One Senator—I think Senator Stanford—at the opening of his statement said he wished to shift the emphasis of argument and debate here from Parties and Government to the people and Parliament. I thought that was an excellent opening, and I had hoped that it would lead him on to what appears to me the necessary conclusion, if he were to follow out his arguments. I thought, also, that it would be a headline for the argument in the case of Senators who succeeded him.
Now, let us take that. We want to deal here with the people and their Parliament. We are a democracy, and that means, I take it, those provisions in the Constitution by which the people are, in the final resort, the final arbiters of national action, and also that they will have the power of designating their rulers. If we deny them that, we are certainly denying the people the fundamental right of democracy, that is, the power to be the ultimate rulers.
I say that the system that we have did, in fact, deny the people both of these rights: the right of decision, ultimate decision, and the right of designating their rules. I shall come back later to deal with that. Now, as to their Parliament. The question is: what do we wish the Parliament to be? What is our view of what a democratic Parliament should be? This Bill has to do with the Dáil, so I shall substitute "Dáil" for "Parliament". Do we wish the Dáil to be a deliberative assembly, a deliberative, representative assembly concerned with one purpose—the common good of the community they represent? Or to go back to the well-known words of Burke, do we wish it to be the very antithesis of that, namely, "a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents or advocates?"
For which of these two ideals of Parliament do we stand? Which do we wish to get? Do we want a congress representing different conflicting interests, or do we want a Parliament truly representing the people and concerned in their deliberative assembly with the common good, striving to promote that common good by the use of reason and argument? Which of the two do we want? I say that those who are urging here that we should continue the system of representation we have got, the system of election we have got, have at the back of their minds this congress of ambassadors from conflicting interests and that they expect that the people who come in here as ambassadors from those interests will be concerned as agents and advocates to promote those interests and not to promote the common good. Will any responsible person, who tries to think of ordered society and our political institutions, for a moment doubt which is the proper one?
I expected that, at least, some of the representatives of the university which gave us Edmund Burke would have had some thought for these principles. Listening to the speeches that were made, however, it seemed to me that they were all for the antithesis of what a true Parliament should be, a true Dáil should be, namely, this congress.
Now, let us go from Parliament to government. It is true that the Dáil is the father, so to speak, of the Government. It creates the Government; it brings it into being by nominating the Taoiseach and by supporting by its consent to the Government which is chosen by him. Which is first? In order of time, undoubtedly, the Parliament comes first, but the fact is that once the Government is selected, the Government is the mainspring of action; every member of the Government is engaged whole-time on the job of endeavouring to get action taken in the public interest. It is the mainspring of political action in the Parliament. It prepares the programmes within the general programme of the Party to which it belongs and which has been accepted by the country and by virtue of which they get into office.
Therefore, when we talk of Parliament and try to put it in contrast with government, we must admit that, in the end, it is the Government that counts most. They are, no doubt, responsible from day to day to the Parliament, and it is for that reason that it is essential that the programmes which they bring forward should have the support of the majority, that they should be assured before they bring them in—so as not to be wasting time —that if any adjustments have to be made, they should be made with the people who are disposed towards the same line of action in the common interest and towards the common good. That is the value of having a Government with a Party with which in camera the proposed legislation can be discussed. In any Party such as you would get under the straight vote system, you will have a variety of views, and the Party must be more than half of the Dáil to be a majority.
You will have, therefore, more than half the representatives of the whole nation in that Party, but they have one common objective as a Party, one common method of promoting the common good: they will have the goodwill which will give the necessary co-operation if you want to make adjustments. It is one thing to make adjustments with people who are disposed to agree with you, if their conscience and reason will let them; it is quite another thing to get consent and agreement with people who are, from the outset, determined to prevent you from going along the road which you imagine is the right road in the public interest.
It is, therefore, of tremendous importance that a Government should have behind it the support of a body that is devoted to the same common principles. It is because you will not get that in a coalition that I believe that coalitions, as a rule, give bad Governments. The very idea of a congress of ambassadors, which Burke spoke about as the antithesis of the true representative assembly, is brought from the Parliament right into the Cabinet room, and you have there a group of people who are not disposed to work together in the sense of having an agreed method of arriving at the common good. You have agents and ambassadors of different hostile interests, and they speak as agents and advocates of these sections, even when they are acting as members of the Government. I do not think that can lead to good government.
It is true that you must have coalitions on various occasions, that sometimes they are a necessity. Even under the straight vote system, an occasion can arise when it is not possible to get a Government except by a combination of Parties and that the alternative is to leave the country without a Government. On some occasions, you have to get support of Parties outside the Government, as we got them on some two or three occasions. In Fianna Fáil, we got support at certain times from the Labour Party. We got it from outside, that is, they held themselves free to oppose us whenever they wanted to and they gave us support in certain cases. But two or three occasions arose during that time in which we could not have gone on with the national work, had it not been for the fact that we had a remedy. The power is given in the Constitution to the Taoiseach to ask for a dissolution, and on three occasions I had to ask for that in order to put the Government in a position in which it could get on with the work in accordance with the programme which had been approved.
We had to do that in 1933. Labour had supported us; we could not have come into office at all otherwise, because we had not an overall majority in 1932. We lasted for a year with the support of Labour, but then the occasion came when it became quite obvious that we would be pressed, in the interests of sections of the community, to leave the line which we had set before the people and which we believed to be in the national interest. We had to do it again later, in 1938. We were elected in 1937 once more by far the largest Party but, after a year in office, in order to get on with our work and carry out the programme we put before the people, we had to put it to the people: "If you wish us to put that programme through, put us in a position in which we will have a majority that will enable us to put it through." We did get that majority.
The same thing happened in 1943 and 1944. As generally occurs after a Government has been in office for a period, various things happen and one section or another of the community is disappointed because certain things were done or were not done, and consequently, in the course of time, Governments become unpopular and the natural tendency is to look for a change. That was the case following the period from 1933 to 1937, and, when we did go to the people, we did not get an overall majority in 1937, but we got it in 1938 because we had to go, as we did in 1933, and say: "Do you wish us to pursue this programme or do you not? If you are serious and wish us to put that programme through, you must give us the power to enable us to do so, and that power will come by giving us an overall majority."
Again, in 1943, after a period in office as Government, we found we did not get an overall majority when we went to the people, and in 1944, in order to get the position right, we had to appeal to the people again. We had these elections within intervals of a year because otherwise we could not have gone on with our programme. In 1948, we got in with a majority over all other organised Parties. We got more votes for our Party than all other organised Parties together. It was said, of course, that the people had voted against us. Every vote that was not cast for us was taken as a vote for others. That was not true. That is not the way in which people vote. You vote for a certain thing, but it does not mean that because you vote for A you are voting for B as against C.
In 1948, we had returned a Party which was greater than all other Parties combined. The people knew what our programme would be in 1948. The people did not know—and that is where one of the fundamental rights of democracy was flouted and ignored—before that election that they were going to have a combination of people who before that were hostile in their political programmes, one to another. The people did not know that these groups would come together and claim that they had the will of the people behind them. The will of the people in that matter was completely ignored. Parties went before the people saying they would not coalesce or have anything to do with coalitions, and immediately afterwards they did have a coalition. The people's right to decide either of the two things which, under the Constitution, they are given the right to decide, policy and their rulers, was denied on that occasion. When the Coalition had operated for a period, they went before the electors again. I have always said that there was nothing whatever wrong about different groups coming together and forming a common group and going before the electorate in that way. I asked the Government of 1948 when it was about to go to the elections again in 1951, to go before the people with a common programme, but they did not do it. In order to get the support of their own special interests, the Parties began to take their own individual lines. For example, Labour began talking about Fine Gael as if Fine Gael were all the time out for their own interests and had no regard whatever for the interests of Labour.
You had the example of the Taoiseach at that time having to come out, when one member of his Government made a statement in favour of some special interest which would alienate the interests for which the Taoiseach stood, and practically unsay what the member of his Government had said. That was because members of his Government were acting as agents and advocates of different and hostile interests.
It is said that I brought this measure forward or put it to our Party to bring it forward—or whatever way it is put—only because we were defeated in 1948. There is this element of truth in that: it was in 1948 that it became clear to me beyond any question whatever that, if democracy in the true sense were to survive here, the system by which people could go in groups and advocate anything they wished because they were in an irresponsible position must end. It was possible for each one of these groups— afterwards combining to form a Government—to advocate any policy, no matter how conflicting, how impracticable or how impossible to carry out. It did prove to me that the multiplicity of Parties was going to increase here and that we were rapidly going to get into the position in which, once you had got a large number of Parties established, each with a special vested interest in keeping the system as it was, we would find it extremely difficult to get out of it.
It was for that reason that, although we were the biggest Party, bigger than all the others combined, we stood out resolutely against any idea of "National Government", as it was called, and stood outside any form of coalition. It was a self-denying ordinance as far as we were concerned. I know how difficult it is for any Party to maintain a position like that over an extended period of time. Parties are supported very largely because of the hope by those who support them that the policy for which they stand can be put into effect. If it becomes clear that you cannot put the policy into effect, then, of course, everybody says: "Very well. We may as well be in the swim with the others." In those circumstances it is extremely difficult for any Party to stand out, and when we did adopt that attitude it was said we were the bulwark of the nation, the bulwark of democracy, because we took that line. There were many who thought at the time that there was no hope that Fianna Fáil could go back as a majority again, and that belief was not without reasonable foundation, because the circumstances of the time, the grouping of the Parties, would have as its natural consequence that our Party, Fianna Fáil, would never come back as an organised majority again.
To hold out then was difficult, because the chances of success were not very bright. We stood out, and this last election in which we got in as a majority was proof that we were right. Things happen occasionally but if a thing happens once, which might be regarded purely as an exception, it does not mean that the same thing can easily happen again. It is because we feel it our duty to put this measure through, seeing that the good fortune has come our way to be able to give the people an opportunity of deciding this question, that we have chosen the present time.
We chose this time because we knew in advance that every other organised Party in the country would be against our trying to put that measure to the people. They would not want it to go to the people, and you could not put it to the people unless you had a majority holding the view that it should be so put, that is, you would want a complete Party majority on the side of putting it to the people. This whole debate—the discussion in this Chamber and in the Dáil—has proved beyond question how right we were. It has proved that there would be no hope of the people ever having an opportunity of deciding this question unless it was taken at a time like this.
It has been said that this is an inopportune time. I have never known people who wanted an excuse for opposing any measure who did not trot that out, that it was an inopportune time, that there were other things of national importance to be done. Of course there are, and of course there will be, at every moment, important things to be done. But this is an important thing. I was listening to Senator Professor George O'Brien talking more or less in that strain, too, that there were other more important things to be done—as if this was not important. As an economist, he would be one of the very first to say that the foundation of all progress and all prosperity in practically every country is the stability of its political system. Nobody would have any confidence in a country, and nobody would think of investing in any kind of national expansion, if he thought that country had a political system that was unstable and capable of being turned topsy turvy overnight.
With a coalition you never know in advance what way they are going to turn, how far the pressure of one group may induce the others to give way. There is no definite programme fixed by the Government. They are constantly attempting to sail in accordance with each wind that blows. Consequently, when we set out here to try to make the foundations of Government and of democracy safe in this country, to enable Governments having a definite programme to proceed in an orderly fashion with the execution of that programme, we are, as Senator O'Brien knows well, laying the foundation of real progress.
As I have said, we are taking this measure at the present time because it could not be put through by a minority Party, and I have shown that it is an important matter. Not willing to deal with this question on its merits, the Opposition have suggested all kinds of motives for bringing it in. It reminds me of something I was told a few years ago. A person had to make a decision with regard to an appointment, and he voted in a certain way. It was a deciding vote, and after the vote was taken certain members of the body concerned were chatting together. One member of the body said to the others: "What had he at the back of his mind in voting that way?" There was no apparent reason why he should have voted in the particular way he did, at least there was no reason that could be suggested to a person who was thinking of ulterior motives. One of his colleagues replied to him: "Would it ever have occurred to you that he gave that vote because he considered the person for whom the vote was being cast was the best?"
All sorts of motives are being suggested as to why we are bringing in this measure, but one motive will never be ascribed to us, that we are bringing it in because we believe it to be good and right and the best thing for the Irish people. We are not denying the Irish people an opportunity of coming to a decision on the matter. In the Constitution a provision was deliberately put in in order that there would be a preliminary discussion by way of a Bill on the merits of the question by representatives of the people, so that the people would have an opportunity of seeing the pros and cons and making up their own minds on the matter.
We knew there would be opposition to this Bill. We knew it would be opposed by the people who might easily think differently about the P.R. system, who might be attracted to it— as I was at one time—as appearing to be a fair system, and that it would be opposed by others simply because it was being proposed by us.
I have shown the necessity is for taking this action while there is a Government in power that can take it. The people can make up their minds about it. There are very few political questions on which there are not some pros and cons.
We had some Senators suggesting we should have had a commission. I think Senators travelled a good deal in seeing what other people had done. But our people have got first-hand knowledge, if they care to use it, first-hand knowledge of how this system works, why up to the present time it has worked not too unsuccessfully and the danger that lies inherent in it—the danger that comes from the fact that it induces a multiplicity of Parties and that with a multiplicity of Parties you will have endemic coalitions.
A coalition now and again is all very well and may be the only thing that can be done in the national interest; but I feel we would not be doing our public duty if we deliberately faced a situation we see looming before us, and with the power at least to give the people an opportunity of checking that situation, we did not put this Bill to them at the present time.
I have been asked: Why did you not mention this at the election? Since 1938 I have been warning the people about what could happen with a multiplicity of Parties here. I have spoken about it at a number of elections. In one election I was asked would it be the policy of the Government, if elected, to put an end to P.R. At that time I pointed out that this question could always be put to the people as a separate, independent issue and that it should not be mixed up with other issues in a general election. In a general election a number of other issues are raised. If you mentioned this issue at a general election and if you were defeated, it would always be said that this proposal was defeated.
I should point out, by the way, that the Constitution contains the very provision under which we are acting, and we are not outraging the Constitution by asking the people to amend it. The power of amending it is in it. It is there because we knew that, with the changing world and with changing circumstances, it would be quite wrong to have a rigid Constitution that could not be changed if conditions made a change necessary. I shall admit this though: I regret very much to have to bring about any change. I have a great deal of sympathy with the people who do not like to see changes. I, for one, would not stand for a change if I did not believe it was very much a change for the better and, in fact, a change that was absolutely necessary. Otherwise, I would not have dreamed of bringing in an amendment.
I might say this, too. If we were anxious for an easy time, if we were anxious to stay in Government and to have no problems other than the problems we have from day to day, then we would not have brought up this issue. Why should I or anybody else have brought it up if we did not think it was necessary? All sorts of motives have been suggested. Not one of them would hold water to any thinking person. We could have continued as we were. As far as Fianna Fáil are concerned, if our concern was the perpetuation of that organisation, its perpetuation could be better assured— mark you, I am not thinking of it as an effective instrument in securing the good of the community but simply thinking of the narrow Party organisation and its perpetuation—with P.R. than with the straight vote.
One of the things that happen under the straight vote is that you can get such a complete change that Parties can very well be destroyed. It is not true, therefore, to say that this is done for the perpetuation of our Party. Nor can it be said it is done for giving continuing power to our Party, even while in existence. That is no more true than many of the other statements. It is quite obvious that no person can predict what the people will do in an election. When you are close up to an election, if you have some political experience, you may have a fair idea of what they are likely to do; but you cannot judge what changes can take place in the future.
We are not freezing this, as somebody said, into the Constitution. The Constitution can be amended. If at any time it was considered that there was a better system than the straight vote, and we had succeeded in getting the straight vote into use, the people would have a far better chance of changing back than they would ever have of changing from the present system to the straight vote system, because in the one case the vested interests would be so numerous and so powerful that we would never have in the Dáil an opportunity of getting an overall majority. But under the straight vote system if any one of these Parties got a majority in the Dáil and if at any time they wished to change, they would have the power to put it through. Remember that this whole system of the straight vote makes for giving an overall majority to Parties and makes for one-Party government. Therefore, the possibility of changing back is much more favourable than the possibility or probability of changing the other way. We are not freezing any more than has been frozen already. We are not trying to predetermine the future. We are not so foolish to think that we can do so. The future is something beyond us. We may take action and do things as best we can at the moment to try to ensure that the future in store for us will be of the kind we like. But when we have done our best... "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley." In these cases it would be a very foolish person indeed who would try to predetermine and arrange for the future. It is our duty to try, in so far as we see it, to make provision that the future will be for the general interest of the community.
I do not know whether I should continue on this. The arguments that have been put forward here are simply arguments on a basis that do not stand careful examination. As far as the suggested motives are concerned, they would not hold water with any people sitting down calmly to consider them. The things attributed to us we could not do, even if we had the will. Those who put these arguments up know that as well as we do.
As far as the system we are proposing is concerned, may I say this? In most matters—as may be said to our scientists—simplicity is always one of the fundamental things in nature. If you can get a simple system, and the results from it are not less favourable than those from the other system, you will adopt the simple system. If we were trying to create here a Parliament in accordance with the ideal I have mentioned—a deliberative assembly representative of all the people, with one interest only, namely, that of the common good—how would we proceed? Would we not at once have to try to get independent representatives from the various areas within the country? For a variety of reasons, we would know that it would be better to act on the basis of a territorial democracy, to start off with, whatever changes or modifications we might put in afterwards; and the first simple step of which one would think would be the division of the country into suitable areas, endeavouring, as far as one could, to give equal determining power, under adult suffrage, to the individuals in these areas. One would divide the country, then, into single member constituencies.
Democracy, in its initial stages, was a simple thing. The people gathered together in the agora or the forum and the laws were discussed in the forum. That day passed, and the time came when government by widely distributed groups evolved and one had to think then in terms of a representative Government, in terms of dividing the territory governed into suitably-sized units, giving equal voting power to the communities in those units, each unit being roughly equivalent in population. It must, of course, be remembered that one must never be too rigid, because many considerations have to be taken into account. But that is the fundamental principle governing the idea of the single member constituency, administrative areas, and so forth. There may be certain geographical features which will make it desirable to depart somewhat from actual equality of population in each of the areas, but that departure must at all times be consistent with the idea that each member of the community will have the same influence in determining the laws through the medium of electing certain representatives to the representative assembly. It is a simple method. It is a straightforward method but above all, it has the advantage of simplicity.
The next point then is how one will elect a representative of the smaller community? I think one representative is by far the best. In a single member constituency the people will know the candidate, assuming, for the moment, that he comes from within the area. If he is brought in from outside, one can rest assured that there will be those within the area who will take very good care to let the people know what he is like. In fact, the chances of someone coming in from outside are slight unless there is some exceptionally good reason.
Consider the position of the ordinary constituency. Consider the position of the people in that constituency in relation to the selection of a representative. They will want someone who will be representative of their community, just as we want Parliament to be truly representative of the nation, working for the common good of all. These people will look for a candidate who will represent their views fairly, who will be interested in their interests and who will, having come into the national assembly, examine proposed legislation from the point of view of how that legislation will bear upon those whom he represents. At the same time he will be in a position to work for the national interest, the general interest, ensuring all the time that, in general, laws will not bear unduly or unfairly on those whom he represents directly. If, then, the aim is to have a representative Government, the natural thing is to have one representative for each particular area. I believe such a representative will represent such an area better and more truly, chosen in that particular way, than will a group made up of people who are "agents and advocates" for conflicting interests.
It has been suggested that under the proposed system a certain freedom is being denied. It has been suggested that the formation of a natural political Party is being denied. There is no foundation in either premise. Anybody will be free to go forward for election. It has been suggested that only the powerful organisations will be able to put forward candidates. That suggestion is completely false. Under the single member constituency system, it is quite obvious that an individual who is anxious to serve his particular community, and serve the nation, who is known to his particular community, and respected by it, will have a far better chance of being elected, as against any machine, than he would have under the present system. There is no doubt whatever about that.
It will be much easier for the voter under the proposed system to make a choice as between rival candidates. It will be much easier for him to select the person he thinks best both from the national point of view and from the point of view of representing the local community. It will be much easier for him to cast the balance beforehand rather than leave it more or less to chance. If there is a group representing conflicting interests, the community involved has really no idea of how they will be represented. Conflicting views will be represented. Representation can, then, be more easily decided in the single member constituency with the non-transferable vote.
We talk about P.R. Everybody who has considered the matter properly knows that we have not got P.R. here, the type of P.R. envisaged originally by Mill, and others. We have nothing of the kind here. I was one of those who were particularly anxious to limit the number of members in a constituency. I believe, with Professor Hogan, that, if one intends to get away from the bad effects of a transferable vote in order to get good Government and a competent Parliament, the way to do it is by restricting and cutting down to the minimum the number of representatives in each particular constituency. That is why we introduced the three member constituencies. If you had more members for each constituency, it would be more in the nature of P.R., but, as the Minister for External Affairs pointed out, if one were to adopt truly P.R., one would have to go completely outside the range within which we have been operating in recent times. Even within the widest range, I think the system has its dangers; it does induce an artificial growth of Parties.
Now, I am one of those who stand for the idea of Party. I believe Burke was quite right in his views about Party. I believe Parties are necessary. If one wants to make progress, it is essential that there should be a group which believes that certain things are in the national interest and that the common good will be promoted by advancing those things. In order to get results they must get together and co-operate. As individuals, they will not get results. Human intelligence demands that individuals with similar interests co-operate, one with another, and form a common group. The more there is in common the more effectively will they co-operate and the more successfully will they work together. In any deliberative assembly, such as a democratic Parliament is, it is inevitable that an Opposition must grow.
There are few people who can say they were elected under both systems. I happen to have been elected under both systems in more than one constituency, so I know something about both. One thing is certain, that is, that under the straight vote system, you have a simple method and the people who vote know what they are doing. However, we have not a proportional system as it is. The idea that mathematical accuracy of representation is produced by our system or by any one of these systems is all nonsense. Anyone who examines the rules of the voting knows that is not so.
Neither is it true that you inevitably get minority government, or what is called minority government, under the straight vote system. An example that occurs to my mind is this. Suppose you have candidates A, B and C. Candidate A gets 35 per cent.; B gets 40 per cent.; and C gets 25 per cent. C is eliminated as being the lowest, and, supposing 20 per cent. of his votes went to A and 5 per cent. to B, that would bring A to 55 per cent. and B to 45 per cent. Therefore A gets in and B is out. But B had second preferences. Those who voted for B had second preferences, and these are not even looked at. It could very well be that the second preference votes would go something like this: 30 for C and 10 for A; 35 and 10 are 45 and 25 and 30 are 55. Therefore C, and not A, would get in. So let us not hear any more about the mathematical accuracy of the existing system.
It is plausible; it is attractive; but to the minds of those who want to be fair, it is based on the idea of Party representation and special-interest representation. It is not based on the fundamental idea that the representative should come to the deliberative assembly of the whole community with one object in view—the common good. It is because we believe that the straight vote system will do that that we are proposing this change. It is simpler, more easily understood and gets just as good results.
When you speak about candidate B with 40 per cent. getting in where you had a division of 35, 40 and 25 per cent., you are not going to say that the 35 per cent. and the 25 per cent. should be added together and that it is a matter of 60 against 40. It is nothing of the kind, because we may fairly well assume that, in the case of the 35 per cent. and 25 per cent. candidates who did not get seats, there would be amongest the voters in the two sections, a large number—in proportion roughly to the 35, 40 and 25—in favour of the 40 and that, in fact, although the candidate with 40 per cent. appeared not to have an overall majority, he has, in fact, by having a substantial favourite majority, a majority entirely.
