I do not desire to detain the House very long. Furthermore, I hope I will keep that promise. Many Senators who promised they would not delay the House spoke at considerable length. I have read the White Paper, I have read the Central Bank Report and I have read some of the speeches delivered in the Dáil which were published in the Press. The whole problem resolves itself to one of having to restrict our expenditure and restrict our imports of materials from outside. Alternatively, we have got to work harder and produce more. Perhaps there is no alternative and that we may have to do both together. It seems to me that we were actually spending beyond our means. As any individual in a household knows, one cannot continue to do that indefinitely. If we have an accumulation of external assets and if we continue to draw on them, ultimately we will reach the stage of being a debtor instead of a creditor nation. In those circumstances, we would have to look for financial support from outside sources. That would be a bad situation in which to find ourselves.
There has been a reference to crisis. In medical parlance, the word "crisis" is capable of different interpretations. In describing a fever, it indicates the stage at which the highest point of temperature is reached. It seems to me that there is not much difference between the word "crisis" and the word "problem". We are depleting our external assets and we are in danger as a consequence of jeopardising the financial and economic position of our country. There is only one solution to this problem and that is to increase production, which means we have to work harder. The implementation of that policy, unfortunately, means asking a section of the community which has often been asked before to work harder to save the nation and produce goods for the rest of the community. I refer to the farming community.
Reference has been made to the difficulty of getting trade unions to give their fullest service. If increased production is to be provided by existing industries such as, for instance, the cement industry, on behalf of whom an advertisement appeared in the Press seeking capital towards that end, it will mean that considerable time will elapse before that extra production can be achieved. Likewise, in most other industries it is not easy, even with increased capital made available, to increase production unless you have co-operation between the management and employees.
Senator Douglas made a suggestion which appealed to me very much. In order to increase production, he suggested that a bonus should be paid. That would be admirable and would produce quick results from industry. If there are difficulties connected with such a project they could easily be overcome. As far as our agricultural industry is concerned, we can appeal to-night to the farming community to make an all-out effort to increase production and it could be carried out the following day. I think it is very wrong for a Senator to make an attack—as really it was an attack —on the farming community. Reference was made to the fact that they did not pay income-tax and that the income-tax laws were not applied to them in any way comparable with the way in which they were applied to the industrial community.
I refer to the remarks of Senator O'Donnell, who said he had to pay 10/- in the £ income-tax. That means that he is paying surtax. When an industrialist is in the position to pay 10/- in the £ income-tax, it comes very badly from him to make an accusation against the farming community that they are not paying their proper share of income-tax. Senator O'Donnell came originally from the country, and he should know quite well that there are very few farmers who could pay income-tax on a scale comparable to that paid by industrialists.
I am one who always supported Irish manufacture from the days of Sinn Féin. I am one of those who have been appealing to the people to support Irish industry and Irish manufacture. It does rattle a person a little to find industrialists who have got such support from the Fianna Fáil Government making such an accusation against the hardest-working section of the community.
However, the point I wish to make is that the farming community can be appealed to, and I am sure that they will respond immediately by the increased production of goods which are so necessary for the maintenance of the people of the country as well as for export. The unfortunate thing is that at present we do not produce enough wheat for ourselves, enough beet for our own sugar, or enough barley for our feeding stuffs and beers. We have not enough milk to be used as liquid milk and provide sufficient butter and other milk products. We have enough meat certainly, and we have growing exports of meat products as well as the dead meat trade.
Our farmers, therefore, have a guaranteed market for the majority of these products. They are guaranteed a better price this year for wheat. There is a guaranteed price for beet and the price of barley is secure. The price of oats is uncontrolled, but certainly there is a market. I would appeal to farmers to go all out to produce sufficient to saturate that home market which awaits them, and thereby prevent the importation of food for human beings as well as for animals. I hope to see sufficient foodstuffs grown here to produce concentrates for animal feeding. We would have enough protein and carbohydrates, although we might not have enough fat perhaps to give as much of it as the high fat content foreign feeding stuffs. That field awaits the farmers. I hope that they will improve their financial position, and in the future pay income-tax, as Senator O'Donnell said, and help the revenue of the State in that way.
Our beer and spirits are liquid assets which we could to a great extent export. Unfortunately, when on a previous occasion the Government imposed a restriction on their consumption by increasing the price of what necessarily are classified as luxuries that Government was put out of office. If every drop of the whiskey produced here were exported to America we would have an increased supply of dollars which would be very useful to us.
I do not wish to refer to any of the political arguments used in this debate but I would refer to Senator Douglas's remarks at the time of the imposition of the first rationing. I remember the anti-rationing parade through the City of Dublin and I also remember that Senator Douglas, speaking in the Mansion House and reported in the papers the following day, said: "We are not against rationing. We are against the rationing system as introduced." I take it, therefore, that he was only partially correct in his statements this evening. An organised procession was got up against the imposition of rationing at that time. Judging from the reports, Senator Douglas was the one man at that meeting who said that rationing was necessary, but who criticised the defects in the rationing system imposed at that time. The campaign was definitely against any rationing at all.
He also referred to government by one Party vis-á-vis inter-Party or Coalition Government, and he said that the Government Party had not a majority in the Dáil. I do not see how it could be a Government if it had not a majority. The Fianna Fáil Party exceeds in numbers the total of all other Parties. There are only—I will use the word—nondescript Independents to make up the rest of the membership of the Dáil. Certainly he is wrong in saying that a Government is functioning now without having a majority in the Dáil. It has a majority over all other Parties added together and, naturally, has the support of some Independents who give it a majority in the Dáil.
The farming community is the one section to which we can immediately appeal to increase production. It has, as industrialists have, a free and open market to consume all its surplus goods. Undoubtedly, things are favouring the farming community economically and financially at present. The export of dead meat which has been going on for practically only a few months seems to be an opening for a development which would be of immense benefit to the farming community. If we can produce sufficient feeding materials to feed our animals during winter and summer and to develop the trade to America which has been initiated, the country, I think, will be well on the way to getting these dollars and foreign assets which would be so useful to us for the further development of the country.
There is one disaster which could affect the country: the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. It would be a terrific disaster for the nation. I would appeal to the farmers' representatives here to convey to the people in the country that they must take every precaution—I do not say to prevent, because prevention is, as far as they are concerned, an absolute impossibility— but to ensure that if any symptom of this disease appears anywhere in the district it is immediately reported to the local authority, to some veterinary surgeon, or to the Guards. If it did come—if it be God's will it will not—it could strike very quickly, because it is an especially virulent type that has ravaged the east coast of Britain. It may happen to come here. It may strike a district on the east coast anywhere from north to south. Any farm may be the first to be affected.