I move:—
In page 3, line 3, to delete the word "ten" and substitute therefor the word "five."
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - TREASONABLE AND SEDITIOUS OFFENCES BILL, 1925—THIRD STAGE (resumed).
SECTION 2.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Question proposed—"That Section 2, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
This is the section which purports to make it a penal offence for a person not to inform. "Every person who, knowing"—that, I presume, means believing, or thinking—"that any act the commission of which would by virtue of this Act be treason, is intended or proposed to be, or is being, or has been committed, does not forthwith disclose the same" to a policeman or a court "shall be liable on conviction thereof to suffer penal servitude for any term not exceeding five years." I suppose the Minister will argue that if any person knows that treason has been proposed or plotted or conspired for and has not informed the police or the courts a prosecution would ensue at once. But I think most of us have been aware any time within the last five years of treason and we have not informed. I suppose that we are all, therefore, liable to five years' penal servitude, not forgetting the Minister. I take it that the answer to that would be that we may all have been guilty of offences in the past, but that we must not be allowed to be guilty of offences in the future. I think the proposition to make liable to five years' penal servitude any person who refuses to inform is unreasonable.
I do not think it will have the effect the Minister seeks. It is a kind of obverse side to the other proposition, and it is this kind of proposal: "We will pay you a reward if you will inform, and we shall imprison you if you do not inform." I do not think it is desirable to put this kind of a section into the Bill. You are not going to add to the respect the public will have for the informant. There is no need to punish a good citizen for refusing to inform. If he is a good citizen, and if he considers that the offence he is aware is about to be committed should be informed of, he will inform. To make the offence of not informing punishable, by a period of five years' penal servitude, is simply inviting contempt of the law. In regard to the proposition which is not here, but which might be implied, that the informer will be rewarded, we will have, I suppose, to leave that to Secret Service Funds.
As we are asked to be so very frank and free in our disclosures of intentions, it would be well, perhaps, if the Minister thinks that way, that he should be equally willing to put in a section dealing with the amount of the award that will be paid to the informer. I think one proposition almost goes with the other. I would ask the Dáil to refuse to accept this section which makes it a penal offence, liable to five years' penal servitude, for a person not to inform of an act, the commission of which will be treason, an act "which has been committed, is intended, or is proposed to be committed, or is being committed.""Has been committed" is certainly amusing. I think the Minister's archives will be very fully stocked, within a month after this section passes, if all the people who are aware of offences of treason having been committed were to inform under fear of a sentence of five years' penal servitude. Perhaps the Minister would arrange at the Stationery Office to provide printed and ruled forms so that the offence can be properly set out and the treason can be brought home to the individual who is being informed on. I would ask the Dáil not to agree with the section.
The Deputy took, on this section, as on other sections of the Bill, the line which I expected him to take. On occasions the Deputy wraps the green flag round him, and talks a kind of hybrid stuff between anaemic liberalism and what his conception is of advanced nationalism. He played with technical terms, and used freely the word "informer," and so on. Now, the Deputy, on other occasions, is the first to advocate the idea of the solidarity of the community that we, one and another, are members of, and that the individual has responsibilities beyond himself and beyond his family, just as he has rights in the community and in the State. The principle of this section is merely the corollary to the individual's rights as against the State. It embodies the State's rights in regard to the individual. When there comes to the individual knowledge of a common danger, knowledge of a menace to the community, he shall not lock that knowledge within his bosom, but shall disclose it to those who have the responsibility of safeguarding the common weal.
I have pointed out, on other sections of the Bill, that this State is based on the broadest possible franchise, and that very fact constitutes a claim for loyalty on the part of the people. It is their State, and they, at any time, in a democratic way, according to the majority, will call for the pursuit of any policy that commends itself to them. It is a mere playing with the facts, a mere clever debater's device, to talk about a situation which has gone, a situation which has no bearing on or no analogy with our present position. To represent this section as one that is open to objection on the ground that there ought to attach any odium to a person giving information to the State authorities with regard to an impending menace or an impending challenge to the State, is merely playing with facts.
The reference to five years' imprisonment is, of course, open to this comment and modification, that within this section any term of imprisonment, a week or a day, can be imposed according to the view of the court as to the degree of guilt and the gravity of the offence. To object to this section you must logically take the line that there is no obligation on the citizen to give information with regard to a menace to the common weal, a menace to the general good, and a menace to the people's State. That, I think, would be an extraordinary conception: that the State has very great and very grave responsibilities to the individual citizens, but that the individual citizen has no duties and no responsibilities to the State, and that he may know of, and withhold information with regard to the gravest dangers and challenges to the State.
If that is really the Deputy's view about what the position of the State fabric and the social fabric in any country ought to be, it is a very extraordinary view. It is the view of the savage who recognises no duties to his neighbour, no duties to his fellow-man, and who stands alone and wishes to stand alone. Other animals, besides men, are gregarious and live community lives. I do not know whether the Deputy ever endeavoured to stalk wild geese or not. If he did he will know they have a very elaborate sentinel system, the sentries being relieved at intervals, and he will know how efficient that sentry system is, and how difficult it is to get within range of the flock. Now, I do not know, not knowing the minds of wild-geese, what they think of the member of the flock that refuses to sound any note of warning on the approach of danger or on the approach of disaster, but transferring the matter, that is the creed that the Deputy preaches as to the relations that should exist between the citizen and the State—that he may see the danger coming, have full knowledge of danger coming, and that there is to be no duty or no obligation on him to impart to the State authorities his knowledge of such coming danger, that is simply a gospel which we cannot accept. If the State is to discharge fully, freely and efficiently its responsibilities to the citizen, it has the right to ask that the citizen in turn will discharge his obvious, fundamental duties to the State. There is the duty of common loyalty, of allegiance not so much to a particular Government, but to the common weal. The citizen having knowledge of any danger to the State, which is based, as I say, on the will of the majority of the citizens, is bound, and should be bound, by law, and under whatever, sanctions are necessary, to disclose such information to the proper authorities.
I can only, in reply to the Minister, say that his conception of the duty of the individual to the State is not mine. I would stand very firmly by the proposition that the individual has a duty to the State in regard to protecting the State, protecting the common life. I am not going to say that the State in all and every respect, and at any time, is represented by the immediate authoritative organisation which is sometimes called the State. The common life of the community must be protected, but this kind of proposition, with humanity as it is, is simply inviting the people to do things out of fear, not out of respect for the State, not because they realise their obligation to the State and the community, but for fear of punishment. You are not inducing any greater respect for the State; you are not inducing any greater loyalty or any greater regard for the State, but you are asking people to do certain things because of the fear of five years' imprisonment. That is the proposition which I am opposing.
How does the Minister hope that this section will be made effective? I could see the necessity for the section provided it would be made effective, but I cannot see how it can be made effective. You pre-suppose that a citizen must know something about what is happening, but you have to get another citizen to prove that he did know it.
Quite; that is the idea. I consider that if the State is in a position to prove knowledge on the part of any citizen, knowledge and secrecy, and knowledge and failure to disclose on the part of any citizen with regard to treason, that citizen should properly be liable to penalties with the sanctions of the law. There is just this other point with regard to this section. Not very often in the case of treason will you be in a position to prove with regard to people who are themselves guilty, that they were themselves participants, but you will be in a position to prove that they had knowledge. You may not be able to prove in all cases the overt act, but you will be able to prove that these persons had information in regard to the treason, with regard to a treasonable conspiracy which they did not disclose. If you put no duty on the citizens to disclose to the State authorities information with regard to treasonable practices or intentions, then very often people themselves guilty of treason will escape for lack of information with regard to any overt act. Under this section people can be put on trial for failing to disclose information which they undoubtedly possess, or which they can be shown to possess, to the State authorities. It is in practice often found that the only charge you can bring and prove against the person concerning whom there is no real doubt, is that he was in fact guilty of treasonable practices and treasonable intentions. If only for that reason, I would certainly not abandon this section of the Bill, and I ask the Dáil to agree with me that it is not an extravagant demand on the part of the State that its citizens should disclose to the proper authorities—to those who have responsibility to the people—information that may come their way with regard to any menace to the State fabric.
Question—"That Section 2, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 28; Níl, 12.
Tá
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Thomas Bolger.
- Seorise de Bhulbh.
- John J. Cole.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Seosamh Mac 'a Bhrighde.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Risteárd Mac Liam.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Donnchadh O Guaire.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
Níl
- Pádraig Baxter.
- John Daly.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Pádraic O Máille.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
Tellers.—Tá: Séamus O Dóláin, Liam Mac Sioghaird. Níl: Pádraig Baxter, Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
Motion declared carried.
SECTION 3.
Every person who commits any of the following acts, that is to say:—
(a) attempts or takes part or is concerned in an attempt by force of arms or other violent means to overawe or intimidate in any way either the Governor-General or the Executive Council or any member thereof or any other Minister duly appointed under and in accordance with the Constitution, or the Oireachtas or either House thereof, or any lawful court or any judge of any such court with a view to influencing their or his actions, or
(b) assists, encourages, harbours or protects any person engaged or taking part or concerned in any such attempt as aforesaid, or
(c) conspires with any person (other than his or her wife or husband) or incites any person to make or to take part or be concerned in any such attempt, or
(d) sets up or holds or purports to set up or hold any court of justice or court-martial (not being a court or court-martial duly established and maintained according to law) or assists or takes part in or is present at the proceedings of any such pretended court or court-martial, or
(e) incites any member of a military or police force lawfully maintained by the Government of Saorstát Eireann to mutiny, or to desert from such for or to refuse to obey orders given to him by a superior officer, or to absent himself from or to refuse, neglect, or omit to perform any of his duties, or to commit any other act in dereliction of his duty, or
(f) incites any person in the civil service (other than a police force) of the Government of Saorstát Eireann to refuse, neglect, or omit to perform his duty or to commit any other act in dereliction of his duty.
shall be guilty of felony and on conviction thereof shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds or, at the discretion of the court, to suffer penal servitude for any term not exceeding twenty years of imprisonment with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding two years or to both such fine and such penal servitude or imprisonment.
I beg to move:—
To delete paragraph (f), lines 36 to 39, inclusive.
I am not always sure if I correctly interpret the intentions of the Minister for Justice, especially in matters of this kind, but in this case I assume that the meaning of the inclusion of this paragraph is that the Minister is endeavouring to preclude civil servants or State employees from membership of trade union organisations. If that is not his intention, if they do join a trade union, which is a properly constituted organisation within the meaning of the Constitution, he seeks to preclude their leaders from advising them to use the power and influence of the trade union, if that should become necessary at any time. The Minister knows quite well that this is taking away a certain amount of liberty from the individual, although that individual may happen to be a State employee. He knows also that trade unions exist by the right that they receive under the Constitution. They are neither oath-bound nor secret societies, and their movements and activities are carried on in the daylight. There is nothing, therefore, from that point of view to encourage the Minister to take the action which, apparently, he intends to take if he insists upon the insertion of this paragraph. If I am crediting the Minister with something he does not intend I will be glad to know from him what is the real meaning of inserting this paragraph.
I have endeavoured to keep in mind throughout this Bill the fundamental aspect of it, that it is a Treason Bill, and I endeavoured to advert to and deal with all those kinds of offences by which the State could be injured or undermined. That was my line of approach to this particular subsection to which the Deputy takes exception. One of the processes by which the State could be injured, undermined, reduced to impotence is the corruption of its agents or the undermining of its executive branches. It is only in that way that I concerned myself with this aspect of the question. The question of Civil Service regulations and so on, the right of civil servants to join organisations or associations of one kind or another is not primarily for me, but the question of the means by which the State can be struck at and undermined did come within the scope of this Bill, and I endeavoured to deal with it. The Deputy knows that the State could be paralysed if vital public services could be brought to a standstill, if people were free to organise amongst public employees, and to arrange that at an auspicious time, whenever occasion suited, they would refuse to perform the duties which they had undertaken to the public generally to perform. Civil servants have special rights, special privileges, which the ordinary worker is not so fortunate as to possess. They have rather good hours of service; they have pension rights; they have individual advantages of that kind, in return for which, as I understand, they divest themselves of certain liberties which the ordinary worker does possess.
The net issue brought by this subsection which the Deputy seeks to delete is whether persons are to be left free to approach public servants, to approach State employees and urge upon them that they should refuse to perform their duties, that they should neglect to perform their duties, or that they should commit some other act inconsistent with the due performance of their duties to their employees, the public. That is, at any rate, a clear enough issue, and Deputies can have very little difficulty in deciding upon it, whether they decide with Deputy Davin for the deletion of the sub-section and for the point of view that there should be no restraint on any such course of action, or whether they decide, as I would wish them to decide, that there should be a very definite check and a very definite restraint upon a line of action which could conceivably reduce the State to utter impotence if it were allowed to prevail.
The Minister says that a person must not be allowed to follow a line of action which could conceivably, if followed, bring about a state of things——
I would substitute the words "a certain line of action."
Within the paragraph sought to be deleted, you may have a deliberately-organised conspiracy to destroy the State by refusing to perform public services. That is one of the possibilities. On the other hand, you may have a person telling a postman that he ought not to deliver those letters in that particular street which he has been advised and told and ordered to do by his superior. That is another extreme. Even within that smaller offence a person is liable to suffer penal servitude for any term not exceeding 20 years. The Minister says this is a Treason Bill, and he wants to put in a provision which would make it impossible for the Post Office servants, for instance, to organise in a trade union and to strike against oppression that may exist, or that they may feel exists in consequence of the action of a superior officer. It is not true to say that people entering the Civil Service by that act are expected to forego their rights as free men. If that were the case, then you are asking men to enter the Civil Service on the status of slaves.
I happen to have picked out from my papers a paragraph which I think has been lying there for about two and a half years. It reads:—
"The State should always maintain discipline and order, but the State has no right to prohibit a just strike. That is a natural right of man. It is man's natural defence. It existed prior to the State itself, and is a right which no society can annul. It is a natural right of man to give or withhold his labour. It's a man's defence against injury and oppression. Man's right to strike is then a natural right"—
even if he becomes a civil servant.
A DEPUTY
The author?
The author is His Eminence Cardinal O'Connell of Boston. He is in the same school of thought as the Minister with respect to the position of the State. But he defends the right of a man, even a civil servant, to strike against oppression, and perhaps the Minister would agree that States have been known to be oppressive. Under this sub-section any petty tyrant in the post office could threaten and cajole, and brow-beat and punish his inferiors in status, and they would have no right to resent it by refusing to work or refusing to obey orders, subject to the penalty of £500 fine and 20 years' imprisonment with or without hard labour. Under that particular paragraph which the Deputy and we seek to have removed, nothing can be said to persons in the employment of the Government which suggests that they should not perform any of their ordinary duties under any circumstances, whether it was a strike such as we had occasion to call within the last three or four years for politicalsocial purposes, or whether it was a strike against oppression of a petty tyrant, or whether it was a refusal to work because of any very strong demand for changed conditions.
Let us remember the attitude of the Government with regard to the Civil Service, and this is a matter which the Minister for Finance may take into consideration. There has been a tendency latterly to refuse civil servants the right of audience and to treat them as persons who have been appointed and who must take what is given to them without question, certainly without any right to consultation, conference or discussion. I can conceive events happening, the way things are shaping, that would bring civil servants into a state of collision with their superiors, unless they are met with reason, and I can see a great many people being bound by their own views of what liberty means to incite civil servants not to perform acts which, in the ordinary course of things, are part of their duty.
I hope that the ordinary civilian will never give up his claim to urge upon another the duty of withholding his labour, even if it is between the civil servant and his employer. It is not by setting down penalties in Acts of Parliament that you are going to make the Civil Service a loyal and contented service. I do not know how far this particular section will range. If public activities are to be developed the Civil Service to-day would include postal servants, whether on permanent or unestablished staffs. If the railways were nationalised, I take it the railwaymen might be called civil servants. I suppose that Ministers would then think that they could have the railwaymen entirely at their mercy and any other development of public activity, which would mean a larger area of employed persons would mean reducing these people to the level of slaves. They may not resent oppression and withhold their service, or refuse to obey an order without the spokesman or the person who may be alleged to be the inciter being liable to this penalty. I say that this section is quite clearly aimed at denying the rights of free men to civil servants, and, in the working out, I have no doubt that it would be used to destroy any attempt at organisation within the Civil Service. I hope that the House will support the amendment of Deputy Davin and refuse to agree to the proposition of the Minister to make all civil servants slaves.
I think that Deputy Johnson exaggerates the effect of this clause. It does not do anything in the way of preventing any person employed by the State from withholding his labour if he likes. It does not prevent any person from withholding his labour simultaneously with other persons who have been employed by the State, but it does prevent any person coming along and definitely organising a strike of civil servants. On a previous occasion it was very clearly stated here that, so far as this Government was concerned, it would not recognise the right to strike among civil servants. I think that is a most reasonable attitude. If we were to recognise the right to strike in the Civil Service you might easily have a Praetorian Guard of the pen which would be as potent to make or unmake a government as an armed body. I can easily see, if we had a position in which civil servants could strike about some particular matter and, following their right to strike, on the settlement of the strike go back to their work, we might, for instance, have Customs officials saying that if the Treason Bill were not withdrawn they would withdraw their services. You could not improvise a staff to do that work and you might have a position for months that little, or no Customs duties would be collected, and the work would be held up at the ports unless certain legislative proposals were withdrawn. If you recognise the right to strike you might have bodies of civil servants who might exercise the most extreme pressure on any government. I think it is right to say that you do not recognise it as a thing within the competence of civil servants. If the Government feel that people who withdraw their labour ought not to be regarded as participating in, as it were, a labour dispute and entitled to go back when that dispute is at an end, no objection could be taken to a clause which prevents the incitement of civil servants to withdraw their labour.
This clause prevents a civil servant from inciting his fellow-civil servants, and it prevents an outsider from inciting civil servants. The question of the right to strike is connected with it, but it is another question. It is not dealt with here. The right of a free man to withhold his labour, if he chooses, is not interfered with. Any person who finds the conditions not to his liking, or who wants to protest against the iniquitous proceedings of a Government by refusing to draw the pay of the State, can take the course that is always open to him. That is as much as can be admitted. We have got to secure the State and the general public against the possibility of any kind of coercion. We recognise in the case of armed forces that they must not be allowed to mutiny, and that they must not be allowed to refuse to do their duty in any case of emergency, because their refusal to do so would be coercion of the State and of the general public. Equally the refusal of a considerable body of civil servants to do their duty might be coercion of the State and of the general public. That is a thing which I think cannot be accepted and cannot be tolerated. I do not say that arguments may not be adduced to exclude particular classes from the scope of any such provision. That may well be. There may well be a State employees' union whom you could not hold to be in such a position that their strike would constitute a coercion of the Government and of the State. It may be that arguments could be brought forward to exclude certain classes. There has not been a tendency, so far as I know, to refuse the right of audience. A certain type of machinery which was not really suitable to the Civil Service, and which did not really work in the Civil Service, was dropped. It did not work because you could not have two responsible parties present at the conference. The people representing the staffs were free; they could make their demands, but the people representing the authorities went with their hands tied, and could not, in the circumstances, really discuss things. It was a system that led to a very considerable waste of time, and that did not carry anybody forward, but the dropping of that did not mean that the staffs were not entitled to organise. In fact, they were encouraged to organise and to be able to represent their point of view on any staff matters to the heads of their department, and as far as the service in general was concerned to the Minister for Finance.
I certainly regard it as most desirable that you should have organisation amongst the staffs, that you should have consideration of problems, that you should have a combined view presented, something that would be reasonable, and that any combined view should be very carefully considered by the Department concerned. I believe by that means you would get rid of, perhaps, a lot of causeless discontent, and the sort of discontent that arises from the individual sitting in his own corner and brooding over his own grievances, and thinking that remedies could be applied that discussion with his fellows in an association would show could not be applied. But, as the Minister for Justice said, the position is really one of protecting the general public. This is really aiming at certain people who may be in a strategical position, who may be so situated in regard to national activities, that they could use their position to hold up the machine at a critical time and enforce demands of any sort. Once you have the right to strike, the right to incite a strike, you cannot confine your demand to any particular demand, to economic demands, or demands about staffs. They might extend to other matters, just as you have certain men holding up the Port about matters that are not concerned with wages, matters of trades union organisations, and about the right of men being in one trade union instead of another. You might very well, if you allow civil servants to organise along certain lines, have an organisation saying, "We will not have this State continuing a member of the League of Nations at Geneva, and unless there is a withdrawal there will be a strike next week." That may be exaggeration, but it could happen, and I think it is clear that, in the interests of the State, there should be a limitation of the possibility of withdrawal, or of incitement to combined withdrawal, of labour from the State.
I listened with some surprise both to Deputy Johnson and to the Minister for Finance. Deputy Johnson made a case that this Bill has within it the seeds of the operation of certain factors, and the answer I expected Deputy Johnson would have got was that the Bill did not purport to deal with the economic life of the country, either as regards civil servants or others. A Bill brought in to prevent an organised attempt to overthrow the State would be my interpretation of a Treason Bill, and when Deputy Johnson went on to enlarge on the subject of civil servants striking, it seemed to me that he was getting outside the range of this Bill altogether. I am rather surprised that the Minister for Finance should take up the position that Deputy Johnson was right, and that the Bill included within its scope trade disputes, that is disputes between the employer—the State—on the one hand, and the employee on the other.
I ought perhaps to be a strong advocate for withdrawing the right to strike, so far as business is concerned, but I am not such an advocate. Commercially speaking, I would hold that until there is something available that would take the place of the right to strike nobody should have taken away from him the right of combined action. I do not see how it could be logical otherwise, and while I as well as, I think, every business man, recognise the deplorable results of strikes, still I do not dispute the inherent right of the men as a body to strike.
I do, of course, question a strike as being the best way of remedying grievances, but if the Government take up the position that no man has a right to strike, I think it will probably lead to a worse state of affairs than anything we have had to face in the past. I do not believe in settling disputes of that kind by means of a drastic law which would prevent men from striking under any circumstances. Coming to the statement of the Minister for Finance regarding the danger of combined action by civil servants, I emphatically say that if regulations or laws are necessary to safeguard the community against the inconveniences, losses and dangers that might operate during a strike of civil servants, the Treason Bill is not the place to put them. To put into a clause in the Treason Bill something giving power to the Government, or anybody else, to enforce penalties for combined action, or action which under no circumstances one could consider to be treasonable, that is, having for its intention the overthrow of the State, would be, I think, making a very grave mistake. If that be the meaning of the clause, I will vote against it.
Deputy Hewat used one phrase which, I think, puts the case for the amendment in a nutshell. He said that Deputy Johnson, in the course of his argument in favour of the amendment, was getting outside the range of the Bill altogether. I agree that Deputy Johnson was getting outside the range of the Bill, but he was not getting outside the range of the sub-section. If I might use the term —it might seem to be a contradiction of itself—I think the case against this particular paragraph is that the paragraph is not within the terms of the Bill. The Minister for Finance put forward a very cogent case indeed against the right of certain parts, if I understood him correctly, critical and important parts of the Civil Service, to strike. That is a case that could be sustained in respect of a measure that purported to deal with that particular matter, but that the Treason Bill is the place to deal with a matter of that kind no one is going to suggest. We have agreed that this Bill in principle should be accepted.
It has been accepted that there shall be certain offences to be treated and certain punishments to be awarded in respect of certain offences, those offences to be described as treason and sedition. It is suggested that an attempt by civil servants to get a remedy for certain economic evils that they might consider themselves, wholly wrongly, to be suffering under is to be construed as an attempt to overthrow the State. Let the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Justice bring in a Bill dealing with the regulation of the Civil Service, and, as Deputy Hewat has very justly and correctly pointed out, in such a Bill if the right to strike be refused, let the refusal be accompanied by adequate machinery in which the civil servant can have confidence for the remedy of such wrongs. But while there is no such machinery, and while the civil servant does feel himself, rightly or wrongly, under such penalties, to endeavour to treat him as though he were committing an offence of treason, or an offence of sedition, is not the intention of the Bill. Deputy Johnson's argument might have been outside the range of the Bill altogether, but the argument that he based his case upon was not. Why I propose to support Deputy Davin's amendment in this regard is, that this particular paragraph (f) to Section 3 is not a paragraph that should or could, logically and legitimately, find its way into a Bill entitled "A Treasonable and Seditious Offences Bill." If these matters are to be dealt with, let them be dealt with in an appropriate Bill, with an appropriate title, covering the whole range of these matters, but do not let us have any confusion. I could understand that, perhaps, in the drafting or framing of this particular Bill, the person who had the responsibility might have thought, and fairly have thought, of a peculiar and particular type of offence, an offence that might have taken place —an offence that possibly has taken place—by persons evilly disposed to this State and desirous of overthrowing the State, seeking to corrupt civil servants. It may have been intended in this paragraph to strike at that particular type of offence, but the paragraph is not so phrased or worded. The paragraph is much wider in its range. It goes so widely in its range that, as Deputy Hewat said, and I entirely agree with him, it goes outside the range of the Bill altogether, and it is because it does so that I support the amendment to delete the paragraph in order to make the Bill deal with its own particular matters and remain consistent with itself.
It would be scarcely possible for me to say anything more effective in support of this amendment than what has been so well said by Deputy Hewat. What has been said by him should have a far greater effect upon the mind of the Minister, who is responsible for the introduction of this paragraph, than if the words came from me. As a matter of fact, the clause as it stands cannot be brought into effective operation. If, for instance, a section of civil servants who are entitled by the very reading of this Bill to join and remain members of a secret society, go into the rooms of a secret society, they can incite and, by that means, cause a strike in the Civil Service, the responsibility for which the Minister cannot place upon a particular individual. I ask the Minister to consider the actual wording of the paragraph, and to realise that, under circumstances such as I have described, it would be impossible for him to punish the people that he seeks to punish for doing things that he believes to be wrong and that should not be allowed. It would be very easy for an individual, without making himself known to the general public, or even to any wide circle of his own colleagues in the Civil Service, to incite a person to neglect or omit to do his duty. In fact, it is a very easy thing to do that in days like these, and hence the words "neglect or omit to perform his duties" have a very wide interpretation. It would be very difficult to interpret them in such a way as to bring them within the meaning of the Act, and to make an individual suffer 20 years' imprisonment for omitting or neglecting to perform his duties. The Minister for Finance said that what they really wanted to get at was the person who might come along and organise a strike. From what I know of the constitution of trades unions, it is impossible for a single member to organise a strike. Such action is generally taken on the recommendation of the executive committee under whose supervision every trades union is carried on.
What about Larkin?
It may be different of course in the Farmers' Union. If the executive of a trades union, for reasons best known to itself, decides that the only course open to it to secure redress for the members of a particular trade union, whether it be composed of civil servants, railwaymen, or transport workers, is by means of a strike, the general rule is to place that recommendation before a general meeting of all the members of the particular branch concerned in the town or city concerned. That is a right which all trade unionists are entitled to. It is a right which they enjoy under the Constitution for which the Minister for Justice himself must accept a big share of responsibility. They are entitled to that right unless debarred by law, and if they were to be debarred by law from enjoying that right it would be contrary to the meaning of the Constitution. Under the Constitution trades unionists have the right to organise as a body of free men and to coerce, if necessary, tyrants. Coercion is a very useful tonic to cure the indigestion which some of our tyrants, past and present, have suffered from in this country.
Hear, hear.
I am certain that the Minister must have been heard saying "hear, hear," when the post office men came out on strike to secure his release and the release of his fellow-prisoners on hunger strike in Mountjoy. I can imagine that the Minister could make a speech to-day different to that which, if necessary, he could have made at the time the post office men came out on strike to secure his release and the release of the other prisoners in Mountjoy at that period?
In 1922?
In 1920, 1921 or 1922, or even in 1919. I believe that it is the right of every individual, acting in conformity with the Constitution and in keeping with his right under that Constitution which the Minister speaks of so often and which is supposed to confer all the freedom that is necessary on free men in this country—to organise in a trades union and, if necessary, to use his industrial power as a member of that union to coerce even tyrannical governors. If you are going to put a political Act of this kind into operation, you are going to raise an issue in this country bigger than anything you anticipate, and you are going to let the civil servants, who so foolishly worked for the Cumann na nGaedheal people at the last elections, change their allegiance when they get the next opportunity of doing so. So far as I personally am concerned, I would not seek to exclude from the power of the Minister for Justice or from the power of any Minister the right to punish civil servants for organising or using an organisation to overthrow their paymaster—the Government for the time being—on a purely political issue. But I do dispute the right claimed in this paragraph, and it is because I do dispute the right that I propose to ask the House to divide on this amendment.
I fail to follow the speeches that have been made upon this clause by Deputy Hewat, Deputy Davin, and Deputy Figgis. The word "tyrant" has been used in connection with the clause. Now the tyrant in this case will be the people of this country who put certain other people into power. It is not the people in power but the people who put them into power who will be the tyrants.
A majority can be tyrannical, too.
The only doubt I have in connection with this clause is that it seems to me it does not come under its proper head. Is the heading of treason or sedition the proper head to bring it under? To my mind, the civil servant is equally a servant of the State as well as the Army or the Police Force, and they should not be allowed to have privileges that the police or the army have not. But I do think there is an element of doubt whether it ought to be given under this particular Bill or not. I think it ought to be brought into some other Bill, a Bill dealing with the duties of civil servants. I am not going to accept Deputy Hewat's or Deputy Davin's suggestion that the Civil Service is a trade.
I do not think I made any such statement.
It is a combination of individual freemen, or it ought to be.
I heard the words "trade organisation," and I do not know what the word "trade" was used for by Deputy Davin or Deputy Hewat except in this connection.
I doubt if I used the word "trade."
We have been listening to the word "trade" all the evening. If there was nothing said about trade then I have no more to say.
The words "freemen" and "slavery" have been trafficked about, and the word "tyrants" has been trafficked about in connection with this amendment. It seems to me that there is room for a middle course between the freedom to do what you like, and when you like, when in the State service, and the slavery of being compelled to work when you do not want to work. There is, as the Minister for Finance pointed out, the obvious course open to anyone to whom the conditions of service do not appeal, that is the course of resignation. We have taken up and will maintain the attitude that the Civil Service, which is the executive arm of the State, cannot be paralysed from time to time by the temporary cessation of work on the part of any individual. The right of resignation is there, and no other right.
took the Chair.
So far as this Bill is concerned, and so far as my line of approach to this sub-head is concerned, it is this:—That one of the means by which the State can be attacked and reduced to impotence and paralysed in the discharge of its proper functions to the citizens is the means of suborning civil servants, undermining them from their allegiance, and undermining them from the due discharge of their duties, and we proceed, and consider it part of the proper functions of this Bill to proceed, to guard against that. An attack on the State is not necessarily a wholly physical onslaught. We have seen that one of the most deadly forms of attack upon the State can be an attack upon its credit, and thereby upon its economic life, tending to bring about a condition of anarchy, wholesale unemployment, destitution, and so on.
You did not put that into the Bill.
I am just developing a point, and perhaps the Deputy will allow me to proceed. If the State machinery can be paralysed from time to time by a hold-up of that kind, it would be a very serious state of affairs. Let me take simply as an example one particular function. I believe myself that the credit of the State rests ultimately on the due and efficient execution of the decrees of its courts. If Deputies give a moment's reflection to that, I think they will probably see there is quite a good deal in it. Let us suppose that that arm can be paralysed for periods, that people can be so incited, and so organised, that they would refuse to discharge the particular duty of executing the decrees of the courts. Deputies, particularly those with any knowledge of how the commercial life of the country functions, will realise what the effect of that, and the almost instantaneous effect of that, would be. Similarly, as the Minister for Finance pointed out, in other branches and other offices, the State is vulnerable to such a line of attack and course of action as is sought to be guarded against in this Bill. Any failure to collect the taxes of the country, any delay, the loss of a couple of weeks or a month in that, would be a very serious matter for the State and for the State's credit
Consequently, we forbid by this section anybody or any citizen to come along to incite public employees inside the Civil Service of the State to refuse, or neglect, or omit to perform the duty they have undertaken to perform and contracted with the State to perform. That is not slavery. There is no compulsion there to continue work. There is at all times the right to step out and resign. But the Executive has never recognised the right to strike. It is only by a pure accident, so to speak, that, in discussing this sub-head, we are brought to the discussion of that point at all, because it was not from the point of view of the Civil Service regulations I was led up to this sub-head, but from the point of view of discharging the duty of protecting the State against all possible lines of attack. And one possible line of attack, and a very sinister line of attack, would be suborning of civil servants and inciting or inducing civil servants from performing their duties. Any such refusal, even over a short period, as I pointed out in certain phases of Government, at any rate, would be a very, very serious matter, and a matter that is properly guarded against in a Bill of this kind. Deputy Davin's turgid rhetoric about tyrants and so on, is, I think, a little out of place. It is a misuse of words. It is of the essence of tyranny, that it is politically irresponsible, that it does not answer back to some authority, and it is simply an ignorant and improper use of the word to apply it to any possible Government in this country which answers back to the people organised politically on the broadest possible franchise. Any Government that will exist in this country in the future will exist because it is supported by a majority of the people's representatives elected on the broadest suffrage known in any country. So much for the tyranny aspect of the thing. The slavery aspect of the thing is equally inapplicable. It would be slavery if men were forced to continue to work against their will. That is what I understand by slavery. There is no such compulsion in the Civil Service, and none of us, I hope, is visualising any such thing in the future. What we are saying is that the continuance of the Executive functions in the State is of such vital importance to all the people that we refuse to contemplate the prospect necessarily opened up by any admission that it is the right of civil servants to withdraw their labour spasmodically or periodically and resume after such withdrawal.
The Minister has made a case which is not a case for this paragraph. He is thinking in terms of revolutionary organisations deliberately set up for the purpose of destroying the activities of the State Department by some kind of sabotage, and he introduces a section which will cover that, but through a sheer mental —I was going to say laziness—shortcut, he says we will include another phrase designed to accomplish this purpose: "any dereliction of duty." He brings into that net any person within the Government service, who declines, or is incited, or is urged to decline to do the duty which his superior officer calls on him to do. This small offence, if it is an offence, is brought within the same range as this big offence of revolutionary organisation for the purpose of overthrowing the State by means of sabotage in the Civil Service. I frankly admit that probably the most vulnerable point in the State service is the clerical staff from one rank to another. It is much more effective than the Army, in my opinion. The same thing holds with the railway. If you get the clerical employees on a railway to refuse to carry on, the railway on its financial side is finished, but railways do carry on notwithstanding the fact that the railway servants, even the clerical staff, have still the right to refuse to work.
You are not going, by means of enactments of this kind, to make loyal citizens. It is not the way you make loyal citizens. The right to strike has loomed largely in this debate, and, rightly and naturally, because within this paragraph the right to strike, either for a political purpose or for an industrial purpose, is prohibited absolutely. It is—I repeat what I said despite the Minister's contention—a proposition that the employee entering the State service sells himself practically wholly and becomes a slave. Let me remind Deputy Gorey that State employees include joiners, carpenters, boilermakers, and many other classes of workmen whom he would agree at once were tradesmen and belong to trades, but that is an aside. The same argument I used applies to postmen, telegraphists and clerks in an office. Ten men may feel themselves working in an atmosphere of oppression and the petty tyrant is the worst of tyrants, as perhaps the Minister will admit. People can be oppressed by the small tyrant in a Government office or a Government Department or any private employment and their means of redress is, if the oppression is severe and acute enough, immediately to cease work. Certainly it is the most effective method. The Minister would deprive them of that.
Under this sub-section you prohibit any person saying to any of his neighbours. "We have stood this long enough; we refuse to do so any longer; we refuse to comply with the order our foreman gave." For any workman who said that, twenty years is the penalty. And this is a Treason Bill forsooth! At least the offence mentioned is a felony, and within the limits of what is called a Treasonable and Seditious Offences Bill. The Minister has brought in a Bill intended to defend the structure of the State, but he brings in paragraphs which go very much beyond that, and refuses to listen to any objection to going beyond his implied purpose. I want specially to call attention to the phraseology: any person, either within the State service or outside the State service, who incites a person in the Civil Service "to commit any other act," which means in effect "any act" in dereliction of his duty. It is very easy to put in a phrase of that kind "to commit any act in dereliction of his duty." You make him liable to a £500 fine or 20 years' penal servitude. It is extraordinary that the Minister should defend a proposition of that kind. If he really means to make it penal to suborn a civil servant, to incite a civil servant to use his power to overthrow the State, let him say that, but there is 500 times more than that in this Bill. Then you come and ask the judges to decide whether this man was inciting another to act in dereliction of his duty. What was his duty? What his immediate superior told him to do is his duty. If I am a person in the Civil Service, and if I say to a neighbour, "Do not do that." that is an incitement to him not to carry out his duty. The judge has no alternative to saving that was his duty because it was an order from his superior.
I ask the Dáil to consider what is being done by this proposition. There is not a single Deputy would dare go to a body of trade unionists and say, "We are going to make it an offence, punishable by this penalty, for any member of a trade union to call upon his fellows to refuse to obey an order which they believe to be a tyrannical order." No Deputy would defend that proposition or speak of it in the terms the Minister has this evening, as though one were only dealing with attempts to overthrow the State. It is quite ridiculous. The language of this section is not going to be interpreted by the Minister. It is going to be interpreted by prosecuting counsel who succeed the present generation of prosecuting counsel, and the charge will be decided by a jury and a judge. The judge will tell the jury what is the law on the matter. And the law is quite clear. "This man was guilty of dereliction of duty, and he was incited to it by the prisoner. You have no alternative but to convict." Twenty years' penal servitude!
I have no objection whatever to the argument of the Minister for Justice except this— that it has no relevance whatever to the sub-section before the House. If the Minister's argument were embodied in a sub-section which would include exactly what he said, and only what he said, there would be very little to be said against the sub-section. For my part I would support it. The Minister's argument was that the sub-section was intended to strike at persons who would attempt to suborn the Civil Service, with the intention of overthrowing the State, whether directly or by bringing its functions to a nullity. I have no doubt that that is exactly what was intended when the sub-section was originally drafted. But the drafting of the sub-section has been such that its terms go very far outside the original purpose. Therefore, the defence of the Minister is not a defence of this sub-section. It is a defence of some other sub-section which he had in his mind— a defence of the sub-section in its original intention. If that sub-section had carried out its original intention and no more, it would have been relevant to the Bill and within the four corners of the title. But the particular sub-section we have before us is not that sub-section. It goes outside it altogether.
I am in agreement with the argument of the Minister, that any person who strikes at the Civil Service, or attempts to produce a state of affairs or a combination within it of such a kind as to overthrow the State or bring its functions to a nullity, should be liable to a penalty. We might differ as to what that offence should be called, but we would all agree that it was an offence that ought to be dealt with in such a Bill as this. But let the sub-section deal with that matter, and not only deal with that matter but deal with it to the exclusion of all other matters. I accept the Minister's argument in defence of the sub-section which he had in mind and, accepting his argument, I ask him to produce that sub-section. When that sub-section is produced, of a kind to go on all fours with the defence which he has made, it will be found to be a different sub-section from this sub-section.
I was expecting the Minister, from the process of his reasoning, to come to the conclusion that he would reconsider the section, with a view to its being redrafted, so as to include only what he had in mind when he was defending it. But, instead of that, he branched off into questions that I think are quite extraneous by whomsoever they were introduced—questions of tyranny and questions of freemen and serfmen. My attitude in favour of this amendment and against this sub-section has no reference whatever to any of those matters. If it is necessary to bring in some form of regulation for the Civil Service to prohibit strikes and to provide machinery by which settlements can be made otherwise than by strikes, let such a measure be brought in. But the measure we have before us purports to deal only with offences committed by an enemy of the State with a view to overthrowing the State. The Minister himself has said so. Then let this sub-section deal only with that particular offence. As it is, the most convinced and confirmed advocate and the most stubborn defender of the Free State might feel inclined to say to one of his colleagues in the Civil Service, "I think you are doing work which is outside your function altogether. You do what you like, but I know jolly well what I would do." That would be an offence under this sub-section. But that is not intended. The Minister himself has indicated that it is not intended. Then let him produce the sub-section which is according to his intentions, because this is not that sub-section.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 17; Níl, 31.
Tá
- Pádraig F. Baxter.
- Thomas Bolger.
- John J. Cole.
- John Daly.
- Darrell Figgis.
- William Hewat.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
- Domhnall O Mocháin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
Níl
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- Connor Hogan.
- Seosamh Mac 'a Bhrighde.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Séamus O Cruadhlaoich.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Donnchadh O Guaire.
- Aindriú O Laimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Seán O Súilleabháin.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
Tellers.—Tá: Domhnall O Muirgheasa agus Tomás O Conaill. Níl: Séamus O Dóláin agus Liam Mac Siog haird.
Amendment declared lost.
I move:—"In line 43 to delete the word ‘of' and substitute the word ‘or.' This is the correction of a printer's error.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Question—"That Section 3, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 33; Níl, 12.
Tá
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Thomas Bolger.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- John J. Cole.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- Connor Hogan.
- Seosamh Mac 'a Bhrighde.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Séamus O Cruadhlaoich.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Donnchadh O Guaire.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Seán O Súilleabháin.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
Níl
- Pádraig F. Baxter.
- John Daly.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteard Mac Fheorais.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
Tellers.—Tá: Séamus O Dóláin agus Partholán O Conchubhair. Níl: Liam O Daimhín agus Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
Motion declared carried.
SECTION 4.
I move:—
To delete the section and substitute therefor the following section:—
4.—Every person who shall without lawful authority perform or exercise any of the duties, powers, or functions of any Minister or other officer of State or any person in the service (whether military, police, or civil) of Saorstát Eireann or shall otherwise usurp any function of the executive authority in Saorstát Eireann or shall attempt or claim to do any such act shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and on conviction thereof shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds or, at the discretion of the court, to penal servitude for any term not exceeding five years or imprisonment with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding two years, or to both such fine and such penal servitude or imprisonment.
The section as it stood made it an offence for a person to style himself or allow himself to be styled as President or as an Executive Minister, and so on. The effect of the amendment is that it shall only be an offence for a person to usurp executive functions.
Deputies will remember that on Second Reading there was a good deal of criticism of Section 4 on the ground that it prescribed penalties for mere declarations, titles, and so on, and I think even when speaking to Section 4 that I stressed the fact that it was not the declarations or titles that were objectionable or were seriously taken so much as an attempt to usurp Governmental functions or executive authority. In accordance with an undertaking to take a note of the more reasonable criticism that was offered to the Bill on the Second Reading, I propose to delete Section 4 in its entirety and insert this new section. There was, I think, general or practically unanimous agreement, on Second Reading that no usurpation of authority could or should be tolerated, and it is simply against such usurpation the new section is directed.
Perhaps the Minister would explain what exactly is the meaning of the word "claim"—"shall attempt or claim to do." Does it mean claim the right to do? I do not exactly understand the meaning of that line.
Taken with the context, I think it means that a person claiming authority to do some specific act which he would only have the right and the power to do if he held some of those offices which are set out in the section, would come within the section and would be liable to the penalties laid down. But the mere calling of himself by a name would not. I think, bring him within the section simply on account of the word "claim." It must be a claim to have the right to do some specific act and I think in fact there must be, with the claim, the intention or an effort to do the particular act.
I suggest to the Minister that he is rather vague in regard to the interpretation. He might consider it on Report because the wording as it stands is liable to a very vague interpretation.
I think the word is a technical drafting term with a very specific meaning and I do not think there would be any danger that it would receive too wide an interpretation in the courts. I do not think for a moment that it would have the effect of making this section equivalent to the section which we are deleting. Take, for instance, the specific case of people posturing as police without lawful authority. To make an arrest would, of course, be clearly a breach of the section and would bring the person making such an arrest within the provisions of the section. Attempting to make that arrest or claiming to make it, posturing as having the right to make it, with the intention to do it if the person submitted, would come within the section also.
It seems to me this is very bad drafting. How does a person claim to do it? "Shall attempt" to do it seems to cover the whole meaning of what the Minister has in his mind. If he intends to punish for claiming the right or the authority to do it, it would be well to say that, but the section seems to be extremely awkwardly worded as it is.
There is just a shade of difference between attempting to do it and claiming to do it. Attempted arrest, for instance, would involve some physical effort on the part of the persons making or attempting to make the arrest. To enter a house and simply to state that you were such a person and that you proposed to arrest someone would be a claim rather than an attempt and as an ordinary consequence, the attempt might be expected to follow but the claim would lie in the announcement that you held such-and-such an office and that you proposed making an arrest or that you wanted so-and-so to accompany you. That would be a claim and might not perhaps be covered by the word "attempt." It is certainly not an arrest and it might not even be interpreted as an arrest, but it is a claim to possess power to arrest with the implication that you propose to do the act.
It seems to me, if that is the case, that we are not getting away from the original section.
You are, in so far as the original section prescribed the mere assumption of titles. I tried to get away from the mere title aspect of the thing and to deal only with acts or attempted acts. The word "claim" read with the context would only cover what would be equivalent, or practically equivalent, to a usurpation of executive authority. It would be the first step in such usurpation.
Is there any overt act involved in the word "claim"?
You see what follows the word "claim"—"to do any such act." The words "claim to do any such act" must be construed with the rest of the section. The section reads:—
"Every person who shall without lawful authority perform or exercise any of the duties, powers or functions" of certain people or "shall otherwise usurp any function of the executive authority in Saorstát Eireann or shall attempt or claim to do any such act"——
I could understand the attempt.
"Such act" will cover only acts already set out and already prohibited.
The only point I want to make is the question of grammatical construction. You have it set out as an offence "doing or performing or exercising certain duties, powers or functions or shall claim to do any such act." What does that mean? Does it mean claiming the right or claiming the authority to do such an act? "Claim to do" I cannot understand.
I will have the word scrutinised. If it has any effect other than what I have said, other than having a meaning equivalent to the word "purport," I will see that the drafting is altered, because I certainly do not seek to cover anything except specific acts of usurpation of authority. If "claim" there is not equivalent to "purport," I can get it altered between this and the Report Stage.
Amendment put and declared carried.
Question—"That the new section be added to the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 5.
Question—"That Section 5 stand part of the Bill"—proposed.
I want to move the deletion of Section 5, and in doing so I would like to say a few words. Practically the gist of the criticism on the Second Reading was directed to Section 5, and I took it to be the view of the Dáil that there ought to be here the maximum liberty of speech and writing. I do not think the view was that there should be unlimited licence of speech and writing, that a person could say absolutely anything that came into his mind or write absolutely anything he wished to write, without consequences. I did at first set myself to the task of finding what would be the minimum I could ask, and what would be the maximum the Dáil would be likely to grant in the way of a prohibition of speech or writing. I decided that which would probably be direct and deliberate incitement to violence and illegality.
I had an alternative section in draft which boiled the thing to the minimum I felt I could and should ask, a simple prohibition of direct incitement to violence. When that alternative section was in draft I found that it gave nothing new. It purported to confer no power on the State or on the Executive which is not already possessed under the common law of sedition. Therefore it would be simply superfluous to insert any such section, and I am proposing the deletion of Section 5. I thought it well to state that much lest, by the deletion of Section 5, anyone might form the view that there would be henceforth in this country absolutely no code of sedition, that nothing a person would say in public from a platform and nothing a person would write in a journal would render him liable to penalties or indictment. That is not the position. Without anything being substituted in this Bill for Section 5, a person could be indicted for sedition who, by speech or by writing, incites to actual violence and to a breach of the peace. It is just as well that much would be said at this stage.
I think the Minister might have gone a little further in his admission and he might have stated the same argument could apply to every other section of the Bill, and that there is no occasion for those sections, as he has already powers under the present law. I think the attitude of the Minister towards the Oireachtas in this matter, stated, perhaps, with a little more refinement here, but stated in peculiar form in another place, the hustings, is hardly calculated to add to the respect which the public hold for the Oireachtas——
Or ought to hold.
Yes, which the publie ought to hold, and which, I hope, some day they will hold. The coming of that time will not, I submit, be accelerated by the attitude the Minister has adopted. The Bill is brought to the Dáil for consideration, and the Dáil is told it is the considered opinion of the Executive Council. The public are told, and we are now told, that it was a kind of try-on.
No.
We are told it is a kind of try-on, that it amounts to the offer of a cow in the market. We will say that if we can we will get £25 for it, but that we are prepared to take £15. That is not an attitude the Executive Council or any Minister should adopt towards a legislative assembly, if they have any desire to increase the respect which the public should hold towards this Chamber, or to the Oireachtas in general. To bring in a proposal of this kind, dealing with so extremely important a matter, and then to say that there was much more brought into it than he ever expected would be allowed to pass, is treating the Dáil in the same manner as the Minister, if he were a farmer and if he were in a fair-green, would treat his cattle. I resent that attitude, and I think it is not conducive to the proper conduct of public affairs.
I am very sorry if I wounded the Deputy's susceptibilities by anything I said, either here or elsewhere. What I did say might, perhaps, if I had had time to ponder over it, have been put much better. I meant no more than this—that there is, in regard to Bills of this kind, always a certain margin between the maximum that I would care to ask and the minimum I would be prepared to take. One does leave margins of that kind. You test the wisdom and educational progress of the Dáil.
It is the cow on the market.
I remember the first Public Safety Bill I introduced, and I remember the extraordinary difficulty I had in getting it through the Dáil. An identical Bill was introduced a year afterwards, and it passed with the most formal and artificial opposition. Similarly, with the Enforcement of Law (Occasional Powers) Bill: Deputies, when that Bill was first introduced, worked themselves into a paroxysm of fury and despair as to the state of affairs that would prevail in the country when and if any such Bill became law. The Bill was duly made law, and it operated for a year. When its renewal was sought, there was a mechanical Níl and little, if any, discussion. So we are getting on. In regard to Bills of this kind you have to experiment. You have to see to what extent the Dáil has developed in a political sense towards maturity.
There was a marked development as between the first and second year of its existence. There is a maximum you will ask—you will ask all your reasonable requirements—and there is a minimum less than which you will not be prepared to take if you continue to shoulder your responsibility. The Deputy can take it like that. He can take it that the Bill, as introduced, represents the maximum that I feel could properly be asked from the Dáil. In the course of its examination and criticism we are getting towards the minimum that I would be prepared to take as an Executive Minister.
But if we are to call each other to order here for things said at the hustings, as Deputy Johnson put it, there are some matters which, if I felt it at all proper—I do not so feel it—I might refer to. I might, for instance, like to refer to the capital the Deputy made out of a particular sub-section of this Bill which I told him on Second Reading I was prepared to withdraw, or alter in any way that he would suggest.
I am not so sure that the deletion of this section would not be worse than if we left it in. As far as I can see, once this section is deleted the law of sedition in this country will be pretty well what the section contains, substituting for the Constitution, the King, and for citizens of the State, subjects of His Majesty. I have been convicted under an almost identical section, a section corresponding to this in the Canadian Criminal Code. I argued for many days on the vague and general statement regarding the definition of seditious intention. I understand that the law will remain exactly as it is owing to the Adaptation of Enactments Act and that everything which is in this section, and a good deal more that is contained in the Criminal Libel Act of 1819 and various other enactments will continue. I deeply regret that the Minister has not seen his way in this Bill, which he claimed was a permanent one, to repeal some of these antique Treason and Sedition Acts, going back as far as the fourteenth century, which are still in force in this country. In fact, I think it would have been almost better if he had allowed the section to go through as it stands in substitution of the existing law rather than to delete the section and to retain these innumerable and prehistoric sedition enactments which we have inherited from the old regime.
Possibly the Deputy misunderstood me. I think certainly Deputy Johnson did. When I spoke of the new section which I had thought of introducing in substitution for Section 5, I said that I found, when it was reduced to the minimum, namely, the bare prohibition of direct incitement to violence, that I gave nothing which did not already exist in the common law. I think I was stating the position accurately. I referred to the common law rather than to any statute. There is in the State and in the Government, inherent from the very nature of their responsibilities, the common law right to deal with and punish persons who would incite to violence and to illegality. That would hold apart from any statute and distinct from any statute, and the indictment would simply be framed in the most popular language, the most ordinary language, that so and so, on such a date, did incite to violence, or incite to illegality, or incite to a breach of the peace, and so on. It would not be a question, as Deputy Esmonde seemed to think, of relying on any statute that was passed 70 or 80 or 100 years ago, and framing and indictment under such statute.
A good many of the provisions which the Dáil is now being asked in this Bill to pass as a specific statute are covered by the same common law and within the ambit to which the Minister refers. However, I am very glad he is deleting Section 5, and particularly glad, not on general grounds, but, if he will allow me to be solicitous in his own interests, for his own sake, because one part of the section now to be deleted, sub-section (3) (a), omitting the unessential words, reads like this:—
In this section the expression "seditious intention" means an intention to do any of the following things—that is to say, to bring into contempt the Oireachtas or either House thereof.
The Minister did bring into contempt one of the Houses of the Oireachtas on a previous occasion, and he has continued it to-day in this privileged place when he refers to the time "when the Dáil has developed political sense and maturity." Perhaps the Dáil may yet rise to that position, but, nevertheless, those words, if they had been spoken outside this House, and this Bill had been passed with this section in it, would have been an offence against the Bill. In the Minister's own interest I think he has been wise and discreet in moving that the section do not stand part of the Bill.
Question—"That Section 5 stand part of the Bill"—put and negatived.
Section 5 accordingly deleted.
SECTION 6.
Question proposed—"That Section 6 stand part of the Bill."
On Section 6 I would like to say that I propose on the Report Stage to omit certain words so that the section will read as follows:—
Every person who takes part in any proceedings of any assembly or body (other than the Oireachtas or either House thereof) which claims, purports, proposes or attempts to take upon itself, or does take upon itself, all or any of the powers and functions of the Oireachtas ...
Therefore the deletions will be: in the first line of the section to delete the words "as elector, candidate or member;" in the second line to delete the words "any election to or," and in line 15 to delete the words "or wilfully permits to be attributed to it."
In the meantime if this section is put it means that we are assenting to the section as it stands.
If allowed I would be prepared to delete the words now.
Under the Standing Orders, is it not allowed to move an amendment of this sort without notice, if there be general consent? If these words are to be deleted at all I think it is desirable they should be deleted now.
Leave given to move amendment.
I beg to move that these words be deleted.
While we are about it I suggest we might include the comma after "itself."
Yes.
Amendment, as amended, put and agreed to.
Question—"That Section 6, as amended, stand part of the Bill"— put and agreed to.
SECTION 7.
I am asking the Dáil to agree to the deletion of Section 7, in response to the criticism that was offered in regard to it on the Second Reading, that it is a matter that might very well be left to police regulations and ought not to be embodied in a Bill of this kind. There seemed to be a fair measure of agreement with that view. Accordingly I move the deletion of the section.
Question—"That Section 7 stand part of the Bill"—put and negatived.
Section 7 accordingly deleted.
SECTION 8.
(1) Save as authorised by an Executive Minister under this section, and subject to the exceptions hereinafter mentioned, it shall not be lawful for any assembly of persons to practise or to train or drill themselves in or be trained or drilled in the use of arms or the performance of military exercises, evolutions, or manoeuvres, nor for any persons to meet together or assemble for the purpose of so practising or training or drilling or being trained or drilled....
I desire to move the amendment standing in my name, which reads:
In sub-section (1), lines 41-42, sub-section (2), lines 52-53, to delete the words "or the performance of military exercises, evolutions, or manoeuvres," and in sub-section (3), lines 59-60, to delete the words "or the performance of any military exercise, evolution or manoeuvre."
The effect of this amendment would be that the section will refer to the training and drilling of persons in the use of arms. I submit that that would sufficiently cover what is necessary and what is really the main intention of the sub-section here. We are in very different times now from what we were before the rise of the Volunteer movement, before the effect of the Great War, and before we had 50,000 or 60,000 of our own young men drafted into the National Army and taught there to walk properly and march properly and to handle themselves properly as bodies of persons in movement whether in procession or in any other kind of movement. The inclusion of a penalty in this section for the performance of military exercises, evolutions and manoeuvres, I submit, would, in the first place, make a very large number of harmless actions liable to punishment and would throw a very heavy strain on our general administration. While there are certain persons who are perhaps drilling at the present moment and performing military evolutions, I submit they really are not a danger to the State in any way. The passing of a law to the effect that military exercises and evolutions in themselves were going to be made an offence, I feel would be a great help to those people who are endeavouring to form and keep up a second or irregular army in the country. It is only those people who have gone systematically through it who know what a heavy drag on young men it is to get them to meet weekly and to go through company-drill exercises. That drag is sufficient to wipe out a movement except it is stimulated by a very great ideal or a very effective political position for the people who are occupied in these matters. I feel that we have now come to such times politically that this attempt to keep up an irregular army, by means of going through military exercises and doing military evolutions is going to break down purely because of the labour that is involved in getting men to come together. There is, I submit, no danger in the matter, and we are raising very serious administrative difficulties if we are going to control in every possible way the times and circumstances in which men will fall in in company formation and march in fours. I submit that the section, as amended by this amendment, would be sufficient to enable us to take all the necessary safeguards to prevent the practice of military training that would be prejudicial to the State.
I do not propose to accept this amendment. On the matter of its application raising very serious administrative difficulties, I can only say that we are prepared to face such difficulties, and we consider it is worth facing them in order to be in a position to prevent a second and illegal and unauthorised army being formed in the country. The section, with the deleted words, would prohibit any assembly of persons practising or training or drilling themselves in, or being trained or drilled in the use of arms. It was as a consequence to that and in keeping with that, that military exercises, evolutions and manoeuvres are prohibited.
I have an idea of what the position would be if the amendment were accepted. The people who perhaps have arms available, or are in the way of getting arms, would not, of course, drill openly with such arms and render themselves liable to legal penalties and the forfeiture and confiscation of the arms. The drilling would be with wooden guns, hurleys or something of that kind, and the net result would be coercion and intimidation of the people of the country. The menace of the hidden arms, or the arms that could be got possibly when required, and when a suitable opportunity offered, would be always there and would be ever present in the minds of the ordinary peaceful citizens of the country.
I do not think that we ought to be asked to face the position when even the remnants, if you choose to use the word, of the irregular military organisation could come out and drill and parade openly before the people, being a menace to the people and a coercion to them. I am advised that the section as it stands, would not cover the mere marching in order, such as takes place on the part of members of bands or organisations, such as church parades and so on. They would need to be in connection with drilling evolutions of a definite military complexion, and it will be a question of fact in any particular case whether or not the proceedings may be said to partake of that character. I think that in practice there will be very little difficulty in making a distinction. I do not think that there is any wild desire on the part of the great mass of the people of the country that there should be unlimited freedom for drilling, manoeuvring and military exercises of that kind. People understand the position that you can only have in the country, if there is to be stability, peace and order, one army, just as you could only have one police force and one civil service, that unauthorised military evolutions and exercises are really a threat to the people, and that in certain circumstances those who are drilling in this man's field to-day and in the other man's field to-morrow, are prepared to do a good deal more than drill, and the word will be whispered round from man to man in such a company and such a battalion that so many petrol cans and bombs are available, and that if people are not on their best behaviour they will come out again and use all these things. That is not a proper position. The people should not be subject to that particular kind of intimidation, and they should not have in their minds or hearts the fear that any such intimidation could have any measure of success in the future, even that small measure of success that attended it in the past.
We have been striving all the time to establish a position in this country where the people will be really free, in the best and fullest sense of the word, that they will know that their fate is in their own hands, that the responsibility is on themselves, that they must decide, in their own best judgment and wisdom, what policy they wish pursued in the country, and, having given expression to such a wish, and having such a wish put into effect, they must be equally prepared to bear all the reactions and consequences of whatever their decision may be. That is the position we have been struggling towards for the past two or three years. It is the position which I believe we have attained, and we should not depart from it, or allow it to be departed from, by any menace of drilling men here, marching men there, and parading men somewhere else. It is the function of the Government to govern, and it is the function of the Government to give all necessary protection to its citizens. That protection does, in fact, go further than mere physical protection—that people shall not be assaulted, that people shall not have their brains battered out or their throats cut. It goes also to this extent that people shall not be subject to the fear of any of these things happening to them. People would be in fear if a second army, an irregular, unlawful, unauthorised army, were to be allowed to exist through the country, and to hold their marchings and counter marchings and parades and drillings in their neighbours' fields. I regret I do not think that we have at all got to the stage in the country at which the Deputy's amendment could be accepted in any reasonable discharge of our responsibilities to the citizens.
There is an aspect of this question which, I think, ought to be dealt with. The Minister naturally is thinking in terms of recent history. This Bill, however, is not a temporary measure, and you can visualise the position, say in five years' time, when persons desire to drill schools, for instance, organisations of people desiring to perform evolutions which may be described of a military character, but which may equally be described as of a gymnastic character. It depends on the point of view. The Minister is putting himself into a position of having to sanction applications from groups of people who desire to perform military evolutions, manoeuvres, or exercises. I think the Minister's position is not going to be an enviable one. He has to find out from the police in the local barracks whether such-and-such a person is associating with desirable or undesirable people. In the case of a little group of innocent evolutionists, in the physical sense, sanction is given. Then they add to their numbers, and other people whom, perhaps, the Minister might think undesirable, join the ranks. I suggest to the Minister that he is putting himself into a position of very great difficulty.
Further, there is the aspect that if you prevent people exercising or performing military manoeuvres, or exercising without arms, utterly repress any public exhibition of martial ardour, you may be driving a particular type of person to consider other aspects of warfare. I asked the Minister for Defence a few days ago if he had been thinking of recent developments in what is called the art of war. He had not thought at all of chemical warfare, but, unfortunately, this development in the art of warfare lends itself to very effective action on the part of a single individual who is prepared to resort to the use of chemicals. You may, by repression of this kind, force men of that mentality to think of how they are going to exercise their ardour by means of chemical activity, which will not require exercises or manuvres of a military kind. That is the second aspect. I suggest to the Minister also that he is putting himself into the position of having to decide whether any assembly, without arms of the kind referred to, is opposed to public morality. Article 9 of the Constitution says:—"The right of free expression of opinion as well as the right to assemble peaceably and without arms, and to form associations or unions is guaranteed for purposes not opposed to public morality." If an application comes from a group of people for authorisation to perform military exercises, evolutions, or manuvres, the Minister is bound under the Constitution to give authorisation, except on the assumption that he is to be the judge whether public morality is being infringed. Again, therefore, I suggest that he is putting himself into a very difficult position, and one in which I think he should not place himself. As to the question whether he has a right, and whether it is not beyond his powers, to decide whether such a group of people is opposed to public morality— and so long as they are without arms, as they would be if the amendment were accepted—I submit that under Article 9 of the Constitution the right is guaranteed to assemble peaceably and without arms. I commend that to the consideration of the Minister.
I am not prepared to accept the Deputy's contention that the effect of Article 9 of the Constitution is to enable two, or three, or half a dozen armies to be maintained and to manuvre in the country.
I said persons who meet together to perform exercises, evolutions, or manuvres of a military character.
The Deputy interrupted me. I was going to add—provided they leave their arms at home when they come out in public. I simply dismiss that as absurd and scarcely calling for any further consideration. The fact of the position is whether or not we must put up with whatever little trouble, and whatever administrative inconvenience may be involved by persons making applications where the objects of their exercises are entirely harmless and lawful, because there exists in the country the danger, or at any rate the possibility, that people with less clear intentions and less lawful outlook may endeavour to maintain an unlawful army to be used at any time that they in their wisdom may consider suitable. The inconvenience will not be very great, the applications will not be very numerous, and in the case of most of them there will be little if any difficulty in deciding whether the permission that is requested should be given. But whatever the inconvenience, or whatever the number of the applications, it is better to face that than to face the other prospect which I outlined, and which Deputies know is a very real prospect.
At the back of the Deputy's mind there is the idea, "Oh, people should in an ordinary country be able to do these things without the humiliating necessity of looking for permission." He objects to this section as an excess of Stateism, so to speak. Well, liberties of that kind must be just measured and viewed in the setting, and in proportion to whatever degree of danger there is in allowing unrestricted drilling and unrestricted military exercises. The desirability of having a provision of this kind must be viewed. Taking it in that light, and taking our bearings from that, it is not too much, just emerging from civil war, with full knowledge that there still exists in the country the remnants of an irregular and unlawful military organisation, to ask of ordinary peaceful law-abiding citizens that if they feel the urge on them, or desire to participate in military exercises or evolutions, they will seek permission for that as evidence of their bona fides.
As to the Deputy's point that permission once given is irrevocable, I see nothing in the section to bear out that contention. The permission, as given, will be revocable if at any time there seems sufficient cause for such revocation. This whole Bill was, rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely made—it was not so made by me—by various politicians an issue in the recent bye-elections, and an overwhelming endorsement, it will be agreed, is the result. But there is no section in the Bill which I would leave to a plebiscite of the people with greater certainty as to the result than this particular section, the effect of which is to prohibit the maintenance in the country of unauthorised military organisations, and to prevent marching, and counter-marching by men whose whole attitude to their fellow-citizens, and the rights of their fellow-citizens, is an attitude of challenge and menace.
To accept the amendment for the deletion of the ten or twelve words the Deputy wishes to delete would be in its results and effect equivalent to the insertion of a section in this or some other Bill that it shall be lawful for any John or Pat in the country to maintain as a military organisation any number of men who can be got to give him adherence and allegiance. That is not a position we are willing to accept. The difference between training in the use of arms and training without arms is so slight as to be negligible. Men will publicly train without arms, and will secretly and furtively train themselves in the use of arms, and the net result of accepting that simple amendment would be to make it lawful for a second army to be maintained. We do not want to do that. I want positively and deliberately to make doubly sure, by inserting a new section on Report, to outlaw any unauthorised military organisation, or the remnants of any unauthorised military organisation, that exists. The section I propose to insert on Report will have the effect of making mere membership of any such organisation an offence in itself. We do not propose to wait until we are struck. The fact that men stand in an attitude of challenge and menace, and organise themselves into such an attitude, will of itself be sufficient, if it can be proved before the courts, to secure substantial penalties.
The Minister feels that people will understand what is aimed at, just as he himself understands it. He has spoken of functions. I think that our function here is to see that the law is so framed in words that people will understand what we mean, and that people who will have to administer it will understand it, too. It seems to me that except there is a definition in the Bill as to what is meant by military in respect of this clause, that the clause is entirely too wide, and will give rise to serious administrative difficulties, and lead to unnecessary wondering among people who do march in an ordered way as to whether they come within the law or not. We are legislating and proposing very big penalties for people who exercise in a military way. I remarked on the Second Reading of the Bill that through the country you find people complaining all around that offenders against people's property, and offenders against people generally, are in many instances not caught or brought to justice, or if brought to justice they are let out on bail or treated in some small, insignificant way.
There is just a case here as a sample. Of course, it is an exaggerated sample, but it is a case where two men the other day in the Cork Circuit Court pleaded guilty to the charge of having, on the 20th January, revolvers in their possession and of assaulting members of the Civic Guard. They were sentenced to six and two months respectively. These sentences were only recorded against them, and they were not to be enforced if these men were to be of good behaviour. I submit that if the conditions, say in Cork, are such that no feeling of uneasiness is conveyed to the people in that neighbourhood by persons who drew revolvers on the Civic Guard and then assaulted them —men who were apparently carrying out military exercises and who when brought before a court were told they could go their way if they would be good in the future——
I submit, as a matter of Order, that unless the Deputy is moving a resolution for the removal of this particular Circuit judge the whole tenor of his statement is grossly out of order. I have, as the Deputy must be aware, absolutely no responsibility for the conduct of judges, and yet, for the second time, this matter has been brought up that judges, magistrates and so on are passing wholly inadequate sentences in the country. Now, unless a resolution is tabled that such and such a judge be removed because, in regard to particular cases, he was grossly incompetent or corrupt in the performance of his duty, this matter is not properly a mater for discussion in the Dáil at all.
As far as I understood the Deputy, he was only illustrating his argument. Of course, the question of the sentences imposed upon these two men in Cork cannot be discussed in the Dáil except on a special motion.
I do not know, even yet, to what extent you are restricting me in mentioning this matter.
I think the Deputy is not in order in discussing the matter, but he can refer to it simply to illustrate the argument he is making in regard to the present state of the country.
I think it will be generally appreciated that there are very great possibilities that our administration in the country is not sufficiently ripe in its experience in getting after very serious matters affecting the safety and the stability of the people. To pass laws here as we are solemnly doing, which will not be enforced; is only to give people an excellent and a glorified feeling that they are defying the Government and defying the laws that we are making with a kind of perfect confidence that our machinery of administration is not going to be able to get after them for it. If the word "military" is not made a much more clear thing than it is to us here now, I submit that we are giving people a chance of defying us, while we are attempting to deal with a matter which, to a very large extent, is not a danger to us.
I think the Deputy is right in requesting and desiring that the term "military" be defined, and that in its present form the section is likely to have no effect in respect of persons who are training or drilling outside the use of arms. I support the view the Minister has expressed, that it is not for us here to ask him to exercise any influence whatever upon the judgment of the courts. The utmost that can be done to meet the point of view, if it is a good one, put by Deputy Mulcahy is, that the prosecution should press for heavier penalties. But I do not think that we should discuss the proposition without a definite motion such as the Minister suggested. But the form of the amendment and the effect of it in these, as in so many other cases, is that the Minister expects the public, the judges and the juries, will interpret their powers under this Bill when it becomes an Act as he at present interprets them, and that they will think just as he thinks, and that their decisions will conform exactly to his intention.
I suggest that a reasonable possibility under this section, as it stands at present, would be this: A football team coming home from a country match, marching three or four miles, would, from the very spirit of the thing, be ordered to fall in, and they would march and they would have manoeuvres and the crowd following would join in. An officious policeman comes along and says: "This is against the Treason and Sedition Act," and he prosecutes these people for performing military manuvres. That is not an exaggerated case. It is quite a simple proposition and a most likely thing to happen. Possibly the prosecution may be ordered to be stopped, but there again comes up the question of the discretion of the Minister. I say you are trying to put into this Bill altogether too much. You are making it possible to bring a prosecution against people that will either excite derision or that will excite tremendous antipathy, and you are not going to make a loyal people by imposing penalties for offences which are merely legal offences, and offences made by this kind of legislation. They are not moral offences. There is no offence against the stability of the State. There is no offence of any kind, except a technical one, made by the fact that the law is framed with a view to meeting every possibility. When you are trying to meet every possibility you are placing power in the hands of legal officers who are just as likely to exercise them unreasonably as reasonably, because, it will appear to anybody trying to carry on his business as a peace officer, that in framing a legislative prohibition of this kind with a penalty of a £500 fine, or penal servitude for seven years, that the Legislature inevitably thought that it was a very serious offence to perform military exercises, evolutions or manoeuvres even without arms. In such a position an officer of the Civic Guard, or other officer, would feel himself justified in making a prosecution of a body of men who may have had no intent against the stability of the State when they were performing their manoeuvres. The Minister claims that this section will only be exercised against men claiming to form armies for the overthrow of the State. I cannot understand the hesitation of the Minister to see that the Ministers of State will not always be discreet, and that when you are making laws of this kind, which place tremendously wide powers in the hands of executive officers, you are practically inviting them to exercise these powers. I say it is undesirable to limit the opportunities of the people to perform military exercises, evolutions or manoeuvres unless you have reason to believe that the purpose of these military exercises, evolutions or manuvres is to attack the State. Such evolutions and manoeuvres could be quite innocent and quite spontaneous, but under this section you are making the people who perform them criminally liable for such penalties as are proposed in the third section.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 11; Níl, 28.
Tá
- Pádraig F. Baxter.
- Osmonde Grattan Esmonde.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- John T. Nolan.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Domhnall O Mocháin.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
Níl
- Thomas Bolger.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- John J. Cole.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Michael Egan.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Connor Hogan.
- Donnchadh Mac Con Uladh.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- James Sproule Myles.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Séamus O Cruadhlaoich.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Donnchadh O Guaire.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Liam Thrift.
Tellers: Tá: Liam O Daimhín, Pádraig Baxter. Níl: Séamus O Dóláin, Partholán O Conchubhair.
Amendment declared lost.
took the Chair.
Question—"That Section 8 stand part of the Bill"—put and declared carried.
SECTION 9.
(1) Every person who shall—
(a) form, organise, promote or maintain any secret society amongst or consisting of or including members of any military or police force lawfully maintained by the Government of Saorstát Eireann, or
(b) attempt to form, organise, promote, or maintain any such secret society, or
(c) take part, assist, or be concerned in any way in the formation, organisation, promotion, management, or maintenance of any such society, or (d) induce, solicit, or assist any member of a military or police force lawfully maintained by the Government of Saorstát Eireann to join any secret society whatsoever.
shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and shall be liable on conviction thereof to suffer penal servitude for any term not exceeding five years or imprisonment with or without hard labour for any term not exceeding two years.
(2) In this section the expression "secret society" means an association, society, or other body the members of which are required by the regulations thereof to take or enter into, or do in fact take or enter into, an oath or other engagement not to disclose the proceedings or some part of the proceedings of the association, society or body.
I move:—
In sub-section (1), line 15, after the words "members of" to insert the words "the civil service, judiciary or."
The Minister, supported by thirty of his colleagues, only one of whom gave reasons for so doing, has already included a paragraph in this Bill which debars civil servants or State employees from becoming members of trade unions. I stated at the time, and every Deputy knows, that the constitution and rules of any trade union affiliated to the trade unions movement in this or any other country are open and above-board, and the Minister or any Government official who wishes can inspect them at any time. The operations and activities of these unions are carried on in broad daylight. Their members are known, in whatever occupation they are employed, to their employers. Their leaders are only too well known to the employers in the particular industry in which they are employed. If the Minister and his colleagues who support him look upon the membership of a trade union as a menace to the State and as likely to lead to an effort to overthrow the State, surely he must look at the operations of secret societies as a menace to the State and as demoralising to the individual. That is, in fact, the reason why I ask the House carefully to consider what they do in this matter. I ask the House to accept the amendment and not to confer a privilege on any particular section of State employees by debarring the ordinary "Tommy" and policeman from becoming a member of a secret society and allowing higher officials in the State to have that privilege, if they consider it a privilege.
The Minister said, when he was dealing with the last amendment, that if he submitted the various sections of the Bill to a plebiscite that there was no section he would have a feeling of greater certainty in respect of than the section he was defending. I ask him is he prepared to submit to a plebiscite a clause of the Bill which will apply to one section of employees, and which will give a privilege to other sections to become members of societies whose operations he cannot control and whose membership he does not know. In discussing this on the Second Reading, the Minister, in answer to a question which I put him as to why he intended to confer a particular privilege on any section of State employees and prohibit another section, answered:—
"I am stating the facts—for one thing, possibly, because it has not been found necessary, because we have not had brought to our notice anything showing that such provision is necessary, and because we do not care to restrict the liberty of individuals except we see cause and reason for such restrictions."
Surely, in view of what the Minister has done this evening, and in view of what he has persuaded 31 of his colleagues to support him in—namely, in restricting the liberty of the State employee as regards joining a trade union or an association that carries on its work in broad daylight, there is every reason why he should carry his view still further and accept this amendment. However, I would challenge him to submit this section of the Treason Bill to a plebiscite. I may be wrong to a small extent, but I would say that if the question of membership of secret societies were submitted to a plebiscite, 95 per cent. of the people would say that they were anti-social and demoralising. I say anti-social because individuals who join secret societies, no matter whether the objects be patriotic, social or otherwise take an oath to be loyal to an organisation for the purpose of gaining some selfish advantage to the disadvantage of the majority of the people. That being so, I am sure the Minister, more than any other member in this House, would be prepared to admit that secret societies are anti-social and demoralising.
With regard to the Minister's statement, that nothing has been brought to his notice which would justify him in extending this prohibition to the civil service and the judiciary, I think we have got to face the facts. Even if we have to go back on recent history, the facts should be stated and known. The Minister himself, in this House, in March last, in a discussion on the Army trouble, admitted that he himself had been a member of a well-known secret society. He stated, further, that he regarded membership of secret societies, after the Treaty had been passed and after freedom was secured—freedom which was and still is acceptable to the majority of the citizens of this State—as not justifiable. On that occasion he admitted himself that he had been a member of a secret society for a particular period. Every sin and crime that the Minister asks this House to inflict the death sentence for is a sin and crime, in my opinion, which can only be assisted by, or through the agency of, a secret organisation. It is only possible to do those things that are named in clause 1 of the Act in any effective way through the connivance and conspiracy that goes on behind the closed doors of secret societies. I hope I am in order in saying that—I am not criticising the people in office for the time being—we know that judges who sit on the Bench and whose duty it is to administer the law fairly and impartially between one citizen and another take an oath to do that on behalf of the State which engages them to carry out that particular work. Let us assume—it is publicly known—that judges are members of oath-bound secret societies. They take an oath to the State, their paymaster, on the one hand, to administer the law fairly and impartially, and, on the other hand, they take an oath to a secret society, with the rules and constitution of which I am not well acquainted. If the judge be asked, in a case that comes into court, to administer the law fairly and squarely on behalf of the State and in the interest of the majority of the citizens, and if the individual in the dock is accused of some anti-State charge, such as is named in clause 1 of the present Bill, is the judge in that case bound to carry out his oath to the society or his declaration of allegiance to the State as his paymaster? These are matters which should be present to the mind of the Minister, and these are matters which should weigh with him in deciding his attitude as regards this amendment.
In pre-Truce days, as we are all aware, members of the Civil Service, employed then by the British Government, were either directly or indirectly associated with well-known secret societies. It was in virtue of the declarations they made to such organisations, when they became members, that they helped—I am sure nobody will deny it—Sinn Fein, and organisations associated with it at the time, to drive the British Government out of this country. It is well known, too, that civil servants assisted actively in the campaign in those days and burned income tax offices, and buildings like the Custom House, for which acts they were imprisoned and dismissed by the British Government. What was possible in those days is possible to-day. I am certain that there are civil servants—what number I cannot say— who are not political supporters of the present Government and who may be associated, for all I know, with secret associations of a political character. If they are associated with secret organisations, to which they have to take an oath, they will be bound, by reason of that oath, to do whatever act they are called upon to do. Even if that act is against the Government, or is calculated to do injury to the administration of the Government, they will do to-day what they have done in the past. These are reasons which I think should influence the Minister, if he regards membership of an oath-bound secret society as a danger and a menace so far as policeman and soldiers are concerned, to take the same views as regards those who are in the Civil Service and in the Judiciary. Soldiers and policemen, after all, are bound to take their orders from the civil authority, which is the Executive Council and the Government in office for the time being. When the British Government were carrying on the affairs of this country from Dublin Castle, we know that the Black-and-Tans and the R.I.C. and the Auxiliaries did not do the terrible things they did simply because they desired to do them. We know that the orders for murders and everything else were given by the civil authority which sat in Dublin Castle and conducted the affairs of Ireland from there. Assuming that the soldiers and policemen who have taken the declaration which was laid down for them by the same Minister who is imposing this restriction on one section and excluding another section, are loyal to their declarations, it means that they will serve the civil authority and take orders from their masters on the civil side. We know that Ministers are so fully occupied with many grave questions that orders for the doing of certain things do not come from the Minister himself, although he accepts nominal responsibility for what is done. The order comes very often from the civil servant or permanent official who works under the Minister. I ask Deputies to remember that the permanent officials of the civil service, particularly in the higher grades, have as much power in the affairs of this country as any Minister. Therefore, I ask Deputies to declare by their votes —I will put this to a division and have the names recorded for and against— that if there is anything degrading or demoralising in membership of secret societies, the prohibition should be applied to the civil servant in the same way as it is applied to the soldier and the policeman.
The Deputy thinks too much and too quickly. He should concentrate rather on getting the technique right and move on from that. He has talked very loosely about this section and talked, at times, in a way which rather led me to the view that he had not read the section, or that, if he had read it, he had read it very hurriedly and without consideration. He speaks, for instance, of "conferring a privilege." I do not know what privilege.
I said "conferring a privilege if it were a privilege."
I do not know what privilege, if it is a privilege, the section confers, or upon whom it is conferred. Perhaps, before I go on, the Deputy will tell me.
I leave the Minister to say, at this stage, what he has to say in defence of the section as it stands, and I reserve the right to speak again, if I wish to do so.
Then we are left in doubt as to the privilege conferred and as to the person or persons upon whom it is conferred. This section is a prohibition. It deals with those who
(a) form, organise, promote, or maintain any secret society amongst or consisting of or including members of any military or police force lawfully maintained by the Government of Saorstát Eireann, or
(b) attempt to form, organise, promote, or maintain any such secret society, or
(c) take part, assist, or be concerned in any way in the formation, organisation, promotion, management, or maintenance of any such society, or
(d) induce, solicit, or assist any member of a military or police force lawfully maintained by the Government of Saorstát Eireann to join any secret society whatsoever,
So far, I cannot find the privilege. I cannot see where any privilege is conferred. The section, as I say, is a prohibition. These two classes of persons in the State have relinquished, and are bound by law to relinquish, the right or privilege or liberty, whatever one chooses to call it, of joining or belonging to a secret society. Members of the Army do that by taking an oath or affirmation which is scheduled to the Defence Forces Act; members of the police forces do that by taking the oath or affirmation scheduled to their Act. So far at any rate we have not imposed any restrictions upon any other section of persons in the State. This section in effect is a prohibition placed upon any and every citizen from inducing members of the army or members of the police forces to break that oath or declaration which they have taken and which they must take under the terms of the Acts regulating their organisations. I would like Deputies to get that quite clear—that the prohibition is a prohibition placed on the general public from interfering with members of the army or the police forces in the keeping of the oath or declaration which they have taken. You are saying, in effect, to the general public: "These men have entered into an engagement; under the terms of the Acts regulating the organisations to which they belong they have given a certain undertaking to their employers, the public, and you must not attempt to make them break such undertakings." That is clear.
Now, let us take the Deputy's amendment. The Deputy asks me to insert after the words "members of" the words "the civil service, judiciary or." I want to explain, as clearly as I can, what the actual effect of accepting that amendment would be. The effect would be this, that you would be saying to the general public not merely that they must not endeavour to induce military or police to break a declaration which they have taken, and which they must take, but that they must not endeavour to induce civil servants or members of the judiciary to do something which at the moment they are free to do.
Why?
That is another question. So far the Executive has not taken the line of prohibiting secret societies absolutely. There might be a great deal to be said in favour of that course. It is open to the Deputy to put down a resolution at any time advocating that course, advocating that the Oireachtas pass it, or that some Minister take the responsibility of introducing legislation, the effect of which would be absolutely to prohibit every person in the State, or some selected persons in the State, from forming, organising, promoting, maintaining or belonging to secret societies. One could think of a great many excellent arguments in favour of that course. No doubt, other Deputies, Deputy Johnson, for instance, could think of a great many excellent arguments.
Either way.
Either way, according as the necessity might dictate. But what I am anxious to make clear at the moment is that the only sections of people in the State upon whom the prohibition against membership of secret organisations has been placed are the military and the police, and the Deputy asks me to include in this warning off, this prohibition to the general public, the inducing of civil servants or members of the judiciary to do something which at the moment they are free to do. If you are going to take that step, begin logically and move on. You must begin by imposing the prohibition on these persons and follow that up with a prohibition to the public at large that they must not induce these persons to break the undertaking.
The responsibility is the Minister's, I presume.
But the opportunity is the Deputy's to argue.
And he is taking it.
I have it here.
Yes, but this amendment is wrong, because the first step that would be necessary in the logical sequence has not been taken. The Deputy is saying in effect to me, "Warn off the general public; tell them that they must not form, organise or promote a secret society which would contain any members of the civil service or of the judiciary," that you propose certain penalties if they do that, but we have not taken the first step which would be necessary and proper in logical sequence, namely, of imposing such a prohibition upon civil servants and members of the judiciary.
Read paragraph (c). I think the prohibition is in that.
No, the Deputy is wrong if he thinks that "such society" there would be read as a society of the kind mentioned in (a), namely, a society amongst or consisting of or including members of any military or police force, and wherever "such society" occurs down along it is governed by paragraph (a). As I say, two or three things are arguable. One could say that we should simply legislate against any secret societies and say that we will not have them, that no citizen must join or belong to them, that in so far as they exist they must cease to exist, because we propose to outlaw them. That is a point of view. Midway between that and the present situation there is, presumably, the Deputy's point, that while we ought not to take that wide sweep of a general prohibition, the prohibition which exists in the case of members of the army and members of the police forces could and should be extended to include members of the civil service and members of the judiciary. That again is arguable. But we have not done it; we have not taken either the course I mentioned first, the complete and general prohibition, or the extension of the present prohibition which the Deputy advocates, and not having done that I submit that it is absurd and illogical to say to a member of the general public that he must not induce or solicit or, in fact, allow civil servants or members of the judiciary to do something which we have left them the legal right to do.
If you are going to put that prohibition on a member of the general public, put first the prohibition that is advocated on the civil servant and the judge and then leave it and say to the general public, "Hands off the Civil Service, hands off the judiciary in so far as secret organisations are concerned," just as we are saying in this section, "Hands off the military and police"; they have abandoned, and have been compelled to abandon the right to belong to a secret organisation; they have given the most solemn undertaking and declaration that they will not belong to any secret organisation, and we are entitled to say to you that you must not urge or even allow them to break their undertaking. If you are going to say to the general public with regard to the civil servants and the judges what you are saying here with regard to the military and police, then you must take with regard to the civil servants and the judges the step that has already been taken with regard to the military and police, namely, the step of prohibiting them from membership of any secret society whatsoever. The Deputy has expressed clearly and forcibly the view that that should be done. It has not been done, and inasmuch as it has not been done it would be absurd to put the cart before the horse, so to speak, and take first what should be the second step. You must not say to the general public, "Do not induce or solicit a civil servant or a member of the judiciary to belong to a secret organisation; if you do we will put you in jail for so many months or years," when you have not said in the first instance to the judge or the civil servant that he must abandon that right, or liberty, or privilege, or whatever word you may choose to use in connection with it.
That is my objection to the Deputy's amendment. I am prepared to discuss on the merits and to listen very carefully to arguments, to include in the prohibition which includes police and military, every person whom the Deputy thinks should be included. He may take the view that all persons should be included, as he has been most outspoken in his condemnation of secret societies, root and branch, that they are anti-social, anti-State, and lead to degeneracy, and if one were to take the charges to be true, there would be a great deal to be said for a foursquare attitude against any secret society, or any secret organisation. Equally, if he wishes to restrict it in its operation to State employees, servants of the public—that they should not enter into commitments which, from the nature of the case, cannot be fully known to their employers, the public, then, one could discuss that. But I say before taking such a step as is advocated by the amendment which the Deputy has proposed, one should consider first the imposition of such prohibition on judges and civil servants, and then move on and say to the general public, "Hands off these persons with regard to such activities because they have undertaken not to indulge in any such activities." One could deal with that on the merits, and it would be for the Deputy to make a case. In my opinion, it would be for the Deputy to show that abuses have, in fact, occurred.
Will the Minister acknowledge the fact that, not being a member of a secret society and not intending ever to join one, and not having at my disposal the constitution and rules of such a society, if there be any, I could not prove that?
I admire the Deputy's virtue in regard to this as in regard to other matters.
Perhaps the Minister could say a great deal from his experience.
I could say a great deal from my experience if it were in order to do so. I trust I made my objection to the amendment pretty clear. I think it would be very bad legislation, legislation that would properly hold us up to ridicule to start threatening the general public if they endeavoured to induce certain persons to do something which we have left those persons the right to do. There might be a great deal to be said for the view that we should not leave them that right. The Deputy may be able to point to actual abuses arising from the fact that we have left them that right. He has hinted darkly at grave dangers existing by reason of the fact that we have left them that right. As I say, that is another proposition. It does not really come in under this section, and I refuse to do what the Deputy has asked me, namely, to hurl threats at the head of the general public if they ask a judge or a civil servant to do something which we have left them the right to do. Up to the present we have only deprived two sections of the community of the right or freedom to join secret organisations, members of the army and members of the police forces. If it is considered that the prohibition should be extended, let us discuss and decide that before we move on and say to the general public, hands off some other class of persons whom as yet we have not dealt with.
It is very interesting to have the Minister opposing Deputy Davin's amendment on the grounds that he has not proceeded logically, that he ought to have done something in connection with another Bill which is not before us, and taken other steps than those he has taken to achieve the object he seeks, and which I believe the general body of Deputies would accept. It so happens that this is the Bill before the House, and it is not for the Minister to say what is the logical course Deputy Davin should take when this is the one that gives the opportunity.
It is not.
This is the Bill which gives the opportunity to prevent the maintenance of secret societies of any character or kind, which includes policemen, soldiers, civil servants or the judiciary. It is arguable whether by the action of this House there should be a prohibition against judges belonging to secret societies. The very fact that they are secret suggests that there is some reason for hiding the knowledge from the public that they do belong to such societies, so that to place upon a judge or civil servant the obligation of saying he is not and will not be a member of a secret society, is practically asking him to say that he is not going to do a thing which he has already done. He has, in joining that secret society, presumably done something which he has to hide, and one has a right to assume that, having done a dark thing, he is not going to proclaim it to the public, and is not going to be afraid to say that which is not true. The very existence of the secret society and the joining of it, suggests something dark or sinister or it would not be secret. There is something which has to be kept from the public and the person that will feel himself called upon to join such a society is not, I suggest, going to hesitate to say that he will not join such a society, although he deliberately intends to do so. That is the essence of the secret society, that it is going to deceive and to do something in the dark.
To ask us to adopt what the Minister calls the logical method of first prohibiting or asking men to declare that they will not, at any time, become members of a secret society before precluding the public from forming such secret societies containing such persons is, I think, illogical. I suggest for the consideration of the Minister, that the course adopted by Deputy Davin is really the logical one, to tell the public that while we do not prohibit secret societies by law, so far, we do prohibit the formation, the existence, and the maintenance of secret societies which contain persons who are in high positions in the State, having to administer the laws and the general services.
If a secret society is not allowed to be maintained which contains a policeman, it is not because he has taken the declaration that he will not belong to a secret society. Surely that is not the way to look at this problem. It is because he is joining a society which is secret and that he should not belong to a secret society. The people who form that society must guard themselves against having in their midst a policeman or soldier. I say any person or groups of persons organising or maintaining such a society should guard themselves against having in their midst a civil servant or judge for exactly the same reason, that their oaths of secrecy may mean that this oath would predominate over their sense of duty to the State.
Deputy Davin spoke of the section as it stands conferring a privilege which the Minister denied. He said it was a prohibition. Well, I suggest a prohibition on one or two sections of the community—civil servants, army, police, servants of the State—which does not apply to other civil servants— judiciary or administrative officers—is by exclusion conferring a privilege upon those who are not named. I think that Deputy Davin's contention that it is really a privilege conferred on the other people, servants of the State who are not military or police, is quite sound. It will come up, I suppose, a little later on, but let us bear in mind that the definition of a secret society is a very wide one. It is here defined as a society in which a person enters into an oath or engagement not to disclose the proceedings. I do not know whether even a policeman or a soldier when he is making a declaration has this kind of a definition before him. Few societies there are under the rules of which the members are allowed to disclose the proceedings. There is an honourable obligation, at any rate, and that might be called an engagement not to disclose the proceedings of a society of a business character. However, that is a matter for later consideration. I approach the amendment from the point of view of one who does not believe that any good service is rendered to the public life by imposing oaths of any kind upon the citizens or selecting any particular people to take oaths, but when we are making it penal, as we are asked to do in this section, for persons to maintain secret societies, which include military or police, I think that the prohibition ought to extend to the Civil Service and to the judiciary, and that when you do impose the obligation on other members of the society that if they are not allowed to include policemen then they should not be allowed to include judges. If they are not allowed to include soldiers they should not be allowed to include civil servants.
Let me state quite frankly, what I am sure is in the mind of Deputies. There are secret societies of a political character, quite known to be of a political character, having a definite political objective. It is those which have been aimed at by the framers of this section, but they find it is difficult to frame a section unless they make it wide enough to include all secret societies. They decline to include societies such as Freemasons, and perhaps the A.O.H., Buffaloes, and Foresters. I do not know to what extent they are secret, but they certainly enter into engagements not to disclose proceedings, and there is a very widespread feeling and belief that that kind of organisation, semi-political, closely associated as it has been with the personnel of the administrative services, has been used to deflect the course of justice, to cloak misdemeanours and faults when committed by their members. This belief is widespread; however well-founded or ill-founded, I do not know. I have not evidence of any kind one way or another. I think there is a tremendous amount of exaggeration and folly spoken in respect of any of these societies, Orange societies, Hibernian societies or Freemason societies. I know nothing whatever about any of them, except what I have been told or read about them in the newspapers, but I have heard a lot of tosh talked about them by all kinds of people, north and south. I believe the idea of a secret society in itself is a bad one. I think that persons in public life and in responsible positions of the State should not be members of them. I think if there is to be any prohibition on the public in respect of maintaining a secret society which includes any officer of State, it should be held to include all officers of State and particularly those officers who are engaged in the administration of the laws and in the administration of the public services. For these reasons I propose to support the amendment, and I believe the Dáil as a whole would, if it felt itself free, back up the proposition of Deputy Davin that whatever is to be said against maintaining societies which contain policemen ought to be said with double and treble force of secret societies which contain judges.
I cannot allow this amendment pass without expressing my personal viewpoint in regard to it. Deputy Johnson for the first time in this debate has mentioned the societies which it is aimed against, and the sooner we attempt to tackle this question, the better for the public service. The societies mentioned are the Freemasons and the Ancient Order of Hibernians—
Any secret society.
When I am speaking to this amendment I am not afraid to mention any society. The Deputy was ashamed to mention them.
No, I was not.
Why did you not say it then? There was speech after speech and it was all hedged.
I have often said it before, both here and outside.
You are here, and say it now. Deputy Johnson was before you. I am opposed to the A.O.H. or Freemasons, and I think there should be no place for either one or the other, or any secret societies in the life of any country. If every citizen of England, where the Freemasons are a very strong order, were a Mason, there would be no necessity at all for the Freemasons. It is because the society is confined to one particular section, and because membership of that society is not available to the nation at large, that it is able to help its members and offer benefits. If every man were a Mason, there would be no benefits to give away.
And no Masons.
Every man there is not a Mason. The society is limited in numbers. It embraces only a certain number. It has something to give away that the rest of the public cannot give away. That society only exists and thrives at the expense of the general public. The very same applies to the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other societies. All those societies are living like parasites on the general public, and, in my opinion, they should not be tolerated in any country. Any organisation that is not able to bloom publicly, and that will not come out into the open, should not be allowed to exist in any country.
It may be that my opinions are extreme, but they are the opinions I have always held since I was a child. I am prepared to stand for those opinions and, if necessary, to fight for them. None of those organisations should be allowed to exist, and anybody continuing to hold allegiance to those organisations should not be allowed to occupy a place in the public service. I hope that I have made my meaning pretty clear. I do not think that I minced my words. The Minister, if he cannot remedy matters in this Bill, should endeavour to do so in some other form. I think the sooner the position is faced the better. No member of a secret organisation should be allowed to occupy a place of privilege or power in this country.
I would again like to draw the Minister's attention to the wording of the section. I think he has not so far expressed hostility to the idea of prohibiting civil servants from belonging to a secret organisation. It might appear, if the amendment is passed, that a person would be guilty of a misdemeanour who takes part in, assists, or is concerned in any way in the maintenance of a secret society, and that includes members of the Civil Service. I think that is quite wide enough. I think it would be very difficult for somebody to be a member of a secret society without taking part in, assisting, or in any way being concerned in the maintenance of such a society. I think that would cover the case, and that is the principal objection the Minister has to the amendment. He is putting the cart before the horse. We are prohibiting the promotion of those societies by outsiders, and we are not prohibiting membership of those societies by members of the Civil Service.
I believe that was not the real reason that the Minister objected to the amendment. I fear that the Government are afraid to accept the amendment, and are afraid to prohibit civil servants from belonging to secret societies. They are afraid of the effect of such an enactment, and are afraid it may lead to sensational resignations from high positions in the service of the Government if it were to become law. I am afraid that is the real reason why this amendment is being rejected. One of the great and enduring benefits which that distinguished statesman. Signor Benito Mussolini, conferred on the Italian people, was that conferred by his recent action in suppressing and prohibiting secret societies in the Italian Civil Service. He had sufficient courage to do so. There was a certain number of resignations, but that was inevitable, and Italy is very much the better as a result of what he has done. I doubt if the Government in this country have the same degree of courage as Signor Mussolini. If they had, they would rise greatly in the estimation of the people.
resumed the Chair.
——Deputy Gorey accused me of lack of courage in not mentioning the organisations which he mentioned. The reason I did not do so was because of the reference to secret societies in a sub-section of Section 9. In that sub-section, to which already Deputy Johnson has referred, there is the following: "An oath or other engagement." That might easily embrace the D.M.P., or soldiers, who might be members of a tontine society. Those who are members of a tontine society give only an engagement. I am not aware of the extent to which they exist, nor am I aware of the names of the particular organisations. I know some of them. I am dealing now only with oath-bound secret societies. I am not prepared to admit—and my vote over an hour ago proved it—that an organisation whose rules are open to inspection by the Government, whose activities are well known or can be traced by secret servants or by anybody, can have serious results, and I do not see that it is any great menace to the State as compared with an organisation which conducts its proceedings in secret, behind closed doors.
I would like State servants to be placed in the position of being able to say: "I will not do anything that will interfere with my loyalty to the State or the discharge of my duty for the State." Is that unreasonable? Does the Minister consider it unreasonable, and, if he does, what is his reason for so considering it? The Minister's reply was merely an evasion and a sidestepping of the issues raised. He indicated by inference that this matter had been the subject of discussion in Government circles and by the Executive Council. If it has been, then I think a discussion was bound to arise on the bringing of a clause of this kind into the Bill.
Have the Ministry, or has the Minister, any definite view-point as to whether the community as a whole should be debarred from becoming members of secret societies? Would he be prepared to state that he himself looks on secret organisations, which include civil servants and judges, as most demoralising, dangerous and injurious to individuals? Would he give the Dáil the benefit of his own personal view if he is not prepared to state the view of the Ministry? I know people, friends of my own, who are reputed to be members of societies which this Bill is dealing with. I often had conversations with them and I often accused people of belonging to a certain secret organisation, the operations of which extend far beyond the closed doors where the meetings are held. In the case of one individual, he told me his society was not a secret society, but was a society of secrets. I do not know the difference between a secret society and what he describes as a society of secrets. The Minister's whole case against the inclusion of this amendment is that I have started in the wrong way to enforce this matter.
I raised this question when the Judiciary Bill was going through the Dáil. I raised it on the Estimates last year in connection with the declaration that had to be taken by the District Justices, and I asked the Minister to state why he insisted upon a certain declaration being taken by the District Justices and did not insist on the same declaration being taken by the Judges of the Circuit and the Supreme Courts. I raised the same question when this particular declaration was imposed upon the Army. I am quite in agreement with the Minister in so far as he has gone, but what I complain of is that he has not gone far enough. The Minister's whole object in introducing this Bill, as he stated when moving the Second Reading, was to secure that the State should have powers to prevent it from being overthrown by any organised body, whether of civil servants or other bodies in the community, by force or by any other methods. Anybody who has watched the course of events in Continental countries will readily realise that the Governments of Europe have changed very quickly, and that the forces behind these great and sudden changes of Government in Continental countries have been due to the agency and influence of secret societies. If we are going to build our State on a permanent foundation, and to see that it is secure against the operations of societies of that kind, whether they be political or of an alleged social nature, I think we must insist that the membership of secret societies will be debarred to judges and civil servants.
The Minister has not really argued against the case, and he has not expressed the view of the Ministry, nor given his own personal view, as to whether it is right or wrong. So far as I am concerned, I am speaking from personal knowledge of individuals who have been members of certain secret organisations. I believe that the influence of the membership of secret organisations of a political or other character, especially upon the young people who join them, is certainly demoralising. I have seen any amount of evidence of that fact. The Minister himself admitted he was a member of a secret society, but he now holds the view that there is no longer any reason why he should continue to belong to a secret society. Then, surely, when that is his own view with regard to his own position, he should extend the operations of that principle to those who are under his control.
Deputy Davin was again rather diffuse. I can only repeat the view I have expressed, that we have not, up to the present, thought fit to extend the prohibition with regard to secret societies beyond the members of the army or the members of the police forces. The question as to whether or not that should be done is a very big question which can be raised here by any Deputy who wants to raise it, and which can be discussed fully. The Deputy invited me to say what is my own opinion as to whether it should be done or not. Well, my own personal opinion is this: that if the prohibition were to be extended beyond its present somewhat narrow limits, beyond the members of the army and the members of the police forces, that it should be extended to the fullest. If there is a case for extension it should be simply a four-square attitude against any such organisation. I would not like to see any further piecemeal extension. There were special circumstances and special reasons for the prohibition with regard to the members of the Army, and I think it will not be questioned that the necessity for such prohibition was demonstrated, and demonstrated in a way which had rather serious reactions for the State and for the credit of the State, moral and financial. Similarly when forming a young police force in the set of circumstances in which we had to form it, that particular kind of prohibition was considered advisable if not absolutely necessary. It was in that case precautionary, and, I am satisfied that it has been valuable and that it has been effective. The Army and the police forces are two very special bodies. Thousands of young men banded together in a disciplined organisation, living a kind of communal life, so to speak, are in a different position from the ordinary citizen, even though that ordinary citizen be a civil servant. Civil servants are not grouped together in the same intensive, organised way as either the members of the Army or the members of the police forces. They remain much more individuals, rather than units of a combination. They come to their daily task and go away to their homes, each man going his own way, and the position is not on all fours with the two disciplined branches of the State service, the Army and the Police.
If a case so substantial can be shown for such an extension, an extension that would include practically all State employees, all civil servants and members of the judiciary, then I would argue from such a case that the only straight and proper course for the State to take would be to legislate against any secret societies within its jurisdiction. If it can be shown that the administration is so menaced by reason of the existence of secret societies or the inclusion of members of the Civil Service in secret societies, that a definite prohibition is called for, then I say that a definite prohibition should be general and universal, and should apply to all citizens. That is something that can be argued. If Deputies hold the view that evidence exists of the necessity for such legislation, let them put down a motion and produce such evidence. Our own view is that no real case exists for the further extension of this prohibition.
How can you produce evidence from secret societies?
Of course it is difficult. I suppose that is why there is so much talk about it, that when you know nothing you believe everything. But, if the case is that there is a necessity, that things are going wrong by reason of the existence of such organisations, surely we can be shown what things are going wrong which can be fairly traceable or attributable to the existence of such organisations. There has been much cry and little wool on this subject, particularly within the last four or five months. It was a particularly skilful, if not entirely honourable bogey to raise, because the unknown had just the effect that was counted on. People raised the cry of a secret society, sinister influences, making the Government do this and that, having its knee on the Government's chest and its hands round its throat and so on, and every fellow in the country who was only 5 feet 7 inches, instead of the necessary 5 feet 9 inches for the Gárda Síochána, attributed to these secret influences the fact that he was not called up. It was a very skilful political dodge and had a certain effect. That is unquestionable.
Some time ago I was asked in regard to the definition in this particular section whether I would consider an organisation a secret organisation whose regulations, constitution, objects, membership, and meeting places, were known or knowable to the general public. That was rather a big question and I was not prepared to give an answer offhand, without examination. But I certainly was surprised when I was told that all these things were true with regard to the Freemason Society or organisation: that its constitution, regulations, objects, membership and meeting places are known or knowable to the general public. That was something which certainly took me very much aback when I heard it first. Of course the objection, in so far as it is sound, in so far as it is valid, lies undoubtedly simply in the fact of secrecy. When there is a declaration, or an oath, or a solemn affirmation, that things which take place will not be disclosed to the general public, then the general public is entitled to, and undoubtedly will, conjure up all kinds of fears, all kinds of doubts, and all kinds of imaginings, as to what goes on, and they have no guarantee that all these doubts, fears, and imaginings are not perfectly true. Where our duty lies in this whole matter is something which is difficult to decide. To put it quite clearly, our view is that our infringement, our encroachment on the general liberty should be the minimum that we deem to be necessary for the preservation of the State for the citizens.
How does the Minister apply that argument to paragraph (f) of Section 3?
One of the ways, as I say, by which the Government can be reduced to impotence, by which the State can be paralysed, is by the Civil Service being suborned and incited to refuse, neglect, or omit to perform its duties, and there are certain aspects, certain phases of the civil service, as the Minister for Finance pointed out, specially vulnerable. The cessation of tax collection for a month would have incalculable reactions. But, I do not see the bearing of that, although the Deputy was very earnest in his interruption, exactly on what I was saying.
A trade union does its work in the open, and if it is decided to take industrial action, that is done with the consent of the majority. You do not know what is done behind the closed doors of a secret society.
You do not. But, I incline to the view that, as I say, in the case of the Army the necessity was demonstrated, and I do not propose to argue that further. In the case of the Civil Service, in the case of the judiciary, in common fairness one would demand, or be inclined to demand, that before you move on to impose this prohibition, some general indication of its necessity should be shown clearly. Let us take them separately. In the case of the judiciary, let it be shown that there was reason to believe that cases are being decided in a particular way, or in a way which gives ground for some suspicion that sinister influences are at work.
There was mention here of the course of justice, I think, being deflected, and I did not quite gather whether the Deputy was referring to the recent or remote past. I certainly never heard any suggestion that that was so, say, inside the last two or three years; that there was any suggestion that offenders were escaping, either by reason of non-prosecution or by reason of the results when prosecuted, owing to any secret or sinister influences. Similarly, in the case of the Civil Service, let it be shown, however broad, however vague, that there is ground for suspicion that things are going wrong, and that that may fairly be attributed to some secret or sinister influences, that such and such persons are supposed to be amenable to secret influences of some kind.
Let the case be shown for the prohibition. I grant it cannot be shown in detail, but let it, at any rate, be shown that suspicion exists and that there is some ground for such suspicions. The unsatisfactory part of the kind of challenge that was raised, and the kind of cry that was raised for the last four or five months, was the complete absence of straw towards the brick-making. Again and again people were asked to give some instances, however broad, or vague or general, in which particular Executive actions were traced or traceable to any influences of this kind, and there was never any response. This whole matter is one that should be ventilated fully.
Is it not a fact that a statement was made in this House by an ex-Minister that a certain decision of the Executive Council was overruled by a certain official. What was the cause of that?
In regard to the particular statement to which the Deputy refers, there was never any suggestion, and I think the ex-Minister himself who made it would not contend that there was any suggestion, that that instance was traced or traceable to any secret influences of any kind. As I say, this matter calls for ventilation, and I make the suggestion that whoever the expert is in the Dáil on secret societies, whoever has the biggest dossier, whoever knows most about these things, should put down a resolution to the effect that the prohibition which applies to members of the Army and members of the police forces, should be extended to embrace all State employees if you like, members of the Civil Service and members of the judiciary, or better still, to embrace all citizens of Saorstát Eireann, and there can be full discussion and all the dreadful facts can be hauled out into the daylight, or into the lamplight, but, at any rate, can be hauled out and discussed and analysed.
Will the Minister give a free vote?
Certainly.
Will the Minister authorise his servants to search institutions that may be named?
As to that there is a Section 11 in this Bill which will be very valuable.
Will you put it into effect?
Places where treasonable documents are believed to exist will be searched from roof to cellar.
By request?
No, in secret.
Pending this full dress debate on Deputy Davin's resolution, I propose to maintain the stand which I have taken on this amendment, and I maintain it for the grounds stated, that we have not so far imposed this prohibition on judges and civil servants, and not having done so, it would be a ludicrous performance to proceed to hurl threats at the heads generally of the public service and ask them not to do something which we have left them the right to do.
The Minister has said some serious things in the course of his generally unserious contribution, and I think that the serious part of his speech is the case for this amendment of Deputy Davin. I do not believe any of the stories that have been floating about regarding the influences of secret organisations. I never believed them about the Orangemen, I never believed them about the Hibernians, I do not believe them about the Freemasons, and I do not believe any of the stories about the way in which they influence public administration, but there are very many people in the country, probably the majority of the people, who do believe them. If the Minister wants a reason for including in this prohibition people such as judges and civil servants, the case he has made in regard to the rumours, stories and allegations floating about, without substance, without evidence, but nevertheless believed in the past, is sufficient. These stories are believed in a hazy way, sufficiently hazy, but sufficiently widespread, to destroy the confidence of the public in the administration. That is the case for the inclusion of these two sections in this amendment. If you have a majority of the public, or a very large section of the public, believing, without evidence perhaps, but as a result of general suspicion, that judges, being members of the Freemason Society, are likely to be partial to a particular prisoner, or jurymen belonging to a particular society are likely to be partial to particular people, or civil servants are amenable to pressure from secret societies or members of secret societies, and are likely to be partial in the carrying out of their duty—while there may be no evidence whatever, and I think that is probably the fact of the matter, the absence of confidence amongst the public is just as disastrous as though there were a substantial basis for suspicion. The public faith in the impartiality of administration is more important, as applied to the Civil Service and the Judiciary than public faith in the allegiance and faithfulness to their bond of policemen or soldiers. The danger arising from secret organisations of a disruptive, subversive character among policemen or soldiers may be great, but there is very much greater danger to the public security and the growth of confidence in the administration, in the fact that so large a proportion of the public believe, perhaps without evidence, but nevertheless believe, that judicial officers and civil servants are amenable to influences outside their duties and responsibilities. That lack of confidence, to my mind, is the case that could be made, and which the Minister has made, for the inclusion of these two sections of civil servants with policemen and military in this prohibition. If there is any case at all for prohibition of any kind, it is very much more emphasised when we deal with the Civil Service and the judiciary.
I think the House should be free to vote on this amendment as the Minister promised would be the case if there were another motion to the same effect. Why postpone a good deed? Why not allow the House freedom to vote on this motion now, rather than wait until another motion is brought forward to the same effect?
I would like to wait for the Deputy's case.
The case I am making is, and I am repeating the case made by the Minister, that there is a very widespread belief in the partiality of civil servants and of certain judges because of influences brought to bear on them through their membership of secret organisations. That is the case made by the Minister. That is the case which I repeat, and the absence of confidence is a greater menace to the stability of the State than any danger there may be of secret organisations. On that account I ask the House to vote for Deputy Davin's amendment.
If the Minister is going to wait until I come to the Dáil with proof of everything that has been said by somebody else about the operations of secret organisations, no matter what their aim or intentions may be, he knows perfectly well he is going to wait for a very long time, and that he will not be faced with that claim to release his supporters from being tied to him and following him into the lobby in support of that clause in the Bill as it stands.
Deputy Esmonde, perhaps.
I can neither prove nor disprove many of the things I have heard or read about the operations of certain secret societies, but the case boils down to the case made by Deputy Johnson—the lack of confidence, or the creation of suspicion, among a very large section of the community by reason of the operations, or alleged operations, of these secret bodies. If there are societies or bodies of men who want to come together for patriotic or charitable motives, is there not every reason why they should advertise their patriotic and benevolent intentions to the world at large? The Minister said in respect of the Freemason organisation that the constitution, rules and place of meeting, and other such essential information as people might require, are known and knowable to those who want the information. I want to know was he told that the minutes of the proceedings of the meetings are available to the same people who might be making inquiries, or does he know that it is only the proceedings of the friendly society sections which are known, and no others. If everything is available to everybody who wants to inquire about the proceedings of these secret societies, why are not the proceedings conducted in the broad daylight, such as is the case with the political organisation with which the Minister is associated, or any trades union organisation in this country? I know from experience, and from listening to people who work in certain places where the operations of these particular bodies are pretty strong, that where vacancies occur in the railway or other public service it is broadcasted that such and such a fellow is a member of such an organisation, and because of that and not because he has any qualifications or merits entitling him to promotion, he is appointed to fill the vacancy. If such a state of affairs exists within the Civil Service, and a certain higher official belongs, say, for the sake of argument, to the Masonic organisation, and when the opportunity for promotion occurs, it is suspected—I am not able to prove it, of course—that that official recommends for promotion a person who belongs to his own society, that creates a bad effect in the Civil Service, or would in any public service. For that reason, I think the Minister should leave his supporters free to vote as they think fit on this particular amendment. So far as I am concerned, I cannot bring forward proof to this House, or proof to the Minister of the things I was asked to prove, and consequently he should take advantage of the only opportunity he can get to give effect to a very desirable request which, I believe, is sanctioned, and will meet with the approval of the majority of the people of the country.
The Committee divided: Tá, 11; Níl, 31.
Tá
- Thomas Bolger.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Connor Hogan.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- John T. Nolan.
- Criostóir O Broin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
Níl
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- John J. Cole.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- John Good.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- Donnchadh Mac Con Uadh.
- Liam Mac Cosgair.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- James Sproule Myles.
- Michael K. Noonan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Peadar O Dubhghaill.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Seán O Súilleabháin.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Liam Thrift.
Tellers. —Tá: Domhnall O Muirgheasa, Risteárd Mac Fheorais. Níl: Séamus O Dóláin, Liam Mac Sioghaird.
Amendment declared lost.
The Committee decided to report progress.