I doubt if any motion, since the Dáil was set up, ranged over a wider field than this one, or if there was any motion which touched on so many points, and into which so many varied speakers came; so much so, that the difficulty is in deciding on where to begin to reply. First of all, I shall re-state what I stated in introducing the motion on 4th October—that that motion, which was one of urgency, had been on the Order Paper from 24th March, and that it was not reached until 4th October. It has been before this House since 4th October and it is still before the House at the present time. I just wish to re-state that in order to point out that there are practically no facilities for Opposition Deputies in this House to bring a matter of great importance and urgency before the House or before the country. The need for this motion might easily have disappeared. It was introduced to meet a situation that arose a year ago, but the continuity of that situation in the current year makes this motion a matter of urgent importance and national interest now. As I have said, however, it would have neither national importance nor national interest now were it not that the Government are still continuing in their stupidity this year on the same line they embarked on in their stupidity last year.
One would appreciate the Government's difficulties much more than we do now if the Government had shown a little more interest in this matter, and if speakers, many of them on the Government Benches, who understand agriculture and are interested in it, had taken part in the debate. Many of those who understand it and are interested in it were not put up to speak and did not speak, but two gentlemen, representing the same Department, a Minister and a Deputy-Minister, occupied Private Members' time on this motion for at least ten hours between them, and I doubt if they said anything during their two long speeches. This motion was not put down in the spirit suggested by the Minister for Education, who referred to "the audacity" of the people who put it down. The Minister for Education happens to be here. That Minister for Education, before he became a Minister, had the audacity to stump his constituency and promise de-rating, and he will not deny it nor attempt to deny it. If he raised his head to deny it I would put the statement down over his own signature. He questioned the honesty of those of us who put down this motion, as, of course, did the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance—I do not know whether any other Minister spoke on it.
Ministers travelled over the whole field of activities of last year, and up to the present time, because they are acting in that field still, and I suppose the "John Browns" who were introduced then, are also active at this moment. As it is now within ten minutes of 2 o'clock, probably there is another "John Brown" auction in Prussia Street. Allegations have been made in the course of their speeches by Ministers that Deputies engaged in conspiracies last year not to pay rates or annuities. Certain definite statements were attributed to me, and I was singled out, I believe, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, as one who was ordered by mandamus to strike rates in County Dublin, and that I was one of those convicted of an offence before the Military Tribunal. Both of these statements are true, but I have nothing to apologise for or to regret. The apologies and the regrets will have to come from the Government that produced the conditions that made such incidents inevitable. If I had entered into any conspiracy not to pay rates I would say so openly, and stand up to it. I am more concerned with the implication in the accusation that I urged other people to do what I would not do myself. I never asked anyone to go anywhere that I would not go myself, or to do anything that I would not do.
But Ministers, and particularly the Minister for Education, promised the poor befooled constituents in Carlow-Kilkenny that if they elected them as the Government they would not have to pay rates on agricultural land any more. I challenge the Minister for Education to question that statement. Although I admit that people are not able to pay rates and annuities, because of the depression consequent on the economic war, and the general depression all over the world, yet, I hold that there was no moral obligation on them to pay rates or annuities, because they had paid them in another way. That was the real point of my speech when moving this motion on October 4th. There were many minor points that I wished to make, but they required references, and at the time I had not those with me, because I had been in another place on that date, and did not expect when I arrived here to have to proceed with this motion. I did so in the absence of documents.
The whole case resolves itself into this. Our Government was under an obligation under the Ultimate Financial Settlement of March, 1926, to pay £5,250,000 which, for the purposes of reference, I will call £5,000,000. The Government here refused to pay that money, being elected, as they were, to take that line. I am not questioning their right there, because they claimed to be elected on that policy. I give them the benefit of the claim. They proceeded to carry out that policy, and, in doing that, they were not going behind the backs of the people who elected them. I grant that. But there was another side to it, the British side. They said: "Well, if you do not pay us the £5,000,000, we will collect the money." They proceeded to collect it. My case simply was that the British had collected the £5,000,000. In all the superfluous talk against the motion that has come from the Government Benches not a single speaker addressed himself to the case I put up. The British collected the £5,00,000. Who paid? Agriculture paid. I have sought relief of rates on or the derating of agricultural land, but I have never sought relief of rates on houses or buildings. The agricultural land is the raw material of food production. A different principle is involved in the retention of the land annuities. I must not be understood as speaking against retention. That is not directly concerned with this motion. I am speaking of the fact of the retention, and what followed, and how the Government handled the situation that was produced by their action. Whether retention was right or wrong is beside this motion. I do not want to go into that question now, good, bad or indifferent. The British collected the land annuities.
I stated on October 4, and it has not been contradicted, that agriculture would have to pay the £5,000,000, and agriculture has paid. Perhaps a larger case than this could be narrowed down to definite limits, to an objection to the reduction of the Agricultural Grant. I might claim the indulgence of the Chair to widen it to include a rates question and other questions now before the country. I do not want to go that length now. Agriculture has paid all the land annuities, and not only the land annuities, but other component parts of the debt to Great Britain. It has paid the Royal Irish Constabulary pensions, and it has paid the local loans payments. That is the ground I took up when I moved at Dublin County Council a year ago that we should strike no rates. I have no apology to make for taking that action, because we were paying £2,000,000 over the land annuities. The land annuities were the farmers' liability, but, as citizens, farmers contributed the other £2,000,000 to the Central Fund, which were paid. As we have had to pay the whole of the £5,000,000, by taxes on goods sent to England, I think, we have liquidated that debt and the responsibility for it. That is the case I put up. Nobody answered it. The Minister for Finance spoke for one and a half hours last week, and for one and a half hours on Wednesday, and for one hour to day, but he never applied himself to that case. Deputy Flinn talked of everything under the sun. I was wondering if he was going to tell us the story of Beary discovering the North Pole. He did not touch on the question at issue. The Minister for Education told us about a conspiracy. There was no conspiracy. We paid. In any attitude we adopted we did not question—and it would be an impertinence to do so —the action of the Government in carrying out the mandate which they claim—and which I admit they got— from the people at the General Election of 1932, namely, to withhold the land annuities and the other payments. However, we paid them because we had no option. The Government here could not protect us by keeping England from imposing taxation on our produce. I move the adjournment of the debate.
