The motion I have to move as an amendment is as follows:— To omit all after "Dáil" (line 1) and insert:—"regrets that the policy of the Executive Council transmitted through the Governor-General should consist in deferring to an indefinite future any attempt to remedy social and economic difficulties of the people especially the evils arising from widespread unemployment; and also regrets that no indication has been given of the intentions of the Executive Council respecting the recommendations of the Commission on Irish Railways." It may seem to the casual reader that the reference to the social and economic problems is precise enough and showed signs of earnest desire to consider these problems, but I want to draw attention to the phraseology of this particular paragraph. After pointing out that it must be the first and most urgent care to bring these disorders to a speedy end, it goes on to say: "In the mean-time"—that is, during the time when this disorder is being dealt with, with the object of bringing it to a speedy end—"my Ministers"—by the way, "my Ministers"—"are giving their best attention to the working out of schemes dealing with the problem which they hope to have ready to submit to your active consideration as soon as circumstances will allow of their being put into operation." In another place that would have been criticised as a policy of "Wait and see." Wait until we have tackled successfully the war-problem and then we will begin to deal with the civil problems. I submit that there is a good deal of connection between the two, as has been stated here before, and that it is not enough to wait until you have solved the military problem before you begin to put into operation your civil problems, particularly your economic problems. It is not merely enough to give consideration as to how to deal with these problems after the military problem has been closed. I contend that in this particular kind of military problem the argument that an army marches on its belly applies. The military problem runs concurrently with the economic problem as was the case in Europe from 1914. The Governments found, and this Government ought to realise, that the two problems ought to be dealt with concurrently and that one of the most considerable factors in bringing an end to the military difficulty will be to deal effectively with the social and economic difficulty. Ministers if they had been observant, if they had not been dependant entirely on the advice tendered to them by the Military Council would have noted that the enemy, as I think we might designate him, has an economic objective as well as a military objective. It is fighting its war on an economic plane as well as on a military, if we might call it so. It is not only trying to take life, but is trying to destroy the economic and social structure. We find the answer which the Ministry gives to that attack is to say: "Wait until we have defeated this enemy on a military plane, then we will begin to tackle the economic and social problem." I contend that that is the wrong way to deal with this question, and that it is negligence and it is ill-advised on the part of the Government to remit to some indefinite future the tackling in a practical way of the problems of unemployment, low prices and the cessation of production. The attack is being made on the economic life, and I think that everybody admits that that is the most effective and disastrous of the two, if one is going to take monetary values into account. The loss of life is infinitely more deplorable even than the destruction of property, but the virulence of the attack is being made upon the economic life, yet the defence is being made only on the military side. A campaign of destruction I contend ought to be countered by an acceleration of production and construction, and if the Government were wise they would counteract that attack by the introduction of schemes for actual production and construction. We shall be met no doubt with the argument that while destruction is going on, while the enemy forces are engaged in a campaign of destruction it is useless to attempt to construct, but I do not think that the Ministry will argue that the whole of the country is in the position of being liable to destructive attack upon its economic front. If it is so, then we are indeed still in a parlous position, and some change of military policy ought to be adopted, because it would imply that no improvement, but rather the opposite is taking place in the military situation. We know there are very large areas in the country which are not subject to persistent attack upon the economic plane, and if it is a good thing to counter destruction of civil and economic life in one part of the country by the rehabilitation of economic life and schemes of construction and intensified production, then those schemes ought to be put into operation in every place outside the range of fire from the Irregular forces. It is not enough to wait until the victory over the destructive forces has been accomplished. Conceivably that might take quite a long time, and if we are not going to utilise our human and material resources in building up in these other places, distant from the points of attack, then the end of it all is going to be calamity indeed. I think there are many lessons to be learned from the European War. We look back and find that in England and in Ireland and in France and in Germany and in America during the time of war, by one means or another all the elements of construction—all the elements of production I should say—were in operation within the country, actively producing something and living by the process. That something happened to be material for destruction, but I would submit that we could learn a lesson in this country from the examples that were shown by those countries how to set into operation all the various kinds of machinery of production, construction and consumption. The answer will be given, I have no doubt, as it has already been given on other occasions when similar questions have been raised, that there is no money; that until the present warfare is brought to an end, until the industrial and commercial life be set moving, there will be no money and no credit. I submit, on the other hand, that unless these forces of production are set moving and brought into operation, there will be no money and no credit, and that it ought to be by the setting into motion now of these forces of production that success may be achieved militarily, and that when the time has arrived, when peace has been accomplished, that the intensified production will have had a good start, and that the demobilised men will have something to turn their hands to. I said that the answer would come no doubt, that there was no money and no credit. The European War cost England and Ireland something like eight thousand million pounds, and it was financed somehow—the money was found somehow. It was not saved up money; it was found simply by the process of putting into operation the processes of production. These processes of production were set going by the definite initiative of the Government. They floated loans, no doubt they conducted certain book-keeping operations which were called the flotation of loans, but they did not gather eight thousand million pounds of actual wealth to carry on their war. They bound themselves no doubt, at least they bound the future, to pay certain interest and principal to certain money-lenders large and small for ever and ever, Amen, but they did it by a process known to bankers and known to financiers, and known to the Treasury here no doubt, which did not cost the country, at that time, unemployment. The process that the Ministry is proposing to adopt is going to cost the country unemployment; it is going to cost the country the loss of money, of many million pounds worth of production, that should be in operation, and is not. I took out of the official Gazette this morning certain figures which throw a little light upon the process of financing civil and military operations. There is in the issue, dated the 27th October, a statement of the amount of Irish bank notes in circulation. The average circulation for the four weeks ending September 2nd was £17,358,000. The gold and silver held by the Irish banks against the notes in circulation was placed at £10,589,000. Now, that does not seem so bad. There are £17,000,000 worth of notes in circulation against which gold and silver valued at £10,000,000 is held, but there is an informative little note at the foot of that table, saying that this column referring to the gold and silver includes currency notes deposited at the Bank of England, which, by virtue of a certain Act, is treated as coin. The currency notes are treated as coin, and therefore we find that the average amount of notes issued by Irish banks in circulation amounts to £17,000,000, against which currency notes, British currency notes, are held. Now I find from another table that the currency notes outstanding amount to £300,000,000, and the gold and silver held in England against the £300,000,000 worth of currency notes—and you are all supposed to be able to cash these currency notes for gold at the same time— is declared to be £34,000,000, so that we have the Irish banks circulating £17,000,000 worth of notes of their own against which they hold, perhaps not gold at all, but they have deposited currency notes in the Bank of England, and against these only about one-ninth or one-tenth is backed by gold. Now, if that can be done—and it is done in England—it can be done in Ireland, and the same kind of credit, the same kind of security, for these loans—not only these loans which are called currency notes, but the other seven thousand million pounds, the only security is the future but the other seven thousand million productivity of the people. The people that accepted them believe that they would be met by something to be produced in the future, or by something which exists to-day and is exchangeable. It is based upon faith—faith in the productivity of the soil, faith in the value of human labour applied to the soil, faith in the belief that the community will at some time or other become orderly and productive; and if that security is good enough for the banks it is good enough for the Government. If it is good enough for the banks to issue notes to the value of £17,000,000, if it is good enough for the banks to issue all kinds of loans, believing that order will eventually come, and that the sun will continue to shine and the rain will continue to fall and the earth will continue to give forth her increase, then it is good enough for the Government to finance production just as well as it is possible for the banks to do that thing. And that is the answer I am making to the anticipated objection that there is no money to finance undertakings, that there is no money to finance production. I want to plead that the Government ought to enter upon a policy of production, financed by itself, upon the security which every other lender will base his loan upon—the ability of the people of this country to produce wealth from the soil of this country. The farmers will tell us that they have large supplies of food, crops, and cattle awaiting a market. We tell you that there are large numbers of men, women and children that could eat a good deal more than they are eating, and that the most of these families are willing to put their labour into the soil, to put their labour to the work of production, which production will repay what is expended, and repay the farmers for the produce which they have handed over. We have to set in motion this cycle of production and consumption, and we have to ensure—and here you have the kernel of the problem—that consumption equals production, and that there is no block on the way, there is no blocking up of the channels and the cessation of production because the way is blocked to consumption. I submit that it is the duty of the Ministry to set into motion this cycle, and that it should have its first operation on the land. Deputy Gorey will tell us that the farmers cannot sell what they have already grown. Why? Because the people have not the wherewithal to purchase these commodities. I think you will have to set about the work of production, and, incidentally, the work of consumption, immediately. And I repeat with more knowledge, what I said a few weeks ago, that you would cut very deeply into the forces of Irregularism if you could ensure that the demobilised Irregulars were in a position to obtain civil employment. Also I submit that when you set into operation a course of consumption you will find it necessary to devise ways and means of ensuring that a larger proportion of the purchasing power of these consumers shall be directed to the purchase of home manufactured commodities. I believe that just as it is necessary to curb natural impulses by self-discipline— sometimes coercive forces—so it will be necessary for a considerable time to curb the natural desire of the people in general to purchase imported commodities because they are better advertised, or because they are more tastily produced, or even perhaps because they are cheaper. We come very naturally from that consideration to the whole question of fiscal relations between the Saorstát and other countries. I invite the Ministers to tell us whether they have any views on fiscal policy. I want just to touch upon a paragraph in the Message that deals with the boundaries. There is an aspect of that problem that very closely relates to the fiscal problem. We are met with complaints that low-paid industries over the border in the “wee” land, as I might call it, are taking advantage of their lower wages to compete with the higher wages and higher standard of life of the people in the Saorstát. We have reports like this: a certain millowner in Newry is competing with a millowner in Dundalk over the Counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Louth. The wages he is paying in Newry are 10s. or 15s. per week per man below the very moderate wages paid by the competing employer in Dundalk. We maintain, and we ask the Government to accept the proposition, that the end of their government, the purpose of it all, is to maintain and improve the general standard of life as well as the freedom of the people. That is the purpose of government, and we for our part are determined, in so far as it is necessary to act beyond the Government, to maintain that standard of life at as high a level as it is possible. We are not willing to reduce the cost of production in Dundalk by reducing the price of labour there to the level of the price of labour in Newry. There we have frankly stated a very difficult problem affecting both parts of this island. I want to know whether the Government has any policy, or whether what we may call direct action on the industrial plane is to be brought into operation to prevent the lowering of the standard of life for citizens of Saorstát Eireann by the competition of a lower standard of life among the residents in the Six Northern Counties. We can prevent that competition. We can prevent the destruction of that Dundalk mill. (I am only giving a specific instance of a mill, but it applies to many other small industries.) We can prevent the destruction of that Dundalk mill by preventing or by controlling the distribution of the commodities produced over the border under sweated conditions. There are quite a number of men already disemployed as a result of that particular competition, I mean in that particular small industry. There are very many men and women disemployed by virtue of that particular kind of competition. Through disorganisation and through political manipulation in the North of Ireland, men have become disorganised and their political and religious sectarianism has led to their disruption, and to the destruction of their standard of life and the standard of wages. That competition is facing us in all parts of the border line. Similarly, it is facing us in other parts of the Saorstát from the competition of other countries, but I am quoting especially the northern competition, because it touches upon an aspect of the border problem that appeals to us very closely. I believe that if there is to be any fiscal barrier set up we will have to follow the example of Australia and see that it shall be directed to ensure that the standard of life of the workers is maintained, and that no protection of any kind, fiscal or other, shall be given to manufacturers or employers who do not maintain the right standard of life for their employees. I will put forward on my own account this definite proposition—that we ought not to allow imports from the Six Counties to compete with the manufacturers and producers in the Twenty-six Counties when that competition is only made effective by the low rate of wages paid to the workers in the production of those commodities. I come to the second paragraph in this amendment which regrets that no indication has been given of the intentions of the Executive Council respecting the recommendations of the Commission on Irish Railways. That report has been issued for some time. We do not know whether it is receiving the consideration of the Government. We do not know whether they have decided upon any policy, or whether they are awaiting a decision upon any policy to pursue. We believe that it is essential that they should come to a decision at a very early date and that they should give some indication that the decision either has been come to or that such a decision will not be very long delayed. I do not want at this stage to raise a general discussion upon this question. I want rather to give an opportunity to the Ministers to tell us whether they are thinking of this —whether they have come to a decision or whether they are likely to come to a decision within a very short time. I could go on to make suggestions as to direction of a policy that in my opinion the Government ought to adopt. But after all it is the business of the Ministry, knowing better than we do its powers, its facilities, its machinery, and the prospects of the future, to state its policy. I repeat what I began with, that if you are going to bring about an early cessation of the military strife you ought to attack it upon the double front—the economic front and the military front. If it were clear that you are dealing effectively and practically with the social and economic problems and that you show signs of understanding the importance of those problems to the daily lives of so many thousands of people, it would be the most rapid solvent of the military problem in so far as seventyfive per cent. of the operators on the other side are concerned.