intention of getting the House to support the Government of the day—this or any other Government—while at the same time appearing to be vocational. All the elaborate machinery goes for naught, and the nominating bodies who go to the trouble of nominating people cannot be successful unless they have their eye on political Parties. If we want to have the Seanad honestly political, in the same way as the Dáil, it would be better to do that straightforwardly and honestly, and not put up an elaborate wall of nominations and nominating bodies, as arises in this particular case. While I say that, it is quite clear that the Seanad should be in existence. This is a point which I recommend to Senators, on which we are all agreed. In spite of the disabilities under which we started, the House has done considerably better than its keenest critics thought it would in the beginning. We can say that much to our credit. I think the House should not be in a position to prevent the Government of the day from carrying out its policy, but that it should be in a position to make the Government pause and to create delay.
Someone spoke about the qualifications necessary for a Senator. Neither in this Seanad nor in the Seanad contemplated by the previous Constitution had we got any qualifications at all. There was a beautiful phrase in the first Constitution about the service of people who had done honour to the nation, but it was found impossible to establish a criterion to decide that. One can have selection boards for positions in experimental physics and modern languages or classics; but how we can find out which people have done honour to the nation, I do not know and no one else knows either.
There is no possibility of doing it, and it is no qualification: it is only humbug to say so. I have a feeling that a Second House is never going to have any great constitutional power, and that it would be foolish to look for any great power; but, in the absence of that power, it must have weight with its fellow-citizens and weight with the Government. It must be a House containing people with certain public experience. That should be political experience, in so far as people who take an interest in politics have the best experience. People who are nonpolitical are rarely useful until such time as their political experience has aroused their interest in public affairs and made them competent to do the work that Parliament has to do. It should be persuasive, it should have a certain public spirit and an ability to impress itself on the public. It is in that way only, and not by constitutional power, that it would be able to effect its particular purpose.
The fact that the whole scheme for the election of these 43 people contemplates that this House should be an echo of the Dáil is bad and should be changed. From what we have heard to-day, I am afraid it is not possible to change it, or even to sit down and talk about changing it. I think it should be changed, and that members here who are expected to be an echo of the Dáil find themselves, in the performance of their duties, in an irksome and objectionable position. For my part, I had a good deal of Dáil experience, and naturally we all have our own particular points of view which arise from our experience and environment. I had to change that point of view somewhat in this House, but one of the things I never would do is to put down the amendments put down in the Dáil and defeated there. It is a foolish procedure.
We have, in fact, succeeded where the Dáil failed. We have succeeded in convincing Ministers that certain changes should be made in Orders and Bills. A notable example of that was the Bill dealing with compensation for damage to property by bombs and another example was in the Order with regard to compensation for personal injuries. That was done by adopting in this House a different attitude from that adopted in the Dáil and by our not having the same relationship to one another here as Parties have in the Dáil. I think that this House has been successful to a degree greater than expected by many people, because we have endeavoured to take a different attitude from that taken in the other House.
I would very much like to see an investigation of the matter by people with experience—and I think a joint Committee of the Dáil and Seanad would be better than a Committee of the Seanad alone—but, in the circumstances in which there is objection to this being discussed at all, I do not believe that Senator Counihan would serve any good purpose, even if he could carry his motion by a small majority. That there is need for this investigation, that it will be investigated, and that there will be a radical change, I am absolutely certain; and, to that extent, I feel that Senator Counihan will be justified.
I should like to say a few words, as I have been a member of this House for a considerable time. I would like, more or less, to echo what Senator Hayes has just said—that this House might be a lot better and might be a great deal worse than it is. Echoing Senator Hayes, I think the House needs to have weight with the people and weight with the Government. So far as weight with the Government goes, I should like to compare it with the House of Lords in England. The House of Lords consists of a very large number of hereditary peers, hundreds of whom never have appeared in the House at all. Those peers who do go there have large interests in the country, they are able men with a tradition of Government, and they are doing their duty to the country. Where they get the weight with the Government is that, backing these hereditary legislators, there is brought in, from time to time, by the various Governments, as a reward either for Party work or for good work in the country, the very best brains in every type of business in that great country. These men's brains are at the disposal of the Government—regardless of political considerations—whenever the Government calls on them, in committee work, to advise them on any project which the Government needs to undertake.
I do not believe for one second that it is worth attempting to find a new means of electing this House, unless some means can be devised to bring into this House people to whom everybody in the country will look up, and whom the Government will call in—whether they sit on one political side or another —if they want advice on any matter of legislation which they propose to introduce. The ideas of electoral colleges, and so on, have almost always fallen down. I agree with Senator Hayes that the House must be political, as one cannot imagine that any of us, with fixed ideas regarding the economy and the future of the State, will come into this House and wash out all the ideas we had up to the time we entered it. That would be quite impossible. Anybody who says that any legislative Assembly is an advisory body with no backbone—and politics means some kind of backbone—is talking perfect nonsense.
We tried several methods of electing this House, but the question is whether the last one was as satisfactory as some of the others have been. I think that we still want, at the end of this debate, some really constructive suggestion which can be considered an improvement on systems already tried. I do not want to throw cold water on Senator Counihan's idea, but I do feel that very serious consideration must be given to the matter before any change is made.
In the debate to which we have listened so far, some very interesting points were made, but it seems to me that so far in all this discussion, and even in Senator Counihan's advocacy of the reorganisation of the Second House, the fact that we have had a considerable amount of controversy for a number of years as to the constitution of the Second House has been ignored. That is a controversy which has prevailed also in other countries. As a result of that controversy here a commission was set up on which every section of the community was represented. The most eminent people in the community were put on that commission and it sat for a considerable length of time examining every aspect of the question in the effort to find a satisfactory solution of this question. We all know the result of that commission. We know that there was a considerable amount of discussion there and that there was a considerable amount of disagreement manifested in coming to their conclusions so that it is somewhat foolish for us to say now that we can arrive at an ideal solution by adopting Senator Counihan's suggestion to set up a committee. The Taoiseach and his Government as a result of the different points of view expressed by that commission decided that the best possible solution would be as a first step to set up a House on the basis of vocational corporative bodies—a panel system.
Everybody knows that when you set out to create anything you cannot make it a complete unit or devise a satisfactory working system for it straight off the reel. You have to build up even a small business gradually. I do not think the Government had any illusions as to the prospects of evolving an ideal vocational system out of which a Second House might be created straight away. The original intention, as far as I can understand it, was to set up this assembly on the basis of a panel system. People were nominated from existing bodies to the extent that such bodies were already organised, and these bodies have sent to this House very useful representatives. I do not think that Senator Hayes was completely justified in saying that this House was a fraud, and a hobo.
A fraud and a what?
I do not know what the other word used by the Senator was. The Senator said it was a fraud, whatever the other expression was.
To the extent that it purported to be vocational—yes. There is nobody here by virtue of his vocation.
There are people here representative of various bodies. Even the mover of this motion professes to represent a vocational body known as the farmers or the cattle trade, a very virile body, and he would seriously challenge any statement that he was not a representative of that body.
He is not here by virtue of being a member of that body. He is not here because he is a farmer. He is here largely because he is a friend of mine and everybody knows that. Similarly, Senator McEllin is here because he is a well-known friend of other politicians—and that is that. Everybody knows that.
I am not denying that aspect of the matter but the fact is that Senators are representative of certain sectional interests in the country. The Labour members of the Seanad represent Labour and strongly and sincerely represent it. I am not talking about how we got here. I am talking about the interest the Senator represents, an interest as vocational as any interest that will be represented in this House in the future. I should like to straighten out this question in regard to representation of vocational bodies. Every Irishman is a politician to his finger-tips; there is no use in denying that. The man who says that he is no politician, that he has no political interests, is more in keeping with the character that Senator Hayes applied to this House—a fraud. It is absolutely ridiculous for anybody to say that he has no political faith. When I hear a person saying: "I am a business man and I am no politician," I feel that that person is a damned hypocrite.
Hear, hear! We are in agreement at last.
I am afraid I shall have to examine my conscience. To get back to the question of the election of a Second House, we shall always have to face in future questions as to the status, the prestige and the power of a Second House as against the First House. It does not take a lot of imagination to realise that no two Houses of Parliament can have the same authority in any country. Some body must be completely responsible for discipline and administration, and the power of control can only come from the people to one body. That body, whether it be a First House or a Second House, is primarily responsible to the nation for discipline and the security of the citizens. Then there comes the question of a Second House, and the authority which it should have. Obviously, it cannot be elected by the same electorate, because if it were, it would have the same claim to power as the First House. You, therefore, must get some other form of election to establish a Second House. When this controversy was raised years ago, the charge was made that the Taoiseach and his Government wanted only one House. There is not one single line in any speech made by the Taoiseach in which he said he wanted only one House.
Oh!
There is not one single line. The Senator cannot give me a quotation. Obviously if some satistory means were not devised of creating a Second House, and if the people were not satisfied with the way in which it was constituted, it would be better in order to obviate controversy, to do with one House. There has been a considerable amount of conference and a commission was set up, but agreement could not be found on the system. This House has done remarkably well since it has been established, and it is my view—and I was a member of the old House—that there has been considerably more versatility about its actions and the speeches from all sides, and a greater sense of fair play, than there was in the previous House. If that is so, and presumably it is going to be accepted, why should the members of the House not give it credit for a versatility that has already been demonstrated? Let us continue building on it; we are at least making progress.
I believe that as time develops, and we get the results, good or bad, of this Vocational Commission, we might have some basis on which to work and to change some aspects of the system of election to the present House. The ultimate ideal, I believe, of the present Government, and I hope also of the Opposition, is to establish a form of Second House where you will have all the different interests selected and elected by the vocational organisation, that will give it an aspect of independence of outlook and action, and enable it to criticise severely, in its own way, but from a different angle, the interests of the different vocations.
If it is possible to get that idea we would be making considerable progress; but at the end we come back to the old position that no matter what system we have every man elected is elected to have a point of view of economics, and all economics are political. There are the economics of different vocations, but eventually all economics are political economics, and consequently people in this country are prone to make the mistake that if you are a politician or if you take a political point of view, you are merely something that is tainted, but they forget the fact that the very basis of the merits of a case are political economics. That is where the stupidity comes in, when people suggest that in discussions here there is no such thing as Party. I am satisfied that this House, so far, has completely justified itself, that the proposals that Senator Counihan is putting before the House are not going to lead the House to what we all hope it will become—an independent body. We have the basis here already of a vocational body and it is through our own efforts that we would be able to extend that basis to cover the whole House ultimately. I am certain that with patience and with a broader point of view from both sides of the House we would eventually develop it to the point where it would command the respect of the people and the country.
Mr. Lynch
I feel that I could not support this motion, and I have heard no argument put forward for it by the mover. The motion itself does not mention any reason for placing it on the Order Paper at all. I do not propose to follow the lines adopted by some of the other speakers in reference to the constitution of this Chamber, but I see no reason for the motion because I happen to be a member of the committee which was set up to inquire into the establishment of the Second House, and am familiar with the report of that body—the minority report if you like—which resulted in the House being established. The reasons I advance for refusing to support this motion are that, by virtue of my membership of that commission, I know the very large amount of work which had to be done, the extensive inquiries which had to be made into constitutions of all kinds throughout the world, and I fear that any committee set up in this House would not be able to address itself satisfactorily to that self-same task. In those circumstances I do not see the necessity for the motion. I do not see that there is any possibility that if the committee were set up in any reasonable time it would bring forward any other set of proposals which would give a more advantageous Chamber than we have at the moment. This Chamber may be in the initial stage of development; I presume it is. It is not the completely constituted vocational Chamber that it may evolve into at some later time, and, as reference has been made to the Commission at present sitting, it might be just as well if we were to wait until such time as the report is to hand before we would set up a body of nine members of this Chamber to embark upon a very serious inquiry involving a lot of work, and which, ultimately, owing to the difficulties, might end in complete fatuity.
The country may not be sufficiently advanced at the present time to get a completely vocational organisation which would produce the council of organisations referred to by Senator Fitzgerald. All those things will come in time, and I think the best thing we could do would be to wait until the commission now inquiring into these matters would make its report. If, thereafter, we think there is a necessity to inquire further, then such inquiry could be made, but I doubt very much if nine members drawn from this Chamber, who probably would have to come from outlying parts of the country, and with transport difficulties, might find it hard to get here, would be able to overcome the difficulties which must necessarily arise. These seem to me to be very grave reasons why this motion should not be accepted by this Chamber.
Senator Counihan to conclude.
The only object I had in putting down this motion was to try to have some commonsense suggestions made by practical members of this House as to the possibilities of establishing a selection committee. I think if that were done it would not entail all the trouble which it is supposed to entail. Very many of the present members of this House have been elected through all the forms of election which we have seen since 1922, and with all that experience behind them, they could make very valuable suggestions and recommendations to the Government. But, from the attitude the Opposition adopted, as expressed by the leader, Senator Quirke, I do not think there is much use in continuing to present the proposal, or even in continuing the discussion. The members of the Government Party in the House, as we call them, feel quite satisfied that they are secure in their re-election, no matter what happens, but there will possibly be a new set of county councillors coming in after a short time and they might not find their positions as secure as they imagine. They might be as well off if they considered the whole question of nomination and election on a different basis. Senator Quirke accuses me of attacking the House. I did not attack the House. It is because I have so much confidence in the personnel of the House and their judgment that I want them to set up a committee to consider the proposal and make recommendations to the Government for nominating and electing the Seanad. That is not attacking the House—it is more of a compliment to the House, and it shows that I have absolute confidence in the judgment and commonsense of Senators.
The Senator said this is the worst of the lot.
The Senator said that the third plan pleased nobody.
I have heard it even from people on the Government side as well as on our own side, that it has pleased very few, anyway.
Senators are quite satisfied.
The words of the Senator were: "The present Seanad is the worst of all."
I maintain that. I am entitled to have an opinion as well as Senator Healy, and I have as much experience of the different Seanads as Senator Healy. I am here since 1922 and I am very proud of the fact that I have been a member of every Seanad.
Senator Healy was elected to public life in 1908 —in 1908. Where were you then?
I am not going to argue that.
I think Senators should get back to the motion.
The principal complaint is that the majority of members of this House have no independence, and if the Government brought in a Bill to abolish the Seanad, members of the Party opposite would quietly walk in and vote for their own abolition as they did before. That is why I want to create more independence among Senators. The object of my motion was to give the Seanad continuity if Senators were elected for a number of years, as in the case of the first Seanad, instead of waiting for a general election and being entirely dependent on the will of the particular Party to get re-elected. From the attitude of the majority of the House, there is no necessity to continue the discussion, and I beg leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
The Seanad adjourned at 5.25 p.m. until 3 p.m. July 22nd, 1942.