When speaking on this Bill last Wednesday evening, I said I believed that a new dynamic was required in Irish life, that this dynamic would help to inspire the youth of our country and that it would canalise our efforts and patriotic aspirations in a practical manner. I said I believed that our problem was largely economic rather than political, and that I thought the Government in amending the Constitution to give us super-strong Government should have looked for co-operation rather than the strong dominance of one political Party. I hope briefly to develop some of these ideas in my speech this afternoon.
I said this Government had no monopoly of political wisdom in this country. I touched briefly on the civil war in a non-contentious manner. I said I believed that we had got over that episode in our history, perhaps with greater credit to ourselves than many other countries. The Civil war represented the growing pains of the nation, but in those growing pains, we lost, perhaps, ten of the most valuable formative years. Many disinterested persons, who left Irish political life as a result of the cleavage that took place in the early 20's, hoped, wished and prayed that we would have a period in which the ideals that had come forward from before the time of Catholic Emancipation and reached fruition with the establishment of an Irish Parliament could be turned in one direction to help us with our problem. It is only by using all sections of the community in something like an all-Party Government and directing it towards an agreed policy—agreed by either a single Party or all-Party Government—that we can get real benefit for the nation.
I also said that in dealing with our economic problem we had only 55 per cent. of the per capita income of the British, and that it behoved all of us to strive by every means in our power to close that gap. In referring to history, I also wish to mention briefly that we had an economic war, fixed later by agreement, and that Seanad Éireann was abolished. Anyone reading Donal O'Sullivan's admirable book, The Irish Free State Senate, can see that the Seanad then was far more effective than the Seanad enshrined in our present Constitution. It was suggested that if we propose to amend the Constitution, we ought to rehabilitate and strengthen Seanad Éireann again by giving back to it some of the strength it originally had as an assembly. As a deliberative assembly, particularly on this measure, the Seanad has shown a great variety of talent. That talent should be used in bringing in recommendations for amendments of the Constitution which would be more beneficial than the proposed measure.
One of my principal objections to this Bill is that I am afraid it will tend to drive underground many of our national, economic, political and other movements. During the last two weeks, when this Bill was being debated, I felt that perhaps it was dangerous or unwise to mention these matters, but this is Parliament and they should be mentioned here. To-day we are proposing to enact a measure that may do a great disservice to this nation. That disservice should be brought out fully here in the light of day.
Take the political Party of which I am a member. Maybe it will drive portion of that Party underground for a short period. We are a Party with a sound, disinterested political philosophy, and we can stand the attacks and ravishes of any political Party. We are not inclined to go underground, but we may be reduced in numbers for a short period, or perhaps even for a decade. As far as the nation is concerned, the younger people, with more extreme political views and less political experience than we have, may be encouraged by persons to use physical force. Physical force has formed a great part of our history and the Government should provide the safeguard and safety valve of allowing these people to get into Parliament, to express their opinions. The Government obviously intend to do away with the safety valve and let the boiler burst. It is very unsound policy, to say the least of it, to do that.
To a lesser extent, the Government seem to wish to drive the Labour Party underground. The Labour Party, of course, have greater opportunities and more ways of expressing themselves as compared with the national extremist; be that as it may, it seems to me the Government are doing a great disservice to the nation in introducing this measure. If it is accepted, we may be faced with years of unrest, political strikes and all the rest of it, because of this imprudent step on the part of the Government at this stage of our development. It should be the policy of the Government to try to heal the wounds and alleviate the growing pains of the nation. It should be the object of the Government to lead us into maturity out of adolescence without imposing strains which the people may not be able to bear.
The British system has been mentioned. It has been lauded. It is the system which the Government now propose to impose on us. We ought to look dispassionately at the British system to see whether it may be good or bad for us. The British system is a two-Party system in which there are inevitably great extremes. On the one side you have the Conservatives. On the other side you have a socialistic Party. Christopher Dawson writing on these problems said: "It is very hard to run a country well when each time you change the Government you virtually have a revolution." The late Sir Stafford Cripps, when questioned by the Conservatives in Parliament, said that he hoped to "have the eggs scrambled in such a manner that no one would again be able to unscramble them". Does our Government wish to put us in a position here in which, each time the Government changes, we shall find ourselves scrambling and unscrambling eggs? If that is the prospect then I, for one, take a gloomy view of the future. At one stage we shall have near Socialism; at another turn of the wheel we shall have Conservative industrialism. In those circumstances it will be impossible for the nation to progress.
Sometimes I wonder if, perhaps, we do not take things too seriously. Recently I came across a rather brilliant satire on English affairs called Parkinson's Law. The writer demonstrates very competently the British facility for laughing at their own system. Yet, that is the system the Government now propose to impose on us. At page 44, Professor Northcote Parkinson states:—
"...The British, being brought up on team games, enter their House of Commons in the spirit of those who would rather be doing something else. If they cannot be playing golf or tennis, they can at least pretend that politics is a game with very similar rules. But for this device, Parliament would arouse even less interest than it does. So the British instinct is to form two opposing teams, with reference and linesmen, and let them debate until they exhaust themselves. The House of Commons is so arranged that the individual Member is practically compelled to take one side or the other before he knows what the arguments are, or even (in some cases) before he knows the subject of the dispute. His training from birth has been to play for his side, and this saves him from any undue mental effort. Sliding into a seat toward the end of a speech, he knows exactly how to take up the argument from the point it has reached. If the speaker is on his own side of the House, he will say ‘Hear, hear!' If he is on the opposite side, he can safely say ‘Shame!' or merely ‘Oh!' At some later stage he may have time to ask his neighbour what the debate is supposed to be about. Strictly speaking, however, there is no need for him to do this. He knows enough in any case not to kick into his own goal. The men who sit opposite are entirely wrong and all their arguments are so much drivel. The men on his own side are statesmanlike, by contrast, and their speeches a singular blend of wisdom eloquence, and moderation. Nor does it make the slightest difference whether he learned his politics at Harrow or in following the fortunes of Aston Villa. In either school he will have learned when to cheer and when to groan."
That is the system our Government want to bring in here to solve our political and economic problems. That is the system which presumably the Government believe will close the gap between the standard of living of our people here and the standard of living of the people in Northern Ireland. That is the system which presumably the Government believe will reconcile the differences between Capital and Labour—the system which will enable us to run this country as a Christian democracy and help us to be better sociologists. I believe that this system will not act as a solvent. It will help, rather, to create for us the greatest difficulties we could meet at this stage of our development.
One of the advantages of the straight vote system, we were told, was that it would give us better members of Parliament. I believe nothing could be further from the truth. I speak from personal experience of politics over 25 years, or so. What happens in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael when there is an election in the offing? A panel of names is drawn up and, on that panel, as we all know, there will be one or two not quite so desirable as the rest. No political Party is in itself strong enough to erase those names without causing Party schism. Under P.R. these people can be allowed to go forward and the responsibility of not electing them rests on the people. That helps to keep the political Party together. It helps the political Party to work successfully. Under the system proposed here the political hack will have a better opportunity of carrying the committee, or whatever the group may be which will select the man for the single seat constituency. The Taoiseach, who is far wiser and more experienced in politics than any of us, knows that quite well and better than most of us.
Reference has been made to P.R. in Europe. I do not propose to traverse that ground because it has been very ably covered by both Senator O'Quigley and Senator Quinlan. Many of the most successful Governments in Europe to-day—Holland, Belgium, Switzerland—have P.R. I wish we could make as much progress in economic, political, social, cultural and religious affairs as the people in these countries have made. We should copy them. We should emulate them rather than impose a system here which has not shown itself to be successful in England.
A grave defect in the British system is the fact that there is not sufficient opportunity for change. The electorate is faced with the task of voting either Conservative or Labour. The voter may like only a small part of the policy of either Labour or Conservative but he has little chance of voting for the Liberals. For that reason, the pendulum has swung very much more violently and with a violent swing of the pendulum, a great deal more strain is exerted on the nation than would be the case if politics were stabilised rather nearer the centre. If, in Britain, they had with the single-member constituency the single transferable vote, it would mean that very often if people did not like Labour or Conservative, they would be in a position to elect the Liberal Party. To-day they have a form of Hobson's choice and the measure the Taoiseach now proposes would give Ireland nothing other than a Hobson's choice. It will always be a Government of compromise, a Government which, in the view of many people, will be the second best.
Senator O'Quigley stressed a point which has not been answered by any of the Government speakers. His point was that as well as having a strong Government, we would have a weak Opposition. In a democracy, the Opposition is very important. He has covered that point and has shown that in the case of many of the Committees of the House, without the benefit of the Opposition Party, the personnel to run those committees are not available, and the interests of democracy will not be best served under the system proposed.
I do not propose to take seriously the suggestion made by Senator Ryan that we might consider having P.R. for the whole country. That is an absurd solution and I do not believe Senator Ryan seriously put it forward but that, in fact, he wanted to show that P.R. was absurd by giving an absurd analogy.
With regard to Coalition Governments, I should like to make the observation that they have the advantage of bringing together people of widely differing viewpoints and when in the Cabinet these viewpoints are reconciled by discussions and compromise rather than by forced decisions by strong Governments. Senator Barry said very truly that all life is a form of compromise, that we all have to make accommodations. We have to make accommodations in our private lives and with the people with whom we work and it is on how we make these accommodations that the success we make in this life depends.
