It is now my duty to move for further Loans, or rather, to get formal sanction from the new Dáil for further loans.
I am moving for a Loan in Ireland of £500,000, and in the United States for 20,000,000 dollars, which is roughly the equivalent of 5¼ million pounds at the present exchange.
The Members of the Dáil will understand generally the necessity for these Loans. The proposal regarding the raising of these Loans was, before the Truce, that we should go ahead with them immediately. All the arrangements are complete in the United States, and we only await the formal word to go ahead.
It was my intention that the first drive in the United States should be made before we start in Ireland, and the intention at home is to start the Loan drive about the middle of the month of October. When we started as a Dáil in January, 1919, we started our financial career on a loan of £1,000. We were fortunate in getting from the great mass of the people subscriptions to the Self-Determination Fund, and the backwash of subscriptions to the Anti-Conscription Fund, amounting to £65,000 or £70,000. That was really the only money we had for a long time after starting, until at a meeting of the Dáil the Loan of £250,000 was passed for immediate issue in Ireland. That Loan eventually realised £400,000, and the Loan in the United States just over 5,000,000 dollars.
The cost of collecting the Loan in Ireland was something like 2 per cent. It would not be so high as that, but it was necessary to send organisers into many parts of the country.
We had also a number of casualties, as the English Government made fierce onslaughts on our activities, knowing as they did that if we got money we could and would carry on.
Then we had to start and take up all the Departments of a National Government. We had to do what had often been written about in the newspapers, but which no Party in Ireland had ever attempted to do before—to bring Ireland out of the corner and to make her known —in fact, to advertise her existence. We spent money on foreign affairs, money which, perhaps, has not yet realised the advantages it will realise. We have established Consular services, a Department of Agriculture, and a Department of Local Government.
The latter is an extensive Department, because the English Government made an onslaught against our taking over that activity, and a provision has been made in the accounts for a certain amount which will to some extent, help temporarily the various Councils that the English Government have tried to pauperise into submission. An Industrial Commission has been inaugurated, and although there have been criticisms of it, I think that the Report will justify, in the eyes of every Irish person, the amount of money spent on that Commission. Other activities took money—the Courts, which our foreign representatives told us were a most potent influence, because they showed friend and enemy alike the capacity of "Young Ireland" for administration and justice. Propaganda claimed a good deal of our funds, and those who do not know conditions abroad are not aware to what extent money has to be spent in getting our case known abroad.
An activity which in latter days has cost a lot of money is that against a certain part of the country that seeks to impose religious and political tests on our citizens: I refer to the Belfast boycott.
The Department of Irish has taken some of our funds, and, generally, the Estimates for the coming six months is something like £200,000. These Estimates are, I may say, based upon the last half-year's requirements, and with a new accession of strength, and with new funds, these Estimates could be very much widened. It is not what we say here to-day that will make these Loans a success, but the work that will be done in the constituencies.
