I move:—
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to Customs and Inland Revenue (including Excise) and to make further provision in connection with Finance.
FINANCIAL RESOLUTIONS—RESUMED. - RESOLUTION No. 15.—GENERAL.
I spent an hour or two during the morning endeavouring to draw up something in the nature of a summary of the figures presented to the Dáil in the Minister's speech yesterday. I regret to say that most of my efforts and many of the conclusions drawn from them, are vitiated by the presentation of the Table explanatory of the Budget that has now been distributed. For instance, I find that in the latter Table there is included a revenue for the coming year in respect of the wine tax of £80,000, whereas the Minister intimated that he did not expect any revenue from this tax in the current year. We learn also that there is an anticipated shortage in Income Tax collection owing to the Double Income Tax agreement of £200,000. Of course, that makes a very considerable change in respect of the coming year in the proposals of the Minister. I think I should draw the attention of the Dáil to an item on the other side of the account, the allowance deducted from the expenditure for supply services for over-estimation and savings, £650,000, and particularly to draw attention to the statement made by the Minister yesterday in defence of this method of budgeting.
It astonished me to hear from the Minister that it was justifiable to gamble on the possibility of savings out of the Estimates—that is to say, that less should be spent than we are asked to provide for—but that it was unthinkable to gamble on the prospect that revenue from taxes would be greater than those estimated for. The Minister argued that it is quite allowable, and that the Executive Council have considered it quite in order, and not a breach of any financial principle, that in estimating for the taxation for the year, the Minister has a right to assume there will be savings out of the Estimates. In this case we are asked to levy taxes upon the people deliberately and with our eyes open to the extent of £650,000 which will not be required. We are told the Minister dissents from that view, but the paper and his speech confirm, I think, my reading.
There is an estimation of probable expenditure on Supply and Central Fund services, after deducting abnormal items, of £24,207,658, and there is a deduction of £650,000 as an allowance for over-estimation, leaving a total normal expenditure of £23,557,658. We therefore begin to levy taxes to meet £23,557,000, and according to this paper we succeed in doing that with a balance of £7,000 in hands. I think that is a correct representation of this account, so that in fact we are to be asked in the course of future discussions of the Dáil in Committee on Finance to pass estimates for £650,000 more than we are required to provide money for, and the Minister justifies that as something quite in accord with just financial principles. It is astonishing to me that that should come from the Minister in view of recent history.
The Committee of Public Accounts a year ago made some references in its report to this question of over-estimating, and pointed out that there had been in the year then under review a considerable amount over-estimated for, and while the Committee then recognised the difficulties and the extraordinary conditions under which the budgeting for the year then in question had to be done, they deprecated this. The Minister for Finance concurred in that view, and went so far as to convey to the various departmental heads the view of the Committee of Public Accounts, and his own concurrence in that view, that there should be the closest possible estimating.
This practice of over-estimating has been deprecated, but now we find that the Minister comes along and practically invites the heads of departments in preparing their estimates to overestimate, and he says that in the round sum that is required we are prepared to recognise that say 2½ per cent. will be over-estimated for. When we remember that the Minister for Industry and Commerce only two or three weeks ago in this House, in defence of a certain position he was taking, told the House that there was to be recognised the difference in the amount that we were estimating for and the amount that would be likely to be spent, we find a curious state of mind on the Ministerial Benches as to the importance of close estimation. We have the view of the Minister for Finance that we have not a big national debt, and that, therefore, we need not have in mind the desirability of reducing that national debt, and that we may overestimate, not with the expectation that any sum saved in expenditure will inevitably fall in at the end of the year and go towards the reduction of any national debt, but that it could be discounted at the beginning of the year, leaving a sum in the hands of the departments over and above what they believe to be necessary for the carrying on, or for the requirements of their departments.
Appropriate to this point one has to remind the House of that feature to which Deputy Esmonde has on more than one occasion referred—I mean the Appropriations-in-Aid. While we are told that the amount required is a given number of millions to meet the certain expenditure, and we are going to provide money from taxation to meet that amount, we must bear in mind, if we want to get a proper view, that the Appropriations-in-Aid in this current year are estimated to amount to £1,000,000, roughly speaking, and that there has been a steady increase in the estimates in respect of the Appropriations-in-Aid, running from £535,000 to £628,000, £781,000 and £976,000. Those have been the estimates of the Appropriations-in-Aid, and for the two years for which we have accounts these estimates of Appropriations-in-Aid have been exceeded by 29 per cent. in one case and by 32 per cent. in another.
Apparently it is now the policy of the Minister to budget in accordance with the expectations that there is going to be a saving upon the Estimates and an increase in the Appropriations-in-Aid. I think that is not conducive to a proper care of the finances of the country. On the contrary, I believe it is asking the Dáil to agree to give very much more liberty to the departments in regard to expenditure than the Dáil should give. The Ministry of Finance, of course, will continue to keep a tight hold on the spending departments, but when we have this state of things presented to us as part of the policy of the Minister for Finance, we are tempted to assume that they are in league with the spending departments to hoodwink the Dáil to draw money from the country much in excess of the amount required to pay for the current expenditure under the various estimates. I think that is a matter of importance purely from the financial side, and that it is one the Dáil should take note of, and remember when we are discussing the Estimates we are invited in effect by this statement of the Minister—not knowingly or deliberately—but I think it might be taken as an open invitation to reduce every Vote by 2½ per cent., because of the Minister's expectation that there will be a general aggregate of 2½ per cent. saveable at the end of the year.
Let us assume that this £650,000 was really not required, and that we have reduced the Estimates by this amount in the course of our discussions during the next few weeks. We then find that the expenditure, which is estimated for, amounts to £23,810,000. We had from the Ministry yesterday an intimation that there had been a saving last year as compared with the previous year of. I think, £1,800,000. It is not a saving in the usually accepted sense, but the amount drawn by taxation from the country was less in 1925-26 by £1,800,000 as compared with the previous year, and the proposal for 1926-27 is that the sum of £2,300,000 less than was drawn in 1924-25, will be taken from the people in taxation. That is a very important figure. It is important because of the expectations that were held out to us a year ago. Then the Minister said: "It can hardly be doubted that a reduction in taxation will have on industry and commerce a stimulating effect not to be obtained otherwise."
I do not know whether it is the Minister's contention that the effect of these modifications of a year ago has been greatly to stimulate industrial and commercial activity. He did say in his speech yesterday that there were no evidences, or but slight evidences, of depression contained in the financial returns, such evidences as reduction in the consumption of intoxicating liquor and one or two items of that kind, but Deputy Good, Deputy Hewat, Deputy Heffernan, Deputy Baxter, and others have insisted—and I think their views are confirmed by other Deputies behind the Minister—that the state of industry and commerce is as greatly depressed to-day as it was a year ago. I am not able, with the knowledge at my command, to confirm or deny that proposition, but we are told on every hand that trade is very bad, that industry is greatly depressed and that there is little evidence of improvement at the moment. I was hopeful that we would have in his place when we were discussing the Budget, the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy for South Dublin.
He was here.
He is not here now.
His evidence in this House was that nothing but bankruptey stared the country in the face. I would like to have from Ministers— the Minister for Industry and Commerce is probably in as good a position as anyone to do it—some indication of the present position of the country, industrially and commercially. Perhaps the Minister for Local Government could give him some assistance, but it is really of importance to have authoritative information on this matter, information of a kind which cannot be said to be drawn up with a view to proving a contention, but cold and clear evidence based upon such information as is available to Departments. The Minister for Finance, probably, could give us the information if he would be willing to disclose something even in a general way of the evidence of income tax returns. One might say in this regard that really it is very difficult to discuss Budget proposals, proposals relating to income tax, estate duty and super-tax, unless we have some evidence of the position of the country in regard to income tax and incomes. We are waiting now for several years for statistics in that regard and we have yet to wait a little longer, I believe, but it is important that we should know whether the contention of a year ago, that the reduction in the charge upon the country by £1,800,000 in the year just closed, has had a stimulating effect on industry and commerce.
I have a belief that it is not always true to say, and it is not wise to expect, that the mere leaving of incomes, by way of a reduction in taxation, in the hands of the income tax payers is inevitably going to benefit the economy of the country and to promote the prosperity of the country. I think, on the other hand, that the real result of leaving excessive sums in the hands of the income tax payers may well be to act deleteriously on the economy and the industry of the country, and that if we can provide for a wise expenditure of such moneys as we collect in taxation, we might be more effectively promoting the prosperity of the country than by leaving it in the hands of individuals who may just as well waste it as use it beneficially.
While I am not suggesting for a moment that the incomes of men should be collected by the State indiscriminately, I do suggest that there is an entirely wrong conclusion drawn by those who say that a reduction of taxation must inevitably increase the prosperity of the country. Alternatively I say that it may well be that a wise programme of productive expenditure is more conducive to the prosperity of the State and that the Government should raise taxes to enable that expenditure to be carried on. I would like therefore to have a little information of what is meant by this anticipated shortage of £200,000 arising from the modifications in the law relating to double income tax, because it seems to me from this figure that a further reduction in the taxes of income tax-payers, a reduction in the tax of super-tax payers, and a reduction in the corporation profits tax, may by no means have the effect of stimulating industry and increasing prosperity. I want to see some evidence of that. I hope Deputy Good will give us some evidence to show us that the reduction in taxation of last year has been effectual in increasing prosperity.
I want to repeat what I said last night in regard to the promise of the Minister to restore what was cut from the old age pensions. There is embodied in these Budget proposals a decrease in certain taxation of certain people in the country. There is a reduction in the super-tax of £115,000 and a reduction in the corporation profits tax of £85,000. The Minister says that the £200,000 represented by those two figures is not a real reduction in taxation, because a similar sum is being imposed upon the same people in the form of estate duty. Again it seems to me to be a rather curious doctrine coming from the Minister. One has heard time after time of the desirability of the simplification of taxation, and the unwisdom of complicating accounts in respect to taxation. But the Minister's suggestion is that he has gone to the trouble of wasting pen, ink and time, and to other trouble in cutting off from some people £200,000 in respect of two particular kinds of taxes, and imposing upon the same people the same sum under a different name. I think that that is a waste of time and a waste of energy and is simply tending to complicate matters and to make difficult of understanding this whole taxation scheme—if that were the fact. But I submit that the people who are being relieved of corporation profits tax and the people who are being relieved of the super-tax to the combined extent of £200,000 need not be the same people, and are not the same people as are being mulcted in this additional estate duty. If you are justified in adding to the estate duty, let us defend that on its merits. Do not defend it by simply saying that it is a change over from one pocket to another. Let us defend it on its merits. Having done that, if it can be done, we have to face the fact that there is a proposed reduction upon super-taxpayers and corporate bodies in their taxation of £200,000. That, I say, ought not to have been proposed here by the Minister who made the statement a year ago that there would not be any reduction of taxation until the old age pension cuts had been met. He said:
"If the situation is found to have improved at the end of the year some revision of the Old Age Pension Act of 1924 will have to be given precedence to any reduction of taxation however much required."
I submit that there is a direct and distinct breach of promise, a breach of faith to the old age pensioners in this proposal to reduce the taxes now paid by the richer super-taxpayers and the corporations who at present pay corporation profits tax.
The one considerable innovation in the Minister's proposals is the proposals relating to taxes upon betting and bookmakers. I have no doubt that there will be a considerable amount of interest shown by the public in these proposals. I think we ought to examine the proposals very carefully. I have no doubt that will be done in the course of the discussion of the Bill. The proposal to put a tax upon betting will not meet with my opposition. I think that the acceptable nature of this tax lies in the fact that it does tend to restrict the habit of betting, a habit which, unfortunately, is an obsession with very many people in this country and is doing an immense amount of harm. There is, however, a grave danger in the imposition of a tax of this kind. We are dependent to-day for something over eight million pounds of our revenue on the consumption of intoxicating liquor and the inevitable effect of that is to make a Minister for Finance very dubious about any legislative proposals that would have the effect of reducing his revenue. It must be a factor in his calculation, and in the calculation of any Minister for Finance, as to whether he ought not budget in the expectation that people will consume more intoxicants and to the extent to which we are dependent upon the traffic in intoxicating liquor, there is a defect in that form of taxation. By this betting tax we are adding one more to the number of taxes the revenue from which will depend upon the prevalence of a habit—when it becomes a habit—which is not desirable.
I am not taking the line that there is any great evil in a man putting a shilling or two or a pound or two upon the chances of a particular horse winning a race, a particular crop of wheat rising to a higher price, or a particular share rising or falling in the market. But when a practice of that kind becomes the main interest in life of so many people, as it does in this country, I think it is unfortunate that we should add to our dependence upon that kind of a practice for our national revenue. Therefore, I suggest to the House and to the Minister that, while it may be desirable to levy a duty upon betting, there should run concurrently with that proposal something which would have the effect, not of increasing the desire that betting should extend over a large number of people and over a greater number of bets, but that there should be something restrictive.
I throw out as a hint that a little check upon the publication of betting odds before races might be helpful in that regard. If newspapers, for instance, were discouraged from appealing to this obsession, this bad habit, of the people, and if a little check were placed upon their present methods of making a circulation by appealing to that racing passion, it might be useful and it might correct the danger—it would minimise the danger—of having future Ministers for Finance relying too much upon the extension of the practice of betting. I have no doubt that newspaper proprietors—I am not speaking of the men who do the business of their employers—would be very glad to fall in with any proposition of that kind. Irish newspapers, I know, feel acutely the competition of organs of opinion from the other side of the Channel which have made circulations by their appeals to the betting fraternity on this side. I am sure a relief from that kind of competition would be accepted with pleasure by Irish newspaper proprietors, and if there was any addition to the revenue of this country from any taxation upon betting news, I think their patriotic instincts would lead them to applaud any such proposal.
Has Deputy Johnson studied the racing news in the "Daily Herald"?
He has, of course.
He does not make any exception.
I am quite prepared, following up the remark of Deputy Cooper, to ban even the "Daily Herald" if the same rule will apply to every other newspaper, from across the Channel, that prints betting news. There was a good deal of preliminary discussion last night on the effect of this taxation scheme upon the road policy of the Government. I think that the criticism was justified in two respects, at least. I think it is a right view to take that the heavy 'buses and chars-a-banc that are plying for passengers between the cities and the country are too heavy and too fast for the health and safety of the people or the economy of the county councils and the city councils. One has heard for years of the road hog, but we are now faced night by night and day by day with the hippopotamus in the shape of these tremendous instruments of fright that, carrying passengers, cut through the roads travelling at a very fast pace. I think it is true to say, as Deputy Myles said yesterday, that these vehicles are probably just as damaging —perhaps in many senses more damaging—as the heavy tractor or the heavy goods vehicle. I think there ought to be some check upon the size, apart from the weight, and particularly upon the speed of vehicles of that kind.
I think that the criticism that was levelled at the Government in regard to their failure to rise to a road policy is also justified. What we have foreshadowed seems to be a mere continuance of the present arrangements, with slight financial modifications. The President, and, I think, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, defended the proposals and the policy of the Executive Council in regard to this road question; but we did not hear from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health any defence of this policy. I think the Dáil, which has, I was going to say of malice aforethought, but of deliberation at any rate, appointed a Minister to be responsible for the administration of roads, has a right to look to that Minister for his views upon the road policy. We know that he is restricted in regard to finance, but, having now from the Minister for Finance some indication as to the amount of money that may be available for road expenditure, we ought to have from him the policy of his Department regarding the best method of administering and controlling the service of the roads. I think it is a pity that the hints we have had time and again regarding the views of the Minister for Local Government, the Minister responsible for the roads, of some general scheme of central control and administration of the main or trunk roads, have not been acceptable to his colleagues who are members of the Executive Council. But I venture to think that if he would come to the Dáil with his policy, explain it, and ask the Dáil for their approval, he would probably be surprised at the amount of support that he would get, and I think the effect inevitably would be that the Minister for Finance would be more generous in his view of the financial requirements. I welcome, as I might be expected to, the promise that a million pounds will be available this year for expenditure on the roads. I welcome that, even as a matter affecting roads and transportation, but I welcome it also because it will mean some considerable relief of the unemployment market, and that in that way it would do something, at any rate, to meet the situation. I hope, however, that there will be no continuation of the policy of making selections of places where wages are low and only making grants to county councils on the condition that low wages are paid. I think, also, the time is coming—I think the time has been passed for a considerable period—when the absolute preference that has been given up to now to men who served in the Army, even though they may be young and have no dependents, over men who have dependents, who are more needy, and very often better fitted to do the work, but because they did not serve in the National Army, for one reason or another, are deprived of the opportunity to get employment. I think the period during which that preference was justifiable is passed, and I hope we may hear the Minister announce that it is not intended to continue that any longer.
There is one point on which I think we must all be grateful to the Minister for Finance, and that is that he has supplied us most abundantly with the materials to enable us to judge and criticise his Budget. I do not think that in any previous year, here or in any other Parliament, has any Minister given fuller and more detailed particulars of every branch of his activities. The early issue of the Estimates, the circulation of the estimated revenue and expenditure, together with the very full and detailed statement that we heard yesterday, have all made the task of the critic immeasurably easier, and at the same time tended to disarm the critic. But one cannot allow an occasion of this character to pass without a certain amount of criticism. I hope it will be, to some extent, constructive criticism. I congratulate the Minister on having got through the year without either a deficit or a big loan. He ran things very fine last year. I do not know whether every Deputy realises how very small the margin was, but, thanks to increased revenue, thanks to a reduction in the Exchequer balances, the Minister got through. But I think that having gambled once, he is, like those addicts to whom Deputy Johnson referred, tempted to gamble again. I am not at all sure that a betting tax ought not to be levied on the Minister for Finance, because when he takes a deficit and says: "Oh, it is all right; that is over-estimating, and over-estimating will provide for the deficit," it is a somewhat hazardous proceeding. I suggest to the Minister that it would be better to check the over-estimating, to make his Department stronger to check it, and not be afraid of asking for a Supplementary Estimate. The Dáil has never been harsh in dealing with Supplementary Estimates, when any case at all can be put up, and I do suggest that it is the duty of the Department of Finance to bring home to other public Departments the fact that their estimates ought to be cut to the bone, and that no unnecessary taxation should be introduced.
There are two features in the Budget which I welcome without discussion. I welcome the agreement over double income tax, and I welcome the reduction of Corporation Profits tax. I think that the latter will stimulate industry and employment, and that is the answer to Deputy Johnson's criticisms. One point on which I had intended to criticise the Minister was that his speech yesterday did not give us a final balance sheet showing the results of the alterations in taxation and the results in revenue from the new taxes. He has rectified this error by this explanatory table we received to-day. There are two questions I want to put to him in regard to it. The first is: Why does that explanatory table not include the payments under the London Agreement?
They do not arise yet.
Will they not arise in the course of the financial year?
No.
Not in the course of the next financial year?
No.
I hope the Minister will elaborate that.
There are funds still due to us in the hands of the British Government which will be set off against the amount.
If the Bill had not passed would not these moneys come into the Exchequer here?
I presume the British Government would not pay.
In his speech yesterday the Minister said: "The quantities of wine taken from bond have been so large during the past seven or eight weeks that no appreciable increase of revenue is expected from the higher duties this year," but in this explanatory table we see additional revenue of £80,000 from wine.
I owe it to the Dáil to explain that. When I said that there would be no appreciable increase of revenue I was really acting on information which I got four or five days ago. We now know what was taken out of bond. There was not such a large quantity of wine taken out during the last few days as we expected.
Another gamble.
I thought the Minister would have an explanation and I have given him this opportunity of making it. There is an omission in the Budget which I welcome, and that is that with two comparatively small exceptions there are no new tariffs. There is a tariff on oatmeal, a comparatively small one, so small that it will not do the farmers much good——
It was never intended to.
So small that it will not do the consumer very much harm. Then again, there is the tariff on wireless. That, I think, is a bad mistake. I will elaborate my argument at a later stage, but I suggest that when you have a new service which is in the nature of a luxury, but which does yield revenue to the State, you should stimulate that service and not crush it. With those exceptions there are no new tariffs. The Minister spoke of the clamour for tariffs. I thank the Minister for teaching me that word. "Clamour" is exactly the right word, but the most intensified clamour came from the benches behind the Minister, even since the days when Deputy Milroy clamoured for tariffs, and when, perhaps, in a more restrained and dignified manner, Deputy Sears clamoured for tariffs. But the latest, most persistent, most continual and most clamant clamour came from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. If I may offer, without offence, a frivolous comparison, the later utterances of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs on the subject of tariffs reminded me of nothing so much as a train entering a tunnel—there was a prolonged screech and then darkness. He even went so far in the darkness as to recommend people not to invest money in Irish industries unless they were protected. That was not entirely consistent with the speech of the Minister for Finance yesterday. The Minister for Posts, as an external Minister, has a perfect right to express his own opinions and has a duty to do so, but what I want to know is, what is the policy of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party on the subject of tariffs? On one point they are probably agreed—that is, to maintain the existing tariffs, and the Minister for Finance said yesterday that these tariffs ought to have a further experimental run of eight to ten years. Subject to certain reservations I agree to that.
I agree that where capital has been invested and employment given as the result of tariffs on any considerable scale, that you should not hastily or frivolously repeal these tariffs, but I make the reservation that the objects on which tariffs are levied should be defined much more carefully than they were defined in our Finance Act of last year, and that instead of a general duty on wearing apparel the articles of wearing apparel should be specified, and that instead of a general duty on furniture you should specify the articles of furniture which are giving employment and not apply an indiscriminate tariff on every sort and kind of article, many of which are not being and never will be produced in the Saorstát. Subject to that reservation, I agree to that policy which is, I think, the policy of the Minister, and the policy not merely of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party but of the Dáil.
Of the majority.
Of the majority, Deputy Hewat being a minority of, I think, one. The second point in the Minister's speech was that it was undesirable to commit the country to a policy of all-round protection in advance of a General Election. Is that, also, the policy of the Chairman of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party?
No, emphatically no.
When I said that, I was thinking of Deputy Sears, and I do not think it is the policy of Deputy Sears either. Now we have it that the policy of the Executive Council is not the policy of some of their most influential, most active and most energetic followers. The trumpet is giving a very uncertain sound, and how can they go to a General Election with any hope of victory?
It is a great thing to be a party of one. They can all agree.
It is, but even parties of one are sometimes inconsistent. I suggest that even if a party of one is to be any sort of a party whatever, if it is to have any force or influence in the country, it ought to make up its mind to sink its differences and, at any rate, present a united front to the world. However, I do not want to make a party speech, and I am going to suggest an alternative. I make party speeches at times, but sometimes they are Farmer Party speeches, sometimes Labour Party speeches, and sometimes even Government Party speeches, but I am going to suggest what, I think, to be a better way, and that is, to take this question of tariffs out of party politics. I believe that the Minister for Finance has taken the first step in that direction by proposing to set up a Tariff Commission. The only thing about that proposal is that I should like to know a little more about this Tariff Commission. The Government set up a Fiscal Commission about three years ago. That was not a permanent body. Its recommendations were largely sound, but they were completely ignored. I suggest that there is not the least use in setting up a Tariff Commission on these lines. I would like to know if the proposed Tariff Commission is to be a body similar to that of the Revenue Commissioners—a body of permanent paid officials—who will examine all proposals for tariffs, or is it to be a body similar to that set up under the British Safeguarding of Industries Act, so that if the woollen trade, for instance, asks for a tariff a special committee will be set up to go into that question, and if another trade asks for a tariff another committee will be set up to deal with that, and so on, the committee in each case being a small one composed of people believed to be experts? I do not want the Minister for Finance to answer me now on these points, but I hope that when he comes to reply generally he will give the Dáil an outline of the procedure, composition and methods of this Commission.
From that omission, which I am glad of, the omission of tariffs on manufactures, I turn to another omission which I regret and that is the failure of the Government to reduce the spirit duty. The Minister spoke yesterday as if this was purely a question of the revenue that he receives from spirits at present and of the revenue that he will receive from the same number of distilleries paying duty on the same quantity in future at a reduced rate. He ignored the existence of poteen and the fact that a reduction of the spirit duty might knock poteen manufacture out of existence altogether. I am going to give him a precedent. I am treating this from the purely revenue point of view, and I agree that the Minister could not sacrifice any considerable revenue in spirits. The precedent I am giving is taken from the United States. It is not taken from the United States recently. After the American civil war, as after all civil wars, the Government found themselves loaded with a considerable debt, and in order to pay it they imposed a duty of two dollars per proof gallon on all spirits, mainly whiskey. The result is expressed by Mr. D.A. Wells, who, when a very young man, was appointed a revenue commissioner at the suggestion of Abraham Lincoln, and who subsequently became Chairman of the United States Revenue Commission. This is what he says:
The tax of two dollars per proof gallon (amounting to more than 1,500 per cent. on the average cost of production) and the enormous profits contingent upon the evasion of the law, coupled with the abundant opportunity which the law through its imperfections and the vast territorial area of the country offered for evasion, created a temptation not to be resisted. This view was taken by the Revenue Commissioners in a report to Congress through the Secretary of the Treasury in February, 1866, and the Chairman of the Commission, after a thorough investigation of the subject and the collection and presentation of a large amount of evidence, expressed the opinion that the attempt to collect a two-dollar tax was utterly impracticable, and that the longer it was retained the less would be the revenue.
The result of that two-dollar tax imposed in 1866 was a revenue of twenty-nine million dollars. The following year the revenue had shrunk to twenty-eight million dollars, and by 1868 the Americans had applied that wonderful fund of resource which they have of evading any restrictions on the consumption of liquor imposed by the State, so that the production had shrunk to 6,700,000 gallons, and the revenue to thirteen million dollars. Then the Revenue Commissioners took action and the duty was reduced from two dollars to 50 cents. per proof gallon, the reduction being in the ratio of one to a quarter.
After that the position was fifty per cent. duty and then the duty was only a quarter. Instead of thirteen million dollars they got thirty-three million dollars, and for the next four years the average revenue received from the taxation of spirits was thirty-four million dollars. I am not saying that is a complete parallel to our situation, but I do say that I believe a considerable reduction in the duty on spirits would produce no loss in revenue, because the distiller of poteen would be put out of business if whiskey were cheap. You may oppose the reduction on social grounds, grounds of temperance and grounds of morality, but I am only discussing it from a financial and revenue point of view, and I believe it would be well worth while to reduce the duty to such a point that the poteen distiller would be put out of business.
From the Minister's sins of omission I shall now turn to his sins of commission. I am not discussing the motor question. I should have had time to compare in order to do that what has been done here with what was done elsewhere, but I have not had time to do it. I want to discuss, to some extent, the experiment of the tax on betting. I cannot help thinking it was an unwise thing to produce the tax on betting as a bolt from the blue. I think if there were ever a tax that required previous consultation and previous consideration with all the parties interested, it is this tax. There was not the danger of forestalling. A man would not go away and back a horse for the Derby yesterday or the day before because he thought there was to be a tax on betting. He would, at least, have to wait until the "Two Thousand Guineas," because he would not have the knowledge of the form of the horses. Following the British precedent of consideration by a Parliamentary Committee, consideration with people involved, bookmakers and racing authorities, should have preceded the announcement of the tax. However, the thing cannot be ever fully done. It will be no more possible to prohibit unlicensed betting than it was in the past to prohibit illegal betting, and the great bulk of betting has been illegal.
The Minister will not be able to prevent me from saying to another Deputy "I bet you a shilling Deputy Johnson will speak on this motion." I may say, "I should demand very long odds." He would not be able to prevent me or another Deputy saying: "I bet you six pounds that the Minister for Lands and Agriculture interrupts one of the Farmers' Deputies within a week." That would also be in the nature of a betting proposition. You will not eliminate that habit, and it will be impossible to check it completely. One point which I hope the Minister will elaborate is as to what is the position of people in connection with sweepstakes. I believe sweepstakes are illegal. They are also very common. Supposing we agree that we will each put sixpence in a hat and see who draws the winner, would that require a certified return and would it be necessary for a £10 licence to be taken out? Deputy Sir James Craig says "No." I want an assurance from the Minister. Also what will be the position with regard to smaller bets. On sums of ten shillings and over this tax of a shilling in the £ will work very easily, but I do not know if any of the present Ministers go to point-to-point races. I have seen pictures of the President at one, and if he ever gave a look—I suppose he did not give more than a look—in the direction of the bookmakers, he might have seen that betting at point-to-point meetings is done with small sums. A week ago I went to one and my total losses were three and sixpence.
What were the possible gains?
I think half-a-crown in one case and four shillings in the other. It was not a violent plunge, but how is it going to work out in bets of a shilling and multiples of a shilling under ten shillings? You cannot have one-twentieth of a shilling unless the Minister inserts it in the new Coinage Bill. Is there going to be a minimum rate of taxation? I think you will have to have it. It is logical and consistent to prohibit overseas betting. If we are to tax betting in this country, obviously the individual backer of a horse should not be in a position to evade the tax here by betting overseas. So far as that goes, I am with the Minister, but it is very bad from the point of view of the bookmaker. The bookmaker, if he is not to incur undue liability, is in the habit of hedging.
Laying off.
Deputy Wilson has a deeper knowledge of the technicalities of the matter than I have. If the bookmaker is not allowed to lay off then he will be placed in a difficult position. The bulk of the betting in this country is on cross-Channel races. There is a far greater volume of betting in Great Britain, and also in a great many Irish meetings the fields are so small that the odds are not attractive. It is very probable that for local reasons, from the fact that the jockey is an Irishman or that the horse is trained at the Curragh, or that the horse is an Irish-bred horse, he will be at false odds and that there will be more people desiring to back him here than in Great Britain. If the Irish bookmaker cannot lay off or hedge on that horse the horse will be at a false price in this country. In other words, there will be different prices in the Free State and in Great Britain and nothing will persuade a man betting on the horse that he has been treated fairly if he gets worse odds here than in England. He may blame the bookmaker, but more probably the Government, because it is a chronic habit to blame the Government here for anything that has gone wrong. I suggest the Government should either allow a person, who has taken out a licence or the two licences, to bet across Channel or stimulate them to form a sort of pool or clearing-house which will be as good as betting across-Channel. I am not technically acquainted with bookmaking. I know it from the point of view of a loser.
You know something about it.
I am not one of those who make money out of betting like some Deputies. As a result of this, you will have a great many people who have never taken an interest in politics taking an interest in politics now to the disadvantage of the Government. I think it is rather a corollary to this proposition that the Minister should repeal the Gaming Act. He cannot say to the bookmakers: "We recognise you and we recognise every transaction in which you engage to the extent of imposing a 5 per cent. tax, but, so far as the Gaming Act is concerned, you are outlaws."
What about the publican who supplies drink on credit?
Because a publican breaks the law and supplies drink on credit, and because the Minister for Justice cannot catch him, we are to intensify the situation. I suggest, if it is a bad thing, and I think it is a bad thing, that we should not equally put the bookmaker in the position of being winked at by lacking legal rights to enforce his transactions. The State taxes liquor, but it does not require a stamp or certified return of sale, whereas in the case of betting a stamp will be required by the Inland Revenue authorities. I do not see any harm in legalising betting. It would be assisting decent people and penalising the dishonest. I welcome the tax on betting, subject to my rather drastic criticism. It is an experiment in opening new avenues of taxation, and such experiments are badly needed. The most important section of the Minister's speech seems to have gone rather unnoticed amid the columns of detail. I refer to the passage in which he made it clear that the yield of taxation as a whole was steadily shrinking, and that all the arrears liable to be collected will have been collected within the next few years, so that the yield of taxation will be smaller and not greater, and thus the task of the Minister will be proportionately harder in future. Side by side with that shrinkage there is the tendency for the cost of administration to grow.
I hope that no Deputy has ever considered me a pessimist. I am constitutionally and by nature an optimist, but I confess I am somewhat alarmed at the prospect that the Minister's task next year will be harder than this year, and that whoever is Minister for Finance in 1928 will have even a more difficult task. I think it is the duty not only of the Executive Council but of the Dáil and of the country to look the situation in the face, as increased cost of administration with decreased yield in taxation, carried to an indefinite point, means ruin. What is to be done? The first thing to be done—and the Minister has made the first step towards it—is to try and increase the yield of taxation by encouraging to this country new taxpayers, by attracting back some of those who have left, and even some of those who never lived here, and also making the conditions of residence here such that they will create a desire among people to come and live here for good. We have great assets in our scenery, in our sport, and in other factors, and we ought to have capitalised them and made the most of them. I have heard a great deal about reviving our tourist traffic, but one resident is worth ten tourists, as he is here continuously, gives continuous employment, and pays taxes which the tourist does not— namely, direct taxes. Secondly, we should, if possible, find new sources of revenue. The betting tax is a beginning in that respect. I hope it is not an end, and I hope that the Minister will, in so far as protective tariffs do not yield revenue, try to see if there are any other sources. Thirdly, we must make greater economies than we have so far done.
About a month ago the Government turned down the idea of appointing a Geddes Committee. I regret it. I myself, however, appointed a Geddes Committee of one member with a quorum of one. That Committee in my person went through the Estimates to see where economies could be made. I have the results here in a series of amendments, which I am going to move when we consider the Estimates, amounting approximately to a saving of £660,000. That is not on the magnificent Monaghan scale. They seem to do things better in Monaghan than anywhere else. Where Wicklow, Dublin and Sligo have only foxes and weasles to kill their chickens, Monaghan has a bear. I hope that Monaghan will also put down amendments to the Estimates —I am not referring, of course, to the Minister for Finance. I say that a saving of £660,000 is a fairly sound economy at present.
Mr. EGAN
I hope you will not touch the agricultural grant.
No. I do not say that this economy can be obtained without sacrificing some services to which some Deputies will attach value. It can, however, be done, I think, without serious injury to the State. It will involve in some cases a postponement of services, but that must be done slowly, and it will involve in some cases a cutting in estimates which I believe to be over-estimated. It is, at all events, a serious attempt at economy, and I hope I shall have the support of all those who have demanded economy when I move my amendments.
While Deputy Cooper was speaking I think he made use of an expression which the Dáil did not hear. I think he said that he had not an experience of betting such as some Deputies had, and it reached some of our ears that one of these Deputies was, according to him, Deputy Gorey.
No, I did not mean you, but I will tell you who it was afterwards.
I am going on the assumption that I caught the Deputy correctly, and I want to dispel any illusion in regard to my betting transactions. I have not made a bet for two or three years—in Ireland. In discussing this Budget, or rather, this question of national expenditure, we cannot discuss the Budget without, at the same time, discussing the Estimates. The Budget signifies where the money comes from, and the Estimates give an idea where the most of that money goes to, perhaps where it all goes to. The Budget, taken together with the Estimates and the economic position as it exists at present, cannot be considered by the agricultural community to be a very happy Budget.
No effort has been made to cut down expenditure. The expenditure is slightly increased from last year, although the Minister tells us that the sources of revenue are visibly shrinking. While the sources of revenue are visibly shrinking, we have the mind of the salaried and wage-earning community forcibly expressed by Mr. Cooke in England in the words "Not a cent, not a second." What holds good in England should also hold good here. In the Civil Service and in every other department here we have the same mind and we have the same slogan—"Not a cent, not a second." If it is quite apparent that the sources of revenue are drying up, it is also apparent that our expenditure must be reduced and that all the people in the State must bear their share of the reduction. When we are told by the Minister that no item of expenditure can be reduced and when we hear this talk of "not a cent, not a second," we must recall that the present salaries are founded on the standard of the war period, and that that portion of the community which pays the salaries is not in the position it was in the war years. The sooner the Government makes up its mind to deal with the matter the better. The position at the moment reminds me very much of a certain type of individual whom I came in contact with many times. I have seen men about to die making their wills and bequeathing generous legacies to all the members of their families, while they had not a penny of their own, and were, as a matter of fact, in debt. Pretty much the same kind of gamble is being tried on here. Budgets and estimates must be founded on assets. If you are not going to trim your Budget and your estimates according to your assets, you are going to have bankruptcy. No matter what is said about agriculture—the staple industry of the country—no matter what boosting it gets in various quarters, the fact is that the agriculturist is in an extremely bad position and may be in a very much worse position two years hence. We have had figures showing what the prices are now compared with the prices in 1914, but no effort has been made to prove what the charges are now as compared with those of 1914. You cannot separate those two elements. To have a true picture you must include the two. Otherwise you will have only part of a picture. It has been claimed that if a Geddes Committee were appointed to review, not alone Civil Service affairs, but the whole question of public salaries, that enormous savings could be suggested. It might be found that three men would be able to do the work of five men. One thing we should make up our mind upon—that if we cannot get rid of the old officials, we ought, at least, stop recruiting for a considerable number of years. All these salaried officials, of one kind or other, have got into entrenched positions. They got into these positions at the peak points of the war years, and from those positions they are not willing to retreat. Judging from the attitude all round, they are prepared to let the heavens fall before they will yield a second or a cent.
There is one matter not contained in the Budget which I thought should have been dealt with, that is the question of the insane poor. I believe that this question of the insane poor should be made a national charge. That claim is only a fair one. I am quite confident that it would be more economical to deal with the insane poor, as a national charge, than to have institutions spread all over the country, with numerous staffs, and a lot of expense entailed that could be obviated if the control were national.
The question of most importance in connection with the life of the country, arising out of this Budget, is the question of road policy and the fuel problem. Deputy Good, I think said yesterday that he would favour a national authority with regard to trunk road construction. Anybody who has given the matter serious thought will admit that, as regards trunk roads, at least, a central authority is more effective and provides a better method of dealing with the problem. Otherwise the scheme should be made so uniform that the several local authorities will have a similar policy in regard to road construction. There is no use in having three or four different classes of road from here to Dun Laoghaire or different classes of roads in different counties. When you pass over the border of one county you sometimes get on to a piece of road in another county which it is impossible to travel. I can testify to that from experience. I certainly favour—and I think the party behind me favour—the maintenance of trunk roads by a national authority, or that the system should be so organised that the same policy will prevail under different authorities. We still hold the viewpoint that we held last year with regard to motor traffic. We still hold the view that the only method of dealing justly with this question is on a motor-fuel basis. The people who use the road ought to pay for the road. The people who use the road 365 days of the year ought to be made pay for the traffic on the 365 days. The lorry which is continuously using and breaking the roads should be made pay more than the lorry which only uses the road occasionally. The only way to deal with that is on the motor-fuel basis. I think Deputy Corish can bear me out in the example I am going to give in regard to heavy motor traffic. I have figures for twelve miles of a road in Wexford which show that the repairs this year cost £11,000. In the opinion of the county surveyor if the lorries on this road were reduced to four tons, including load, the amount of repairs would be reduced to £3,000. Next year the estimate for repairs instead of being £10,000 if the same class of lorries were run over the road would be £2,500.
Is that for repairs or reconstruction?
For repairs. It is an argument that very heavy lorries should not be allowed, at all, over certain roads in the country, Six-ton lorries are running over roads and bridges in the country which were never meant for them. The only cure is to put them off these roads altogether.
Is not this road that the Deputy refers to a main road, a trunk road?
I do not know.
Yes, it is.
We have here the opinion of the engineer in whose charge this road is, that if the lorries running over it were reduced to four tons, including load, there would be a saving of £8,000 in the cost of repairs in one year. Do these heavy lorries counterbalance a saving of £8,000? Is that the Deputy's idea of justice?
What would the Ideal Co-operative Creamery say to that?
I do not know. The Ideal Co-operative Creamery can procure lorries to suit their own requirements. The whole country cannot be expected to cater for the ideas of one little body.
Mr. HOGAN
I am giving that as a specimen creamery.
It is these heavy lorries, beyond all question, that have made the railway position worse than it would be. The railway people themselves have largely contributed to that position by the high freights they charge and the staffs they have to maintain to suit the hours. That largely contributes to the position. The country is faced with the alternative of closing up the railways altogether, and with the loss of an essential national service, because whatever traffic is on the roads, whether it be of lorries, light or heavy, you have to keep the railways running as a national essential service. Cattle cannot be transported without the railways. The railways will have to be maintained even at a national loss. It is a question of economics whether you are going to deal with them in a same manner or not.
With regard to the spirit duty I have little to say. I will, in fact, say nothing at all except that seventeen millions have been spent upon drink, which is a very respectable sum. I will not say whether it is respectably spent or not. I say it is a very respectable sum. Some people think it ought to represent a mountain of money. If anything like value is given for this amount of money it would mean that a lake of liquid is being absorbed by the people of the country.
With regard to the betting tax, Deputy Cooper said something with which I quite agree. If you are going to recognise betting to the extent of collecting a tax from those who bet, I see no reason in the world why we should not make betting transactions legal. I see nothing immoral about it. If it is immoral to recognise betting as a legal transaction it is also immoral to take the earnings of that immoral transaction.
I do not want to interrupt, but that is really a different point from that made by Deputy Cooper which was whether a bookmaker should be allowed to go to a court of law and recover betting debts.
That is what I mean, too.
I will answer that.
I make the appeal that betting ought to be recognised as a legal transaction.
That is a different thing altogether.
That they should be allowed to go into a court of law and enforce payment.
That certainly would lead to the greatest possible abuse— such abuse that personally I would abandon the betting tax readily rather than agree. If betting debts were made recoverable you would have people induced, by all sorts of means, to enter into betting transactions, and it would be ruinous. The social effect of making gaming debts recoverable by law would be ruinous.
What does the Minister think of people who go to make bets? Does he think they are such simpletons as to allow themselves to be induced to make bets? There are very few bets made but are paid. Occasionally you hear of an individual who is a defaulter.
What about the ones you do not hear about?
And there is always the protection there.
I think this betting taxation is very welcome. It will prevent undesirables operating in our cities and on our race-courses. I hope we will hear less of the army of welchers coming round in future. I adhere to what I say, that betting ought to be recognised and ought to be made legal. I do not anticipate anything like the evils the Minister speaks of. I do not know where he gets his information.
If the Deputy thinks over the matter I think he will agree with me.
I made a few bets in my time, and I know a little about it.
Everybody is not as sensible as the Deputy.
It seems to me as if the Minister is trying to recover a tax on immoral earnings. He talks about the betting tax. In defending his refusal to put a fuel tax upon motor cars he talks about the difficulty of collection. What about the betting tax and the difficulty of collection and the possibility of evasion? These things seem to have no terrors for the Minister, and he has entered lightly upon his task, but he will find that what he thinks is a very clear proposition is really bristling with difficulties and obstacles. I think the Minister has gone very lightheartedly into the betting tax and the method of collecting it. I assure him he is dealing with people who know how to take care of themselves in this matter. Even with the assistance of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and the Minister for Justice, I do not think he will succeed, and, taking the whole of them together, I think I can promise them a fifty per cent. failure.
With regard to the part of the Budget dealing with duties on motor cars, I heard a chorus of approval here yesterday about the departure in favour of the Ford car. It makes very little difference to the people of this country whether it is a Ford or any other car if it is not manufactured in this country, and it is very little difference to the people if it is not sold at a competitive price here, similar to what it is sold at in other countries. I understand the price here is very much in excess of the price in England, where, we are told, it is manufactured and assembled, and put together. It is very different from the price in America or Canada. I think we get too enthusiastic about anything, no matter what, manufactured in Ireland. I think an unfair discrimination is made in this case.
Do I understand the Deputy to say——
I forgot that there were a lot of Cork Deputies here.
Do I understand the Deputy to say that a considerable part of the Ford car as sold here is manufactured or assembled in England?
I understand that a considerable portion of the vehicle coming into the country is manufactured or assembled in Manchester. Perhaps the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will explain the difference in prices.
Yes.
I am not surprised at the Minister turning down the recommendations of the Tobacco Committee. I know the amount of money that foreign-grown tobacco contributes to the national revenue and I know how serious it would be to do anything that would interfere with that revenue. I think, however, the Minister indicated that those who had Irish grown tobacco on hands and had lost money would not be allowed to be at a loss.
Yes, we are prepared to consider cases.
There are two ways of considering the matter—considering it favourably, and considering it with the idea at the back of your head of doing nothing.
Considering it sympathetically.
Is that as much as we can get from the Minister?
You have got the whole thing.
That is an enigma.
Now I come to that great slice the agricultural community has got, that is to mean so much to them, and in return for which we are asked to sacrifice our whole position— that is the tariff on oatmeal.
A mess of pottage.
If there is anything to be said for that it can be called a millers' tariff.
Is the Deputy against it?
I do no care two pins whether it comes into force or not. It does not matter two pins to me or anybody else whether it is imposed or not. If that is all the Government are able to give by way of protection for the agricultural industry, it explodes for all time the theory that protection is going to benefit agriculture; it does away with the argument of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs anyhow.
The Deputy will think again.
One of the results of the tariff will be that it will make one of the essential calf foods a little dearer. I do not know whether that can be said to be a benefit to the agricultural community. It may be news to the Minister for Posts and Telegraps that oatmeal forms part of one of the most extensively used calf foods and this tariff is bound to make that a little dearer. It is such a small thing, however, that it is not worth considering.
Mr. HOGAN
Does the Deputy want it taken off?
Take it off if you like. It is not any good to us. Give it to somebody else.
What about the twelve thousand?
If farmers can get a fraction of a farthing apiece out of it, that is all I can see in it. I do not think it is worth referring to, except that it proves that no Government is able to do anything for the protection of agriculture considering where our market is.
Does the Deputy want protection for agriculture?
I say to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that neither he nor anybody else, even with the best will in the world, will be able to protect it by a tariff.
We shall see.
Even with all his resources and his great enterprise. I believe the Minister has tried very hard in the councils of the Cumann na nGaedheal to do something. Will the Minister tell us all about the million that we were told was going to be added to the Agricultural Grant but that they failed to secure? We heard reports about such an addition to the Agricultural Grant, but it did not come off. Is it kept over for the election Budget next year?
Now it is out.
Even Ministers on the front bench talked of the surprises that were in store for the agricultural community.
Mr. HOGAN
Who are they?
I am not going to mention names. I do not give away stable secrets like that. Are we to expect all these next year when the election is coming off?
A Budget that will sweep us all off our feet; sweep us all into the Government net and give the Government three or four more years of office. As to the wireless receiving sets, the idea evidently is to make a distinction between the valve sets and the crystal sets. Evidently the intention is to make the owners of valve sets, who in present circumstances are largely rural residents, build up a fund for the development of broadcasting. The owners of valve sets have to pay a £1 tax while the crystal set users have only to pay 10s., in order to build up a fund for developing broadcasting. That is on a par with the Minister's methods of dealing with the rural population, because they live in the country away from the Minister's circle of civilization. If they are not good enough to live within that charmed circle, they are good enough to tax to procure facilities for the Minister's friends. I object to one section of the community being asked to build up a fund in order to provide entertainment for another section. If broadcasting is worth developing at all, it ought to be developed as a national charge. If we have a central station in Dublin set up at the national expense, why should not the whole scheme be developed at the national expense? There is too much of this discrimination. Ministers have got into the habit of thinking that sections of the community must be discriminated against—that one section do not deserve the same facilities as others. That is rather unjust. No one with any sense of justice could defend it. I am not surprised at the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs defending it. Perhaps I ought to congratulate the Minister for Finance as other Deputies have congratulated him. I congratulate him on one thing—that as far as national expenditure goes he is on the right side. The nation is not bankrupt so long as he can get the money, but the people who supply him with the money deserve a little consideration. The sooner people in a responsible position come to see that the nation is not able to bear taxation on the present basis the sooner we will have arrived at a sensible and sound position.
I have been taunted by Deputy Cooper with the fact that my constant advocacy of a change in the economic position in this country has come to nought in this Budget. I do not quite agree that it has come to nought. It is true it has not very largely materialised, but, in any case, I am prepared to make a present to the Minister for Finance, or anybody else in the Party of which I am a member, of the congratulations of Deputy Cooper and men who think like him on matters of this kind. His economic and national outlook and mine are as separate as the poles. There are, however, a couple of points in this Budget which to me are very acceptable. The treatment which the Ford car has secured will help not only to keep that industry in Cork, but, as a matter of fact, secures it there, and opens up for it a future as bright as any that the owners of that firm had envisaged. I am speaking with a knowledge of the feelings of those connected with the Ford firm with respect to this concession. The steps, though apparently limited, that have been taken to assist the distilling industry will go a long way towards restoring that industry to prosperity. These two sections in the Budget have, therefore, been a compensation to many of us, who had looked forward, not only to the salvation of decaying industries but their stimulation.
An important section in the Minister's speech is the setting up of a statutory body of Civil Servants to examine the various claims for the extension of tariffs. That is a step in the right direction. Personally I would have preferred that the Government had boldly grappled with at least some of the more pressing cases, and dealt with them on the spot. But, in the absence of that attitude on the part of the Government, I welcome the setting up of this Civil Service body.
Is it the Tariff Commission you are speaking of?
Yes. It has one weakness. In the event of a report which makes for the application of tariffs being recommended we can take it that the effect of the imposition of that tariff will be very largely nullified by forestalling. There may be difficulties in dealing with forestalling, but I put it to the Minister that in an event of that kind the industry concerned will be doomed at least to 12 months' complete inactivity. As has been suggested in a similar circumstance in another country, there is, to my view, no reason why legal steps could not be taken to see that nothing beyond the average import of the particular article should be permitted without retrospective taxation. This is not an unfair proposal. On the other hand, if this Committee proceeds to interpret the view, which may or may not be general, that the end of tariffs, before the general election, has been reached, and that its duty is merely to kill time, then, those of us who feel keenly on the tariff question will be called upon to review our position. I happen to be one of those who was attracted to political life by the teachings of Arthur Griffith. Through his years of toil he never ceased to dwell on two facts which he held were responsible for the slow but unceasing decay of the Irish nation. He pointed to the fact that in the '50's of the last century about 3½ million acres of land were under cultivation in this country. In 1914 tillage had dropped to the low level of 1,690,000 acres.
In what year was it 3 millions?
In 1851 the number of acres under tillage in Ireland was 3,509,000; in 1871 the number had dropped to 2,772,000; in 1891 to 1,975,000; 1911, to 1,697,000; 1914, to 1,690,000; 1925, to 1,571,000. There was a slow but constant decline. Side by side with this decline in tillage we have had the same steady flow of our people to other countries, such as America, which was guarded and protected by high tariffs. During the same period we found scores and scores of industries, which had been flourishing at the time of the Act of Union, declining steadily up to the introduction of free trade. One by one we found these industries passing away, and, in our time, dotting the hillsides of Ireland, as each and everyone must have seen with regret, with derelict mills.
Arthur Griffith told us that there was one cure for this combination of evils, and one cure only. He said, first of all secure the home market for the home producer, and where the home producer was unable to secure the market, to do that implied one very definite step—in the case of manufacturers—protection. He said in connection with protection that it was futile for a weak nation, a nation weak in capital and weak in technical resources, to think that it could at any time in the absence of protection stand up against its powerful foreign rivals. This was his one and main reason for advocating protection. Arthur Griffith believed, like the Minister for Finance yesterday, in stimulating production but, unlike the Minister for Finance, he showed us ways and means. He did not merely tell us that as regards the £18,000,000 adverse trade-balance which this unfortunate country is now suffering—£18,000,000 of money which is being dragged from a poor, hard-working people, and handed over to foreign nations, like an indemnity to a conqueror—that we should continue to suffer that loss without giving us ways and means of combating it. He told us to adopt protection. I have urged on my party, and I have preached to the country, the idea that there is only one salvation for the economic position of this nation as we now find it, and that that salvation is in protecting the country against the foreigner. I am glad to get the opportunity here of reiterating that expression, and any argument I can deduce, any influence I can use, during my connection with politics, will be used in the direction of protecting the weak man of Ireland against the highly-financed foreign dumper.
The big argument, the shibboleth of Adam Smith and Cobden, used against protection, the argument that undoubtedly has a certain amount of sway in the absence of counter-arguments throughout this country, is the one that by protection we are going to increase the cost of living. The counter-cry to that, or rather the stable companion cry, if I might use a sporting phrase for Deputy Gorey, is of course to produce as good and as cheaply. Unlike Deputy Cooper, and also unlike Deputy Gorey, I hope that I at least have some idea as to how the economic ills of the country may be rectified. I am not satisfied to confine myself to deploring them. I at least, and those who feel like me, whether our proposals, whether our remedies, are good or bad, can claim to have remedies, and we preach these remedies to the country. I say that protection does in some instances raise the cost of living, but there are a great many other things in the economic affairs of a nation that act in a like direction. Four millions have to be paid for education, for instance, and that increases the cost of living. The five millions we are spending on the Shannon scheme will increase the cost of living. Many things we do in the activities or functions of government also increase the cost of living, but we do these things with the sole object of increasing the opportunities for our people at home. Some tariffs would do likewise, at least tariffs that are not, for instance, associated with the basic industry of the country, will for a number of years have that effect. I can see that and I stand by it. There are, however, a great many industries closely associated with our life which can be protected without altering materially the cost of living. There is the woollen industry to mention one, and the flour industry to mention another. There are many others. It will be asked: "Will you name some of those industries that have been protected that have not raised the cost of living?" I certainly will. I have made inquiries regarding some of these industries that were established here already, and I have been informed without question that in the case of jam, confectionery, bedsteads, blankets, boots, candles, and tobacco, each and all of these are produced at present without any increased cost to the consumer.
Might I ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he is supported in that statement by the Minister for Industry and Commerce?
I do not think that is a point of order. The Minister for Industry and Commerce will speak in due course. I have a communication which supports that statement from the secretry to the Dublin Industrial Association, and I have supporting statements from the manufacturers of blankets, bedsteads and candles. I know that in the case of tobacco there has been no increase. Nobody will challenge that. This morning I was informed by the managing director of Dwyer and Sons, Cork, that instead of their boots being sold at an increased price the price has decreased.
Will the Minister tell us whether he is referring to the price to the retailer or to the consumer?
The price to the retailer. The price as between the retailer and the consumer is not a matter the manufacturer has any control over, or can be held responsible for, and I am glad that interruption has been made. You have here a series of manufactured articles, each and every one of which has had its roots in the country, and the very small measure of protection which the Minister for Finance was good enough to extend to these industries has not only resulted in not increasing the prices but has resulted in the fact that the Irish market to-day is in their complete control, with the possible exception of boots. That surely is an encouraging fact for men like Mr. Sean Milroy who stood almost alone in those Benches in years gone by and appealed to the Government to come to the rescue of our workless and largely penniless working people. It is also a tribute to the enterprise of the people who were able in that short space of time, and with the uncertainty of the continuance of protection hanging over them, to accomplish that. What has been done here in these industries will happen in every protected industry in this State if these industries get a chance.
I appeal to the Government to come to the rescue of the woollen industry. Let me say at once that I appreciate the position of the Government in this matter. Their position is a peculiar one. The break up of those forces which were responsible for the establishment of this State and this Parliament, freed the field for all those elements which had little or nothing in common with progress. It freed the field for the importer and the rancher. and they have had for the last two or three years the fairs to themselves, and they have made good use of it. They have also been supported not only by their big financial resources and their business training, but by a Press largely dependent on foreign advertisements. They have made good use of their solidarity, but I think they can look forward to the downward current from this onward. Their size has been taken. The youth of Ireland is realising what the game is and to where it is leading. It is because of that realisation that I appeal to the Government to break away from its pledge that no further tariffs will be imposed in the intervening period. I have not appealed in vain I hope if this Committee should operate. I am particularly keen on seeing that our woollen mills should not be permitted to disappear.
When I left the Dáil last night I was accosted by a foolishly patriotic citizen who, three years ago, sold his property and, in addition to the money realised on it, got a considerable loan from the bank for the purpose of purchasing a woollen mill. He said: "I am ruined; the failure of the Government to come to the rescue of the woollen industry has ruined me. I have collected every penny that I possessed in the world and every penny that my friends could help me to realise and I have put it into a mill, not very far away, to the extent of £37,000. To-morrow I am prepared to sell that mill for £2,000; I am ruined; I am bankrupt. I was foolish enough to believe that I lived in a country working under a native Parliament which was prepared to stand by men who had the courage to stand by their country. I am deceived." Are there men in this House; are there Deputies in this House—
Yes.
Who have no sympathy with that man? If the Minister for Justice has no sympathy with him, I for one certainly have. He is a ruined man because the Government has failed to come to his rescue. But he is only one example of the many who have gone by the roadside in helping to keep industries afloat. It is a matter of very great regret to me that these woollen mills should have been permitted to go down and out. Three of them in the city of Cork are already closed. A great number of their technical employees have been scattered to the four winds, and we here, at least, ought to realise that one of the greatest difficulties in building an industry is in providing trained hands. Let them be once scattered and it takes many years to replace them.
I am sorry also that nothing has been done in the case of the flour milling industry. In the city of Cork three mills have been already shut down and the fourth is on the point of disappearing. All over the country a similar tale is being told, and on the other side of the Channel, we read in the English newspapers, new combines with increased finances are being created to give our Irish milling the finishing stroke. Are you going to help that policy? Are there men in this Dáil who believe that neither the woollen nor the milling industry is of any concern to the nation? I hope, for the sake of the nation, that there are not and that at least these cases are worthy of sympathetic consideration, if not of immediate action. The milling industry at one time got some little encouragement from a Fiscal Committee that was set up here. That Fiscal Committee said: "The preservation of flour milling is important in the national interests." I presume the Fiscal Committee knew what it was talking about. That was not the particular Fiscal Committee to which Deputy Heffernan referred. I believe it was another.
A mysterious Fiscal Committee.
The Commission on Agriculture reported in regard to wheat growing that the national wellbeing would be served if a greater quantity of wheat were grown in Ireland and used in the mills and deprecated the importation of flour instead of wheat. Does anybody disagree with that?
What Committee was this?
Six months ago members of this party who felt as I feel. regarding some of these matters, waited on the flour millers with a view not only to save the flour milling industry, but to stop the importation, or at least to reduce the importation, of wheat, which is a heavy drain on the country. Last year we sent seven millions of money to foreign countries for wheat, and practically three millions for bacon. Ten millions from an impoverished country—from a so-called agricultural country. We made proposals. We discussed this matter of flour milling with flour millers, and they agreed that a tax of 2/6 per twenty stone on imported flour would be sufficient to save the industry.
We sent five millions out of the country for flour.
The millers guaranteed that, instead of increasing the cost of flour to the consumer, they would sell that flour without any extra cost.
Might I ask as a matter of explanation—this is important— where the Minister got the figures? Would the Minister tell us if this seven million pounds had not been sent out for flour, how much would be sent out for raw wheat?
The figure is about fifty-fifty.
Nonsense. If the figures of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs are no better than that, he should stop.
The Deputy persists in interrupting. It is not a matter for the Deputy to say when I am to stop. The Deputy ought permit others than himself to speak without interruption. If he wants these facts it is not necessary to cut in on my speech to secure them. They are available for everybody. Therefore I do not propose to give them.
Good man.
Now the Flour Millers' Association was satisfied that a tax of 2/6 per twenty stone sack would not only exclude imported flour which arrived here to the extent of nearly three and a half million pounds per year, but that no increase to the consumer would result. They gave that assurance as those other manufacturers to whom I previously referred gave it, that once the home market was at their disposal, with their increased output and their consequent lower overhead expenses the saving in this direction would be sufficient to give them a margin of profit without passing anything on to the consumer. In return for this concession which would bring about a re-opening of all our closed mills and a very great extension of employment, they were prepared to include in their home-made product any percentage of home-grown wheat which this Government would request them to include. They were prepared, in addition, to pay the Mark Lane prices prevailing at any one time for that wheat. The Mark Lane price for the four concluding months of last year was 28/- a barrel. The price for home-grown wheat during the same four months was 32s. 2¼d. per barrel. Farmers have assured me that 30/- a barrel would give them an ample margin of profit. As a matter of fact, I believe that they agreed that wheat growing last year was quite profitable.
Now, what the flour millers proposed in effect was this: that we proceed at once, with their co-operation and assistance, to take back or to hold back an increasing slice of this seven millions which we are handing over to foreign farmers. I venture to say that the farming community here who complain bitterly of the inadequate prices for grain would be very pleased indeed to see this Government give them a definite outlook in regard to one of these products. I wonder if that fact is questioned by any farmer Deputy in this House? It surely is of importance to this nation that some of the bread required for the support of its people ought to be produced at home. There was a time when this country produced all its own requirements in wheat. There was a time even when they exported the surplus. It is not unnatural to expect that in our day and in our circumstances, at least, a little of the home product would be sold to the home people. I doubt if it would do them much harm.
That is the proposal with regard to wheat. In many countries on the Continent of Europe people would be very glad to get home-grown wheat. They eat rye instead. Home-grown wheat is not good enough for the people of this country! And yet they grumble and talk about their impoverished position, and they talk about their unemployment, and talk about their taxation and about the tens of thousands of their people who are forced to flee to a foreign land; but they are prepared to ignore the fact that without any necessity whatever they send millions of money for wheat to the farmers of foreign lands—millions that could well be utilised for the farmers of Ireland. I stand for protection, for protection in general, not in particular. I do not stand for protection for every article in use, but I do say that there are a great many things, particularly those which did find general production in this country in the past, and which are essential in times of war, in times when external products are impossible to get—all those things which are essential to the lives of the people ought to be produced without any loss of time.
I suppose we will be told in later speeches that the farmer could not compete in his own market—that the prices of his products would be made prohibitive. I am not surprised at that. It is the kind of story that one would expect to hear. The same story was preached in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Denmark, the countries that compete against this country in the same market. What do they do? Do they follow the role of depriving the nation of its second arm, depriving the urban population of a means of productive livelihood, and contribution to the national sustenance or taxation? They do not. In the case of the four countries we find a stiff tax—in some cases a tax reaching 90 per cent. We find in the four countries that textiles, woollen goods, are heavily taxed. The same applies to agricultural implements, boots and shoes, leather, tinned meats, confectionery and fish. We find that the system of taxation is almost too prohibitive in three of those countries in regard to the importation of flour, butter, milk and cheese.
In the case of Australia and New Zealand we find a tax on bacon. There is no doubt the Farmers' Union in New Zealand must have told the people that the imposition of these import duties would mean that they would be driven out of their only market. You had the Deputy Goreys and the Deputy Coopers and all the people who think like them in New Zealand, preaching the same doctrine. Fortunately for the people of New Zealand, that doctrine was discarded, and in their case, as in the case of the other three countries, protection was made a general rule; the exception is difficult to find.
We find each and every one of these countries hunting the non-protected country from the English market, a country that has advantages not only in its climate and its soil, but also in its proximity to that market. These are facts worth nothing. I observe that Deputy Cooper, when flatly turning down—boldly turning down—a communication of mine to a recent meeting in Cork, failed to deal with any of the statements I made. These four heavily-protected countries are beating our non-protected country at our own doors, in our own market, with our own weapons.
Is the Minister aware that New Zealand grants a preference in her tariffs to all goods produced in Great Britain, because Great Britain is her best market, and will he advocate that policy here?
We do.
That is what we do.
I am in every instance prepared to consider the claim of a good customer. That brings me to another point, which I will deal with later on, in respect of countries from which we get millions of pounds worth of goods and to which we send no goods. These four countries I have referred to are heavily protected. It must be obvious to those people who turned down protection in Ireland that these four countries are whipping us in the English market. That is what free trade has done for us. Not only are they beating us in the English market, but they are actually beating us in our own market. So much for free trade.
Is there any export of people from any of those countries? I have not heard of any. Is there any unemployment in these countries outside the temporary unemployment which lately capital has been made of in respect to Denmark? That was just a passing phase. Have any of these countries an adverse trade balance?
Will the Minister define the countries he refers to?
I have already done so.
The Minister mentioned four countries. Will he tell me what they are?
Australia, Denmark—
Denmark has an adverse trade balance.
I have not completed my statement in regard to Denmark and I would be obliged if the Deputy gives me a chance to do so.
Denmark has an adverse trade balance.
In three of the four countries I have referred to they boast of a big surplus trade balance. They have a big and a growing surplus trade balance. Deputies, I am sure, have observed that in the last two days in the case of Canada, a week ago in the case of Australia and a couple of months ago in the case of New Zealand. In the case of Denmark it is true that, for the time being, things are not going as well as they might be going. There are many causes responsible for that. We know very well that in Denmark, for one thing, labourers' wages are at least twice what they are in Ireland. That may not be the cause for the adverse trade balance, but I just mention it as one of the items which can be touched upon and possibly amplified by other people. At any rate you have these four countries with no export of human beings, no export of money, no unemployed and all prospering.
The four countries are Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Denmark. These countries keep the home market to themselves; they insist on keeping one foot on dry land—one foot on solid soil—instead of looking like the fool to the ends of the earth for salvation. That is what protection has done for these countries. I am not referring to the United States, because there is no parallel. I am referring to countries that are purely agricultural, countries that, prior to the adoption of the Free State, were getting it rough. They have, since the introduction of protection, not only turned the corner but prospered.
I am not one of those who see the economic salvation of this country in a petty reduction of national taxation. Apart altogether from the fact that any considerable reduction is impossible and would be strenuously resisted, not from these Benches but, perhaps, from the Bench that resisted the reduction in the expenditure on Post Office Services, I am not satisfied that the reduction which at the utmost we might secure would make any material improvement in our economic outlook. I might remind the House that prior to the European War there was no question of heavy taxation, either local or national. There were people, certainly, who felt—we all felt it—that we were paying somewhat more than we ought to pay, but, on the whole, it was merely an academic question; there was no outcry about heavy taxation. But did our industries prosper? Will anybody in this House tell me that during his years of memory prior to the European War industries were started in Ireland in those heydays of low taxation? The only industries that I remember were ones that shot up but shot down at almost the same speed, that were wiped out by their opponents on the other side. I do not remember one industry, outside Fords, that was started in those days of low taxation and that has succeeded.
I have already said that in these same times our agricultural industry did not prosper. It declined. Therefore, as far as the prospects of increased industrial effort through any reduction of taxation that is possible at present are concerned I am not prepared to give it a moment's thought. It would be helpful; it would be an item; it would be well if it could be done, but as a real, live stimulant towards meeting the huge margin between imports and exports, which is bleeding this country dry at present, it is a bagatelle; it does not count. We have reached a break in the economic change in this country. We have reached a halt—I will not say a break. It is doubtful if this speech of mine would have been necessary had one-half of our people not decided to boycott a native Parliament. I put my country beyond any party, and I trust for the sake of these ideals that led me to pass through a living hell in securing, not political freedom alone—because that is only one item, the control of the Civil Service—but economic freedom, that the spirit that got these men to fight, in many cases to lose their lives, to establish a Parliament here will get a new impetus, with the assistance of those who now boycott this Parliament. I, for one, hope, in the interests of a nation which is struggling in a morass, which is being bled white by the export each year of anything from twelve millions to fifteen millions of its precious money, that the policy which has been lauded here to-day by Deputy Cooper and others will be short-lived. I see no hope for this country in the continuation of the policy which we inherited from the British. I see nothing but despair and disappointment for those with whom I was associated in the fight for freedom under that policy. Beyond expressing that hope, I am prepared confidently to leave the fortunes of this country with the awakening youth of Ireland.
Sitting suspended at 6.15 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.,
in the Chair.
I merely wish to say a few words on two or three aspects of the Budget. In the first place I would like to say that in my opinion anything that would have the effect of increasing the cost of living for the agricultural population of the country at the moment would be simply disastrous. As the old saying has it, "The last straw breaks the camel's back," and I think the utmost limit of endurance has already been reached. Anyone who studies the advertisement pages of the weekly papers will be amazed at the long lists of farms for sale each week. Actually during the last few months these sales have increased at an alarming rate, and I do think that if the Minister for Finance or the Executive Council did decide on going any further with their protectionist policy at the moment it would have the effect of driving quite a big number of small farmers out of business altogether. I agree, from the figures that have been supplied to us. as to the results of protection up to the moment, that quite a large number of people have been given employment, but we have not been told of the number of people who have actually been driven out of business altogether as a result of these tariffs.
The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs quoted a long list of figures showing the imports, particularly of agricultural products. I am sorry I have not had an opportunity of looking into those figures and checking them, but I think after all the fact of there being such a huge import of agricultural products into this country during the past three or four years has been due to a variety of causes. In the first place, as a result of the huge demand made on the cattle trade during the European War, quite a number of farmers in this country got out of the tillage business altogether, and even when the war was over, and a slump came, the farmers still continued the store cattle and the fat cattle trade. Now I believe you will find that there will be a considerable revival in tillage and that our adverse balance will be reduced considerably. I know in my own county men, who have gone in for grazing for the last nine or ten years, are going back to tillage again, and Deputy Gorey will bear me out that the same thing is happening in his own county.
A little.
I think the Government are acting wisely in moving cautiously in this direction. After all we have no landmarks to guide us in a matter of this kind, and I think we should act with the utmost caution.
With regard to the tariff on oatmeal I am sorry that the Minister for Finance could not see his way to increase that tariff because I feel the small amount he has put on will be of very little inducement to the farmers of the country to increase their tillage area under oats. I am glad that the Minister has introduced a tax on lorries. The destruction of the roads as a result of the heavy lorry traffic during the past few years has been enormous and recently these lorries have taken to by-roads, particularly the lorries of shopkeepers who are using the by-roads for the purpose of distributing foodstuffs. If this thing were allowed to continue it would mean that in the course of a few years it would be impossible for the rate-payers of this country to maintain the roads in a condition fit for lorries to travel on. Deputy Gorey yesterday stated that the char-a-bancs were doing as much damage as the heavy lorries. My own impression is, that the 13-ton lorry, laden weight, on an ordinary steam-rolled road, would have as much effect as that of a char-a-banc running for a whole week. Still the char-a-bancs are getting off lightly. Personally I think that no lorry of 5 ton laden weight should be allowed to travel. We have got the railways, and I think all heavy traffic should be put on them. We have from Dublin to Mullingar three systems of transport running within a few miles of one another. I hold that all the heavy traffic should be sent by rail, and the other system of transport scrapped altogether.
With regard to the drivers' licences, I would be rather inclined to suggest to the Minister that he should find the extra money by putting an extra tax on the heavy lorry. In addition to that, I suggest that drivers should be made to undergo some sort of a test to show that they are efficient and capable of driving. I think in many countries, before giving a driver a licence, they require that test. It is quite reasonable to assume that there will be a considerable increase in the motor cars on our roads and for that reason the State should see to it that only efficient and reliable men should be given motor driver licences. I think considering all the circumstances that the Minister for Finance has done very well; the Budget has been framed on conservative lines and I think it will meet generally with the approval of people in the country.
I desire, at the outset, to congratulate the Minister for the Budget as a whole. The most interesting speech we have listened to has been that of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He took me back to the days when I read Lord Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:—
"Lars Porsena of Clusium
By the nine gods he swore
That the great House of Tarquin
Would suffer wrong no more.
By the nine Gods he swore it
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth
East and West, South and North.
To summon his array."
The position here is a little bit changed. There is an election coming on of which poor Ireland is to be the subject. I was rather surprised that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs showed so little wisdom, when ascertaining how the protection duties resulted, in going to the people interested in these tariffs. I had no doubt as regards the benefits to be derived from duties on soaps and other items, but I had grave doubt originally when the duty was placed on boots that it was going to do anything but bring an increased cost to the poor in providing boots and shoes for their children. I would like to ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs what diminution has taken place in the imports of boots during the last year? I do not care so much about the revenue produced, but I would like to know whether there is a tendency towards increased production in our boot factories. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs told us that the Cork people are supplying boots at a lower price now than before the tariff went on. In order to find out whether they were charging a lesser amount or not I would not go to those people, but rather to the persons who purchase the boots. It is hard to believe that a lower price is being charged for boots now than before the duty was put on.
I agree with the remarks of Deputy Roddy in regard to heavy lorry traffic and I would, in fact, go a step further and say that no char-a-banc should be allowed to carry more than twenty or twenty-five people, and also that no lorry be a greater weight unloaded than four tons. Our roads cannot stand this heavy traffic, and I agree with Deputy Roddy that such traffic should be left to the railways.
The railways need such traffic and I would forbid these huge lorries to use the roads. I have had experience myself as a motor driver, and I know no greater death trap than the presence of these lorries on the roads. From all directions complaints are being made that no attempt is being made to keep these vehicles on the proper side of the road, especially in going round corners, except where a policeman is present. I have found that out from my own experience. I would, therefore, suggest, if it were possible, that a licence should not be granted in the case of lorries carrying a heavier weight than eight, or, at the very outside, ten tons. With regard to drivers' licences, I think some modification of the new proposal ought to be made. I know a case in which the owner of a car has a family of five, all of whom are able to drive. It would be a serious impost in such a case if they had to pay £5 for the privilege of driving the car. In such cases I would reduce the amount where various members of a family are concerned, or else reduce the charge below the existing 10/-. I admit that there is a certain amount to be said for the standpoint of the Minister for Finance, namely, that by increasing the licence you will prevent a certain number of people from driving cars. I would urge the importance of ascertaining the ability of a person to drive a car before issuing him a licence. It is a very serious matter to allow a man with one leg, or one eye, or even two blind eyes, to drive a car. There should be some test applicable to men before they are given drivers' licences.
With regard to the tariff on oatmeal, I feel that it is not going to do much good, certainly not to the farmers, as there is nothing to prevent Canadian oats being brought in. It will probably mean eightpence a stone extra on the consumer. From the medical point of view, the medical profession has for years being endeavouring to supplant the use of the eternal teapot, which is kept sitting all day on the hob and from which children are occasionally given black tea or black tannin. The profession has endeavoured to get people to use more oatmeal and porridge. Some people say that porridge is not a food for decent people. One distinguished professor who could not digest porridge said it was not fit for men or horses, and the reply was that Scotchmen use it and English horses are fed on it, and where could better men or horses be found? In my opinion there should be a duty on Canadian oats in addition to the duty on oatmeal. This new tariff will probably stop a considerable amount of oatmeal coming from the Six Counties where tillage is carried out on a much larger scale than here. Strange to say I am in agreement with the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in regard to his suggestion for a tariff on imported flour. I would, of course, allow foreign wheat to come in because we cannot compete with countries where wheat is grown under exceptional conditions, where it has only to be sown to be reaped, and where when it is cut it is ready for stacking. In those lands little labour is needed to collect and get it ready for the mill. By putting a tariff on imported flour we would not only give increased employment in the mills but we would also have the offal of the mills for use as cattle food.
I am sorry that the duty on wines has been increased. We know in the case of France, which depends almost entirely on the drinking of wines, that it is an extremely temperate country. One scarcely ever sees a case of drunkenness there. The poor man in hospital or in what corresponds to our workhouse is provided with a mug of ordinary wine and it does not encourage him to drunkenness. I think it would be better for us if there were an increase in the use of light wines here. Deputy Hennessy said that we were depending too much on the use of strong drink. I am not now going to deliver a lecture on the morality of drunkenness, such as Deputy Johnson delivered to-day on the morality of betting. I would have a good deal to say if I discussed the question of the price of stout and other things, but that is not the question at the moment. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs alluded to the fact that at one period Ireland was able to produce sufficient wheat to feed the country. I do not think that that could be proved up to the hilt. My knowledge of history leads me to believe that, at a certain period at all events, people generally depended on the growth of potatoes, and the Famine, with all its deplorable results, occurred because people lived entirely on them. I do not think that this country could be largely utilised for the growth of wheat. On the whole, I am satisfied with the Budget. The Minister for Finance has had to put on certain tariffs, and, perhaps, that on betting is the one that will create most criticism, but, on the whole, I think it is time we looked for other methods, and explored other avenues, of revenue than those upon which we have been dependent in the past.
I am sorry the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is not here, so that I might congratulate him personally on his oratorical lecture on protection. To me it brought amusement, because he envisaged that protection helped in efficiency. To get this country going, with its inefficient merchants and millers and weavers, you must enforce protection. That was his argument all through. I protest against his quotation of Arthur Griffith. He said that Griffith said that in order to induce this country to take its place in ordinary commercial life, you should enforce protection because the people are technically inefficient and because the merchants have no business methods. That is really what the Minister said. I have not the slightest doubt that he was correct in saying that the people had no technical ability and that the merchants had no proper trading ability. I do not object to his saying that in the least, because in so far as the master weavers of Cork are concerned, I have personal knowledge of their want of business methods. In other countries, the merchants seek their customers. They go round from wholesaler to wholesaler or from shop to shop and they try to secure orders. The man from South America or East Africa who wants to buy has to hunt up the weavers of Cork. I know that of my own knowledge. Instead of the weavers seeking out their customers, these people have to come and seek them out.
As far as the closing of the flour mills in Cork is concerned, I would like to be assured that it is not altogether camouflage or an effort to force the hands of the Minister for Finance. I do not doubt in the least that the flour millers in Cork or the flour millers in other parts of Ireland could produce as good flour as the Rankins and Spillers of Cardiff and Liverpool. But do they go to the trouble to do so? They do not. The Spillers and the Rankins take women from the West of Ireland, bring them over to their mills in England and set them making different combinations of flour, so that they will produce bread that will satisfy the people. The people want white bread—perfectly white bread—but the Irish millers will not go to the trouble to meet the tastes of the people. It is not many months ago since —I suppose more or less by chance— Odlums in the Midlands of Ireland produced a flour for which they were able to get orders as against Spillers and Bakers and every other firm. Why do not the millers try and meet the wishes of the people?
The same thing holds good in the clothing industry. They make very good cloth, but they never take the slightest trouble to meet the wishes of the customer. It is always a case of "take it or leave it." The same spirit seems to run through the commercial life of the country. In eating or weaving, there is no effort made to provide what the people want. It is said that the price of boots has not been increased. It has been increased by three shillings or four shillings. The people have paid it, but down the country they are continually growling about the prices they are paying for everything. I do not blame them in the least. The Minister says that the prices of the protected articles have not been increased. Who gets the thirty-three and a third per cent.? Either the manufacturer or the mechanic must get it, but I am sure it is not the mechanic gets it. There is a lot of nonsense talked about "dumping." What does "dumping" consist of? It consists of landing a manufactured article in a country at a price less than the cost of production. Does that occur in Ireland or is anyone able to prove that it occurs? So far as the technical knowledge of Irish manufacturers is concerned, such knowledge runs more or less in families. A man generally acquires a technical knowledge of the business in which his father, grandfather, and, perhaps, great-grandfather have been engaged. Do the Irish merchants make any attempt to instruct technically their children? Do they ever think that their sons should soil their hands while seated at a loom for a day or half a day? Do they ever think that they should soil their clothes as ordinary workmen in the mill? Do they ever consider the sending of their sons into the office to work as clerks, attending at the same hours and drawing the same pay at the end of the month? They do not. It is not so many years ago since I was invited, while going down the quays in Dublin, to have lunch aboard a ship there. I met on board a young chap of eighteen years. When that boy became twenty-one, he would be entitled, in his own right, to £250,000. That chap was covered with grease. What the people lack in this country is respect for labour. That lack of respect runs through the whole community. I could say a great deal about Protection, but I should like to have it proved that in any country where Protection was introduced it did not increase the cost of living. There is no analogy between this country and the United States. This country has a population of three millions or four millions. Between the different States of the United States there is free trade, and they have a population of 150,000,000. They do not manufacture in every State. Some of the States are absolutely agricultural, as the greater part of Ireland is. A lot that is said about Protection here is merely moonshine. What you have to teach the people in this country is respect for labour and care in small things. There is not a thing manufactured in Ireland at present that I know of that is not rejected, some time or other, on account of want of care in detail.
The Minister for Agriculture, some time ago, brought in a Bill for the protection of the egg industry. I suggest that he should bring in a Bill for the protection of the wool industry. The wool sent out of Ireland is absolutely scandalous. It is dirty, wet and badly put together. If a wool merchant here in Dublin or Belfast or Cork gets an order once from a Continental firm—it is only in special cases that he does get such an order—he will not get an order again, simply on account of the dirty, filthy and wet state of the wool. I do not want to say more as far as he is concerned.
I ask the Minister for Finance to reconsider the matter of the £1 licence duty. It is altogether too high, and, in a great measure, affects poor people. If it is at all possible I should be very glad if he could reduce it. In point of fact the licence duties put on lately are altogether too high. A £2 fishing-rod licence is altogether too high.
I am sorry I cannot congratulate the Minister for Finance on his Budget. Like the Farmers' Party, I got a little surprise. I was sure that, at least, the price of stout would have been reduced, and I will have to take my beating like Deputy Gorey. We were told that Ireland would be governed according to Irish ideas. The vast majority of the Irish people, at the present time, would welcome a reduction in the price of stout. I do not speak of whiskey. I am speaking for stout as the poor man's drink. It was described, and recognised, by one of our most eminent Deputies, Sir James Craig, as a food, and, I believe, as a digestive. I have said I am not sorry in respect of whiskey, although it would affect the trade that I partly represent here, but I am a man of many parts presently. I endorse a lot of what the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said here to-day. I would go a long way in putting a tariff upon any article that could be produced in Ireland without any increase in the cost of living—a difficult thing to achieve, of course. But it could be achieved in Cork. In Cork we are on top of everybody. Some speaker here—I think it was Deputy McBride—mentioned that flour could not be made in this country as good as it is made in England.
I did not say that.
I am sorry if I misquoted the Deputy. I say if we had the same wheat coming in free to the country, flour could be manufactured in Ireland just as good as any coming from England. There would be only one difference, namely, that we would be paying for Irish labour instead of paying for English labour. Next to agriculture it is recognised that the flour milling industry half a century ago was one of the staple industries of this country. Now what do we find? Nothing in the mills but jackdaws roaming round the chimneys. There were three mills shut down in Cork within the last two or three years. Half-time is paid in a flour mill in East Cork, where I come from, and a whole lot of men are going two or three times a week to the unemployment office looking for money that they do not get as often as they should get —at least so they say.
I come back to the stout, and I say that it would be the most desirable and popular reduction of the whole lot. The most important bodies in Ireland, including the Cork Co. Council, have sent resolutions to the Minister for Finance —I do not know whether he got them all; I suppose if he did he threw them away—asking for a reduction in the tax on stout. I do not know if they gave me a mandate to use my influence with the Minister, but it was something to that effect.
I would also like to see a little tariff put upon tweeds and other things coming into the country. We have an example in Cork, where, owing to the tariff on boots, a factory has been enlarged to six times its former size and is paying a wage of £4,000 a month, whereas it was idle before the tariff. And not an increase of one penny has been made in the price of the boots. That is an example of what a tariff can do and of what Cork can do. The boots are just as good as any imported. Anything we have in this country does not seem to be good in the minds of some people, simply because it did not get a taste of salt water coming across. Tweeds, made in this country, by Irish tradesmen, should be good enough for the Irish people. If we were really patriotic, and meant what we said —we would try to make sacrifices to help the country. I think we would be as warm in Blarney tweeds as in any tweeds made in the North of England, and more so. Why do we not support these home productions? There is no use crawling to the Irish people to support them. I think we should force them to support them. This Budget is not forcing them to support them.
I do not know whether the Minister for Finance was a bit nervous or not, but I assure him that the unfortunate workmen throughout the country, half starved, and their families half starved, and with their fireless firesides, would welcome in the morning a tariff on flour and tweed coming into the country. I was coming up here a few days ago from Cork and I met Deputy Egan. He said: "There is another mill closed down," pointing to the Cork Spinning Company. I hope I may not have to apologise to the Cork Spinning Company, but I think it was that company he pointed out. There are a lot of Cork industries that could be revived if we only tried to do so. We are told we must wait until next year for a good Budget, for some reason or other, but we are not so forgetful, if we get some little concession this year not to remember it next year.
A tax has been put on wine. That is no harm, but I ask the Minister to reduce the tax on stout, and in doing so I am only carrying out the mandate given to me by the Cork County Council, the most august body in Ireland, including this. As I said, there is no use in singing "Sweet spirits, hear my prayer"—there is no use in my advocating the reduction of the tax on whiskey. I could not say that it was a food. I could only say that if you took five or six glasses going to bed you would have your breakfast in the morning cooked and all, because you could eat no breakfast. I must conclude by asking the Minister to reduce the price of stout to 6d. a pint, so that the poor, unfortunate workingman, who cannot do without it and who uses it as a food, will be able to give "two knocks for a bob," as they call it.
The introduction of the Budget is an annual stocktaking, and gives an opportunity of examining the country's position— what has been done and how it has been done, so that we may be able to do better in the future. In a normal country this annual stocktaking is of great importance, but it is of immeasurably greater importance to a new and experimental Government. We are a highly favoured people in many respects, possessed of natural intelligence of the first order. No one can contradict that. We have a beautifully fertile country with great natural resources which, if intelligently developed, would make it the most prosperous country in Europe. While the long debates were going on in January, 1922, I met one of the ablest bankers that this country has produced, and a good Irishman as well. He said to me: "What is all this prattle about in Dublin?" I said: "I do not know; I was up there during the week and returned last night, and I happened to be in the Dáil. It happened to be the session in which Document No. 2 first saw the light or was produced publicly, and I need not tell you that it was a rather electrical session.""If we could only take this Treaty," he said, "and operate it, we have all the resources to make this the most prosperous country in Europe." We did not take it without friction and disorder, but even now I hold that if we only could act together and have concord amongst the people, we could still make it one of the most prosperous countries in Europe.
The principal obstructions to our progress at the moment are (1) loss of national spirit; (2) the casual nature of a good proportion of our employment; (3) reduced industrial output owing to lack of demand thereby increasing the cost of production. As to (1): Some years ago we had a fine national spirit which, unfortunately, has almost entirely disappeared owing to circumstances that I need not now refer to. Instead of national spirit we now have apathy. Apathy consumes like rust. The two causes contributing to this condition are economic depression and disillusionment. The tide of fashion is a big factor in the country's economy and that seems to have gone against us for the moment. Is there any attempt to have our stability based on the operations of our own economic system? Has the Government a policy? If so, what is it? Has it ever been clearly stated? Scrappy flippancy is not the proper method of stating a national policy. The Minister for Finance wants more industries. He has stated so on public platforms. He wants people with money to start industries. In view of the condition of existing industries and the attitude of the Government towards them who would start industries here? He wants to produce more wealth—a very desirable thing— and have a larger population, but, as a matter of fact, his policy has driven and is driving out a good proportion of our population. Industry determines population and science is the handmaid of industry. The greatest asset possessed by any country is a healthy, active working population. The Government policy is well devised to reduce our population to a minimum. As to the result of tariffs: the West Britons and those opposed to Irish national freedom——
What is the price of milk in Skibbereen?
The remark and the force of it are lost on the man who makes it. The West Britons and those opposed to Irish national freedom are never tired of dwelling on the slight improvement in such industries as have got a tariff during the last year or two. Every intelligent man knows that the effects of a tariff are not immediate, but slow, steady and continuous. Some newspapers say that we have not produced another Northampton or Lancashire. Do we desire it? Those whose spiritual home is in England never desired an Irish Free State or any but a servile State. As to production and distribution: too much of the country's energy is absorbed in distribution and too little in production. Hence we give permanent employment to several thousand men and women in other countries by importing several million pounds worth of goods that could and ought to be made in this country, and give employment to our own people.
I wish to say a word as to the fallacy of tariffs increasing the cost of living in several instances. Bread is essential to our people. The price of flour is determined by the cost of production in the Irish mills. Let that be clearly understood. The price of flour is not determined by the dumpers. It is determined by the cost of flour at the Irish mills. Imported flour is sold in this country slightly under the price of Irish flour merely to effect a sale. The English mills produce 40 per cent. more than is required for English consumption. This country is the happy hunting ground for the surplus. I think it would be wise to enlighten some people here who were never in the firing line of industry. The miller in England has a huge output, and there are huge mills at the ports, the bulk of which have a capacity of 100 sacks per hour. He has a demand in his own country for 60 per cent., 65 per cent., or 70 per cent. of his output. The balance he sends away, and, while of course he is a business man and will get what he can for it, he is not in the same position when selling that surplus as he is when selling the bulk of his production, which, if sold at a profit, will keep his mills and his business going. It is better business for him to sell the surplus under cost rather than reduce the capacity of his mill. I am a flour miller and served my apprenticeship to it, and I challenge contradiction from anyone in the Dáil on this subject. It is better business for a miller to keep his mill going full capacity, because every time the modern roller mill is shut down and gets cold, it does poor work for a time after it is restarted. In addition, the miller has the full swing of his large business. The surplus quantity is sent to this country at whatever price it will fetch, and it is sold at 6d. or 1/- under what the Irish miller sells his flour at. It has been stated here that that flour is sold at the same price as it is sold in England. It is not. Quite recently it was sold at exactly the same price in Ireland as the miller sold it at his own door. Where does the freight and other charges come in? How can a man manufacturing flour in England, and who sells it in Dublin. Cork or anywhere else, say he sells it at the same price here, after paying all costs? That is dumping. Not only that, but that man is prepared to go a bit further, because if 1/- will not do he will give 2/- of a cut. The Irish miller has no dumping. The Irish miller must pay 20/- in the £ to carry on business; he must pay labour and all other expenses, and consequently he cannot afford to do things that the British miller can do with the surplus. I want that to be clearly understood.
As the Deputy has issued a challenge, may I ask if he is aware that the price of bread, made even with dumped flour, is from 1½d. to 6½d. per 41b. loaf dearer in Dublin than in any town in Great Britain or Northern Ireland? Can he give any figures as to the price of bread in Cork?
I am very glad Deputy Cooper has pat that question. The price that the Irish miller or that any other miller sells his flour at has no direct connection with the price of bread. You have to remember, in the case we are discussing, that flour is not the finished article. Bread is the finished article, and the intermediary— the baker—who produces the bread can effect the difference. I know exactly where the trouble lies but somehow I am very slow to state it.
State it.
We all need the mantle of charity now and again, and I am not so quick to throw stones as other Deputies.
Relieve your conscience.
My conscience is all right. There is nothing on it, thank God. In passing, I may say that I agree with Deputy Cooper that bread is altogether too dear. The price is too high for the loaf, and I say that it is entirely out of proportion to the cost of flour. That is as far as I will go. Another business that I know something about, and that I have recently paid well for knowing something about, is woollen manufactures. Before I come to deal with the woollen side of the business, I would like to say a word to Deputy McBride about his remarks. I do not know exactly where he comes from. It may be Achill Island, but he does not seem to know what is happening here. He must come from a very remote corner of this country and he has a very small opinion of his country and his countrymen. I do not share in that opinion, and I am sure the bulk of the Deputies do not share it. The whole burden of his theme, and it is the second time that I heard him repeating it—is like the Jews of old, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth"—can Irishmen turn out anything properly? He talked about Irish manufacturers not knowing their business, and of their sons not knowing their business. Well, I belong to the sixth or seventh generation of a family of millers. My sons have been trained. and well trained, and I have one of them in the gallery who is as well trained a man as there is in Ireland. He is not afraid to soil his hands or to dip into the grease. There are other people in the country who have done the same thing. It is a very cheap thing to say that everything made in Ireland is rubbish. It is very cheap but not justified. We have faults, but we have not them to that extent. Woollen mills are one of our oldest and most useful industries. We were all born naked and must have clothes, because we are not allowed to go in public without them for reasons of public decency, and the law forbids our doing so.
Many go very near it.
Some of us do, but it is in the interests of fashion and being up-to-date. This woollen industry survived the oppression and neglect of a foreign Government, and now under the fostering care of a native Government this industry is allowed to decay. It receives no help from the Government. When we talk about tariffs let us bear in mind that tariffs are not protection pure and simple. In protected countries tariffs are set up of from 50 to 100 per cent. and more, but we are talking of a wretched 15 per cent. or 20 per cent. merely to assist our industries and prevent them from decay over a period of depression. The capital invested in this industry amounts to one and a half million pounds for buildings, lands and machinery. The number employed is 4,500, and the possible output of those mills in the Free State is six million yards annually. Tariffs are something new to our people, as is also unfortunately the whole science of Government. As Lloyd George—I do not always agree with him, but I agree with him in this—when people were finding fault in England with our Irish Government, said: "Well, you cannot blame them very much; we never gave them an opportunity of practising. They are only starting out and you cannot expect wonderful things from them."
It should be clearly understood that tariffs, to be effective, must be general. If the woollen industry dies there will be so many less buyers of boots, and if the industry prospers it would be a helpful fillip to other industries in the country. These industries help each other, and if you let one die out it will be a loss to the rest. That is a point I want to drive home. Industries are interdependent. There is not an industry you establish anywhere in the country that does not help other industries. About it there are other industries that want one hundred and one things. It was with great regret I noticed the absence of sympathy for those who own industries and are employed in them. I am afraid that that absence of sympathy is due to want of knowledge. Somebody said that "Mischief is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart." I am of opinion that it is for want of thought and not for want of heart that our Ministers have not done better on this occasion. There are men in this country who have put every shilling they possessed into Irish industry, and I happen to be one of them. Every shilling I ever possessed I put into Irish industries.
If a few years ago I did as most of my neighbours did and put my money in Imperial tobacco or British or other securities, I would be in a different position to what I am to-day. Is the man who puts his all in Irish industry to be let down? That is what our Government said to-day—that they are to be let down. Was this the policy of Arthur Griffith? I am afraid as regards some of the people in authority to-day that the policy of Griffith is a dead letter. However, I hope and believe that it will be revived to the country's advantage. There has been a lot of talk now and again about the revival of the soul of Ireland. I am one of those who subscribe to it, and am prepared to stand by it. I want to see the soul of Ireland revived, but I am not a spiritualist or a spook. I know well that a soul cannot be maintained without a body. If it is the policy of the Government to let the body die, to let the industries of this country that held out against great odds, maintained their position, served the country well by employing people and kept the ball rolling, die, then what cant it is to talk about the revival and preservation of the soul!
I hope it is quite clear that we are not attempting to collect more revenue than we intend to spend. On the contrary, we are deducting £650,000 from our estimated expenditure. We budgeted on that. I think that is quite clear, but I also think there is a doubt about it from the way Deputy Johnson treated it to-day. If we were not engaged in initiating new schemes as a result of legislation it would be quite simple to make up the estimates very accurately indeed, very close to what is exactly required. But remember our position. I speak about my own Department, because I happen to know it best, but I am in exactly the same case in that regard as almost every other Minister. We passed three or four new Acts— the Land Act, the Dairy Produce and Agricultural Produce (Eggs) Acts, the Live Stock Act, and we have schemes like the beet sugar. These are all new, and as there was no experience of these schemes it is quite impossible to say with any accuracy at what pace they will develop. There are one hundred and one considerations that might affect the matter. Take the Dairy Produce Act. As to how soon that will come into full operation depends upon a number of factors over which we have no control, and regarding which we have no experience. It depends on the condition in which we find the creameries, and how fast we can get them to do something they have not been asked to do before. It will depend on how soon we can recruit new officials for special and new work initiated under the new legislation. On the other hand, you are supposed to assume infallibility. That is supposed to be the correct pose in the Dáil. I cannot adopt it, and I cannot say that we can measure these considerations of which we and the country have no experience. Consequently I cannot say for certain whether parts two or four of this will be in operation during the coming year. I take that as one example, and I could apply it to every other piece of legislation I spoke about. I know, however, it is vital to put the Act into operation as soon as possible.
Would the Minister explain the position? Is he right in assuming that the estimate is above rather than below the actual expenditure that will come in view of these uncertainties?
Mr. HOGAN
Will the Deputy repeat that?
The Minister has spoken of the uncertainties and the difficulties of looking ahead because of inexperience, but he is asking us to assume that the balance will be on the right side, that there is a certainty of 2½ per cent. and that the actual expenditure will be less than the estimated expenditure.
Mr. HOGAN
Will the Deputy let me come to that? That point arises, but I have got to develop it first. Take the Dairy Produce Act. I am just certain of one thing, that it is vital to put it into full operation as soon as possible. Everyone agrees with that, but I am not in a position to say and no one from whom I can seek advice is in a position to say, just how soon we can put the various stages into operation. Possibly I may be able to put the five parts into operation, and I estimate on that. I did the same in regard to the Agricultural Produce (Eggs) Act. I did the same in regard to the licensing of bulls, and the same in regard to the sugar beet project. I can be fairly certain as a matter of experience that I will not be able to live up to my programme in some respects. Perhaps the Agricultural Produce (Eggs) Act. the Improvement of Live Stock Act, or the Dairy Produce Act will fall short in some respects. I can be fairly certain, taking ordinary chances, that I will not be able to live up to the programme that I would like to, in regard to some matters, but in the beginning of the year I cannot say which and must therefore assume, especially as it is only margin of about 2½ per cent., that I hope to put these things into operation. While I have put the Eggs Act into full operation, in regard to the Dairy Produce Act I find other reasons because of which I cannot say at this stage that it might be exactly the other way about. That is the answer to the Deputy's question. These are the reasons why it is somewhat more difficult at this stage to estimate exactly our expenditure than it would be in five or six years' time when our schemes are in operation, when they are working automatically, and when you could estimate very closely just what you would require for the next year.
Deputy Gorey used the phrase that "expenditure must be based on assets." I suggest that we could all agree with him if he would say that policy must be based on assets. because policy controls expenditure. Here we are, two or three weeks after the discussion that took place on expenditure in the Dáil, in which we endeavoured to point out that expenditure depended almost exclusively on policy. We gave figures to show that. I showed just what increases there were in the agricultural services for the last three years and just exactly what those services were, and I pointed out that there was only one effective way of lessening the expenditure and that that was by dropping some of these new services.
All of the new services?
Mr. HOGAN
Some of the new services vices. I pointed out there could be a very big decrease in taxation if we could get the Dáil to agree that these new services should be dropped.
Does the Minister refer to the three Acts which he spoke about before?
Mr. HOGAN
Of course.
They amount only to £30,000.
Mr. HOGAN
I gave figures when I was speaking here on the last occasion showing that the new agricultural services had increased expenditure by £1,000,000, one way or another—the Agricultural Grant, the Sugar Beet, the Board of Works Loans, the administration of the Land Commission as a result of the 1923 Act, and of the Department of Agriculture as a result of the three Acts I referred to, and also as a result of the increased provisions for agricultural education in the universities. I pointed out that all these meant millions and that if Deputies were really serious that taxation ought to be reduced, there was only one way of doing it, and that was by dropping these services. I must remark that not a single Deputy on the Farmers' benches met that point. May I put it another way, that not a single Deputy who has been talking about high salaries met that point. The Minister for Finance yesterday gave simple figures, easily remembered. If, he said, there was a 20 per cent. cut in all the salaries, including bonus over £500, there would be a reduction of £180,000 odd, and if, in addition to that, there was a further 20 per cent. cut on all salaries, including bonus over £750, we would get a figure which, if added to the £180,000, would give something like £250,000. If you deduct the income tax from that you would get something like £180,000 or £190,000.
I want to know whether the optimists really contemplate any more drastic cuts in the salaries of officials than, say, 20 per cent. on every salary over £500, and a further additional 20 per cent. cut on every salary over £750, whether in common justice they contemplate that, and if they do, whether they are satisfied that the financial results of that cut are going to be worth the money. In any event, in talking of a saving of millions, I want to give up talking about a saving on salaries in view of these figures. Yet here we are to-day. On this debate the only contribution made in connection with the demand for a decrease in expenditure is the good old one that requires no thought, that is regarded as popular if you like, regarded as easy, so to speak—the expression "cut salaries." You are going to get £150,000 out of it. It does not matter about the equities. It does not matter that these civil servants, during the war, when the cost of living had increased 200 per cent. on the pre-war figure, had their salaries increased only by 50 per cent. They are now to be cut down to the pre-war level, because that is what this cut would do. All this is to be done in the interests of something like £180,000.
These are not the only services.
Mr. HOGAN
When I was giving the figures of the Minister for Finance I gave figures which referred to the Supply services as a whole, and not to the Department of Agriculture alone.
You did not think of making two men do the work of three.
Mr. HOGAN
I will come to that. That of course is the last ditch. Why not make one man do the work of ten or eleven men? It is just as easy to say that as the other. There is no use in saying it except you can show you have some good reason for believing it could be done.
Ask Deputy Duffy.
Forward, Deputy Duffy—the man who knows!
I will let that pass.
The Deputy is well aware that, as Deputy Duffy's colleague, I am trying to carry out his policy as well as I can.
He evidently trusts you, because he is not here.
Mr. HOGAN
In the interest of getting at results, we must make up our minds to it. If Deputies think that this country is overtaxed I cannot agree. I have the figures here. Com pared with other countries the taxation of the Saorstát is very much lower, taking local and State taxation. I need not give the figures now.
Quote them; they will be useful.
Mr. HOGAN
It would take too long. But you can take it as a fact that the taxation is lower here. I can supply the figures. If Deputies think that this country is heavily overtaxed, there must be a substantial reduction in expenditure, not a small reduction, but a substantial reduction of two or three millions. Then let us see what services are to be dropped. Let us take the responsibility of saying what services are to be dropped. It is not good enough to ride away by simply having a shot at the senior civil servants. I believe myself, and I always understood that in that I had the support of the Deputies from almost all parts of the House, that the principle of paying according to the work done is a sound one. On that principle, there is no doubt whatever about it, the lowest-paid officers of this State are the senior civil servants. But of course that principle, which Farmer Deputies and others will swear by when it suits their argument, will be discarded the very moment some other moral is to be drawn. But we cannot do business that way. I will ask Deputies who talk about big reductions are those services to be cut down—who are the servants to be cut down?
This is a most exacting country. It requires probably more social service by the State than any other country. Denmark has been quoted just like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries as an analogy. Well, these analogies are very often false. I do not like analogies, but I think that there is one point that could be made with justice with regard to Denmark, and the point that what has been done in Denmark might be done here. You have, for instance, control of the egg and poultry industry in Denmark. You have in Denmark control of the butter industry, and I think, of the bacon industry, but I am not sure about the latter. But as far as eggs, poultry and butter are concerned there is control in Denmark, but it is not by the State. Even though the taxation of Denmark is very high, higher than the taxation of this country, control has been not by the State but by the Farmers' Organisation, to whom the State gives a very small subsidy I was in Denmark, and I was rather careful to ask the number of the technical officers attached to the Agricultural Department in Denmark. I found the number extraordinarily few. I thought that rather strange, and I made further inquiries and what did I find? I found that there was practically the same number of technical agricultural officers in Denmark as in Ireland, but that at least 80 per cent. of them were attached to associations which were appointed and controlled by the Farmers' Organisation, and these organisations get comparatively small subsidies from the State. Obviously agriculture is administered more economically, but they have the same services in Denmark as here. I should say that if we had the same conditions here, if we had farmers' organisations here controlling their own produce, their butter, eggs and bacon, doing these things as only voluntary associations can do them, with the economy that voluntary associations can effect, then we would have all the advantages of that control at probably 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. less expense.
But that is out of the question. The State must do it here. Not only must the State carry out the services here in this exacting country which are carried out elsewhere by farmers' associations, but it must carry out a lot of other services which are never asked for in those other countries. At any rate, that is the position, and I must implore Deputies, in the name of decency, not to talk of reducing expenditure unless they are prepared to take the responsibility of coming forward and putting up the definite particular services which they require dropped.
I do not wish for a moment to imply that I would be prepared to agree that these services should be dropped. Not at all. I think, for instance, that the money expended in controlling the egg and poultry industry has absolutely justified itself even after a year, and I challenge anyone to deny it. It has absolutely justified itself. I do not like to make prophecies, but I say that at the end of this year, notwithstanding that we will not have every part of the Dairy Produce Act in operation, it will be abundantly clear that the Dairy Produce Act will have justified itself as it is now admitted that the Egg Act has justified itself. I think the money is well spent. I think the money expended on agricultural education is also well spent. I do not share the view that the Irish farmer is uneducated. That is wrong. I think the money spent on education is well spent. I think the money spent on these other services is well spent, and I am prepared to defend them, and to ask the Dáil to agree with me. What I am saying is this—that if there are people who differ with us let them come forward and state the services they want dropped, and let us have it out here, but do not talk of reductions of two or three or four million pounds in taxation, and then suggest, as a means for the purpose of reduction, a remedy which, even if applied in the most drastic way to the extent of 20 per cent. on salaries, and if even that cut were followed by another cut of 20 per cent., at the most you would only get £216,000.
I think, as I mentioned it, I had better quote the figures for taxation and expenditure in these countries. The figure for Denmark is, approximately, for State and local revenue, about £40,000,000.
State and local?
Mr. HOGAN
Yes. For Holland I have the figures for 1923. Holland has a population of 6,000,000, and the taxation for that year was £204,000,000.
You must recognise that Holland has a large colonial vote.
Mr. HOGAN
I am just meeting one point and drawing no conclusions. I know that conclusions that are very often drawn from statements of the revenue and expenditure of these various countries are often absolutely false, even though the statement of the revenue is correct. I am drawing no conclusion. I am dealing with the one point—that we are more highly taxed in the Saorstát than the people of Holland or Belgium or Denmark where we are told the taxation is lower. And then these people go on and say the same about Canada and New Zealand. I am not going to say that. The taxable capacity of a country depends a great deal upon the wealth of a country and the population; that is a complicated subject. Here I am meeting one point, namely, that we are more highly taxed than any other people in Europe.
I wonder would the Minister work it out at so much per head of the population?
Mr. HOGAN
It is quite simple to do that. The population of Denmark is not more than three and a half millions and the taxation is £40,000,000.
In what year was that?
Mr. HOGAN
I am not quite sure of the year, but I think it is 1924. Holland, with a population of about six millions, had to meet a taxation of £204,000,000. Canada had to meet £143,000,000 in 1924, and the population there is about eight millions. New Zealand, with a population of one and a half millions, had a taxation in 1924 of £38,000,000. Norway, with a population higher than New Zealand but not higher than Canada, had a taxation in 1923 of £55,000,000.
The population is under two millions.
Mr. HOGAN
I will not refer to Australia. The taxation is far and away higher than the taxation of Ireland, although there is not so much of a difference in the population; but it would be absurd to compare a continent with an island.
I would like to put the Minister a question with regard to taxation in Canada and other countries. Has the Minister made the Dáil aware of the fact that the taxation in Canada includes State services which do not exist here, such as State railways?
What is the total of the local and national expenditure here?
Mr. HOGAN
I thought I made it clear that I was meeting one point— the bald statement made here that our taxation was higher than the taxation of other countries.
Does the Minister for Lands and Agriculture consider that he has rebutted the charge that has been made?
Mr. HOGAN
If it is stated that the taxation of Canada is twenty millions, and if I can show that it is forty millions, I consider I have made my point.
But would that be for the same services?
Mr. HOGAN
The Deputy has referred to the same services. We will pursue that as far as he wishes; I do not know that the result will suit him. As far as Denmark is concerned, they do not have anything like the same services from the State. They get the service, but the State does not give it. I wonder have they control of the butter and egg industry in Canada?
Butter, eggs and poultry will not cost more than £30,000.
Mr. HOGAN
If Deputies wish we can go into the services that are done by the State in other countries for the advantage of the citizens. If we touch upon that matter we will find that in regard to Denmark services are not as well done there as in the Saorstát; compared with Denmark we have to do far more services. Further, if Canada insists on giving services which we are not giving, that is one reason why taxation is so high there. That is my point. You can have these first-class services, social and otherwise, but you must be prepared to pay for them. The question for Farmer Deputies and others is: Are the services worth the money?
We are told that we must keep old officers and not recruit new ones. Farmer Deputies ought to know how much work the technical officers of the Department of Agriculture have to do; they ought to be some judges as to whether those officers are fully occupied. In the matter of dairy produce it means close and constant inspection, for long periods, of every creamery in the country. According to some of the proposals made here we are to turn to the agricultural instructors and the livestock officers and say: "In addition to your other work you are to do all this business."
There are not twenty officers altogether.
Mr. HOGAN
I could give very many examples, but it all comes down to the same thing. We are told that there is a good case for not interfering with officers at present doing duty and we are asked not to recruit any new officers. If you are to have new services you must have new officers. It is not right to say that officers were dug in at the peak period during the war. They were not dug in at any time. They are dug in now at very much less than what they had then and the minute the cost of living falls their salaries will fall likewise. I will now refer to tariffs. We have a tariff on oatmeal and it is despised.
A tariff on gruel.
Mr. HOGAN
I think there is a lot in what Deputy MacBride said. We are inclined to despise small things in this country. In an agricultural country we should never despise small things. Watching the small things means a successful farmer. If there are good reasons for putting on a tariff on oatmeal, whether in the interests of the farmers or the mills, which are now to a very large extent attached to farmers' societies, then it should be done. If you want grandiose tariffs, such as were suggested by Deputy O'Shaughnessy, then advocate them and defend them. I am surprised at the attitude of Deputies who say that this is only a small matter. I remember that we had a discussion last year in connection with tariffs and much to my surprise I found Deputy Wilson advocating practically all-round tariffs on agricultural products. He was supported by Deputy Conlan and Deputy Connor Hogan, with some slight modifications. I distinctly remember that that attitude rather surprised me at the time. There was a very strong— almost a drastic—case put up for tariffs. It was not put up by one member of the Farmers' Party, but by several.
It was not a convincing case.
Mr. HOGAN
It was put up by Deputy Wilson, Deputy Conlan, and Deputy Connor Hogan, and others supported them. They endeavoured to show that from the farmers' point of view there was nothing in a tariff on flour. That is what I object to in the advocacy of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in connection with flour. Let him advocate the tariff on flour from the point of view of flour millers or broad national policy, and there is something to be said for it from that point. There is something to be said for the growing of wheat; from the point of view of increasing the price which the farmer is to get for his wheat, there is nothing in it. In any case, a tariff was suggested by the farmers' Deputies—by Deputy Wilson, supported by others. They suggested a tariff on bacon, a tariff on oats and a tariff on barley. That was suggested by Deputy Conlan.
Hear, hear.
Mr. HOGAN
They suggested also a tariff on butter. Certain members of the Farmers' Party made it clear that they did not agree. But I do remember this distinctly, that we all agreed that the one thing that might be protected and that would confer some very slight benefit on a limited number of farmers, without doing any harm whatever to anybody else, was oatmeal. Even though it is a slight benefit I am ready to stand for it. If it is not a grandiose scheme, that does not matter. If there are twenty or thirty farmers' mills attached to these societies through the country that will be materially assisted by this tariff, why not give it to them? It is not doing any harm. Certainly no possible disadvantages of such a tariff would be big enough to counterbalance the advantages to these twenty or thirty societies. Hence we have agreed to it.
I suggest that you will have to approach tariffs from that point of view. I do not understand a man saying: "We must have a general tariff." I do not understand a man saying: "It would be possible to produce all our food in this country." It would. I think we could grow tea, provided there was a subsidy big enough to pay for greenhouses, heating, and so on, just as I think we could grow tobacco with a subsidy of about £116 an acre. These are, perhaps, extreme examples, but they show what I mean. It is not a question of whether we can produce the food we require. The question is: Can we produce it economically, or could the money we would spend on it be better spent otherwise? That is the whole question, and you cannot answer it by making a generalisation that applies to every item on the list. What applies to one item does not apply to another. There is no other way of examining this tariff question than by coming down to specific items, and hearing the pros and cons in each case. That is what is suggested when a Tariff Commission is talked about, and the great advantage is that these matters are to be heard in public. Might I say also that I do not like identifying tariff reform with patriotism. It is not good enough. There is something very like cant being talked on this question of tariff reform. I will say that, especially outside, there is something very like cant being talked on the free trade side, and I suppose that is the reason why there is something like cant on the tariff reform side. Tariff reform is not synonymous with patriotism, and you cannot take it as following inevitably that if A. B. announces that he is not prepared to have a tariff on flour, or on American bacon, he is inevitably a West Briton. That is what it is coming to; we might as well be frank about it, and I would like Deputies to realise that tariffs are often dictated by personal interests that are very far removed from patriotism. Tariffs are very often suggested by people who have interests in England, just as free trade is often preached by people who have personal interests in favour of free trade. I object to these sweeping denunciations, either of tariff reform or of free trade, and I object to this tendency to talk cant on the question, because that is just beginning to happen. It was suggested that there ought to be a tariff on oats. I would very much like to agree, if the House wants such a tariff. I would very much like the Minister for Finance to agree if the House wants it.
What part of the House?
Mr. HOGAN
The majority. After all, we were twitted a short time ago that we were speaking with different voices and were told that there was apparently a certain amount of independence in the Government Party. You cannot have it both ways. If the House wants a tariff on oats, after hearing the arguments pro and con, let them have it. There is an import, I should say, of something over £250,000 worth of oats, of which I think about £80,000 worth is seed oats, and if Deputies think that it would be any great advantage to have seed oats, and also feeding oats, a little dearer they can have a tariff. I do not think so. I believe a tariff on oats would be purely a revenue tariff, because I believe that the Canadian oats comes in for a special reason, and will have to come in.
With regard to the point of view of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs I said before that I did not like analogies, and surely it is absurd to quote Australia, New Zealand and Canada as analogous with this country. I dare say that there is no emigration from Australia, except the return of immigrants to England for short periods, and I dare say in a continent like Australia with a present population of 5,000,000, and probably capable of finding work for ten, fifteen or twenty millions, as far as natural resources are concerned, there is not likely to be any great emigration from it. Canada is also a vast country, almost as big as the United States, a new country. undeveloped. It is no wonder that there is not emigration from these countries. New Zealand is in the same case though not quite to the same extent. Further, these countries grow wheat and are particularly suited for the growing of wheat. No tariff that we can put on would bring the Canadian climate or soil here, and these things count. It may be even though there are these differences in connection with soil, climate and natural conditions, that nevertheless the same tariff that applies in Australia would also suit here. But what I object to is simply the bald statement, without any examination of the factors, that because there is some tariff on flour in Australia, where vast areas of wheat are grown, there ought also to be a tariff here. Australia grows sugar cane and is very suitable for it. Why not say: "Australia has a big sugar cane industry; why should we not?"
In connection with flour there is just one point I wish to make. I do not want to go into this question from the point of view of the millers. I say this, with all deference to Deputy O'Shaughnessy: Obviously the first consideration that should be examined when considering whether a tariff on flour is necessary to keep the mills going, is whether the mills need it and, if so, how many of the mills. I know that there are some first-class flour millers who do not need and do not want it, notwithstanding the fact that their mills are not very well placed. Secondly, I think we ought to examine as to whether there are not some mills so badly run and with such out-of-date plant that they should not get protection, and after an examination of these things you could come to some conclusions as to whether a tariff is necessary to keep the mills going. What you do want is not patriotic appeals but this examination.
Why do you not examine them? It is your business to do it.
Mr. HOGAN
These have been examined, and the decision that has been come to is known, but let us pass from that. I do object to people making the case that a tariff on flour at the Mark Lane price for wheat is going to confer a benefit on the farmer. Supposing we did put a tariff on under that impression, and supposing, in fact, that the Irish farmers could not grow wheat at the Mark Lane price, what do you think the effect of that would be? Do you think it would make our farmers any more sweet on tariffs? I suggest to the tariff reformers who make these statements, without examining the matter, that they are doing their own case harm. I would like to ask, is the Mark Lane price going to get the Irish farmer to grow wheat? That is the question. I agree with the figures of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that the price for best Irish wheat is about thirty shillings a barrel. Rather, I think I should say that the price is thirty shillings a barrel for best English wheat. Assume that the best Irish wheat is of the same quality as the best English wheat, which is a large assumption, then the price that is expected to induce the Irish farmer to grow wheat is thirty shillings a barrel. Will he do it? The farmer could get twelve shillings and thirteen shillings a cwt. for wheat all during 1925, which is a shilling more than the Mark Lane price for the best English wheat, and yet he did not increase his area under wheat, and the advantage to the Irish farmer to grow wheat is based on the Mark Lane figure. I will give the exact figures.
It is not necessary. We accept them.
Mr. HOGAN
The Mark Lane prices for best English wheat in 1925 during the months of September, October and November were 11/11, 11/10, 11/5, 11/9, 11/9, 11/-, 10/6. For the same period on the Irish market the prices were 14/1, 13/5, 13/-, 12/7, 12/7, 12/-, 12/9. From these figures it will be seen that you had a difference of almost 1/6 a hundred in favour of the Irish market all that time, and yet we are told that the Mark Lane price is going to confer a benefit on the farmer. It will not. The price of thirty shillings a barrel for wheat is twelve shillings per cwt. Assume that a barrel of wheat is the same as a barrel of barley, I mean as regards weight, which of course it is not, then, for two cwts. of wheat the price at the figure I have given would be 24/-. Last year twenty shillings was paid for two cwts. of barley all the time.
Very few got that price. That price was not offered all the time.
Mr. HOGAN
I will assume that the price was twenty shillings for two cwts. of barley last year. Was there, I ask, terrific enthusiasm amongst the farmers to sell barley at that price? I want any farmer, I do not care what party he belongs to, to answer the question, whether he would rather be selling barley at twenty shillings or wheat at twenty-four. On which would he make the most profit? Obviously on barley, because there is more in the difference in the costings. There may be good reasons for this tariff on flour, but they have not been proved to me, and hence I would ask Deputies not to put this forward as conferring a benefit on the Irish farmer without having examined the question more fully.
I agree with the point of view that there must be a considered policy in regard to the wheat supplies of the country. That is a very big question. I daresay that there must be a considered policy so as to ensure that there would be sufficient mills in the country to deal with the wheat. That is something that must get attention because that would be necessary obviously in certain contingencies which are unlikely, but which are there. That policy has to be considered, and I am only quarrelling with the time.
The time to consider it is before the mills are gone.
Mr. HOGAN
This is not the time to consider it, and this is not the time to increase the price of bread if there is to be any increase as a result of these tariffs. I make that statement without any apologies to anybody. The best mills will not go, and with confidence I say that the well-run mills are not going, and are not depending on tariffs. We must also consider what inducements we can give to the farmer to grow wheat for his own use. Wheat can be grown on most lands with a little care and attention, but obviously that is a policy that can only be developed slowly. It would take a considerable time before, say, thirty or forty farmers could so change their economy and make arrangements to grow just the amount of wheat that they require for themselves, and that probably is the most healthy way in which you can extend wheat-growing. But that is a problem which can be helped partly by education and partly by other inducements.
I come now to the question of bacon. What is a tariff on bacon supposed to effect? First of all, there should be no necessity for a tariff on bacon. Bacon, so far as the farmer consuming it is concerned, is protected already. That is undoubted. It is undoubted that the farmer could produce bacon cheaper than he buys American bacon. There is no question about that.
He could not.
Mr. HOGAN
Eighty-five shillings per cwt. is a high price for bacon, live weight. It is a peak price practically. The dead weight is 113/- per cwt., which is equal to a shilling a pound. After making all allowances for killing, for the head, feet, etc., it means for the Wiltshire cut, 1/1½d. per lb. at the very outside.
Is there no shrinkage?
Mr. HOGAN
I said that I had made all allowances. The allowances I made included shrinkage, killing, and the low price for the head and feet. After making all these allowances, I am prepared to assert here that it amounts at the outside to 1/1½d. per lb. for Wiltshire cut. Shrinkage is only a very small factor. The difference between the weight of the dry-cured and the salt-cured is not great at all. I forget at the moment the exact percentage, but I examined it and worked it out when I was preparing these figures. The Deputy can take it from me that after making all allowances, first for killing, secondly, the low price for the head and feet, and thirdly for shrinkage, such as it is, and after adding all these together, the price for Wiltshire cut amounts to 1/1½d. per lb.
Wrong.
Mr. HOGAN
The Deputy says I am wrong. Will he say how much it is?
You are quoting the pork at a shilling per lb. Shrinkage will amount to one-sixth, so that five-sixths must be equal to a shilling per lb. and that surely is not 1/1½d.
Mr. HOGAN
I can only retort that the Deputy is wrong. Even Deputies who have not examined this problem technically can see it for themselves, —
You never killed a pig.
Mr. HOGAN
I want Deputies who have examined the thing closely to realise this. I started at the peak price for pigs, eighty-five shillings. Seventy would be more like the average. Might I ask how many pence per lb. would the Deputy add for shrinkage?
I took one-sixth. Five-sixths of a hundred-weight costs 112/-.
Mr. HOGAN
About twopence a lb. The Deputy will agree that seventy shillings is a very good price.
You are changing your ground immediately.
Mr. HOGAN
Seventy shillings is ninety-four shillings dead-weight. Tenpence a lb. is about elevenpence after making all my allowances, and adding the twopence of Deputy Wilson, the price is 1/1d. That is a peak price, and American bacon is 1/3. Wiltshire cut is 1/3, and often 1/4. There is no doubt whatever that there should be no tariff required for American bacon so far as the farmers, who are large consumers, require it. I say that subject to certain reservations. On the contrary, there are farmers who must sell pigs. But very few farmers cannot so alter their economy as to enable them to keep an animal, worth with its fat £7, for six months. Further, I realise it is more difficult to cure in summertime than in winter: but the farmers who can do it merely cure in winter. Further, winter curing would reduce the imports of American bacon by half. You do not require protection for that. What is the protection going to do? If there is any Deputy who wants to advocate protection of bacon, I ask him when he is dealing with the question to let me know whether the following statement is not a fact. Protection to the tune of threepence per lb. as against American bacon would, in my opinion, merely mean that the fluctuation in the price of Irish pigs, live-weight, would be, not fifty shillings, which is the lowest price, but about fifty-two and not eighty-five, which is the highest, but about eighty-seven; in other words, protection to the tune of threepence a lb. on bacon would mean that the price would fluctuate over a slightly different scale; instead of having a fluctuation from a price of fifty to eighty-five, you might have a fluctuation from about fifty-two shillings a cwt., to about eighty-seven. What is that going to do for agriculture? What you want to do for bacon is to stabilise the price.
How do those fluctuations take place?
Mr. HOGAN
We can all agree that a particular increase of two shillings a cwt. on fifty in the market does not matter, or an increase of two shillings when the price is eighty-five. The real trouble with regard to the farmer is that instead of getting seventy shillings steadily the price drops to fifty, and then soars to eighty-five. I cannot see how the price is to be controlled. The root cause is that a sow litters anything from sixteen to twenty-two pigs in a year, and in America therefore, you have the number of pigs multiplied suddenly in one year by twenty. These mature in seven months, and multiply when it is worth while for the American farmer to breed pigs, when maize is cheap. Consequently I am unable to say how the fluctuations can be controlled. There are good reasons for keeping the mills in operation. There may be good reasons for wheat growing, but I do not want Deputies to go forward and hoodwink the Dáil by saying that any tariff on flour or bacon is going to improve the position of the farmer. It is not.
I have very little to say about roads. I do not like Deputies to say that roads are bad. Good and bad are comparative terms, and if you compare our roads with the rural parts of Scotland, for instance, ours are very good, and Scotchmen, who have been all over our roads, have said that. I know it myself, because I have been in both countries. If you compare the roads of this country with those of France they are, on the whole, better, I think, than the French roads. There is not doubt whatever that both main and by-roads are better on the whole than in 1914. Deputies talking about extravagance and high standards will have to apply the medicine to themselves. We have to cut our cloth according to our measure in respect to roads. I find from the figures that one thousand people are keeping up fifteen miles of roads in Ireland, whereas one thousand people are keeping up five miles in England. This is a country over-roaded; it has too many roads.
Do you agree with that?
Mr. HOGAN
I do. It is inevitable. France is an agricultural country in which all the houses are in the villages, but you must remember the reasons and circumstances are such that we have a big number of roads and a long mileage, and we must realise that we must pay a little for the circumstances that gave that result and, if necessary, we must have worse roads than would be the case if we had a smaller mileage. In France it is much simpler to have good roads. The houses there are in the villages, whereas here they are dotted all over the country. Compared with any other agricultural country, we have a good standard of roads. There is no doubt the roads are good— better than they were pre-war—and they compare very favourably with the Scottish roads. That is not my own opinion only, but it is also the opinion of Scotchmen who have been here and who have experienced our roads. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. I am ready to believe, if a Deputy stands up here and says that he knows a particular part of his county where the roads are very bad, that that may well be, but, on the whole, the roads are good enough, good enough for this country, and a lot better than those of other countries, such as France, and quite as good as those in Scotland. Whether we are farmers or not we must have main roads and we must agree that there is a distinction between main and by-roads. The fact that there is money spent on main roads is not a loss but a gain to farmers because these roads lead into every county in Ireland and farmers utilise them.
Our objection is that they may be torn up within twelve months.
Mr. HOGAN
Some by-roads should be kept in a condition that suits the particular traffic on them, and it would undoubtedly be foolish to spend money on them from any other point of view. Some by-roads, for instance, are used for cartage while others must be kept in a better condition. I do not like the point of view that the rural community is not just as much interested as the urban community in seeing that the main roads are kept in first-class style. It is. If you admit that, you must concentrate on spending more money per mile on main roads.
Is the Minister aware that many main roads are impassible for horse traffic?
Mr. HOGAN
I am not.
You should be.
Mr. HOGAN
That is a state of affairs that is likely to remedy itself in a very short time. We have to find money also to keep up the roads, and I object to the point of view that there is some difference between that and getting it through the rates. Some people say that there is greater advantage in finding the money by rates rather than by taxation, while others maintain the contrary view. If we increase taxation it means practically the same as increasing the rates. Remember that when we are asked to find more money for the Road Fund. Deputies also say that the licence duties for drivers are too high. If, however, you drop them to 10/- you will lose £30,000, and you will either have to do without that or find it otherwise. Other Deputies maintain that the tax on the car is too high. We can drop that, but where are you going to get the money? I only put forward these considerations to remind Deputies that they ought not to juggle as between rates and taxes. Certain money must be found to keep roads to a minimum standard, and every time that Deputies suggest, in the interests of motor owners or others, that either the road tax or the licence duties should be reduced, they should come forward and say in what other directions money should be found. With regard to lorries, I protest against the point of view of driving any lorries off the road. There is something fundamentally unsound in that. I heard a Deputy say that no lorries of over four tons laden weight should be allowed on the road. That would mean about a two-ton lorry maximum. Do Deputies realise what that means? What about the number of farmers' societies who have two-ton lorries which are able to perform many services for them, and which can take the produce from the stations far more cheaply? It is, apparently, put forward seriously from the Farmers' Benches that no lorry should be allowed over two tons on the road.
A laden-weight of four tons?
Mr. HOGAN
Yes; that means a two-ton lorry. I would be surprised if the farmers, as a whole, subscribe to that. It would hit them harder than anyone else as these lorries are used by farmers' societies and big farmers.
They are not. Do not trouble about farmers' societies or big farmers in that connection.
How many farmers' societies are there in Ireland?
Supposing we assumed generally that no Deputy on the Farmers' Benches agrees with the Minister, perhaps, he might be allowed to proceed with his speech without interruption.
Mr. HOGAN
I think I speak on this matter for the farmers of the country generally, no matter what the Deputies on the Farmers' Benches may say, when I say that it would be a great injustice to drive the two-ton, or three-ton, lorry off the roads, as there is no reason for it. Any road policy that is based on that will have my active opposition and also, I believe, that of the majority of farmers. We are asked also why we do not take over the roads at present and centralise them, as well as centralise the road policy. The road policy has to some extent been centralised. I mean we have put forward a policy which aims at segregating the main roads and the by-roads, and spending a definite ascertainable amount of money on each for maintenance.
In addition, there is provision for the spending of £2,000,000 at the rate of £1,000,000 per year on the main roads. That policy may be right or wrong, but it is quite specific. With regard to the administration of this policy entirely centrally, Deputy Good, last night, asked: "Why set up authorities in each county to do this?" That is the point; we are not setting them up. They are there already. They have been doing this work for a long time. They have all the necessary requisites for doing it. They have the plant and machinery. If we were starting out anew, if we had a clear sheet and if we were evolving a road policy, without the necessity for considering the existing arrangements for repair and maintenance, we might perhaps take a different attitude, but we cannot approach the question from that point of view in the present circumstances. We must realise that the roads generally up to the present have been maintained, to a great extent, locally. The main roads, on the other hand have to some extent been maintained centrally. We have to recognise the position as it is. What we are doing now in no way prejudices future policy. It may be found, when administering this policy, that the correct method of dealing with the roads is to administer centrally. That raises some very large questions. I think you are almost advocating the abolition of the county councils, when you say the roads should be taken away entirely from the county councils.
Who said "entirely"?
Mr. HOGAN
That was Deputy Good's suggestion. It may be that time will show that the sound policy is to work the main roads centrally and the by-roads, or some proportion of the by-roads, locally. You can only find out those things gradually. We cannot simply do these things by a wave of the hand. It would be uneconomic and expensive to decide here and now, on insufficient data, to administer all the roads centrally. We can do that if the experience of the working of this road policy shows it would be useful, but there is no reason why we should come to that decision now.
Is this the policy of the Minister for Local Government?
Those are the views of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture.
Mr. HOGAN
That ought to be obvious. The Deputy has very often reminded me that I am responsible directly to the Dáil.
The Deputy was so insistent on the use of "we" that I thought he was speaking for the Department of Local Government.
Who have not yet declared their policy.
Mr. HOGAN
I do not think I will run the risk of any further interruptions. I have nothing further to say on this roads question, and the Dáil, I am sure, will be delighted to hear that I have nothing further to say on any other question.
After the elaborate statement of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture, it seems presumptuous for a person like me to stand up to deal with the big question before the Dáil. I do so merely to make what I might call "a declaration of faith." I do not propose to go into any details in connection with the Budget proposals or in connection with the statement made by the Minister for Finance. I regret, however, that the tendency of the speeches delivered so far has been more or less to ridicule the idea of protection for the industries of the country. I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies, and we are offered a couple of concessions in the Budget. We have protection for oatmeal, to a very small extent, and we have protection for Ford motor cars. In addition, last year's tariffs are to be continued. Great stress was, however, laid on the statement that the tariffs already imposed are merely experimental. I submit that that statement, reiterated as it has been, prejudices the prospect of success of the industries that have been protected. Those who have capital will, naturally, not be inclined to indulge in experiments, whereas if they felt that the policy of the Government and the policy of future Governments would be to protect the industries of the country, they would be more inclined to invest their capital in native industries. Going as an ordinary individual through this city and through the country, I have observed that those who are opposed, generally speaking, to the imposition of tariffs consist of a huge army of agents for foreign manufacturers. They are spread throughout the length and breadth of the State, and naturally they are having effect. They are assisted by a huge army of distributors of foreign goods in the towns. The farmers who come in from the country districts, come into contact with those people who are interested in foreign goods, and, hearing the statement on every side that it would be a terrible thing to have tariffs and that it would increase prices, they come to the conclusion that a tariff policy would be bad for the country. On the other hand, who are those who are in favour of the imposition of tariffs? They are the people who for the past twenty years have conducted a fight to bring about the freedom of this country. They did that largely that they might get possession of the economic weapon and be enabled to protect the industries of the country, with the object of increasing its prosperity.
In addition to that there are people who have money invested in the industries of the country, and those that wish to invest their capital in these industries. The question comes to this: which of these two classes ought to be encouraged? I respectfully submit that the latter class are the class that ought to be encouraged, and I submit that that encouragement is not offered by the Ministers of our present Government to the extent which I, and others who have taken an interest in the country for years, would like to see. We all want to see the prosperity of the country. I do not see how we can have prosperity unless we have increased industry. Prosperity means increase in the population by the stemming of the flow of emigration, and by providing employment, and a decent living wage for the population.
This, of course, has been an agricultural country up to the present. But we cannot have an increased population, to my mind, and, consequently, we cannot have prosperity, on farming alone. If we are going to stem the tide of emigration, and if we want to have prosperity we must have industries. I submit we cannot increase our industries unless those industries which we possess at the moment are fostered and encouraged to such an extent that those who have capital will be encouraged to invest it.
Now the Minister for Agriculture has dealt particularly with the farmer and with a number of items connected with the farm. The tendency of his speech was that protection for any of those items would not improve the position of the farmer. I respectfully submit that the farmer in this country has to look upon the question from another aspect which has not been reviewed in its proper perspective by the Minister. The average family in this country is presumably five or six. I am not sure if there are any official figures at the moment, and I do not like to give figures myself because I have not the time or the facilities to deal with figures specifically. I know that in the constituency I represent the number of the family is very much higher than that figure. It goes up to twelve, and fourteen, and, sometimes, higher than that. Only one or two of the children can be provided for on the farm. The remainder must be exported the same as any other export, such as sheep and pigs raised on the farm, if there is no employment for them in this country. The farmer, therefore, has to look upon the subject from that point of view, as well as from the point of view put forward by the Minister. Unless the farmer is willing to bear a slight burden, for a short period, to encourage the industries of the country, he cannot succeed in keeping at home, in their own country, his boys and girls. I suppose it would not be easy to arrive at a figure, as to the value of this class of export. I do not suppose we could place a money value upon a boy or a girl of 18 years of age, although it has been done and written about in the past. However, if you put a money value on it I should think our adverse trade balance would be very appreciably affected. At the present time we are exporting this flesh and blood of our country, and unless industries are protected and that the policy of the existing Government of the country tends towards protection, I am afraid that exportation will have to be continued.
I submit that protection for this small nation is absolutely essential— protection, particularly against our neighbour—that big and prosperous country so near to us. It is a big and powerful nation with its large population and natural resources. It has a huge export trade, and consequently it is a free trade country, because free trade suits it. I submit that this small country needs protection as a policy as opposed to the policy that suits that other country. We are a small nation. We have been crippled for years by foreign rule, and we always wished we could have protection for our industries. We have advocated that for years, and have voluntarily given whatever protection we could to our industries. We always regretted we had not the power in our hands to give that protection to our industries that they really needed.
We have now obtained our economic freedom and we can only hope that before very long our policy, as a whole, will be protectionist. We have been described by some people as a baby State. I do not know whether that is a happy description, as we are one of the oldest nations in Europe. To those who believe in re-incarnation, I think the position can be more fittingly described by saying the soul of the nation has entered a new body, and a baby State has been evolved. That being so, the Government of this country should be regarded as the guardians or foster-parents of that baby. I do not know what we might think of the guardians and the parents of the baby who would deny to that baby the protection and nourishment needed for its existence. The life blood of the baby is flowing away. As far as the nation is concerned, the life blood is flowing out at Cobh. Unless something be done to stem the tide of emigration by fostering industries, I am afraid we must regard with pessimism the prospect of this country.
Now, I sincerely appeal to the farmers of this country not to be led away by the propaganda of those foreign agents and foreign distributors with whom they are coming in contact continually. In the interests of their own flesh and blood I appeal to them that they should become protectionists, because I believe protection is the only policy. I am not going to go into particulars, I am only dealing with general principles. I also appeal to the younger generation to advocate protection in their own interest, and to add to the clamour for protection of the industries of the country, so that future Governments may realise that it is essential for the interests of the country that industries should be protected and the nation saved from extinction.
There were a certain number of peculiar statements made in reply to what the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said in his speech—one of them, I think, was an anticipatory reply—which would lead one to draw most peculiar conclusions about the relative position of parties in the Dáil. It was insinuated by Deputy Cooper, and I think by Deputy Sir J. Craig, that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was actuated in what he said by his desire to win an election or by the fact that an election was coming off in the distant future. It seems to be always assumed in the Dáil that the party which sits on these Benches is waiting for an election and that the members of every other party seem to have been singled out by some supernatural agency to come in here and express their opinions. They are altogether free from any necessity to make any preparations or to have any consideration whatever for the likelihood of a general election. In discussing the economic conditions of the country, we ought to adopt the same attitude towards our economic conditions as the Minister for Finance has towards our finances in the Budget, when he talks about the state of the country's trade and industry. It seems to me that just as we distinguish in our finances between normal and abnormal expenditure, recurrent and non-recurrent expenditure, we should also distinguish, and keep the distinction carefully in our minds, between a depression which is common to this country and practically every other country in Europe at present—the normal depression following on the war and various other causes—and the kind of depression which is peculiar to this country and which may be said to be abnormal from that point of view. In discussing this Budget from the normal point of view, from the point of view of the ordinary depression which is common to this country and every other country, if you look at our trade and our industry from that point of view, it is a good Budget. It is a good ordinary civil service Budget, so to speak. But if you look at our position and consider the fact that we are just emerging from a hundred years of artificial economic depression, and that our whole industry, whether agricultural or manufacturing, and everything in our trade is conditioned by the results of that one hundred years, there is a great deal that might be said in criticism of the present Budget. We have to deal not only with the question of the increase in our expenditure since 1914, not only with the fluctuations of the market for our cattle or our other products, but we have to deal also with two or three big facts which make this country peculiar among practically all the countries in Europe. One big fact is the huge excess of our imports over our exports, and another is the huge yearly drain of emigration.
Looking at the Budget from the point of view of my own constituency, out of every parish of which, perhaps, a thousand people have to go every summer to another country in order to get sufficient employment to enable them to live in this country—the Budget offers very little prospect whatever to people of that kind. Their condition is not a passing condition; it is not due to the ordinary circumstances of the post-war period. It is a peculiar historical position, and not only this Government but the whole Dáil will be held responsible—and every other Dáil we have in this country in the future—for the continuance of conditions like that, until some body of people comes along and devises some means or other by which conditions like that can be remedied. In matters of that kind we have a big national task before us, and we are not doing very much at present to deal with the extraordinary depression all over the country, and particularly in the West. That depression exists in the cities just as well as in the country, and we are not doing very much to deal with that sort of depression at all. It is not going to do us any good every time we come here to discuss the economic condition of the country for the farmers to get up and announce that the industrialists are inefficient, and that the clamour for tariffs is only put forward by people——
It was a Deputy on the Government Benches who said that.
From your own constituency.
I am not saying it is confined to the Farmers' Party. It is peculiar to every party in the Dáil. You have one type of person getting up and saying that our industrialists are incompetent and effete, and that their cry for protection is, to a certain extent, dishonest. You have another person getting up and saying perhaps the very same thing about the farmers, when the farmers' interests are being discussed. You have it said that the farmers are uneducated, and that before we can get any advance in agriculture in this country we must wait until some more or less supernatural agency comes along, and puts knowledge into their heads suddenly. You have both sides of the House exchanging recriminations of that kind, and, unfortunately, you have the Minister for Finance, to a certain extent, joining in.
The Deputy is not too bad himself at it.
The Deputy is a good judge.
In connection with what Deputy McBride, for instance, said about inefficiency, it seems to me that from the point of view of a person seeking work it is of great deal more value to get employment in a comparatively inefficiently conducted industry than it is not to get any employment at all, and that if you can encourage even our inefficient—if we have many inefficient employers—by any means whatever to improve their industries, if you can enable them to tide over, even with their inefficiency, a bad period of depression, you will do great good in comparison with the evil you will be doing by simply letting them die out. One hears a great deal of comparison between this country, with its small population, and countries with bigger populations. One hears a great deal about how difficult it is for us to impose tariffs in this country with only three millions of a population, whereas other countries have big populations and a big market in their own country for their products. One fact seems to be lost sight of in all these comparisons: that small and all as our population is we are losing part of it every year for want of anything to do at home because we will not take sufficiently active steps to see that we have something set up which will give employment at home. The position of the Executive Council in regard to the question of tariffs has always struck me as being a rather peculiar one. They adopt what may be called a tariff policy in a piece-meal sort of way and, having done so, they seem to find themselves in agreement with Deputy Cooper and to be very anxious and willing to give ammunition to the Deputy for use against themselves. The Minister for Finance has coined a phrase about the clamour that exists for tariffs. The Minister spoke about the clamour that there is from inefficient manufacturers for tariffs, and he said nothing at all about the clamour from editors and from newspapers—to whom it is not a bad compliment to say they are equally inefficient with the manufacturers—to take off the tariffs already imposed. There is an equal clamour from people who had other things to bark about as well as tariffs and whose other barks the Minister is not very willing to pay attention to.
I cannot understand why a policy should be adopted, and when it is adopted, an attitude of criticism and of depreciation towards that policy is taken up. We have the Minister for Finance, in his Budget statement, saying that he is going to remain within the limits of the pledge he made last year, and that he would not impose any more protection before the next election. One of the things that puzzles me is to know what actuated him in giving that pledge last year. I did not hear any great clamour from any party in the Dáil for such a pledge. The Minister seems to have adopted an attitude of tying his hands without being asked to do so. Such an attitude is only going to weaken the action the Government has taken on putting tariffs on certain industries. If they adopt an attitude of saying that all the cry for tariffs is from dishonest people, what are the public to say about the tariffs that have already been put on? Is it not open to the public to say that the cry for tariffs on bottles, for instance, was equally dishonest and came from equally incompetent people with the cry for tariffs on woollen goods? In setting up tariffs in this country it seems to me that it would have been better to have been bold and to have gone in, as Deputy O'Shaughnessy suggested, for a fairly general range of tariffs. I do not suggest tariffs on everything, but in particular on articles which are produced in large quantities in this country, and the production of which is closely allied to our greatest industry. The first care of the Government should have been to take into consideration the necessity of safeguarding this country in case we had a repetition of the Great European War, so that we would not be left in a worse position than on that occasion. We should consider first and foremost, a policy that would ensure a steady food supply for this country. Consideration of tariffs should be governed from the point of view not of helping this manufacturer or that manufacturer, but rather by how the imposition of tariffs would benefit the nation as a whole. Deputy Conlan talked about the position of the farmers in this respect. I am afraid that the Minister for Agriculture has an unfortunate tendency to treat farmers as if they were algebraic symbols. If every farmer was represented by .309 or something of that kind, disassociated from his family, and treated as an economic formula, forgetting that one farmer differs from other farmers, that farmers have families, and that the biggest of our economic problems is to find some means of existence, so to speak, for the surplus children of the farmers——
What will we do with our daughters?
An attitude of that kind which would not discuss what possible profit a farmer, represented by a formula, would derive from a tariff, represented by another formula, which formula is cut as close to the wind as the Minister for Agriculture can cut it—like 3d. a pound on American bacon—does not seem to me to be a proper attitude. It seems to me that instead of treating both elements of your problem as algebraic symbols, it would be better to treat the question as a national question, and consider the interests of the nation as a whole, and whether a tariff would not be better for the country, even at the cost of a certain slight increase in the cost of living—whatever that may be. That seems to me to be another algebraic formula about which the ordinary human being finds it hard to have clear ideas. Almost everything that can be proposed seems to raise the cost of living in this country. Even if you have a slight increase in the cost of living it seems to me that a farmer with a large family should find it a benefit to have industries encouraged in neighbouring towns in which his children could get good employment. There is a woollen mill in Foxford, in my constituency—I suppose it is about the only industrial enterprise in it— and I am sure the farmers in that district, if they could get employment for their children, if we had tariffs on woollen goods, would not object to an increase in the cost of living.
What employment is given there at present?
About 300 hands. The factory in Foxford is an efficient and a well-run one. Any rise in the cost of living to farmers would surely be made up in that and a great many other ways. No matter what sort of clothes Deputies Gorey and Heffernan may wear the ordinary farmers do not buy imported readymade clothes to any great extent.
Does the Deputy suggest that we buy imported readymade clothing?
The Deputy is one of those who protested most violently against the rise in the cost of living. Even if the cost of clothing were put up, does not the farmer get back considerably more than that rise in the £600,000 which was given by way of relief of taxation last year? While we are on that £600,000, would it not be better for the country generally if some differentiation were made in taxation as between the farmer who tills his land and works it as it ought to be worked, and the farmer who does not till his land?
Does the Deputy mean as he thinks it can best be worked, or as somebody else, who does not own the land but manages it, thinks it ought to be worked, and who would have to pay for the loss, if any were incurred?
I suppose Deputy Baxter is in the same position as Deputy Heffernan, who wrote to the "Independent" a long letter, in which he pointed out that no matter what you did with a farm at present—no matter what you grew on it—there would be a loss on it. If that is the attitude of Deputy Baxter, the best thing we can do for farmers like him, and the best solution for our economic difficulties, is to export them as soon as possible to the Sahara, where they will have no land at all to trouble about.
I would change places with you to-morrow.
As a matter of fact, I have been seriously considering acquiring a farm myself if I could afford to do it.
You would soon find out your mistake.
He was cute enough to get away.
In so far as the Minister has agreed to the setting up of a tariff committee for the consideration of this question, I think he has done well. But—and it is a very big "but"—if the tariff committee is made up of free traders it will not give any more protection to anything, and if it is made up of people whose attitude is different towards this question, it will give more protection. There is no doubt about it that everything will depend on the composition of that committee.
All protectionists?
I do not want it all protectionists. I only want to see people on it who will not fine down the conditions under which it will give protection to the narrowest possible point, who will not put all their weight on the one side when they are considering the question as to what they will or will not give protection. We have had a long discussion on the question of a tariff on flour. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture has pointed out that even if you put a tariff on flour you would not be able to give the farmer any great advantage over the Mark Lane prices of wheat in the present year. In my opinion, the problem is not one as regards giving the farmer a certain advance on the Mark Lane price in any one month, but it is a problem of securing a stable, steady market, and to have steady prices over a number of years in Ireland for Irish-grown wheat. The same thing applies to flour.
There, also, the problem is to do what you can to secure a stable market for home-made flour. It is not a question of taking a particular farmer at a particular time and seeing that he will make a profit, and it is not a question of securing a market at a particular time and seeing that you make a profit. If a tariff is imposed on these conditions the whole thing is rather immoral. That is rather strong language, but from the national point of view we should take the long view on that matter. Even at the cost of putting up the price of things on everybody, especially on the classes who can afford it for a time, I think it would be worth our while to see that a basis is given for industries which will always be necessary in this country, and will be particularly necessary if we ever have to face a European war again. It has often been said, but I think it is being said less frequently now than a couple of years ago, that wheat cannot be grown in Ireland. I suppose Deputy Heffernan, as one who appears to think that nothing can be grown in Ireland, will agree with that.
I must say I have said nothing of the kind.
On this question of growing wheat it would not be a bad thing if some professor would investigate the history of wheat growing in Ireland, and establish that wheat has been grown in Ireland practically since the late Stone Age.
May I ask if wheat was grown in Canada and the Argentine at that time?
I do not see what that has to do with the question. The question is whether wheat can be grown in Ireland at the present time. It seems to be that nothing is considered economic that cannot compete with the heavily capitalised and organised English industries, and that nothing is efficient that cannot compete under those conditions. At that rate of going on we will find ourselves after 20 or 30 years with a very much reduced population composed of efficient people, and the inefficients gone away to America or elsewhere, if they are let in. What is economic in Ireland is what the people of Ireland want to make economic. I do not see why it should be regarded as the normal state of affairs for everything in this country to be competing with English conditions. There again we are getting back to the point of view I expressed at the beginning. In this country we have a very abnormal, ancient and historic problem, a problem of economic depression which is not due to any particular set of circumstances but to the fact that this country to a large extent has escaped industrial revolution, and we are now beginning to try and start an industrial revolution of our own. If we are going to start that industrial revolution with the Shannon scheme or without it, on the basis that everything in this country must at once be in a condition to compete with English trusts, we are not going to get very far with our industrial revolution. I was glad to hear the Minister for Lands and Agriculture speak favourably about encouraging the growth of wheat by farmers. It seems to me one way of encouraging the growth of wheat or anything else is by doing what I said —differentiating in your taxation or tax relief between the small farmer with 30 or 40 acres or less, and the big holder who, as a large holder said in the paper the other day, could not possibly make his holding economic if he tilled it.
We have the question of American bacon coming up again. There again I think the Minister for Lands and Agriculture said that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs should not have advocated the putting of a tariff on American bacon in the interests of the farmer, that it would not be of any benefit to the farmer. I think that that is what he said. I, for one, have been for a long time advocating a tariff on American bacon. I should be advocating a tariff on American bacon almost on moral grounds rather than on the grounds that it would mean a profit to our farmers. I consider that if we could possibly avoid these big importations of American bacon—take it from the point of view of ordinary taste—it would be desirable to try to get rid of them. I know the argument is put up that it is better stuff for greasing cabbage than Irish bacon. I have a long experience of both kinds of bacon and I am quite as good an authority on greasing cabbage as anybody else, whether he be a farmer or some other person, and I cannot see that there is any difference whatever between the two. In regard to the question of whether a tariff on American bacon would pay the farmer better, if he were to kill his own pigs, there is a big question involved which the Minister did not touch upon. It has been found profitable for this country to pay £250,000 per year for sixty years to England rather than pay over a sum of £5,000,000 in one lump. In the same manner the farmer may find it profitable to buy his bacon from week to week, and in that way he may find that he gains some little advantage by buying American bacon. I consider from the national point of view that it is a bad habit. It is a habit that as far as we can, we should eradicate. It is a habit the eradication of which would not cost us anything practically.
Mr. HOGAN
What would it cost?
I do not see that it would cost anything at all.
Mr. HOGAN
Would it cost three-pence per lb.?
I do not think so. If the people had the opportunity I think it could be easily arranged for them. Apart altogether from that, we could easily get over the increase in the price of bacon. It is a matter of habit very largely, just as you have the small farmers in Connemara who have gone on for the last ten years growing Champions and Up-to-date potatoes just because they were accustomed to do it, sooner than grow the new varieties they were advised to grow by the Department. The same is true in regard to American bacon, and when the Minister points out that the farmer would not get any profit by this arrangement the only thing I can think of—perhaps it shows my unfamiliarity with financial matters—is to ask where this £3,000,000 goes to? If we spend £3,000,000 per year on American bacon and if we can stop that £3,000,000 by putting a tariff on American bacon, where would the £3,000,000 go? I believe that there is a great deal more in this question of tariffs than a Budgetting matter pure and simple. I do think that the whole question of Irish industries is one which has not been taken up half seriously enough, since this State was set on its feet, by any party. We have sporadic speeches made, but we have no organised attempt whatever, apart from the question of tariffs, to do anything to benefit Irish industries.
I can give you an experience of my own which is a rather common experience. I go into a shop in Dublin and ask for shoes. I ask the assistant for Irish-made shoes. He is astonished at the question. Irish-made shoes are not procurable in one of the biggest shops in Dublin. It seems to me that there are organisations, trade union organisations and other organisations—I do not think the burden should be thrown on the shoulders of any one class in the community at all—the man in the shop who uses propaganda on behalf of English goods is very often a member of a trade union, the members of which would be benefited by making an organised attempt to carry out propaganda on behalf of Irish goods. I do not want to put the whole burden on the members of trades unions by any means. I think it is a movement, apart altogether from the question of tariffs, which should be of the greatest possible benefit to every member of the community if it is taken up with vigour and with an earnest desire and an earnest effort to use as much as possible of our own products in our own community. I think the Dáil, which, as I said, will be held responsible by the people of Ireland for what it should do to get rid of this age-long depression that we have in the country, could do a great deal by letting it go forth that its members will do what they can, individually and collectively, and in whatever organisations they belong to, to further the purchase of the products of Irish industry. Besides that, I think that if we had a little more elastic attitude on the part of the Ministry towards tariffs, and a little more consideration for our manufacturers, whether inefficient or not, we could in a very short time get a long way ahead in putting this country on its feet economically, and in such a way that no other class would benefit so much as the farmers.
Ordered that progress be reported.
The Dáil went out of Committee.
Progress reported; the Committee to sit again to-morrow (Friday).
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m.