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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 12 May 1932

Vol. 41 No. 12

In Committee on Finance. - Financial Resolution No. 26.

I move:

"That it is expedient to amend the law relating to Customs and Inland Revenue (including Excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance."

Will we be given any opportunity of finding out some information on the Schedule to the Customs duties?

I understand that certain questions are to be asked with a view to elucidating some points in the Schedule and the replies will probably give the information the Deputy wants. If not, he will be entitled, as the House is in Committee, to put a question or questions.

My point is with regard to the Schedule of Financial Resolution 7, Reference No. 8, which says: "Putty in any form and paints and distempers in liquid form." I would like to ask the Minister if paints and distempers in powder and paste come under this category, and if not, what category do they come under? They are not specifically mentioned, only in liquid form.

I think the matter will appear quite clear to the Deputy if he reads the terms of the Resolution. The duty applies to putty in any form "and paints and distempers in liquid form (excluding white lead either dry or in the form of stiff paste, artists' colours in tubes, and any dry colours."

What I want to find out from the Minister is, if paints and distempers in dry form or in paste form are included or excluded?

The duty applies only to paints and distempers in liquid form.

I thank the Minister. There is a further question I want to put to him arising out of Reference No. 15 in the Schedule. I am anxious to know if wallpaper pattern books will come under Reference No. 15 or Reference No. 16. These two reference numbers deal with the duty on printed matter.

All printed matter, except that specifically excluded.

Would the Minister say into what category wallpaper pattern books would come?

If the Deputy is able to convince the Revenue Commissioners that wallpaper pattern books are not printed matter, he may be able to get away with it.

I would be glad to know from the Minister if he could give an answer at a later date.

I will have the matter looked into.

The next item I want to refer to arises under Reference No. 18—"Articles manufactured wholly or partly of wood or timber." Would the Minister say into what category wall-board comes?

I am not quite clear as to what wall-board is, but builders' woodwork generally is subject to the duty specified.

Is wall-board subject to the duty?

All builders' woodwork is.

Is wall-board builders' woodwork?

I will make inquiries.

I take it that the Minister will let me have a reply at a later date.

There is a further question I want to put to the Minister arising out of Reference No. 18. It speaks of articles manufactured "wholly or partly of wood or timber." What I am anxious to know is: is steel furniture included or excluded?

Would I be in order in suggesting that the Deputy should ask for an interview with the Revenue Commissioners for the purpose of getting the points he is dealing with cleared up?

Not at all. This is a Budget statement.

I think if Deputy Davin had more experience he would not have made that suggestion about interviewing the Revenue Commissioners.

Resolution 18 does not apply to furniture.

Arising out of the suggestion made by Deputy Davin, might I point out that this is not a matter for the Revenue Commissioners at all? It is the duty of this House to interpret these matters and lay down the orders for the Revenue Commissioners.

Might I ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce if it would be possible to give us at this stage an enumeration as between the 43 items that are to be tariffed, and if he would allocate the amount of £910,000 which is expected to be derived from them?

The only information I can give the Deputy on that point is that that estimate applies not merely in respect to the duties that are set out here, but also in respect to the duties which were imposed by Provisional Order.

Very good. The Minister is referring to the other 17 or 18 Orders. There are also these 43 items that are to be tariffed. We think that a segregation of the £910,000 revenue against all these items is necessary for a Budget debate. Can we have that information?

That is a matter for the Minister for Finance.

Then I address the question to the Minister for Finance.

It is not, in my opinion, advisable to give that information.

Will the Minister say how Deputies can discuss these duties intelligently without that information?

I cannot say how the Deputy will be able to deal with his personal inconvenience in that matter.

Surely the Minister must have made some estimate?

He is still ploughing the fallow field.

Arising out of Reference No. 32 in the Schedule "roof felting and felting substitute and other like substances intended for use as roofing material," would the Minister say if asbestos roof covering would come under that definition?

No, it is not intended that it should.

In connection with Reference No. 16 in the Schedule, which sets out stationery of certain descriptions that will become liable to duty, I would like to know from the Minister if he proposes to include in the Schedule paper cartons or containers, because, as many Deputies are aware, quantities of these goods are coming into the country.

No. The duty applies only to stationery of the descriptions that are set out in the Schedule.

Is the Minister aware that paper cartons with the names of Irish butter manufacturers, creamery manufacturers and others printed on them are coming into this country from places as far distant as Sweden?

The whole printing duty applies only to printing on paper and not on cardboard.

Is the Minister aware that possibly the greater bulk of imported printing is done in connection with the cartons to which I refer?

That is not a point of information, is it?

I am asking the question if the Minister is aware of the fact.

I am aware of it.

Yet the Minister seeks to tariff articles which are coming in in lesser quantities as represented in £ s. d.

I take it that the Deputy's point is that the tariff is not wide enough; that there are certain articles excluded that should be included?

Yes. As far as I can see there are two good features in the Budget, and this is one of them.

The only point that I want to make is that this Budget is not the end of the world.

It is very nearly, so far as this country is concerned.

As regards Reference No. 15, I take it that bound books are not taxable? I see that unbound books are specifically excluded, but bound books can only be excluded if they are regarded as "matter printed on paper which at importation is pasted on or otherwise firmly adhering to cardboard." Does that mean that bound books are excluded?

Bound books are intended to be subject to duty.

Can we have from the Minister for Finance now, or at an early stage in the debate, information as to how he arrived at the figure of £250,000 "reduction in salaries in the Public Service" shown as item 5 on the expenditure side in the Explanatory statement issued? I think the House is also entitled to have the information asked for by Deputy McGilligan as to how the Minister for Finance arrived at the figure of £910,000 already alluded to.

We can move the adjournment until we get the information. I want to refer again to the question, to which I got a very unsatisfactory answer. We are told that there is £910,000 to be derived from tariffed articles. To-day, in answer to two specific questions, I was told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that it was expected that the revenue would benefit by £200,000 on the two items mentioned. That would leave £700,000. I have asked for an enumeration of the moneys to be derived from the special headings or even the larger headings. I want a segregation. We are told that it is not advisable to give it. I suggest that is very unfair to a House which allowed the Minister for Finance an extra respite of two hours in order to prepare himself. I suggest to the House that we ought to adjourn until we get the information asked for. Is the information in the possession of the Minister?

The estimate has been prepared for me by officers who are competent to prepare it. I have accepted the figures, and I do not think it would serve any useful purpose to make the allocation that Deputy McGilligan requires.

Very good; we can consider that in detail.

How are we to discuss individual resolutions, without having some notion as to the burdens they are going to place on the taxpayers?

One million pounds of taxation.

There is no use discussing it at all. It may be possible to give the information immediately, or it may require some time, but the House will co-operate for the convenience of the Minister. We cannot, however, consider resolutions unless we know what they are going to do.

We are told that it is in the possession of the Minister.

The debate on the general resolution, as a general rule, is a debate on the general principles of the Budget. When the principal resolution comes to be debated on report stage, the information will then be available.

One of the items I suggest that arises for consideration on the general resolution is whether or not the method of getting in certain moneys is a suitable one, the most suitable one, or an effective one. We cannot discuss these three points without knowing how this block of one million pounds is going to be derived, and if the information is in the possession of the Minister, as he says it is, it is treating the House with great disregard, if not with insolence, to refuse it.

The first time it was so treated.

If Deputy McGilligan will throw his mind back to the last session, he will remember that we voted £2,000,000 in respect of a certain undertaking with which he was associated, and in regard to which he refused to give any particulars whatever to the House.

Do not follow that rotten example.

The points which Deputy McGilligan has made would be perfectly relevant if these tariffs were at this moment being imposed for revenue purposes only. They are being imposed, as I have said, because, first of all, they are necessary to fulfil the Government's economic and industrial policy.

I do not know if the Minister for Finance would tell us whether the Estimate supplied to him, and in his possession, is a detailed estimate, setting out against each reference number the revenue that may be expected, or whether he has only obtained a bulk sum. If he has only obtained a bulk sum, he cannot be asked to give any more to-day, but I think it would be reasonable that he should either get an estimate for each particular reference number, or that he should get an estimate over a number of groups. There are 43 particular tariffs, and the Minister could not be expected to give us 43 separate estimates, because there might be certain cases where it would be reasonable that two or three should be grouped together, but I think that the Minister should give us, either now, if he has it, or later on, if it has to be prepared, something in much greater detail than what we have got.

The suggestion made by Deputy Blythe is an eminently reasonable one and I would be prepared to meet it in that spirit. I do not think it will be possible for me to let the House have the information in the form in which Deputy Blythe has suggested it should be offered to-day, but I will have a memorandum prepared and circulated at an early date.

Might I suggest to the Minister that he would answer these questions civilly, when put, and take the House quite candidly into his confidence with regard to whatever information he has, and not try to lecture the House.

Satan rebuking sin.

This Estimate of £910,000 was either a bulk Estimate without any consideration of the individual items, or it was arrived at by adding up the individual items. I presume, as I must attribute a certain amount of sense to the Ministry, that it was arrived at in the latter manner. Therefore, I presume that the information must be, as the Minister first said, at his disposal, and why, then, does he refuse to give it to the House? We are asked to impose taxes. The reason does not matter. We impose them, but the least we may know is what each particular tax is supposed to bring in. The idea of suggesting that we should debate, even in a general fashion, a Budget about £1,000,000 of which we have practically no information is ridiculous.

I think it is quite obvious that information given in the form requested by Deputy McGilligan and Deputy O'Sullivan would be misleading. Estimates must necessarily be conjectural. Arguments which would be based on a single figure relating to a particular item might easily be unfounded. It might be possible to group a number of the duties, as Deputy Blythe suggested, and give a reasonably accurate estimate in respect of the group, but to expect the Minister for Finance to give an accurate estimate in respect of each item, is asking too much, in the first place, and would be very undesirable, in the second place, because of the fact that under the circumstances existing now, any such estimate must necessarily be subject to quite a large number of considerations, the main consideration being the rate of development at which industrialisation will go on. It is clear that in respect of quite a number of these duties the effect on the Revenue will be to decrease revenue.

Let us have it.

They are being imposed by the Government, not because of their effect on revenue, but because of their effect in supporting the Government's industrial policy. The Estimate which has been prepared by those whose duty it is to prepare it, and which was submitted to the House, represents the closest approximation possible to the probable yield in this year.

Will the Minister say what percentage of error does he think there would be in these items if they were presented singly?

My opinion on that is of no value.

The House has a right to discuss them when presented by people who have drawn up a Budget founded on a £910,000 estimate without any percentage error.

I should say that it is quite obvious from what the Minister for Industry and Commerce has said that the House is much more in the dark now than it was before he made the statement. We understood before he made the statement that these 43, plus 12 others, I think, tariffs, taxes or whatever you like to call them, were to produce revenue. We are to understand now that a number will produce no revenue, and to discuss the Budget in these circumstances is, I suggest, ridiculous. The Estimate may have been approximate, or not, but that £910,000 was made up by addition and subtraction so far as the individual items were concerned. Can we at least have that with the reservations he has made?

With reference to the particular point raised by Deputy O'Sullivan, if he reads the speech delivered yesterday by the Minister for Finance, he will see that provision was made for the obviously estimated character of these items.

The £910,000?

And that provision was made in the Budget for the possibility of the yield of these duties proving less than the Estimate. I suggest, sir, that we can get no further in the discussion on this to-day. The Minister for Finance has undertaken to consider the preparation of an Estimate which will, as accurately as possible, under all the circumstances, group the various duties into all their classes. I think that meets the requests made from the opposite side in a reasonable manner.

The statement in the Minister's speech was:—

All are necessary for the fulfilment of our industrial programme, since we are capable of producing here everything to which they are applied and they will yield to the revenue £910,000.

Where is the doubt in that?

If Deputy Cosgrave will turn to that passage in my speech where I dealt with the present Estimates, and where I refer to the custom established by my predecessor of knocking off in some years five per cent., and last year two and a half per cent., for over-estimation, he will see that I indicated to the House that I was not this year going to avail of that precedent to the fullest extent; that instead of doing that I was allowing some part of the element of over-estimation to remain against the contingency that some of the new duties would not yield the revenue which we anticipated.

That is a new idea!

Might I suggest that if the Minister is not able at this stage to give the detailed statement he has promised later, he should, at any rate, give us some general notion as to how the figure of £910,000 is arrived at, because we have no idea as to what kind of method was adopted.

May I supplement what the Deputy has asked by adding this: Could not we, at any rate, get a segregation at this moment of these tariffs into those imposed for protective purposes and those imposed purely for revenue?

Will the Minister kindly give me some information as to where I shall find what he stated in his statement, because I have not been able to find it?

Pages 15 and 16.

Shall I read it, because the Deputy was not here?

No, once is enough. That deals with the one and a half per cent. in respect of the cost of Supply Services and is not in respect of the Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure.

I am surprised at Deputy Cosgrave. Shall I read it?

I see it now.

Deputy Cosgrave desires to apologise.

He is being educated.

I suggest that if anything is to be said for this paragraph which has just been read out about over-estimation, it is an argument against the presentation of any Estimates to this House except in bulk form. We recognise that Estimates are only Estimates and that these are a little more conjectural than usual. We want even conjectural Estimates; otherwise we cannot be reasonably asked to discuss them.

In view of the assurance I have already given to Deputy Blythe, the best course for me is to move the general Resolution, and I do so accordingly.

There is a question I desire to ask before we go any further. This £50 which it is proposed to allow in respect of children: there is no deduction, I take it, from that? Is it subject to the ten per cent. deduction formerly given in the case of the £40 and £30? Is it a full allowance of £50?

A full allowance.

Is any provision being made by the Minister in respect of the deficit which the President of the Executive Council announced on the 29th April, 1932, when he said: "There is a deficit this year roughly of £1,400,000. That is what Deputy Blythe has left us, a Budgetary deficit of close on £1,400,000." (Official Report, col. 917, 29th April, 1932.)

If the Deputy wants to read the speech he can.

I have not founded myself on it. I am only asking the question.

If you read it through you will find it did escape you.

We are closing an old chapter. We are wiping off the losses in respect of that chapter and beginning anew. We are not meeting Deputy Blythe's deficit. It has been already met out of borrowing by Deputy Blythe.

I take it there is adherence to that statement in April that there is a deficit of £1,400,000.

There was, and I am responsible for it, an over-statement in that regard; but in the official financial review of the past year the deficit is clearly indicated, if Deputy Cosgrave, in view of the importance of the occasion, will take the trouble to read it.

Does the Minister include the President of the Executive Council in that over-estimation?

No, the President had nothing to do with it.

He is right?

I was wrong in advising the President of the fact.

Is he right in this figure of £1,400,000?

If Deputy Cosgrave will read my statement he will be able to answer the question for himself.

I take it the Minister is not standing over that.

Is it intended that we shall proceed by way of speeches or by way of cross-examination?

May I ask, with reference to the statement on page 13 that £1,000,000 is to be borrowed from the Road Fund, is there any provision made in respect of interest, in the Budget, for that sum?

It is to be borrowed on the security of the Road Fund and the interest will be charged against the Road Fund.

There is another question in respect of an item of £420,000—

Without wishing to evade any question I should like to say that every point which the Opposition wishes to make against this Budget I shall be prepared to deal with in the usual way at the close of the debate. The procedure that is now being initiated is one that the Opposition, when they were on these benches, would never have conceded to us.

On a point of order. An agreement was come to which I am sure the Minister knows about with regard to the procedure in relation to the Budget this year. That agreement was of a different nature— at least it set up a new type of arrangement, different from other years. Following that arrangement, the resolutions were allowed to go through yesterday after being moved in the most formal way without any precise questions being put. That was done, we understood, to suit the convenience of the Government. The information is certainly desirable, and we could have got it yesterday by asking for it on the specific resolution. We let the debate go yesterday. That was a request made by the Government. We are now asking for the information we could have got in the ordinary way yesterday. It is, I think, part of the agreement?

Every member of the Opposition will have an opportunity of dealing with these separate items and of going into them in detail. It is obvious that any agreement made was never intended to cover the sort of cross-examination that is going on at present with respect to the whole Budget. You might as well ask for the details of the Supply Services immediately.

Surely if the Budget had been dealt with in the ordinary way like last year, or the year before, when Resolution 7 came to be moved the questions with regard to the segregation of this £910,000 could then have been put and normally would have been answered. Instead of asking them last night we are asking them now.

Normally they would not have been put, because it was necessary to get these resolutions through, as everybody knows, last night. Is it not quite obvious that with such a large number of Resolutions it would not have been possible to go through them in detail like other years when a smaller number was before us?

Distinctly it would, and particularly if the Minister did not ask for an extra respite of two hours?

As a matter of fact, that was not the first time such an arrangement was come to. I remember a couple of years ago we had a Budget speech also after five o'clock.

Nobody is denying that, but when the respite was asked for it is not fair to bring in the lack of time last night as an excuse for the refusal to answer questions. These questions could have been put if the Budget statement were made at three o'clock yesterday and the Resolutions could have been got through by 10.30 p.m.

I suggest that we go on with the usual debate on the Budget and that when we come to the separate Resolution any item of information required can be asked for. We are dealing with the Budget as a whole. This Estimate of £910,000 has been arrived at, as the members opposite know well, by adding up certain Estimates for a number of items. In each one of these a certain percentage of error is likely and the Minister, naturally, does not want to stand over every particular item at this stage, but in the bulk, this Estimate is regarded as fairly accurate. This is a bulk Estimate and there may be errors, plus and minus in some cases. I suggest that we go on with the business and any reasonable information required by the Opposition will be given in respect of each particular item.

We do not press for immediate information. The Minister can say that he will be able to give it at 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock or to-morrow. We do not want to take him at a disadvantage; we simply want information. I want some in respect of an item, mentioned in page 12, of £424,000 accrued interest on Savings Certificates. I want to know if the Minister has made provision for all that this year: if that sum is the only sum or whether it includes £150,000 which the ex-Minister usually provided for that. I am not pressing for an immediate answer but I want it.

I am sure the Minister will see the reasonableness of explaining a matter which has caused me some confusion in Financial Resolution No. 25. It says: "That there shall be charged in respect of the available surplus within the meaning of Sections 5 and 6 of the Public Charitable Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1931... a Stamp Duty at the rate of twenty-five per cent. of the amount of such available surplus." In the paper handed to us this afternoon under the heading of Emergency Budget Receipts there is an item of Income Tax from Hospital Receipts from Sweepstakes. I want to know is the Stamp Duty the same as the Income Tax.

There is no difference.

No difference. They are one and the same tax.

A question was already put from the Labour Benches to which I did not hear the Minister's reply and that was: Will he give some further details about the £250,000 which it is proposed to get by reduction in salaries of public officials.

If Deputy Blythe wishes an answer this afternoon I will scarcely be in a position to give it, for the reason that, while we must get £250,000, I have given an undertaking to certain members of the Civil Servants and other public servants that I shall see them before I definitely announce the scale.

There is £250,000 to be got, whether by agreement or otherwise?

I believe we shall have no difficulty in securing an agreement to yield to the community in the present circumstances that £250,000.

The £250,000 is about as fixed as the £910,000?

No. The £250,000 is a very definite Estimate which I believe we shall fulfil.

In reference to Financial Resolution No. 8, item 3—newspapers and periodicals imported in bulk quantities, etc.—when the Minister is making his statement on this Financial Resolution will he indicate the reasons which actuated him in imposing this? Is he aware that the restrictions already imposed by the operation of the Censorship of Publications Act are sufficient to preclude the introduction into this country of any objectionable matter? I would ask the Minister to amplify his original statement somewhat and give us the reasons for this impost, and also if he will have regard to its repercussions and effect on the reading public in this country. I feel that the Minister may have in mind the keeping out of the country—very properly, to my mind—of any matter calculated to have a dangerous effect on the morals of the youth of the country in particular. I would suggest to him, however, that matter of an educational character may also be kept out of the country as a result of this tax. Whilst I can see that the Minister may mean very well in this regard, I do feel, at the same time, that it is quite possible that it may have effects which the Minister has not contemplated.

I think the point raised by Deputy Anthony should be raised by him in his speech. I understand the Minister for Industry and Commerce will deal with that, and I myself shall also deal with it.

I do not want to embarrass the Minister, but I want an indication that he will deal with it in his speech. Am I to understand that the Minister for Industry and Commerce will deal with it?

It will be dealt with.

Might I point out to the Minister for Industry and Commerce with regard to the tariffs, to the number of 43, that the Minister for Finance stated yesterday on page 40:

"All are necessary for the fulfilment of our industrial programme since we are capable of producing here everything to which they are applied and they will yield to the Revenue £910,000"?

Am I to understand from the Minister for Industry and Commerce's statement to-day that he is not in full agreement with the statement of the Minister for Finance, seeing that he has stated to-day that some of these are intended as protective duties and others purely for Revenue?

I shall deal with these points later when speaking.

It may be necessary for me to speak before the Minister. Am I to take it that some of these duties are for Revenue purposes?

They all have some protective effect. Some minor ones however are designed to bring in Revenue also.

And the amount they will yield is £910,000. We should put in some word like "approximately" or "probably" after it?

I want to know——

Is Deputy Gorey going to open the debate?

I understood as stated before that a certain number of questions were to be asked by Deputies to elucidate points of the Schedule, such elucidation being necessary to the better conduct of the debate on the Budget. But if that degenerates into cross-examination across the floor of the House there will be no satisfactory debate on the Budget. The Minister for Finance has undertaken to furnish the figures which Deputy Blythe asked for, and I suggest that in the meantime the debate on the General Resolution should be carried on as a debate, and since the whole field of taxation and expenditure may be covered, there should be sufficient scope for Deputies.

Will it be allowable for a Deputy who has spoken on the General Resolution to intervene a second time if the reply from the Minister for Finance seems to warrant a second intervention?

The House is in Committee.

May I ask a question?

Yes, and the Minister may answer if he desires. The Deputy might ask questions in the course of his speech.

I want to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce if Item 21, dealing with superphosphates, ground mineral phosphates, and compound manures embraces all phosphates coming into the country in a raw state.

It applies only to non-British phosphates. There is no duty on chemical manures coming from Britain, or any of the Dominions. The item applies only to the classes set out, in respect to which the existing supplies are sufficient.

Will it apply to Peruvian guano?

I would want notice of that question.

With reference to the statement of the Minister for Finance yesterday, one of the things that was noticeable was the amount of time he spent at the opening of his remarks in trying to divert the attention of the House from the essentials of the Budget. Quite a number of pages of the statement are occupied with an attempt to prove that there was a deficit on the Budget for the year ending the 31st March last. Deputies have only to read his statement to see that there was no foundation whatever for the contention of the Minister, and that, so far from ending with a deficit, the last year ended with some small surplus. The Minister admits that certain items of expenditure may be covered by borrowing. One of the items which he admits may be covered by borrowing is compensation for property destroyed during the civil war or previous to it. There are items which he will not allow as proper to be met by borrowing, but for which a much stronger case could be made. It is simply ludicrous for the Minister to suggest, for example, that it is wrong to borrow for capital for the Local Loans Fund. The money that has heretofore been supplied to the Local Loans Fund has been lent out. Some of it is being gradually repaid and it is all earning interest. That particular provision is essentially one that should be made by borrowing, and not by taxation. If for the future the Minister alters the character of the Local Loans Fund a different position arises. Up to the present the Local Loans Fund has lent money on an economic basis and any money advanced to it was quite properly found by borrowing. It would be wrong to put a levy on the taxpayer to provide it. If it is right as the Minister admits to provide out of borrowed moneys for payments to private individuals for the re-erection of buildings destroyed during the civil war and the Anglo-Irish struggle it is equally right for the State to borrow to replace Government buildings destroyed during the same period whether they are centrally situated like the Four Courts and the General Post Office, or whether they are scattered over the country like Civic Guard barracks. There is just the same case for borrowing for the restoration of State buildings as for borrowing for the restoration of private buildings and the Minister is, in fact, arranging in this Budget to borrow for the restoration of private buildings.

The Minister suggests that it is wrong to borrow for afforestation. The only objection that can be made to borrowings hitherto made for forestry is that the sums were rather small. Is the Minister going to suggest that money spent on forestry is thrown away and that afforestation has no economic or commercial side whatever? I admit that money spent on afforestation cannot all be recovered and cannot all earn interest. I have not been able to lay my hands on figures given in a memorandum some years ago when this matter was considered, but the judgment arrived at was that half the money spent on forestry might reasonably be regarded as an investment and the other half, if you like, as a contribution towards relieving unemployment or towards beautifying the country, but not as economic expenditure. It is perfectly justifiable to borrow a part of the money spent on afforestation.

As regards money advanced to the Land Commission which is going to be repaid by the tenants, surely the Minister will not seriously contend, except when indulging in flights of oratory, that it is not correct to borrow for such outgoings? Anybody who thinks over the matter for five minutes, and who looks at the Minister's statement, will come to the conclusion that instead of there being a deficit of some £639,000, there was a surplus of nearly £160,000, and the Minister might have put that £160,000 to the Savings Certificates Interest Equalisation Fund. That would have been an ample contribution for the past year, because the amount of interest accrued but uncovered did not accrue last year and was not payable last year. There was no obligation on the Minister to wipe it off last year, and the contribution available to him would have been ample. I do not think the Minister was under any illusion—unless he put himself under an illusion for propagandist purposes—that there was any Budget deficit, but he wanted to create an atmosphere for the sort of Budget which he chose to bring in. He brought in a worse Budget than he need have brought in. As I indicated yesterday, I do not think it would have been possible for him to have brought in a Budget that most people would be glad to see and that would have given great and general satisfaction.

The Minister, having tried to confuse the minds of Deputies and of people who might read a report of his speech on the question of last year's Budget, also tried to create confusion about the question of the capital liability of the State. He seemed at times, when trying to create this confusion, as if, instead of giving an account of the position of the Exchequer, he was engaged in some sort of national stocktaking. Obviously, the Minister could not, on an occasion like the introduction of a Budget, undertake a national stocktaking, nor would he be called upon to do so. If he were to try it he would have to bring into account great numbers of items which we are not immediately concerned with. He brought in, however, practically as a capital item as an item of debt, the liability to pay over the land purchase annuities to the appropriate British fund, but he took no account whatever on the other side of the claim of the Government to collect the land annuities from the tenants. His balancesheet, in so far as we had it yesterday, seemed to be based on this: That the Exchequer is bound to pay over to the appropriate British account, but is not entitled to collect the annuities from the tenants. If he had been trying to make things clear instead of trying to create a fog he would, if he put on the liability side—which, of course, it was unnecessary to do—the requirement to pay over the land annuities to the appropriate British account, have put on the other side the debt owing by the tenants, and the two items would have cancelled one another out. But then he would not have been able to get up this grand total of debt with which he tried to create confusion in the minds of Deputies and others who read his speech, and thus prepared the way for the sort of Budget he introduced.

It was ludicrous also for him to capitalise a payment like the R.I.C. pensions. These pensions are essentially a part of the normal cost of police and there is no reason why they should be capitalised and added to the total of the National Debt, any more than the pensions of Civil Servants, pensions of retired members of the D.M.P., or even old-age pensions should be so treated.

As I said, these payments in respect of R.I.C. pensions are part of the normal cost of police. Police charges in every country consist of wages of the existing force, maintenance of establishments and payment of pensions to retired members of the force. To build up a fantastic debt figure by capitalising items which there is no justification for capitalising is unworthy of a Minister introducing a Budget. He ought to try not to confuse people, but rather to make the position clear to people and to enable them to get a just estimate of what the position is. If we proceed along the lines the Minister has adopted, we could capitalise the salaries paid to civil servants and a number of other items and produce a figure far greater than the figure the Minister has produced. There was no reason for his stopping where he did. I do not believe that the Minister was himself confused in regard to that matter, nor do I believe that he was confused when he was running in and out from gold ounces to sterling and back again to gold ounces. He was trying to divert attention from the essential factor in his Budget. The essential factor in his Budget was simply this—that, with falling revenue, he thinks it appropriate to put heavy additional burdens on the taxpayer. There is no doubt that, owing to world conditions and to the general trend of prices, national income has fallen, and seriously fallen, during the last couple of years. Whether or not the fall in tax revenue is a true index of the fall in national income, I do not know, but it must be regarded as some indication of how national income is going. When tax revenue begins to fall, a Minister and a Government which took their duty seriously would try to reduce the burden on the public whose income had gone down. The taxes shown on the White Paper—the taxes in existence at the end of last financial year— would have brought in in the present year £1,300,000 less than they brought in last year and that although there would be a full year for the additional 4d. on petrol and 6d. on income tax which, normally, should have come to half a million additional. Comparing like with like, therefore, the yield of the taxes in existence on 31st March will be down in the present financial year by about £1,800,000. When we have the yield of taxation going down in that way and representing a decline in national income, the Minister thinks fit to increase the burden on the taxpayer.

This Budget proposes to take from the taxpayer £1,764,000 more than the total taken last year, including tax and non-tax revenue. Instead of carrying into effect the Fianna Fáil policy of reducing taxation—they said they could reduce it by two million without reducing the efficiency of the administration—the Government have chosen a policy which means that the taxpayer is to be asked to pay nearly two million pounds more than was taken from him last year. It seems to me that this is an entirely irresponsible and cynical Budget. It is all very well in a spirit of political prejudice to select certain classes of the community and to decide to fleece them, but the fleecing of any particular section of the community is going to have reactions on every class. There are no great accumulations of wealth here from which you can take large additional sums without affecting even the poorest member of the community. If the Minister takes, as he is going to do, very considerable additional sums away in income and other taxes, then he is going to reduce employment. If you have a man with a particular income and you take £200 from that income, you are going to affect employment. It may lead to the direct dismissal of an employee. If it does not lead to the direct dismissal of an employee, it will mean less trade in some shop, with ultimately the dismissal of a shop assistant or a factory worker. It is not possible to avoid the evil effects of an increase of taxation—particularly at a time when income is falling and when all sorts of people have to pull in their horns and reduce expenditure.

This Budget will, undoubtedly, give new employment in certain directions. If heavy taxes are put on manufactured goods, then factories are going to be started and people are going to be employed in those factories. But if, at the same time, all other taxes go up, if the cost of living goes up, if the goods people have to buy go up in price as compared with the price of the goods which they could have bought before the tariffs were put on, then you are going to have new hordes of people put out of employment in other directions. It seems to me that what the Government have failed to take any account of are the evil effects that increased taxation in any direction must bring about and that an increase in the cost of living must bring about, particularly at a time when national income is going down.

Taking the Budget in detail, a great number of items in it could be criticised. In a country like this, it is certainly a most ill-advised proceeding to bring direct taxation up to the level to which it has been brought in this Budget. In a country like this, where industrial development has not taken place, and where we have not the accumulations of wealth which would follow industrial development, it is a wrong thing to adopt a system of taxation which is only tolerable in a country like our neighbour across the Irish Sea, where there has been great industrial development and where there are great accumulations of wealth. It is all very well to talk about encouraging enterprise, about keeping capital at home, and encouraging capital to come here, but when we have the possibility of industries carried on here being taxed on their profits at the rate of 7s. in the £ it is going to have a deleterious effect. A particular firm will now pay 2s. in the £ Corporation Profits Tax. An additional 6d. was put on the Corporation Profits in the hope of inducing that firm to establish a colonial register here. For their own reasons, the firm did not establish that colonial register. It should be clear to anybody on the opposite benches who considers the general effect of the Government's political policy that that firm could not now, with any reasonable prudence, venture on the establishment of a colonial register. What is happening is that a tax which was meant to be a coercive tax in a particular direction cannot now produce the result that was desired by increasing the original tax. The firm will have to pay 5s. income tax, in the ordinary way, and 2s. Corporation Profits Tax. There is this to be said about the Corporation Profits Tax—that it represents an income tax even on investors whose income is below the exemption limit.

If you have a widow or an orphan who has an investment bringing in a small income, the two shillings Corporation Profits Tax means that such people pay two shillings income tax which they will not recover at all.

One of the reasons why I always felt that we had to keep income tax substantially below the income tax on the other side was that we had a Corporation Profits Tax here which did not exist in Great Britain. I think there can be no justification for at once putting the income tax up to the British level and bringing the general level of the Corporation Profits Tax up to 1/6, and the exceptional level 2/-. If the income tax was going to be put up to the British level, then the Minister ought to have made up his mind that it was going to have a very bad effect on business and enterprise if he retained the Corporation Profits Tax at all.

I can see no justification for maintaining the Corporation Profits Tax and producing this position, that an English commercial company working in Great Britain has to pay a maximum of 5/- tax, whereas our companies, if they are of any size, will pay an income tax, for that is what it all is, of 6/6 in the £. I think that is certainly not the way to encourage enterprise, and I think the Minister should not have been so ready to yield at this time to the demand for new expenditure or so slow to face up to the unpopularity of reducing expenditure. I will admit that it is a more unpopular task to reduce expenditure than to impose any taxation whatever, because taxation, no matter how sharply it is increased, hits most individuals in a relatively small way. There is only a minor number of people who are tremendously affected immediately by an increase in taxation, whereas economies produce great anger and great resentment and a sort of lasting antagonism. But I hold that in existing circumstances, with a falling national income, it was the duty of the Minister to have acted as a Treasury man for once, to have held the reins tightly on new outlay, and have faced the unpopularity of reducing expenditure. That could have been done and would have given better results and more employment.

The Minister is gathering new sums into his Exchequer for the purpose of creating employment, but every pound he takes out of the pockets of the citizens is increasing unemployment. Every pound that he is going to take out of the Hospitals Sweepstakes Fund is going to reduce the amount the hospitals have to spend and to create unemployment there. We have Bills introduced at this stage which mean a substantial increase in expenditure this year and more next year. Other new things are threatened. Social services are good, and there is no doubt that, with the way things are going in the world, social services are going gradually to increase. Every sort of Government will find itself obliged for one or other reasons to increase social services, but social services which do not help the very poorest should not be increased at a time like this. I come now to income tax differentiation. The person who had the public spirit, the enterprise, the patriotism, or whatever it might be, to put his money last month or the month before, prior to the tariffs being imposed, into extending his business or creating new employment, is going to pay income tax at the full rate of 5/- and, possibly, to pay 1/6 Corporation Profits Tax on top of that; but the man who held back until there were all sorts of tariffs, making it comparatively easy for anybody in certain industries, no matter how efficient, to make money for a time, is going to get a rebate of 20 per cent. Apart from the general bad impression that a thing like that will create in the minds of many people, it is an unwise thing because, if the 20 per cent. rebate is going to be given so readily, there are people who might think it would be a good thing to wait until next year and there might then be a rebate of 40 per cent., as well as the advantage of all these unconsidered, unjustifiable tariffs. The whole thing would be ludicrous if the situation in the country were not so serious as it is. It is something in the nature of a tragedy to have the Government behave with the levity it has shown in this Budget —beginning with the cynical misrepresentation we find in the first part of the Budget, proceeding to the levity of this heavy increase of taxation in the main part of the Budget, and then proceeding to the cynical live-horse and-you-will-get-grass statement in the last part. The suggestion is that all will be well next year; it does not matter what increased taxes are to be put on, they will be all reduced at the expense of the British Government or the British people next year.

Last year the Minister for Finance said all sorts of things could and should then have been provided out of the land annuities. Now when he is sitting on the opposite Benches, he has nothing to say about doing it this year, but he is going to do it next year. I suggest there is the same cynicism in these empty promises in the second part of the Budget as there is in the misrepresentations of the first part of the Budget and it seems to me that the Government is going to work enormous damage by their policy. They are going to lose capital to a very considerable extent. They are going to have established here uneconomic industries, ill-placed, ill-designed, ill-managed with which it will be very painful for some later Government to deal. They are going beyond any reasonable bounds in this tariff policy and they are going to cause money to be invested here in enterprises that will have no claim to live because an enterprise that cannot give, and cannot hope within some reasonable period of years to give, fair service to the people not necessarily as cheap as outsiders, but something approximate to that, has not any right to live. They are creating that situation. By this policy they are going to lose income tax and to lose income that would otherwise come to the country.

They are going to lose the possession of capital to the country; they are going to create all this mass of weak, inefficient industries; and then at the same time we have this carrot of the land annuities being held out which will prevent national tasks being faced seriously as they ought to be faced. If it were possible to move an amendment to this particular Budget, I think it would be a reasonable thing to ask that everything should be postponed and that the representatives of the Government should go to Ottawa and settle their outstanding differences, the differences at any rate, that they are raising with the British Government, so that we might see where we are going to be in the matter of Dominion Preference vis-á-vis the British. Because all the calculations in the Budget will lose their validity if the policy which the Government is pursuing puts the Free State outside the 10 per cent. Dominion Preference—all this will go, and the extra taxation that is being put on in another Bill will be useless. As I said already, £1,700,000 of new taxation more than was collected last year is being taken by the Budget. There is another Bill under which a sum that may be disputed, but which we may assume will be at least £700,000, is being taken off the consumer, making a total of £2,400,000 additional taxation this year. We are faced with this prospect because the Government are willing to give new services and unwilling to face the task of making the economies that ought to be made in an emergency like the present.

There is no doubt that the Minister for Finance may be congratulated on a rhetorical display which is quite equal to a Gladstone or a Churchill, and we must congratulate him at any rate on the effect that it has had upon the people of the country. It is not often that after praising a Minister, I blow my own trumpet. But I must say that as far as I am concerned, I am responsible, I believe, for giving more employment than the Fianna Fáil people have given yet, and I was responsible for raising more money for charitable objects than it is likely they will raise by similar means, at all events.

In regard to the Sweepstakes which I initiated here and which Senator Farren fathered in the Seanad, we have given at the present moment permanent employment to 2,000 people with a weekly wage of about £4,000, and in addition to that we have given temporary employment to people numbering over 4,000 with a weekly wage amounting roughly to £10,000.

That money is being distributed throughout the country. It is going into the shops and it is going in many ways to help the poor, because, as far as I have been concerned, I have been most anxious that in regard to those looking for employment in the Sweeps encouragement should be given to the taking of girls who were orphans and who were very poor and very dependent.

As far as the money received for the benefit of the hospitals is concerned it should amount to about 2¾ millions. When one comes to consider the particular proposal of the Minister in this respect one would think that the Emergency Committee had come to him and said: "For goodness' sake will you take some of this money from us, we don't know what to do with it?" The Minister has made no apology for the raid that he has made on this fund. I say that it is extremely unfair that when an Act was passed by the Oireachtas to raise money for charitable purposes that money should now be raided in order to provide revenue for the State. This Emergency Committee that the Minister spoke of, agreed some time ago to certain proposals as they had to do, but at all events they agreed to certain proposals, and one of the proposals that they agreed to with the Minister was that income tax should be charged upon the amount of money available for the hospitals. For a moment's retrospect, I should like to say that during last year the Revenue Commissioners wanted to impose income tax upon the amount available for the hospitals. A deputation waited upon the then Minister for Finance and he agreed to put into his Finance Act, 1931, a clause exempting the hospitals from being penalised by income tax. And not only did he do that, but he went a step further and made that proposal retrospective so as to apply to the two Sweeps that had previously taken place. In my opinion, that provision should have continued until the Grand National of this year which was run in the month of March. What does the Minister propose to do? From reading his paper last night I understand that he proposes to make a levy of 25 per cent.—in one place, it appears as stamp duty and in another place it appears as income tax—he proposes at all events to charge income tax upon certain amounts.

The amount received in connection with the Grand National for the hospitals was £841,000 in the month of March, 1932. The Minister agreed, I understand, with the Committee who met him that he would charge income tax upon that amount. The income tax was then 3/6 in the £. What does he propose to do now? I hope he will be able to deny it. As I take it, he proposes to charge 25 per cent. on that £841,000. Income tax on £841,000 at 3/6 in the £, which was the rate last year, would be £147,232. As far as I understand the matter, the Minister now proposes to take 25 per cent. of the £841,000, which would amount to £210,000, that is to say, a difference of £63,000. In my opinion, first of all, he failed to keep his agreement with the Emergency Committee who met him, and, in the second place, he is robbing the hospitals of an additional £63,000 that he has absolutely no claim upon whatever. I do not regard this as honest dealing, and I want to ask the Minister two questions. I want to ask him whether, when an Act was passed by the Oireachtas, the primary and sole object of which, as far as I was concerned, was to raise money to help the voluntary hospitals —I want to ask him whether he thinks that that Act should now be used as a means for raising revenue for the State. And I ask him, secondly, does he think that the Irish Sweepstake will receive the marvellous support in the future that it has enjoyed in the past when it becomes known to the public that the State has come in and augmented its revenue by grabbing £63,000 which should have gone to help charities. We are looking for money. But I do say that it is a poor thing to go out to the public that the revenue of the State must be added to by grabbing money that was originally got up for the benefit of the charitable hospitals.

Not only has the Derby Sweep, which is nearly over now, been adopted, but there has also been adopted a scheme for the Cesarewitch. Tickets have been printed and distributed and on these tickets there is a distinct assurance to the public that the amount of moneys received through the sale of tickets will be distributed as follows:—75 per cent., after the deduction of expenses, will be distributed as prizes, and the remaining 25 per cent. will be paid to the hospitals. The Minister may say: "That will go to the hospitals, but we will make the hospitals pay." As a matter of fact, he is going to deduct his 25 per cent. before the money reaches the hospitals. On a previous occasion, Deputy Blythe, then Minister for Finance, met the Committee and put a provision into the Finance Act of 1931 exempting the hospitals from income tax.

I do not like to say anything that might harm the sweepstakes, and I do not want to prophesy. I must say, however, that as soon as the people in other countries get to know that the State here is using, for revenue purposes, the money that should have gone to the hospitals, they will be less likely to support our sweepstakes. I think this is going greatly to injure the sweepstakes in the future. I do not say that it will destroy them. I know there are people prepared to buy Sweep tickets no matter for what object. There has been a tremendous feeling on the other side in regard to money coming over here, and I know that any Press agitation started on the other side would have serious effects on the Sweepstakes here. John Bull will undoubtedly take the advice of his newspapers. When he was advised to pay his income tax early he paid it beforehand, and when he was advised to stay at home in his own country he did so, and many of the Swiss hotels and hotels in other parts of the Continent of Europe are now bankrupt as a result. If a Press agitation is started indicating that the money intended for a charitable purpose is now going to be devoted to revenue purposes in this State, there will be a big holding up of the money that otherwise would be subscribed.

I am sorry the Minister has seen fit to make this raid upon charitable funds. If he could possibly withdraw from that position I would like him to consider doing so. He puzzled me by his statement last night to the effect that he was putting a levy of 25 per cent. on the total amount given to the hospitals. He made a statement that income tax is to be charged to the extent of £650,000. In another place he referred to stamp duty. I am not very familiar with these things. I do not know how one mixes up a levy of 25 per cent. together with stamp duty and income tax. At all events, there is confusion existing in my mind. I am sure this will be taken advantage of by people on the other side who are opposed to sweepstakes money coming to the Free State. One must take into consideration the employment given to hundreds of girls and, to a smaller degree, to men in the City. It must be realised, too, that 93 per cent. or 94 per cent. of the money is not raised in the Free State.

I think it is an unwise thing to put this duty upon newspapers entering the Free State. These papers are largely read by boys. I do not know why it was considered necessary to impose this tax. I know there will be tremendous feeling amongst schoolboys when they find themselves deprived of their papers, the reading of which certainly did them no harm. I have frequently looked at those books and papers, and I certainly never saw anything harmful in them. I do not know why the Minister insists upon encroaching on a schoolboy's weekly allowance to the extent that he will have to pay extra for his papers.

I do not like to say very much about the increase in income tax. I expect anything I may say will be thought to be personal. There are many people like myself who have not pensions, and we are only able to provide for our wives and families. It is as much as we can do to make provision for them after our deaths. The only way one can do that is by endeavouring to save money. When I made a similar statement some years ago insurance was suggested. Who can now pay the premiums necessary to make adequate provision for a wife and a large family? People like myself, who receive very small salaries for the amount of work they have to do, are extremely hard hit by any increase in income tax. If it hurts me and many people similarly placed, what is the hardship inflicted upon others?

A great number of people are speaking about clearing out of the country because they say they will not be able to afford to live here. I am quite sure the Minister is not troubling about that. He says, "Anyone who wants to go let him go." That was not the attitude taken up by the late Government. Over and over again, through the President, they indicated that there was room for everybody, and they wanted us all to work together. I came in here in order to do my best to improve the economic position of the country. Those who have been here since I came to the Dáil are aware that anything I have done has been in the direction of improving the condition of the poor. I am quite sure the Minister is making a great mistake in raising the income tax to the English level. It will affect me seriously, but, apart from that, I think it is going to do a tremendous amount of injury to industry. It will cause unemployment. I know several people who are considering whether they will be able to do with a servant less in view of the extra income tax they will have to pay.

I am quite sure the President and the Minister for Finance have made up their minds that they do not want anybody like me who might be inclined to grumble; they want to get rid of such people, people with some sort of a stake in the country. There does not seem to be much anxiety to keep us here. I have lived here since I was 18 years of age, and I do not want to go away if I can possibly afford to stay. With the increased tariffs, the increased cost of living, and a higher income tax it is extremely difficult for people like myself to remain because of our dwindling incomes. We will find it hard to meet our ordinary commitments. I will make one last appeal to the Minister. I think he would be doing a good day's work if he decided to do without the £650,000 he is going to take from the portion of the sweepstakes money that will be allotted to the hospitals.

I do not think that, with regard to any Budget heretofore, there has been so much doubt as there is about this Budget. Yet this House, which is supposed to represent the people of the country, seems to have a desperate fear of approaching it. With regard to the general position, and as to the nature and effects of this Budget, I submit it will close down every avenue of development in this country, and that it will bring about the very direct opposite to that which it is intended to achieve. I have seen it stated that this is the plain man's Budget. I have seen it stated that it is the poor man's Budget, and I have heard it stated that it is going to develop industries. The Minister for Finance said that it was going to make fertile again the green fields of Ireland. If it does that the Minister will have earned my enthusiastic support. But we are here dealing with the principles which it involves, and we want, from an examination of these principles, to test what will be its best possible results.

I want to join with Deputy Blythe and to put on record my emphatic disapproval of the method which the Minister adopted in what was, as Deputy Blythe stated, a national stocktaking. The Minister for Finance went to the trouble of building up artificial and fictitious debts and liabilities on the part of the State. Surely, if the State is, as the Minister said, in dire need, that was not the moment to select to endeavour to build up an artificial burden and thus try to beget further distrust in the future capacity of this country. On listening to the Minister, I thought nothing could be more fallacious than the method adopted by him to capitalise national liabilities.

In order to arrive at the major figure of the liabilities of the State, he takes the question of the land annuities. Having handled that for some considerable time, he arrives at the capital figure of the liabilities of this State in the matter of land annuities, placing the figure at £76,000,000. Everyone, even the poorest and smallest farmer in this country, knows that in truth and in fact the land annuities are not Budgetary items at all. Yet here in this House, when we are told that the State is in dire necessity, this sum that is being repaid by the tenant farmers of the country for the purchase of their lands is juggled with until ultimately a sum of £76,000,000 is set down as the liability of the State. What, in fact, is this liability of the land annuities? Let us put it accurately on the records of this House what this liability is. Assume that the farmer is purchasing his land on the hire purchase system and is paying the sums which he is, in fact, paying for the purpose of discharging this liability which the entire tenant farmers of Ireland are paying, and we have one side of the picture. But assume that it is only one single instance, and that the purchaser was paying the purchase money to the seller in yearly instalments, could it be assumed to be a Budgetary item? I submit again that that is a very unfair way of dealing with that matter. It is not fair to the State. As to the other aspects of that question, I am totally indifferent. But I think it is a wrong thing, particularly at this time of national necessity, to introduce and place on the records of this House and on the finance of this country a liability which is not, in fact, a Budgetary item.

This Government was to create employment and create industries, thereby abolishing unemployment. It adopts a very crude method of doing so. It levies an income tax of 5/- in the £, making a direct tax of 25 per cent. on industries. It increases the Corporation Profits Tax to 7½ per cent. on profits over £5,000, thereby imposing on any industry in this country earning an annual sum in excess of £5,000 a direct levy of 32½ per cent. It is quite easy to tell this House that there is going to be given an impetus to industry, but do we not know that taxes of that kind, for whatever purpose they are imposed, can have but one result? That result is to restrict output, to restrict development, and thereby impose on industry a burden that it cannot bear. It increases the cost of the articles produced, thereby making it almost impossible for those articles to be sold at competitive prices against goods from a cheaply taxed country.

We are told that tariffs, amounting to approximately £910,000, are to be imposed for the purpose of developing the industries of this country. On the other hand, the Government are imposing a direct tax of 32½ per cent. on any profits in excess of £5,000 earned by any industry in this country. How is such an industry to be built up? How is that industry to build up a reserve which, in fact and in practice, is the only protection for the employees of the industry against the rainy day? We know it is the practice of all firms to build up such reserves. Imposing an income tax of 25 per cent. is a direct prohibition against all industrial development. Doing it in a State like this, which has, for all practical purposes, only an infinitesimal national burden, is an outrage.

I want to make a vehement protest against the tax on tea. That is a tax with which I am immediately concerned. Listening to the language used by the Minister in connection with this tea tax last evening I could scarcely believe that I was sitting in this Chamber. I would like to repeat the language used by the Minister on that occasion:—"A tax on sugar is a ‘hard' tax. It cannot be imposed without a corresponding increase in the cost of living. It, therefore, falls heavily on the very poor. Tea, on the other hand, has little value as food. It is not a necessary of life. A tax upon it is a ‘soft' tax; that is to say, a tea tax need not necessarily involve a diminution in consumption or an increase in the amount spent upon the commodity. The poor can adjust themselves to it more easily than to a tax upon sugar. They will not have to pay more for tea, and I have no doubt that, with a tax on tea, we shall have enterprising grocers proclaiming to the public that their ‘2/8 tea is still 2/8.'"

That statement involves, in my opinion, two preposterous suggestions. It takes no notice at all of the fact that tea to-day, unfortunately, if I may say so, is a daily and hourly article of food for our poor people. I would like to know has the Minister behind him the representatives and members of his Party from the poorer parts of the Saorstát? I would like to know also what the Labour Party have to say on this tea tax? I enter a vehement protest against this tax on the poor. Tea may not have a great food value, but that is another question. As we all know, the very poor people of the country use tea once, twice, three times, and sometimes four times a day. I am sure there are many members of the House who will be astonished when I tell them that children are reared in this country who never taste milk and only very little sugar. Some of them get no milk after the maternal supply fails. After that they are reared up on a diet of black tea. Despite all that, we have been told by the Minister for Finance that tea is a luxury, as it were, that this is a "soft" tax on an article that, for economic and other reasons with which I am not now immediately concerned, is a daily and, one might almost say, hourly article of food for the very poorest of our people. If this is a plain man's Budget or a poor man's Budget let us say so, but do not put a tax on tea, which is used as an article of food in the case even of the infants of the very poor. The poor will not be able to bear it. We have been told that tea is not a staple article of food, and that still "the 2/8 tea will be still 2/8." I submit that is a cruel jibe at the expense of these poor people, and I resent it on behalf of those I represent. There are other features of the Budget, some of which, at least, do not intimately or seriously concern the class of people I represent, but I do protest against the tax on tea. When tariffs are imposed they must directly hit the poor. I am certain that will be the case as regards the tax on tea. In my opinion, it is wholly unjustified.

At this stage of the Budget discussions I assume that we would be more properly employed in referring to the general principles on which it has been drawn. I should like to say that I think this Budget, viewed from that point of view, is the best that has been introduced into this House since the Saorstát was founded. It is a Budget which has put upon the right level the pressing problems that any Government ought to try to deal with. It is a Budget which has not left housing unprovided for. There is the admission in it that the housing problem is an emergency problem, and one that requires emergency measures to deal with it effectively. I see also in the provisions brought before the House by the Minister for Finance a realisation of the urgent and pressing character of the dilemma of the unemployed poor. I know that the measures that he has had to take in order to meet these urgent and pressing problems were bound to be unpopular, particularly with bachelors. I have little doubt, however, in saying that the principle he has adopted in deliberately lightening the burden on married members of the community and on family members of the community is a sound and a Christian principle, a principle that I think will commend itself to all the people of this country.

I think the spirit in which the Minister has approached the redemption of the Fianna Fáil election promises to come to the assistance of the unemployed in no uncertain manner here and now is one also that will commend itself to the people. I confess that, with certain members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, I was surprised, having listened to the very eloquent speeches of Deputy Blaney, Deputy Carney, Deputy Brady, and some other Fianna Fáil Teachtaí for the County Donegal, to find that economies have produced so little. I understood that when the Government Benches were occupied by Fianna Fáil Ministers the millennium would be at hand, that we were going to finance every kind of improvement out of savings. I think, perhaps, those Ministers, like a good many more of us, have with the passing of time grown wiser. I am glad, however, to see that in growing wise they did not grow cowardly. Finding that they were unable to finance these urgent reforms by the savings they had hoped to effect, they have taken their courage in their hands and called upon the community to come to their assistance to help them through. I believe the community will come to their assistance in no uncertain spirit.

I cannot pass without referring to the Seventh Resolution, because that brings us into quite another sphere. It has been repeatedly asserted from political platforms by the two big Parties that the agricultural industry is the most important industry in this country, and it has been repeatedly admitted on all sides that the tariff policy pursued by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government hitherto has shown little consideration for the interests of the agricultural community. They have been called upon to pay more for their boots, for their clothes, for this and for that, in order that the industrial arm of the community might be strengthened. What do we find when Fianna Fáil takes the helm? They have put a tariff, and a heavy tariff, on galvanised buckets. A few days ago they put a tariff on maize, to be ground into Indian meal, coming into this country. With regard to these tariffs, I am not going to go into details now because another opportunity will arise for doing that, but the position is that they have put a tariff on a large number of commodities that the agricultural community must have. They have put tariffs on that they admit are going to increase the cost of those commodities to the agricultural community. It is quite true that in the same Budget they have extended relief in respect to rates, but that is a poor contribution compared with the burden that is being laid on and that has been laid on the agricultural community by tariffs in the past.

Under sub-head 7 of this Seventh Resolution they have put a tariff of 20 per cent. on all blankets. No one knows better than the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is one of the representatives of the City of Dublin—the same remark applies to any Deputy representing areas where there are people in straitened circumstances —that the omission of cotton blankets from the original blanket tariff was a great concession to the poor. It is not everyone who can afford a woollen blanket. A great many people must do with the best they can get in the way of a cotton blanket.

The manufacture of cotton blankets in this country is non-existent, and the amount of custom going to come to the Irish blanket mills by compelling the poor to do with one woollen blanket, instead of two or three cotton ones, is not going to amount to very much, and the amount of custom going to come to Irish mills, by making people do without any blankets, is not going to amount to very much. I think that there is very little doubt that if the manufacturers of these commodities are further interviewed, the Minister will be assured that that tariff is calculated to do nobody any good, and that its only effect will be to raise revenue at the expense of the people who habitually import that article. These are people in respect of whom I do not think any Minister will say that they are a suitable section of the community to turn to for revenue.

I do not want to go into this in detail, because the opportunity will arise again, but how on earth, in the present extraordinarily difficult situation the agricultural community have to face in their foreign markets, can you defend putting a heavy tax on foreign artificial manures? There are a great many of us to whom that tariff will mean substantial profit. Those of us who have been in the habit of purveying Irish or English-made manures will derive large additional profits from this tariff which the Minister is putting on the foreign product. The fact of the matter is, as we all know, that foreign superphosphate of lime is just as good as Irish or British superphosphate of lime, and far cheaper, and the result of this tariff will be, that there will be one shilling put on every cwt. of superphosphate of lime put on Irish land, and the Department of Agriculture has repeatedly declared that the land of this country is starving for phosphates. The same applies to the other compound manures, such as fertiliser and special manures for special crops. I cannot understand how any economist could defend such a proposition.

I do not know whether we could properly refer to the maize tariff now, but it is admitted that maize is the foundation of the pig and bacon trades, and also of the egg trade. It is the most widely used foodstuff we have in agricultural feeding. How on earth can the Minister defend putting a tariff on foreign maize, with the grave danger of raising the price of that essential commodity to the agricultural community? Surely these questions are deserving of consideration. I am not without hope that a courageous, and, I believe, an excellent Budget, will have removed from it at a later stage the blemishes which would justify the agricultural community in saying that they have been forgotten again. I am not without hope that the rigid party discipline, which does such credit to Deputy Boland and to the Whips of the Fianna Fáil Party, and which preserves such admirable silence on the Fianna Fáil Benches, will be strained, and that there will be some Fianna Fáil Deputies who will get up and tell their leaders that it is straining their loyalty to ask them to be a party to putting further burdens on the backs of the agricultural community of this country. They are not able to bear them, and Fianna Fáil Deputies from rural areas know they are not able to bear them. Party solidity is a virtuous and excellent thing, but I think there are occasions when golden rules may be broken, and I look forward to the expenditure of some Fianna Fáil eloquence at this early stage of the financial business of the House to check the ardour of the Ministers and to restrain their fury, when faced with galvanised iron, Indian meal, and compound manures.

Burdens there are, heavy burdens, and I agree that unless there were an emergency, as I think there unquestionably is, there would be a very strong case for saying that the burdens that are being laid on the community are too heavy. I gather from the Minister that he looks forward to a more cheerful year in 1932-33. I am not in entire agreement with him as to how he proposes to make that year more cheerful, but that is business for another day. I hope that, without going into that other business, the Minister will be able in 1932-33 to prepare another Budget, and when that time comes that he will be in a position to say that, without any international adjustments, this nation has reached a stage in its economic career when the burden on the taxpayer can be substantially reduced without making the poor suffer unduly.

I am afraid I cannot agree with Deputy Dillon in his praise of the Budget. If there is one term that can be applied to the Budget which would be generally accepted, it would be that it is a scare Budget. The Minister is rather amused at that, but it will scare the industrialist, scare the farmer, scare the labourer, when he comes to think of it seriously, and almost scare the crows. The Minister, in introducing his Budget, said that we were in for a hard year, and I think he added, an honest year. That depends on his interpretation of honesty. If it is my interpretation that for the first time we have the correct position of Fianna Fáil, as applied to the taxpayers of this country, definitely put, it will be an honest year, because hitherto in this House, in the country, on platforms and at cross-roads, everywhere, we were told by the Government now in office, that when they came into power, the first Budget they introduced would be a Budget that would give relief to the people in every possible way—relief in taxation, relief in expenditure, relief by every other conceivable method. What do we find? In addition to our direct taxation of two to three million pounds, no practical attempt at cutting expenditure and very little of the economies that were preached to us. This Budget, to my mind, is a deliberate attempt to hoodwink the people, to hoodwink the farmers, to whom many Deputies on the Government Benches, including Deputy Corry, who is so interested just now in my remarks, made promises of great future happiness and prosperity.

The Government, before the Budget was introduced, to placate the farmer I presume, brought in a Bill to provide a bounty for butter, the most part of which the farmer himself will contribute, and the other part of which will be extracted, if it can be extracted, from the consumer. The Government itself contributes nothing. That was the sop to the farmer to induce him to accept this Budget and the taxes which are being put upon him. Not content with starting on agricultural machinery and adding to the farmer's costs a sum which none of us can correctly estimate, the Minister has now, in Resolution No. 7, instituted numerous tariffs which will fall, perhaps, more heavily on the farmer than on any other member of the community, if I except the labouring man in the country and perhaps the worker in the city. He will have to pay more for his boots, for his clothes, for his buckets, as Deputy Dillon says, and more for his wire fences. I notice that the Minister has excluded barbed wire, but he is going to make the farmer pay more for any ordinary wire to fence his fields with. He has even taxed the galvanised iron with which, sometimes, in desperation, the unfortunate farmers cover the thatched houses which some of them are compelled to live in.

It would take me nearly a week to go through this schedule of tariffs. It would take me longer to estimate the probable cost to the farmers and the other members of the community. The Minister himself could not estimate it—he could not even make a shot at it. He jumbled it up in the combined figure of £910,000. We may call it one million roughly. He gave us no particulars whatever as to what any particular item would put on the consumer. For instance, I do not know, perhaps the Minister will tell me now, what this tariff on galvanised iron is going to cost the ordinary farmer in the mere matter of roofing his house or building a hay barn or using it in the many ways the farmers do use it. I do not know what it will cost him. I might put it at a figure which would be completely wrong. I should like to have some figures as to these things before I could really discuss them. The Minister might have given them to us. Nearly an hour was spent in an attempt to extract them from him. Eventually, the President told us, what the Minister might have told us at the start, that the Minister had arrived at this figure of £910,000 by the simple method of adding up the totals for the various tariffs. If he had done that and added it up it would not have taken five minutes to produce it in the House. He need not even have done the adding. We would have done the adding if he gave us the particulars.

As I say, this Budget is an attempt to hoodwink the various classes in this country. I started with the farmer because I am more interested in the farmer than in any other member of the community. But if we take the next worst-off section of the community—I say definitely the next worst off because I believe that the farmer is the worst off—if we take the section whom Deputy Corish represents—the labourers—the Minister has also made a deliberate attempt to hoodwink the labouring section of the community. He has again offered them a sop of one million or one and a half millions in grants in aid of work, grants such as have been given very often in the last ten years to assist labour. He provides one million from the Road Fund. Several millions have been provided out of the Road Fund within the last ten years to assist in providing work for labouring men without any great effect in lessening unemployment. Does the Minister really mean to tell us that this one million pounds for road work, or a couple of hundred thousand pounds for housing, is going to cure all the ills of the labouring classes? Is it even going to be any set-off against the huge bill which the Minister himself is imposing on the working section of the community? If you go through the list of items in Resolution No. 7, there is not an item in it which will not press on the farmers and on the labourers, every section of them, from the married man with a family to the women and the boys and girls. The man is going to be taxed for his boots, for his writing-pad and even for his ink. He will not be able even to write a letter to the Minister for a remission of some of the duties.

Why not buy Irish ink?

The women are not to be allowed to go free under this Budget either. We are going to tax knives and forks. I might have started off with stockings and dresses and the other preliminaries that women usually wear. They are all going to be taxed. Even the perambulator is not going to be allowed to go scot-free, because the Minister proposes to tax perambulators too. The Minister has tried to induce a number of bachelors to get married quickly. I do not know that he is going the right way about it. Having escaped myself for such a long period, I would say that there is nothing in this Budget to make me rush headlong into the happy state. When Deputy Corry goes back to Cork, I wonder what the boys and girls will say to him when they find that bicycles are taxed considerably. I wonder what the girls will say when they find that all kinds of perfumed soap which they use are taxed, as well as a lot of other articles.

But to get back to the real Budget itself, and to take it seriously. The main tax in this Budget is the income tax, and income tax is increased in this Budget to 5/-, and in certain cases to 7/-. Does the Minister really mean to suggest that he is going to provide work for the numerous unemployed that unfortunately exist in this country by that means? Is he going to suggest that by this imposition upon the well-to-do classes, even with the addition of the small grant he is making towards housing, he will induce the well-to-do builders of the country to engage in building operations? Added to this difficulty of income tax there are the other numerous difficulties in Schedule 7 in connection with the various items used in building, such, for instance, as building stone, metal door frames, metal window frames, sashes, and various other articles used in the building trade. Still the Minister tells us that the housing of the people is going to be proceeded with at a rapid rate when builders are taxed beyond endurance. With the cost of building mounting up every minute are they going to rush headlong and engage in building operations, with, possibly,, in the near future, a tax upon cement facing them also, because it is mooted it will be? We do not know. With all these additional costs facing them in the near future, is there any guarantee that builders will rush headlong into the construction of houses either for rich or poor?

Then we have the tax on tea— another camouflage for the unfortunate poor. The Minister said he had removed the tax on sugar because it was daily used by the poor, and he substituted this tax on tea, which he said was also daily used, but that the one would balance the other. We find that they do not. There is an item of £18,000 which the Minister is going to collar from the poor in this case. There is a further additional item which he carefully conceals, that while 90 per cent. of the tea consumed is consumed by the very poor, not 60 per cent. of the sugar on which the duty is paid is consumed by the poor. I should say the great bulk of the sugar is used in factories, by confectioners and other such large users of sugar. Tea is not so used.

Who eats the sweets the factory makes?

They do not put tea in the sweets.

No, but who eats the sweets?

The poor do not. They will never taste sweets again when the Minister for Finance has done with them. As I said, this tea duty is coming directly from the poor. The Minister admits taking £18,000 from the poor in this way, and indirectly he is going to take a concealed sum, the amount of which he would not tell us. Again from lack of detail I cannot tell the amount, but it will be a big amount. All the duty on sugar did not come from the poor, but nearly all the duty on tea will come from the poor and will fall most heavily upon the poor. The Minister tells us he is giving relief to the poor, but the whole Budget is a camouflage on the intelligence of the poor.

Then again the Minister said we were to have an extension of the social services. Of course! The Minister proposes to extend the provision for old age pensions. Will the old age pensioners be happy in the knowledge that the sum given in relief to them in the extension of their old age pension privileges is extracted from the sick and needy poor by raiding the provisions which the sweepstakes have made for the very needy and sick poor in the various hospitals in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and other places in this country? Will the poor and needy who get some additional help in their old age pensions provisions be satisfied when they know that the relief given them is obtained by lessening the provision made possible for the poor, in the hospitals and without any help from the Minister? I say this tax upon the hospitals is an iniquitous tax. Without going into all the consequences that may develop, as Deputy Sir James Craig said, it is a direct tax upon the unfortunate sick poor of the State. One might examine Resolution No. 8 for quite a considerable time and derive quite a considerable amount of painful knowledge from it, but in the absence of details, for which we pressed the Minister, it would be idle for anybody to try to go carefully and definitely into it. As I said this is a scare Budget. There is no section or individual in the community to-day who is happy in his mind as a result of it. It will set back industrial development, and will make, if I may say so, a great addition to the unemployed. The consequence naturally must be that when people and firms are taxed beyond endurance they must resort to the desperate remedy of lessening their expenditure. Unfortunately in lessening expenditure firms and individuals have to lessen the number of their employees. Therefore I am afraid whether we are farmers, shop-keepers, or otherwise engaged in business we will be faced with the necessity of cutting our expenditure and going in for retrenchment.

One of the retrenchments perhaps that will be the least pleasing is that which must necessarily add to the number at present unemployed in this unfortunate State. The Minister yesterday in one part of his speech told us that the one-eyed man is king amongst the blind. He stood there expanding his chest like a bantam in a farmyard when he told us that. I make bold to say that in the realm of financial manipulators the Minister will go down to history as an emperor amongst the blind.

Mr. P. Hogan (Galway):

I do not intend to keep the House very long, but I want to say that in my opinion this is an appalling Budget and will lead to bankruptcy on a wholesale scale within six months. That is my fixed view about this Budget. It would be quite impossible to deal with details except in a very long speech, which I do not intend to make. But I want to put on record here that since this Government came in everything they have done and everything they have said, whatever other effects they may have had, have had these two effects: (1) they have increased the price of everything the farmer has to buy, and (2) they have decreased the price of everything he has to sell. That is bound, inevitably, to lead to the bankruptcy of this country. This Budget I can only describe as the economic counterpart of the civil war. The civil war was not a war in any real sense of the word; it was an attack on property, an attack on the structure of society, as we know it. It failed. This is a more insidious and, I think, it will be a more effective attack. When I read this Budget, when I see the taxes that are imposed, when I find that the clear object is to strip everyone in the country who is working and to distribute what is obtained, when I take into account that the great agricultural export trade of the country is discouraged by every possible means and that whatever little non-agricultural export trade we have is also discouraged—when I take that into account, on the one side, and when I take into account on the other side, all the impositions that are deliberately levied on every man who is working in the country, whether he is rich or poor, then indeed all the political jargon that we heard about the Treaty and the Oath goes back into its right perspective.

The fact of the matter is that all the debate that took place before this Budget was introduced was about an issue that neither Party opposite was concerned with. It was all, as a previous speaker said, so much camouflage. I could understand, while I would not agree with, a Party who had, after consideration, after examination, decided that the economics of this country were unsound and could not last, that it was necessary to change them, to change the whole economic structure of the country and that whatever sacrifice was necessary as a result of that change and dislocation would have to be borne by the citizens who live in the country to-day. But what do we find here? We find a political policy which is going to accentuate and double the sacrifices that the economic policy will call for.

We are told from the benches opposite that the State and the nation are the people of the country and that it is the people of the country they are thinking of. What have they done? This Budget will bring unemployment. For every single man put into employment artificially at the expense of the taxpayer and consumer by the political spoon-feeding of this Budget, there will be three men disemployed. It will bring want, unemployment and decreased production in its train. That is what this Budget is going to do. What are we told? That in five years all these processes will be reversed, that in the meantime we must suffer, and the suffering must be accentuated by the political policy which preceded it. I am going to be asked what I mean by "the political policy which preceded it." The fact of the matter is that the effect of everything the Party opposite have done since they came into office has been to create a hostile market abroad and to increase the price of goods at home to every Irishman, whether rich or poor, labourer or farmer, agriculturist or industrialist. And this Budget is to be debated with laughter! I tell the gentlemen opposite that there will be no laughter in this country in eight months when the real reactions of this Budget are made clear and when they make themselves felt.

I have no great respect for the judgment of the Ministers or of the Party opposite. They know that. I have never hidden it. But I cannot believe that they do not see where this is leading. I go so far as to say that there is a shrewd idea behind this— that in making a bankrupt you make a citizen who has a vested interest in unrest. What political party is going to profit from that? I go so far as to say that that could be the only logical justification of this Budget. I tell Deputies opposite who find the whole thing so amusing that after one year's experience of the reactions of this Budget there will be less laughter and more tears, not only outside but in this Dáil.

I hope we will have an opportunity of debating this Budget again. We cannot debate it now. We had the humiliating spectacle this morning of the Front Bench with scarcely a single Minister who seemed to know what the Budget was about. Apparently the Minister for Finance concentrated all his unexpended energy on what he regarded as a fine literary production. He did not seem to know the details of his own Budget. I do not know who prepared it. I know who did not prepare it. I know that, as it is presented to the House at present, it is, from every point of view, as bad, as degrading and as harmful a production as could be presented by any Government. I deliberately repeat the sentence with which I began—that this Budget is going to do more real harm, to cause more real suffering and more real want in this country than did the civil war. It is the economic counterpart of the civil war, and it rightly comes from the President of the Executive Council.

As regards Number 28, I should like to know from the Minister what is meant by the words "photographic apparatus and component parts and accessories thereof." What do "accessories" include? I have here a catalogue of Messrs. Kodak. It contains 216 pages, descriptive of accessories. Generally speaking, all the items in these 216 pages would come within the terms of this Resolution. I should be glad if the Minister would state what "accessories" include.

The Minister will reply when closing the debate.

There is one other point dealing with photographic material that I would like to have explained. I do not know of any manufacturer of photographic apparatus in this country, but from an experience that I had on the quays this morning I imagine that every tourist coming to this country who has a camera will have a certain amount of difficulty with the customs officers. I take it that it is not the intention of the Government that a tourist who comes here with a camera will have to stand a certain amount of cross-examination. I am putting the question to the Minister to see if the game is worth the candle in this case.

The Minister for Finance has dealt a staggering blow to industry and commerce in the Free State, and has delivered a blow which I would describe as a foul one, because it is below the belt. The reason I say that is that the Party that is now in power got no mandate at the last election to increase taxation. The outstanding case made to the electors was the promise to reduce taxation. I challenge the President to reply to the statement I am going to quote from an advertisement that was issued by the Fianna Fáil Party in February, which stated: "The burden of taxation can be lightened by not less than two million pounds a year." That advertisement appeared in the "Irish Independent" of last February. The Minister for Finance stated here yesterday that the burden of taxation is to be increased by £3,500,000 a year under the first Budget he introduced. I say that the people have been deceived, and that they have been fooled, but they cannot be fooled all the time. I challenge the Government to deal with the policy they advertised. The pledges they gave, and which they were in honour bound to carry out, have been absolutely disregarded. I believe this Budget is going to disgrace the Government in the country. There is no doubt that they have broken their pledges and their promises. The crushing burden of taxation that is going to be imposed will mean increased unemployment, because those who have to bear the burden will economise. They will be forced to economise by reducing the number of persons in their employment. The Minister's scheme to provide employment will be counterbalanced by the number of people who will be thrown out of employment owing to the undue burden that is being placed on trade and commerce, at a period when trade and commerce were never less able to bear it. This is supposed to be a poor man's Budget. It is no such thing. No people in this country will suffer more from the Budget than the poor, because they will have to pay very much higher prices for everything they purchase.

Labourers, farmers and professional men will have to pay increased prices for everything they purchase. I will go so far as to say that the increase will be at least fifty per cent. in the case of persons who have to purchase their requirements. A good deal could be said for tariffs being imposed on articles that could be manufactured here, but I cannot understand why heavy tariffs are to be imposed on articles which will not be manufactured in this country. Farmers whose markets have been taken from them, owing to the policy adopted by the Party on the Government side, are now going to be asked to pay at least 33 per cent. more for goods that they have to purchase, at a time when they cannot get a fair price for their produce. Many Deputies asked questions about articles that were or were not included in the Resolutions. The only things that I see excluded from taxation in this Budget are air and water, and we do not know the morning that we may wake up and find them taxed. Now that everything is being included, it is practically certain that they will also be taxed.

I want to deal with the entertainments tax, particularly with regard to racing. I know that it is difficult to object to the entertainments tax when everything other than air and water is being taxed. At the same time I remember that the Minister for Finance served on a Committee with me, of which Deputy Ruttledge was chairman, and after hearing the evidence of breeders, racehorse owners and other persons interested in the industry, we brought in an unanimous report that the entertainments tax should be taken off racing. The Minister now comes in and reverses his own decision. That Committee heard the evidence of experts, of owners, and of breeders, but the Party opposite does not seem to put much value on the importance of the export trade in thoroughbred horses. I think I am correct in saying that it is the second biggest asset we have in this country. What is the Government going to do? They are going to put on the entertainments tax, and by doing so they are going practically to extinguish race meetings. Everyone knows that the race companies reduced their prices when the entertainments tax was taken off, and they were beginning to get the public back to their meetings. The stakes were also heavily reduced. The result of the proposals in the Budget will be that for a comparatively small amount of money the vast majority of the race companies will be prevented from carrying on. The racecourses are the shop windows in which breeders who export horses to the value of two million pounds yearly exhibit their goods. If the intention is to pull down the blinds on the windows, let them do so, but the result will be to create an amount of unemployment.

I have previously spoken at length on this question and I do not intend to develop the matter any further. I am afraid there is very little use in doing so. However, at the eleventh hour, I will ask the Minister to reconsider the matter in view of the amount of money involved. Personally, I do not care twopence because I have practically ceased attending race meetings. The tax that was imposed on betting has prevented anybody from having a chance of returning from meetings richer than when going to them. I do not like to see an entertainments tax on outdoor sports in the interests of the youth of the country. Latterly the young people were taking more interest in sports than in politics and other meetings that were no good to the country. They now go to football matches, sports, and races and, in my opinion, it is a bad principle to tax these gatherings, or to discourage outdoor amusements. I am surprised that the Party opposite does not encourage the youth of the country to amuse themselves at such gatherings.

The entertainments tax is going to hurt all these things, and I ask is it worth it from the point of view of revenue? Deputies on the opposite benches will be going home to-morrow night and I invite them to consult their constituents, because I have never seen in my experience of politics such a slump as has occurred in the policy of the Party opposite. I say now that if there was an election in the morning on the Budget policy alone, apart from the way they treated the farmers by depriving them of their only market, they would be snowed under. People ask "What are the Labour Party going to do? Surely they are not going to vote for all these tariffs that are going to come along and paralyse us?" I said "I cannot answer for them," but they seem to be in an impossible position, because they are doing what they do not believe in. They are voting for a policy they do not believe in.

A Deputy

Who told you?

No doubt they are interested, and genuinely interested, in creating employment, but they are going, by this policy of wholesale tariffs, to penalise 90 per cent. of the people they represent without any gain. This policy is going to penalise the trade of the towns and it is going to bring very little assistance to people down the country. It may possibly provide funds for better housing. If it does I will be delighted, but I say that the Fianna Fáil Party got no mandate for this wholesale tariff policy. If they asked the people at the time they certainly would not get a mandate, and if they went to the country now the one result would be—"Also ran, President de Valera."

I do not intend to enter into the wealth of detail into which Deputy Bennett entered, but I must confess to a certain amount of relief that such things as roads, relief of unemployment and housing have been dealt with in this Budget. It would comfort us still more if we knew that these services were not to be financed at the expense of other services. I see the Hospital Sweepstakes are to be taxed. That will deprive us, naturally, of grants to local authorities for building additions to hospitals. I must confess to a considerable amount of disappointment that agriculture has not been adequately dealt with in this Budget considering its importance to the country. Almost everything that the tillage farmer, at any rate, requires has been tariffed, but nothing practically has been done to secure for him a market for his produce, particularly such things as barley or malt. The other day I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce to do something for us, but he was cold to my appeal.

I think when we bear in mind the enormous necessity that exists for artificial manures the tax on them is a serious matter for the farmer. Anything in the nature of a tax on the requirements of the farmer is bound to militate against his ability to produce at an economic rate, and that undoubtedly is a tremendous set-back to agriculture, coming from a Party that has promised, as the present Government promised, to help agriculture when they were going before the country. True, there is this addition of £250,000 for the relief of rates, but after all that is a small sum compared to what could be done if adequate protection were given to the products of the tillage farmer. I think that if the Government devoted their attention to procuring markets and safeguarding the products of the land it would be better than tariffing the requirements which the farmer needs for carrying on production. It must be apparent to members of the House that in failing to help the farmer the agricultural labourer is also affected. It only adds considerably more to the ranks of the unemployed in that particular class when the farmers are getting rid of them.

I feel that one of the things that has not been adequately dealt with by the Minister in this Budget is the question of salaries in the public service. The cost-of-living bonus has not been touched, and apparently it is his intention not to touch it. That is probably due to the fact that the Minister has been the cause of what will probably be a very material increase in the cost of living. That again will hit the agricultural community, as any small concession given in regard to the relief of rates will be counterbalanced by the increase in the cost of living and the cost of the farmer's requirements. I emphasise the farmer's needs because, after all, it is from his production that most of our national income is derived, and when we contemplate the future risks which are attendant on his market, whether from depression or from other likely action that may be taken owing to the fact that imports to this country are now heavily taxed— if for no other reason their capacity to purchase from us would be lowered as a result of these tariffs—the position merits serious consideration.

Another matter that perhaps might engage the Minister's attention would be means for assisting loans to farmers to enable them to carry on. That is a very urgent matter, of which I think the Minister would have been wise to take cognisance in the Budget. Nothing is more necessary at the present time, owing to the depreciation in the capital resources of the farmer. If attention had been paid in that direction it would undoubtedly have assisted him far more than some of the efforts which have been made in taxing almost every requirement which the farmer has to make use of in carrying on his production, whether agricultural machinery, manures, or other requirements which were enumerated by Deputies who spoke before me.

Roads have been improved. That will help us to assist the tourist industry. It will induce people to come in if we create an atmosphere in this country which will encourage them to come in. Better housing will also create employment, will produce better health amongst the people, and will undoubtedly be an added asset in the country's wealth.

There is one point I should like to mention and that is the income tax. I have not the smallest doubt that the late Minister for Finance would have explored that avenue if it had appeared to him an advisable thing to reduce the attraction which a low income tax provided for wealthy people to come over and live in this country. I am personally aware that large numbers of people have come over and taken up their residence in this country owing to the cheap living, and owing to the facilities they were given for such things as hunting and various other attractions which provided a means for well-to-do people of securing amusement for themselves. Any tax or other discouragement that it put on that class of people has, undoubtedly, a tendency to reduce their capacity to employ. The inducement to reside in this country is done away with whether they are people of English nationality or whatever nationality they belong to. There is no doubt at all about it that the effect on these people is adding seriously to the ranks of the unemployed without giving us a very material increase in revenue. It may also be a serious set back to the industrial side of the question. I am in absolute sympathy with making people pay who are able to pay. But those factors should be taken into consideration.

We shall have to direct our attention in every Budget in future towards providing encouragement to the agricultural community to produce more, and towards taking away any restrictions that are placed upon their efforts to increase production and thus add to our national wealth. By doing so you are aiding a huge working class. The great majority of them may not be employers, but there is a great risk that if they are not able to carry on production on their farms they will be adding to the already heavy list of the unemployed. We have heard of the farmers in this country who are seeking home assistance, to our shame be it said. At the same time we have to direct our attention towards trying to save as much as we possibly can of our national income.

I do not intend to make a very long statement on this Budget. I was somewhat sorry to listen to the Minister for Finance yesterday when he spoke of the golden tipped arrow that he had for a certain type of citizen in this country, because I think it would be better described as an eighteen-pounder or something like that, and that it was likely to explode at any moment. I was sorry to hear the Minister say that not only had he golden-tipped arrows, as he said, for these citizens but that he had poisoned darts as well, and poisoned darts in particular for members on these benches. I do not want to criticise him unduly, but at the same time I feel that in the matter of a national Budget such as this, some of the shafts that he had in his quiver and that he fired from it could be very well left there. However he saw fit to fire them, and I do not think that it was to the dignity of the Government of this country or of the Minister that he should have discharged them in the manner that he did. In discharging them he said that the ex-Minister for Finance had ignored the Hatry crash. Well, unless some Almighty Power guiding the destiny of this country helps, us I am afraid that a Hatry crash is likely to be the result of the Ministerial policy of the present Government. The Minister for Finance also complained that the ex-Minister had ignored certain happenings in England. I should like to say on that, that the new administration seems to be poisoned with the same virus, because they are ignoring things which are happening across there also.

For the last week or ten days we have heard very much about mandates and about what the Government was bound to do because of the pledges its members had given. With Deputy Shaw I should like to point out that not only were these pledges advertised but they were spoken of from every platform. One of the things said was the definite statement that the burden of taxation would be lightened by no less than two millions. And what is being done? The very first Budget of the new administration is one to increase taxation by three-and-a-half millions. In the same advertisement the Fianna Fáil Party talked about 1,410,000 acres of tillage; and the very next thing they do, instead of helping the farmer or encouraging him to produce this tillage, is to put a tariff upon the machinery and upon the other things that are necessary in carrying out tillage operations in the country generally.

The problem of unemployment was to be solved right away. I agree that the Government are doing something in the Budget in the way of a Relief Grant. But that does not, in any way, carry out the programme that the Fianna Fáil Party put before the country and on which—there is no question about it—the people voted for them. I am not a bit uneasy whether or not they will win the next election. I hope they will not. I do not agree with Deputy Shaw at all. I do not care whether the Fianna Fáil Party are beaten at the next election on this particular question or not—I hope they will be—and I do not care if I saw them facing the country to-morrow. But if they face the next election with as deceptive a programme as this, and the next day carry out a policy so contrary to it, well, I think that they could get away with anything, and I think that they can, as a matter of fact.

The Budget is increasing taxation all around, and there is one particular class of citizen that I think should not be taxed any further, and that is the pipe smoker, the tobacco smoker. As a lover of the pipe, I think that we are entitled to get our smoke without any greater hardships, because I think when income tax is paid by anyone who is in the position to do so and when everything else is paid, there will be nothing left.

We were told a great deal during the election of the huge reductions that could take place in salaries. What is happening? The best that the Minister says now that he can do is to secure a reduction of £250,000. And what do we get for that? A dissatisfied Civil Service, a dissatisfied or perhaps uneasy Army and Police Force, a dissatisfied Postal Service and Teaching Community, and all that for £250,000 out of a total Budget of £30,000,000. I respectfully suggest that £250,000 is in no way a recompense for the uneasiness and hardships that are imposed by these reductions on the public servants of the State. I think that it is very unfair. Remember that a happy, contented, energetic Civil Service and State service is worth more than £250,000 a year—much more, I think. I think it is very false economy. And as the Minister has not yet committed himself to that, because he said he was seeing certain members of the Civil Service, I would ask him to consider it very carefully.

Anyhow, so far as the Fianna Fáil Party's programme of huge reductions is concerned, I look upon it as the case of a big body in great labour bringing forth a midget. That is all it was. As a matter of fact, I could describe it as a white elephant. Again we have a tariff on Indian meal. In the constituency that I represent Indian meal is a very important item to the farming community of the district. Not only is it important to the farmers, but to the labourers and workers. They al keep a pig, some poultry, and thing like that, and the staple food for these is Indian meal. By that particular tariff you are increasing their cost. I know what I say about Indian meal does not apply so much to Westmeath as it does to Longford, but in the County Longford it is going to be a very great hardship on the people. I am sorry to say that in a great number of cases Indian meal has to be used even as food for the people themselves. Some people may not like to admit that, but it is nevertheless true. You are taxing the staple food of a number of people. Some one may say that the standard of living should not be so low, but I can tell you that by the time the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government is carried through, that policy which they profess to be one of providing employment for everybody, there will be a number of these very people in a bad way.

I do want to protest against this unwarrantable raid on the Sweepstakes money. The Public Charitable Hospitals Act was passed by the Oireachtas purely for charity. Many Deputies here spoke against extending the Bill even to the county hospitals that were maintained by local taxation. They argued that a fund like that which was being raised by Sweepstakes should not be used to relieve the rates in the country. But here we have the Minister for Finance making a definite raid on this charitable fund. I think it is a most outrageous proceeding. It is a thing that they should think twice about before doing. As has been pointed out by Deputy Sir James Craig, the present Sweep is being run and for the Cesarewitch tickets are already issued all over the world. If this proposal goes through there must be some steps taken by the people running the Sweepstakes intimating to the purchasers of the tickets that the State is now taking some of the money from them that formerly went to the hospitals.

It will tell very badly for this country that we are doing such a thing, but if the Hospitals Trust do not inform the public, generally, that the State is getting some money out of these Sweepstakes, it will be a case then of their getting money under false pretences. They must tell the people of the world that these Sweepstakes are for a certain purpose. If they do not inform the subscribers that the State is taking some of this money for their own purposes they are guilty of false pretences. If an ordinary individual down the country tried that sort of thing the Attorney-General would tell him what he thought about him and he would put him in a certain place. The Government cannot do what the ordinary individual is forbidden to do. In a matter of that kind the Government has no greater moral rights than the ordinary individual. I do not wish to occupy the time of the House much longer, but I ask the Minister to reconsider the matter of the reduction of salaries and allowances. That reduction is only bringing in £250,000 a year. I also ask the Minister to reconsider the matter of the Sweepstakes.

There are certain parts of this Budget which are very welcome to me. If we could deal with the Budget or if we could concern ourselves only with its partial effects we might, or at least I might, welcome it. I welcome in particular the gesture which the Executive Council is making towards the relief of unemployment. I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to tell us later on that the promises which he held out to us yesterday in his Budget speech, as to the effect of his proposals upon unemployment, will be borne out. But I am afraid, viewing this Budget as a whole, that it will drive many more people out of employment than it will put into employment. Unquestionably, this Budget will provide temporary employment for a certain number of those at present unemployed. But viewing the Budget as a whole and having regard to the effect it is going to have on the country as a whole, I suggest that while it may cause a certain number of the unemployed to find temporary employment it will lead to the disemployment of many men and women who are to-day in permanent employment and who are living under decent conditions. Certainly, I have no doubt whatever that the burdens this Budget imposes will lead to the disemployment of many people who are to-day in permanent jobs.

I do not want to go over the grounds which have been covered by former speakers, and I do not want to go back too far to remind Ministers as to the promises they made with regard to the reduction in taxation. I do not want to be so unkind as to remind Ministers that the present Minister for Agriculture stated not long ago that this country could be run for twelve millions a year. We were told within the last three months that an immediate saving of at least two million pounds could be made on taxation, but we find to-day that three-and-a-half million pounds extra taxation has to be found by the people.

I want to point out that this taxation will eventually find its way back to the agricultural community and to the working classes of this country. There is no doubt whatever that if you increase the burden upon industry and upon employment it will be passed on. Merchants and manufacturers are not going to bear it themselves. To whom is it to be passed on except to the agricultural community and to the workers of the country? We have 43 new tariffs in the Budget. I would like that the Minister for Industry and Commerce would tell us who is going to benefit by the imposition of those tariffs? Who is going to benefit by the tariffs imposed within the last three weeks? A very small section of employers and possibly a number of the unemployed.

To-day the Minister informed us, in answer to a question, that as a result of the tariff imposed by the last Government upon woollens and worsteds, not only was there not an increase in the number of persons employed in that industry, but there was a decrease. The people were made to pay for that. I would like the Minister for Industry and Commerce, if he does intervene in this debate, to give us what he conceives to be the reason for that state of affairs. Perhaps he will tell the House whether he believes there was no increased employment in that industry because the tariff was not high enough? Has the Minister satisfied himself now that, as a result of the new impositions, there will be increased employment given in that particular industry? Nearly every tariff imposed will either directly or indirectly—mostly directly—hit the farmers of the country, and hit them very hard. Some of the tariffs were imposed for the purpose of collecting revenue, because there is no possible chance of some of the tariffed articles being made in this country. The Minister knows that quite well. We now find ourselves in the position that employers will probably be forced either to reduce the number or reduce the wages of their employees. The cost of living for every worker has been substantially increased, and will be further increased as a result of this Budget.

Yesterday the Minister for Finance told us that tea was a luxury. It may be a luxury for the Minister, but it certainly is not for fully 99 per cent. of the workers. Does the Minister know—if he does not I am sure the Minister for Industry and Commerce will tell him—that very large numbers of workers, and more especially those men who are at the moment unemployed and who are dependent upon outdoor relief and charity of various kinds, have nothing but bread and tea for six or seven days of the week, and they consider themselves lucky if they get meat and potatoes for one meal in each week? Does anybody suggest that tea is a luxury for those people? I am talking now of what I actually know to be a fact. Perhaps the majority of the unemployed in this country have tea and bread as their only food. I suggest it is most unfair to impose a further 4d. a lb. on tea.

Of course, we will be told that the farmers have not been forgotten and the agricultural grant is to be increased by £250,000. I am glad Deputy Corry was able to force his views on the members of the Executive Council. The farmers, in so far as they have any reason to be thankful, ought to be grateful to Deputy Corry. I read quite recently a speech made by Deputy Corry at the Cork County Council meeting. When the question of the agricultural grant came up he said "The least our Government will have to give is a million, which they moved as an amendment last year when the other Government were giving three-quarters of a million."

If Deputy Morrissey had that much pluck he would be much better off.

I pay Deputy Corry the tribute that he succeeded in getting the Executive Council to accept his views.

There was no occasion. We keep our promises.

A million does not mean keeping promises. Full and complete de-rating was Deputy Corry's promise.

And the Deputy also advocated the retention of the annuities by the farmers.

And what about your District Justice? Look after him.

I would like to add my voice to the protest made regarding what has been described as the raid upon the funds allocated to the hospitals from sweepstakes. I want to put forward an aspect of the matter which has not been touched upon so far as I know. We have to remember that a considerable portion, if not the major portion, of the money received by the hospitals goes into extensions, buildings of various sorts. In several cases new hospitals were built. That gives considerable employment. We must remember also that the raid is not confined to funds belonging to hospitals in Dublin, Cork or Limerick. The raid will also be made upon the money made available for county and other hospitals under boards of health throughout the country. Whilst some of the Dublin hospitals have been lucky enough to have participated in the earlier schemes, it is only in the last sweep that the country hospitals benefited. When you take £650,000 from the hospitals' share of the sweepstakes you are taking it from the hospitals throughout the country just as well as from the hospitals in the cities. In that way, directly or indirectly, you are hitting the rates in the different counties. We will have other opportunities of discussing this Budget and going into it in more detail. I take it we will be permitted to discuss it when the Resolutions are reported and also on the Finance Bill.

Whilst I must give the Minister full credit for the gesture he is making towards the relief of unemployment, I believe the proposals contained in the Budget will lead to the disemployment of very many people who are to-day in what they regard as permanent employment.

I wish to refer to another matter in the hope of getting a statement either during the course of this debate or to-morrow. I have in mind the motion relating to unemployment which appears in the names of Deputy Anthony and myself. The President spoke for over an hour on that motion. He dealt with unemployment and referred to the steps the Government proposed to take to deal with it. The Minister for Industry and Commerce and also the Minister for Finance spoke on the matter. I do not want to go into this matter now, because it will come up for discussion again. I want to point out that there is no reference whatever in the Budget to maintenance. I agree that the Government appear to be taking every step that can be taken in the present circumstances to provide schemes which seem to them to be sound for the absorption of the unemployed. I put it to the President that when he accepts my motion—he said he was accepting it—he ought to tell us what he is going to do to maintain the unemployed until such time as they are absorbed in different schemes. I hope somebody will deal with that point.

Deputy Morrissey might tell us what he wants done.

Work or maintenance.

That is the Government's business.

Having heard Deputy Morrissey, I am tempted to intervene. I think he has a bit of a nerve to rise amongst his newfound friends and criticise this Budget. I do not know what Deputy Morrissey wants; having heard him speaking now, I am convinced that he himself does not know what he wants. He has not the faintest idea of what he wants, unless it be that he wants it to appear that he is terribly dissatisfied with the Fianna Fáil administration, so dissatisfied with it, that he can be looked upon by the members who constituted the late Government as one of themselves. He is trying to justify his place amongst his new found friends, but at the same time he wants to hold a fairly friendly place with the Fianna Fáil Government——

No, I do not.

——by praising their methods for the relief of the unemployment problem.

You flatter yourselves.

But Deputy Morrissey has no fault to find with their attempt to deal with the unemployment problem. He has no fault whatever to find with that. They have done everything that could possibly be done to provide for the unemployed, but still, of course, the Deputy could not praise them because of the position he now holds. That would not be playing the game with those who are now on the Opposition Benches. They have hopes that Fianna Fáil will—as one of them said a few days ago—get just enough rope to hang themselves. If Deputy Morrissey is basing his hopes on that, I am afraid he is making a very big mistake. If he wanted to criticise the Budget, why did he not make some suggestions as to how a better one could be introduced?

Some time ago the Deputy had a motion on the Order Paper dealing with the unemployed. Judging by his attitude since, that motion was put down without an atom of sincerity on his part. The motion asked that the Government should provide either work or maintenance for the unemployed. As soon as the Government set about doing that, the Deputy criticises them very severely. He criticises them because they put on tariffs to help to meet that situation, and to provide a sum of £5,000,000 for housing. Immediately they do that Deputy Morrissey attacks them by saying: "If you do not be careful in your efforts to give employment to the 80,000 that are unemployed, you will disemploy 4,000 or 5,000 from the petted trades in Dublin." Now the Deputy cannot have it both ways. When the Deputy's attention was drawn to the fact that £5,000,000 was to be provided by the Fianna Fáil Government for housing, he was so flabbergasted with that wonderful effort that he said: "My God, where are they going to get £5,000,000 for housing?"

Deputy Morrissey is in fairly good favour with the members of the late Government, and he knows well that during the ten years they were in office they never made an effort to find £5,000,000 for housing. They never made an effort to encourage the starting of industries here, and yet Deputy Morrissey had very little fault to find with them. During the term of office of the late Government—during the Deputy's in and out tactics, to use the language of Deputy Blythe, with the late Government—he never suggested in the strong terms he is suggesting now, that the unemployed should get any fair play; so that his attitude on this Budget is a good indication of his present position. He wants to have a foot in both camps. I do not see why the Deputy should take up the attitude that was taken up by Deputy Sir James Craig when an effort is being made by the imposition of tariffs to build up industries in the country. Deputy Morrissey was in the Labour ranks at one time. I think he should try to remain a little longer in them, and should not all of a sudden go over to the policy advocated by Deputy Sir James Craig.

That is played out.

Deputy Sir James Craig stated to-day that, as a result of this Budget, there was every danger that not only other people in this country but that even he himself might have to leave it. I am sorry if the Deputy feels that way. I am convinced that if he goes he may find it a good deal more difficult to get the British Government to employ him in England than he finds it to get employment here. I do not know what Deputy Sir James Craig is going to gain by going over to England as an unemployed man.

I am not going over to Britain.

I am glad to hear it—or to Ulster either. But that, at all events, is the threat that was used, "that we must all clear out." I think a threat of that kind should not be used by any Deputy either on his own behalf or on behalf of anybody in industry in this State. At a time when an effort is being made to try to give employment to the thousands of men who are out of employment we get this statement: "We will all clear out immediately." I would remind those who have made that statement that the unemployed have been clearing out of this country on the emigrant ships during the past ten years. While that was going on why did not Deputy Sir James Craig come forward and say that he would go along with them? Unemployed men of as good brawn and bone as Deputy Sir James Craig, or any of those who have been talking in that strain, have been going out of this country for the past ten years. Therefore, let us hear no petty gibe from Deputy Sir James Craig or those occupying the benches opposite with him about clearing out. But immediately an effort is made to try and balance matters between the down-and-outs in this country and the wealthy classes, we are told that the wealthy classes will have to clear out.

May I say one word?

I just want to say that when Deputy Cleary has done as much as I have for the poor of Dublin —I have been attending the poor of Dublin for 45 years for nothing—then he will have the same right to speak for them.

He never did anything for nothing.

We all recognise that Deputy Sir James Craig has sacrificed himself year after year for the poor and the down and outs of Dublin, but we think that he should not throw up the sponge now. He should stay a little longer.

I did not say that I was going. I said that you would probably drive me.

I am very glad to hear that the Deputy is not going, but he told us that he was going to clear out. I hope he will remain longer, and that he will work as hard as he has done in the past for the unemployed of Dublin. If he does I am sure he will find greater sympathy in the ranks of the new Government than he did in the case of the late Government. What I object to is the attitude that was adopted by Deputy Sir James Craig in the course of his speech. The same attitude was taken up more or less by Deputy Morrissey, and it was this: "that while you are putting on tariffs in the hope that industries will be started in the country and thousands of men given employment, there is the danger that you will injure certain vested interests here, and because you are making an attempt to do that in a big way lots of people will have to clear out and go to live in England." I object to Deputy Sir James Craig making insinuations of that kind. I do not think it is good citizenship either, and I am afraid that Deputy Morrissey is becoming affected by the same kind of restlessness.

They attack the Government because the Government are taxing the Sweeps, and one of the main reasons for the attack is because the Sweeps are a source of employment. Was that the reason? I heard Deputy Sir James Craig say that the British will object to buy Irish tickets and the chance of winning £30,000 because a certain tax is going to the Government, that money will not come across the water and a number of people now employed by the Sweeps will be disemployed. Were the Sweeps started to relieve unemployment? Deputy Morrissey made the same statement about unemployment—the Sweeps are taxed, Sweep tickets will not be purchased, and, therefore, people will be sacked from the Sweep offices.

On a point of correction, I said no such thing.

Neither did I.

The Deputy insinuated that the Sweeps will not be supported.

I deny that absolutely.

I accept that, but, at least, Deputy Sir James Craig made a very clear point out of that, that the Government should not tamper with the Sweeps because by doing so the hospitals will not get so much money; that then, by the Government getting a tax out of the Sweeps, the British people will have a decided objection to buying tickets, because by doing it they are paying revenue to the Irish Free State Government.

That is my opinion.

That is the type of criticism that we had from the Opposition Benches this afternoon. When we were in that position we were twitted to put forward suggestions for a better way of doing things. They have not suggested a single thing since the present Government came into office. Deputy Hogan, the late Minister for Agriculture, has said "bankruptcy immediately with this new Budget." The Deputy did not prove how it was going to come about. He gave no indication of that. When Deputies get up to criticise in that way they should either show how these things are going to happen or how revenue can be raised in a better way than that outlined yesterday by the Minister for Finance. Some of them said social services are not going to be cut. We know very well that was their way of providing revenue and of balancing a Budget. If the present Minister for Finance came in and cut social services to a certain extent, if he reduced the Old Age Pensions and the Agricultural Grant to a certain extent, would Deputies opposite agree that the fairest and the best thing was being done? But the Minister did not do that. To a great extent, he is making an effort to extend social services, and in order to do that money has to be got somewhere. The Deputies opposite have not pointed out an alternative way to that of the Minister for Finance of finding the money. What then is their objection to this Budget? They objected to the cutting of salaries, but we are quite used to that attitude on their part. Their view was that high salaries had to be paid in order to get the best brains in the country. We believe that when you have a certain number of people at home, about whom Deputy Morrissey a fortnight ago was terribly anxious—80,000 of them, with nothing to fall back on— we should try and see that the burden was balanced between the rich and the poor. Any fair-minded man, who can leave out party prejudice, would have to admit that that balancing is, at least, being attempted, in a decent and very frank way by the present Minister for Finance.

We are told that industries will close down and a lot of people become disemployed because income tax is being raised. I thought that the sense of honour of the Deputies opposite, which makes them so proud of their co-equal status with Britain, would make them very proud to say that we are able to stand up and pay as much as Britain is paying in income tax. I thought they would admire that step towards co-equality. Surely, when they are so very anxious for co-equal status with Britain, they should not get it in the back-stairs method, but should try to get that status, and to be co-equal members when they are able to pay for it. You should pay for your loaf, and I think there should be a better spirit of citizenship of the Empire amongst the gentlemen opposite, and that they would say "England is paying a certain amount in income tax and we will pay as much. We are able to do it as members of the Commonwealth." I do not see why they should have such a decided objection to increasing income tax if only for that reason alone and the same could be said of other services.

The criticism of the people who speak against this Budget is not directed towards improving matters, or pointing a better way, but to an effort to create a certain atmosphere of unrest amongst the people in spite of the fact that they realise that good is going to come out of it. Deputy Hassett interjected something at an earlier stage about the land annuities. Fianna Fáil, at the last election, hoped for success, but they never thought that they would succeed in going so far as to form a Government. We have succeeded very well since. We have not only succeeded in forming a Government but in winning the support of quite a number of Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies for our case for the holding of the land annuities. Deputy Hassett wants to know how they are going to be divided immediately. We will be glad to have his assistance when the question of holding the land annuities comes up.

You won their votes on false pretences.

On false pretences?

Yes, you told them that they would not have to pay the annuities.

I do not think that if the farmers of Tipperary were told that they could keep the annuities quite legally Deputy Hassett would say that they should pay them, and if further benefits can be given to the farmers after the annuities have been held, I wonder will Deputy Hassett object to these benefits because the money should not go to the farmers of Tipperary but to the British. Deputy O'Donovan has been worried for the past three weeks as to how the annuities are to be distributed when they are kept here and how they are to go back to the people, and Deputy Bennett to-day was also interested in that question. Quite a number of other Deputies of Cumann na nGaedheal were interested in the question of the returning of the annuities in the shape of grants for the past few weeks and, to-day, they are still interested in that question. Could they not possibly, as I think I suggested once before, get together and hammer out a scheme to give back the annuities and assist the Government in that way, instead of trying to criticise the mention of the annuities in this Budget?

If you win, we win.

If Deputy Gorey would try and give some little help in this matter we might be able to speak to the Minister for Agriculture about improving Deputy Gorey's methods of farming, down in Kilkenny.

I did not hear a word, since the Opposition members started criticising the Budget, about the efforts to be made by the Minister for Finance to give employment throughout the whole of the Free State, by allocating quite a large sum of money for the improvement of cul-de-sac roads. I did not hear a word being said in praise of that. That, we hope, will bring employment into country districts where there are many unemployed, and there is not a word said about it. It never happened before in a Budget, and surely Deputies on the Opposition Benches who come from country districts, should realise that it is an effort that will bring employment and incomes into many homes and that, if they have any objection to £200,000 or £300,000 being spent in country areas on local works of that kind, they should state it here. That money is being got in many ways. It has to be collected in order to be spent, and I think that they cannot suggest a better means of collecting it than the way proposed by the Minister. There was a lot of talk about the tax on tea. Anybody who goes to the trouble of discussing that particular tax with anybody in the trade, will learn that it will not impose one fraction of a penny extra on the consumer. It cannot do it.

Who will pay it?

It was not so with the tax on sugar. The poor had to pay anyhow, in the case of the tax on sugar. They had to pay it directly, without any question of doubt, and surely the present tax is a more commendable method. People in touch with the trade—and it has been discussed with them by a lot of us—are convinced that it is the better way, and that it will not be passed on to the consumer. I think that any other matter mentioned in this Budget cannot very well be ignored by the people in opposition. Surely if we had not had them for ten years, trying to bring in an as-you-were Budget every year, they might have some right to criticise suggestions we have made. Perhaps the Minister for Finance is taking very drastic steps, but has it not been stated by Cumann na nGaedheal since they came into opposition, that drastic steps are needed? The ex-Minister for Finance, speaking to-day, stated, that, if he were in office, he would bring in an as-you-were Budget again this year. What would Deputy Morrissey's unemployed do if he did that? What would the housing problem do, and what would the thousands of young men and women who cannot now emigrate do if he did that?

Pay 4d. on tea.

Deputy Blythe would not put 4d. on tea. What would they do if an as-you-were Budget were brought in?

Mr. Brodrick

What will they do?

An effort is being made to increase and expand industries. Numbers of extra men have been employed since certain tariffs were imposed, and that should bring joy to the hearts of Deputies who were interested in the unemployed. All those matters should certainly be given their proper type of criticism by the Deputies opposite. If they could not get a better way of finding money to give employment they should at least admit that the unemployment problem could not be solved. The method of attack directed at this Budget is something that we might expect from people who were ten years in office, who created unemployment, who allowed cement factories to go out, who allowed other factories to go out, who built up in certain places white elephants supposed to relieve thousands and thousands of the unemployed, who allowed the Gaeltacht to go absolutely barren despite Gaeltacht Commissions, who allowed the fishing industry to die, who allowed several industries that they could foster to go out of existence. They now come along and criticise the efforts which are being made to try to bring back again the industries that they allowed to die out, and to try to give work to the unemployed whom they allowed to starve, and whom they now pretend to be concerned about.

Deputy Cleary is rather misinformed as to where the money is to come from for his cul-de-sac roads, which are so conveniently being provided for in the Budget. £650,000 is being taken from the Sweepstakes for these roads. They are to come from money that would not be available at all but for the initiative of men like Deputy Sir James Craig, of whom the Deputy has so much to say in criticism. As far as the Fianna Fáil Deputies are concerned, the only vested interest to be protected is the vested interest in patriotism that that Party is supposed to have. It would be no harm in this debate if, in a different spirit from the spirit in which Deputy Cleary spoke, the classes who are being attacked, and whose confidence in this country is being almost deliberately undermined by the Budget, should be asked to have faith in themselves, to have faith in a country that went through what this country went through from 1916 down; to stand by their country, even in the very difficult circumstances for them, and for the country generally, that this Budget suggests. The monopoly of patriotism in this country is not on the Fianna Fáil Benches or behind the Fianna Fáil organisation, and very well many members of the Fianna Fáil organisation know it.

Overshadowing every detail that might be discussed in this Budget is the fact that Deputy Hogan called attention to, that this Budget is the economic counterpart of the civil war. The picture that comes before my mind when contemplating the widespread way in which taxes are being imposed in this Budget, and the appendices of policy that the Executive Council have, bearing both on the Budgetary and economic condition here, is a picture published, I think, in the beginning of 1923, both in the "Irish Independent" and the "Freeman's Journal," of the railways here and the points at which they had been broken, showing where signal boxes were dismantled, rails torn up, and bridges destroyed during the civil war. It certainly was a terrifying picture showing the way in which communications were cut during that time. In the same way, there is no part of the country that is not going to be affected detrimentally in its foundations by what is being done in this Budget.

Deputies have spoken from these and the neighbouring benches of the position as the farmer will find it. I ask Deputy Cleary, or any Deputy on the far side, to stand in imagination in some of our small towns, say a small town in Mayo, and ask himself what is this Budget going to do for that town. The Minister for Industry and Commerce might have been expected, when dealing with the matters that concern him in this Budget, to have something of the position in Dublin before his mind. We have this position in Dublin: that at the beginning of May in this year the total number of people on the live register of unemployed was 12,670, whereas last year, at the same time, the number was 7,200, or an increase of 5,470. Normally unemployment increases in the city in the winter. You reach the peak point in December and January, and then the curve falls. The highest point reached in January in the last four years has been about 10,600, and then there would be a fall. As I say, in May normally the figure is between 6,000 and 7,000. Beginning with the rise in unemployment from the date of the general election, and a further rise immediately following the election of the present Ministry, we find ourselves now in Dublin with 5,470 more people unemployed, or nearly double the unemployment in the city at this time of the year for the last four years.

I ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce what is there in this Budget which will, during the next year, the year of the emergency Budget, affect in any way that position except for the worse? Looking over the list of tariffs, we would like to know what ones are revenue tariffs and what ones contain in them any promise of creating industry here? Even if amongst those tariffed there are industries which will create employment immediately, it seems astounding that at such a time as this, when there is industrial depression all round, when our export trade with England, even in the best of circumstances, might not be what we would like it to be, the port of Dublin is attacked by these tariffs on goods, in respect of which there has been absolutely no examination, good, bad or indifferent, as to whether they are likely to be manufactured here or not. When the tariffs were about being put on, the people consulted were a small number of people directly and almost personally interested in getting tariffs. In these discussions, as far as we can find out, the distributor, who is the only type of person who could really speak for the consumer in these matters, was completely ignored. The result is that we have the chaos at the port here which is spoken about and which is quite unknown to the Front Bench opposite, and we have the difficulties of commercial people in the city having to find large credits at a moment's notice to redeem from the Customs the goods which have been waiting for them there, and which were caught by the tariffs.

We want to know from the Minister for Industry and Commerce how this Budget is going to affect Dublin City. In so far as we can see it is going to produce a very great deal of unemployment at our port. It is going to affect many people engaged in distributive occupations and it is going to affect many people employed by persons who are going to be hit by the tremendous increase in income tax and other taxes that this Budget imposes. It is a fact that many people to-day are continuing the employment of persons that they would certainly be prepared to dispense with because of financial circumstances if they did not feel that the persons whose services would be dispensed with would have nowhere to turn to for other employment. But that class of persons, and also persons normally in domestic employment, gardeners and people like that, whom normally there might be no tendency to dispense with, are hit from two sides. They are hit by the increased taxes, that is, by increased income tax as well as the effect of the customs duties. They are hit by the effect of them on their employers. The employer will also be influenced by the great parade that is made on the other side of this House as to the amount of employment that will be provided for people who are now without any employment.

The question has been asked as to how Deputy Morrissey wants the thing done; how we want the thing done. Deputy Cleary asks what the late Government did to provide work. He says they never offered £5,000,000 for housing. If the Deputy will refer to the figures made available as to the amount of additional work gradually growing as a result of the constructive financial and economic policy of the late Government, he will see in such figures as the receipts and payments in respect of unemployment insurance, where the total amount of receipts from employers and working people was £548,000 in 1923-24 and was increased to £703,000 in 1929-30, and went higher in subsequent years, marking an increase in people in employment. On the other hand, if we take the people registered in unemployment exchanges at this time of the year for some years past, we will find these facts. In May, 1923, the number was 29,000 registered. In 1924 the number was 28,700. In 1925, when there was special uncovenanted benefit given, the number was 38,000. In 1926 it was 25,000; in 1927 it was 20,000; in 1928 it was 21,000; in 1929 it was 19,000; in 1930 it was 19,800. The figures had decreased from the earlier years until we come to 1931, when the number was 24,000, and now the number is 32,944, nearly 33,000; so that the policy adopted by our Party put more people into employment on the one hand and kept less people unemployed on the other. At the same time provision was made throughout the country for payment to the able-bodied unemployed of home assistance. The policy we want pursued now is careful examination of the situation and a progressive going ahead on sound grounds. Satisfaction has been given generally by the tariffs put on by the late Government both to employers and to unemployed. Additional well-thought-out work has been given in that particular way, and only in one case—the case of boots—has there been any considerable criticism from the general public. But here we have thrown at our people, utterly unexamined, and withoutany apparent constructive minds behind it, what is called a whole new industrial policy. Just as there was, you might say, no mind behind what gave us the civil war, so as to what Deputy Hogan called the economic counterpart of it there has been no mind expressed to us here yet. It is an absolute leap in the dark, pitiless as to what the consequences to our people may be as regards unemployment or increased cost of living and with no concern for any interests outside our own country. And all this, as I say, when general world conditions are such that revenue has been falling here.

We have been told, on the one hand by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs yesterday, that we must not pride ourselves on looking too much to having an export trade. Our farmers are, as it were, told to contain themselves and not to bother about their export trade on the one hand, while on the other they are considerably taxed outside this Budget at a figure which I estimate at £1,400,000, on the ground that if farmers are as poor as they say they are, that they are not able to eat butter, and estimated by others at something like one million. That is being put on to secure an outside market for us. If there was anything that really ought to be done, if the Executive Council considered the situation was such as to warrant the bringing in of this Budget, then they ought to face up to the situation squarely. They ought to go and discuss with the British the question of disagreement with them. They ought to face up to their discussions fully and frankly and fairly. Because if we are going to have this Budget and then disagreement with the British upon certain points, and confusion and dislocation of our mutual trade with Britain, then I do not know where this Budget is going to lead us.

It was described this morning as a revolutionary Budget, but it seems to me to be a pre-revolutionary Budget, because if we are to have our external trade dislocated then there are elements of a revolution in the proposals made here, because it is a leap in the dark in regard to the cost of living and with regard to the creation of unemployment here, and a leap in the dark in inviting people in an irresponsible way to expect that the State will provide work for them. The Minister for Finance pointed out that the actual amount of taxation that is going to be taken out of the pockets of the people in addition to what was taken last year, is about £1,763,000—that is not taking account of the £1,000,000 to be borrowed for roads.

What are we getting in an emergency way out of that increased taxation? Most of the things we are getting are going to increase the demand on central funds in future. In the very serious economic circumstances in which we find ourselves to-day, we are going to do away with the means test in respect of old age pensions, and we are going to give pensions to persons whether they are maintained or not. We are told that this is going to cost something like £250,000. We are told that there is to be an increased grant of £100,000 for housing. There are to be additional free grants to local authorities for housing of £350,000. I do not know whether it is intended to have the word "housing" there because we were told by the Minister for Finance that it is for drainage, public health works and a great scheme of cul-de-sac roads. There is also £150,000 for the relief of distress, £250,000 for relief in respect of rates on agricultural holdings, and £100,000 in respect to the provision of milk for necessitous children. Out of £1,763,000 additional to be taken out of the people's pockets this year £950,000 is to be given one way and £250,000 is to be given to old age pensioners. That is £1,100,000 out of the £1,173,000. Unemployment is provided for by work on the roads.

It was pointed out by the Minister for Finance, and by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that the cessation of building at the present time arises as a result of the effect of the last Housing Act introduced by the late Government on speculative building. Immediately after the Minister's remarks Deputy Little explained that he knew all about speculative building and that it stopped because the market for the particular type of house that speculative builders built had been saturated. He gave the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce from his personal experience the explanation I gave in connection with the last Housing Act for forcing the speculative builders away from the type of house they wanted to build by removing grants from that type of house and directing their attention to the fact that it was a lower type of house our people required. If the increased grant for housing means that speculative builders are to be assisted now to build houses that are either not wanted, or are to build houses of a fancy standard that we are not capable of keeping up, then that £100,000 may provide a certain amount of employment this year that might not otherwise be given, but it is putting back in a way that will cost us more and more money for housing the natural and right tendency that was being brought about by our last Housing Act. We are going to be in the position that while our economic circumstances are such that this terrible burden must be put on the people they are going to be induced to live in houses that are very much above the hair-shirt standard, above even the standard that our people are able to pay for. As to the additional free grants for local authorities this is to some extent the beginning— although it is only called an emergency—of the policy that Ministers, when they were on these benches, spoke about, of meeting to some extent the cost of sewerage schemes and public health services throughout the country. That is a direction in which an appetite is very easily created, and while I know that it is very necessary work it is embarking on a line of expenditure that is not going to stop when the emergency has passed.

As regards the £150,000 of a special grant for the relief of distress, that is given at a time when the country has to bear this particular Budget in order to provide cul-de-sac roads up to the houses of individual farmers, to give these roads special attention and special top dressing. There are elements either of irresponsibility or a want of thought behind these proposals. It is in keeping with the absence of mind behind the tariff policy suggested in the Budget.

Coming to the provision of milk for necessitous children we were told by the President the other day that one of the things he would like to do would be to give greater powers to local authorities. If there is anything local authorities ought to be responsible for it is relief of various kinds. Outdoor relief throughout the country comes to £600,000 and is borne by local authorities. Why local authorities cannot deal with the provision of milk for necessitous children I do not know. We have given very considerable grants towards the relief of rates during the last few years. I do not know why, in addition, local authorities should not deal directly from the rates with the provision of milk for necessitous children. If the grant is being given as part of the general school meals system in then it is being given to a system in respect of which the State already bears 50 per cent. of whatever is expended. Why this matter could not be dealt with under that scheme I do not know. At any rate there is a general increase of expenditure through local authorities and there is a relief in rates that puts local authorities practically into the position that they are going to contribute out of rates less than the State does for their work. After the grant of this £250,000 the position with regard to local authorities is likely to be something like this: The total amount of money passing through their hands will be £9,500,000, of which £1,500,000 will be got locally from rents but not as rates, leaving approximately £8,000,000. Over £4,000,000 of that will be paid from the Local Taxation Account and less than £4,000,000 by the rates. With a system such as that, where the State is contributing more than the local people pay in rates, and some other moneys to the extent of £1,500,000, which will be secured from the management of concerns, for which the State has provided the greater part of the capital, we have no indication whether there is to be any tightening up of the central control over local authorities. Over every detail in the Budget there looms the fact that cannot be emphasised too often that this is really the economic counterpart of the civil war.

At the opening of this debate Deputy McGilligan, Deputy O'Sullivan and Deputy Mulcahy professed themselves very anxious to get information on points arising out of the Budget.

I did not ask for any information.

The Deputy's colleagues did.

I have been sitting here for four hours, and I was anxious to give Deputies any information they might desire, but not one intelligent question has been put from the benches opposite. I am a man of limited patience in the best of circumstances and I do not propose to prolong my agony any longer. We have been told that this Budget represents the economic counterpart of the civil war. From one point of view that is right. We are trying to bring about what can be fairly described as an economic revolution here. We are trying to terminate the system which has been in operation, and to substitute for it a new system. We are trying to do that because the old system has failed to confer any substantial benefit on our people. We have been trying it for ten years. For ten years we have operated in this part of Ireland the economic policy which Deputy Hogan was advocating this afternoon. We have been buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest. We bought superphosphates and chemical manures wherever we could get them cheapest throughout the world, regardless of what we could produce in our own country. We bought furniture, woodwork and the various things enumerated in Customs Resolution No. 7 in the cheapest market. We searched the world, and if there was any part where, by mass production, sweated wages and other means, articles could be obtained more cheaply than we could produce them, we imported them.

We have concentrated, on the other hand, our entire energy, all the resources of the State and activities of the Government in selling in the British market a limited number of agricultural commodities. We are now facing the results. Deputy Mulcahy has been talking of the seriousness of the unemployment situation. Of course, it is serious. That is one of the results. It is serious despite the fact that we sent out of this country in recent years, because we could not maintain them, over 300,000 of our people. That is stopped now. The late Government was able to solve, partially, its unemployment problem by the annual emigration of 25,000 or 30,000 young people. That is ended. We have a net annual immigration now. Those 25,000 or 30,000 people who, in other years, found an outlet through the emigrant ship are remaining at home and have to be provided for at home. Is it any wonder that the figures in relation to unemployment are mounting up or that the people of this country decided that it was time to make a change? We are here to make that change. In no way has that policy succeeded. We have been discussing here a Bill designed to preserve, as a desperate measure, our creamery industry. If there was one thing upon which the late Government staked its political reputation it was on its efforts to build up the creamery industry here. They threw everything possible into their efforts to establish, maintain and develop the creamery industry. They failed. At the present time, if we were not determined to preserve it until something better can be substituted for it—to preserve it if necessary by taxing ourselves—the creamery industry could not exist upon anything like its present scale. We cannot produce and sell butter in England at the price at which butter is being sold there now. The same remark applies to quite a range of other articles. So long as we allowed the old system to operate, the old system of the open port, the old system of buying in the cheapest market and concentrating our activities on selling a limited number of perishable products in one market, we were bound to get results such as we are facing now—results which have necessitated the emergency Budget before us. We are going to change that. The criterion which is going to decide whether or not a tariff will be imposed is not the price at which the particular commodities can be bought from some mid-European country, but the price at which our people can make them. That applies to every industry set out there.

We are told that we are putting on these tariffs without examination. The late Government kept them off without examination. The late Government would not consider the question of imposing a protective duty unless somebody engaged in the industry, or proposing to engage in the industry, made application, paid a fee, briefed counsel, went to the Tariff Commission and made his case. We are reversing that. We are putting on duties wherever a prima facie case exists for the imposition of duties. We will not hesitate to modify them in any particular if we find such modification is justified. But we are reversing the system and we want Deputies to get that into their minds, because they are talking here to-day as if the Fianna Fáil Government was only some sort of repetition of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, designed to operate the same policy. That is not the case. This Government is operating a fundamentally different policy. Deputy Dillon mentioned fertilisers. They serve as an illustration of the point I want to make. It is, undoubtedly, true that we can get cheaper fertilisers from the Continent than we can make for ourselves.

And better.

That is not so. We can get fertilisers from abroad more cheaply to a slight extent. The price of fertilisers imported from Belgium or Holland is about 50/- a ton. Freight amounts to about 10/-. The price of the home-produced article is about £3. The difference is very slight. There are a thousand men engaged here in the fertiliser industry. Are we to throw these men out of employment, to have them maintained by home assistance, to deprive them of the opportunity of earning their livelihood by their own work in order that we may get cheaper fertilisers from the Continent?

How many farmers will be thrown out of employment?

We are going to put the farmers in a position where they will get their fertilisers at least as cheaply as their principal competitors in the English market can get theirs. One of the reasons which make this tariff necessary is that, the British Government having imposed a duty on foreign fertilisers, these fertilisers are being dumped here at prices at which they could not be produced here.

Our chief competitors are Dutch and Danish.

Our principal competitors in the English market are the English farmers.

What we want to hear about are the North African fertilisers.

The North African stuff is free of duty. If the Deputy reads the Resolution he will find that out. The duty only applies to fertilisers not produced in Britain or in the British Dominions.

North Africa is not in the British Empire.

Then the fertilisers from there are subject to duty. Deputy Hogan talked about our discouraging the export trade. There is no decline in our export trade. We are taking steps which the late Government never thought of to encourage our export trade. But we are not going to do what they sought to do—to make ourselves dependent on one market—if we can help it.

We are going to spread out, if we can, but even in that one market on the development of which they concentrated all their energies, we are going to do as much as and more than they did to hold our position. It is true that Deputies opposite, by their foolish speeches, have been arousing prejudice against us in certain quarters, but that will die out in time, because in due course people will find out what the speeches of Deputies opposite are really worth and will attach due weight to them. We are told that this policy, if operated, will produce unemployment which will off-set, and more than off-set, the number which we hope to put into employment. If we expend £5,000,000 on housing and put into employment on these housing schemes 10,000 people, whom are we going to disemploy? If we are going to put three or four thousand into employment in the boot factories, whom are we going to disemploy? We are going to disemploy some undoubtedly. Deputy Hogan said that we are going to disemploy three for every one that we put into work. That is sheer nonsense. Even if we wanted to do it we could not do it. We are going to cause a certain amount of dislocation undoubtedly. I met a couple of days ago a deputation representative of commercial travellers who are losing their employment. I am very sorry for them and I am anxious to do everything I can to ameliorate the hardships they have to undergo. I am using the machinery of my Department, as far as I can to find them alternative work, but we are not going to modify our policy or deprive this country of a chance of developing because a few individuals here and there are likely to be inconvenienced or upset by it. We are trying to make it easier for them, but the change must take place now, because if it does not take place now, a year, two years, or five years hence may be too late. I am not sure that this change has not started too late.

Deputy Hogan said that in eight months' time we shall find out whether our policy has been a success or not.

I am prepared to accept that. I am prepared to back that policy, and if at the end of that period there are not more people in employment, there are not more industries in the country, there is not greater productivity, and there are not better conditions all round, then I am prepared to admit that this policy is not a success. Eight months is not a long period to undo the damage of one hundred years, but I am prepared to accept it as a test of this policy. I hope particularly that Deputy Morrissey, who has been parading his concern for the unemployed in this House for the past three or four weeks, will give it that eight months' trial. I was listening to him, and I asked him if he was prepared to suggest one single thing that could be done which would assist in easing unemployment, and he said that was the Government's job.

Our policy has been set out before you. We are only in office for two months, and that is as far as we have been able to get. There are some notable omissions from that programme, and I am prepared to say that there are more people, upon reading the Customs Schedule, disappointed because of omissions from it than there are people disconcerted because of anything included in it.

I hope the Minister has met them, because I have not.

I have met them.

I have met a lot of the other kind.

I want Deputy Morrissey, Deputy Anthony and those associated with them to bear in mind that that policy stands as a whole. Deputy Morrissey says that he is prepared to stand for some parts of it. He approves fully of the expenditure for the relief of unemployment, but he does not approve of the other side of the Budget.

What about the tax on tea? Deputy Morrissey referred to the tax on tea.

He referred to more than the tax on tea. I would like to say a few words about that. The tax on tea is put into the Budget for no other reason than to enable us to take the tax off sugar. It does not really affect the Budget. I ask Deputy Morrissey, Deputy Anthony or any other Deputy if he had a choice whether he would put a tax on tea or upon sugar? As far as the Budget is concerned it does not make any difference. It is not imposed in order to gain revenue, but it is put on to enable us to take the tax off sugar. If we are to decide, we have to bear in mind the various aspects of the question, the fact that in the first place the price of tea was never lower than it is now and that there are different qualities of tea, that owing to the process of blending no one is ever certain of the quality of tea he is getting. The only way by which the average housewife decides between one quality of tea and another is the price. Deputies must also consider that tea has a very low food value. It is not really a necessity of life, though a number of people live largely on it. On the other hand, sugar is a foodstuff which has a very high food value, and it has only one quality. It is particularly a foodstuff for children. Taking all these factors into consideration, ask yourselves if it were left to you to decide: "Would I put 4d. per lb. on tea or 4/8 per stone on sugar?"

We have various statements made to the effect that we are increasing taxation by 3½ million pounds. We are not doing anything of the kind. If Deputies will take the sheet which has been distributed amongst them, and look at the normal and abnormal sides of the Budget, they will see upon the expenditure side of the normal Budget an expenditure for Central Fund services and Supply services of £26,794,000. These are the estimates prepared by the late Government. If there had been no general election and no change and if Deputy Blythe were sitting on this side of the House, he would ask the House to meet an expenditure of £26,794,000. That would be his Budget. We are only adding one item to that— £270,000 additional provision for old-age pensions. We are deducting from it: Reductions in the salaries in the public service £250,000, and in administrative economies £100,000. Would Deputy Blythe have effected these economies? We are told that we promised that we would reduce taxation by £2,000,000. We are going to do it. It is not possible to do it this year, but we have made a start.

And it will be done. New taxes have been imposed. These new taxes have been imposed mainly to meet the decline in the old taxes. We are not taking more from the people to meet normal expenditure. We have had to change the rate in tax and impose new taxes, but the amount that the people are being asked to pay to meet normal expenditure is probably less than they would have been asked to pay if the general election had not taken place. There is an emergency Budget, and it is in reference to that the increases take place. These increases are of a special nature. These is the bringing in of the hospital share of the sweepstake and making it the subject of income tax, and there is a special collection of income tax arrears. These are the two main items, and the entire amount of money secured by these means, plus another million pounds to be borrowed on the security of the Road Fund, is going to be used as set out on the other side, namely, for the provision of houses and for the relief of unemployment.

I am trying to get Deputies to face up to realities. Deputy Shaw and others have been talking about the manner in which these tariffs are being deplored by constituents of theirs. Deputy Shaw cannot have gone very far from his centre of activities in Mullingar. Let him go across to Athlone. Let him go into the woollen mills there to which we gave additional protection. There are 120, or 130 people now employed there who two weeks ago were idle, signing on at the Labour Exchange, most of them unable to draw benefit because they had exhausted their right to it. The unemployment in Athlone two weeks ago was worse than in any town in Ireland, worse in this respect that those unemployed had been unemployed for a longer period than elsewhere. We have had these figures in regard to unemployment analysed, and we find that an average of about 60 per cent. of the unemployed are unemployed for less than eight weeks at a time and that 40 per cent. are unemployed on the average for more than eight weeks. In Athlone, however, 60 per cent. were unemployed for more than eight weeks. That situation does not prevail now, and it does not prevail as regards a number of other towns.

What about Galway Woollen Mills?

The Galway Woollen Mills were closed down. Does the Deputy know why they were closed down? I do not want to make any promises, but I see no reason why these mills should not re-open in the near future.

I had a query addressed to me concerning the tariff on woollen cloth which I might as well deal with now. I think it was Deputy Morrissey who referred to the fact that no increase in employment had been effected as a result of the tariff imposed by the late Government. An increase in employment did take place, but there was subsequently a decline because the tariff was so framed that it could be easily evaded. The tariff was limited to cloth costing more than 2/- per yard, and outside firms were able to invoice their cloth in such a way that no matter what the Revenue Commissioners did it was almost impossible to prevent the tariff being evaded. As a matter of fact imports of this type of cloth increased after the tariff was imposed, and the protection given to the woollen mills was negatived. The woollen mills have now got the protection that they ought to have got three or four years ago and they are developing. There may be a certain dislocation with regard to certain grades of cloth which they are not able to make at the moment, but which they are setting out to make.

Deputies will remember that when the tariff was originally imposed the exemption limit was 1/6. When it was originally imposed there were some of the mills, at any rate, which equipped themselves to make this cheap type of cloth. They had hardly started making it when Deputy Blythe came along and lifted the limit to 2/6. In one case they bankrupted a man who had invested his life savings in the industry in order to make that cheap cloth. In another case they shut down a mill, which has since reopened, though it is struggling against adverse circumstances. That is why I say that once you put on a tariff you must give it a fair trial because you will not get people to risk their capital and their savings in these undertakings unless you give them some guarantee of security. That is why I say the tariffs we are imposing will stay on as long as I can keep them on unless a very exceptional case is made for their modification.

A Deputy

What is the length of that guarantee?

Deputy Mulcahy has been quoting figures from the live register. I do not want to deny that unemployment is serious. Deputy Mulcahy is mistaken in quoting these figures when he is trying to make points against Fianna Fáil. These figures are the justification for our emergency Budget.

There has been, as far as the information goes, no worsening of unemployment during the past two months. The number of registered unemployed has undoubtedly increased. It has been increased very largely by my own efforts. There is not a day in the week that I am not asking deputations from trades unions or deputations speaking for the unemployed to make sure that all these workers are registered. We want to make the Exchanges a really effective instrument for getting unemployed workers in touch with employers seeking workers. We are getting people on the register who never contemplated registration at the Exchanges before. We are being helped in our efforts to that end because of the fact that a considerable amount of employment is anticipated in Dublin in connection with the Eucharistic Congress, because of other announcements which have appeared in the Press concerning the employment likely to be available in different places and because we are setting out to ensure in every department and every sphere of activity which we can influence that people are going to be recruited through the Labour Exchanges if we can secure it.

The situation in Dublin, of course, has, to some extent, been influenced by various factors. One is the cessation of building. We need not argue at the moment what was the reason for the cessation of speculative building in Dublin during the past month or two. It may be due, as has been stated, to the Housing Act recently passed by the late Government. However, it may be due to other causes. There it is, but it is going to end now. We have provided there £100,000 to increase the grants available to secure that speculative builders will restart their activities. Another matter referred to is that there has been short time work in some of our factories subject to duties consequent on the forestalling that took place. Deputy Mulcahy talked of the chaos at the ports. The only chaos that I know of is this, that every shed, every ship, every dock, and everything associated with the ports was loaded up with goods brought in here in an attempt to forestall duties that might be imposed. In respect of some of the goods which are now being made the subject of duties, these duties will not bear fruit in increased employment for a long time on account of the forestalling.

Some Deputies asked me about firms in financial difficulties because they were required to pay duty. I know of such cases, but these were firms who deliberately put themselves into that position. The firms engaged in a gamble. They gambled on being able to beat the tariff, entered into large commitments, and ordered large stocks. The tariff was put on before they could get delivery, and now they are in the position that they have to pay large sums in duty. We are not anxious to see any firms in difficulties, but I must remind Deputies that these firms did that despite a definite public warning issued by the Executive Council that any attempt at forestalling would be met by emergency duties.

Might I remind the Minister that the point which Deputy Minch made was that in the interregnum between the time that the tariff was put on and the time that supplies of home-made ladies' apparel would be available, retailers would have to pay spot cash for the duty on imported ladies' apparel instead of the deferred terms usually allowed on the purchase of merchandise?

That is a different problem. That is a problem of short-term industrial credit to which attention is being given. A large number of points in relation to some of these duties were raised by different Deputies, and I would like to deal with them. Before dealing with them there is one other aspect of the general question to which I should like to refer. Deputy Mulcahy talked about persons whose confidence in the country has been undermined by the Budget. If there are any such persons, I have never met them. I have been astonished by the fact that there are very large numbers of persons who now, for the first time, are apparently willing to realise upon their foreign holdings and bring their capital here for investment in Irish industries. There is no scarcity of capital to finance our industrial campaign. During the past week or fortnight I think it is no exaggeration to say that on the average five English firms a day came to my Department to ascertain the views of the Department concerning their starting factories here. We had announced our intention to bring into operation certain legislation, which in our opinion circumstances justified, that no new firms could come in and engage in industries here without our consent or permission.

That was to secure that those who put their money into Irish industries would be protected against highly-capitalised foreign combines coming in here and swamping them. We have to give that internal protection in addition to the tariffs.

In consequence of the announcement concerning that legislation every foreign firm that contemplated coming here approached the Department of Industry and Commerce first to make sure of its welcome. Some of them were told definitely by us that there was no room for them. Some of them were welcomed. Some of them are preparing modified schemes which will possibly meet with our approval. In a large number of industries there is very good reason to believe that those who know most about them, those who have been supplying our market for a long time from abroad, have not got that lack of confidence that Deputy Mulcahy has talked about. They are prepared to come in here and build factories and engage in production and secure the profits which successful industry in Ireland will produce. My only concern is to secure that we will not have to rely unduly upon foreign capital to get industrial development pushed along now. We are anxious to give all the preference we can to native capital and we will give it. I am glad to say that native capital is forthcoming in adequate quantities.

We have been told that there has been no examination of these tariffs. That is wrong. Careful examination was given to the various applications for tariffs that came before us. Where special difficulties appeared and it was not possible to have these difficulties examined in detail, the applications were put aside for later consideration. We are prepared to stand over every tariff that is set out in this schedule. But we are not unreasonable. We are not like the members of the late Government who, when they produced a Bill in the House, refused to alter a comma of it. If any Deputy thinks that a minor modification of any of these duties would help rather than impede industrial development, let him make his suggestion here or otherwise and undoubtedly it will receive very careful consideration.

On various minor points that have been mentioned I want to make two or three things clear. Deputy Dillon referred to blankets. Irish manufacturers have been making all grades of blankets except the low grade shoddy. The tariffs we are imposing are not new tariffs but an increase in the existing tariffs. The Revenue Commissioners have interpreted the old tariff so as to exempt cotton blankets from duty and these blankets will remain exempt. From time to time the blanket manufacturers have had to meet unfair competition, competition in the form of price cutting by their competitors. It was to meet that competition that they asked for an increase in the duty to 25 per cent. We, as the Deputies will see, are proposing to increase the duty to only 20 per cent. in the case of British goods, with a 30 per cent. maximum rate.

There is the matter of artificial manures. There are seven firms engaged in this industry, and they are scattered over the country. Consequently, they are well situated for supplying the farmers. There is one firm with a branch factory in London-derry and it supplies Donegal. As the duty has not been imposed upon British products, it is still in a position to supply Donegal. There are, on an average, about 1,000 workers engaged in the industry. It is not an industry that operates all the year round. There are slack and busy periods. The existing concerns are quite competent to supply all the requirements in the class of manures that are subject to duty.

Are there many of the 1,000 persons skilled workers?

I am afraid I could not tell the Deputy. Deputy Bennett referred to the duty on wire, and spoke of it as a tax on wire. That is nonsense. Articles subject to duty are capable of being made and supplied in this country. Any of the articles of wire manufacture which we are not capable of supplying are excluded. For a long time I considered whether we could not bring barbed wire subject to the duty. Existing manufacturers here claim to be able to meet all our requirements in the barbed wire way. However, we decided to exclude it until the matter could get further examination. It is not likely that a duty will be imposed on it for some considerable time to come.

Deputy Dockrell wishes to know what is the meaning of the term "accessories of photographic apparatus." The word "accessory" means something in connection with but separate from the article itself. I may tell the Deputy that the application of the term will not cause any administrative difficulty. Photographic apparatus imported by a person making a temporary stay in the country will be admitted free in accordance with the established practice. Small supplies imported by temporary tourists will be allowed in free.

There is the term "sensitised material." Does that come under the head of "accessories" and photographic plates?

If the Deputy will read the Resolution he will see that the duty applies to photographic apparatus and the component parts and accessories thereof. A roll of film is subject to duty.

Does the term "accessories" cover "sensitised material" which is not made here?

Yes, it does. That is mainly a revenue duty.

It is not included even in the British taxes?

There is a protective duty on photographic prints, a duty of thirty-three and one-third per cent.

That is different. I am talking of the material on which photographs are actually taken. That is excluded from the British tax.

I have explained that it is mainly a revenue tax.

It will destroy the whole thing.

It is only 10 per cent.

That does not matter.

Will the Minister consider having a schedule of accessories?

That can be provided, but the Revenue Commissioners do not consider that there will be any difficulty in administering that duty.

What is the point in taxing photographic prints? These are very important for research work.

The practice has grown up of some photographers having a studio here. They take photographs and send the negatives to England. They are printed and mounted in England and come back here. There has been a substantial loss of employment in this country in consequence, and we decided to stop that.

What would you purport to do with the photographs of Irish manuscripts abroad? This is a very heavy tax.

Would you say it only applies to portraits?

We have difficulties in that direction. We decided to limit the duty to photographs of not less than 25 square inches so that it would exclude the average snapshots taken by a tourist who would bring in his prints here.

Could you not limit it to a portrait?

We can consider that when we come to the next stage. The design is to secure that this practice of having photographers open a studio here and having the work of printing and mounting done in England shall not continue.

The point that I have submitted to the Minister is, in my opinion, a rather important one, particularly from the point of view of scholars, because it has a bearing upon educational matters.

That particular matter could be considered.

The same thing would apply to photographs connected with scientific work—plates. That is why I raised the point.

We will have these points dealt with at a later stage.

There is another matter to which I would like to refer, and I want to take this opportunity of dealing with it. During last week a duty was imposed upon motor bodies. We imposed that duty at the rate and in the manner in which we did impose it so that we would get all concerned to realise quickly that we were determined to secure for this country what exists in every other country except this, and that is a motor body building industry. Since then, in consequence of various discussions that have taken place, I am now satisfied that we are going to secure the fullest co-operation from all parties in having that industry established here in the shortest possible space of time.

In consequence of representations made and the delay that necessarily must take place in order to have the industry put upon a permanent basis, and in view of the depressed condition that exists at the moment, it is intended to facilitate the motor importers by reducing the duty upon the chassis. When the chassis is imported as part of a completed new car designed for the conveyance of passengers—not an omnibus—the duty will be 15 per cent. with a preferential rate of 10 per cent. That will not lessen the degree of protection which we have given to the coach-building industry. It will not lessen the inducement, which has already borne fruit, offered to certain motor manufacturers to have bodies built in this country. It will meet the special difficulty of the motor importers during the next two months. The concession will operate only for three months. At the end of that time it is hoped that there will be no car offered for sale in this country that will not have an Irish-built body.

I do not want to be misunderstood. The industry here at the moment is in a position to start building those bodies at competitive prices at the rate of from 75 to 100 per week, any statement to the contrary notwithstanding. Certain negotiations must be entered into and certain discussions must take place; contracts must be arranged between builders and manufacturers. It is to give time for those arrangements and discussions that the modification which we have decided upon will be put into operation.

What about the duty on the chassis?

The duty on the chassis is not being changed. In that connection I want to clear up some points that may be misunderstood. The duty upon parts of bodies will be removed entirely. At the present time these parts, like the entire bodies, are subject to a duty of 33 1-3 per cent., with a preferential rate of 22 2-9 per cent. That duty has operated here since the establishment of the Free State. We increased the duty upon the completed body, but we propose to take the duty off the unassembled parts. We could not remove it by a provisional order, but it will be removed by a special resolution which will be submitted to the Dáil in the near future.

The duty which we are imposing upon mineral oils of various classes does not apply to motor lubricating oil. Some doubts appear to have arisen on that point. If any Deputy wishes to have information concerning matters arising out of the Schedule, I will endeavour to procure it for him and present it when the discussion is resumed on the Finance Bill.

I must confess that I am rather confused about the duty on the chassis and the other parts of motor cars. I cannot at the moment quite make out what it is the Minister has taken the duty off.

By reducing the duty on the chassis we permit the importation of the completed car at only a slightly higher rate of duty than would have been charged if it were imported before the change in the body duty took place.

Has the Minister reduced the duty on the chassis?

Not yet, but we propose to do it as soon as the necessary resolution is prepared.

Will steel-stamped bodies be allowed in?

Steel parts will be free.

Could the Minister give me some information about number 34 in the Schedule—"Manufactured articles which are made wholly or mainly of brass, tin, or lead...."? That apparently will cover most scientific instruments used for research, educational purposes, and the like. Is it the intention to abrogate the present privileges given to such?

I can have that point looked into. So far as lead and tin are concerned, there is practically no import. The import of tin is very small. So far as brass is concerned, the object is, by the imposition of a small duty, to revive the brass founding industry here. If the Deputy is prepared to propose any modification of that resolution it can be considered at another stage.

Will the Minister include brass castings connected with machinery which is otherwise not dutiable?

I will have to have that considered. The desire, as I have said, is to give that small measure of protection as a first stage towards the revival of an industry that once gave very considerable employment in Dublin and elsewhere through the country. It is an industry which has declined very rapidly in recent years. I would be very slow to modify the duty in the slightest if that tended to weaken its effect. That would not apply in the case mentioned by Deputy Thrift. At the moment the industry's main output would be in relation to special parts and castings. Consequently to remove protection in that case would be to weaken the protective effect of the resolution.

I take it that does not apply to brass parts which are component parts of such things as electric motors?

Does the Deputy mean imported as part of the motor?

That is the type of work that at the moment might not be very well done in this country, because, as a rule, the brass fittings are made to a standard size and pattern. Would those come under the heading mentioned by the Minister?

Yes—all articles wholly or mainly of brass will be subject to the 10 per cent. duty.

In the case of old-established firms which branch out into new industry, will they be allowed a tax concession on new capital which they may employ, or will they have to form subsidiary companies?

The Minister for Finance will probably deal with that matter.

I will refer the Minister to Financial Resolution No. 11, Section 5. That sets out that whenever the Revenue Commissioners are satisfied that any cinematograph film imported is of an educational character they shall exempt such film from the duty ordinarily charged on cinematograph films. Is there a disposition to allow in films of importance to surgeons, and in respect of which a rent has to be paid? If delay took place in the release of those films it might be considered almost as cheap to pay the tax as to have to wait for some time for its release. Will the Minister inquire into that matter?

Are not the terms of the Resolution quite clear to the Deputy?

The section in question reads:—

"... whenever the Revenue Commissioners are satisfied that any cinematograph film imported into Saorstát Eireann is of an educational character, they shall, subject to compliance with such conditions as they think fit to impose, exempt such film from the duty on cinematograph film mentioned in this Resolution."

My first point is that a film may be of an educational character and may be very important to surgeons because of its educational character. The second point has relation to the conditions which may be specified. The conditions deal with the rental to which such films are liable—and that rental is considerable. Those might tend to overbalance the other advantage.

Surely the Deputy does not want the Government to change now a system which has been in operation under his own Government for years and, apparently, has been found quite satisfactory by the Deputy up to this moment?

I have been informed since I went out of office——

Mr. Brady

The Deputy is learning.

That is what the Deputy who has spoken will never be able to do—it is beyond him.

Mr. Brady

That system was in vogue under your own leadership.

It is beyond the Deputy to learn. May I ask whether, in view of what I have stated, that the rental that is charged in the event of a delay may overbalance the cost of the duty, that some more expert method of dealing with it might be devised? It might be very necessary to get it almost at once. In special cases it might be wanted at very short notice.

Do I understand the Deputy to ask that this Government will remove the disabilities which he imposed on these people without having the question examined? It took him ten years to realise that these existed.

I did not look to find it out. I have been informed of it, as I told the Minister, since I went out of office. I am asking will it be inquired into.

I promise the Deputy that it will, and everything will be done to meet the case of these people.

Arising out of Reference No. 16 in the Schedule to the seventh Resolution, dealing with the duty on printing, would the Minister be prepared to exclude from that the case of a certain journal or journals, the inside of which—just a few pages— is printed in England? I am referring to certain parochial journals which are printed in Cork, Dublin, and in other centres. They are composed principally of parochial news. The printing of them gives a good deal of employment. I understand that the printer's bill in Cork last year was about £350. The method in operation is the only economic one of bringing out certain of these magazines. I would be glad to hear what the Minister has to say on this.

The point referred to by the Deputy can be looked into. I do not know what magazine he has in mind.

I would like to know what steps the Minister intends to take to amend the Provisional Order with regard to motor vehicles so that motor vehicles at present at the ports can be cleared under the new regulations.

There will be no change at all in the duties imposed by the Provisional Order, but a separate Resolution amending the existing law with relation to the duty on the chassis will be brought in for the consideration of the Dáil.

Could the Minister say when? Will that not affect the complete vehicles that are at the ports waiting to be cleared?

Could the Minister give any indication as to when that Resolution will be introduced to the House? I would point out to him that there are a great many vehicles held up at the moment.

That is not a matter for me, unfortunately. I am trying to get the Resolution prepared and drafted immediately and to arrange for its introduction and passing.

The Minister said that there were seven firms engaged in the manufacture of artificial manures. Is he able to say if these are all independent firms?

No, not all, certainly.

I want to put two questions, if I may, to the Minister for Finance. It is a very good quality in a Minister for Finance to be pessimistic, but I am wondering whether he did not make our flesh creep rather unnecessarily on the subject of the departure of Great Britain from the gold standard and its effect on our national balance sheet. The Minister referred to the depreciation in the value of our national assets resulting from that departure. I am wondering whether there is some stupidity on my part or whether he neglected two considerations. One is that as the pound sterling remains the basis of our currency and has kept up its internal purchasing power, the depreciation in the value of our assets would seem to be purely theoretical. The other consideration that he seems to have forgotten is that if our assets had been diminished by the departure of Great Britain from the gold standard, our sterling liabilities would have been proportionately diminished. I find no allusion to that in the statement that the Minister made to the House. The other question I want to ask him is: Why, from the scope of his economies, he should have excluded us politicians. I quite realise that politics ought not to be a reserved enclosure for the rich, but it seems to me, all things considered, that some reduction could have been made in the allowance to Deputies, taking into account the amount of time that we sit in the course of the year and the fact that it is perfectly practicable for any of us to have a business and earn money outside this House. What I say about the Dáil applies more strongly to the Seanad. It seems to me that a very substantial reduction could be made in the allowance to Senators, and that those gentlemen might very well give the amount of time that is demanded from them to the service of their country for a smaller remuneration than they receive at present. We have got to remember that, in both cases, we receive first-class travelling expenses. That has got to be taken into account as well as the allowance or salary.

About the Budget in general, I only I propose to say a few words. My feelings with regard to it are mixed. It always seems to me that there are only two problems in this country that really matter. One is partition and the other is poverty, and I am always inclined to resent anything that distracts us from those two problems. I would like to see the minds of the people of the country concentrated on them as much as possible, and in so far as this Budget can be regarded as an earnest, chivalrous attempt to overcome the ogre of poverty, my sympathies go with the Government. I only hope that the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance are right in their predictions of everything blossoming like a rose in a year or two as a result of their policy. Unfortunately these predictions carry my mind back to the 1909 Budget of Mr. Lloyd George, when he talked about rare and refreshing fruit, and I cannot help being discouraged by the result of his prophecies and how little the events that followed bore out what he then forecast. I think it ought to be realised that the ideas which are behind this Budget are not in any way original; that the Budget is based on ideas taken from two schools of economic thought, both of which I believe to be profoundly mistaken. These schools are the school of economic nationalism and the school which believes that money is better employed in the hands of a Government than in the hands of a private citizen. I fought the last election largely on economy and roundly attacked the Cumann na nGaedheal Government for having been extravagant. I hope that the extra expenditure that we see provided for in this Budget is really going to be only emergency expenditure and that the Fianna Fáil Party are sooner or later going to show that they meant what they said when they advocated real economy and bringing our public expenditure into line with our resources.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, that an enormous part of the poverty and unemployment that this country, and almost every country in the world, is struggling with, has been due to Governmental extravagance, and to the fact that money is not left in the hands of the people who earn it. I believe that employment can only be effectively secured by the private citizens throughout the country being in a position to give employment, and to give employment in the most fruitful and useful way. I hope, therefore, that while it is evident that the Fianna Fáil Party is tied to economic nationalism, which, I believe, has also been a failure, they are not tied permanently to the principle that the Government should do as much as possible in the way of collecting money from the private citizen, and spending it, instead of the private citizen spending it.

We have listened to the Minister for Industry and Commerce on this great Budget which has been introduced. We expected to hear great things from the Minister for Industry and Commerce. We expected to hear a rosy picture of the prospects of industry and industrialisation generally throughout the country. I listened carefully to the speech he made, and I noted the kernel of his speech. The three statements that stand out predominantly in that whole speech amounted to little or nothing. The first statement he made was— and it was a most important statement, so far as the new Government is concerned—that they have not yet succeeded in reducing expenditure by two million pounds. The second statement was that there are 130 extra hands in employment in Athlone; and the third statement was that there is a promise of the reassembly of the motor industry in the Saorstát. That is very small fruit for the heavy imposts which the taxpayer of this country is called on to bear in this Budget. For those 130 hands that have been employed—fresh hands, I presume—in Athlone, might I remind the Minister for Finance that, in Dublin alone, in one firm employing 3,000 hands, the employees are working half-time; that is, 1,500 are working one week, and 1,500 the next, so that if we put the gains against the losses, so far as this great policy for the rehabilitation of the country is concerned, the gains look very small. All the 22 hands employed by one firm alone in Abbey Street have been completely disemployed.

The President, when speaking in this House a short time ago, made it perfectly clear that it was his policy to take the greatest care that in endeavouring to solve the problem of unemployment, he would not solve it in such a way as to create fresh unemployment. So far as we can see, the Budget introduced has not created fresh employment, but has really caused an increase in disemployment. If there was one thing for which the Fianna Fáil Party was returned to power in the recent election, it was the distinct and definite promise of economy. It was upon definite and distinct promises of reduction of expenditure. I have here a quotation made by the Minister for Finance as follows:—

If we want money for our social programme, we shall endeavour to secure it by ruthlessly cutting down wasteful and unproductive expenditure. We will rely on economies rather than taxation. Economy before taxation is our watchword. That is a sound principle for the people. The country cannot bear any further increase in the burdens that are already crippling our trade and industry.

Might I ask the Minister for Finance how he has carried out that very definite and precise pledge? What burden will be placed on industry by this Budget beyond the burden that was placed on industry before the Budget was introduced? How has he carried out the gospel of economy he and his Party have preached throughout the country for the past four years? He and his Party told the country, emphatically and distinctly, that the expenditure incurred by the late Government was far in excess of the resources of the country; that the burden of taxation must be reduced, and that taxation must bear a relation to national income. What relation does the burden of taxation imposed in this Budget bear to the national income of the country? We were told:—

There must be a reduction of expenditure. The expenditure of the recent Government was on an Imperial scale. It was beyond the resources of a small country.

The expenditure to which he referred amounted to £21,416,000, and the expenditure that this House is now asked to pass under this Budget amounts to something like £27,000,000 sterling. I want to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce how he squares those statements of his Party with the policy that is framed in the Budget introduced to this House. Not alone did his Party make those statements, but they went a great deal further. The Minister for Lands and Fisheries stated in 1928 that the taxable capacity of the country, for Twenty-Six Counties, amounted to £12,085,000, and we are asked in this Budget to find some £27,000,000 sterling. How will the country bear it? Can the country bear it? Can the country possibly or humanly survive, under a burden of that nature? An expenditure of £21,416,000 was extravagant when this Party was in office. £27,000,000 is not an extravagant expenditure when the new Government takes up office. We were told, when they were in opposition, that an expenditure of £21,416,000 could only lead to national bankruptcy. What will an expenditure of £27,000,000 lead to? We were told also that the national revenue under an impost of £21,000,000 odd was steadily falling, and this House is now asked to pass a Budget, £6,000,000 in excess of the Budget which the Minister for Finance and his Party told the country could only lead to the national bankruptcy of this State.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce, who has just sat down, also pinned his faith to a somewhat similar doctrine. "If we estimate," said the Minister, "that taxation in England has a fair relationship to the taxable income of this country, then the amount we can afford to spend, on the basis taken by the Minister for Finance, is only £12,000,000." That, said the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is the outside amount that we can afford to spend on the machinery of government. The cost of government is double what it should be, and double, in relation to the taxable capacity of the country, what it actually is in England. What justification, in view of the statements on the records of this House, made by the various members of the new Government, is there for the introduction of a £27,000,000 Budget, and what effect will it have on the economic and national progress of the country? Were these promises made purely for election purposes? Were they made purely to deceive the country? Were they made simply for the sake of getting into office? And is every promise that Fianna Fáil has made in the recent elections, and for the past four years, to be broken, and broken in the flippant way of the Minister for Finance who, in introducing this Budget to the House, looked around, with beaming countenance, from which one would almost imagine that he was conferring a favour on the people of the Irish Free State rather than leading them to where he is undoubtedly leading them, to the bog of bankruptcy?

The Minister for Finance in the late Government put his finger on the kernel of the whole trouble so far as the taxation of any country is concerned. He pointed out to the Minister for Finance that the revenue of the country was drying up. The Minister, in introducing his Budget, referred most emphatically to that fact. In face of the declining revenue, or the drying up of the revenue, of the country, is this a fit and proper time to embark upon an increase of the social services? Where is the money to be found for it? We are told that £5,000,000 is going to be found for housing. Let them first find the £5,000,000 before they talk about having £5,000,000 for the building of houses. £5,000,000 is going to be found for a housing scheme—an uneconomic housing scheme. We were told by the Minister for Finance that it was the intention of the Government to build a cheaper type of house for the artisans of this country.

Nobody would be more in agreement with that plan, if that plan were feasible, than I. We, on this side of the House, particularly myself, being one of the representatives of the City of Dublin, pointed out to the late Government the need for cheaper houses the rent of which the ordinary working man could pay. The people of the country will be asked to find a loan of £5,000,000. For what? For the building of houses the normal rent of which, owing to the cost of building, would be something like 8/- or 12/- and these houses are to be let at 6/- and 4/-. Let us look at the thing purely from the business point of view. Is there any man with any capital in this country prepared to put capital into an uneconomic scheme of housing such as that suggested by the Minister? I fail to see where the loan will mature. I have my doubts whether it will ever mature.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the Deputy's philosophy.

Mr. Byrne

I am afraid this scheme will be like some of the schemes for the solution of unemployment that the Minister for Industry and Commerce told us were on the long finger. I am afraid this £5,000,000 loan, about which the Minister talks so glibly, will be very difficult to raise in the circumstances he has forecasted. I cannot understand how the Government have the hardihood, in face of their election promises, to come to the House in the present depressed condition of the important industry of agriculture, and the other industries in the country, and ask this State to bear a burden of £27,000,000. The Minister for Education, dealing with the expenditure of the late Government, stated: "Capable economists have proved that, while the present rate of taxation is going on, there is a steady drain not alone on the capital reserve of the country, which is slowly being eaten up, but also on the subsistence allowance of the Irish people." That statement was made in reference to a £21,000,000 Budget. What is going to happen the capital reserve of the country with a £27,000,000 Budget?

What is going to happen to the subsistence allowance of the people under this £27,000,000 Budget, with its burden of an increased cost of living, its burden on clothing and the necessaries of life, such as tea? Owing to the tariff imposed upon the very shovel which the workman uses in the street it will cost an extra shilling. There is an increase imposed upon almost everything that a workman needs to earn his bread.

I suggest that this Budget means not the conservation, but the annihilation of capital; that it means the complete elimination of the subsistence allowance of the Irish people. That subsistence allowance in these difficult times is small enough, but how will the people manage in the times ahead and especially during the present year? We were told that this was a poor man's Budget. God help the poor man. If this is a poor man's Budget, I do not know what a rich man's Budget is. We were told that £2,150,000 was going to be found for the relief of unemployment. There was a great whirl of trumpets about that. I wonder how much money the late Government spent on the relief of unemployment? Have they not spent ten times that sum and not made all the fuss about it that the Minister for Finance has made in introducing this Budget? How is the £2,150,000 to be found? One of the young men on the back benches of Fianna Fáil had the hardihood to be flippant with one of the most respected members in this House, Deputy Sir James Craig. Deputy Sir James Craig could fitly reply that he had found more employment for people in this country than was found by the combined efforts of the Fianna Fáil Party. The first way this money is going to be found is by a reduction of £250,000 in the salaries of civil servants and other public officials. Does that not mean a reduction of £250,000 in the money in active circulation in this country? Will that not have a repercussion that will produce unemployment and not remove it? I wonder what the Labour Party have to say about that, these people who always stand up for fair rates of wages, and who, I believe, have a motion on the Paper to introduce a fair wages clause in the protected industries. I wonder what the Labour Party have to say to this cut of £250,000 in the salaries of one of the most deserving bodies in this State, a body of which the State might well be proud, and which has rendered good service to the State. What has the Labour Party to say to that reduction? If it is necessary to introduce a fair wages clause for the protected industries, are they going to stand by and see this £250,000 taken off the civil servants? I honestly believe that if there is any body of men who have been disillusioned since the new Government came in, it is the Civil Service. In my opinion, a great many civil servants voted against the late Government and now they are reaping the whirlwind. When we forecast that, we were told: "We could not be much worse under any new Government than we are under the present Government." Facts will speak for themselves.

This poor man's Budget, about which "The Irish Press" had big headlines to-day, imposes a tax of £418,000 upon tea, which every honest man in this House will agree is one of the necessaries of life for the poor.

Was sugar necessary?

Mr. Byrne

I shall talk about sugar if the Minister wishes. We were told last year that we were endeavouring to impose £267,000 upon sugar, which completely wiped out the sum of £750,000 given by way of an addition to the agricultural grant.

The Deputy's memory is as faulty as his figures.

Mr. Byrne

My memory is perfectly correct. We were told distinctly that the agricultural grant which the late Government gave to the farmers was wiped out by the imposition of the sugar tax and we are asked under this Budget to impose a tax of £418,000 on tea. We are told by the Minister for Finance that tea is not a necessary of life. If it is not, what is it?

A beverage.

Mr. Byrne

It is quite evident that the Minister is fonder of drinking beverages than he is of tea.

That accounts for my good humour.

Mr. Byrne

If there is one thing we cannot do without, it is tea, and the cynical indifference with which this £418,000 is imposed upon the poor— well, I cannot find words to describe it. I wonder what will be left of the £250,000 that the farmers of the country will get when they pay their share of this £418,000 duty on tea. Will they get anything out of the £250,000. I think it is quite reasonable to assume that they will not. In addition, when one takes into consideration that the new Government are putting a tax upon agricultural machinery——

Will the Deputy say what they got out of the sugar tax?

The Deputy is entitled to make his speech.

Mr. Byrne

The figure the Minister quoted as the result of the imposition on tea was £418,000. That is a purely speculative figure. On the face of that figure, there is an additional impost of £18,000. There is one thing that I shall tell the Minister. Some of his friends, following Fianna Fáil, who own factories and industries will come well out of the bargain. Some people with shares in the "Irish Press" will come well out of the bargain. Some people who produce agricultural machinery will come well out of the bargain. I think the proper title for the Budget would be the Fianna Fáil Partisan Budget, because it is designed to improve a certain section of the people and not designed for the national upliftment of the masses of the people. We are told that it is a poor man's Budget. There is to be £250,000 reduction in the salaries of the Civil Service. £418,000 is to be imposed as a tax upon tea, which is a general necessary of life, but which the Minister for Finance calls a luxury or a beverage. £60,000 is to be paid under the export of butter—a Bill introduced some weeks ago in order that we may sell our butter at 4d. a pound less to the English consumer than we sell it to the Irish consumer. Is that national economy or national suicide? We are imposing tariffs amounting to something like £910,000 and against whom are we imposing them? We are imposing these tariffs against our best customers. We are imposing them on people for whose trade we are ready to pay this sum of £600,000 in order to keep our Irish butter upon the English market. And while paying this £600,000 to keep Irish butter upon the English market, we are doing everything humanly possible to destroy our export trade with Great Britain. I can only say as an ordinary plain businessman that if we want to carry on our trade with Great Britain, we want to take care of the effect that tariffs are going to have on our export trade. Any man who knows anything about protection knows that it is a two-edged sword. If the Minister for Finance thinks that he is going to recoup his £910,000 mainly at the expense of our best customers, I am afraid he is entering upon a period of sad disillusionment.

There is another item I desire to call attention to. In order to find this £2,150,000 the sum of £650,000 is to be taken from the Hospital Sweepstakes. When our Party was the Government of this country there would not have been much difficulty in finding a sum of £1,000,000 to help the problem of unemployment in this country if we resorted to such measures as that. And the very man who is imposing this £650,000 upon the sweepstakes was one of the men who sneered at the success of the sweepstakes in this country. He belittled their beneficial advantage. Yet now he stoops to the level of taking this £650,000 from the hospitals of Dublin and Cork and other parts of the country. And he comes in here and does this with a smile on his face as if he was a national benefactor. I wonder what effect this will have upon the treatment of the poor? Do Deputies think that £650,000 can be taken away from the hospitals in the cities and the rest of the country without having repercussions upon the poor? And this is the poor man's Budget!

I wonder what repercussions will this £910,000 have upon the cost of living in this country? We are told it will create a new workers' paradise, that we shall have industries springing up like mushrooms in the night. Meantime they have to be paid for. How are these people, many of them living on poor relief, to face up to this increased taxation of £910,000? I know, for instance, that in Dublin £250,000 per annum is spent upon relief. Those poor people have no means of buying a pair of boots or buying a new coat for their backs. Their only income is through relief and how are these people, I ask again, to face up to getting new boots or clothes if this additional £910,000 is placed upon the cost of these articles? We are told that there is going to be a great increase in employment. And the great increase in employment that we were told about by the Minister for Industry and Commerce was 130 hands in the town of Athlone. "You heard of the Widow Malone, ochone; she comes from the town of Athlone." The sum of £910,000 additional taxation is to be imposed mainly upon the people of this country. Their clothing, boots and shoes are going to cost more; they will pay more for their tea and they will pay more for their amusements. Even if you want a gramophone record you will have to pay an extra price for it. This is the great Party that preached the gospel of economy from one end of the country to another. If an unfortunate man, working on a relief scheme, wants to buy a shovel he will have to pay a shilling extra for it.

And then he will get a damned bad shovel.

Mr. Byrne

Yes, a damned bad shovel. The Government are going to provide £5,000,000 for housing. One would think hearing that statement made with a flourish of trumpets that we had actually reached the millennium and that nothing was ever done by the late Government for housing and that no expenditure of money had been made by the late Government to deal with the housing problem. I would remind the Minister of one very important fact: When ex-President Cosgrave took over the Government of this country he was faced with a very different position in the country from that with which the present Government is faced and very different from the position with which the present Minister for Finance is faced. He had to raise in one year something like £38,000,000 but, even at that time, at the peak point, the burden cast upon the people was in no way comparable with the burden cast upon the people by this Budget. £5,000,000 has to be found for housing, we are told. He has to borrow that. You must catch your hare before you cook him—I hope the Minister will catch his hare and then we will cook it. I want to remind the Minister for Finance that the late Government when providing money for housing did not declare, with a great flourish of trumpets, that the unemployment problem was solved. Their first move was to provide £1,000,000 for municipal authorities to build houses, but they did not say that that £1,000,000 was going to solve the unemployment problem. We say emphatically that the £5,000,000 that the Minister hopes to provide, and the £2,000,000 that he hopes to provide in his emergency Budget have not the slightest prospect or hope of solving the unemployment question.

I would like to remind the Minister for Finance when dealing with the subject of housing that the late Government built almost 30,000 houses during their period of office. They spent £2,550,000 in that way by way of State grants without any flourish of trumpets. The unassuming men who were then on the Front Benches did not make any parade of that fact. They did the work and there was no shouting. There is great jubilation on the Fianna Fáil Benches now, but just as with the Civil Service when these things fructify they will have the unemployment problem and will reap the whirlwind. I wondered at the light way in which income tax was raised to 5s. in the £. I wonder would it be an impertinence on my part to ask the Minister for Finance if the increase in income tax affects the Ministry or are they free from income tax? That is a question that I think should be answered in this House before the debate concludes.

It is not a fair question.

Are you free from income tax?

Mr. Byrne

When we are considering national economy and when income tax is being increased from 3s. 6d. to 5s. in the £ by the Executive, it puts a very different complexion on this proposal if the members of the Government are exempt. It is all very well to increase income tax from 3s. 6d. to 5s. in the £ if Ministers have not got to pay it. When introducing the Budget the Minister made an important statement. He told us that this was a poor country and that there were very few rich people in it. What reactions will the increase in the income tax have on general employment in this State? If we are a poor country how will an extra tax of 1s. 6d. affect the ordinary people? I heard a Deputy from Mayo flippantly remark that we ought to be proud, being members of the British Commonwealth, to have the income tax here brought up to the level of England. Did anyone ever listen to such nonsense? Is that the way the Fianna Fáil Government is going to face up to national problems? Is that the mood of cynicism in which to treat an important measure of this kind? Is there any Deputy who would suggest that the financial resources of this country bear any comparison with the financial resources of Great Britain, even though Great Britain is at present in a depressed condition?

The ex-Minister for Finance stated here to-day that the Minister for Finance had given no justification for increasing the income tax from 3s. 6d. to 5s. in the £. He pointed out that that could only be done in a country where wealth had been accumulated or which was highly industrialised. Here we are practically an agricultural country. What repercussions will such an increase have or the few remaining industries that are still working successfully in this State? One has got to be very careful when imposing drastic taxation of this kind that the cure will not be worse than the disease. We were told that this poor man's Budget was going to raise one million pounds on the security of the Road Fund. One million pounds to solve the unemployment problem! I wonder did the Minister for Finance forget the amount of money this Party spent on the roads and on the repair of destroyed bridges. He forgot the huge sums that had to be spent in repairing the ravages of the troubled times and how these sums were found without imposing anything like the burden that is imposed on the people in this Budget. We are told that the unemployment problem is going to be solved by £1,000,000. The late Government spent £1,774,588 between 1922 and 1925 on the roads. The Minister was like the hen that laid two eggs when he told the House that one million was going to be spent on the roads. Does the Minister forget that between 1922 and 1931 £7,000,000 was spent on the improvement of roads and on repairs to bridges by the late Government and that the unemployment problem was not solved. The unemployment problem is to be solved by the new Government by the levy of indiscriminate tariffs and by a couple of sops which are mere drops in the ocean. If that is the way the present Government faces up to its responsibilities I hope that at the coming by-elections the country will show what it thinks of their policy and teach them that they cannot play fast and loose with sensible people as they have attempted to do by the introduction of this Budget. Cast-iron tariffs we are told are going to solve the unemployment problem and there is to be decentralisation of industry. That word "decentralisation" has always got on my brain. I often wonder what it means. If you want to set up a successful industry you must set it up upon sound economic lines.

Hear, hear.

Mr. Byrne

"Hear, hear," says the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, who wanted to abolish all income tax.

Hear, hear.

Mr. Byrne

He is now in a Government that has raised income tax from 3s. 6d. to 5s. in the £. I believe if there is one mortified member in that Party to-day it is the Parliamentary Secretary.

You are very wrong.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

Mr. Byrne

I believe if Deputy Flinn had his way this wild-cat scheme of the Minister for Finance would never have been introduced. I have sufficient regard for the common sense of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister to think that he would never have embarked upon these drastic emergency measures which the Minister for Finance has introduced. "Decentralisation of industry!" We have to-day throughout the industrial world an attempt to reduce the cost of production, to reduce overhead charges, to produce at the lowest possible prices and to give the best possible service to secure trade. Will the decentralisation of industry do that? Is there any hope that a country with decentralised industries will ever build up an export trade? What is the great object for levying a tariff to protect any industry? If the Minister for Finance knows anything about tariffs he knows that a protective tariff is first levied to enable an industry to get on its feet and the next thing is to build up an export trade. Can you build up an export trade, for instance, in the agricultural industry with 62 firms operating in this State? Do you think you will have an industry working on sound economic lines with 62 firms operating in a country with a few million inhabitants? Can the raw materials be bought at anything like a reasonable figure with 62 firms operating? Can any one of these firms buy raw materials at the right price? If you want to set up industry in this country you must set it up on sound economic lines. If there is to be decentralisation you are only going to be tinkering with industry for all time. When the Minister for Industry and Commerce was speaking he stated that as long as this Government was in office there was going to be protection for industry. He guaranteed that. He was asked one very important question: "How long will the guarantee last?" That is the first question any business man will ask when putting capital into an industrial venture in any State. Not alone is this decentralised form of industry to be set up, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce tells us that he will only permit some outside firms to come in here and that others he will not permit although they may make industry more efficient. If we had half a dozen efficient industries, they would be worth a thousand decentralised units which can never uplift the country. Why are combines taking place in the chemical and iron industries? They are taking place in order to cheapen production. The Minister for Finance and his Parliamentary Secretary are working along lines that can never be economic.

"Sez you."

Mr. Byrne

They will never be able to supply the needs of this country efficiently. The Parliamentary Secretary can say "sez you" to that as long as he likes. What the people want to know is whether this sum imposed upon the consumers—£910,000 —is going to be frittered away or what benefit is going to accrue to the State. Certain followers of the Fianna Fáil Party will do well, but there are other people in the State besides followers of Fianna Fáil. It is in these people that we are interested. I am sorry to see that the Labour Benches have been practically empty during this debate.

Do not be a bit uneasy.

Mr. Byrne

I should like to ask Deputy Davin, if he were here, what he thinks of the £23,000 which is being given to the 'bus industry by way of remission of taxation. Deputy Davin is associated with an industry which gives the largest employment in this country—the railway industry—and not a single penny is being given to help the railways.

What was done for them during the past ten years?

Mr. Byrne

During the past ten years we passed many measures to enable the railway companies to face up to the situation created by the new 'bus competition, over which the Government had practically no control. This competition was uneconomic, and some of the companies concerned paid a scandalous rate of wages to their employees. I have heard Labour Deputies say that certain men employed by 'bus companies in the city were paid only 15/- per week. Is there any railwayman working for that wage? Why is this £23,000 being given to the 'bus companies? I wonder is it because some friends of Fianna Fáil have great interest in that industry? I wonder why the Killeen Mills have got a tariff on stationery, why the Urney chocolate factory has got not only a tax on chocolates, but a reduction of the duty on sugar. That chap is going to have it both ways. Under the circumstances that have arisen, it is a great pity that the railway companies did not invest a few thousand pounds in the "Irish Press." It would have been a good, paying proposition. There is no doubt about that. The "Irish Press" investments have paid very well. I see here the name of Pierce. That investment has been extremely profitable.

It is not going to be suppressed after all.

Mr. Byrne

It will suppress itself in time.

The Deputy will be in eternity before then.

Mr. Byrne

We are giving £250,000 to the farmers. If there is one industry harder hit than another it is the agricultural industry. The farmers are going to get £250,000 by this Budget in remission of taxation. But the farmers are going to pay more for their clothes, boots, shoes, tea, and agricultural machinery. After the Budget, the farmers will be a great deal worse off than before. When we were trying to do as much as was humanly possible for the farmer, we were looked upon as the greatest enemy the farmer ever had. One of the greatest evils the agricultural industry can possibly suffer is the introduction of this Budget. I am glad the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is in the House. His Party is allied with the Labour Party. I should have liked to ask Deputy Davin, if he were here, how he can continue in alliance with a Party which entertains for his Party only the most supreme contempt. We must take our hats off to the two Independent Labour Deputies.

We should take our boots off.

Mr. Byrne

I am glad that Deputy Davin has now come into the House.

I was listening to the Deputy from outside the barrier.

Mr. Byrne

I wanted to ask Deputy Davin what the railway industry, of which he is such an able representative, is going to get under this Budget. I wanted to know if Deputy Davin was satisfied that the 'bus owners, who are more or less affiliated with the Government Party, should be given £23,000 by way of remission of taxation when the wages they pay in some cases amounts to about 15s. per week, while the railway industry, which gives more employment than practically any other industry, is getting no concession. I wanted to know in Deputy Davin's absence how he reconciled the alliance with the Government Party which maintains for his Party the most supreme contempt. I venture to quote the words of the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance in regard to the Official Labour Party. He said:

I have been challenged by denationalised labour. Broadly speaking, the ignorant uneconomic policy of those who degrade the name of Labour by parading themselves as a Party as such, is that you must get everything done, but that you must not do anything to get it done. "No straw shall be given to you," you say to the industrialists, "but yet ye shall deliver the táille reckoned." I know that the burden upon industry in this country is too high. I know no way of forcing fluid capital into industry.

Where did the Deputy get that?

Mr. Byrne

I am quoting from the Official Debates. That old dodge of Deputy Davin's did not work. I would like Deputy Davin as champion of the poor and oppressed in this country to indicate what he has got to say about those figures and the imposition of the boot taxes. This fresh taxation on boots will mean anything by way of an additional impost on the taxes of the plain people amounting to £30,000 or £40,000 on men's and women's boots leaving out the boots of boys and girls. In 1926 there was paid by way of salaries and wages £96,822 and the duty was £268,000. I cannot profess to be a correct exponent of the views of Labour but I do say that I have the strongest possible sympathy with Labour and I should like to know what the Labour Party have got to say with regard to that imposition. The leader of the Labour Party in this House speaking on the unemployment debate said that he hoped the new policy of the Government would not be similar to the policy that had been followed in other countries. He referred to the fact that over £2,000,000 had been placed on ordinary consumers by the tax on boots and shoes. We have now in this Budget an extra £40,000 added on to all this and I want to ask the Labour Party are they calmly standing by and taking that lying down or are they going to stand up for the poor whom I believe they really represent in this House.

A Deputy

Claim to represent?

Mr. Byrne

They claim to represent them in this House and I believe they are honest. They are a body of men who only want to get a little glimmering of intelligence.

Will the Deputy explain how the Labour Party could be standing up if they are lying down?

Mr. Byrne

That would be very difficult. I always heard that an Irishman had leave to open his mouth twice. When one is speaking in this House it is very easy to make a slip. I cannot see for the life of me how the Labour Party can vote for this extra imposition of £40,000 upon boots and shoes which are necessary to life for the greater section of the people we represent. I cannot see how that imposition can be justified in view of the fact that for practical purposes, after enjoying protection for a period of eight to nine years, we are unable or practically unable to turn out boys' and girls' shoes and light footwear for women and men. We are producing, I do grant, at the moment something like one-eighth of the requirements of this country and we are paying for that £268,000 by way of duty per year. We are going to add to that now £40,000. That will be roughly £300,000 which the consumers of this country have got to pay for the setting up of one particular industry in the State.

I want to ask the House, do they think it is a paying proposition? Is it a business job? Can Fianna Fáil ever hope to solve the unemployment problem by a policy of indiscriminate tariffs? When the late Government was in office they handled tariffs very carefully. After being ten years in office there was a sum of £1,350,000 flowing into the National Exchequer, but was there any unreasonable burden on the consumers of this State? Did it press unduly on the people? After being nine weeks in office the Government have imposed tariffs which will put a burden of £910,000 on the consuming public in this country. We want to be careful over these things. The representative from Mayo to whom I have referred in the course of my remarks asked me to point out how the Budget is going injuriously to affect the country. Any man who knows anything about Protection— and the Leader of the Labour Party has referred to this as I have already said in a speech on unemployment— knows this that the imposition of indiscriminate tariffs is not adding to industrial development, but is retarding industrial development and lowering the general standard of the people. I have more than once pointed out to this House that this is not the first time that indiscriminate tariffs have been tried on this world.

We have the example which I referred to on more than one occasion, of Australia. Australia proceeded on identically similar lines to the present Government. They set out on a policy of indiscriminate tariffs. They increased the manufactures of the country, they raised the wages of the worker until practically nine-tenths of the industries were uneconomic. They could not produce at an economic price and what was the result? The result was that they had almost to resort to prohibition to keep out the imports that they were unable to pay for. They had something like £15,000,000 per annum interest to pay on national debt. The national debt rose to something like £350,000,000. How long will the national debt of this country be rising if the same effects follow the policy of Fianna Fáil as followed the policy in Australia? These are important considerations. We do not want to discuss these things from the Party angle, good, bad or indifferent. We on this side stand for the industrial development of the country just as much as the men on the other side, but it must be sane development. It must be development on economic lines. If the development is not along economic lines, the cure is worse than the disease.

I would like to ask the Minister for Finance one question in regard to the bachelor tax. I was approached by constituents to-day and asked to put this question to him: Is a widow under this tax considered to be a bachelor?

Make a match for her and see.

Mr. Byrne

Or a widower? I am not asking the question in a flippant or humorous way. Will they have to pay this tax just the same as if they never entered the bonds of matrimony?

Why should they get exemption?

Mr. Byrne

I suggest it is a great hardship upon this particular man who came to me. This man had four married daughters, every one of them idle. He was the only wage earner in the house and this tax will press upon him with undue severity. At the same time it is a very unfortunate tax for a poor old spinster, a poor old maid who has a few shillings to keep her in her declining years. Goodness knows, the Minister threw the net widely enough to enable him to exempt these particular people. Anybody who has been married once should certainly be exempt from this tax. Will the Minister say——

I would not cast such an aspersion on the ladies of the State.

Mr. Byrne

Will the Minister say whether the tax will be collected from a widow or widower? I am putting the question in perfect seriousness.

The tax will be collected from every person who is not now living in the state of matrimony.

Mr. Byrne

If there is no hope for the widows and the widowers, it seems to me undoubtedly very harsh treatment for the type of people to whom I have referred.

I do not know whether the Deputy expressed clearly what he had in mind.

A Deputy

You expressed it anyhow.

Is his point that a widower or widow with children will get the allowance in respect of children?

A Deputy

That is not the question.

I think the answer I have given ought to satisfy the Deputy. We will encourage them to remarry.

Mr. Byrne

I happen to be married myself and I know that anyone that gets out of the net once is not in a hurry to get into it again.

Does that account for the Deputy's melancholy state of mind to-night?

Mr. Byrne

The Minister for Finance wants to be personal. Of course I can be personal also. I do not wish to say any more on this Budget than this: that this Budget is one which the country cannot afford. It has been introduced regardless of its ramifications; it has been introduced regardless of the ability of the people to pay and far from curing the unemployment problem, in my opinion, it will only accentuate it.

We have heard a great deal of talk this whole evening from various Deputies on the opposite benches about this Budget. Two ex-Ministers brought us back to the civil war, and they told us that it was a revolution. Well, it is a revolution. It is a revolution from the policy of the late Minister for Local Government— a complete revolution of his policy, the policy of the reduction of the wages of the workers and the increase in the salaries of the officials. It is a complete revolution of the policy of reducing the workers' wages down to £1 9s. 0d. a week and of the policy that insisted upon the local bodies increasing the salaries of their officials from £700 to £1,400. It is a complete revolution of that policy certainly, and I for one welcome that revolution.

We have complaints here because there was going to be a reduction of civil servants' salaries amounting to £250,000. I remember last year being over on the opposite side of the House and pointing out to the late Minister for Finance in connection with the Budget that the amount of the cost-of-living bonus paid on salaries over £400 amounted to £380,000; and I have only one regret, and that is that there was not more than £250,000 demanded of those who are drawing salaries of more than £400 a year in this country. For a man with £400 a year there is no fear of his family starving, and such a man should undoubtedly contribute to the support of those who are in the position to-day of being both workless and hungry.

Then we had complaints about the farmers' position. We had any number of complaints about the farmers' position from different farmer Deputies. Deputy Dillon in fact wanted to know whether the farmers who are here on those benches were going to vote against the Budget. Well, we have got more from this Budget than ever we got from Deputies on the opposite benches when they were in power. We have got an increase of £250,000 in relief of rates. And if those who are now so anxious about the farmers to-day were equally anxious about those farmers twelve months ago when they came into this House and stated that the farmers did not want to get £1,000,000 in relief of rates, if they voted in favour of that £250,000 extra last year, we would not have so many farmers in the country now being hunted about for the payment of land annuities and rates. Deputies closed their eyes absolutely to that aspect of the position.

Then in regard to housing, the late Minister for Local Government definitely set out that the rural population were going to gain no benefit from any housing scheme introduced in this Dáil. He definitely laid it down in this Dáil that the rural population had to subscribe by way of taxes and rates to pay for every scheme of housing, but they were not going to gain any benefit by it. We are now going to get an increased grant for housing, and the rural population and those small farmers in the country will now get a grant towards the reconstruction of their dwelling-houses, a reform which we have been calling for in vain in this House during the last four years. And in addition to that we have a large sum of money of over £1,000,000 to be handed over to the local authorities for the provision of housing schemes for the rural areas and others. That is a big change from the cast-iron system that the late Minister for Local Government adopted towards the rural community. It is a complete change, and I welcome it on behalf of the farming community.

We have also heard talk about the increase in the price of superphosphates. There were 32,000 tons of superphosphates imported last year, and the total amount of extra taxation on that importation would be £10,000. And all the howling is about that £10,000. And it is a decreasing importation. It decreased by 11,000 tons last year. That is there was a decrease of 11,000 tons in the importation in 1931 as compared with 1930. And it is an importation for which in my opinion there is no necessity. There are plenty of manufacturers in this country manufacturing superphosphates so that there is no necessity for importing this material.

We have set out on the right road towards not alone reducing unemployment but abolishing unemployment in this country, and it is high time that we did it. And to those who complain of the position of the farmers to-day I say this much, that if the last Government were to be here on those benches for three years longer there would be no necessity for coming to the relief of the farmers because there would be no farmers there to relieve.

We have been accused here by the baby of the House who spent two hours in telling us about nothing. When he had finished he only impressed us as regards one matter and that is that decentralisation has got into his brain. It must have taken a long time to penetrate into the childish intellect of Deputy J.J. Byrne, but I am glad that it did penetrate it in the end. Deputy Byrne is spokesman for the unemployed. I should like to go to-morrow to the shop of this gentleman who is talking about unemployment. If I did I should find that 80 per cent. of everything that he sells in his shop is imported from foreign countries. This is the gentleman who talks about manufacturers here and of the protection afforded to them. I should like him to remember that and not to be so poisonous because we are putting a duty of 33? per cent. on his importation of Shamrock shovels. He need not be so poisonous over that. There is no occasion for it. It will relieve some of those unemployed who call up to his house looking for bread and looking for work, to whom he can only show the fine Shamrock shovels made in Manchester.

Then we had Deputy Morrissey complaining about unemployment. Last week here I saw rather an amazing exhibition from Deputy Morrissey. I saw him walking into the Division Lobby against giving increased employment to 500 men. That employment was to be brought about by a tariff on agricultural machinery. We had the Deputy who held up the House here demanding that unemployment be wiped out, demanding to know our immediate remedy for unemployment, walking into that Lobby against the interests of five hundred unemployed. Then Deputy Dillon became very vocal over the tax on maize. There is no tax on maize. There is a tax on maize meal. It is about time there was. We have plenty of idle mills in this country capable of grinding maize and there is no need to pay foreign labourers to grind it for us. We have enough unemployed on our shoulders, and we should not be giving employment to foreign labourers to grind maize while our farmers are looking at men idle around them.

If we were to carry out this policy to its natural conclusion, where would we find ourselves? Where would the policy of the "Shamrock shovel importers" carry us? By that policy we would buy everything foreign because it may be cheaper. What are we going to sell? Are we going to sell anything? The farmer is going to be put out of production because everything can be imported cheaper than the price at which he can grow it. Industrialists are to be put out of production because the foreign combines can clear them out. I have already seen one result of a tariff in my constituency. Last week one manufacturer there got an order for £10,000 worth of stuff. He can increase his employees from 30 to 100 immediately. I would like to see 60 or 70 of my neighbours working in a local factory, even though one might have to pay an extra penny or twopence for the stuff produced there. That is, to my mind, one of the cures for unemployment. It is a successful cure. An idle man can buy nothing no matter how cheap.

The ex-Minister for Local Government trotted out figures about unemployment and he gave us some figures in connection with the Employment Exchanges, stating that unemployment has gone up. Why? Because the unemployed man now knows that he is going to get employment and in that way he is induced to go to the Labour Exchange to register. He knows that one man now is as good as another. He has no longer to walk around for twelve months, wearing his boots looking for work and then finding that a dandy who has just come out of the National Army gets a job before him. These times are past and gone. That is why the figures of the Labour Exchange have gone up. The labourer now, after ten years walking the roads looking for employment, knows that he is at last going to be employed. We had any amount of wails here. I explained for the benefit of Deputy Dillon a while ago that there was no tax on maize. I hope he will remember that fact. There is a tax on maize meal.

You will understand the Budget some time.

The Deputy will after a little time. I would like the Minister for Finance to turn his attention to one matter. I notice that he is giving on certain conditions a remission of 5s. per standard barrel on beer for the first 5,000 barrels. I wonder would he make the conditions a little more stringent. Instead of limiting the malt used in the manufacture of the beer to 80 per cent. of the material used, he might make the remission available only to those who use nothing but Irish grown barley. Practically all the small brewers in this country use home grown barley. It would be a fine gesture on the part of the Minister if the remission were made available only to those who used all Irish barley.

We heard a great deal here about the land annuities. I have a proposition to make to the Deputies opposite and it is a fair proposition. We have heard all about embezzlers, robbers and thieves from Deputies opposite for a number of years. Now remember one thing—both Church and State hold that the receiver is worse than the thief. I suggest to the Deputies opposite who believe that we are indulging in embezzlement in withholding the land annuities that they make out a list of those of their constituents, friends and others who are in favour of paying those land annuities to Britain. Make out that list and let us see how many supporters they have in the country against the retention of those land annuities. Let Deputy Hassett show us how many Tipperarymen think it is embezzlement to retain the land annuities. Then we will see that those gentlemen will not obtain full de-rating or any benefits of the withheld money. I am sure that would be a very enlightening list.

Deputy Morrissey here to-day congratulated me on securing £250,000 extra for de-rating. He need not congratulate me. Every single promise given by Fianna Fáil to the electors is going to be carried out. It is because the people knew we were going to carry out those guarantees that they elected us here. We will carry them out and no doubt about it. Deputies said that we promised full de-rating. We did and we will get it. The less opposition we get from Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies on the question of land annuities the sooner we will get full de-rating. There are several farmer Deputies listening to me who shouted a lot about it being robbery to hold the land annuities. They should have the courage of their convictions and refuse to receive stolen property. They should bring along the list and the more they get to support them the more we will have for those who do not.

I know plenty of our supporters in the country, poor fellows who have been ground down under the heel of the last administration, decent young boys who went out from 1916 to 1923 and fought for Ireland. They found when they came home that they would not get an hour's work. Any employer who had the courage to employ them found they were missing four days every week because they were arrested and rearrested and thrown into jail. We want to look after those young fellows. When we get hold of the land annuities we will be in a position to help industry and give employment to those boys.

I rise to deal with the question of what the farmer is going to get out of this Budget. A lot has been made of the £250,000 grant. That will amount to about 7/1-3d. in the £ in taxation. To the man with £50 valuation, that will mean about 29/2d. in the year. As against a grant of a quarter of a million, it is proposed to take three millions from the farmers as a result of tariffs and the increased prices that are going to obtain. I will not take up many items, but I will deal first of all with superphosphate. A lot has been said here about phosphates. I am given to understand by a man who is an authority on phosphates that there are no phosphate deposits in Europe worth speaking about. The only deposit of importance in Europe is in County Clare. The next source of supply would be in Northern Africa, and then there is an island in the Pacific, in which Australia, New Zealand and Britain have an equal share. The raw phosphates used here have to be got in Clare, or Northern Africa. Some of the Continental phosphates that come here are merely North African phosphates ground in Holland or Belgium.

It has been said that the amount imported is so small that it is not worth talking about. If that is so, what is the reason for putting on a tariff of 20 per cent.? I understand there are certain manufacturers who are anxious to get the raw phosphates without any impost. We all know when the artificial manure ring was perfected, and when it took control. We remember the price at which we could get manure before the ring started operating. As soon as the ring was perfected the price of phosphates immediately went up and continued to remain up until the North African and Continental shipments began to arrive. Then the prices came down, and this year you can buy phosphates for £3 a ton. If we had not the small competition, what would this ring of artificial manure manufacturers be charging? Instead of £3, the price would probably be £5 and perhaps more. The 29/2 that the farmer with a £50 valuation would gain from this £250,000 grant would be more than swept away in the purchase of one ton of phosphates.

I will not deal with clothes, boots, machinery or the tax on shovels and spades. I would like to know from the Minister for Industry and Commerce where in this country are we to get shovels and spades. Is there any firm in this country manufacturing those articles in sufficient quantities to meet requirements, and, if so, where is that firm? We know that Henshaws closed up twelve months ago.

They are going to open again.

And they would need to manufacture an article of better quality than they used to manufacture. They were making an article that nobody would use and that was the reason they had to close up.

Is it a proper thing for a Deputy, under the cover of privilege, to make an attack on a firm which cannot defend itself in this House?

It is not a proper thing for a Deputy to make an attack upon a firm, especially under the privileges extended here.

The fact is that these people were not able to carry on.

In defence of a reputable firm I would like to say that my experience, which is quite as wide as Deputy Gorey's, is at entire variance with his.

I am speaking of actual experience.

So am I.

I am not a seller but a user of the article.

And so am I.

I worked their article with my hands and feet and it actually bent in my hands and was of no use.

The Dáil ought not to be used for the purpose of making an attack on any firm and mentioning the firm's name.

Hear, hear.

In the interests of the industry and its likely development, I think the Deputy's remark should be withdrawn.

I will not withdraw it. I made the remark in the best interests of the industry and in the interests of other manufacturers. If we have a little straight talking we will get a better article. I will not withdraw the statement.

I cannot compel you.

I do not think you can.

Not in any shape or form.

There are several charges contained in this Budget on articles other than phosphates which would more than wipe out any benefit the farmer might derive from the grant. I am not in a position to submit actual figures relating to what a tax on maize meal, clothes, boots, spades, shovels and machinery would mean to the farmer. I am not able to make a calculation on that, but I can make a calculation as regards the other items. What I say is that you are giving the farmer a crumb and the loaf to somebody else. The additional taxation contemplated under this Budget—the £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 of a difference —is, some of it at all events, going to be a direct charge on agriculture, while eventually the whole of it is going to come out of the farmers' pockets. One hears a lot of crocodile sympathy expressed here for the position in which agriculturists find themselves. I wonder how much of that is real and how much of it is put on. I urge the Minister for Industry and Commerce to be very careful about the artificial manure manufacturing ring that I have referred to. I am sure the Minister knows as well as anyone else that there is such a ring and that it has been in operation for years. With regard to some of the resolutions that we have read about congratulating the Government on the tariffs they imposed recently we know where some of them came from. We know that these people were on the market for the last seven or eight years and ultimately got their market. I will leave it at that.

I want to refer to the levy imposed by the Budget on the Sweeps or rather on that portion of the Sweep money intended for the hospitals. On behalf of my own county I protest against that levy. My county, like other counties, was expecting a share of the profits on the Sweep, but this imposition will lessen the amount available for it and the other counties. It was only in connection with the last Sweep that we succeeded in getting an Act passed by the Oireachtas giving the counties in the Saorstát an equal claim with the Dublin hospitals to a share of the profits on the Sweeps. The counties were not to get a very high percentage, but still the sum available for them would be considerable. The sum of over £600,000 which the Minister for Finance is now proposing to take out of the profits on the Sweeps will certainly bring down very considerably the percentage available for the county hospitals. It will lessen very considerably what ought to be their fair share of that money. I am not able to quote the exact words of the President, but I feel that he will admit what I am about to say is correct, namely, that twelve months ago he gave it as his opinion that he objected altogether to this method of raising money, even though the money was devoted to hospitals that had to depend for support on charity. The President objected to that. Is not that right? Now, we find him not alone reconciling himself to that position, but in fact taking a share of the money raised in that fashion as revenue for the State. It is one of the most extraordinary things I ever heard of. Twelve months or a year and a half ago the President thought it was immoral and wrong to raise money for private hospitals in that way.

The Deputy had better quote now.

I have not the President's exact words before me, but is the President in a position to deny it?

I think it would be better for the Deputy to quote. It would be safer for him to do so.

It would be safer to quote perhaps, but certainly the statement was made in some form. I am not able to quote the exact words from memory and the President is not able to deny it.

It is going to be put to the purpose now of improving cul-de-sac roads.

It is going to do a much more important thing than that: to keep people out of the hospitals.

In my opinion, this is an attempt to rob the county hospitals and is a degrading method of raising revenue for the State. I do not know that, with the exception of ourselves, you will find any place outside of Monaco where there has been such a thing attempted as this—trying to live on gambling and sweeps. There is no other civilised country that I know of that has attempted such a thing. I do not think that what is proposed is any credit to the State. Some of us in this House thought, and are still of the opinion that not alone should the hospitals be a national charge, but that the expenses in connection with them should be borne by the State, that they should not be left dependent on charity in any form. In this case, we are not only departing from that principle but we are doing what no State should do, making a claim on money intended for hospitals. I also notice that it is proposed to tax mechanical lighters. In other words, anybody carrying a mechanical pipe lighter in future will have to get a licence.

I feel very concerned about an announcement that I read in the Press on Wednesday. It was one of very considerable importance to the people in the county that I belong to. That announcement may not have any weight with the Ministry. Indeed, I suppose it will not. The announcement was to this effect, that one of the biggest employers in the County Kilkenny intimated to his workers that if there was a change in taxation in the direction he referred to he would have to reduce their wages considerably, and perhaps might have to let a number of them go altogether. That is a matter that concerns me very much. The ordinary rate of income-tax is being raised to 5/- in the £. I suppose we have got to bear that, but I do not see any justification for making that increase and at the same time increasing the amount of super-tax chargeable to a gentleman with an income such as this particular employer has. He employs about 200 hands, but I think I would not be far wide of the mark if I said that there are at least 1,000 souls dependent on the employment that he gives. Any curtailment in the wages paid to his employees, or any lessening in the number of people employed would be a matter of grave concern to me. I think there is a good deal in the argument that the people in employment should have as much consideration, should have more consideration I would say, than the people who are out of employment. I think it may be taken as a general principle that the people in employment are the people who want to be in employment, and they are the people who from one cause or another deserve to have employment. I say that you ought not to put people out of employment in order to find work for others. You should do your utmost to keep in employment the people who are in employment, who want to be employed and are constantly trying to get work.

A good deal has been said about the annuities. I do not know if this is the proper time to go into the legal aspect of that question. I have always disputed, and will continue to dispute, the State's claim to collect the annuities except for the purpose for which the annuities are intended. The State has no title at present to collect outside of that particular title. If it wants to get that title legislation must be introduced here making the State the owner of the land.

The State was never the owner of the land of this country. The farmers of this country bought the title—a title extending over seven or eight hundred years—from the only people who had the title. They bought their title, and the State has no title whatever. You have to introduce legislation into this House entitling you to collect, entitling you to put on a land tax and to nationalise the land. The President can laugh, but the President, unless he introduces that particular legislation, will get plenty of tests in the Law Courts. I wish you every luck in keeping the land annuities.

The Deputy ought to keep away from the Law Courts.

The Minister for Finance might find himself brought into the Law Courts by the Deputy.

I hope not in the same circumstances as the Deputy was brought in.

The Deputy is not a bit ashamed of the circumstances. Some of the Deputies who have spoken have likened the Minister to a bantam in introducing this Budget. Another Deputy likened him to a hen that had laid two eggs, but I can never look at the Minister for Finance, and at the back of an Irish penny, but I see the Minister every time in the representation of a hatching hen. I said that the Executive Council has no claim to collect, but that can be thrashed out later. It is time enough to jump our fences when we meet them, and I promise the President pretty rough travelling over the country.

Will you take your share?

I am paying my share, and nobody will be more delighted than I, if you succeed in repudiating them. As soon as you repudiate them, I will repudiate you. Suppose we are able to repudiate them, what is the position, then? There is a tremendous number of people in this country who own land stock. I know that and the Minister must know it. Anybody who has any knowledge of Irish investments knows that there is a considerable amount of land stock held in this country. Who is going to pay them if we repudiate our engagements to the stock holders? Who is going to make good to the stockholders, and who are we to compel an outside Government to make good to the stock-holders, to the nationals, of this country. I might repeat a last word of warning to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and it is, that he should keep an eye on the artificial manure manufacturers. Let him not allow them to humbug him. There is a much plainer word used in the country, but I do not suppose that I would be in order in using it here.

I want to say a few words in connection with one item in support of the statement made by Deputy Gorey as to superphosphates. I represent here a large county, the land of which needs to be nourished, so much so that I am convinced that, only for the use and aid of fertilisers in recent years, the district would not be able to go on at all. Everybody in this House knows that tillage is expensive and that it has not been profitable in recent years. The owners of this land, in order to meet the needs of the hour, had to convert their land into milk-producing land, and the only possible way to do it was through the medium of fertilisers. In order to achieve the best possible results, and to turn their money to the best advantage, they banded themselves together and bought in bulk, utilising the ports of the South with very great advantage. This tariff of 20 per cent. that has been introduced by the Minister will have the effect this year of putting a levy of anything from 16/- to £1 per ton on that commodity.

The Minister, in his remarks a while ago, said that any reasonable proposition in connection with this Budget, if it were put before him, would have favourable consideration. I say that the owners of land who need fertilisers are the hardest hit section of the community. If there is one thing they suffer from it is lack of sufficient funds to buy a sufficient quantity of fertilisers. The Government say that they will probably have to put on a tax to solve the unemployment problem, and we have it from the President himself that the tax will be put on those best able to bear it. I say that this tax is put on those least able to bear it, and I would ask the Ministers to agree that this tax needs to be reviewed. I ask them to review it, and I hope they will consider my application favourably.

The Government recognises the necessity for relieving agriculture, and they have given a quarter of a million pounds to local authorities for the relief of local rates; but I say that any man who needs fertilisers has to bear a greater burden through these imposts than he will be relieved by the quarter of a million pounds in relief of rates. As Deputy Gorey says, there is a danger, and a great danger, that if this tariff is put on, as is intended, it will have the effect of giving a monopoly with very adverse results to the purchaser. So far as we personally are concerned in the South, we are buying foreign, and we are utilising the ports of the South for distribution, and I say that, even with the tariff, we will have to buy the foreign product, and it will still be cheaper for us. As I have already stated, the impost is put on the section least able to bear it, and I appeal to the Ministry to consider this application I have made, with a view to giving relief to the most distressed section of the community.

Apparently by this Budget, the Minister for Finance believes that he has the unemployment problem solved—solved by 43 tariffs imposed. My opinion of the 43 tariffs imposed is that they will put some people into employment, but they will put a bigger number out of employment. I will take just one industry of which I have some small knowledge. Take the building industry. A fortnight ago I asked the President if he was in a position to give me figures of those unemployed in that industry on 9th March, and he said it was not possible for him. I expected that at a later date I would receive the figures, but so far I have got no information except that given by Deputy Mulcahy relating to Dublin. From what I know of the West, I know that there is much more unemployment at present in that industry than on 9th March. We have now in the Budget a thirty-three and one-third tariff imposed on steel windows. I should like to know from the Minister for Industry and Commerce if it is not to accommodate one firm that that tariff is put on? Am I right in saying that these windows are not made in this country; that they are assembled here, and that the sections are brought over from another country? So that the tariff is put on really to have them assembled here. There is a tariff imposed on practically everything in the building line. On plaster slabs there is a tariff of 4d. per square yard. There are also tariffs on paint, varnishes, cast-iron pipes and fittings. I would like to ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce does he believe that the two firms in this country that supply cast-iron pipes and fittings are able to meet the needs of the country? My information is that they are not able—that it takes them six weeks to carry out orders.

Is the Deputy aware that Messrs. Ford of Cork are engaged in the manufacture of these cast-iron downpipes?

Mr. Brodrick

In a very small way.

Are they going to supply fittings?

That is another detail.

It is a very important one.

Mr. Brodrick

Then we come to galvanized iron. Is galvanized iron manufactured here? If it is not, what is the reason of the ten per cent. tariff? We know that galvanized iron is used by the small farmers to a large extent. In the West it is not alone used on out-offices, but some small farmers use it on dwelling-houses. What is the idea of putting a ten per cent. tariff on it if it is not manufactured here? Coming to the cost of building, you have tariffs on sundry and plumber's brass work. I should like to know if wood mantels come under the tariff? Take the cost of building a house. I have gone into this matter very minutely, and a house which would have cost £700 to build will now cost between £790 and £800 owing to the tariffs. The cost of the £1,000 house will go up to £1,100 or £1,120. We have the Minister for Finance saying that he is going to give £5,000,000 for housing. A sum of £5,000,000 is to be given for the building of houses to be let at half the present rent, which will cost at least one-seventh more than they would cost a few days ago. I should like to know how it is going to be done. I firmly believe that, owing to the tariffs, the building industry is going to be held up. I have information from one Dublin firm that a £2,500 order has been cancelled this morning. I also know that several builders throughout the country are letting men go because they cannot pay for the materials. They expect that they would not be able to get the supplies even if they were able to pay.

Then I come to the Sweepstakes. Last year an Act was passed here under which several hospitals and county homes throughout the country were to get something out of the Sweepstakes. In Galway the ratepayers provided £30,000 to build and equip a hospital. It was hoped that the ratepayers there would be helped by the money they were to get out of the sweepstakes. Now we find that these ratepayers, who spent £30,000 on erecting and equipping a modern hospital, are to be deprived of portion of the sum which they expected to get from the sweepstakes. I think that is most unfair owing to the promises made to these people that they would get this money in order to further equip such hospitals. Ratepayers in counties like Galway are unable to expend any more money on hospitals. I think it is most unfair that this money should be taken from the hospitals and county homes, which served the poor and the infirm, the very people that Fianna Fáil talked such a lot about for the past four years. They are depriving them now of the little help they were to get from the sweepstakes.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported: Committee to sit again to-morrow.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m., until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 13th May, 1932.
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