On reconsideration of the many interruptions which occurred at the end of my speech last night, I have come to the conclusion that I was being objected to for stating that the policy of a certain group in the Dáil was a negative one, that it consisted of the phrase: "Not to balance the Budget." That drew a vehement protest from Deputy Esmonde, I think, amongst other Deputies of that group. I would like to quote a little from my recollection of what Deputy Esmonde said in moving the amendment. He directed our attention to certain small countries recently established, who have had many initial charges in the foundation of their State, and his remark was: "Of course these countries have not balanced their Budgets. If they had done so, they could never have established their State at all." If it is not a legitimate deduction from that, that the policy of the Deputy is not to balance the Budget, I can give him further quotations. He took three specific comparisons, Denmark, Holland and Switzerland. He said that in the last 8 years Denmark, on its ordinary Budget, had a deficit of 15 million pounds; that Switzerland, in in the last three years on its ordinary Budget, had a deficit of 12 million pounds; that Holland, in the last year, had a deficit on its ordinary Budget of one million pounds. I am proceeding on the basis that the Deputy will agree that his policy is properly summed up in the phrase: "Not to balance the Budget." If we are to proceed on that basis, might I join the argument I have in response to the Deputy with one in reply also to Deputy Johnson. Let us take some of these newly-established countries which have not attended to the balancing of their Budget. Poland is a case in point.
I wonder would anybody consider that it would have been well for us to go through the recent years of trouble that they have had in Poland? Would Deputy Johnson think that the children there in the last few years had a better chance of getting fed, and that the parents had a better chance of getting work to provide food for the children, as a result of the turmoil which Poland went through by not attempting to balance its Budget? I hesitate to speak of Russia. Russia has been so used for purposes of propaganda that it is very difficult to arrive at any proper estimate of what the truth is regarding circumstances there. But there has been very little attempt to balance the Budget there. I wonder, again, would Deputy Johnson or Deputy Esmonde believe that the State made progress or that the children were less hungry than the children in this country have been for the last year?
Deputy Esmonde has contradicted himself in detail in his speech. He has also contradicted himself on the two main propositions. His whole case rested on this, that the policy of the Government was cheese-paring and parsimonious, as far as finance was concerned, and that the credit of the State has been destroyed. I will read again the figures I gave last night—"£2,000,000 for roads, drainage and bridge rebuilding; £7,330,000 for property losses; over half a million for housing; £200,000 for public works and new buildings; almost a quarter of a million in the Army Vote towards new buildings; a quarter of a million for relief schemes; a quarter of a million, at least, in unemployment insurance benefits; one million pounds set forth under the provisions of the Trade Loans Guarantee Bill," and a promise which I gave definitely here that if that million was exhausted there was more to come. That is the parsimonious and cheese-paring State. And we have destroyed the credit of the country!—destroyed it to this point, that in the difficult circumstances in which we were placed we were able to raise a loan of ten millions, to say nothing of the three millions over-subscription which was returned, and have gathered together one million pounds in Savings Certificates. With that in the Deputy's mind, will he still persist in saying that the policy on the one hand is cheese-paring and parsimonious, and that the result is that the credit of the State has been destroyed?
Deputy Johnson joined in this vote of censure for reasons which were not at all those of Deputy Esmonde. Deputy Johnson, if I may put it in summary, wishes to censure the Government because they have not nationalised the sources of production. That is, I think, what it comes to. The Deputy in his speech said that far better than the idea of balancing the Budget was to have before you the idea that no one should go hungry in this State.
No one is in fuller agreement than I am with Deputy Johnson on certain matters arising out of unemployment. I think that to be able and willing to work and to find no work to do, is the modern wheel on which many fine citizens are broken, and as far as the credit of the Government can do so, it will be provided, and I have promised that it will be provided, to secure work, and we are doing our best to build up and stimulate trade and industry in the country. I have been a schoolmaster for several years, and for the first time I got a lesson from Deputy Johnson that I am rather glad I did not learn before, and attempt to put in practice before a class of discerning children. I never knew that it was any answer, say, to a problem in algebra, simply to wipe it off the blackboard. That is the Deputy's approach to the problem—the wiping of the problem off the board, and simply to see that no child goes hungry. Do not bother about the balancing of the Budget; do not bother about where the money is to come from; simply see that no child goes hungry.