There are a number of amendments to the Financial Resolutions with which I would like to deal before the Report Stage is entered on. The Resolutions are read a Second Time formally, and amendments may then be proposed. When the amendments have been disposed of, a motion is made "That the Dáil agree with the Committee in the Resolution." When that motion is made and has been received by the Chair no further amendment is in order. With regard to the amendments of which notice has been given, amendment No. 1, in the name of Deputy Johnson, is to increase the charge. That amendment is out of order. The amendments in the names of Deputy O'Connell and Deputy Heffernan would, I think, be more suitably introduced and discussed in Committee on the Finance Bill, because they are the kind of amendments which do not require any previous introduction on Committee or Report to the House. They would be in order on the Finance Bill. Amendment No. 8 will, of course, arise on the question of the Dáil agreeing with the Committee in the Resolution. With regard to Deputy Johnson's amendment No. 12 to Resolution 11, it attempts to delete all the words in paragraph 1 after the words "1926." The Deputy is, I think, endeavouring to delete the operative words of that particular paragraph, and as the amendment is, therefore, a direct negative, it cannot be moved. The next four amendments resemble one another in certain particulars, and, perhaps, the most convenient way of discussing them would be together. We can put the motions in this order—No. 14, Deputy Johnson's amendment, first, because it is for the biggest reduction as it means reducing the fee of £1 to 6/-. If that amendment succeeds, Deputy Thrift's amendment No. 15 would not arise, nor would Deputy Cooper's No. 13, because each of these Deputies would have got more than he asked for in his amendment.
FINANCIAL RESOLUTIONS—REPORT.
I am prepared to accept your suggestion.
That disposes of amendments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 12.
RESOLUTION 1.
I put down an amendment with special reference to the super-tax proposals and with the object of preventing this gift of £115,000, or the greater portion of it, to the super-tax payer. Your ruling, sir, obliges me to endeavour to prevent a gift of the whole £115,000, whereas I was allowing the Minister to do something in the matter to meet what he apparently considered a hardship. The proposal in the Resolution includes not only the payment of the income tax at the rate of 4/- in the £, but certain rates in regard to super-tax, and my opposition to the motion is directed specifically to the changes in the super-tax that are embodied in this Resolution. I have made some calculations as to the effect of the Resolution upon super-tax payers and the nature of the gift that is to be presented to these highly-incomed ladies and gentlemen. I find that the recipients of incomes from £2,500 to £20,000 per annum are receiving considerable benefits under this Resolution as compared with their position up to the 31st March this year. The £2,500 a year man is being presented with a sum of £18 15s. in the year. The £3,000 per year man is being presented with a sum of £43 15s., the £4,000 man with £93 15s., the £5,000 man with £131 5s., the £6,000 man with £156 5s., the £7,000 man with £181 5s., the £8,000 man with £231 5s., and the people with incomes from £10,000 to £20,000 a year with £281. I think it is always desirable, when considering questions of income and super-tax and the like, that one should look not at the sum that the taxpayer is paying but at the sum that is being left to him. I find that, after paying income tax and super-tax, the £2,500 a year income is still left with £1,962 10s., the £3,000 income with £2,310 10s., the £4,000 income with £2,987 10s., and the £8,000 with £5,437 10s. These are the figures under the provisions of the 1924 Act up to the end of March this year, but, having agreed that the £10,000 a year man shall retain £6,587 10s. for his own spending as distinct from the spending on his behalf by the State of the balance, we propose to give him £281 5s. extra.
I do not think that any justification has been shown by the Minister for this remission of super-tax which is, in effect, a gift to them that hath. The Minister, in the course of his Budget speech, explained that the remission of super-tax would involve a loss of revenue of £115,000, and he went on to justify that gift by the poor to the rich at the hands of the Minister by saying that it is counter-balanced by an increase in the estate duties. In effect, he says: "We will hand over this rather handsome yearly sum in addition to what you have at present, provided that when you die there shall fall into the coffers of the State a certain additional sum." That may be an argument which appeals to the Minister, and, perhaps, it might appeal to others also, if he could assure us that the annual remission was certain to add to the value of the estate, but, I think, the chances are that the remission of taxation will not be added to the capital value of the estate, but will leave so much more money to spend on current luxuries. Consequently, I cannot see any reason in appealing to the House that, because the estate duties are being increased, we are, therefore, well advised in remitting an annual sum to these super-taxpayers, particularly when we remember the case that was made a year ago—I have already referred to it but it will stand repetition—that there would be no remissions of taxation, no matter how urgently they may be demanded, until there had been a recoupment to the old age pensioners of what was taken from them a couple of years ago. £115,000 will go a considerable way towards recouping old age pensioners of what was taken from them. It will not go the whole way, but it will go a considerable way, and I think we would not be justified in agreeing to this new scale of super-tax in the present circumstances. I, therefore, intend to oppose this resolution, as a whole, and those who wish to end the payment of income tax at 4/- in the £ may do it by defeating this motion. The Minister, no doubt, would find other means of bringing forward a new resolution as regards the 4/- in the £ income tax, but, as this is the only means I have of opposing the new super-tax proposal, I shall ask the House to divide against it if there were only two members to support me.
I, too, am opposed to this proposal, in view of the inaction of the Minister in regard to the other proposals. In putting this before the Dáil the Minister has forgotten his virtual promise last year, or he must have changed his mind in regard to the direction in which relief should be given to income-taxpayers. I have amendments on the Paper which I propose to move at another stage, identical with those I had on the Paper last year. The answer of the Minister last year I took to be sympathetic, and especially with regard to that in which I sought for greater relief in the case of children. I have before me a statement made by the Minister last year in connection with one of these matters in which he said:—
"If a time comes at all soon wher it is possible to contemplate further reduction of income tax it will be a matter for consideration whether we should not rather try to do something in the way of reliefs to the poorer taxpayers than spend anything we can afford for income tax reduction on the reduction of the standard rate." (Official Report, May 6th, 1925. Col. 958.)
I quote that to show that the Minister's mind was closely running in the direction of giving relief to the poorer taxpayers. That was the whole tenor of his speeches on those amendments when proposed last year. There was one I have in mind which was the same as amendment No. 3 to-day. The Minister gave as his reason for refusing to accept that, and his only reason, because he expressed himself in sympathy with it, that it would cost £100,000. I respectfully submit that the £100,000 would be better spent in giving relief to people endeavouring to rear families rather than in giving it to men who pay super-tax. There are a great many people who would be glad of the opportunity of paying super-tax. My amendment, No. 4 on the Paper, was moved last year also. It asks for increased relief for the man who has got his children at school over the age of 16 years. The Minister calculated that that would cost £60,000. I think that that was an outside figure; I think it would cost much less. Even if it cost that it would be more in keeping with the Minister's protestations on that occasion if he came along this year and gave us relief under that head, rather than giving what will cost the revenue £115,000. There can be no question, in the mind of the Dáil, as to which is the more deserving case. Because he did not do that, and to mark my protest in the matter, I will be forced to vote against this resolution.
One is rather surprised to hear a protest from Labour Deputies against this reduction of super-tax.
Nobody else is interested.
Because a reduction in super-tax means the setting free of a certain amount of money that can be used for the development of industry.
Mr. O'CONNELL
But will it be so used?
Even supposing a portion only were so used, that is an aspect of the question that one would think ought to appeal at all events to Labour Deputies. Therefore I was somewhat surprised to hear a protest coming from them. This question of super-tax is rather a serious one in the Free State. The rate of super-tax in the Free State upon incomes up to £10,000 is very heavily in excess of what it is in Great Britain. The effect of that has been that people with large incomes, who were citizens of this State, have left the State and have gone over to the other side because they have a lighter burden of super-tax to bear there than in this State. Now, it needs few words to make clear to Deputies the enormous injury that does to this country. The people who pay super-tax are the people, as a rule, who have considerable sums of money at their disposal. These are the people that we need in this country, and whose sympathies are needed here. Every encouragement ought to be held out to get these people into this country and to interest them in it. If we have these people and encourage them, we have their sympathies with the country and the industries of the country, and they will naturally, if their sympathies be here, and their interests be here, try to help the country by investing in its industries. That is one particular aspect of this question that appeals to me very strongly. The reason why the Minister has had to complain on many occasions in this House of the difficulty of getting people to invest money in Irish industries is clear. Those people who have the money to invest, and would invest, are not here because the heavy burden of taxation has driven them out of the country. When we were considering this question this time twelve months the Minister pointed out he was going to encourage people to live in this country in a rather peculiar way. He was going to lighten the burden of the death duties in order that when the time came for those people to pass into another sphere there would be a much lighter charge upon their estates if they were domiciled in this country than elsewhere. That argument is a very superficial one — exceedingly superficial. If you are not going to encourage a man to live in this country it is not likely he is going to die here. Nevertheless that was the argument of the Minister. Doubtless he has gained experience in the meantime and he has come to the conclusion that if he is to get the holders of the larger estates to die in this country it is necessary to encourage them to live in this country. From that point of view, therefore, I say that this is a wise step. It may be information to some Deputies that the rate of super-tax on the lower scales up to £10,000 is very much higher here than in Great Britain. For the first £500 liable to super-tax, the rate here is 1/6, as against 9d. in Great Britain. For the next £1,000 it is 2/-, as against 1/- in Great Britain. If a person of independent means wishes to live in this country, he will find that in addition to the higher cost of living here he has to pay a super-tax 100 per cent. in excess of that in Great Britain. That is an argument that need not be stressed. I consider that this is one of the few bright spots in the Budget.
It is a question of the point of view.
There are one or two others which I give the Minister credit for, but there are other features which we will have to criticise later on. This is a proposal that I think will have the support of everybody in this State, with the exception of the Labour representatives in the Dáil.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present——
I should like to reinforce the argument of Deputy Good in connection with the suggestions put forward by Deputy Johnson. In my opinion it would be absolutely disastrous to this country, more particularly at the present time, if any policy should be enunciated that would have the effect of driving out its wealthy citizens, either by taxation or anything else which would be contributory to their leaving the country. We are only two and a half hours by boat from England and only two or three hours by train from the North of Ireland, and as we can offer less inducement to any wealthy man to live here than can be offered either in Northern Ireland or Great Britain, it is to our interest to adjust our system of taxation, not alone to retain these persons here, but to make this country attractive for such persons to come and spend their incomes and even die here. What are we losing? From every person with an income of £2,000 and over we get 4/- in the £ income tax, and on the first £500 liable to super-tax we get at the rate of 1/6 in excess of that. As Deputy Good has pointed out, there is a much more favourable rate prevailing in Great Britain which must act to our detriment. I speak as the representative of a poor constituency which has had a very bitter experience of the policy of expropriation of its wealthy people, and I condemn whole-heartedly Deputy Johnson's suggestion with reference to the super-tax. I even quarrel with the Minister that he has not reduced the super-tax to the British rate. I think it should be reduced even below the British rate, in order to give us the advantage that would accrue from an influx of wealthy people, which would absorb men into various employments, even if it did not mean the starting of new industries. That would lessen the number of unemployed, and in addition those people would raise the whole tone and standard of living.
I think that Deputy Johnson was really making debating points when he dealt with this particular question. The changes proposed in this Resolution are part of a scheme of shifting the burden——
From the rich to the poor.
But we aim at getting the same amount of money from, at any rate, roughly the same class of people. Those people who at their death leave estates of £12,000 and over, are the people who, broadly speaking, will be liable to super-tax also. There is no gift from the poor to the rich. We are going to get the revenue from the rich in some other way, and I hold, therefore, that the condition of affairs which I mentioned last year, when I said that before there were further reductions of income tax we would have to consider some revision of the Old Age Pensions Act, has not arisen. I need not make a debating point against Deputy Johnson by saying that his objection to this Resolution is really a proposal that there should be no income tax and no super-tax. The position, as I have said before, is that there are very large, sums of capital held outside this country by people who live here. Those sums represent Irish wealth only so long as the people who own them remain in the country. If those people are obliged, or induced, or caused in any way to leave the country, that capital ceases to be available in the contingent way in which it is at present for Irish industry and Irish use, and the revenue from the capital ceases to come into the country.
It is hard to estimate what advantage this country would get from having its income tax lower than the income tax in Great Britain. There would undoubtedly be a certain retention of wealth in the country beyond what we experience at present, and there would probably be a certain flow of wealth into the country. Whether that would compensate for the loss of revenue which the lower rate of taxation would cause I do not know. But this is certain, that to have a higher rate of income tax, or a higher rate of super-tax, than the British rates for any length of time would cause a considerable loss to the country. If the amendment which Deputy Johnson put down had been in order and had been passed, it would have meant a gain of some £30,000 a year in revenue theoretically, but in reality I do not believe that it would have resulted in any such gain. There has been a tendency for people to leave the country, and although to the man whose income is £10,000 a year, £3,000 may not seem a very large sum, yet the annoyance of having to pay that £3,000 might induce him to cease being a resident here. There are many people, especially the class of people who are doubly resident, who maintain some sort of residence here and in England, who, if they experienced the annoyance of having to pay another £3,000 a year because they maintained a residence here, would probably cease being doubly resident, and I believe that the loss to the Exchequer would exceed the gain. The loss to the country would certainly very greatly exceed the gain. Super-tax payers particularly are, in general, not very much tied to the country. Other people are tied by profession and employment to a far greater extent than many of the super-tax payers, and to charge higher rates of super-tax would simply be affording an inducement to people who own substantial wealth to leave the country.
I have not explored at any great length the arguments which induced the British to make the change that they made last year, the change of putting up the death duty rates and lowering the super-tax rates. They believed that there were certain advantages to be gained by lowering the super-tax rates and by getting the money from increased death duties. I am inclined, so far as I have examined them, to think that the arguments are sound. But in any case, our position is such that, without going into the merits very much, we can see that it is clearly to our advantage to follow the British lead in this matter. I did a year or two ago recommend to the Dáil the elimination of the very highest rates of estate duty, and I said then that if that elimination resulted even in one or two people, people perhaps whom Deputies individually could call to mind, deciding to die domiciled here, it would mean a very substantial gain to our Exchequer, and we know that people are influenced in the matter of domicile by death duties. The British papers have been full of the subject recently. On the other hand, of course, any advantages that we might gain by low death rate duties would fail if we had higher super-tax that would cause people to stay out, or to refrain from declaring for a Free State domicile until the very last moment. I believe that this amendment in no way discriminates in favour of the rich against the poor. It is simply a readjustment of the method by which taxation, as far as this particular kind of taxation is concerned, is levied off the rich.
Tá.
- Earnán Altún.
- Pádraig Baxter.
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Thomas Bolger.
- Bryan R. Cooper.
- Sir James Craig.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
- James Dwyer.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- John Good.
- William Hewat.
- Connor Hogan.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Patrick McKenna.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Pádraig Mag Ualghairg.
- Patrick J. Mulvany.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Conchubhar O Conghaile.
- Máirtín O Conalláin.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus O Dóláin.
- Mícheál O Dubhghaill.
- Peadar O Dubhghaill.
- Eamon O Dúgáin.
- Seán O Duinnin. Donnchadh O Guaire.
- Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Domhnall O Mocháin.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (Luimneach).
- Máirtín O Rodaigh.
- Seán O Súilleabháin.
- Mícheál O Tighearnaigh.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Seán Príomhdhall.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl.
- Seán Buitléir.
- David Hall.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam Mag Aonghusa.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- William Norton.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Seán O Laidhin.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
I would like to point out in connection with this resolution that it proposes to establish the three years average as the basis. Am I correct in that?
No.
What resolution does that come under?
It does not establish the three years average. It defines a certain point that would apply to the three years average, but it does not affect it. As a matter of fact, probably next year we will get away from the three years average altogether. We do not feel that we could afford the disarrangement that it would cost this year, but as Deputies are aware the three years average has been got rid of in Great Britain.
That was what I was going to mention.
This resolution would be more necessary, even in the case of the preceding year than in regard to the three years average.
In view of the statement of the Minister I have nothing further to say.
I was hopeful that on this motion the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs would have been present to make his case again in respect of the whole question and the principle involved in this resolution, that is the principle of protective tariffs, but I think he has one or two henchmen here. I would like to raise one or two points on this matter apart from the particular question raised by the proposed customs duties on oatmeal. In regard to the general propaganda on protective tariffs I am prepared to go a considerable distance with those Deputies who are favourable to an import duty as a protective measure for the purpose of maintaining in this country certain industries which are threatened with extinction, or of developing in this country industries which are natural to the country, but have not got any strong roots within it. But I am inclined to put certain questions to the protagonists of protection so that we shall learn exactly where they stand. I have an idea that it is good to protect, for the national benefit, productive industrial life in the country, so that there will be available means of living and a means of carrying on social activities in the country, but I want to ask the question when people speak of protecting industries what it is they are really driving at? We are asked to favour the protection of Irish industries against foreign competition, competition coming from countries which are better equipped, which have a much more efficient organisation, a better capacity from training and an immense amount of capital available. Under those circumstances some industries in foreign countries can compete with the utmost success, in such a way as to drive out any attempt to maintain or revive any industry of this kind in this country. That is the competition of a more highly efficient and better organised competitor, but there is also another class of competitor, the competitor who sends goods to this country produced under sweated low-wage conditions, where there is no great capacity for organisation, but where there are low wages and low costs of production by virtue of these low wages. And the protectionist argument would seek to protect Irish industries from the competition of the unorganised sweated competitor, as well as against the competition of the highly organised and most efficient competitor. Against that competition we are asked to protect Irish industries, but "Irish industry" is not an entity of itself. Presumably, when we are speaking of protecting industry we really mean to protect the people who have capital invested in the industry, and the people who are engaged in carrying on that industry, the workmen or the workwomen, that it is the people and their livelihood that have to be protected against competition, either the more highly organised competition or the unorganised competition. But I want to ask the protectionists whether they are prepared to carry their principles so far as to protect the workmen or workwomen engaged in industries in this country that are organised, having attained a certain standard of life, having a right to expect a certain standard wages—to protect that class of person from the unorganised, badly paid, or the competition of the unemployed who have no pay at all? If there is going to be any talk about protection I want to know whether the protection is only going to be for the capital employed in the industry, for the capitalists, or whether this principle of protection is going to be extended in such a way as to protect the livelihood of the people from unfair competition?
I am moved to this particular argument because I want to know exactly where the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Deputy Sears and others who have been associated with him—the whole protectionist party in the House —stand in these matters, because a few days ago, when I made a protest on behalf of those who were suffering and likely to suffer, from the competition of the unorganised and inefficient, I found all the protectionists on the opposite side. They were not prepared to protect the livelihood of the workmen or workwomen against the competition of the unorganised and the lowly paid. When I raised the question of the Tailoring Trade Board I made it as clear as I could that the purpose of these trade boards was to protect the worker against the competition of lowly paid and unorganised competitors. If we are going to talk about tariffs to protect industries being run by capitalists—speaking in a friendly way; I am not using that term just at the moment with any opprobrium—and to protect industries organised by capitalists, I want to know whether it is only the capital side of the industry that is to be protected, or are we thinking in terms of the livelihood of the people? Unless we are there is no case for protection, absolutely none. When I learned that the same protectionists have been prepared, and are prepared, to allow wage rates to be determined by the competition of the unorganised, unskilled, or poverty-stricken unemployed, then I am driven to the conclusion that the object of the protectionists, so far as it has been shown, is not to protect the livelihood of the people, but simply to protect the rate of profits, the rate of interest on investments. That is not good enough. Unless the protectionist propaganda is going to be deliberately and directly concerned with protecting the livelihood of the people, then I, for one, will give it no assistance of any kind.
I think if Deputies who are interested in this particular movement would consider the lines that have been taken by the Labour Party in Australia in what they call "The New Protection," they might, probably, find themselves on lines which would secure a good deal of support from people who, up to date, have opposed the protectionist propaganda. The proposal in Australia that has been, to some extent, carried through, is that if you have a tariff on imports to protect a particular industry you will meet that by an equal tariff on home produce— an excise duty to meet a customs duty. But, on its being shown that the home producer has carried through his productive operations under certain clearly defined conditions respecting wages, hours of work, protective appliances and general scheme of organisation, then the excise duty is remitted and the protection will be only made to apply to those industries which are really carrying through efficient production and fair conditions. I want to submit to Deputies who are thinking on this question that that is a condition which ought to be included in a protectionist propaganda in Ireland.
Turning to another aspect of this matter—I did not expect it would come on so soon—I want to consider the case made by Deputy Heffernan when he opposed the case for protection in the interests of the farmer and submitted a series of arguments in support of his case. I think it is very well worth the while of the House that some consideration should be given to Deputy Heffernan's arguments because they do contain the central feature, I think, of all the false arguments that are put forward, either by protectionists or free traders, in this House, on many questions. One can see that Deputy Heffernan bases his opposition to tariffs on the assumption that the case of the individual farmer as a producer, seeking to market his goods at a profit, is the case of the nation. He tells us that if a farmer's produce costs £10 in production and he can only sell at £9 15s. 0d., that that is a loss to the nation and that it would be as well for the nation if that £9 15s. 0d. worth of goods were never produced. He says that as it is with a farmer so it is with the combination of people called a nation.
Might I ask Deputy Johnson if he is speaking with my speech in the Dáil in mind, or if he has some other statement made by me outside the Dáil in mind?
I am speaking, having in mind the Deputy's speech in the Dáil, but having also in mind the more carefully prepared statement which was written by him, because the two things hang together and one is directly dependent on the argument contained in the other.
The statement Deputy Johnson refers to has nothing to do with protection at all.
I understand, then, that Deputy Heffernan has one compartment of his mind thinking in respect of over-taxation and an entirely different and disconnected part of his mind thinking in terms of tariffs. I could not imagine that the Deputy could divide himself up in that manner. I thought that his economic policy and principles were part of a whole. Judging by a couple of years' experience of his speeches in the Dáil, I think I am right in assuming that whether he talks of protection or over-taxation, agricultural production, the necessity for low wages or cheap cost of production, or any other argument in connection with economics, he has a definite body of economic principles upon which he is trying to build a case. Notwithstanding his demur, I still think that is the fact, and I am trying to show that the central feature of those economic principles is utterly unsound and unnational and would be destructive of national life if carried to anything like a logical conclusion. The Deputy argues that what is true of the farmer as an individual who spends £10 on production and can only sell at £9 15s. is true of the nation as a whole. I ask the Dáil to agree with me that that position is utterly unsound and that it is not to the national interest to think only in terms of the farmer as producer and the profit he will make out of his production. It is quite natural that the individual farmer should think of the position in the terms which Deputy Heffernan has outlined. In the same way the individual manufacturer will think in terms of his own business and the cost of that business, the prices which he can get for the sale of his products and the financial result of the year's working. The whole trouble, economic and social, of the last hundred years in Ireland has resulted from that point of view being generally accepted and worked upon—that the individual self-interest, the individual money-making interest, has dominated and directed public policy and public thinking. As a result of that line of thought, you have the depopulation of the country, the decline of industry and the decline of agricultural production. If only the profit-making interests of the individual farmer or producer have to be considered, then outside competition, whether in the Irish market or in the English market, may well decide the fate of this country, socially and nationally. If you cannot compete in the English market against some future influx of Canadian, South African or South American live cattle, what will become of your store cattle trade? If you cannot compete with imports of New Zealand, Danish, Canadian, Australian, or perhaps Siberian butter in the future, what is to become of the dairy industry? If you are going to think only of the profit to the individual producer, then I say that competition from abroad will inevitably make of this country a desolation. I am not, in arguing this way, saying that it is essential that the farmer-producer or manufacturer must continue to produce at a loss. I know that that could not go on very long under present conditions. But I am putting it forward that it is part of a national duty for the State to step in and say to the farmer-producer or manufacturer or other entrepreneur that the human resources of the country, as well as the natural resources of the country, must be exploited, that the labour of the country must be used, even though the individual manufacturer or farmer cannot make a profit out of that use. If your farmer is producing goods by the employment of labour on his land to the value of £100, and it costs him £110, he will say: It cannot proceed, and it is better for me that this production should not continue. But is it better for the nation and the national wealth that that production cannot and should not continue? The argument of Deputy Heffernan, and of most others on either side of this controversy, might be sound enough if all those who are at present unemployed were employed. If putting them on to land cultivation or machine production, which was uneconomic, individually speaking, only meant taking them from another occupation, then the argument might be sound and justified. But our position at the present time is that if you cease production on the land or in the factory you are ceasing by that to employ human labour, and these human beings have to stand idle. The gross national production is thereby reduced, and the total pool of national wealth, from which all the social, industrial and political activities emanate, is reduced.
I say you have got to consider this whole question, not only from the point of view of the individual farmer or manufacturer, but from the point of view of the national productivity and the national good, and if there is to be a distinction drawn between individual profit and the national good, then it is the duty of the State through one of its functional departments to bridge the gap: to say that these men at present unemployed, or who will be unemployed if production ceases, must be directed to production somehow, in one way or another. Now that one way or another is the problem. How is that problem to be solved? That is undoubtedly a very great difficulty, but it is one that will have to be solved if civilisation is to continue, and if the national life of this country is to continue. It may have to be solved by some rearrangement of the distribution of purchasing power, whether through some alteration in currency methods or otherwise, but some method will have to be found whereby the people can be turned on to productive operations, and in exchange for their activities of that kind, shall be given the right to participate in the distribution of the national wealth.
I think on the question of the effect of tariffs we have got to consider their effect upon this national wealth production. Our system of wealth production and distribution is one which throws responsibility upon the individual. There is handed over to the individual producer an estate in trust to do what he can for the national good, with the property which has been entrusted to him. If along with that responsibility we subject him to the danger that the undertaking of that responsibility exposes him to unreasonable and unfair competition, and at the same time as we hand over responsibility for carrying through the functions of production in the country we tell the people that it is their business to satisfy their appetite for cheapness, then we arrive at a contradiction which cannot continue. As against this propaganda: that we must seek the most in goods for the least in price, wherever we may get it, I put forward the other idea: that in our purchasing we have to consider the effect of that purchasing upon the national good. In that way I am led to the conclusion, as the line of least resistance—not necessarily as a permanent machinery—but as the line of least resistance in the circumstances of to-day, that where it can be shown that tariffs will assist the individual manufacturer or the farmer to produce more effectively, more efficiently, and more continuously with a fair likelihood of the business continuing, we, as consumers, are bound to give our support to that home manufacture, and if we have to overcome the natural desire for cheapness by the obstacle of a tariff, then I am prepared to support the proposition of the tariff.
But I ask are we going to consider this problem as other problems, not merely to support what is called industry (as though it were something apart from the human beings working in industry), but as something which is intended to help the life of the people and to protect them against unfair competition, competition which has the effect of degrading their standard of livelihood, whether that competition is from without or within? If so, the protectionist idea must be held to apply all round; the livelihood of the people must be protected and not merely the capitalist's investments in the particular industries in question. I say that there is no consistency in the position taken by some of the protectionist Deputies who have refused to protect the working man from the competition of the unorganised, the inefficient, and the unemployed while demanding protection for industries against competition from the outside. As regards the men who will support the Shannon scheme scale of wages which is confessedly, by the Minister, based upon the competition of hungry men outside, and who proclaim the propaganda of protection against the competition of more highly paid workmen in other countries, I say there is no consistency and no justification for that kind of protectionist campaign. Let us have our protection of national industries because national industries mean the national life, and the individual life, but let us not contend that we are to have free trade in human life in the country and the protection of capitalist industries against outside competition.
I am one of those deeply disappointed by the Budget statement. If this country was in a prosperous condition the Budget, which proposed to continue the tariffs of former years and to make no great change in the fiscal conditions of the country, would be acceptable, but the Budget of this year is drafted on old familiar lines—the lines practically of the old British Budget, and it might be a leaf torn out of one of Mr. Churchill's Budgets. One of the reasons why people in the Sinn Fein movement desired to get control of the fiscal powers of this nation was that they might devise a fiscal system suitable to the needs of the nation, a nation that is altogether different in its economic conditions from England. If this country were fairly prosperous no great change would be needed, but anyone going through the Free State at present cannot but be struck by the very depressed conditions that prevail. Tillage has been going down year by year to the lowest ebb, perhaps, of any country in Europe. The farming population cannot be blamed for not tilling when there is no prospect of remuneration for tillage. There is no tillage in the fields, and no work in the towns and villages. The towns are stagnant. All the workers may not be on the dole, and they may not be considering the purchase of their passages to America, but they are living on half-wages or no wages, and how some of them live is a mystery. Not only is there no work in our towns and villages, but there is no hope in the fiscal policy of the Government, as far as I can see, for restoring tillage or restoring work to our towns and villages. Underlying the statement in the Budget is a departure from the old Sinn Fein policy, and a very definite departure.
If there is one thing Arthur Griffith taught it was that not alone should we have political independence, and, as the Vice-President said some time ago, judicial independence, but we should also have economic independence. We have got rid of the British Army, and we should get rid of the British dumper and the British importer as well. We should give a chance to the Irish manufacturer, the Irish capitalist and the Irish artisan. Any claim that is made of that kind is met with insults and sneers—sneers against cupidity and greed of Irish manufacturers, against their helplessness, inefficiency and laziness. I am old enough to have heard every one of these and other adjectives applied to the farmers in their fight against the landlords. There is not a single charge made against Irish manufacturers and Irish artisans that was not made with every insult and contumely against the Irish farmers. These charges are just as true of the manufacturers as they were of the farmers. Everything that is said to-day against restoring factories and industries, giving life to our towns, and developing the productive capacity of our country, was said against the policy of setting up this Dáil. It was said, "Could you not get machinery, hats and clothes from England?" and in the same way it would be said, "Why have an army; can you not have the English Army? Why have Deputies; can you not have the old M.P.'s?" Everything that was said against these changes could be said against protection and with the same truth. I agree with Deputy Johnson that if you approach this question from the individual point of view you are approaching it from the wrong point of view. You should consider the question from the point of view of the nation. It was the consideration of these questions from the point of view of the nation rather than the individual that influenced men from 1916 to 1921 to sacrifice their time and liberty, and some of them their lives, for their country. It was looking at things from the point of view of the nation that made men insist that an effort should be made to restore the Irish language.
If we are not to have Irish industries developed, if we are not to have factories in our towns making the articles we use, in order to preserve the Irish nation, why should we endeavour to restore the language? Why have we an Army here? It is because of the nation. All these things go to the root, and that root is the interests of the nation. If you deny it in one case your argument will strike at every other contention. In every country in Europe, and in America as well, it is accepted that no nation can stand on its agricultural leg alone. It must have the industrial side developed also, because it is better for the stability of the nation, better for the mind of the nation, and better for a deeper culture. Here we are often told that agriculture is the main industry of the nation. So it is, but that is no argument against another industry. If you strike three legs from under a table and leave only one leg to keep it up it will be all right to praise that leg and say we should take good care of it, but there is no reason why the other legs should not be put there again.
In speaking on this question of protection and tariffs, which I advocate, I would point to the fact that every country in Europe, every country in the world, intelligent or not, has tariffs. There is in your library a book of 1,000 pages made up of a list of the tariffs of every country in the world. Some countries have 20 pages devoted to tariffs, and you have others with 50 pages and 100 pages, but the Free State is there with half a page of tariffs. If anyone should point to the United States or America and say: "Here is a country that has tariffs," the example would be laughed at, and it would be said that is a very big and wealthy country with great resources. Well, if it is a country with great resources, is not that all the more reason that it should not be protectionist? They have protection there for the last 200 years, and, rich though the country was, they found that protection was absolutely necessary if the industries of the country were to be built up.
During the war that ended in independence the industries of America got a great chance because English ships were not able to bring English goods. But the moment the war was over English ships came in again and destroyed the industries that flourished. That showed the need for protection. In McKinley's time, fifteen or twenty years ago, he found it necessary to increase protection until the United States was protected by a high tariff wall. Then in 1922 a statement was published by the Senate of America to the effect that it was necessary, in order to protect the wealthy American nation from the destructive European competition, to have further and increased protection. In 1922 they raised the tariff wall still higher to keep out the foreign articles and to give their own factories a chance, a patriotic and sensible thing to do. But we are told when we mention America that it is too large, in comparison with the Saorstát, to use as an argument in favour of protection. But take Brazil. Brazil did not see the wisdom of setting up tariffs, and as a result it is entirely dependent on its agriculture. Its towns are small, and until a few years ago its trade was stagnant. Then they put on some tariffs, and the result was that in a few years San Paulo sprang into existence and is now one of the largest cities in South America, and a British industrial organisation now complains that the only chance of getting British goods into Brazil at present is to set up factories inside the tariff wall. But Brazil is also a large country, and we will be told that it is not suitable for comparison with the Saorstát. Then let us take any country in the world, as small or as large as one likes, and it will be found that they are all protecting their native industries against the foreign importer. They support and protect the man who pays rates and taxes in the country. All the countries do that. Take New Zealand, for instance. I could give you a long list, but I do not wish to delay the Dáil too long, of the high import duties upon foreign goods that are put on by New Zealand. They range from 35 per cent. to 40 per cent., 55 per cent. and 60 per cent. on suits made to order, and so on down along the list. Perhaps New Zealand is not small enough for purposes of comparison; let us take the State of Newfoundland, which has not a population as large as Galway and Mayo together. Yet it has a high tariff wall. The smallness of the country or its population does not affect the arguments to any great extent. The people of Newfoundland realise that their factories must be given a chance to stand on their own feet. The towns must get a chance of growing up. There is a high tariff wall around Newfoundland.
Then we come to Denmark. Denmark took very good care to protect its industries. Forty per cent. of the people of Denmark are employed in industries. The Danish farmer is doing well because he has two markets. He has a profitable home market and the British market. Those who advocate protection in the Dáil say that tariffs will give to the Irish farmer the home market, and will not shut him out to the smallest extent from the British market. There are to-day in Great Britain rows of factories making goods for the Irish people who are paying big prices for those goods. Fifteen or sixteen millions of their money keep those factories working, and provides good employment for their well paid artisans. In those rural districts surrounding the towns where factories are set up the English farmer in the locality gets fine Irish money for his butter, eggs and poultry. Money that should be going into the pockets of the Irish farmer is going into the pockets of the English farmer. Millions of money that should support Irish industries is being paid for British articles, and Irishmen are flying out of the country or living in starvation or semi-starvation at home. This question will never be rightly approached until it is approached from a national point of view.
Hear, hear.
I am very glad to hear Deputy Gorey say "hear, hear," because if I could convince Deputy Gorey that the nation was interested in this question he would do with regard to protection what he did on a former occasion. When the liberty of this country was threatened by the gun, the Deputy had the courage to say that this is a national question, and he walked into the nearest town and got his rifle and uniform and risked his life because he believed it was a national question. Ninety per cent. of the neighbours around about him said he was a foolish man for doing that and they remained at home, or at least three-quarters of them remained at home. They did not risk their lives or their skin. They said: "There is Deputy Gorey going into Kilkenny; he ought to have more sense and stay at home." The national urge made him do the right thing then. But when it is a case of Irish manufacture, the rejection of an Irish suit and the taking of an English suit, I say he is not doing the right thing. There is a small section of people in this country who have all their lives been supporting Irish manufacture. They take care always to buy Irish tweeds, Irish boots and Irish hats. They see the neighbours around them buying the English article. One advantage of the tariff, at all events, is that all these people would have to do the patriotic thing whether they liked it or not, as well as the people who now buy Irish articles for patriotic reasons. Another reason why some of us support protection is that the present policy of this country practically provides for only one member of the farmer's family. One member will get the farm. What about the other sons and the other daughters? No provision is made for them.
The daughters get married.
There is scarcely anything to support them if they get married. When they get married they go down to Cork probably to buy a ticket for America. There is not much provision for them anyway. There is no work for them. This year 29,000 of them must emigrate as others had to emigrate last year. Those people emigrate from a country that boasts of the most fertile soil in Europe. We have the best breed of cattle in Europe, the best sheep, the best horses, the best poultry.
And the best men.
Notwithstanding all that 29,000 of our young men and women have to emigrate. Deputy Johnson said that something must be done to improve the production of the nation. One county in Ireland would produce all the food that is produced in the Saorstát at the moment. Not alone could Ireland support herself, but she could support all Great Britain. At present she cannot raise as much wheat as would feed the country for one week.
This question of whether Ireland could or could not sustain herself is by no means new. It was raised one or two hundred years ago. A great Irishman, the Protestant Bishop of Cloyne, was so disgusted at the ignorance of those who questioned Ireland's competence to support herself that he asked in one of his famous list of questions: "Could not Ireland support herself even if there was a brass wall built around the country?" Arthur Griffith very often quoted that question of Bishop Berkeley. Deputy Gorey once seemed to think that it was I put the question as to whether Ireland could not support herself if there was a brass wall round the country.
She could sell the brass.
Some people can laugh. They are more comfortable than those who have to go to America, anyhow. There are some who complain, and rightly complain, that a great deal of taxation is falling upon the farmer. If the millions of pounds worth of goods now made in Great Britain were made in our own little towns, those factories would be able to bear their portion of the burden of taxation and they would relieve agriculture to some extent. If they got some protection they would do it. Without protection we see the little factories shrivelling up.
I remember the time when there were a thousand hands in the town of Wexford engaged making ploughs and other agricultural implements. That number is reduced to-day, and fully 700 or 900 workers are idle or have gone away to England. In Athlone there were 700 or 800 employed in the woollen mills; there are only 300 or 400 employed there to-day. The same sad story can be told about the Galway woollen mills. No one can say that those workers were incompetent. If there is any shortcoming it is entirely due to the fact that we are side by side with the greatest and the wealthiest industrial nation in the world that is engaged in mass production and that has long centuries of experience behind it.
We can, however, recall the fact that Ireland was a busy centre in industry at one time, and our people never lost their skill or courage. Why should we abandon hope? We are commencing life anew; we have our own Parliament and our own laws. Why should we not start off with the object of completing the programme set before the country by Sinn Fein? Why not commence at once the effort to restore our industries? I was going to quote, but it is entirely unnecessary, the fine point put forward by Arthur Griffith in one of his articles when he told what animated him in his efforts. The same thing animated every soldier who fought just as it animated men like Arthur Griffith who planned. They had not in mind any single industry or any section or class; it was for the entire nation.
If you leave out protection you do not aim at building up the industrial life of the country. If you do not give the towns and the villages a chance, you are beggaring the nation: you are doing the farmer an injury and you are not giving the country a fair chance. Surely in our own Parliament we should alter the policy carried on by the English—the policy that deprived us of everything century after century and that crushed out every Irish industry. When they could not kill our industries by competition they killed them by legislation. They crushed almost every industry in Ireland, but, despite their efforts, there are some industries lingering and we ask you to give those industries some help. We have here a Deputy, Deputy O'Shaughnessy, who belongs to a family of flour millers that for seven generations have struggled to keep their industry in existence. He comes here to the native Parliament where he should be welcomed and encouraged. He put forward arguments upon which cold water was thrown. I think that such a state of affairs is to be regretted.
The attempts made to prove that free trade is as good for this country as protection resemble a sort of tightrope balancing. If this country had protection and had its factories working, and if men came here and proposed that protection should be removed, that foreign products should be allowed in, that we should export our young men and turn our land to grass, they would be taken out and shot. You could not convince any man in his calmer moments that the present system of ranching this country, allowing the land to go further and further into grass, allowing our towns to disappear and our people to go abroad, is the right one to follow. That, however, is the existing situation, through pure inertia, and it is hard to move the people to remedy it and adopt what is the proper policy.
Deputy Heffernan told us to abandon the idea of wheat growing. We have the same climate as England, and England grows thirty times more wheat than we do; if we grew as much wheat as England the Canadian farmer could give up all hope of sending his wheat here. All the small countries in Europe have put on tariffs against wheat and are now growing their own wheat. You see to-day a strike in England. If the strike continues in a few weeks we may have no coal. When we have another war we may have no wheat or no food. The ships, carrying wheat and flour to us, will have to stay at home and we will present a nice picture before the world not being able to grow as much wheat as will make cakes which the population want. Deputy Heffernan said he saw a line of waggons carrying wheat to the ports in Canada. If he waited a little longer he would have seen another row of trains bringing down cattle; ships are bringing frozen meat, from the ends of the earth, to the English market. All this points to the necessity of setting up a good home market. Every country will have a national economy of some kind depending for its food on articles of home production. There is no system of national economy that any nation might set up which could not be completely disorganised by powerful foreign competition if there is no tariff wall. Why should not this nation have a tariff wall if only to enable it to protect itself against unfair competition from abroad, the competition of blacks, coolies and others? We might have devised here a system of national economy that was best for the nation, and it is open to any country that has a surplus of foreign corn, foreign tweed, or foreign ploughs to torpedo the whole industrial system of the country when we have no shield to protect it. In that position we are alone amongst the nations of the earth. England preached the gospel of free trade because it suited her. Her factories were ahead of the others in the world. She was richer and better equipped for the race, and she said: "We should have no handicap, but start from scratch." Of course, she should when she was the fastest, but to a country not as well equipped as England free trade has spelled ruin. A ship coming with cheap goods to a nation may be more ruinous than a ship coming with hostile torpedoes. Take the case of the reparations to be made by Germany to France and Belgium. Those reparations were to be paid in certain manufactured articles. France and Belgium refused to take them because it meant a blow to their factories. It was a pity they did not send them to the Free State and destroy the last vestige of trade in this country. Ireland's ports are open to every foreigner who wants to smash our factories and send our people abroad.
Deputy Johnson raised a question as to what the advocates of protection say with regard to the worker. I am not going to follow Deputy Johnson into all the implications of his argument. If any capitalist sets up in this country and starts a factory as large as Ford's the capitalist will only get 5 per cent. for his money; 60 or 70 per cent. will go in wages to the hands, and I welcome that. If the Irish capitalist is not able to make goods for this country I would welcome capitalists from any part of the world so long as the work was done in the Free State and the hands got decent wages. At present articles to the value of £15,000,000, which could easily be made at home, are coming in. Some say, despite the example of cigarettes made in Dublin since the tariff, that those articles if made in Ireland would cost more. Even if they cost £16,000,000, £10,000,000 would be spent in wages, and taking the profits of the capitalists, £12,000,000 might be spent in wages, salaries, and dividends. At present we are able to pay £15,000,000. If you add to that the ten or twelve millions paid in the country we ought to be able to pay an additional one million pounds in price.
I can now say a word about the Tariff Commission. In America, where you have the shrewdest business men, you have two great parties—the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. I think both are protectionist. The Republican Party puts on a tariff in order to protect industries and the Democratic Party puts on the tariff for revenue. The American manufacturer does not care why they are put on as long as they are put on. Those two parties set up a Tariff Commission, but they did not give the Tariff Commission power to put on or reject a tariff. The duty of the Tariff Commission in America is to supply facts and to express no opinion. If we had two parties in this House in favour of protection I should have confidence in a Tariff Commission. If the Executive Council were in favour of protection I should have confidence in a Tariff Commission. But at present I have no confidence in any commission appointed, and I say this question should not be approached in a piecemeal way, but in a national way. It must not be approached industry by industry. It is not for an industry we are advocating protection but on behalf of the nation. It is no more sensible to approach it industry by industry than it would have been for the leaders of Sinn Fein in 1916, in 1920, or in 1921, to say: "This must be fought piecemeal. We must try ambushes in one county," or "we must try it on the R.I.C. and leave the military alone," or "try it on the Black-and-Tans and leave the Auxiliaries alone." They attacked the entire forces of the British Government. There is no argument for protection if it is not from the national point of view. It is from the national point of view, as Deputy Johnson said, that this point must be argued. A farmer's eldest son deserves every consideration from the State, but there are other sons as well, and the wealth of this country must be divided amongst them all.
It is not right that a farmer in Meath with a big ranch should have business correspondence with Yorkshire firms to whom he sends his pigs, horses, cattle and butter, and should get from the same district tweeds, boots and other goods, and that he should then tell the rest of the country to go to Jericho. Such a system, according to Arthur Griffith, would reduce the country to a cross between a ranch and a workhouse. The question of protection must be approached from the national point of view. No matter what system of free trade you have you are not going to get more wealth out of the country. Some time ago a certain journal published mass figures in its policy of criticism, but I wish it would publish mass figures showing what we pay to foreign countries for our boots, what it costs to import them. It should also take up the question of the importation of such articles as tweeds, furniture, and ploughs, and it should show how, under a policy of protection, millions of pounds could be saved to this country. The country would soon be convinced, if that were done, that its greatest interest is to follow the example of other countries by protecting home industries instead of paying the foreigner who contributes no rates or taxes and who does not care a straw if this country is at the bottom of the sea.
Somehow one feels that Deputy Sears is sincere, but one would like to hear a better case made on behalf of the Deputy's policy before one could be convinced that the Deputy's case is sound. I want to make it clear at the outset on behalf of the farmers for whom we speak that we are as interested in seeing the industries of this country built up as is Deputy Sears, and we are as interested in the national well-being and in the future of the Irish nation as any advocate of protection in, or outside, this House. If Deputies endeavour to place the Farmers' Party in the position of appearing to stand against the restoration of Irish industries because they advocate a policy of free trade, I say that that is not fair to our party, that such persons are not making an honest effort to examine the problems with which we are faced, and that their arguments are unsound. On the last occasion when this question was discussed the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Deputy O'Shaughnessy and others made a special plea that protective tariffs were essential to the interests of the nation, and I think Deputy Sears would go so far as to say that the Irish nation will not live unless it has protective tariffs. Some of them definitely attempted to put everyone, Deputy or otherwise, who suggested that free trade was the best thing for the country, in the category of what are termed "West Britons." I, for one, refuse to permit such people to make such a case against me, or against the farmers, and if no better case can be made for their policy than that I suggest that such people should sit down and think.
For generations past there has been no such thing as free trade in this country, at least in the sense in which it exists in other countries which are self-governing, with an executive responsible to the people, and with opportunities for internal developments, and when Deputy Sears suggests that it was the policy of free trade which was responsible for the decay of our industries and for the emigration of our people I suggest that he should re-examine the position. As a matter of fact, Irish industries died because they had not free trade. Free trade means opportunity to sell in the best possible conditions. As I say, our industries did not get the advantage of free trade in the past, and, while it is regrettable that we have emigration to-day, I suggest that that is because our national development was stunted for generations. I am going to be honest enough to suggest that emigration will last for some time to come, and I further say, if measures are taken to stop it by bringing into existence industries by means of tariffs, the people will again go away because such industries cannot live here under those conditions. We hope to be able to lay the foundations whereby our people can get a living in their own country, but hasty measures or ill-considered schemes will not secure that end. Let us be certain, before we turn people from certain channels of labour into other channels, before we think of turning some of the people who are at present on the land into industries that are to be built up here, that these industries are not going to be built up at the expense of the people who are at present on the land, with the danger that more people may be driven off the land than should leave it.
I sometimes imagine that a good many people who speak in the name of Irish nationality are actually conspiring against the Irish nation and its future existence. What could be more foolish than that any body of men should advocate a policy for a people to pursue if that policy is not sound and will not stand the test? I said before in this House that I do not believe the Irish nation could have come through what it has lived through in the past but for the fact that the great body of our people get their existence from the land. If we are not going to accept that as a fundamental fact in the life of the nation, I suggest seriously that its future is endangered. If we do not keep in the forefront, in anything that we are going to do, the idea that agriculture must be in no way hampered or impeded in its progress, that those engaged in it must be facilitated in every way, and that whatever national policy is pursued must keep in mind what the agricultural industry is to the Irish nation, any policy embarked upon will be found to be unsound. Deputy Sears or Labour Deputies may advise to the contrary. Whatever their faith may be in industrial centres being built up here, let them consider whether they want to see a state of industrialism here such as there is across the Channel, where the very lives of 40 million people are, to some extent at any rate, endangered because of the system of industrialism prevailing there.
Deputy Sears talked about protection in other countries and the tariff walls that are built up there. Is it not an amazing thing that with all this progressive thought and intense nationalism on the part of those other nations that Deputy Sears refers to, the people of this country can manage to sell anything at all outside its shores? If those nations were pursuing the policy that Deputy Sears would suggest is the wise one for the Irish people to follow, could we send anything outside the four shores of Ireland? I cannot see how we could, because most of these countries have the possibilities of producing practically all the things they need. They are not doing it. It would not be sound as an economic proposition to most of them. I have no doubt they have considered it and have come to the conclusion that they will produce what they can produce most economically and efficiently and purchase from other people what they cannot themselves produce efficiently and economically. If we are to be an entity in the world of to-day, I think we will have to pursue the policy that other nations follow and make up our minds to buy from other people and to sell to other people. If Deputy Sears and the other tariff reformers stand absolutely against selling anything to anybody and buying anything from anybody, let them be candid and clear about it, and tell us that they mean that.
Does the Deputy suggest that I said that protectionist countries have no overseas trade? That would be silly, and I never said any such thing. America, which is a highly protectionist country, is able to undersell English manufacturers and pay higher wages.
If the Deputy will only make inquiries he will find that even protective countries buy products from outside countries. If his policy were to be pursued, it seems to me we would have some sort of an intense nationalism that would refuse to buy from, or sell to, any national but our own, and we could not have any contact with an outside national. I think that would be most extraordinary. Even though the Deputy did not make a good case, I am not going to give him credit for suggesting that he is prepared to go that far.
It would be a very bad case if I said what the Deputy says I meant.
Let us consider the Deputy's policy of protection and apply it to things as we find them here to-day. This nation is living almost entirely on the labours of the people on the land. No one will suggest otherwise. You cannot change all that in a night with a sweep of the hand. Whether the agricultural industry is well-managed or not, whether we are getting the best out of it that could be got is another matter. We cannot exchange it for the phantom industries that Deputy Sears would build up in a night.
What I said was that you should leave the eldest son on the farm. I said nothing about reducing the number of holdings or farmers, but I said that there should be work provided for the other sons of the farmer. Will the Deputy meet that point?
I am trying to point out that Deputy Sears' policy might have the effect of inducing the eldest son on the farm to go also.
Induce him to stay at home.
It is rather difficult to get many tariff reformers to come down to practical matters. I confess I find it very difficult to follow the abstruse arguments advanced on this problem. We have to regard it from the point of view of people, the majority of whom are agriculturists, and from the point of view of a nation that is dependent for its existence on the agricultural industry. What does the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs say?
He says we all have to wear clothes and boots.
I will deal with that later on. We are not unpatriotic when looking at things in that light——
He who excuses accuses.
Deputy Baxter is entitled to make his case.
They do not want to hear the case. We must consider whether the policy of protective tariffs introduced in a general way, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs suggested, followed by Deputy Sears, will have a detrimental effect upon agricultural industry and consequently upon the Irish nation or not. That is the problem we have to decide. I suggest they have not fully considered it, or if they have they have arrived at an unwise decision. A tariff will inevitably raise the cost of the article protected. Some people question the truth of that, but we know that in the case of many articles the price will be raised consequent on a tariff being put on. The farmers to-day, Deputy Sears tells us, are crying out for protection.
What about North Roscommon?
And also Galway?
I conceive that you can make a case for anything, right or wrong, but it is really a question whether your case is sound or not. There are men who can make out a case for protection for the farmers. If you apply protection, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs would apply it, if you go in for it indiscriminately, you are going to apply it to agriculture. What is the position in that industry? What is the matter with that industry for years past, particularly since the war? The great trouble is that Irish farmers are not able to compete and hold their own against the farmers of other countries, and sell as good an article and as cheaply. I suggest we cannot get ourselves away from the world as it is to-day. If we have to live in it we must live in it fully. I cannot see Deputy Sears, or the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, raising a population here within a number of years that is going to consume our agricultural produce. We must sell: we have to keep that in mind. If you make inquiries of the people who have to do with the marketing of agricultural produce among our competitors, you discover that only a couple of months ago the Irish pork-curer was not able to sell because of the intense foreign competition. He was not able to sell at as low a price, and any other price would not pay him, and why? Because the price he had to give the farmers for the pork was so high. He had to get a certain figure to pay his way, and carry on, and we could not sell at any lower price, and why? Because of our rates and taxes and the price we have to pay for the commodities that we have to buy.
Undoubtedly the price we have to pay for articles, which we require, must determine the figure at which we can sell. If we do not sell, and if we have not the produce to sell, I cannot see that it is possible for anybody else, bad as we are doing our business, to take our place, and find the money in this country that will keep the population, and enable them and a responsible Executive to pay the way of the State and to carry on. Before you put us in a worse position than we are at present, be wise in time and consider whether your action will have that effect or not. It is the same with Canadian cattle and with our butter and eggs. Tariff reformers ask us why not put a tariff on foreign products coming into this country? They say: Keep out all foreign stuffs that we grow here. Will they add that is going to raise the price for our commodities? I suggest it will raise the price to the consumer undoubtedly, but I am not convinced that it is going to give the Irish farmer more money. The depression in the State is due to the fact that the Irish farmers are not getting as much money for what they sell as they require. Tariffs will not be a guarantee that you are going to put more cash into the farmers' pocket for their produce. It is going to have this very serious effect. We have often been told, from the Government benches, that there are any amount of things that the farmers in this country could do for themselves instead of appealing to the Government or anybody else.
I am not prepared to say that there are not many things that the farmers could do for themselves without Government aid. If you are going to do something, through the operations of a protective tariff, to make the Irish farmer build up that prosperity which it is said will come to him through the operations of these tariffs, it is going to have this psychological effect, I assure you, upon the Irish farmers. He will turn from the sure path he is following, from his efforts to grade up his cattle, his poultry and his eggs, and do like some of the industrialists: sit back on his oars, wondering what some Minister of Finance or other is going to give him. If you are going to build up a healthy State and get the type of citizen that will be a real asset to the country, prepared to hold his own, in his own or the world's market, against the best that the world can produce, I urge you to do nothing whatever that will turn him away from a sound policy of trying to produce the greatest possible quantity, of trying to produce an article of the highest standard, and trying at the same time to sell at a low figure, in order to hold his own against competitors whether in his own country or in any other country.
If we do our part, so that the farmer will do his best on his own land trying to make the most of it, and to get the heaviest yields in crops, grading up live stock and marketing produce in the best possible conditions and following that course consistently, I suggest that you would have here in this State, a people who would not alone be a credit to the State, but an example to the world. Tariff reformers would be much better employed in going amongst the people in this country and telling them that if they are going to hold their own they can only do so by hard work and by making sacrifices, by having the grit at times in the interest of the country to do it. In that way you will get the best type of citizen that will be able to help the State.
I have no hesitation whatever in saying that I do not want an agricultural policy pursued that will take the minds of our farmers away from that very necessary work, from following the policy that has made it possible for farmers in other lands to meet us and to beat us. I believe that if our farmers concentrate on their business, if they get a chance, get a fair opportunity by reason of the State not interfering with them in their business and not burdening them too heavily in their efforts, they will be able to hold their own against the world's best. If we accept it that agriculture is the foundation of things in this country let us be sure that our policy in regard to it is sound. Otherwise we will be heading for the same kind of situation as confronts the people of England to-day, where the staple industry, the industry that is the foundation of England's greatness, is holding up the life of the nation, because that industry cannot pay its way, because on the one side the people who are managing it, and on the other side the people who are working it, are calling on the taxpayers for help to enable them to carry on. What plight would the Saorstát be in if you put agriculture into the same position, between the people who own it and work it on the one hand, and the State on the other, with the industry not able to pay its way and appealing to the State to subsidise it? Do you want to put it in that position? If you do not, I say, beware. No matter how strong the plea that may be made on behalf of our industries, the farmer who is thinking keenly about his own business ought and must consider what effect this policy of tariff reform would have on him. I want to suggest to the tariff reformers, here and outside, that when they stand up again on behalf of that policy they should not state that the people who stand against it are anti-national and anti-Irish. They are nothing of the kind.
Arthur Griffith has been quoted. Arthur Griffith's teachings were accepted and followed by many men in this country. I suggest, with great respect to his memory, that if he were here to-day, and considering what was the wisest policy to pursue, in his riper experience he might even suggest, might I say to his almost fanatical followers, that the time was not ripe, that they would be ill-advised to do what they are now urging. That is the plea that we make. We do not want to be interpreted as standing against the resurrection of the industries that have gone out of existence or of the keeping in existence and the working more fully of those that still live. Deputy O'Shaughnessy told the House the other day that all he had in the world he had put into Irish industry. Thousands of people, three-fourths of the people, have put all that they have into Irish industry. What have all the farmers done? Where have they their possessions? Is not agriculture an Irish industry? And on behalf of a few, are the possessions of the many to be endangered? There are two sides to every case. We know that many industries are finding it very difficult to carry on. We suggest that there are a good many people in this country keenly interested in this policy of protection, and so keenly interested in it that I am prepared to state they are ready to spend more money in the furtherance of that policy than the people who are styled free traders.
I do not think that any of the industries on behalf of which a plea is made can be said to be in greater distress than agriculture. Beyond question there are thousands of people interested in that industry a good deal worse off than the worst off of the industries for which the tariff reformers make a plea. Take care that you do not put these people out of existence. In a very able speech on last year's Budget the Minister for Finance pleaded for a national policy that would, as he termed it, give us a fuller life. We recognise that the existence of industries here would certainly give the nation a fuller life. For the farmers the system would be more complete, and, within reason, where we can help without endangering our own existence we are prepared to help. We are as sympathetic as we can possibly be. We are prepared to urge that the same assistance, educational and otherwise, as is given to the agricultural industry by a Department of State should be given to the industrialists by another Department. If better education will help them, let them get better education. If better marketing facilities will assist, let such a Department of State aid them. If capital is limited and if an extension of credit facilities will assist these factories, let that aspect be considered. We feel in this respect that there is a wide field for the people in these industries to employ their time to their own advantage and to the advantage of the industries, if they gave that aspect a little more consideration. We know quite well that there is not the technical skill here to enable us to compete with industrialists in other countries; we know our people will not be able to produce as much and to do the work as well, because they have not the technical training. They cannot expect to be paid at the same rate as more skilled people when they are not able to turn out as much. No good farmer will agree to be placed on the same pedestal as a farmer who does his work very inefficiently, and he will not be prepared to take the same return for his work. A condition of things that would give the careless, thriftless, unscientific man as good a return in cash as the man who did his work well is one that, I think, would not find favour with many honest men, and rightly so.
Technical training is undoubtedly required if our industries are to hold their own. Better education is required. Undoubtedly methods of marketing leave a large amount of room for improvement, even in the case of those industries that have managed to struggle on in spite of depression. If a Department of State can help in that way, let it help. If further capital will assist in the development of these industries it should be carefully considered whether it should be provided or not. But the alternative that is suggested is unwise and ill-timed. It would not bring the results that its advocates hold out it would bring; it would endanger to a great extent the existence of those industries that are struggling along under difficulties; it would have a bad effect on the stability of the State itself, and in face of those facts that have been forced home on us, we do not consider that it is wise in the national interests that the policy of protection, as advocated here, should be applied to the country at present.
I feel that I cannot join in the congratulations to the Minister on his Budget. I feel that the Minister has acted like the unprofitable, foolish, unthrifty farmer, to whom the last speaker has referred, who looks around on one side and the other, to see where he is going to find the means of meeting a pressing bill. The Minister has got to meet the burden of the Government of the country, but in his Budget he has failed signally to see one important source of revenue, not alone in this country but in every country. That is production. He has not taken the necessary steps to see that production, not alone in one department, not alone in one industry, not alone in one part of the country but in every part, should be promoted by every means at our disposal. When I say "every means" I say so guardedly. I mean every feasible means, every rational means, every wise economic means, should be used. I want Deputies to understand clearly that I absolutely protest against the bolstering up of an industry where there has been mismanagement, where there has been neglect of the usual business methods that should be followed in any concern. I personally would vote and urge that no help should be given to any industry where that industry has fallen away or where it is liable to be put out of the market altogether because there has been neglect in it.
Deputy Baxter has made many statements, but I somehow think that he has not looked rightly into the situation. He has not carefully considered the whole matter. He refers to some remarks perhaps made from these Benches that those who are free traders could not be patriotic. I do not know that anyone would say that everyone who is a free trader is not patriotic, but it is quite possible that those who support the policy of free trade may be unpatriotic in their actions, because they do not properly consider the results of the policy of free trade as applied to this country and to others. Deputy Baxter referred to agriculture. I do not know, and I do not think any Deputy knows of any agricultural country in the world which has not protection of some form or another. Deputies may remember reading the history of the struggle of free trade in England. I referred to it briefly last year, on the introduction of the Budget, that from 1845 to 1865 the English farmer fought free trade. Why? Because it was absolutely necessary. Why were the English farmers beaten in their opposition to a policy which was injurious to their industry? Simply because the large working class in England, in the mines and factories, had to be fed. Ship owners were quite as anxious to bring goods into the country as to take out exports. In fact, some of them are keener on taking goods into the country than on giving cheap rates to the industries of their own country to help them. They generally make them pay. All these people combined in England and showed that if the English industries were to be developed the people should have cheap food, with the result that after a fight of twenty years, the manufacturers, the working class and the ship owners practically won.
A Deputy, on the last occasion this matter was before the House, referred to the fact that this Government had not been sent to the Dáil with any distinct instructions or any distinct policy regarding tariffs from their constituents. I would like to ask any Deputy at what period in Irish history did the people of Ireland refuse to develop the industries of the country? Those of them who have read their Lecky will remember the period of Grattan's Parliament, the period when there was a Protestant Parliament of representative and patriotic Irishmen. It was through the success of that Protestant Parliament—I say it advisedly and intentionally, because they were Irishmen in the truest sense of the word— that the country was developed. That Parliament went in for the development of the country on lines that they thought was best, with the result that the population was increased to eight millions, that they created by their action a huge home market, and that they protected the people from the dangers arising not alone from dumping but from war and trouble in other countries. This Parliament left them free at a time when their export trade might be stopped through an outbreak of foot and mouth disease or some kindred trouble. It left them with a strong home market from which there was always a demand for their products.
Isaac Butt, when he started his Home Rule movement, had as one plank in his platform the industrial revival of Ireland. The Irish Party, under Parnell and Davitt, in making an effort to do away with landlordism and to get rid of the dual ownership of land, made it clear that Ireland would never fully attain to the position of independence to which she was entitled, unless her industries were developed and unless some of her lost industries, if that were possible, were revived. We know what the Sinn Fein movement was. We know what Arthur Griffith stood for. Deputy Baxter, when referring to him, stated what I am quite certain, in his calmer moments, he would not state: that if Arthur Griffith found himself in the altered conditions which obtain now he might not advocate the policy which he advocated then. Griffith advocated that policy for five and thirty years or longer. He advocated it, as he pointed out in 1911, when he said: "I do not advocate this policy or I do not believe in false sentiment or sentimentality. I believe in the calm, cool, deliberate building up of a nation and of her industries, beginning with the agricultural industry, which requires to be placed in a better position." It has to be done if we are going to build up a nation, but it is not by the wild talk of patriotism. It is by the calm determination of the people to use every means to build up every industry in the country that can be built up. What he said at that time he passed on to those who followed him. I heard the present Minister for Finance in the South of Ireland, when he was advocating the policy of Sinn Fein, preach the industrial revival of Ireland.
I will read a statement that was made by the late Mr. John Redmond at Maryborough in 1907. Before doing so I submit that there has always been in this country a determination at the back of every national movement, Home Rule or otherwise, to support the industrial development of the country. Mr. Redmond said:
"Well, now, my own personal conviction is that you will never have a really successful industrial development in Ireland, you will never really stop emigration in Ireland by any means except under the fostering care of a native Parliament and a native government. But, fellow-countrymen, that is no reason why we should fold our arms and do nothing. On the contrary, it is our duty to press upon the Government of the day, by exposure on the floor of the House of Commons, by votes in the Division Lobby, by appeals to the masses of the English workingmen—to press upon the Government of the day those steps which we consider they can take to improve the industrial condition of Ireland. And, besides, we should do, individually and collectively, all that is in our power to do to revive Irish industries, and believe me, if we all act together we can do something."
That was in case England had been true to him in the promise of Home Rule. On the same occasion Mr. Redmond referred to a report that had just been published concerning the Department of Agriculture, containing the views of Mr. Micks:—
"There was published the other day a most remarkable minority report [Mr. Mick's Report] from the Commission which has been inquiring into the working of the Agricultural Department in Dublin. That report in substance amounts to this: that while the Agricultural Department, no doubt, was, in certain respects, doing good work, and might do better work if better organised, at the same time that it could never adequately deal with the question of industrial revival. And this report recommended the creation in Ireland, on the same lines as the Congested Districts Board, of a Development Department, which should be independent of the Agricultural Department, independent of Dublin Castle, independent of the English Department, and responsible to Irish public opinion, and elected by the Irish people themselves."
The Report recommended that the Department should be given one million for twenty years and that the money should be devoted to initiating and fostering native industries and supporting existing ones.
There must have been an election in Maryborough at that time.
I think it is unfair to say that about the late Mr. Redmond. Perhaps I knew Mr. Redmond longer than Deputy Gorey. I can certainly state that Mr. Redmond had the welfare of Irish industry in mind just as much as he believed that this country should have Home Rule. I am certain that other Deputies who knew Mr. Redmond will agree.
Applause.
I never asked for applause for anyone. I am not out for protection in Ireland for any political party. I am out for the development of this country, and if there is any better way than tariff reform I am prepared to follow that policy.
The Deputy must address the Chair.
I am sorry. Sir John Stuart Mill said that when a country's trade was interfered with by legislation it was the duty of the people of that country to legislate, and see that the industries that had been taken from them by others were brought back. That is the statement of a Free Trader. William III. said it was his intention to legislate so that the Irish woollen industry would be wiped out in the interests of England. As a Free Trader, M. Yves Guyot said, that where foreign produce was placed in their country under conditions that were disadvantageous to existing industries they should protect their own existing industries. He was a Free Trader. Sir Alfred Mond said: "The Balfour of Burleigh Committee was unanimous in regard to dumping. I wonder whether we are all at one in what we understand by dumping. I have always defined it, and I think it is a general definition, as sales, as part of a deliberate policy, made by the producers of one country in order to ruin or destroy an industry in another country. That is the underlying idea of what we understand by dumping, and that is the view we have taken in the Bill."
The result is that they have now protected gloves, leather, silk and some other industries in England, a Free Trade country. They have protected these industries because there was dumping from other countries, because their own industries were being wiped out, and the capital invested in them lost, not alone to the individual, but the nation. Deputy MacBride stated that as good flour is not made in Ireland as is made in England. The Deputy mentioned Spillers and Bakers, and other firms, and said that Irish millers were not making as good flour. I say that that statement is absolutely incorrect. There are seven grades of wheat coming from Manitoba. Grades 1 and 2 are almost exclusively used in Ireland. English millers mix wheat that is partly Australian, partly South African maize and some Indian wheat in making their flour. That is not so in Ireland. With some knowledge of the trade I maintain that there is no flour at present produced in England or America that could beat the flour produced in the Irish mills. I have seen it tested and baked sample for sample. The Minister referred to the price of wheat and referred to the Mark Lane quotations. The Minister ought to know that the Mark Lane quotations were very incorrect last year when Irish farmers had barley to sell. It is noticeable that the quotations on the Dublin markets run: "Oats the same as last week." When the "last week" is referred to the same report appears. It would be necessary to go back a very long time to find the exact quotation. If there is a slump in the market the statement goes: "There is a marked decline of 1/6 a barrel for white oats, or 1/- a barrel for black oats." On seeing that the farmer sells at once. The Minister does not tell us what period of the year he took this quotation from Mark Lane. I know that there are different brands of wheat placed on the markets in England and at certain periods of the year the prices vary considerably. He does not say when the price of Irish wheat was so much over the other. There is another matter he seems to have forgotten— that the growing of wheat in Ireland has not been usual for some years, because there was not a market for it. The bulk of the wheat grown in Ireland has been fed to fowl because, as fowl breeders know, it is one of the best foodstuffs for fowl. When the Minister speaks of the price for Irish wheat he should realise that if you have only a limited supply and a fairly large demand the price has got to be good. He tells us that the Irish farmer got 20/- a barrel for barley and 24/- a barrel for wheat. Surely the Minister knows that land that grows barley cannot grow wheat. You can grow wheat and mangolds or barley and turnips. Certain land that will grow very little wheat would grow a good crop of barley. But the Minister should know that in practically half of the twenty-six counties you could not grow wheat at a profit at all. There is some land which is most valuable to the farmer as wheat land but which is of very little value for anything else. There is some wheat land in this country as good as any that is to be got in Great Britain or in many of the countries of Europe. To discuss wheat on the Minister's lines is, to my mind, rather hopeless. You cannot go by Mark Lane quotations. If you go by those quotations, why not go by world quotations and consider the quotations in the Baltic, Chicago, Liverpool and other centres? The Minister should not confine himself to the Mark Lane quotation any more than he should confine himself to the Dublin quotation.
The Minister referred to the bacon industry. I do wish Deputy McKenna would talk to us about the bacon industry, because he has more than a cursory knowledge of it. He has a real knowledge of it. There is no use telling us that pigs will be down in price at a certain time in Ireland on account of the number of young pigs that have come into being in America. We have bacon-curers in Ireland who have a greater interest in their American trade than in the Irish trade. They want no protection. Why should they when they are interested in the American trade? And why the requirements as to the weight? The Minister for Agriculture says that they will not get as good a return for the heavier weight as for the lighter weight. I am afraid he is not correct in that, because anybody who has fed cattle, sheep or pigs knows that, in the final stages, they give a better return for feeding than they do in the earlier stages.
The Minister referred to the fact that one flour miller in Ireland stated that he did not want protection. He rather pointedly suggested that other millers wanted protection because they were not managing their business properly. If you have a certain miller who purchases seven or eight mills, gets those rivals out of his way, who commands the trade of that district and gets all the possible customers within a certain radius, and if the same gentleman happens to be at the head of a flour mill to fix the price, tariffs are not going to do much for him. If other things could be changed, tariffs might be useful to him, but as they cannot he is not interested. But if the bulk of your flour mills are wiped out, what is going to happen? What is going to happen in connection with unemployment and the capital invested in these mills, whether they be woollen mills or flour mills? The surplus of the foreign flour mills is being dumped in this country without profit, because they want to keep their mills working full time, which, as we all know, is an advantage. The farmer knows that if he has to pay a man for six days of the week and he has only three days' work for him, his bank balance will be unsatisfactory at the end of the year. These people want to keep their mills going, to keep a full output and to keep their staffs at work, and, as a result, when they have finished with their profitable market, they get rid of the overflow. When the Irish mills are got rid of, I can assure the people here that they will pay a higher price for their flour than they are paying at present. Reference has been made to oatmeal.
No.
There is a slight tariff on that product, and reference was made to by-products. I do not think the tariff on oatmeal is of much value at all. It will help the man who is going to send over packets of Quaker Oats, for which the unfortunate consumers will have to give 5½d. instead of 5d. It would be far better if the people bought by the quarter stone instead of buying in this manner, by which they pay for the carton or box and do not get their weight. If a tariff be put on at all it should be doubled on stuff sent in packets, but even then I do not think it would be of much avail unless there was combined a tariff on foreign oats. I suppose points will be raised about the difficulty of that. I do not see why these points should be raised. If 3/- per barrel were put on oats, excepting seed oats, coming into Ireland, why should there be any trouble in relation to the seed oats? Seed oats come from half a dozen exporters from several countries, particularly Scotland. They are consigned to a certain wholesale man in Dublin. He has a full return of the oats sent to him as seed. He invoices it to dealers or retailers in the country or to the farmers direct. On his books there is a record of every farmer who gets two or three tons of oats for seed purposes. The Gárda Síochána make a return of the amount of land under tillage in different parts of the country. If a man sent for 20 or 30 barrels of seed for his garden, it would be quite easy to see whether he used that seed or not or whether his garden was tilled or not. I do not see any insurmountable obstacle in imposing a tariff of 3/- on oats and allowing seed oats in free. The statement has been made that Irish oats is not the best for feeding. The late James Daly never fed his horses on anything but Irish potato oats, and he was probably the best judge of a hunter in the British Isles. The men at the Curragh—Ussher and the others—are feeding their horses on Irish oats. Major Edwards and numbers of others who have bred some of the best horses in the country, have fed them exclusively on Irish oats. When they get in Canadian oats, they have to damp it before feeding it to the horses or mix it with a small portion of Irish oats.
The statements made about Irish oats are most unfair. There is no occasion whatever to go to other countries for oats to feed the horses, even the very best blood horses that we have in this country. If it is said that these oats cannot be produced in Ireland I give that a flat denial. The men who breed horses would also deny it if they were asked. A tariff should be put on oats, but not on seed oats. I believe, even as regards seed oats, that we could do what was done in the case of potatoes. If you had an exchange of good seed oats between the different counties you would, I believe, soon reach the stage when there would be no necessity to import after some years. A statement was made to the effect that Irish oats were not suitable for manufacture into oatmeal. The Drogheda Oatmeal Company and the firm of McCann and Hill, of Drogheda, use Irish oats exclusively for the manufacture of oatmeal. The firm of McCann and Hill got medals not only in Ireland, but all through the States, for the quality of the oatmeal they manufactured from home-grown oats. The suggestion that Irish oats is not suitable for manufacture into oatmeal is a hopeless one to put forward. Medical men have expressed the opinion that Irish oatmeal is a healthier product than the oatmeal coming here from other countries. Deputy Baxter referred to the prices we have to pay for the articles that we have to buy. The Deputy said that the farmers do not get enough for what they have to sell. I quite agree with him. Does Deputy Baxter, or those who think with him, believe that by placing the Irish farmer in a position where he has to meet competition from New Zealand, Canada and America, protected countries which dump their surplus stuff in this country, that that is going to assist the farmers? The Deputy suggested that the farmers would go off the land if industries were started in the towns. I have not heard of any industry that was started recently which was not connected with agriculture. The woollen and bacon industries are connected with agriculture, and the milling industry, which I hope we will be able to develop, is also connected with it. Last year Deputy Hogan, speaking to me in the presence of Deputy Wilson, referred to the fact that there should be a larger quantity of wheat grown. He said that the Irish mills could use from 30 to 40 per cent. of it. In that connection I can give one of those quotations beloved by Deputy Connor Hogan:
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale.
That is from Macbeth, though I think I did not hear Deputy Connor Hogan give that particular quotation. The Minister for Agriculture spoke of the percentage of Irish wheat that could be grown, and now we hear the suggestion that the Irish millers are prepared to use 14 per cent. of Irish wheat. Still the Minister criticises it on the grounds that one or two millers do not require protection. Perhaps the Minister is not aware that these one or two millers have vested interests elsewhere. Therefore, I suggest that the country will have to take cognisance of a lot of these statements that are being made, and recognise that there are many interested parties in Ireland. The Minister for Finance occasionally gets useful information from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Reading over the list of members of that body, one will see that dumpers are largely represented on that Chamber. There are on it representatives of foreign wholesale houses. You have on it shipowners who are interested in bringing foreign produce into this country and who are out against Irish industries. From the selfish point of view one can quite understand that as they represent the wholesale establishments of other countries they wish to continue dumping in this country. Under existing conditions there cannot be progress in this country. The ratepayers of the country are principally farmers, of whom I am one, and there are several others on these Benches. They have to pay the dole to men standing idle by the walls. You have workers who are prepared to work but cannot get employment because the farmers are not in a position to provide them with work, and there is no use pretending otherwise. You have certain farmers who have attained a certain degree of skill in marketing their produce, and of them perhaps it may be said that they are making a fair living, but the bulk of the farmers are not in a prosperous condition. In present conditions what can the farmers do when they have their children educated except to send them away to some other country? At present, too many of them are sending their children to schools to learn typewriting and shorthand principally. You never had more typists turned out in Ireland than you have to-day, and they all practically have either to stay at home idle or to leave the country. Is that a healthy state of things? Or is it a healthy state of things to have workers in the towns living on the dole, men who are quite willing to work but cannot get it, at least the great majority of them? Emigration from Ireland last year was greater than from any other country of its size in the world. Is that a sign of progress, or of the advantage that self-government has been to our people? With regard to Deputy Baxter's remarks as to things being in the hands of the farmers themselves, I agree that a number of the farmers have always been inclined to develop their industry. I know a number of farmers, who, before ever there was a live stock society in the country, put up out of their own pockets prizes to the value of £30 for bulls. There was no question of a Department of Agriculture then. I know, too, of farmers who by their own initiative shipped eggs to England because they got better prices for them there. We know that farmers with 10 and 11 acres of land have cattle giving a record milk yield that the biggest farmers in the country cannot dare to touch. Some of the Bills that we passed through this House would not be necessary if farmers generally had imitated those I have been speaking of and worked hard for the development of their industry.
Like slaves.
No man is a slave who works. The real slave is the idler. The only man who is a slave is the one who is not prepared to do a day's work either with his head or with his hand. The best thing to do with such people would be to send them to prison, where they would be compelled to work. It is only a small section who will not work. The bulk of those who are idle want work and cannot get it, and they are inclined to be more industrious than many of the wealthy people. You will find amongst the wealthy classes, as amongst other classes, people who are not prepared to work. It would be better if some of those wealthy people who talk about work and labour would turn out and give good example by doing something themselves, or else invest their money in such a way that it would provide employment for people who need it. That would be better than merely indulging in criticism.
There are many other points that I had intended dealing with, but as I have detained the House at some length I do not propose to speak on them now. I take it that I will have another opportunity of dealing with matters that so far I have not touched on. I want to say to some of the Farmer Deputies who have spoken of free trade that their idea of free trade seems to be to protect the foreigner in their own market. I am sorry that Deputy Baxter is not here, because I am anxious that he should get a firm grip of that. Their idea is to protect the foreigner and to leave themselves unprotected. Abuse is not argument, and calling people unnational and unpatriotic will not get you anywhere. We have to consider that this is a matter that is vital to the nation and to all of us. We have to remember that there is a lot of surplus stuff placed in this country by protected nations. We have power under the Treaty to deal with that state of affairs. The use of our fiscal powers is a matter on which the late Arthur Griffith placed the greatest importance after a life-study of the subject. For instance, you might use your fiscal powers with a country like America, for the purpose of bargaining as regards the free admission to that country of fish from the Saorstát. If you put a tariff on American bacon here you could use that as a quid pro quo and as something to bargain with. If you do not use your fiscal powers you have nothing to bargain with. These fiscal powers could be used for the development of trade. We are not using them for that purpose, and it is time, I think, that the people of this country should consider this question seriously.
Another thing that has to be considered is that the younger generation on the land has to be provided for. The farmer, under existing circumstances, cannot afford to support a family of five or six on his holding and also provide the money needed to pay doles to those who cannot get employment in the towns. I think it is a bad thing for any nation that cannot produce what is wanted in its everyday life. If we are only going to talk of Ireland in the past, of her historical remains, her mounds, moats, castles and towers, or her colleges and schools, and of the Waterford glass that used to be shipped abroad, that will not help the country's future advancement. These records of the past may be all right from the historical point of view, but I want to improve on that historical list and try to have something done to keep our people at home—something that will put our decaying mills on a sound business basis, so that their development will help to provide much needed employment for our people. It is necessary that the industries of the country should be protected, beginning with the agricultural interests which require it most.
in the Chair.
We are not, I think, discussing the resolution. We are discussing the question of tariffs, and I would like to say a word or two both in reply to what Deputy Sears said recently and in reply to the speech of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the original discussion. Deputy Sears proclaimed himself this evening a disciple of a bishop of my church— Bishop Berkeley. I have always respected Deputy Sears, but now that I know he is clothed in the mantle of a bishop I shall reverence him more than ever. It is some years since I read Bishop Berkeley, but I would remind Deputy Sears that one of his principal points was that he advocated high tariffs on foreign wines coming into Ireland. In that respect at any rate the Minister for Finance is also a disciple of Bishop Berkeley.
Deputy Sears told us that he wanted to get rid of the British importer. Circumstances, over which neither Deputy Sears nor I, nor the Government, have any control, have, for the time being, got rid of the British importer. I do not see many flags flying; I do not hear many bands parading the streets; I do not know of any preparations for tar barrels and bonfires. On the other hand I see that the evening papers talk of "workers and carters thrown out of employment." Of course Deputy Sears would say that has only a temporary effect. That is perfectly true. But it is well that Deputies who advocate indiscriminate tariffs should realise that they will cause a certain amount of consequential unemployment. When Deputy Sears speaks at length about the British importer I wish he could spare a word or two about the United States importer, because if Great Britain sends a considerable amount of goods here she also takes a considerable amount of goods from us. For every pound's worth we buy from them they buy 18/- worth from us. The United States sends £1,000,000 worth of goods here and buys about £50,000 worth in return.
I say, therefore, that the problem that Deputy Sears has envisaged is not merely the problem of the British importer; it is the problem of the world importer, and it is a problem that must be viewed in terms of world commerce. Improved means of communication are making the world smaller every day, and it is no use to go back to what the United States did 150 years ago or what Grattan's Parliament did 140 years ago. We have to view it in the light of the present day. Deputy Sears told us with great sincerity and frankness that all tariffs increased employment. There is one particular aspect of that remark in which I would agree with Deputy Sears. All the tariffs increased one particular kind of employment, the employment given by the Revenue Commissioners. Deputy Sears talked about the ports of Ireland being open. We have had an experiment in tariffs, an experiment carried out in varying degree over two years. In respect of large quantities of goods our ports have not been open, and what is the result? It is that 7,536 extra people have been employed in protected trades, that is including tobacco, and the staff of the Chief Inspector of Customs and Excise has been increased by 155. That is to say, that between the Estimates of 1924-25 and the Estimates, 1926-27—there are no earlier figures available in detail unless the Minister for Finance can give them— you have these figures. That is, that for every 48 men who got employment as a result of the tariffs the taxpayers had to pay for one extra man in the Department of Customs and Excise.
Are those figures direct figures of the people engaged in the industries themselves?
These are direct figures. There is other consequential employment. If it will satisfy Deputy Hennessy I will say one extra man in the Department of the Revenue Commissioners for the Customs section for every 50 men employed in the trade. We cannot gauge the amount of consequential employment.
Mr. HENNESSY
The Deputy will agree it is there, and that it is something worth considering?
I quite agree. But there is also consequential unemployment. We cannot go on the basis of figures; we cannot ascertain what the amount of consequential employment was as a result of the direct employment. For every 48 persons employed over tariffs we had to impose on the taxpayers one Customs officer. Deputy Sears spoke of Ireland's ports being opened. As I say, we have had a fairly substantial tariff for nearly two years now. Deputy Sears looked at that big book where the tariffs of other countries occupied many pages and ours only half a page. I would ask him is not that because we have taxed goods under a very broad description indiscriminately? We have taxed articles of furniture, whatever they may be. If Deputy Sears examined the list of articles of furniture taxed in those other countries he would see that it reads so much for a chair, so much for a table, so much for beds, dressers and so on. In the same way as far as clothing is concerned it is taxed by our Government as wearing apparel, and it only takes up one line. In the lists of the other countries he will find varying taxes on hats, caps, umbrellas, coats, and so on. We have had a large and very substantial tariff experiment. I do not know whether Deputy Sears is satisfied with the amount of employment given. I think in his more quiet moments he must have a certain regret that the amount of employment is not larger. Personally I am doubtful, taking it broadly, that it has yet been justified. I am quite prepared to admit that it is only a beginning, and that we cannot gauge the full effects yet. That is perfectly true. I do not want to urge any argument on the Dáil that is not true. Up to the present I may say that protectionists may have been disappointed.
I want now to turn to the arguments used by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ten days ago, and, first of all, I want to correct a misapprehension in the mind of Deputy Tierney. Deputy Tierney said that I suggested that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was actuated by a desire to win an election. I am very much at fault and I must rebuke myself if I conveyed that impression. I did say that it was very difficult to debate a question with the Government with the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs a red hot protectionist, with the Minister for Finance in favour of advancing cautiously, and, as far as I could judge from his speeches, with the Minister for Justice a free trader. That was like fighting a shadow. I never imagined that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs took up this question as an election cry, a cry in which he did not believe. I recognise the absolute sincerity of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in this matter. I realise that he is so deeply in earnest in this question that even if he were the only one man in the country advocating tariffs that he would still advocate them because he believes they are essential to the welfare of the country.
I recognise and admire his sincerity, but you can admire sincerity without necessarily agreeing with it. I would like to point out one small inconsistency in the speech that he gave us. He talked for ten minutes about Australia and New Zealand and referred to the economic conditions there. In the same sentence he talked about looking like a fool to the ends of the earth for salvation. I do not think I need comment on that. It is one of these little verbal inconsistencies to which we are all liable at times. As a matter of fact, Australia and New Zealand do look to the ends of the earth for their trade. Fully 70 per cent. of the exports of Australia go to Europe, and the balance—the greater part of it—goes to the United States or India, none of which countries is a next-door neighbour to Australia. New Zealand goes further still; 93 per cent. of its exports not only go to Europe but to Great Britain. Without that export trade the condition of Australia and New Zealand would not be very prosperous. Protective tariffs would not produce prosperity if those countries had not their export trade.
I do not accept, with all deference to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as reasonable parallels to the conditions of the Saorstát. They have, for instance, far greater natural and mineral resources than we have. Canada exports coal, copper, nickel, wood, silver and gold to the extent of more than one million; Australia exports coal, lead, zinc, silver, gold and wool to the extent of over a million, and they export copper and tin to the extent of half a million; and in New Zealand they export gum, coal, timber and gold. We have none of these. These exports are not produced by reason of protection; they are produced by great, almost untouched, natural mineral and vegetable resources. They have an immense effect on trade relations.
The main argument of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was with regard to the trade balance, and he said that Australia, Canada and New Zealand have a favourable trade balance while ours is unfavourable. When you have big natural resources and articles like coal that you can export instead of having to import it to such an enormous extent as we have, naturally your trade balance will be favourable. The main difference between the Saorastat and Canada and the other Dominions is this: they are enormous, undeveloped areas holding forth prospects for a population ten or fifteen times greater than what they have now. Their problem is to find the people for the land; ours is to divide the land among the people who want it.
Those countries are not suitable parallels. You might possibly, by means of protective tariffs, double our population and bring it to what it was before the famine, when, I am told, the wage of a day labourer was between 2d. and 3d. a day. You might possibly in that manner increase our population, but you cannot multiply our population by ten. It is only a matter of 50 or 100 years before the population of Australia or Canada is multiplied by ten. These countries are not reasonable comparisons. Protection does not mean that you have a favourable trade balance.
I turn from these vast, undeveloped countries to small European countries that more or less resemble us in regard to their population and I find, in regard to the four or five small European countries that I have investigated, they have all adverse trade balances. Sweden has an adverse trade balance of over 8 millions; Denmark, which the Minister quoted, had in 1923 an adverse trade balance of over 19 millions. In regard to that country, Deputy Sears told us 40 per cent. of the population are employed in industry. I do not accept his figures, because 40 per cent. means more than the whole adult male population, and I am sure there are farmers in Denmark. I wish Deputy Sears had told us how many of the 40 per cent. are now unemployed. I wonder is Deputy Sears aware that tariffs in Denmark have been so far unsuccessful, that the Danish Government has had to make a grant in relief of industries and subsidise industries directly without falling back on tariffs? That took place last November. As I have indicated, Denmark has an adverse trade balance; Norway, a very small country, smaller than our own, has an adverse trade balance of over 29 millions; Holland has an adverse trade balance of 58 millions, and Belgium has an adverse trade balance of over 146 millions. These are protected countries.
For how many years back have these adverse trade balances been evident?
Since 1923. In the case of Sweden the adverse trade balance was in 1924.
Can the Deputy tell us whether it has been a regular result of their trade that they should have an adverse trade balance over many years?
I cannot answer that. I merely took the figures that were available readily on consultation. Mostly, those figures refer to 1923 and, in the case of Sweden, 1924. I do not say that protection necessarily means an adverse trade balance any more than I accept the Minister's proposition that free trade means an adverse trade balance. I only say that an adverse trade balance is not inconsistent with a protective tariff.
Does the Deputy imply that an adverse trade balance is of itself an evil? Does he imply it is an evil thing necessarily? Is it something to be deplored? Is an adverse trade balance something that ought inevitably to be deplored?
I do not say so at all. The main argument of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs ten days ago was that because of the adverse trade balance we ought to have protection. I am not accepting that. An adverse trade balance may conceivably occur even with protection.
An adverse trade balance, considering the circumstances of the country?
Yes.
The circumstances of the country are important.
I am only dealing with the specific argument of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that we are necessarily in an unhealthy position and that we ought to have protection because of our adverse trade balance. I am trying to show that you can have an adverse trade balance at the same time as a protective policy.
Turning from that point, I want to deal briefly with the two industries which the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs said were in urgent need of protection. The two industries were the woollen industry and the flour-milling industry. In regard to the woollen industry, everybody regrets that mills should shut down; everybody regrets that people should be thrown out of employment. Whether you distrust or advocate protection, that is agreed on; but I think the position of the Irish woollen industry is to some extent its own fault, because it has not been sufficiently active and energetic in seeking markets. It has not catered to a sufficient extent for the public demand. I remember about two months ago woollen mills that were seeking protection wrote to me from Cork and sent me various samples of the tweeds and so on they were turning out. I sent them back—it was rather expensive, of course, as it took 9d. to post them— with a note that said, as politely as I could put it, that I should be reluctant to be seen at a dog show in any of them. They regretted my decision, and they sent me second samples, which were excellent. Since the Minister for Finance put on the tariff—I only buy one suit in two years—but the next suit I buy will be probably one of those tweeds. The fact that they put their worst goods forward first is a sort of exemplification of what is going on in this industry. They have not thought out what the public want.
There has been a good deal of discussion in the Press and elsewhere about a certain suit that could be made of Irish tweed and bought in the shops for twenty-eight shillings. I understand that the Cork Woollen Manufacturers have proved to the satisfaction of the Labour Party that such a suit can be made for twenty-eight shillings. I suggest it would be more to the point to please the people who wear clothes and prove to them that they can be sold so cheaply. I do not mean that the Labour Party do not wear clothes, but the person who buys clothes is the person to be pleased. We have not to take into account Deputy O'Connell, for instance—he would be an outsize——
So would Deputy Cooper.
Or Deputy Norton or Deputy Johnson, in considering what a suit of clothes costs. If a suit of Irish cloth can be made for twenty-eight shillings, why is it not made? The Irish manufacturers have every advantage and facility. They have had the Trade Loans Act. They can get a loan under it if they can make a satisfactory case. They can borrow the money to set up their factories if they can make a case. Why can they not do it? That would be better than howling for protection, but I do not believe it could be made. The suit I am wearing is of Irish tweed. I brought it up here to be made. The raw material of this suit cost £3 5s. and then I had to pay the cost of making up. It was as expensive as if I had gone into a Dublin tailor and got a suit of Scotch or any other tweed. It was more expensive than if in those days I went over to London and got a suit made up by one of the best tailors there. Unless the Irish woollen trade can compete in the world market there is no use in subsidising it. There is a certain demand for Irish sports clothes and so on in the United States. It may be said that we cannot get into the United States because of the tariff. The English manufacturers get in though they are not protected. They are, I believe, doing well at present in golf jackets and things of that kind. Again, why cannot we get into Great Britain? There is no tariff there. If we can turn out a good distinctive class of stuff at a price that will compete with the Scotch manufacturers I see no reason why we should not compete there. So far as I can see there is no use in the Irish tweed manufacturer crying out for protection in his home market unless he is prepared to go out and compete in the foreign market. If he puts up a case for protection in the home market in order to give him funds to employ travellers that would be another matter, but not a word about that has been said up to the present.
Again there is the question of shoes. Deputy Tierney tells us he had a sad experience when he went into a shop in Dublin to buy a pair of Irish shoes and was told they did not know of any. I went to a shop which advertised: "Nothing but our own make of Irish manufacture," and I asked for an ordinary pair of plain brown shoes like the Farmers' Party wear. They said: "We have only one pair in stock and we doubt if they will fit you." They did not. Then they said: "We can make you a pair if you wait for three weeks." I happened to want those shoes in a hurry because my other shoes all wanted mending. Can you imagine the mentality of manufacturers who pay rent and rates for a shop in the middle of a city and have only one pair of common shoes in stock? Honestly, I do not think there is any hope for Irish industry.
I want to deal with milling more seriously, because it is a sad thing to see the mills we have known in the country towns closing down and putting people out of employment. If it were possible to meet the case of a flour miller, I would be glad, but what is putting the flour miller out of competition? I think it is mass production. It is the big firms in Great Britain and elsewhere producing, on an enormous scale, more cheaply. What is the result of that process? It is that we get a cheaper loaf. If the Irish flour miller can sell flour as cheaply as the cross-Channel firm, why does he not do it? If he wants a higher price, the result is a dearer loaf. I have been going carefully into this matter for the last three or four weeks. Every increase of 3/9 on a sack means a rise of a halfpenny on a four lb. loaf. I do not think we need argue the question of whether protection raises prices or not, after the statement of the Minister for Finance, speaking with official knowledge which I do not possess, that in a number of cases it had raised prices. I am satisfied that the duty on imported flour would raise the price of bread. That means a tax on every other Irish industry. It further means that you are going to make the workers poorer and their wages, such as they are, able to buy less bread, or else it means an increase in the overhead charges of every Irish industry except flour-milling. I think a tax on flour requires more scientific consideration than it has yet received from Deputies. It was said more forcibly than I could say it by Deputy Baxter, that our only road to industrial salvation is to turn out goods of as good a quality and at as low a price as the goods turned out by the rest of the world, and that we should do better to develop external markets rather than seek a hot-house-cultivated home market with no hope of expansion. Deputies who are ardent protectionists sometimes assume that we do not want to see factories started. We should all be glad to see factories started in country towns and industries springing up if only for the very base and material motive that they would relieve our income tax. If there were a large number of factories set up my income tax would come lighter. But we want to see those factories established on a sound, economic foundation. If they are started, relying on a home market, it will not be sound, because, for instance, a strike that prevented the export of our goods, our eggs and our butter——
We do not suggest that the British markets should be closed in any single respect. We suggested that Irish farmers should, in addition to a British market, have a home market.
I should be glad of it, but we cannot live by taking in each other's washing. I shall find great difficulty in selling my salmon tomorrow or the day after if I cannot get it to Liverpool, because the Dublin market will be overloaded with salmon. Your home market cannot be expanded so suddenly as to take all the production of the Irish farmer. I sympathise with the point of view put by Deputy Mrs. Collins O'Driscoll that protection will give employment to children who otherwise might have to emigrate, but I do not believe that that can be done unless the industries are established on sound competitive lines. I would sometimes give oxygen to a dying industry. I would sometimes protect an infant industry which showed a prospect of development and which was likely, after the removal of protection, to compete in the open market. Like the Minister for Finance, I am not a doctrinaire free trader, but I want to know where I am going and I do not want to go too quickly. I would sooner remove our adverse trade balance by increasing exports rather than by diminishing imports. I am very willing to support Irish industries, but I am very reluctant to subsidise Irish inefficiency.
There is an old saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This is such a big problem and it has puzzled so many great political economists, it is with fear and trepidation that I wish to say a few words on the subject. To my mind the whole question that confronts us in regard to this problem is: Is this an agricultural country, or will it remain one? In my opinion it will remain an agricultural country. Then the next question is: What are we going to do with our surplus population? That is a question put by protectionists. Although I hold free trade views and am a pretty strong free trader, I believe that something must be done. Deputy D'Alton referred to the Micks report, and quoted the speech of the late Mr. John Redmond in 1907. I was closely associated then, as for a number of years afterwards, with that great leader and with the party and organisation behind him. I remember the series of speeches which he delivered in that year, and I also remember the speech that he made at Maryboro'. He quoted the Micks report, and if I well remember, that report suggested that a development department should be set up in Ireland and that for twenty years one million a year should be allocated to that department for the fostering and development of new and infant industries. In that speech Mr. Redmond never used the word "protection" but used the word "fostering" which is very different. If I well remember, he also stated that not even the most extreme free-trader or protectionist could take exception to the setting up of such department. I may be asked by protectionists as to where we are going to get this million a year. There are various services in this country that could be cut down. Take, for instance, the Army. It is the general concensus of opinion that we could do with a smaller and less expensive army. I, and I think my party, could not commit those whom we represent to this policy of protection without doing as the Government Party have done. Although I disagree with them in most things I say that the Executive Council have set about the question in a sensible way. Although we on these benches disagreed with them when they started imposing tariffs, they did set about it in a sensible way. Before the country is committed to a policy of protection I think the Government would be wise to proceed slowly and cautiously. I beg to assure the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that when this horse, which he has in training, is started at the next election, he will find a difficult regulation fence when he comes to the agricultural parts of the country.
Mention has been made about the success, under Grattan's Parliament, of the revival of Irish industries. I have read many historians on that subject, and we know that during the fourteen years of that Parliament industries here increased by leaps and bounds, and that the mills were revived. What comparison is there, however, between 1781 and 1926? England then had not her Colonies developed to such an extent as they are developed now. Canada was not a rival to our live stock trade then. Now she is sending in 200,000 head of cattle a year to England, and she is building four extra boats to facilitate her cattle trade. In a newspaper which I recently got from Alberta, where there is a Farmers' Government in power, I saw that they have turned a great deficit into a surplus. Canadian progress during such a short period is the wonder of the world. We have now Canadian rivalry against us in the markets of Britain, and the danger is that if we go in for an extreme policy of protection, Britain will hit back. I spent some time recently over there and I found very little mention of ourselves —even in the Press. I read about a robbery in this country, and also about a little squabble here over politics which I was very glad to be out of. The English are a very peculiar people and the danger is that they will hit back. As Deputy Cooper asked, who is buying our produce? Look at the exports. Who bought them? England bought thirty-seven millions worth, Northern Ireland about five millions, while other countries, in most of which we have trade representatives, bought about one million worth.
What was the value of the Irish purchases from England?
I have not a Statistics Branch at my disposal. We cannot afford that yet in this Party. I come to Great Britain's other Dominions. A large number of people in this country think that Great Britain cannot do without us. What is the population of our live stock here? Statistics which I have show that we have five million cattle, three million sheep and one million pigs. They have 45 million mouths to be fed this week in Great Britain, and they are able to feed them. A few years ago a person told me that the live stock trade could stop the war, which was then going on, in one week, by stopping exports and starving them out in Great Britain. I took up the "Times" of the day and showed him that at the one port of Birkenhead alone 14 steamers had arrived that week with cargoes of dead mutton and lamb. That is the country that this person was suggesting could be starved out. I advise the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and his associates in this new Party or organisation to move cautiously, slowly and inquiringly, as the Government are doing—in other words, to look before they leap.
As to the revival of Irish Industry, you have within 30 miles of Dublin, at Drogheda, one of the most modern and up-to-date plants in Europe for the dead meat trade, belonging to the Irish Packing Company. That company was floated with a capital of £500,000 of which £250,000 was subscribed. I saw the list of shareholders at Somerset House and there was £30,000 of Irish money in it. Of the original two buildings, one cost £26,000 and the other £13,000, a total of £39,000. These were not considered sufficiently large for the machinery necessary for the development of the dead meat industry. A large new factory was, therefore, built and equipped with the most modern machinery. £250,000 was spent on that building. £144,000 was spent on two boats for carrying the cargoes Then money was required to buy cattle, and a second issue of stock was made with the result that another £250,000 was subscribed. In all, a sum of £644,000 was spent on that enterprise. I saw the first consignment of meat from that factory sold in the London Central Meat Market one morning at 4 o'clock. I went to the salesman in charge and asked him how this new venture would get on there. "Very badly," he said, "it will not last." They picked out this one salesman to sell all their consignments, with the result that everyone of the other salesmen were against them. They were paying a manager £2,500 a year, and the butchers in the factory would not work for less than £12 per week. The result was that it only lasted a few years and is now a white elephant, which any man can acquire for £100,000. What is the use then of talking nonsense about starting industries in this country? There is an industry in which half a million of money has been lost.
Now I come to the pig industry, which is at present in a very bad way for supplies. I got the figures the other day from the Statistics Branch of the Department of Agriculture. Our stocks of pigs at present are very low, and have been very low for the last few years. During the war a lot of money was made out of pigs, just as out of every other branch of the live-stock industry. When control came off the price of pigs went up to £11 per cwt. The price fell gradually with the arrival of supplies from Denmark, although Denmark had only 580,000 pigs as against our 976,000. What did the Danish Government do? They subsidised the pig-breeding industry. They had 70,000 brood sows in the country. The killing of brood sows was prohibited, and sows, being very prolific, the result was that in a very short time they were able to increase their stock of pigs to such an extent that a regular avalanche of bacon was dumped week after week in Great Britain. Our farmers had no means of knowing what was going on, or what supplies were coming in from Denmark each week to Great Britain. Denmark went so far as to prevent her statistics branch giving information to newspapers, so that we would not get the information in these countries.
Then, again, take the freights from Denmark. The freight on a ton of bacon from Copenhagen to Manchester is 57/6. That was stated in reply to a question in the British House of Commons. In answer to a further question it was stated that the freight from Tralee to Manchester was 72/-. How can our farmers stand up against that competition? We should remember the difficulties which our farmers have to face every other day and the effects which labour and other upheavals in Great Britain have on the agricultural industry. Sufficient attention is not paid to the effect which these upheavals have on that industry. People only laugh and sneer and jeer at the farmers. To-day, in Cavan market the price of pigs fell 15/- per cwt. owing to the labour troubles in England Deputies can imagine the disappointment of people who, after feeding pigs for six or eight months, find that the price has dropped 15/- per cwt. when they come to sell them. Then again the ports in Great Britain were closed some time ago for six weeks against live-stock from Ireland.
Another argument for a home market.
There are a great many arguments for a home market. From the time I first spoke on a platform. I have advocated the purchase where possible of articles of Irish manufacture, and I shall continue to do that. There is, however, no use in being foolish. This is a very big question. I think it was Cobden, the father of free trade, who said that there were legions of mad people and half mad people in the country who thought they could talk on this question, but that it was too big a question for the average man in the street to think he could solve it. My advice is that we should move, as the Government are moving, slowly, cautiously, and inquiringly before committing the country to a policy of protection. I was glad to see the Minister for Finance adhered to the promise he gave when introducing the Budget last year that he would not commit the country to a policy of protection without putting it to the verdict of the people.
Did the Deputy read this year's speech?
I was here and I heard it.
The Minister went back on last year's promise.
As regards the pig industry, Deputy D'Alton said he would like to hear what I had to say upon it. I see a good many ways by which the pig industry could be improved in this country. We have only fourteen bacon factories in this country and they belong to what is called the capitalist class. In Denmark they have forty-four factories. Supposing such a Development Department, as was recommended in the Mick's Report, and that the Government encouraged the development of the bacon-curing industry, and that a certain sum was earmarked for the development of that industry, I think it would help a lot. I believe the farmers, in different parts of the country, would support such a scheme. Machinery does not cost such a lot since the war. I asked an expert what it would cost to equip such a factory, and he said about £15 or £20 per pig to be killed per week. Supposing you take a thousand pigs a week that would mean a sum of £20,000 as capital. Many people thought, if there was a tax put upon American bacon, it would help the pig industry. I am glad the Government did not fall for that. They were wise. The general consensus of opinion is that they were wise in not putting a tax on imported bacon. It is a very strong argument, from the Protectionist point of view, to say that in importing a million pounds worth of foreign bacon it is like bringing coals to Newcastle. Our people buy a lot of American bacon cheaper than they could buy their own. Another thing to be borne in mind in that connection is that there is a type of pig in Ireland unsuitable for the curers, and if that type of pig was cured here it could be sold at the price that would compare with American bacon. I mentioned that to some people and they said it was impossible.
Why is it impossible?
Some people might say that those who said it was impossible are themselves importing American bacon.
Were those the reasons given you when you asked?
It did not go that far. Another thing that is killing the industry is this. The farmers are not trained yet to produce the article the public require. You have different grades. You can get the quotations any day of the week in the newspapers— quotations from the different curers, different prices for different weights, and so on. Just as in the case of the grading of eggs, you want your agricultural instructors to educate the farmers to produce the article that the public requires. Then you will have the market for it. You have £56,000,000 worth of bacon—pig's meat and other pig products coming into Great Britain. I say this is an industry that requires most careful watching. I am glad to see the Minister for Agriculture present, because things are occurring now that never occurred before. We have broken up the grazing ranches throughout the country to the extent of one million acres. It is natural to expect that this country is finished for ever as the fruitful mother of flocks and herds, and that in future we will see more pigs and more people. That is our motto. It was a man named Fergus O'Connor who put that on an election bill in Cork. I suggest that the Postmaster-General should use that as a protectionist argument at the next election in Cork.
The Deputy mentioned the reason why American bacon was bought in preference to Irish bacon, by some farmers, is that the price paid is moderate. Might I ask is that price less than the price secured by the farmer for his own pig, plus whatever it would cost the farmer to cure the pig for his own use?
I must admit that the farmer who cures his own pigs himself will have his bacon in most cases less than American bacon—that is the heavy type of pig. He will have it less; but there is another thing about that, too. It is not every farmer to-day that can afford to kill a pig and have the bacon hung up in his house the same as in the war days. Many farmers are feeling the pinch so much at the present time that they are glad to have a few shillings to pay for a few pounds of American bacon.
The only thing I want to say is that I am against protection if it is not protection for all. We have several industries in this country which if they had protection would be able to give far greater employment than they give at present. But by giving protection to a particular industry, you are increasing the cost of living to the workers engaged in other industries, and in consequence instead of relieving unemployment you are adding large numbers to the unemployed.
I was very glad to read in the Press some time ago the letter from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to the Cork Protectionists, in which he said he was going to go the whole hog. That is not the same class of hog that Deputy McKenna spoke of. What has been the result of the protection already introduced as an experiment? Have we succeeded in increasing employment? Would it be right to say there are more people unemployed to-day in the Saorstát than there were when protection was introduced as an experiment? Probably there are six thousand people extra engaged in industries that have already got protection, such as the boot industry, the ready-made clothing industry, and the bottle-making industry. How many thousand people have been unemployed from other industries that have not got protection? We have a woollen industry which is the backbone of many towns, from the point of view that it gives a large amount of employment. You have not gone so far as to give protection to the woollen industry, but you have given protection to ready-made clothing. I was very glad to hear Deputy Cooper mention here to-day the statement that appeared in the Press with regard to a suit of clothes for 28/-. To my mind, that is impossible.
Taking into account the present high cost of living, it would be impossible for a firm to sell a suit of clothes for 28/-. I would be surprised at the Labour Party if they allowed the workers to be fleeced to such an extent as to work at the wage which would enable a firm to sell a suit of clothes for 28/-. I do not believe that Deputy Johnson would recognise any firm whose employees were paid such a wage that they would be unable to maintain themselves, to say nothing of their families. A man who could sell a suit of clothes at 28/- would not be able to pay proper wages. Deputy D'Alton said that an industrious man with nine, ten or eleven acres of land could succeed in improving his position and that of his family by working from daylight until dark. That is quite so. The Minister for Finance has said that we are not suffering from over-taxation but from a want of production. I agree with Deputy D'Alton that the small farmer is the hardest worked farmer. If we are suffering from the want of production, why is it that the Government does not try to get all the ranch lands divided amongst uneconomic holders so that they would be able to have massed production, the want of which we are suffering from? You have in the President's own constituency a slate quarry where over 240 people were employed as long ago as I can remember and where £500 a week has been paid out in wages. Not one man is engaged in that place now. Why can you not give protection to that industry and have these employees reinstated? The President must know that the Kilkenny slate quarries have been closed for the last three years. Still we have millions of foreign slates coming in, while our own quarries are quite capable of meeting the demand and our own workers can turn out as good a slate as any imported. That is not protection. You have industrialists who require protection. You are putting half-a-crown on oatmeal. I do not think that that will mean a big increase on the workers cost of living, but it will mean some increase. Is this another experiment, such as the experiment on boots? I am a free trader whilst there are unprotected existing industries capable of manufacturing as good articles as those imported.
Whether they wanted it or not?
Every industry in the country wants it. You have your creameries and you have co-operative dairies.
Have you heard any of them asking for protection?
No, but I know that they would not require protection if they utilised their lands in the proper manner and kept proper cattle. They might not want protection then, but at present we are told that all the farmers are absolutely down and out. I want to see industries like woollen mills, slate quarries and saw mills flourishing. If you put a tariff on American bacon you will increase the cost of living. If you put a tariff on flour you would do the same. I am very pleased that the Government did not, because my house would be the hardest hit of any Deputy's. The wages of the worker are so small that he is not able even to buy the cheapest article. It is all very well for workers who have two or three positions, but the ordinary man, the man who is working for 30/- a week, the wage suggested by the Minister for Local Government to different county councils, cannot afford to buy any luxuries. The tax on oatmeal may increase the cost a little, but I do not think it would be right to put a tax on imported oats. Our farmers should be quite capable of competing with those of any other country.
The woollen industry sees that other industries are getting protection. The farmers are crying out for protection for bacon and oats. The next thing they will want is a tariff on imported potato seed. But what about the town workers? What about towns like Athlone? Take the case of Athlone, where in Smith's Woollen Mills 850 people were employed, and where about £1,500 a week was paid out. At present there are 340 employees working on alternative time. The mill has practically gone down, but not for the want of skilled labour, or because the workers have been struggling against reductions in wages. There have been no strikes, the wages are good; it is simply owing to foreign competition, and particularly since the Government imposed tariffs. These industries have gone down since then. I hold that the introduction of tariffs was the greatest blow against the workers. Since then more people are unemployed every day. Deputy D'Alton referred to people going on the dole. To my mind there is no dole. The Government has not given one penny as a free grant to the workers who were eligible to draw benefit. What they get is the money that they have paid in themselves.
The Deputy is wandering from tariffs.
If I am wandering, other Deputies have wandered also. There is no such thing as a dole.
The Deputy is wandering from tariffs.
Tariffs will be of no use until the Government introduces legislation to prevent profiteering. What happens now? If you send for a cwt. of oatmeal to-day you will pay 2s. 6d. extra for it, although the resolution says "That a customs duty at the rate of two shillings and sixpence the hundredweight shall be charged, levied and paid on all oatmeal imported into Saorstát Eireann on and after the 22nd April." The same thing applies whenever a tariff is put on anything. It applied also when the tariff was put on boots. The very moment the tariff went on the customer was charged the full amount.
Is the Deputy speaking with any information on the subject?
No.
I am speaking of what was charged to myself. You can see the bills.
To-day?
No, not to-day, but on the last occasion. I know the Deputy does not believe there is profiteering among his own class, but I am speaking from experience, and I say that if the Government intend to make the tariffs that they have imposed a paying proposition from their point of view and from the industrial point of view, if they intend them to give more employment, to create new industries in the country, to get people into the country to invest their wealth in industries here and to relieve the burden on the taxpayers by having a greater circulation of money, the sooner they introduce legislation to prevent profiteering or fleecing the better. In some cases, as a result of the tax imposed last year, as high as 30/- was charged for a pair of boots which would before cost £1, whereas the biggest increase that should be charged because of the tariff would have been about 2/6.
I am quite satisfied with the Government—and I am glad to have an opportunity of saying this in public, although I am more or less up against them on some occasions—so long as they do not increase the cost of living by putting tariffs on flour, bacon and other commodities. I am quite satisfied to have protection for all industries, but I do not want protection for a few. I think the time is ripe when every country should look to itself and support its own industries. For the last 27 years I have advocated the support of Irish manufactures in every district. I spoke from various platforms and asked the people to support home manufactures, but what do we find? We find men who are living and working in the very towns where the finest tweed is manufactured sending across to London for patterns, selecting a suit from these, and having the clothes made in England. That is not the way to relieve unemployment, and the Labour Party would be wise, instead of devoting too much attention to political stunts, if they considered the true interests of the workers by having placards displayed in every town where they have a branch, of a trade union requesting the people to purchase Irish manufactures, and by having committees to visit the various shops to see that the tailors stock Irish goods, and that they sell them at the same rate at which they could be purchased on the other side.
And to see that the tailor himself is dressed in Irish manufactured goods.
Unfortunately owing to the rate of wages paid by the farming classes most workers are not able to buy an Irish suit. I would like to see everyone in this country supporting home industry. That is the first thing we should attend to. I am very pleased that the President has spoken in many places in support of Irish manufacture. I read in the Press where he appealed to the people to support home industry. Every other Minister is I think equally interested in Irish manufacture. The Minister for Justice speaking last year in Portarlington advised the people there to support home industry.
A DEPUTY
What about the Minister for External Affairs?
The Minister for External Affairs is a position—it does not come into this—that is not required. I do not think the Minister for External Affairs is looking for tariffs but by the way things are going, if much more tariffs are put on and put only on a few industries, the other industries of the country will be ruined. Then I think the Minister for External Affairs will lose his post because no Irish need apply in any nation in which the Minister is represented.
I did not intend saying anything in this debate but some speakers think there is an election coming on and I would not like my electorate to be caught napping without knowing my views and without giving them an opportunity of studying my views after they have read—if they ever do read—what I am going to say. I was rather surprised at the statement of Deputy Lyons to the effect that since tariffs were imposed on certain articles produced in this country there has been an increase in unemployment. While I do not think there has been any great improvement in the unemployment position, I would ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to say later on whether the Deputy's statement is true or not. I think if anything there has been a slight increase in the number of people employed in this country during the past twelve or eighteen months. I would like the Minister for Industry and Commerce to make a statement, not because I pay too much heed to what Deputy Lyons says. I would not like the people to be led to the conclusion that there has been a great deal of unemployment as a result of the tariffs imposed on things that could be manufactured in this country.
I think that Deputy Nagle——
Is taking advantage of you.
He is not taking advantage of me because he could not, at his best, but he is not putting a proper interpretation on the statement I have made. I said that there were more people unemployed, notwithstanding the fact that 6,000 people have got employment in the industries protected. There are far more people unemployed now than there were before the tariffs were imposed.
We have the explanation now.
I am as wise now as I was before. I daresay the "Independent" will make the explanation clear in the morning. In speaking like that, I do not want to imply that I am a whole-hog tariff reformer. I am a little hazy on the whole question. When speaking to a friend some time ago, he suggested —I was reminded of it to-night by one of the members of the Farmers' Party, who appeared to be of opinion that it was because there was an election looming in the near future that some people were going to favour tariffs—to me that to support tariffs would be the safe thing for the reason that it would be much easier for the average man to make a good case to the electors for tariffs than for free trade. I make a present of that suggestion to anyone who wants it. In dealing with the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that many people are swayed by their own particular interests. As an instance of that, I might mention that about two years ago I met a friend who was very strongly in favour of a tariff being imposed on imported furniture. During the conversation I elicited that he was travelling for a Dublin firm of furniture manufacturers. Before the present Budget was introduced I met the same man again and found that he was not so keen on the import duty. He said it would be a good job if it was removed. I understood from further conversation that he was now employed by an English firm of furniture manufacturers. These were the reasons why he was at one time pro-tariff and later anti-tariff.
I always pay great attention to what Deputy Cooper says. I am not saying that in any sarcastic sense, but the Deputy is a very persuasive speaker, and he would almost convince me that the free trade position was the correct position. I remember that in 1910 there was an election for South County Dublin, and although I had not a vote on that occasion, and although I was a Home Ruler, some of Deputy Cooper's canvassers called on me. If anything, I was a Home Ruler when I would be following the torchlight processions. I was almost convinced that the Deputy should be returned so that we would have protection, and that all the workers would be employed 100 per cent. of their time. Evidently, Deputy Cooper has changed his opinions since that.
Oh, no. If Deputy Nagle had quoted my election address he would have been more convincing. I do not know what the canvasser said, and I think no one else knows. I said then, as I said to-night, that there is a case that no one should be a doctrinaire free trader, and that there was a case for tariffs to protect certain industries which had prospects of expansion. I had what I said in 1910 in mind when I spoke to-night, and I said practically the same thing as I said then officially. What my canvasser said I do not know.
I am glad of that explanation. I was thinking, not having read the Deputy's election address, but having listened to the canvassers, that he might have been a tariff reformer when it was a question of protecting the industries of Ireland, England and Scotland, but not a tariff reformer when it was a question of protecting the industries of this country. I am very glad that was not the case. Deputy Cooper built up a very good case on the fact that, although tariffs had been imposed on a few industries in this country, apparently the results were not very much. In my opinion the experiment on boots and shoes was a bad one, because on Deputy Cooper's own figures at the time the tariffs were imposed, that industry was only able to cater for about 15 per cent. of the footwear needed here. Consequently, if a 200 per cent. tariff were imposed on imported boots it could not have done very much good in the few years since the tariffs were imposed.
I think it would have been better if the tariff had been imposed on imported woollen stuffs and clothing, because the woollen mills of this country could supply all its needs. Deputy Johnson has been taunted with having quoted imaginary prices. Candidly, I do not know much about prices. I am not sure if his prices are possible of realisation, but I agree with Deputy Cooper about the difference in the price of raw material and the cost of the garments. I am wearing a suit of clothes that I bought eighteen months ago, and that cost, without buttons or trimmings, 64/9, or 3¼ yards of material at 18/6 per yard. I have worn the suit practically seven days a week for eighteen months, and it is, at least, in my opinion, almost as good as new. That is a tribute to the quality of the cloth which can be turned out by Irish mills. There is a huge difference between the price at which goods are sold direct from the mill and the price that one has to pay in a retail shop. In 1920 I was talking to the manager of a woollen mills in the South-East of Ireland. I will not mention the name of the town, so that I will not get into trouble with the shopkeeper. The manager of the mill told me that cloth he sold at 8/6 per yard was marked within a half a mile of the factory in a shop window at 23/6. That state of affairs may be responsible for a good deal of the high cost of materials to the average man who buys in small quantities.
In duty to my constituency I have been asked to raise a question about the price of bottles. I do not know much about bottles. I am given to understand by a wholesale bottler and mineral water manufacturer in County Cork, that prior to the imposition of a tariff he could buy bottles from England at the port of Cork for 18/6 per gross. He could buy similar bottles from Dublin for 19/6 per gross. Since then, with one-third increase on the English bottles, he has to pay 24/8 per gross at the city of Cork, and he has to pay 23/6 for the bottles manufactured in Dublin. He is rather curious to know—this is the only way I could bring the matter to light—how it is, since he got those bottles for 19/6 per gross before the tax was imposed, they could not continue to supply him for the same price, now that they have an opportunity of collaring the market for bottles in the country. That is another argument, I suppose, against tariffs; but I think it is not so much an argument against tariffs as an argument in favour of the Government insisting that, if they impose tariffs for the benefit of manufacturers in this country, they should also impose certain conditions on those manufacturers to ensure that they will not exploit the people for their own benefit and utilise the advantage of the tariffs, not for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of their own pockets.
There were a great many things said in the debate to-day with which I do not agree. A great many things were said with which I do agree. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture gave some figures the other day which would lead one to believe that there was a slight discrepancy in favour of American bacon as against the home product. That may be so in regard to price, but I think there is a great deal too much desire on the part of the people of this and every other country to get things cheaply. Very often the cheap thing is the dear thing in the long run. I have not a great taste in foodstuffs. I am a simple liver but I would rather pay 50 per cent. more for home-cured bacon than for American bacon. Apart from the question of helping the bacon industry, the Government would, I think, from a public-health point of view, be perfectly justified in imposing a tariff on American and Canadian bacon. Such a tariff would be in the interests of the people who are at present eating this stuff and would probably induce them to turn to the wholesome stuff raised at home.
There was a lot of talk to-night about the advisability of trying to reduce the unfavourable trade balance. Personally, I do not know very much about the trade balance, but I suppose I know as much as most Deputies. To me, it would appear that the best way to reduce the trade balance would be to increase exports rather than reduce imports. A few Deputies mentioned rather glibly something about this being an agricultural country, other countries being capable of producing certain things, and the advisability of not trying to produce things other than those for which the country was naturally fitted. I remember reading, a good many years ago, a book called "Food, Factories and Workshops," by Kropotkin who was recognised as a wonderfully learned man. He must have been a wonderfully patient man as well. He devoted one chapter to the centralisation of industry. He pointed out that in the earlier days of the development of modern commerce —or the capitalist system, as it is commonly called—certain countries were regarded as naturally fitted for producing certain things and that for generations they simply produced those things for export and imported things which could more easily be produced in other countries. But from the very nature of this system they, by their exports, helped to build up in other countries industries which competed against their own. The cotton industry in India is an example. At one time, Lancashire exported cotton to India. They also exported iron and other things. After some decades of years of development, India found that she was able to produce cotton. And surplus capital exported from the cotton centres in Lancashire set up as a rival to what you might call the "parent capital." They found that things like this were happening all over the world and that they would have to reshuffle their whole views regarding this theory of the centralisation of industry. The same thing applied to Ireland, only more so. Ireland was not an agricultural country merely because it was more natural to produce agricultural products in this country but Ireland became almost wholly agricultural because of certain conditions imposed on her from outside. She never got any encouragement to develop industrially. The people who controlled affairs in this country found it would be better for them to have a good supply of healthy foodstuffs, at a comparatively cheap rate, from this country than to have manufactured goods produced here which would be rivals to the goods produced in their own country at that time. That is why there was no development of the ordinary industries in the Irish towns and cities.
I think that if the Dáil justifies its existence at all, it will justify it by doing something out of the ordinary for the development of industry in this country. I quite agree that it is necessary not so much to move slowly as to move carefully. I am of the opinion, without having gone too deeply into the matter, that the suggestion of the Minister for Finance to set up this committee is a very good one. If we live for ten years more, some of us may be driven to the conclusion that it is a more sensible decision than to rush whole-hog into the imposition of tariffs. But while saying that, I should say that there is a good deal of opposition to the personnel of the committee. I do not refer now to the individuals concerned, but to the method by which the committee has been selected. Some people think the committee should not be composed entirely of civil servants. Other people think some business men from outside should be brought in. In my opinion, if the members of that committee get a free hand, if they are instructed to examine all the proposals laid before them on their merits alone, without, as some people have suggested in the Press and elsewhere, being given the view of the Ministry beforehand, nothing but good can come from their decisions. While there are many things in which I disagree with the Government, I welcome, on these grounds, the suggestion to set up this committee. I only hope they will be instructed to consider every proposal on its merits. If they do that, there will be a great many more tariff impositions in the future than in the past.
Perhaps I will be permitted to give an explanation regarding the suits that were spoken of. By doing so, I may remove misapprehensions. The manufacturers of cloth met a Committee of the Labour Party and a question arose as to the class of cloth and suits that were being worn in the country by large numbers of working men—agricultural labourers and the like—and the difficulty there was to obtain in Irish establishments a class of goods made in Ireland to compete with the cheap imported cloth. The clothing manufacturers said that they could, in fact, produce cloth to meet that competition if they were assisted by the factories and the retailers.
By the factories?
The wholesale factories and the retailers. The clothing manufacturers produced samples of cloth and the prices at which they were prepared to supply the clothing factories—the clothing factories to make up that Irish-woven cloth into suits. The prices of the clothing factory's suits to the retailers are quoted, and the ordinary retailer's profit is added. The net price to the customer of that class of suit is stated on the sample. I have not got any sample at all which refers to 28/-, and I do not know where the item 28/- comes from, but we have samples of cloth from the Convoy Woollen Co., Kilkenny Woollen Co., and Morrogh's of Cork. These Irish tweeds are made of a quality to meet the cloth made in England that comes into this country. It is a cheap cloth, and the ordinary factory making-up price is taken into account. The ordinary retailer's profit is also taken into account, and men's suits can be sold at anything from 33/- upwards on these samples. Now I am not prepared to say at all that the case that was made for protection for Irish cloth is a case that meets this problem. It is a different case altogether. That is not my business at this moment, and I am only desiring to make an explanation so that there will not be a misconception. Cloth, for instance, is sold by the weaving company to the clothing factory at 3/6 a yard, the factory sells the suit to the retailer at 26/11, the retailer adds his profit of 8/1, making the retail price 35/- for men's suits. The prices vary for boys' suits, rugby suits and for men's trousers.
I had not intended to take part in this discussion. My intention was to speak on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill in relation to the Budget as a whole, but as Deputies have taken advantage of this occasion to speak on the question of tariffs, I feel it my duty to say a word or two on the subject. During the greater part of my life, when very strong efforts were being made in Britain towards securing tariffs, I had been, unlike Deputy Cooper, a consistent free trader. I believed then that a tariff on any particular article meant that the consumers were asked to pay a certain sum of money to the manufacturer of that particular commodity on the assumption that that money would come back to them in the shape of more wages and increased employment. I had always some doubts as to whether it would come back at all or what portion of it might come back, but I have no doubt whatever that even if it did come back, while we in this country would have been contributors as consumers, we would receive through our manufacturers very little of the advantages that we expected should accrue from a tariff. At the same time, I always felt that in a different set of circumstances, namely, with a tariff wall around ourselves alone, that the proper policy, the patriotic policy and the sensible policy would be to make that wall gradually secure and to protect our own industries by a tariff or a preference which would enable them to give more employment and to keep our own people at home as far as it was possible to do so. I was strengthened, of course, in this conviction as a follower of the late Arthur Griffith who has been referred to in this discussion. I felt, also, that Arthur Griffith, although he was very clear on the subject, did not envisage the situation that we are now confronted with in this country to-day. He calculated or dealt with Ireland as a unit. We have an Ireland partitioned with a 250-mile land frontier. This presents a very different set of circumstances to that envisaged by Arthur Griffith. As regards any tariffs that are imposed here, although the cost of collection on account of this 250-mile land frontier will be considerably against the imposition of a tariff, the fact that we have this area in the country that tells us, virtually, that it has a desire to live by itself should encourage us to tell them that if that is their idea, then we are not going to facilitate them in any way. We must make a wall as high as possible and allow as little as possible to pass over it.
Now as regards the small advance on the road of tariffs that we made in the last Budget, I feel that it has absolutely justified itself and I am perfectly satisfied that the statistics must prove that it has been very valuable, so far as it has gone. In a very small area in my own county, in one small town, I find that since last year two new factories have been established there which give employment at the present time to 200 extra girls. I heard it stated from the Farmers' benches that tariffs are not likely to be of any benefit to the farming community. I can state that about 100 of these girls are undoubtedly the daughters of small farmers who would otherwise have to emigrate and clear out of the country if we had not helped in giving that sort of encouragement to keep them at home. I think in that way it has been very valuable, and I am sure that arguments to the same effect could be supplied by many other areas. With regard to Deputy Johnson's remarks in the early portion of this debate, that a tariff should really provide better terms for the working classes and ensure that they were going to get benefit from protection and that they were not going to give all the advantages to capital or manufacturers, I think in the case of the two particular factories I have referred to that has been done because they are working there on a trade board rate of wages which is one farthing an hour higher than the rate paid in the area from which the proprietors of these factories came. I think that, in itself, proves that we are able to give some additional benefit to the worker as well as to the industrial concern that is giving the employment, and that they are getting a part or a share in these benefits. I think the same will be found to apply generally when these things develop.
In my own county I feel from mixing with the people, and from my knowledge of them, that they are absolutely convinced the tariff policy is the only policy for this nation. They feel there is no hope for the developments that are expected to result from the new situation in this country except on the road of protection. Very little extension has been given to the policy of protection in the Budget beyond the 2/6 tax on oatmeal. That in itself is a valuable tax, but I really think it should have been somewhat more having regard to the fact that Canadian oatmeal is three shillings per cwt. less than our own home manufactured products. I think that tax should be at least 3/- so as to put our oatmeal on a level with the Canadian. I cannot understand why this is not done. We have abundance of mills in our own country to do all the milling required, and we grow sufficient oats for the requirements of the country with something in addition for export. I was amused at the statement made some days ago by some merchants in Belfast to the effect that they were going to take reprisals on account of the 2/6 tax by ceasing to buy corn from the Free State, but the fact is that the Free State will be buying corn from them for milling purposes and while one might refuse to buy I have never heard of anyone refusing to sell, especially in Northern Ireland. I think, even apart from the economic aspect, the nation must stand firmly upon the policy of tariffs. There is no way by which the union of the country can be secured except by keeping rigidly to an economic barrier tariff. It will show those who have at present not recognised their duty to their own country that it would be better for their interests to do so, and that if they refuse to do so it will be to their own disadvantage. I think that is a wise policy to pursue.
I would urge the Minister for Finance to take the matter in hands with a clear view to the future, though I do not urge a rash or unconsidered policy to be pursued in relation to everything that is imported here. These things should be considered on their merits, each case separately, and when they are considered there should be no hesitation whatever in applying to them the full benefits that can be given by protecting our own manufacturers and producers for the benefit to themselves in the first instance, and then help them in the disposal of their surplus wherever it may find a market. I do not intend detaining the House longer on this subject. Probably on other matters relating to the Budget I will have something to say on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. Meanwhile, I am sure we can congratulate our Executive Council on the fact that they are coming, if slowly, to the policy of protection. I hope they will allow nothing to side-track them. Undoubtedly all the influences that can be exerted will be exerted to keep the market here open to foreign products. The Government must think of the interest of their own people first. The interest of their own community is the first consideration of every Government. Their duty is to see that their own people are protected in every possible way. Our people should be kept in the country as far as it is possible to do so and provided with a living here at home.
Mr. HENNESSY
Like the Deputy who has just spoken, I also would like to join in congratulations to the Executive Council in regard to the policy of tariffs for the Saorstát. I wish to congratulate the Minister on the 2/6 tax on oatmeal, but I am sorry he did not make it a heavier imposition. At all events, I believe that it will be a fillip to our agricultural industry, and as such I welcome it or any other duty or tariff that will give a fillip to that industry. I am, however, like many more, keenly disappointed that the Minister in his Budget did not make provision for the protection of other industries in the Saorstát. We have some key industries, such as the flour industry, which has already been mentioned in the Dáil, and the woollen industry. I and those who have already spoken for protection on behalf of those industries sought very reasonable tariffs, but we have not got them so far. We have had many interesting statements during the course of the Budget discussion on the question as to whether protection or free trade would be the better policy for the Saorstát. Some of the more interesting statements were those emanating from Deputies who defend the present policy of free trade, a policy which is responsible for, if I might use the words, bleeding the economic life of this country, and which is responsible for sending from 27,000 to 30,000 of our boys and girls in the emigrant ship annually; a policy of depending on the foreign industrialists for our home requirements, a policy which would make us dependent on foreign industries for our food and clothing, while we allow our woollen, flour, or other mills, to languish and become extinct.
I certainly am interested when I hear Deputies defending such a policy as that. One of the arguments used against the policy of protection is that it would increase the cost of living in the Saorstát. Of course the cost of living is so extraordinarily high for some years past that such a statement emanating from Deputies, or other responsible people, must have a serious effect on the minds of the consumers. I think that is a very unfair argument to put forward. I believe it is confusing the question. I do not think we should ask our manufacturers to carry the sins of the distributors. It has been said by Deputies on both sides of the House——
And by the Minister.
Mr. HENNESSY
Very well, and by the Minister. The distributors are largely responsible for the high prices that are being charged in the Saorstát. We know that the cost of living in the Saorstát is points above the cost of living in England, and perhaps other countries. We know that that is one of the legacies from the European war period when Britain was anxious to get money to beat the German army, and she told her distributors that she could not possibly exact taxation from the working man, whether he was a miner, railwayman or any other class of worker. It was expected that they should charge a high price for the commodities they sold and give her as high as from 60 to 70 per cent of these profits, which were called at the time excess profits, and they could enjoy the rest. The high prices and high wages paid at that time were not so much felt by the people, but after the war period retrenchment had to come, and hence we all feel the effect of the high prices to-day, and have felt them for some years past.
I argue that this question of extortionate prices must be faced; I hope it will be by the machinery that has been set up by the Department of Industry and Commerce in the Food Prices Tribunal. But the people themselves in the end must organise. They must form Committees in the towns and cities—food prices protection committees or something of that nature—to protect themselves from those excessive charges. I do hold that we ought not to saddle the sins of those who charge excessive prices on the manufacturer.
Deputy Cooper, I think, told us that if flour millers, for instance, were protected the tariff would be passed on to the consumer. I think we all agree that if we do protect some of our key industries it will have the effect of raising the cost of living some few points. I hold that it would be much easier for us, when we are all working, to bear that extra point or two, if it is put on to us, than if we are idle and have to pay the present prices. To-day many of our people are unemployed and still have to pay a high price for the loaf, which is being sold at 1/- in places. How much easier it would be for those people to pay a slightly higher price if they were working?
Now, will the price be passed on? In the case of the loaf I think it will not. I think we got such an assurance from the Flour Millers' Association. The Ministers got such an assurance— I am speaking subject to correction. At all events, those of us who approached the Flour Millers' Association got an assurance that they were prepared to meet the Minister and to give any assurance required that if a tariff of 5 per cent. ad valorem duty, which would work out at about 2/6 on a 280 lbs. sack of flour (something less than a half-penny on the 4 lb. loaf) were put on the imported flour, they believed, with the extra work and turnover in the mills, that not only would it not be passed on to the price of the flour, but that the existing price would be reduced considerably.
We have had some considerable experience in the past twelve months of the "reflection" in the price of the loaf of the price of the flour in our mills. The cost of the loaf in the past twelve months has been something like 11d. in some places and 1/- in other places. Any of us who have made a study of the figures of the price of flour, the Mark Lane price, have wondered why the price has not been reflected here in the cost of the 4 lb. loaf. For instance, if Deputy Cooper's arguments are right, I maintain that we stand to gain considerably if the unjustifiable price of the loaf which we are buying now was reduced. It is generally conceded, and I think it has been admitted before the Food Prices Commission by the Master Bakers of Dublin, that there is an unjustifiable excess of at least one penny in the price of the loaf to the consumer. I would go so far as to say that the excess is 2d., and others argue that it is 3d. If we accept the figures presented to us by the British Food Commission we will see the difference, and I maintain that conditions in both countries are the same——
A big assumption.
Very well, the Minister may argue that against me later on. The members of the Commission informs us that, after very close investigation into the prices of production, they find that when the price of flour is 41/- to 44/- per 280 lb. sack, the price of the 4 lb. loaf should not exceed 9d., and that when the price of flour is 45/- to 48/- the price of the 4lb. loaf should not exceed 9½d. That is the point that I wish to impress on the Dáil. Now, taking these figures as a basis, I maintain that the price of the loaf here for the last 12 months should not exceed 9½d. If the price of our loaf were 9½d., and if an extra half-penny, because of any protection imposed by the Minister for Finance, were passed on, we would still save one penny or twopence on the 4 lb. loaf. We would stand to gain considerably.
As I said before, the conditions were all the time the same in the two countries. I still maintain that they are even more favourable here because foreign flour was dumped here at 7/- per sack under the Mark Lane prices; all this time dumping had been taking place. The price of flour in Liverpool was 43/- ex mill. The price in Cork was 7/- less. Therefore, the baker here was able to buy the flour much cheaper than the baker in England. Still the price of our loaf was from 2d. to 3d. higher than that charged to the English consumer. If our prices were right, and if the tariff were passed on to the consumer, our domestic budget would be considerably reduced from what it is at present.
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but I might mention that I was seen by several of the large millers and they purported to prove to me that there was dumping. They certainly did not make anything like a case that there was dumping. They went nowhere to prove it. They came specifically to prove it, but left me convinced that there was no dumping.
The Deputy has talked about equal conditions. May I ask him if he will state if the conditions are the same in respect to (1) quality of flour used; (2) consistency of dough; (3) question of night baking; (4) delivery charges, and (5) wages bill?
Mr. HENNESSY
I have those figures from the Flour Millers' Association and I understood that they were presented both to the Department of Industry and Commerce and to the Department of Finance. I am also in a position to say I saw the figures which were private and which I cannot give to the Dáil; they were invoice figures.
There was no attempt to show that the flour was not being sold at the same price in England. When I asked might it not be so, they did not say that it might not be so, and they did not even suggest that most probably it was not so.
Mr. HENNESSY
That is the first time I heard that.
You are too green; you are too easily impressed; you will be wiser the next time.
I have it from an official of one of the millers across at the other side of the water who is engaged in sending out invoices that as a matter of practice the prices charged to Irish ports are lower than the prices charged to English ports.
Is the Deputy's information that that is the case in regard to all Irish ports, or is it only confined to Dundalk or Drogheda?
This is the free on ship price, freight added.
These figures, I understand, were shown to the Minister for Finance and to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I saw those figures, and I am absolutely convinced that the flour was dumped in Cork 7/- under the Mark Lane prices or the prices in Liverpool. I am sorry the Association did not show these figures to the Minister.
They showed me figures which indicated that flour sold at a price below certain published figures relating to prices in Great Britain, but they did not show or attempt to show that it was sold in Cork below the prices which were actually got in England.
Mr. HENNESSY
At all events, we know now from the recent published statement of the British Millers' Association that they have lost considerably. I think one concern has lost half a million already, and a big percentage of that loss was incurred by selling a large quantity of their flour in this country under the cost of production in England.
Might I ask whether the firm in question has stated that their losses were largely due to trading in grain and they never mentioned the sending of flour to Ireland?
Mr. HENNESSY
I have got a cutting here from the "Miller":—"Following upon last week's announcement that Messrs. Milling and Associated Industries, Ltd., were unable to recommend the payment of a final dividend on the ordinary shares of the company we learn this week that the North Shore Mills Co., of Liverpool, incurred a loss of over £50,000 on last year's trading." In the previous week we read of another combine losing £500,000. I have also got a cutting here from the "Independent," showing that these combines are concentrating to capture the Irish market. The cutting is headed "English millers and Irish trade." It says: "Spillers and Baker, Ltd., the well-known millers, are now equipping a mill at Birkenhead to provide better facilities for the economic carrying on of their Irish trade hitherto done from Cardiff. Ranks, Ltd., have a huge mill in operation at Birkenhead for some years with a similar aim."
The Minister for Lands and Agriculture will agree, probably, that were it not for the fact that these British millers at the moment are at each other's throats, there would be no possibility of saving the industry of flour-milling in Ireland. They have not agreed upon a fixed price, but if they do agree on a fixed price our millers will go down and will be crushed out. What price will be charged for flour when that happens? What will the price of our loaf then be? Will they be so much in love with us that they will reduce the cost of our loaf to 8d.? I rather think they will fix the price of our loaf at such a figure as will recoup them for the hundreds of thousands they have been losing here for the past twelve months and we will then be completely at their mercy. I think we have some experience of that sort of dependence on outside sources for our supplies during the past six or eight years.
During the European war we were wholly dependent on an outside source for our coal supply. What happened? Very small quantities of coal were exported to this country. These were coals of an inferior quality and these were sold as high as £5 a ton. We were not able to get sufficient coal even at that price. The result was that members of poor families actually died from cold and exposure. To-day there is an industrial strike in Britain. We do not know how long it is going to last or what its effects or reaction may be. Consider the better position we would be in here if we had sufficient stocks in our flour mills, and sufficient stocks of other essentials. These could be utilised for the purpose of carrying us over the period until conditions are again normal. In other words, if we now prepare to meet such emergencies in future we will not be affected by any industrial unrest in Britain or elsewhere.
Does the Deputy suggest the size these stocks should be? Could he tell us that in order to have the guarantee he mentions?
Mr. HENNESSY
We could carry a six weeks' supply and that would get us over the abnormal period.
What would that amount to in money?
Mr. HENNESSY
We never know what day Deputy Davin or some other Deputy on the Labour benches may hold up his hand and bring about a stoppage of the industrial life of this country. If we had not stocks of coal, flour and other essentials, imagine the position we would be in. Those are matters we should take into consideration when we are discussing the broad question of protection. I think Deputy Good fears that we have not sufficient capacity in our flour mills to meet demands.
We would want four times the capital in all these companies in order to carry the stocks the Deputy speaks of.
Mr. HENNESSY
I maintain that there is sufficient capital already invested in these industries to meet all our requirements. We have flour mills working at the moment and we have flour mills idle. There are about 38 flour mills altogether in the Saorstát and I have figures here which have been certified by a firm of public auditors of repute. These figures set out that our consumption here reaches 2,963,240 sacks of flour per annum; that is our total consumption in the Saorstát. Of that quantity we import annually 1,372,000 sacks of flour. There is a potential capacity of 38 flour mills in the Saorstát. Working full time they can turn out 420 sacks of flour per hour and, with the maximum working hours per week 141, that would leave the total sacks of flour per week 59,220. That figure, multiplied by 50 working weeks per annum, gives us exactly 2,961,000 sacks. That represents our possible capacity in sacks of flour per annum. That is exactly our consumption and yet, although we have sufficient milling capacity in the Saorstát to supply our demands, we import 1,500,000 sacks of flour. I leave it to Deputies to form some idea of the amount of money that we lose annually by importing 1,500,000 sacks of flour. We could easily manufacture that quantity in our own mills and we could keep our own money in circulation and keep our workmen employed.
We read in a section of the Press last month—a section which was voicing the opinions of the Saorstát agents of Spillers and Baker and the agents of another foreign industrialist—that if the Minister dared put a tariff of 2/6 on the sack of flour the price would be passed on to the consumer and the consumer would be so heavily burdened that he could scarcely bear it. That is the argument that is put up. We have figures here to prove that we could easily mill in this country the quantity we now import. I will go further, and say that if it could be milled in this country we would have healthier people and less disease amongst our population. We have a very large amount of money invested in our woollen industry, yet we import something like £1,735,000 worth of manufactured cloth and piece-cloth per annum. As in the case of our flour mills, we have sufficient capacity in our woollen mills to meet the demands of the State; yet we lose annually that large sum of money to the people of Yorkshire and other places, and I certainly cannot understand why we do. No Deputy can possibly stand up in the Dáil and say that we ought to continue, in those two industries, sending out of the country something like £3,000,000 annually from our own people. Yet, when we travel up and down the country from Donegal to Cork, everyone seems disappointed and dissatisfied, and says there is not sufficient money in circulation. I wish some of the Deputies here would come down to Cobh with me on any Sunday morning and see the farmers' sons and daughters going in the emigrant ships to New York for a livelihood, instead of living at home on the soil.
Is there any guarantee that Irish wheat would be used in manufacturing flour, and that flour would not still be manufactured out of imported grain?
Mr. HENNESSY
We buy imported grain, the same as other people, on the Exchange, and it would be very easy for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with the co-operation of the millers in the Saorstát, to go into the cost of production. I think they would satisfy the Minister on that point, and be able to fix a reasonable profit, and also fix the price of flour.
Will they use Irish grain?
Mr. HENNESSY
They are also prepared to absorb something like 10 per cent. minimum of Irish-grown wheat. That is a most important point to the mills, and they would be glad to get it even now if farmers would give it to them. I have heard farmers say that it would pay them much better to grow wheat than some other crops. Surely no one will deny that with the large amount of offal which would accumulate in the mills we will get it 50 per cent. cheaper than we get it to-day.
You should be a farmer.
Mr. HENNESSY
I have done some farming. I am not green on farming. I am also in touch with many farmers and hear their practical views, and I must say I do not hear those views expressed here very often. The men whose views I hear are agriculturists, manufacturers and people interested in the prosperity of the Free State. I have a farmers' paper here at the moment.
Did you say a farmers' paper or a protectionist paper?
Mr. HENNESSY
This is a farmers' paper, and I think its views are representative of 80 per cent. of farmers. What does it say?
"We do not want oats from Canada, barley from India, wheat nor bacon from U.S.A., maize from South America. We can produce these things here! We paid above countries in 1925, £7,184,489 for goods we could produce ourselves!"
Can that be refuted?—I do not think it can.
"In the same period these particular countries bought from us goods value £435,494 only!"
Is it any wonder that we have an adverse trade balance?
"We imported last year (1925) barley, oats and wheat, and their products, to the value of £8,211,370."
Mind you, that is barley, oats and wheat, and this is an agricultural country. I am not speaking of all the other products.
Does the Deputy propose to protect barley, oats and wheat?
Mr. HENNESSY
I am in favour of any protective policy that will help the farming population of this country.
Deputy Hennessy must address the Chair and not members of the Farmers' Benches.
Mr. HENNESSY
I am very sorry, but if they only try and content themselves with listening to the few words I speak I will proceed. I sit here and listen to them every day. I do not interrupt. I am reading from a farmers' paper and giving those Deputies some home truths.
Who is the editor?
Mr. HENNESSY
This paper informs me, as well as every working farmer in the country and every manufacturer, that we import barley, oats and wheat to the extent of over £8,000,000 annually.
Did I hear the Deputy say the name of the paper was "Dublin Opinion"?
No, it is "Honesty."
Mr. HENNESSY
I did not catch the Minister's question. The reason I am so interested in this paper is, that when I hear the Farmer Deputies' point of view expressed here and picked up this morning this farmers' paper, I wondered where I was. It goes on:
"We do these things deliberately and then screech against high taxation, much of which we make ourselves !"
Of course we do. The Minister for Finance will tell you that the only sensible way to reduce our taxation is by producing more and more, so that the arguments of this journal and the Minister for Finance tally:
"10½ million cwts. would be approximately the produce of 500,000 acres of land! It would take £2,000,000 in direct-paid farm wages to produce it! It would mean work for 25,000 farm labourers for 52 weeks!"
It continues:
"During 1925 we paid just £10,000,000 to foreign countries for maize, bacon, milk and other food and drink! Maize could be admirably substituted by barley, or even by oats and wheat, and the other items are unnecessary imports. Between the two classes we sent £18,000,000, foolishly, out of the country, instead of producing these direct and indirect products of the soil."
I suggest that paper should be not only in every farmer's house but in everyone's house.
I want to get an indication of what the Deputy is trying to prove. Is he trying to defend the protection of barley, oats and wheat? Let him say what he is going to prove.
Mr. HENNESSY
I say we have no objection to any duty imposed by the Minister for Finance that will help the farming industry.
Are you advocating protection or not?
Mr. HENNESSY
When we do that I do not think there can be any objection on the part of farmers to the people in the urban areas and towns getting some protection. I hope the Minister will consider the question of affording some protection, in the Budget, to those two industries. I make a very strong appeal for protection for those industries. I hope the millers will get some tariff, even half-a-crown, which will place them on some competitive basis with the millers in Liverpool. If, after due consideration, he cannot see his way to do that in the Budget, I would ask him to consider the early introduction of an Act such as the British Act, the Safeguarding of Industries Act, which was passed in England in 1921 for the purpose of safeguarding industries and preventing dumping. I think that when the manufacturers of this country make a good case to the Minister that such protection is needed, and when dumping is shown to be taking place, he should accede to their request.
I believe the last speaker, Deputy Hennessy, has done more to advance the free trade point of view than any of the other Deputies who have spoken during the debate. He says that English flour mills have conferred a benefit of a million of money on the inhabitants of the Free State, and that they are dumping 1,400,000 sacks of flour at a reduction of 7/- per sack. I think while that state of affairs prevails that the citizens of this country would not like the position altered, and I think Deputy Hennessy is going the wrong way about it, when he produces those facts for his constituents.
Mr. HENNESSY
I should like to explain that I also stated that we are losing £3,000,000 annually in exporting farmers' sons and daughters from the soil.
resumed the Chair.
I believe he has made the best case for free trade. If the state of the woollen mills and the other industries he talked about is such and if the English and foreign woollen mills are conferring such a benefit on the people of the Saorstát I do not think he has any case. I think he has knocked the bottom out of his whole case. He tells us about the benefit of the million of money which the English flour millers are conferring on the residents of the Saorstát. In the next breath he wants us to start your own mills to do all this work in our own country and to put a tax on the people of the country of an extra million of money. That is the real drift of Deputy Hennessy's argument and I cannot see that his own constituents will be very satisfied with his explanation here this evening.
There has been nothing much said about the oatmeal tax and I do not propose to defend it at length. With regard to the general question I said all I wish to say and that is sufficient.
We will resume this report to-morrow.