When, unfortunately, we had to intermit our proceedings last night, we were engaged in considering the practical proposals put forward by the Opposition for the purpose of settling the economic war. We had reached a considerable amount of agreement. We had agreed that, in order that there should be any reasonable prospect of success in these negotiations, the moral numbers of the two contending parties should be somewhat equal, that there should not be a moral inferiority complex put upon either of the negotiating parties. As it was impossible for the British to come up to our standard —that is to say, change their position in relation to debts into a position in which there was any question as to whether they did nor did not owe the money—and as it was impossible for them to get into the position in which they could offer to put to a court a debt which they had already repudiated after admitting it was due, it was agreed that the only possible way in which the matter could be arranged was for the Free State first to commit perjury by stating to the court that it did owe what it did not owe and, then, to commit the crime of theft by declaring that it was prepared to steal what, in fact, belonged to itself. That was the measure of agreement on which we ended last night. We had decided that we would go together on an equally honourable basis into the Thieves' Kitchen and discuss it as one thief to another. "The bandits were gathered around the old camp fire." You remember the old story. One dark and stormy night, the rain came down in torrents and the bandits gathered around the old camp fire. Thomas said "Tell us your plan" and "Francois began as follows." You know the monotony of this particular thing in which you go over it again and again. But this is the first time at which the story stopped with "Francois began as follows", because just where Francois should begin, Francois did not. Francois decided to remain silent even though he had gone into the Thieves' Kitchen, even though the bandits had been gathered together and even though their chief bandit, or the representative of the chief bandit, had asked him to state his plan. It was at that exact moment that Francois, for the first time in his life, decided to be silent. The only time it was useful for him to talk, the one moment when he was asked to come down to brass tacks, to put his cards on the table— at that time, Francois decided to remain silent. Although Francois has made a great number of speeches on this subject and although nearly all the supporters of Francois have made nearly as many as or more speeches than Francois upon this subject——
Vote No. 3—Department of the President of the Executive Council (Resumed).
I do not quite follow the story of these bandits to whom the Deputy—who might be seated—refers. If he, by any chance, is relating this tale to the actions of a Deputy of this House, he must refer to him as "Deputy."
I am telling a story, Sir.
I do not remember having read the bandit story to which the Parliamentary Secretary refers. He has, however, stated that bandit Francois has made several speeches in this House. If, as may be inferred, the Parliamentary Secretary is referring to a member of this House, he must give him the title "Deputy."
Very well; we will put it in another form. The bandits have gathered together, and one of them is the Right Honourable James Thomas, representing the British Government, and the other is the quite honourable, but not Right Honourable, Frank MacDermot, Deputy of this House, representing a hypothetical government opposed to this Government, engaged in negotiation with the British Government. The Right Honourable James Thomas, speaking on behalf of the British Government, has asked Deputy Frank MacDermot what is his plan, and Deputy Frank MacDermot, in exactly the same position as Francois, remains silent. Now, I do not want to misrepresent him. He has told us that he wants a business like arrangement; he wants a genuine offer; he wants a cash payment; he wants a token payment— all phrases. Thomas is asking Frank what he means by them. Let us assume now for a moment that the Right Honourable James Thomas has got tired of asking Deputy MacDermot to speak and has started to do the talking himself, although he is not at all likely to do it. He says "Well now, my friend"—that is the conventional term—"you are here to negotiate; you are here to make a business arrangement; you are here to offer a cash payment. You owe us, according to your admission, the whole of this money. Nothing has been done by the British Government outside the causation of weak people in your own country to reduce in any way the liability of a Free State Government to ensure that payment." I think that is admitted, according to the case of the Opposition, but then "My friend," says Mr. Thomas, "you have said as a consideration to attempt to get votes at the last general election that half of that money will never be paid.""Oh," says Deputy Frank MacDermot, "those are not my words. Those are Liam T. MacCosgair's words. It was he repudiated, as a consideration for the purpose of getting votes, the payment of half the annuities. It was not I."
The Right Honourable James Thomas may say to the Honourable Frank MacDermot: "Go home and send the man himself," but assume that he does not; assume that his patience is of the character which I do not expect it to be and that he says: "Oh, my friend, but you said something else. You said that no Government that could exist in the Free State after this would ever under any condition pay any of this money to England.""Oh, no," says Deputy Frank MacDermot, "those are not my words. Those are the words of General MacDuffy." This is the negotiator. This is the practical business man. This is the man who is coming down to brass tacks. This is the man who, across the bandits' fire in the Thieves' Kitchen, is going to come to an honourable, businesslike settlement. What chance on earth has Deputy Frank MacDermot of negotiating with anybody in relation to anything if these are the facts? I am trying to help the Deputy. I am going to explain why Deputy Frank MacDermot is sent over to negotiate. They cannot send over Liam T. MacCosgair because it is well known that when he, as President, went over and asked, not for the abolition of £80,000,000 or £100,000,000's worth of debt or any portion of it, but for a mere three months' stay of execution on an instalment of £250,000, he could not get it and he cannot go because he is the man who has stated already as one of the considerations of attempting to get votes in a general election that he would not pay half of the money. They cannot send him. They cannot send General MacDuffy because he says he will not pay any of it, and what on earth is the use of having negotiation in relation to the payment of money with a man who says he will not pay any of it before he goes into negotiation? Two of them are, therefore, wiped out. There still remains in the gap Deputy Frank MacDermot——
And Deputy Belton.
——who has a price to offer which Deputy Cosgrave could not offer and which Deputy MacDuffy—I beg his pardon; I wish he were Deputy. I would give a lot to see him over there—cannot, because he will not offer the price which Deputy MacDermot is prepared to offer. Now, what is the price? Deputy MacDermot says: "I will not pay you any of the money," or, perhaps, he will avoid saying it and perhaps he will use the British phrase in relation to payment of debts—"I will suspend payment until it is possible to discuss the question of settlement with a reasonable prospect of agreement." That is the English expression. What does it mean? They will suspend payment until the creditor who demands the whole of the money will have a reasonable prospect of agreement with a debtor who refuses to pay any of it. Deputy MacDermot, being a good member of the nice decent order of imperial statesmen, the elder statesmen of Europe, will not use such a vulgar expression as "I will not pay"; he will not use such a nasty expression as "repudiation"; he might not even use the expression which I have heard used sometimes in the cattle market: "We would rather owe it to you for ever than do you out of it."
Perhaps Deputy MacDermot, in that nice gentlemanly way in which he would deal with matters of that kind, would avoid the rough, vulgar words which come from the lips of common and ordinary men. He would simply use an expression of that kind and say: "Please, Mr. Thomas, do not understand me as saying what would seem, if somebody else said it, to be that I would not pay you, but that is what I mean."
Now, we will get on to the real matter. There is a real consideration in this matter. The Irish Times yesterday, which had a large leading article proving that England was the most honourable person in the world in refusing to pay her debts, said that every man has his price. Deputy MacDermot, according to himself, is going to bring over the price with him. What is the price? First let us try and grasp what price it is that the British really do want. Do they want money? I think they do not. They have made it fairly clear that money is not the only consideration in the matter. They have gone out of their way to say that if that were the only question at issue between them a settlement might be possible. They have hinted that after the settlement of the merely financial question—dust in the balance compared with the real issue—there would remain other issues, more important, things that the Right Hon. James Thomas has called political considerations. No member of the triumvirate or of the Rotary Club opposite is in a position to go to the British, and offer them any definite terms that they would accept, without perjuring themselves in the face of the people of this country, without taking back from them the financial considerations on the strength of which they attempted to get and are still attempting to get votes. Therefore, whoever goes to negotiate upon their behalf must be prepared to give them something more valuable than the mere financial consideration involved.
Deputy Frank MacDermot said that we could get rid of a lot of trouble if we got rid of the political jargon called the national issue. The political jargon called the national issue! We are going to send over to negotiate on behalf of the Twenty-Six Counties, acting as trustee for this part of the Irish nation, a man who is prepared to come to terms with the Rt. Hon. James Thomas in relation to the annuities, on the basis of regarding the national issue as political jargon. Is there any other man a member of Cumann na nGaedheal, of the old Centre Party, of the Independent Labour Party, of the Independents, of the new United Ireland Party, or any other of the alphabetically mutable organisations to which these people belong, who is in the same position as Deputy Frank MacDermot— able to go over and offer to Mr. James Thomas a solution of this financial question on the basis of regarding the national issue as political jargon? Is there any other——
I think I am entitled to intervene to say that the statement which Deputy Flinn is making is absolutely untrue. He has entirely misquoted what I said last night.
He has given you what you want.
Here are the words taken down from the Deputy: "... political jargon, the national issue." The whole burden of his speech, the whole burden of the spurious kind of crawling-worm-political-outlook kind of speech which has been delivered from those benches, is founded upon the idea that the national issue is political jargon; that nothing except——
Mr. MacDermot rose.
I am not giving way to the Deputy. His words are on record.
I challenge the Deputy to send to the reporters' room for the record.
Words are on record in hundreds of speeches by colleagues— not so much colleagues as camp followers of that Party—in which the same doctrine is preached: "Get rid of everything, get rid of this ráiméis of nationality, get rid of this idea that there is nothing different between a nation and a member of the Commonwealth." Is there anyone in this House who is going to deny that the whole basis and the only strength of the propaganda opposite—it is a solid part and a strong part of their case; I am prepared to admit it is a strong part of their case—is that we should turn our backs upon the national issue, and regard it as political jargon. I am saying deliberately that if you want to choose a negotiator who can, without a blush, offer to James Thomas the only terms that he will accept, then you certainly ought to send Deputy MacDermot.
Listen to this from Deputy Cosgrave: "No one cares a straw what Government is in power in this country if this question is settled." It does not matter what the Government stands for, or what its political, social or national policy is. No one cares a straw, according to Deputy Cosgrave, so long as this narrow little financial question is settled. But those are not the words of Deputy Frank MacDermot. They are only the words of the ex-President, whom I understand they propose to send to the folklore museum in the Phoenix Park. "A settlement must come," says Deputy Cosgrave. "It is inevitable." Because a settlement is inevitable, is a complete and abject surrender inevitable? Was it inevitable that we should recognise it as a fact when we were told on the day this battle opened that inside a month we would be crawling for peace? Was it inevitable that we should recognise that we would be bankrupt in three months, or that we would be bankrupt in six months? Is that the settlement that is inevitable? If the suggestion from the opposite side is that a settlement based upon defeat and bankruptcy is inevitable, then we say no such settlement is possible, let alone inevitable.
Deputy Cosgrave complained that we are resting exclusively on the legal case. What would have been said to us if we had dared to rest upon anything else? Ráiméis and moral jargon! What man is there in this House, what single individual is there in this House, who suggests that there can be any moral case for England extracting one single penny of money for the land of Ireland from the people of Ireland? We are not resting upon the strictly legal case. The moral case is overwhelming, but what is the use of pleading a moral case in a British court? What experience have we had of pleading moral cases in a British court? Every case, ethical, moral and everything else, is overwhelmingly on our side, but amazingly in this case the law is on the side of right; justice— legal justice—is upon the side of right.
Deputy Cosgrave told us that there was no use in fighting to a finish. Is there any use in surrendering in three days? Is there any man here who does not know that our position in relation to any negotiations which take place is enormously, almost unbelievably strengthened by the apparently incalculable resistance which we have proved we are able to put up in face of this attack. Since the forts of Lille stood up, surprisingly and astoundingly, against the German invasion there has been nothing so remarkable as the hidden strength which has been disclosed by the Irish people in this fight in relation to antagonists so amazingly powerful.
The forts of Lille did not stand up.
They stood up to the critical moment that was necessary to allow the resources to come up behind them and the Deputy knows that. He knows perfectly well that the forts of Lille did damn well. At any rate, the moral remains the same.
The Deputy is confusing Lille with Liege.
Surely the Deputy is not interrupting. The moral remains. Look back to the outbreak of this particular economic struggle. I do not think that the Deputy was here—at the moment I am not sure. But anyone who was sitting on the benches on this side could see the beaming expression of happiness and joy, the noon-day sun of joy and happiness that blazed on the Front Bench opposite the day that Thomas took his orders and put the first tariff on Irish cattle. I want you to go back in recollection to that. I want to go back to the defeatism that followed. Every day we were to crash; every day we were to squeal; every extra impost put on us was to make more certain and sure the collapse of this weak people. Is there anyone now who suggests that that picture, which I think was honestly painted, was a true one? I heard Deputy Gorey from the benches opposite say that inside four months 400,000 Irish would be lying dead with starvation on the fields of Ireland. That was the ex-leader of the Farmers' Party. That is only a specimen of what we were told was going to happen. We were going to be bankrupt and down and out at once. It is difficult for people even to bring their minds back to the atmosphere which was attempted to be created at that time.
Compare that with the facts. Compare the noon-day sun of joy and happiness that was on the faces of the Opposition when Thomas put on his first tariff with the blank expression, the broken-hearted sorrow and defeatism which, for a whole hour, darkened all their countenances while the Minister for Finance gave us his Budget statement a few weeks ago. Compare the fact that from all sides we are getting the testimony that there was an unexpected and unbelievable strength and reserve in the possession of the Irish people. You had Senator Sir John Keane, a director of the Bank of Ireland, speaking with all the intimate knowledge which a director of the Bank of Ireland has, or ought to have, in relation to accounts of people in this country. He said that the things which we were afraid were going to happen have not happened. Surely there is no one going to deny that, as a result of our patience, as a result of our waiting, as a result of our digging ourselves in, as a result of our improvising new methods of dealing with our financial affairs, as a result of the strengthening of our industrial arm, as a result of the revolutionising of our agricultural economy, to-day we are in a position as negotiators infinitely stronger than we would have been if we had crawled over to make a three days' settlement, which Deputy Cosgrave was going to do if by any chance he had been elected as President at the last general election.
It was only a one-day settlement. He was taking a day to go over and another to come back.
The other day would have been spent repenting as he told the Irish people what he had done. That repentance would have lasted him right outside all the possibilities of the continuance of a political life in this country. Then Deputy Cosgrave went on to say that bankruptcies were inevitable. Bankruptcies have not happened. It is an awful shame the way the people who are keeping statistics in this country have let the Opposition down. It is dreadful. They cannot even produce bankruptcies. Then he goes on to say that both Governments are equally culpable. Deputy MacDermot also says that that is not his expression. What else does Deputy Cosgrave say? Speaking as one of the hydra-headed heads of the Opposition, he says that it is a dire necessity for this country that a settlement should take place on this issue, a dire necessity that a settlement should take place on this issue, which is so much more important than national, social or any other outlook in this country that, apart from it, nobody cares a straw what Government is in power.
I want you to imagine what would happen if you went to negotiate a deal with anybody as an agent and told him that it was a dire necessity for your principal to come to a settlement. We are saying that it is not a dire necessity for us to come to a settlement. I can say quite frankly that for 30 years I have looked forward to and expected a struggle of this kind. In my opinion that struggle was inevitable if Ireland was to survive as a country different from what it was in the knowledge of any one of us; that is to say, the only civilised country in the whole world which was incapable even of maintaining its population. Unless we were prepared to stereotype and regard as a permanent condition of Irish life that our population should fall and fall and fall, as it fell from 1847 to 1924, then the struggle was inevitable, because we were in the stranglehold of an economic system in which it was necessary for us to sell perishable agricultural produce to one customer only and at his own price. Unless that stranglehold was to be broken, this particular attempt completely to reorientate the agricultural and industrial resources of Ireland for the purpose of maintaining her population was inevitable.
Looking forward to that struggle, looking forward to it believing that it was in that struggle that we would meet our opponent for the first time with comparatively equal weapons, I have always stressed the fact that upon the first opening of that struggle, the first impact of that blow upon Ireland would be extremely heavy and extremely difficult to resist. I am in the position of one who has exaggerated in advance. I would be far more justified, merely as a prophet, as an intellectual student in a matter of this kind, if I were to admit that the blow had fallen heavier than it has. I say to you as one who has studied that question and its possible reactions for a considerable period before it took place that I am amazed at the strength of the resistance which the Irish people have been able to put up to the first impact of the blow in this battle. I am perfectly satisfied that from the strength and organisation that they have shown in resisting that first blow, they will prove themselves to be more and more capable as every day passes to meet the further burden of that struggle. That being so, I am perfectly satisfied that the delay in any negotiations which has taken place has all been to the advantage of this country, and any further delay will be further to our advantage.
Our position is strengthening every day. The resources are building up behind the line. We are ceasing now to be in a position in which we must, whether we like it or not, export a given quantity of crude agricultural produce to England. That was our weakness. There is not a man here who does not know it. There was the fact that we had that stuff there and there was no other market for it and, whether we liked it or whether we did not, it had to go out and that constituted the weakness of our position. We are changing over to a position in which there is not that accumulated pool of stock that has to be got rid of. We are changing over to a position in which we are not continuing to create a stock which is unsaleable except in that market and for that reason I am satisfied our negotiating position is improving. There was one thing upon which I will agree with Deputy MacDermot and I was glad to have it said from the opposite benches. He said there are going to be two difficulties in relation to a court of arbitration. One of them is the board itself and the second is the issue to be placed before the board. He says the difficulty about the court is not so great as the issue and he points out that no one knows what is going to come out of such a court, whatever its constitution. Having regard to the fact that the issue is indefinite, Deputy MacDermot does not want any arbitration. He does not want this thing to go to a court at all, and I agree with him. I am very glad indeed that we are in a position to declare that, having offered to go into court with our opponent to have this case tried out upon purely legal grounds, and our opponent having refused so to go into court, and our opponent having chosen instead to use the arbitrament of tariff forces for the purpose of compelling a settlement, and having failed to compel that settlement, the offer to go into court is withdrawn. Apparently it is withdrawn now by Deputy MacDermot. To that extent, at any rate, it is good to have agreement, though quite possibly, when the time comes, Deputy Liam T. MacCosgair will say: "Those were not my words," and General MacDuffy will say, "Those were not my words either." At any rate, we have reached the stage when one of the three heads of the organisation opposite recognises the deep and fundamental danger, whatever may be the justice of the case, of the unnecessary submission of this case to arbitration.
Again I want to say a word in the kindest possible way to the Opposition. Phrases like business settlements, genuine offers, business-like arrangements, getting down to hard tacks and all the rest of it do no good. If they have a plan for settlement, let us know it. Let us know the terms of that settlement. Let us know what consideration they propose to offer the British in order to enable them to take off these tariffs or to prevent them doing other things. Leave aside for the moment the question of throwing down the national issue. Is there any economic consideration that we can offer? It is admitted that we already buy from them more than anybody else does. Can we do any more than that? It used to be the boast that we bought 98 per cent. of our stuff from Britain. Now what on earth more can we offer than buying 98 per cent? Take the present conditions. I have heard it said by Opposition Deputies down the country, and it is said as a matter of reproach, that even under the present system we are buying from Britain somewhere about 94 per cent. of the total of our imports. Now what have we got to offer Britain but 4 per cent. of an import which is now reduced to half? Is that the offer? "In consideration of us buying another 6 per cent. of somewhere about £36,000,000 worth of stuff from you, you are prepared to enter into the following arrangements with us." Or is the other offer to be made?
The things that we have done which have enabled us to reduce our imports to half will be undone. The tariffs we have imposed to build up the industries we have created, to give the employment which we have given, will be withdrawn. "In consideration of your doing this thing which we want you to do, we will abolish the industries and the industrial policy which is now creating a lack of imports to and a lack of exports from this country." Is that the proposition? I do not know. All I can say is that after listening to the Opposition many times—and I have come in here deliberately and sat down for hours listening to see if I could get a glimmer of a real practical suggestion of what they would do—I do not know what their solution is. Therefore, I am deliberately now suggestion that having got into the Thieves' Kitchen and having got round the old camp fire, and having been asked by the Rt. Hon. James Thomas, to state the actual details of the plan he is prepared to put before him, Deputy MacDermot should, no longer, remain silent, but should give us the actual terms he will suggest, if he goes over to make a business arrangement with Mr. Thomas, and that he will disclose to him, but which he does not dare disclose to us here.
Mr. MacDermot rose.
I understand the Deputy desires to make a personal explanation. If the Parliamentary Secretary purported to quote the Deputy's speech he would have had to quote it accurately. However, he only used one or two words, alleged to have been used by Deputy MacDermot. As the Official Report is not available I do not know whether the words were accurate or not. If the Parliamentary Secretary misinterpreted the Deputy's speech, which is not for me to decide, it is a disability which public men have suffered from in all Parliaments and at all times. If the Deputy wishes to make a personal explanation it must be brief and must not develop into a speech. A restatement of a case is not a personal explanation. A personal explanation must not be such as would call for reply.
I shall be careful to observe, in my remarks, the limits of which you, a Chinn Comhairle, have given an indication. The Parliamentary Secretary has made a very characteristic attack on me, personally, which I should not trouble to reply to, but for the fact that it concerns some very important topics, and, if left standing as it is, might have a disadvantageous effect upon the solutions which might be reached in connection with such topics.
His accusations against me were two: (1) that I am prepared to barter the political independence of this country for money; and (2) that while talking a great deal about businesslike commonsense, I had, in fact, made no practical suggestion for the settlement of the economic war.
I put it to any honest man in this House, who was listening to me last night, whether the impression that I gave was that the traditional nationalism of this country was something that should be bartered away in order to settle the economic dispute. I put it to any honest man that what I said was the reverse, and that I dealt with the national issue upon its merits and not in any connection with the economic dispute. I did not intend to refer to the economic dispute at all, but for Deputy Cosgrave's speech. So much for that.
As regards the suggestion that I had no practical advice to give about the economic dispute, let me say this: I preface what I say by applying a test to Deputy Hugo Flinn's accuracy.
Surely this is another speech. I do not object, but the Deputy is making another speech.
What are you raising a question for then?
The Ceann Comhairle will call me to order if he thinks necessary.
This is not a personal explanation.
It is a speech.
That is for the Chair to decide. The House being in Committee, if no other Opposition Deputy rose to speak Deputy MacDermot would be entitled to do so.
But I submit he rose to make a personal explanation; that is to make a statement within the limitations of a personal explanation.
Deputy Hugo Flinn professed, many times, to be a student seeking information, but the moment that there is a threat of information forthcoming he objects.
Oh no, I do not.
I apply this test to his accuracy. He said, a few moments ago, that on the occasion of the economic war being started, the entire Opposition were in a state of glec. By chance I remember, very well, the first speech Deputy Hugo Flinn made immediately after the economic war was started, and he devoted a large portion of that speech to chiding the Opposition for being in a state of misery.
That surely is not a personal explanation.
It is in regard to the matter of accuracy.
On a point of order, I ask are we now listening to a speech to be judged by that standard, or are we listening to a personal explanation?
The Deputy's speech, so far, is not a personal explanation. It is a re-statement of his position.
We can read what he said in the Official Report.
With great respect, the only re-statement of my position I made was to challenge the assertion Deputy Flinn made that I had decried the importance of the political interests of this country, and suggested bartering them for money. I am only going to occupy the attention of the House for a very few moments. The Parliamentary Secretary says I have never made any practical suggestion for a settlement of the economic war. As a matter of fact, on numerous occasions—I admit a considerable time ago now—I suggested a cash offer of £20,000,000 or £25,000,000. To-day if I made a suggestion, I would make a more optimistic one. Attention might well be directed to what has happened in Northern Ireland, where the contribution to Imperial expenditure as arranged has dwindled down from several millions a year to, I believe, £10,000 a year. That is, no doubt, because of the decay in agriculture in Northern Ireland, and the decay in the shipbuilding industry, and in the linen industry. A similar decay has taken place in our agriculture, as in all the agricultural countries in the world, and by pointing to the example of what has happened in Northern Ireland we are obviously in a position to ask for a settlement on reasonable terms of our present dispute.
The Deputy says to make an offer of £10,000,000 or £15,000,000; if the British do not accept it what does he do then?
The Minister should not invite the Deputy to make a second speech.
It will be time enough to consider that when the British have refused our offer, fully time enough. It is not true that no concrete suggestion has been made. Concrete suggestions have been made.
I really appeal to Deputies on the other side of the House not to encourage the sort of onslaught that Deputy Hugo Flinn has made on me. I find it very hard to describe that in the terms that it deserves. I do put it to the President who was here last night, and to any Deputies who were here last night that it was a disgraceful thing for Deputy Flinn to say that the spirit animating the remarks I addressed to the House was a spirit of surrendering the independence of the people of this country on account of financial considerations.
Is it or is it not a fact, Sir, that Deputy MacDermot appealed to you for permission to make a personal explanation?
What a Deputy says privately to the Chair is not a matter for the House.
I ask whether the statement made by Deputy MacDermot was, in fact, a personal explanation within the Rules of Order of this House? That is all I want to know.
A catechism to the Chair.
On a point of order——
The Chair does not intend to hear any further point of order in this matter.
I do not intend to devote a moment to the performance to which we have just listened. I cannot agree with my colleague, Deputy MacDermot, that a performance of that kind can influence anything that is worth influencing. But, on the other hand, I think it is a performance with which we are altogether too familiar, coming from the quarter from which it came and voicing to a certain extent the opinions that are held over there in the way they are held. Considering the circumstances of this country at the present moment, many of us might have hoped that there would be some evidence forthcoming from the Government that they had some consideration for the welfare of the country and that the case that was made here, and especially the case that was made here last night from these Benches, for a settlement of this ruinous dispute between these two countries, would have had some understanding and that the Government would have shown some appreciation of it.
I think the arguments put forward from time to time by the Opposition have no effect on the Government. That seems to be apparent, but if these arguments are to continue to have no effect on the Government, then the sufferings of the people of different classes, increasing and growing classes in this country, will be very bad indeed. One would have thought that the sufferings of those people would bring home to the ordinary Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party and, through them, to the Government that there is a vital necessity for a settlement of this long-continued dispute.
It was stated here last night by Deputy Cosgrave that never within living memory have there been such burdens put upon the agricultural community as that community is bearing at present. Anybody who has gone through this country can bear witness to one thing that ought to be as obvious to the Deputies opposite as it is to the Deputies on this side of the House; that is, the sufferings the people are enduring. The people of this country, no matter what Party they supported at the last election, no matter to which Party they belong and no matter to which section of the farming community they belong are suffering from the effects of this prolonged dispute. Not only is it a fact that the farmers are suffering but the disease has extended to the shop-keeping classes and to those depending on them in the towns. The sufferings are spreading from one class to another and from one district to another.
It is true that the Government have been trying to split up the different interests that have been hit, to palliate now one class whilst hitting another and, in that way, they have tried to break the solidarity of the indignation against the Government and to ward off the blow from themselves. The fact remains that the incidence of this economic war which was felt first in some counties has now practically gone into every county in the Saorstát. Rarely have the people of this country been filled with despair as they are at the moment. That is the condition of affairs which I have no doubt is quite as well known now to the members of the President's Party as it is to the members of this Party or the members of any Party in the House. There is so much at stake for the future of this country, as Deputy Cosgrave pointed out last night, that every opportunity should be availed of to impress upon the Government the dire need for ending this conflict even though the Government may gain the credit and even the advantage of increased votes that would come from a settlement. In the interests of the country, it is up to all Deputies here to impress upon the Government that their duty is to bring that about.
Yet, apparently, it is useless to point out to the Government along what lines their duty lies. It is useless to point out to them what the ordinary farming community, and through them the community in the towns, especially the smaller towns, are suffering owing to the present position. It may be quite true, as this thing is going through the country from one centre to another, that at the moment some of the larger cities may not feel its effects. Even to the larger cities the effects of this economic war will ultimately come, just as they have come to the rural places. But, apparently, there is no appreciation on the part of the Government of what the people of this country are going through. They are determined to carry on this fight to a finish with the same callousness and the same carelessness with which they have entered on it. They are determined, as we have just been told, to carry it on to a finish. What can be expected of a Government, the head of which, speaking a few weeks ago in Cork City, referred to the sufferings of what he called "a certain section of the farmers who used to live on the fat of the land"? Is the President so far removed from the real facts of the case as to claim it is the farmers to whom he refers as living on the fat of the land who have had to suffer most?
In my native County of Kerry there are very few farmers of whom it can be said that they have lived on the fat of the land. Yet, every farmer there has felt very severely the crushing burden which this economic war has placed on him. It is the small farmers, the hard-working farmers in the poorer lands in the County Kerry who have felt this blow the hardest. Yet, the appreciation of the situation by the head of the Government is that it is only the section of the farmers who used to live on the fat of the land who are suffering. When that is the appreciation of the case by the head of the Executive, what can we expect from the other members of the Government? How can we expect any real facing of the issue, any real determination to save this country, when that is his idea of what is happening in the country? There is little hope, I must say.
I quite admit it may give the President a certain amount of satisfaction to see people suffer. I have no doubt that it would give certain people—I should be sorry to think that there were many in this country— satisfaction to think that others were suffering—even if they had lived on the fat of the land. But what the members of his Party well know is how to appeal to that despicable section: to solace yourself with the sufferings of others.
The President may have got his cheer for that in Cork. He may have got the applause of the particular platform from which it came—this reference to the people living on the fat of the land. I should like to know whether the President has got it into his head that the people who are suffering from the present economic war are those living on the fat of the land. It is quite obvious—the last 12 months have made it more obvious probably than even the previous 12 months and many statements of the President have made it more obvious still—that he is out to destroy the economic life of this country, to destroy the institutions of the State, to destroy them one after another: to undermine the morale of the people, to break their moral fibre and to undermine the State services. He received from his predecessors a decent, well-administered and well-governed State with excellent institutions. I wonder what he is making of them? Destruction. Here, as everywhere else, is the one ideal to which he is true. I believe that, like many of his kidney, he believes that he is destroying in order to build up. Some of the greatest work of destruction that has ever been indulged in, some of the most disastrous work of that kind, has had the same excuse offered for it. The most destructive work has often been for the purpose of building up!
The President and his Ministers might well ask themselves this: whether they will be able to control that machine of destruction which they have forged, whether the work of destruction that they have set going, and set going at such a pace in this country, can be stopped by them or even by others? I wonder what do his own followers now think of the hopes of a couple of years ago. Everybody remembers all the great hopes with which the followers of the present Government saw it come into office. Where do they think these hopes are to-day? A lot of the gilt has been worn away. I am not surprised. The gilding was very slight—and it is gone. Their main hope now, as we gather from some of the speeches to which we listen, is that things are in such a mess that the country dares not get away from the President's policy. Their main hope is in the despair of the people. There is no remedy: there must be no trying to go back. Remember, another Parliamentary Secretary—Deputy Little—was reported as having made a statement of that kind at Waterford, namely, that no matter how mistaken the policy was, now that the country was plunged into it, it had better go on: there was no going back. True, the Deputy denied that he ever made that statement, but it sums up very well the deliberate policy of the Government so far as this country is concerned.
"The English market is gone!" How often have we not been told that? Was it in sorrow that it was said that a market was gone from this country? Everybody who has listened to these statements from the President and his colleagues, everybody who has read their speeches, knows that it was with triumph it was alleged that the British market was gone. Here to-day we see one of the great benefits to be derived from the going of the British market. We have only to wait a few more years now, we have just been told, and we will have nothing left to export and as a result our negotiating position will be much stronger! That is a new justification for the disastrous policy of slaying the wealth of this country that this Government has recently indulged in: that in a couple of years you will have nothing to export—this doctrine was preached here to-day and preached very clearly—and we will be in a better position to negotiate: destroy the wealth of this country and you will become all the stronger to negotiate! That is the new economics, that is the new justification that has been put forward in this House and that is being put forward through the country for the mad policy in which the Government is indulging. Could anybody believe that such a policy could be conceived out of Bedlam: that by destroying the wealth of this country, that by deliberately putting it in the position that it cannot export, or will have nothing to export, that your position is all the stronger? Imagine any other country in the world adopting such a policy. It is the aim of every other country that I know of to get markets. It is now, obviously, from what we can gather from the speeches of the Minister for Agriculture on several occasions and to-day from the speech to which we have listened from the Government Benches, the aim of this Government—the aim of this country—to see that we have nothing to export to any market. That is an extraordinarily brilliant suggestion for solving international difficulties: destroy your wealth, have nothing to export and you cannot be taxed then on what you export!
Yet that is seriously put forward—I do not mind the Parliamentary Secretary doing it—and everyone knows that it is now apparently the deliberate policy of the Government, as enunciated by the Minister for Agriculture. One wonders what is the value of their statements when they speak on most important matters. As I pointed out a couple of days ago, the policy last June was that more tillage inevitably meant more cattle. "Anybody who challenged that was a fool; was deliberately blind not to see that that was the Fianna Fáil policy." The policy now, less than 12 months afterwards, is "more tillage, less cattle." We have that as the Government policy—I presume it represents not the policy of the Minister for Agriculture but the policy of the whole Government. I will give the Minister the credit of believing that they are responsible, rather than he, for that extraordinary change. When we see them change their views on the most fundamental points of view of agricultural policy, who can pay any attention to what they say? The English market is gone! We got an explanation of that a few nights ago.
This Government, from the President down to the ordinary member of it—because all of them are at it now—will soon be branded as a Government whose motto is "famous utterances and how to explain them away." The English market is gone! We thought we knew what that meant, but we learned a few nights ago, for the first time, that we did not; that we were all mistaken. It did not mean that the English market was gone. It only meant that it was no longer a free market. It is now hedged round with quotas, with duties and various other things. That is all that was meant! Yet we had heard in this House from other members of the Government figures and statistics and read them in speeches through the country, to prove that the purchasing power of that market is gone. Now we gather that something else is meant. What is meant now is that it is difficult to get into it, that there are various protective weapons used by the English Government.
What is the reaction of this extraordinary Government to that position? Not satisfied with the efforts of the English Government to some extent to close that market, they wish to help them. The English Government put up some obstacle and our Government run to add other obstacles so determined are they that for this country, at all events, if not for anyone else, the English market is gone and their prophecy will be fulfilled. If the situation is as now depicted by the Minister for Agriculture—and we are told what is meant by saying that the English market is gone, that efforts are being made by the British Government to protect it and that agreements are necessary to enter it, surely that is the time for us to hurry to make agreements. That is what any other Government in the world, except our Government, would have done, from Ottawa down to the present moment. They would not do that. At a time when agreements were necessary, when, according to Ministers' own showing, agreements were never more necessary, that is the time they determine not to make agreements, but to put themselves outside the pale of making agreements, so far as these things are concerned. And this is supposed to be a sane Government, and that is supposed to be a sane policy. If the British Government has changed its attitude towards the question of the protection of the agricultural industry in Great Britain, it is all the more necessary for us to see that we make the best terms to get into what is for us still—as even Deputies opposite will have to admit—the only market we have for the main bulk of our surplus produce. It makes the question of agreement more vital. Remember, the Minister for Finance pointed out the other day in this House that there were excellent reasons for that. He appreciated them very well, it must be said— whether his utterances were appreciated by members of his own Party or not I do not know. He said there were plenty of reasons why Great Britain should make a settlement with this country, so far as the export of agricultural material was concerned. That was made quite clear, and even though the fact that the Minister made it clear does not interfere with its truth, yet the fight must go on to a finish! I remember that during the Great War everyone on each side was shouting: "Fight to a finish." The nations did fight and have paid for it very bitterly ever since. Yet the Government have nothing to lose in an effort to save what is still the principal industry in this country. But, instead, they say in a couple of years you will have no surplus exports.
A great disillusionment has been in store for the people who supported the President—especially the farmers, who were misled, many in 1932 and some in 1933. What were they promised? Was it a diminution of or destruction of their cattle trade? Were they promised that in a couple of years they would have no surplus to export as a result of Government measures? Here is the advertisement. It is not a chance speech from the President or the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but an advertisement, not for the 1932 election, but for the 1933 election. It is a Fianna Fáil advertisement that appeared in the Irish Press of January 21st, 1933. What did their policy mean to the farmer?
"It means the maintenance of internal prices for many of his marketable products well above the depressed world level of prices, it means a rise in cattle prices for a considerable period to come, it means less rent, less rates, less taxes; it means making farming a paying proposition in 1933 for the first time in many years—it means security."
Farming a paying proposition and higher prices for cattle in the year 1933! Any attempt to realise that? Every attempt in the opposite direction. "It means security." I quoted from the man who, I venture to say, after the President, is the other wild man of the Party, the Minister for Defence, a speech at Dundalk. We saw what security meant for the farmer who was not willing to commit economic suicide—to fall in with the economic policy of the Government. The House realised that none of the arguments—the argufyings, as I might call them, to coin a word—of the President, none of his puerilities, none of his loud-sounding nothings, can solve the very serious problem that faces this country. I do not expect that he could appreciate that. I never expect him to do that. He is undermining the economic welfare of this country, and he is also hitting at the moral foundations of this country. I feel it is quite useless to speak to him in that connection, a man who thinks he can solve questions of this kind by words, vital problems by speeches and arguments—and by suppressing his political opponents.
Apparently the rumours of a settlement that were being circulated among the Government's supporters a couple of weeks ago are not likely to prove well-founded. It is very hard to know with what voice the Government is speaking, when it speaks on anything. "More tillage, more cattle;""more tillage, less cattle"—both from the same Minister! Does he want a settlement, or does he want a Republic? Will the Vice-President march against the North or does he intend peacefully to bring them in? There, also, the voice changes from day to day. In that connection I notice that whenever the Government are in difficulties, whenever they have behaved particularly badly, they beat the Republican drum. They are beating the Republican drum at present. When they are rattled, when their policy has gone agley, when they have done something really despicable, then the Republican drum is beaten. It can stay in the Fianna Fáil halls at other times, but in times of uneasiness it is brought out by members of the Government. I do not mind their supporters. It is beaten the more loudly, the more serious the situation becomes for them. Their policy is: "When in doubt beat the Republican drum."
Of course those who throughout the country call themselves Republicans must be satisfied, so satisfied that in the words of the President himself, one of them arrested himself in order to save the President from trouble. He arrested himself! He did not want to embarrass his friend, the President, so he arrested himself! I am not going into the domestic dispute between these various bodies. Some of them must feel pretty sore that, as the President climbed on their shoulders into office, he has now flung them aside and clapped some of them into prison. Well, he has not. They went there themselves! He did not put them there! A good Republican such as he would not do it! And he must beat the Republican drum occasionally—not too often. There is no good alarming people too much, but occasionally they must bring out the drum and beat it. He could not put a Republican into prison, so the Republican had to go himself. Is it not quite clear that, whatever Department we look to there is a policy simply of drift? They cannot arrest the I.R.A., they arrest themselves.
I do not think that, whatever may be said of any other member of the Government, the President himself has the definiteness or the straightforwardness to grasp at a dictatorship but I am sure he is stepping steadily in that direction whether he knows it or not. His Party are stepping steadily in that direction. They will get there step by step and each step they will take will seem to them to be an inevitable step, a justifiable step. Whether the country approves or disapproves, will not matter. After all what is the great promise the President has to offer the country, that he blazons abroad at the present time? "Stick to me, there will be no general election, you need not be afraid. Those who think they can get something out of the Government, stick to us; there will be no general election. The people will not be allowed to decide." That is the greatest promise that apparently he thinks he can make to his followers through the country at the present time. There will be no election.
Instead of carrying on, in a decent fashion, the ordinary work of government—and there was plenty for a Government to do in this country—the Government has set about inventing new crimes. One of the principal industries it has established, much more apparent, much more vital, much more flourishing than any of the industries or at least many of the industries set up—I do not want to exaggerate—is the invention of new crimes. There they have simply repeated what bad Governments have done before them. While real crime is allowed to go forward unchecked or almost unchecked—occasionally the Government may drift into dealing with it— the President, shutting his eyes to the real facts of the situation, looks around for new excuses every day to beat down his political opponents, to put new crimes on the Statute Book, when he could find them guilty of no crimes under the laws that are already on the Statute Book. And the real menace, so far as decency and order in the country are concerned, is allowed to go unchecked. The President is the kind of man who tries to put out a conflagration with a sponge and who then takes the glint of the fireman's helmet to be the cause of the incendiarism. That is more or less the type of policy we have in connection with order in this country.
Bad and disastrous as is the conduct of the Government in dealing with the economic situation, I think in no way have they erred more grievously than in their abuse of power. Nobody has ever yet been able to get it into the head of the President that, while the country has entrusted him with great power, there are still certain moral obligations on him when he comes to use that power. He thinks that because he has legal authority there is no moral limit to the things he can do. If he can quote an Act of Parliament, as I have said on more than one occasion, for an immoral action, that satisfies him. Great powers, tremendous powers, were entrusted to this Government by this Parliament representing the people of this country. The greater the powers the greater the responsibility to see that they were used properly, and the more responsibility there should have been on every member of the Government, from the President down, to see that these powers were not abused. Yet not a month, not a week has passed in which there is not fresh evidence of the abuse of these powers. Not a day passes but the country gets ample evidence of how unfitted the members of the Government are for the exercise of these powers that were entrusted to them.
We have had, from time to time, various versions from the President about nearly everything he does and about nearly everything he says, and, of course, we had versions as to why they broke one of the most definite promises they had given to the electorate—the promise to repeal the Public Safety Act, as it was called. Why did the President put it into force again? Every quarter of a year we have a different explanation. A more recent explanation was that there would be bloodshed in the streets of Dublin if it had not been put into force. Yet, to everybody who was in this House on the 14th or 15th July—I am not sure of the exact date, but it was about 12 o'clock during the all-night sitting in the middle of July—the President made it quite clear what he was aiming at. At that time there was no hint of this parade in the month of August in Dublin. He made it obvious to every member on these benches here that he was determined to use every means and every power at his disposal to put down his political opponents. And yet that is the excuse now. Do we not remember that he had another excuse a couple of months after that July debate? His excuse then was the "treason of Deputy Mulcahy"—the lie he circulated about Deputy Mulcahy. The spirit of Pigott that was hovering over the Government Benches then is hovering over them still.
We have had this Act in force now for some time. I will say one thing for the Ministers. They had a conception as to what this Act should be used for when it was introduced by the late Government, and they have lived up to that conception. Every week that passes proves more and more that they have lived up to that conception. The present Minister for Justice, referring to the Act at the time of its introduction, said: "This is not a Public Safety Act; it is a Public Provocation Act." That is what the Ministers and the Government are trying to make it. I can say this for them: inconsistent as they are in many things, they are fully consistent in that. I shall not quote here the incitements that were contained in that same speech of the present Minister for Justice as to the kind of treatment that was to be expected from that particular tribunal and as to the effect it was bound to have on the people to whom that treatment was meted out—his objection to temporary judges because they were under the thumb of the Administration. I do not know whether the conception of the Minister for Justice of the Constitution (Amendment) Act, commonly called the Public Safety Act, has changed since then. I should like to see evidence of it.
The Deputy should give the reference with regard to his quotation.
I was speaking generally, but the actual quotation I made was from Volume 40, No. 1, column 116. The general reference was to the same speech at about the same place. The eloquent Minister for Finance, however—the modern Grattan—could not be behindhand in his conception of that particular court; and remember, I am not accusing him of any inconsistency, not a bit of inconsistency, in this matter; nor am I accusing any members of the Government of inconsistency. This was his summing up of the policy of the then Government:
"We are going to abolish the courts. We are going to set up a revolutionary tribunal, and by a Public Safety Bill we are going to appoint five persons to act as General Mulcahy's bloodhounds."
Is that the spirit in which the Act is being administered by the present Government? That quotation is from the same volume, columns 166-167. Naturally, however, the modern poet laureate of this country, the modern Shelley, had to break into poetry. We need not quote the poetry, even though it was from Shelley, because it was largely doggerel. Having quoted the poetry, he went on to say:
"Only in this case we are not going to have seven bloodhounds— we are only going to have five—five officers of the secret tribunal; five officers to sentence to death political opponents for any act, even the most harmless and innocuous, that a Minister of State, a member of the Executive Council, may certify to be an act done with the object of impairing or impeding the machinery of government or the administration of justice."
I quite admit that, however untrue they may have been to many of their professions after they had come into office, I cannot say that in these matters I notice any change of heart. What the country would like to know is whether, looking over the events of the past nine months—six months, three months, two weeks—there is any evidence that they have changed their attitude or their minds as to how that tribunal should operate or work. I must say that as a result of Government activity in this respect—and I am not speaking now of politicians but of the ordinary decent people in the country—the ordinary decent people of the country have got a shock. They are perturbed. Rarely have I seen people so perturbed and so disgusted as they are at the present time. Men, whose calling would put them, possibly, beyond any danger, several times in the last few days have put to me and to others the question: "Is anybody safe?" when they see the plaintiffs found guilty and the defendants sentenced.
The Government should bear in mind that there is a level of decency below which even they should not sink, if the honour and the safety of this country and the public morality of this country are not to be irretrievably ruined. They should bear this in mind also: it is no longer the Blue-shirts that are on trial; it is the Administration itself and the unclean methods of the Government that there is plenty of evidence to show they have been utilizing and are utilizing. I do not care what Government is in power, the fact that there should be a growing disgust for the methods used by the Government cannot be healthy for this country—such methods as the use of the agent provocateur, not invented by the Government, but callously and openly acknowledged and stood over by the Government. These, Sir, are serious things, for which the President should be called by this country to answer. He is ruining this country economically—a grave crime against the country—but he is ruining it morally, a still greater crime.
We are discussing the Estimate for the President's Department—the one outstanding occasion in the whole Parliamentary year in which the President, in introducing his Estimate, has an opportunity to give a clear, straightforward explanation to this House of his policy— where it is driving us and where he intends us to go. It is rather typical of the Administration with which we are faced that that particular Vote should be introduced by loud Presidential silence, and that, so far, the only speech from a Deputy loosely associated with the Government was that disgraceful, nationally humiliating and discreditable speech which was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. I did hope that Deputy MacDermot's correction of the distortion in the Deputy's speech, whether deliberate or otherwise, would be followed, in the good name of Ireland, in the name of the good manners of the people constituting this Assembly by a disclaimer from the head of the Irish Free State of the remarks made by his Parliamentary Secretary with regard to another nation. I refer to Deputy Hugo Flinn's references to Great Britain. I may say, at the outset, that I have no particular brief for Great Britain, that I am a member of the third generation imprisoned by Great Britain. At the time that the Deputy was sporting His Majesty's uniform and enjoying His Majesty's hospitality, I think that every male member of my family was in an English prison. But in the interests of good manners, of good taste, of the reputation which, I hope, this Parliament will bear in the nations of the world and in international conversations, I think it was bad statesmanship, bad policy, bad manners and bad taste for any member of this Parliament to get up and refer to any other nation as being a nation of embezzlers and defaulters. It does not concern us in this Parliament what difficulties may arise, or may have arisen, between Great Britain and the United States. It does not matter to us what difficulties arise, say, between France and Germany. Good manners, the decencies of international life, and international standards demand that the members of one assembly keep their slanderous tongues off the parliaments of other countries. Supposing a Parliamentary Secretary or a Minister in the Portuguese or Spanish Parliament, not understanding, perhaps, the difficulties between this country and Great Britain, got up and referred to the Irish Free State as a nation of defaulters and embezzlers, would not the diplomatic wires be red-hot until some responsible person in that Parliament, or in that State, would get up and withdraw those remarks, made in ignorance and bad taste? Remember, the same right which we demand for ourselves must be extended to every other nation by us. The same standard of good manners which we expect from ministers and members of other parliaments must be practised by us, and the nearer the transgressor is to a government front bench, the more serious the offence in the eyes of those who recognise and respect international decencies. I hope that before this Vote is wound up some responsible person—I do not regard the Parliamentary Secretary as being responsible and never did—in the Government Party will, in the interest of the respect which, I sincerely hope, that Government will enjoy abroad and this State will enjoy abroad, repudiate that reference as being merely the opinion of Deputy Hugo Flinn. After all, repudiation is nothing new to the Government or to the occupant of the Presidential office. In the past, repudiation has been his long-suit, even though it is not the suit in his hand that carries most honours. On this occasion, sufficient moral courage must be summoned up to utter a disclaimer of that reference. Otherwise, we must expect from others the same treatment that we mete out to them. Anybody with a sense of the decencies which should exist in a parliament, particularly in relation to other countries, had that sense outraged by Deputy Hugo Flinn in his exhibition of cheap buffoonery.
We have now had nearly three years' experience of a Fianna Fáil administration. We have had nearly three years' experience of Fianna Fáil promises. We have everything that is unpleasant in this country, and that we thought had passed, revived in all intensity and acuteness. At home we have all the old, post-Treaty bitterness revived. Abroad, we have all the pre-Treaty bitterness revived. All that has come with speed and directness from the election as head of the Executive of this State of a man who bleated like a lamb to the people in Ireland and howled like a wolf at our late enemies abroad. We found here at home that we had a wolf in sheep's clothing, and our old opponents abroad found that they had a sheep in wolf's clothing— harmless abroad, dangerous at home. By his waving of the olive branch and by his apparently sincere protestations that there was going to be a new type of policy tried for the first time, that it was to be rule without Coercion Acts, that in the long, long history of this country coercion, victimisation and tyranny produced only reactions more dangerous than the conditions which brought about these particular Acts; that he was going, at least, to try a change of policy, that he would stand for no Coercion Act, that he would stand for no victimisation of his political opponents, that he would stand for no tyranny over those who opposed the will of the Executive Council, that his policy would be to extend the good feeling then in the country and to try and bring about not only unity but unity with friendship and absence of bitterness—by these professions he was elected. We have experience of the value of these promises in the daily newspapers any day we read them. What have we got? A long litany of charges, a long list of unfortunate prisoners, a list of baton charges and broken heads. We have stirred up in this country everything that was nationally discreditable in the past, and that is more discreditable in the present.
That does not apply to your constituency.
We have violence up and down the whole countryside, violence produced by the violence of the action taken——
That does not apply to your constituency.
It was not condemned by Deputy Davin.
I am proud to join with Deputy Davin in saying that in my constituency that condition of things is more or less conspicuous by its absence. I do not take credit for that and neither does the Deputy. I will give all credit for that to the two-legged men who walk around that constituency, but, with the exception of that particular constituency, it is true that there is more rankling hatred, more animosity, more bitterness, in the public life of this country than existed at the height of the civil war. Even during the civil war, people could meet. There could be a certain amount of meeting and greeting. The arms are not to the same extent in the hands of the people now, but the deliberately inspired animosities and the hatreds are greater than ever existed at least in my time in this country and I trace the origin of that to the men who occupy the Front Bench over there. I trace it to the pronouncements of Government Ministers who went out on public platforms and invited the people of Ireland to spit on the leader of the political Party opposed to them, the Ministers who, from public platforms, urged the people of this country to push the traitors out of their path——
What has Deputy Davin to say to that?
——and the bandying around from one Fianna Fáil platform to another of the word "traitor," levelled at better Irishmen or as good Irishmen as ever they were. All the bitterness, all the trouble, all the hatred, that has been stirred up in this country follows the Ministerial pronouncement and the whole lot can be traced to Ministerial incitement.
And Deputy Davin does not condemn it.
Is it in order for this big drummer to be passing remarks that are unparliamentary?
I said that Deputy Davin did not condemn it.
Deputy O'Higgins is in possession and must not be interrupted.
We do not mind Deputy Davin, the flute player of the Fianna Fáil band here.
If Deputy Anthony cannot control himself, he knows what the consequence may be.
I invite Deputy Anthony to get up in a manly fashion in this House and say what he thinks about me, and I will answer him.
And I will say it. I am not afraid and I have said it before.
Order!
We have all this bitterness revived in this country. We have all this bitterness and hatred at home revived and we have the international bitterness—all the old animosities, all the old hatreds revived between this country and another country beside which God Himself placed us and beside which, either for material reasons or any other reasons, we should endeavour to live in a spirit of peace and harmony for the benefit not only of this country but the other country, and particularly and essentially for the material benefit of this country. We have all that hatred and all those animosities revived and the term "traitor" hurled at us in order to cloud and obscure the scuttling of the Republican boat in which you rowed into office in this country, in order to disguise in a din of noise the trampling on the most sacred pledges that were made to the most extreme section of the people in this country.
Remember that when I accuse or charge the Fianna Fáil Government of scuttling the Republican boat and of running away from the Republic, with ignominy and with pain and suffering and hardship to the country, I am saying it in the recollection that at least two Deputies of this Party were killed and are in their graves to-day because they were charged by the followers of the President with obstructing the Republic by administering the Irish Free State. What is the position to-day? Is there any difference between the administration of those who sit on the Government Bench now and those who sat there when they were administering the country and who sit here now? If it was criminal, sinful, treacherous and deserving of death for Free State Ministers from 1922 to 1932 to administer the Irish Free State and to legislate for that State in the Irish Free State Parliament, is it not equally so to-day? Or if, by the votes of the people, the Free State could be turned into a Republic, what was the excuse or justification for the campaign of violence, of slander and of belittling this State, the discreditable ten years' campaign that was carried on from 1922 to 1932? Is all that discreditable campaign of civil war, slander and violence to be justified in order to achieve a change of one group of politicians for another?
Is it not about time we had a clear-cut, non-ambiguous statement by the head of the Executive Council as to what his intentions are with regard to this State of which he is the head? Are we to enjoy all the disabilities of squalid isolation and to secure none of the material advantages of membership of the Commonwealth of Nations? Is the Free State merely to be utilised as the medium for cashing the cheques of Ministers and Deputies and to be disowned immediately the cheque is converted into cash? Is it not about time we had it either one way or the other? The legislation and the majority that can remove the Seanad, that can bore holes in the Treaty, that can re-enact the Public Safety Act, can secure a Twenty-Six County Republic before this week is out. And I would rather have a Twenty-Six County stunted Republic, carving out its own destiny and at least, knowing where it was going, than to have the elected representatives of the people in the undignified position of playing the part of that particular species about which the Minister for Industry and Commerce lectured us—the birds that foul their own nests—and preaching wild, extreme, hill-side Republicanism to the unfortunate people, who, either through inexperience or ignorance, cannot see through the wiles of professional politicians. With the speech on the hill-side, with the Republican pronouncements from platforms, we have the suite provided at the taxpayers' expense in the headquarters of the Irish Free State, travelling proudly de luxe from Dublin to Geneva as the paid head and representative of the Irish Free State, proud of the honour abroad, but ashamed to recognise the position with all its commitments here at home.
One day is following another and one year is following another and this country is going down and down, not only materially but in its reputation because of the absence of moral courage at the helm of this country, because of the fear to face up to facts, because of the miserable attempt to straddle two horses at the same time and the two horses going in opposite directions. There is bound to be a collapse and every thinking man over there knows that collapse is coming and knows that the collapse is due to the failure to take a decision one way or the other. It is due to the thought that you can administer the law and flirt with the lawless at the same time. It is an old saying that you cannot lie down with dogs and escape fleas, so we have the law brought down into disrepute in this country, and we have all the vile actions of unclean administrations mimicked, aped and surpassed in this country. We have the agent provocateur; we have the put up case; we have the weak case that can do with a little bit of artificial respiration; we have the man who is acquitted going into jail, and the criminal walking at liberty; we have one set of penalties for those who oppose the Government, and exemption from penalties for the same offences for those who support the Government; we have every manipulation of the law that is likely and calculated to bring the law into discredit and disrepute in this country.
I hold strongly to the point of view that, no matter what group of politicians, or what band of politicians occupies the seat of Government in any country, there is no hope or no existence worth living in the country if the law is not above all, if the law is not above all politicians, and equally administered to all. The very minute the law becomes twisted, forced in the interests of one Party or forced against the interests of another Party, then the law collapses, and when the law collapses in any country all the politicians that ever walked the earth will not save either the self-respect or the material prosperity of that country. Remember that respect for the law is marching through this country at the present moment with a very lame leg. It would take an optimist or a superman to retain the respect he would like to have for the law in this country. We have had things happening in the recent past that should make anyone, irrespective of Party, hang his head. We have charges, and—which is more pronounced—we have absence of charges too. We have the lash of the law, and the force of the law, and the tread of the law, coming down with crashing force after there has been intelligent discrimination as to the particular brand of politics of the persons concerned. We have immunity for one section, and we have crushing tyranny for the other. It is not just the agents of the law—the unfortunate removables—who are responsible for that. I should like nobody to make the mistake of thinking that I am blaming the unfortunate agents, no matter what their position. I am laying all that discreditable régime at the door of the President of the Executive Council of this State. I am laying at his door direct responsibility for all the hatred and discord and bitterness that have crept into the public life of this country. I am laying at his door the responsibility for the growth of those people who disrespect this Assembly, and have no respect for this the greatest institution of this State. You cannot lop off a limb from a tree, and have the same amount of attention paid to that tree as before the limb was lopped off.
What about the Corporative State?
You cannot legislate in one direction through the legislative assembly of any country, and expect people to respect that legislative assembly. The law in this country is the hack of a political jaunter. The agents of the law—and the Attorney-General knows it—have been guilty of tactics that would be discreditable to the most detested State in the civilised world. We have had cases here where similar offences were committed by people of dissimilar politics. We have had exemption from any penalty for those who had the right brand of politics; we have had imprisonment for those who had the wrong brand of politics. So we go on quarrelling at home, quarrelling abroad; shifty in our manipulation of affairs at home, shifty in our manipulation of our affairs abroad; lacking the moral courage to state our policy at home; lacking the moral courage to do a deal abroad. We have, from the same Government, one Minister standing up and telling us that we are going to have a mercantile marine to increase our exports; another Minister standing up to tax the overtaxed people of the country, in order to provide more bounties to send more produce into the English market, and another Minister telling us that as long as we are sending anything to the English market we are playing England's game, and that the policy of this country must be to export nothing. We have the President himself announcing that the British market is gone, and gone for all time. If the British market is gone, and gone for all time, what is the justification for taxing and overtaxing the unfortunate people of this country to send goods into the British market? If it is a good job that that market should be gone why not let it go? Why pile on taxes to all those who are already overtaxed? We have there again the same old cheap-jack humbug, the same absence of straightforward dealing, the same absence of public honesty, and the marked absence of an exact statement of what we stand for. We have that miserable jazz band all piping a different tune, and the affairs, both present and future, of the unfortunate people of this country in the lap of that particular discordant jazz band. Is it any wonder that the taxation of this country is gone up by some £7,000,000? Is it any wonder that the greatest ambition of hundreds and thousands of the people of this country is to draw unemployment assistance, or to live on the dole? Is it any wonder that you have brought about such demoralisation that the people are ambitious to live and rear their families on the bread of charity? With the absence of decent employment, with the ordinary arteries and avenues of trade and commerce closed up, with the hope of employment dimmed and dashed in every home, you have reached a position of demoralisation where the people are content to live and rear up their families on unemployment assistance and doles.
I want to see no man or woman hungry. I have, probably, seen more of that than anyone in this House. I do not want to see anything like that. I think, however, that it is nationally injurious when you bring about such demoralisation that people are content to be idle, and happy to live at the taxpayers' expense. Hard times force people to live on outdoor assistance of one kind or another, but there was hope for the country as long as their ambitions soared higher than that particular style of living. But what has happened? Why are they content to-day? You reach the danger line when the rate of wages approximates to the rate of relief. If any of us, when we were young men, could have got nearly as much in idleness as we could earn by work, not one of us would have ever worked. If we could get nearly as much in idleness as by working hard and taking chances, none of us would ever work. Yet in rural Ireland—Deputies opposite know this as well as I do—wages have slumped so low that the dividing line between unemployment assistance and wages is nearly negligible.
The remedy for that is not to reduce unemployment assistance. The remedy for that is to increase wages, to bring about such a set of conditions that the money is there to pay bigger wages. Within the last fortnight I spoke to a, comparatively speaking, young man, whom I knew as boy and man. He had held down the same job with success as boy and man. He lost his employment, not through any fault of his, but through the death of his employer. He was then desperate. He sought in all directions for work. Now and then he got an odd day's work, perhaps a week's work, perhaps a month's work, and then reverted to the unemployed queue. I met him within the last fortnight and I was never more sorry for any man. I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was doing first rate. I said "Have you a job?" and he said "No, I have not.""Are you looking for a job?" I asked, and he answered, "No, I am not looking for a job; I draw my 6/- or 8/- on a Friday and with a couple of old dogs I can knock out as much again catching rabbits." He is a bit of a wag, and laughed and said: "When I was a young man I used to work and the squires went round the country with a dog and gun. Now I go round with the dogs and the squires have to work for me." It has its humorous side, but there is something pathetic when you analyse the downward slope, when you analyse the degree of demoralisation, when you bring about a state of affairs where people give up hope of work, where they can see nowhere on the horizon a prospect of employment, and where that kind of lethargy descends on the people that they are not only content and happy, but proud to be unemployed and living on their neighbours. It is not healthy; it cannot last.
The members of the Executive Council know when they are play-acting, giving an appearance of the same prosperity that was there before, scattering more money around that belongs to the people themselves in order to fill the gap that was previously filled by money from abroad, that there is a limit to that, that that particular pool is running drier every cupful that is taken out of it; and when that pool runs out the lot of those who are poorest will be worse than the lot of anybody else. We are doing that with our eyes open. We are doing that because the first responsibility of government is being shirked by our Government. We have had all the hairsplitting phrases with regard to arbitration or negotiation, all the quibbling, all the deliberate attempts to throw obstacles in the path that, as a Government, you are bound to take, but the first God-sent responsibility of government imposed both on the members of the Government here, and in any other country is that, when difficulties arise between their country and any other country, the line to be taken is that the members of the Ministry of one country should meet the members of the Ministry of the other and pit their brains against the others; put up their case. Those with the best brains and with the best case will win. We have renaged the first responsibility of government. We are trying to disguise that from the people by wild claptrap, by stirring up hatreds at home, by the noise and din of political faction.
There is no war between this country and Great Britain. There is a discreditable quarrel between Mr. Thomas and President Eamon de Valera. We are told to fight on. That is the cheapest thing in the world—to tell the people to fight on to the last drop of the other fellow's blood, to the last bob that the other fellow owns. Entrenched in Government Buildings, immune from income tax, carry on the fight to the farmers' last bob; fight to the labourers' last penny! That is what we have in this country.
There is no country on the face of God's earth to-day, certainly no country where parliamentary government is still in existence, where a delicate international dispute of the kind referred to in this debate would be discussed in the way it has been discussed in this House and in the country since it started. Deputy O'Higgins, in the concluding portion of his speech, said something that was quite sensible. He said that those with the best brains and the best case will win. That is certainly likely to be true in the case of a Ministry representing this country who can meet the British Ministry with the backing of the people of this country behind them. But Deputy O'Higgins knows perfectly well that it is men like himself and those who sit around him who have made it impossible, in my opinion, to get the settlement to which this country is entitled from the British. What has been the attitude of the British Parties in opposition to British Governments in the past ten or 15 years in regard to international disputes on financial questions? Can Deputy O'Higgins, or Deputy Fitzgerald, with his great international mind, get up in this House or outside and quote any leader of the British Opposition when Snowden was at the Hague fighting for Great Britain, or even in the present dispute between Great Britain and America, as stabbing in the back the Government of the day when dealing with a foreign Power? Can he quote any leader of the Opposition in the French Parliament, or in any other country in the world, as having acted as the leaders of the Opposition in this country have been acting for the past two years in a matter of vital importance, even to their own supporters? Will Deputy Fitzgerald, if he speaks after me in this debate, allege that the election in 1932, which was called by his own Ministry in the hope that they would come back with a larger majority to this House, was not as free an election as was ever held in this country? Will he make a similar allegation in regard to the election of 1933, when the Dáil was dissolved by the Fianna Fáil Ministry? I must only speak from what I know to be the position in my own constituency. Deputy O'Higgins, in the early part of his speech, talked about the crime that existed all over this country, but when he was corrected by me he had to admit, because he could not deny it, that the conditions existing in my constituency and his constituency at the present time are comparable, from the point of view of law and order, with the conditions that existed when the previous Government were in office. What does he know about the conditions in any constituency other than the constituency he represents? I would not profess to say anything about the lawlessness which it is alleged exists in Cork or in any other county when I would not know the actual conditions. I can speak freely about my own constituency because I do know more about it than I do about any other constituency. I do not profess, and I have no right, to speak here about the conditions that exist in other areas with which I am not well acquainted. The Deputy has no right to speak about areas, the conditions of which he does not understand.
What is the idea of all this? The Deputy is telling the British, in the speech he made this evening, that this country is going down and down and is bound to collapse. It is giving new heart to the British and that is just what the Opposition have been doing during the last two years. The British will possibly say to themselves: "If we can only hang on a little bit longer we will have a chance of settling with the people with whom we can make a better bargain than with de Valera and his Ministry." That is the kind of dope that was dished up last September when Deputy O'Higgins ran out the back door from the leadership of the Army Comrades' Association and put General O'Duffy in the seat he occupies to-day. I know it. We read it in the English papers. I know it from people on the other side with whom I am acquainted, British Labour politicians I meet from time to time in a casual and friendly way. There was a real hope in the minds of the British people last September when they thought that the election of General O'Duffy to the leadership of the disUnited Ireland Party was going to bring down the de Valera Ministry. Naturally the hope was there, because they are willing to make, and they can make, a far better bargain with the Cosgrave Ministry than they would make with the de Valera Ministry.
Then why not put them out and we will get a good bargain?
That is what we want— a good bargain.
I think our only hope is to send over our shadow Minister, Deputy Belton, and let him meet Mr. J. H. Thomas.
If we did go over we would bring the goods home, at any rate. We would bring over more than ever you did when you went to preach at British Labour meetings.
I do not think the Deputy can quote any remarks of mine at British Labour meetings.
Well, members of your Party.
Name the places where I spoke.
I did not mean you personally, but members of your Party.
You had a right to say that in the beginning.
If the Deputy thinks I cast any slur on him by saying that, I withdraw the statement.
I am not a great student of international affairs, but I see the greatest expert in international affairs in this House sitting in the corner seat generally occupied by Deputy Cosgrave. He knows, and I challenge him to deny it, that whenever a big international dispute arose in European countries between the British or any other foreign Power, the first people to go behind the scenes to give a helping hand and friendly advice were the leaders of the Opposition. Why is not something like that done in this so-called Catholic and Christian country by the people who sit opposite and who claim to be the only real Catholics and Christians in the State? If the Opposition were really sincere in their desire to get a good settlement of the international financial dispute, if they were even interested in getting a good settlement for their own supporters, they would have done something other than endeavour to make it impossible for this Government to get a reasonable and satisfactory settlement.
We had a speech from Deputy Cosgrave, mild in the beginning but ending up on this note: "From the point of view of economics and finance, the position of the British Government in connection with the dispute was one in which it was even more incumbent on them than on the Free State to have a settlement. With the Free State it was a matter of necessity." It is the same old story. We are on our knees putting up our hands, taking what they are prepared to give us. That spirit is running through the speeches of the Opposition leaders since Mr. J. H. Thomas put on his 20 per cent. tariff in the hope that he would put us on our knees in a very short period. I know of no other country where such tactics have been adopted as are adopted by the Opposition here on issues of major importance. If I am ignorant on that matter, I am sure Deputy Fitzgerald will inform me. Deputy Fitzgerald is aware that in the case of a financial dispute which arose a little more than a year ago between the French and the Americans, M. Herriot, who was then Prime Minister of France, appealed to the Government in the longest speech ever made in the French Chamber, for the sake of the nation and for the honour of France, to pay. It was turned down by a two-thirds majority, which included members of his own party. He quit office, as was his duty. What happened next? It appears M. Herriot supported the Government that succeeded him, in the attitude adopted by the majority there. I often said privately, and I say it publicly here, that although we may think we are the greatest patriots in the world, the greatest saints and the greatest Catholics, we have a lot to learn from people who have a longer experience of good government and we can learn a terrible lot from the British in matters of good tactics.
Hear, hear!
I may say, in reply to this wild "hear, hear" from the bench opposite, that you and your friends can learn something from the British regarding the present attitude of the British Government in repudiating their debts to America. Read yesterday's Daily Herald or Irish Times and copy the British in matters where it is a fight between your own country and the foreign power. I think I have on two occasions, with the unanimous wish of the members of this Party, endeavoured in a private way to try to get that view accepted by the leaders on both sides of this House. While our leaders can go out to Rome and get the Pope's blessing and be honoured by the Pope, they will not carry out ordinary Christian dealings as between one another when it concerns a matter of interest to their own country. They will not sit down together. Some of them we approached could not be persuaded for the past two years to sit down to discuss matters of national importance because of the bitterness which exists amongst about half a dozen members on both sides of this House arising out of the civil war period.
We had a typical example of that in the speech we have just listened to from Deputy O'Higgins. A more bitter, abusive, personal speech I never heard coming from a Deputy in regard to a man who has been elected as head of this Government by a free vote of the Irish people. President de Valera has been elected to the highest post which can be conferred on him by a majority of the members of this House, who are sent here by a majority of the people. The man who is good enough to lead the Irish people, and who has been elected in a democratic way to that position, ought to be good enough for Deputy O'Higgins. I have sat here in this House since the Dáil was established, and never have I heard such abusive speeches as have been made by Deputies on the Opposition Benches since the present Government came into office. The Opposition, when put out of office, should have accepted the viewpoint that the people believed that their policy was wrong. It is time that the Opposition realised that if they want to save this country from collapse it is part of their duty to help the Government to get the best settlement they possibly can from the British. It would be much better for the Opposition if they talked, whenever they got the chance, privately, of the methods of settlement than shouting about these matters in public. Deputy Desmond Fitzgerald went down to Kilkenny recently and, at a meeting after Mass on a Sunday, declared that we should offer £1,000,000. Deputy MacDermot said to-day that he had, at one time, made the suggestion that the British should be paid £25,000,000 in cash. He also said that considering the conditions and circumstances of the country to-day he would be warranted in revising the amount that he would be willing to pay to the British, but he did not give the amount.
I have been connected, during the last 25 or 26 years, in a limited way, with negotiations between workers and employers, and I have yet to learn where a settlement was arrived at by going out into the open and declaring your terms.
Or by writing letters.
Perhaps the Deputy would explain that interesting interruption. Deputies must know that a settlement will never be brought about by discussing the matter or the details of the settlement across the floor of this House or at cross-roads at public meetings on Sundays. Smaller matters of detail, where details are important, could never be settled in public discussion. Deputy Mulcahy knows that perfectly well. The more he and his colleagues have gone out publicly and talked during the last two years the less chance of a settlement, and the greater will be the responsibility on them when the day of reckoning comes. Neither I nor any of my colleagues, either here or elsewhere, went out and associated ourselves with the land annuities difficulty on the ground that the amount was not legally due, in the minds of lawyers. I have a holy horror of leaving any settlement to lawyers. I have a childlike remembrance of a twopenny-halfpenny trespass case, in my parish, where the parties concerned, if they approached the matter in a commonsense way, could have settled it by shaking hands across the river without any trouble. Instead of doing that, they went to two local solicitors. Each solicitor told his client that he certainly would win if he went into court. They went into court. Of course, only one side won. The solicitor on the other side told his client it was obviously a case to take to the High Court. They went from one court to another with the result that the poor fellow who eventually lost the case never recovered from the effects of it.
Apply that to the case you are now supporting.
I apply a bogman's view, if you like, of a case where bigger issues were involved. But I would not like to leave an issue such as this big sum to any international or Dominion court of lawyers.
Why support it then?
I stated fully in this House, and outside this House, and in conversation with the President when we were expressing our point of view, that we would never rely upon the settlement of the dispute purely on legal grounds.
Nor do we.
President de Valera got a mandate from the people to withhold these moneys. I suggest it is good democratic procedure for the Labour Party, standing for the rights of the majority of the people, to let the people say whether it can be settled that way or not. Personally, I believe if this matter is to be settled satisfactorily, it will be settled across a table. It would never be settled, even at a table, if I were present, on the condition that we are liable to pay the sums that the Cosgrave Administration agreed to pay.
That is not suggested.
I never will subscribe to the demand of the British that our people should be called upon, at any time to pay the pensions of the late R.I.C. I have some authority for stating that a prominent British statesman, who had something to do with the signing of the Treaty, confessed that it was an absolutely unjustifiable attitude for the British to adopt with regard to the R.I.C., who, whether they were Irishmen or not, were the most effective soldiers that fought for the maintenance of British rule in this country. I have contended, and my colleagues of the Labour Party have always contended, that the payment of pensions to people of that type should be a British liability. In no circumstances would I subscribe to any settlement whereby the future liability for the payment of the R.I.C. pensions would be placed upon the shoulders of the Free State citizens. I approached the question of the land annuities, and our right to pay from the point of view of the ability of this nation to pay. I approached it from the point of view whether the farmer of this State should not have a right to say that he must first feed and clothe his children and family before paying tribute of any kind either to the landlords in this country who confiscated the land, or to the people of any other country.
You are with us in that. We have been preaching that view for a long time.
The Deputy is on the wrong side of the House.
We will take over the House presently.
Deputy Belton has been promoted to the Front Bench. He may get a job soon.
I do not want a job, I always earn my own living.
A day will come when the Deputy will recognise his own weaknesses and imperfections, even though he is on the Front Bench. No man recognises his own shortcomings more than I do mine. That is the reason I feel very reluctant to get up and discuss any matter that I feel Deputy Belton knows more about than I do.
Deputy Flinn was severely censured and criticised for the speech he made here this evening. What was the effect of the speech which Deputy Flinn made? He asked Deputy MacDermot to state definitely the terms under which he was prepared to effect a settlement with the British Government. Deputy Cosgrave, during the course of the last general election in the famous speech he delivered at Naas, not knowing the mentality of the people to whom he was talking at the time, said that if re-elected to power at the general election he would make a settlement with the British in three days. He went on to explain how the three days would be occupied—one day going over to London, one day around the table in London and one day coming back. He also stated that whatever was the nature of the settlement it would enable him to reduce the annuities by 50 per cent.
A lot of people down around the country who were educated in the same university as the people opposite asked "why did not Deputy Cosgrave do this before when he was in office; why did he not do it a year ago?" What grounds had Deputy Cosgrave for promising the people of this country that he could effect a satisfactory settlement in three days? Let the Deputy give us a more detailed explanation of what he meant by that speech because I have not been able to get an explanation of it from anybody. I go as far as this—I would be prepared to consider without prejudice the terms of any settlement that would be submitted to the people's Parliament regardless of the side of the House from which it came so long as I was satisfied that there was some authority for putting it forward. I would judge that settlement on its merits whether it came from President de Valera or from Deputy Cosgrave because, to my mind, it is a matter——
What exactly does the Deputy mean by that?
I want to know what authority Deputy Cosgrave had from the British Government or anybody else for saying that inside of three days he would effect a settlement with the British Government? I am endeavouring to compel him to explain what exactly he meant by making that statement at Naas during the last election campaign? Perhaps Deputy Mulcahy will explain to the House and to me what Deputy Cosgrave meant.
I want to understand what Deputy Davin meant by his statement? It seems the Deputy was inviting any Party in this House to go to the British Government to find out what settlement they would accept and to come back and put that settlement before this House.
Deputy Mulcahy has an elastic imagination. I have not such an elastic imagination as Deputy Mulcahy. I suggest that nobody else but the Government is entitled to act for the Irish people and I would not authorise anybody else to act for them. That is the only body that is entitled to act in this matter.
Then what Deputy Davin said is utterly meaningless.
It is meaningless to you because you do not understand it.
Candidly, I do not.
Deputy O'Higgins, in the course of the speech he made here this evening, stated that the condition of affairs in the district which he and I represent is good. I suggest when Deputy O'Higgins is speaking in that constituency, in the absence of the Press in future, that he will be a little more careful when talking to the depressed farmers in his constituency. When talking recently to the depressed farmers who attend dances and whist drives in his constituency some of the language which he is alleged to have used and which was conveyed to me is bordering on the chalk line of disorder and lawlessness. I am sure if the Attorney-General had a note-taker at those whist drives and dances, at which a number of people attend, he would find that Deputy O'Higgins was on the chalk line of disorder and lawlessness.
Pass on your information to the Attorney-General.
I expressed my opinion privately to Deputy O'Higgins on the speeches he made. The only way to maintain law and order in the country is to preach the gospel that everybody who has opinions is entitled to give expression to those opinions, and that nobody is entitled to go around to dance meetings and such assemblies where large numbers of people are present and to tell them that if they have any jobs to give or any employment to give, they should give them to nobody but to those associated with the Blueshirts. The people should not have to listen to this sort of thing or to be told: "We will make life intolerable for all those who will not yield to our demands."
I did not say that.
Do you deny that a person of greater responsibility in your Party used those words?
I have not heard them being used.
Will you deny that General O'Duffy made that speech in Kinsale?
I do not accept that statement.
Deputy O'Higgins came here this evening and talked about the victimisation of the opponents of the present Government, ignoring the fact that General O'Duffy has been reported as having said at Kinsale: "We will make life intolerable for all those who will not yield to our demands." Is not that a nice statement to come from the leader of the Catholic Party, the only Party who claims to be able to preach Catholic morality in this country, the Party that says "All the good Catholics are on our side, and the Communists are on the other side"? That is the sort of statement that we get from the leader of the so-called Catholic Party. Victimise your opponents! Deputy O'Higgins makes the charge against the Government that they are victimising their opponents. The Deputy talks about the danger to the Catholic Church that is going to ensue in this country when the Upper House, or, if you like, the Lower House, is going to be abolished. I wonder was the Deputy thinking of that kind of thing when he was associating with those sitting around the table with him drafting details of the great Corporative State and these other great institutions which are to replace the existing institutions in this country? It seems to me that Deputy O'Higgins came here this evening and made a speech solely for the purpose of making offensive attacks on the President. No other conclusion could be come to by anyone listening to him. I would advise the Deputy and his colleagues to give up that sort of thing; to give up talking about the terms of settlement; to show their patriotism in some other way, and to help the country in some other way than in the way they have been helping to bring about a satisfactory settlement of the existing dispute. I suppose I have said enough about the troubles which surround the President in his present office.
Especially about the President.
I forgot to mention Deputy Anthony. The Deputy is typical of those who profess to stand for Catholic morality in this country with his batons.
I could meet any of the Labour Party with my fist, and I never wanted a baton in my life.
I am sure the members of the Labour Party will not allow anyone to use batons or bludgeons on them to force other views down their throats.
But they will let them be used on others.
No.
The Labour Party are cowards, they are both moral and physical cowards.
I would like to ask the President whether he is aware of the undue hardship which is being imposed upon a large number of annuitants in this country at the present time by reason of the present method of dealing with the Agricultural Grant. I have drawn attention to this already in this House as a matter of serious importance. I think it is a very demoralising thing that this Government and their predecessors have been acting in the same way in this matter—compelling the person who pays his rates and annuities also to pay the rates and annuities of persons who are unwilling to pay them. I hope it is not beyond the administrative powers of the Ministers and their able advisers, who surround them, to frame some kind of a scheme which will save the honest section of the farming community from being compelled to pay the debts of their neighbours. At present the honest section of the community are, undoubtedly, paying the rates and annuities for another section. If the matter were tackled in the right way this sort of thing could be ended. In my constituency it has become a very serious problem. If a better method is not devised for dealing with that matter it will, in the long run, lead to the refusal on the part of those who have been paying up to now for both themselves and their neighbours, to pay their own part of the annuities.
Be careful.
Or you will get on the Attorney-General's black list with me.
With all respect to Deputy Belton this is the place to make suggestions, and I am putting it to the Government—of course it was impossible for the Government that was in power before them to do so—that they should think over this matter seriously and penalise somebody other than those who pay their rates and annuities for the sins of their neighbours: for the refusal of their neighbours to pay their rates at the proper time. In one county in my constituency the rates had to be increased in one year by 8d. in the £ as a result of the sums deducted from the agricultural grant payable to that county. That increase was due to the failure of a certain section of Land Commission annuitants to pay their annuities within the financial year. What I am suggesting is that any scheme that would be likely to have the desired effect would be one which would penalise now or in the years to come the persons who fail to pay their annuities. Surely it is not fair that the person who pays his rates and his annuities should also be obliged to pay the bad debts of his neighbours. If that state of affairs were allowed to continue it would lead to a more serious position than the one that exists in my area at the moment.
There is another matter to which I desire to draw the President's attention, though it may concern the Minister for Finance more directly. I read in the papers that he met the representatives of the Joint Stock Banks recently. Has the President any information as to whether, at the moment, any undue pressure is being brought to bear on farmers for the recovery of bank debts incurred during the period when farmers were foolish enough to go into the open market and pay fabulous prices for land? It might be going too far to say that this is general, but from the information at my disposal I am satisfied that in some cases at any rate the banks are pressing farmers and their securities unduly for the recovery of large sums of money advanced some years ago when the price of land was driven up by a bad banking policy. I think that the influence of the Government should be brought to bear in a proper constitutional way on the banks with a view to dissuading them from taking action of that kind, or at any rate until such time as the position of the farming community has improved.
On almost every Sunday General O'Duffy delivers speeches—it is noteworthy that he speaks in a different language whenever he refers to the subject—about this great Corporative State that is to be set up whenever, by the hand of God or the free will of the people, he gets control of the Government of this country. Sunday after Sunday he calls on President de Valera to dissolve the Dáil and hold a general election. Supposing that President de Valera was foolish enough to ignore the mandate which he got from the people at the last election and were to oblige General O'Duffy by holding a general election, and supposing that the general election went against General O'Duffy, I wonder could we have an assurance from Deputy Fitzgerald or from some of those who sit with him on the Front Opposition Bench that General O'Duffy would not call for another general election for some time to come. Does General O'Duffy think that the people of this country should be put to the cost of a general election, to oblige him, whenever he talks, as he so often does, foolishly in that way.
So far as law-making is concerned, General O'Duffy has got no authority from the Irish people. He must know perfectly well that the Fianna Fáil Government got a mandate from the people to do certain things within a certain period. So far as general support of the Government is concerned —on some matters of detail we may not be in entire agreement with the Government—I can assure the President that this Party at any rate will give him general support to carry out the mandate he received from the Irish people. We will certainly give him every support which he requires and which he is entitled to receive in order to see that a satisfactory settlement of the financial dispute is secured from the British.
Mr. Rice
Deputy Davin's speech has disappointed me rather because of what it left out than what it contained. He objects to Deputy O'Higgins making any suggestions with regard to a settlement of the economic war, though he himself has spent the greater part of the last 35 minutes in speaking on that particular subject. The Deputy also gave us an illustration of the dislike he has for lawyers, and referred to the case of two unfortunate people going to law.
I have no personal objection to lawyers.
Mr. Rice
I did not suggest that. Two men in the Deputy's experience went to two different lawyers. One of them won and the other lost. I think that was a very fortunate result of the litigation because, very often when people go to law, both sides lose. Deputy Davin was the first speaker on that side of the House to follow the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, who opened his speech last night and concluded it this afternoon. I thought that the Deputy would have disclaimed the association of himself and his Party with that disgraceful speech, because I was of opinion that the attitude of the Labour Party was that they were only prepared to support the Government as long as they did the right thing. Apparently that is not the attitude of Deputy Davin. The Deputy criticised people who are not members of this House for using strong language as to what they would like to see done to those who opposed them politically, but I never saw or heard any disclaimer from Deputy Davin in connection with a speech made by the Minister in the present Government who, in referring to the Opposition and their supporters, talked about clearing the accursed gang out of our way. Does Deputy Davin approve of that kind of language? If he is an independent-minded member of this House, why did he not express his disapproval of such language when it was used or some time since?
Within the last couple of years the President, on more than one occasion, has expressed his hope and desire to see the peoples of Ireland and Great Britain live on terms of good fellowship and neighbourliness. We, on this side, were glad to read these statements of the President, because we consider that it is essential to the interests of this country that good relations should exist between the two countries. We had, up to a few years ago, a substantial preference in one form in the British market for our goods. We had the goodwill of the British people. In those days advertisements and posters were displayed in English cities and towns calling on the people there to buy Irish goods. In the manufacturing centres in England notices were displayed calling on the working-class people to support the people who were supporting them and to give a preference to Irish goods. That is not the position to-day. I have referred to the statements of the President. If these reflect his attitude it ought to be the attitude, I take it, of those who sit behind him. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance sits behind the President and we must assume, apparently, that his speech, in which he referred to the British people as a nation of embezzlers and defaulters, did not meet with the disapproval of the President because we had no disclaimer from him.
No doubt Deputy Flinn holds a very minor position in the Government but, is that language that the President would approve of? The Deputy comes into this House, posturing and using language that is no reflection on the people he is attacking, but that is a disgrace to this House, and a disgrace to the Government that tolerate it. Deputy O'Higgins said that he had hoped that at the end of Deputy Flinn's speech to-day some disclaimer would have come. I will go further and say that I had hoped that before Deputy Flinn was allowed to go on, a disclaimer would have come from the opposite benches and from the Government, for the language that was used last night. That language was used by a man who came to this country in the British uniform, in the service of His Majesty the King, having disclaimed or had disclaimed for him, his potentialities either as a soldier or a sailor. He came in the Army Service Corps uniform, sat upon court-martials in this country, and assisted in sending people to prison for breaches of His Majesty's Regulations, and breaches of duty to His Majesty. Yet he gets up in this House, as the spokesman for the Government, and refers to the British people as embezzlers and defaulters.
Now, up the Republic!
Mr. Rice
Are you not ashamed of him over there?
I would be more ashamed of you.
Mr. Rice
If you are not ashamed of him you should be ashamed of him. The President always prides himself on personal courtesy, and on personal abstention from abusive or insulting language about individuals or people. Is it not a pity that he allows a posturer and a poseur like Deputy Flinn to get up in this House——
I allowed Deputy Rice to go very far in making personal references. I think he has gone far enough, and might now deal with what Deputy Flinn said, rather than with Deputy Flinn. He has dealt far enough in personalities.
Sure the President is only a foreigner according to Deputies opposite.
Mr. Rice
When did the Deputy hear me say that?
It is not from the Deputy that came but from members of his Party.
Mr. Rice
The Deputy addressed the remark to me.
Have the guts to stand up to it now; do not run away.
I will stand up to it.
Mr. Rice
I never painted any walls and never made any such reference as the Deputy has suggested. I will make no personal allusions. There is too much to be talked about without making such references. There is the conduct and the speech that was delivered to-day, a continuation of the disgraceful remarks that were made in this House last night. I join with Deputy O'Higgins in hoping that a disclaimer will come from the Government Benches in the proper way, in the form of a disclaimer from the President, who is responsible for the conduct of persons who sit behind him. The President and his Party took office on a promise to reduce taxation by £2,000,000 yearly. The position now is that extra taxation, amounting to £7,000,000 yearly, has been imposed. It appears to be a matter for amusement for some Deputies opposite, that £7,000,000 yearly is being taken from a country in which trade has been reduced in the last couple of years by more than 30 per cent. The Minister for Agriculture told the people recently that even if they had imposed heavy taxation they were spending it on the poor people.
Hear, hear!
Mr. Rice
No Deputy on this side objects to money being spent on poor people. That is not a matter to boast of in a country like this, that has a tradition of which it is entitled to be proud. But the policy of the present Government is to turn the people into queue-men, standing waiting for the dole. That is where the policy of this Government is leading. Many appeals have been made to the President to settle this absurd struggle—called an economic war—that is going on. At times, he has made statements which led us to hope that such was the intention. But the Government speaks with many voices on the subject. Recently, when introducing the Budget, the Minister for Finance made reference to the approaching end, possibly, of the economic war, that could not last for ever, and we all hoped that the Government was at last beginning to regard the position from a sane and reasonable point of view, as well as the fact that no country could carry on a war of any kind for ever. We hoped then that something was going to be done. Apparently that suggestion from the Minister did not receive the approval of many of his colleagues, nor, apparently, of the President. Speaking not long ago in Clifden, the President talked about negotiating a settlement. Why does he not do it now? I do not know why the President regards that remark as a matter of amusement, because whether people are supporters of the President or supporters of the Fine Gael Party, they are all looking forward to a settlement.
What kind of a settlement?
Mr. Rice
An honourable settlement for the good and for the prosperity of this country.
These are big words.
Mr. Rice
Yes. Does the Deputy suggest that a settlement cannot be got?
What do you mean by that?
Buy a dictionary or a spelling book.
Mr. Rice
Deputy Davin talked for 35 minutes, and he could have dealt with the settlement and how it could be brought about. I listened very carefully to him and not a single sentence in his speech contained the germ of an idea of any kind as to a settlement. His speech did not convey any idea of what was in the Deputy's mind, or in the mind of his Party, as to what kind of a settlement could be made. The Deputy should not interrupt now. I listened with great care to him, as I regard him as one interested in this dispute. One never knows what the Deputy will say. Before he gets up to speak he does not know what attitude he will take, and when he has sat down he does not remember what he said. I think the House should refuse this Vote, because the President got into office on a promise to reduce taxation. He was returned to office on promising to settle the economic war. No advance has been made towards a settlement. The promised reduction of taxation has taken the form of increasing taxation by £7,000,000 yearly. The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us the other night that our total external trade had no significance whatever from the point of view of national prosperity. That may be a statement or an argument—if it could be dignified with the title of argument—but it will carry complete conviction to the mass of the members of the Fianna Fáil clubs. It should not, however, be used as an argument or be put forward as a statement to people of ordinary intelligence. Since the President took office the total trade of this country has fallen from £85,000,000 to £56,000,000, a reduction of over 56 per cent., while there is an enormous increase in the adverse balance of trade. These conditions cannot go on. Yet, when the President is asked why he does not make an attempt to settle the economic war, he treats the request for information on that subject with a smile. Does he think that he cannot settle it? If he thinks he cannot settle it why does he not go to the country and say: "If you like my present attitude send me back again, but I cannot settle the economic war?" If the President thinks he cannot settle the economic war why does he not step down and make way for somebody who can settle it?
I desire to say a few words in this debate and I intend to be very brief. I hope I am not saying anything offensive to anybody when I say that I hope my contribution will have a little more effect than that of Deputy Rice. During the 15 minutes that he occupied the time of the House I thought we would at least hear some constructive suggestion, something emanating from him worthy of the type of brain possessed by Deputy Rice, something which would help to bring about an end of the economic war. His entire speech resolved itself into one question to the President: "Why do you not bring about a settlement of the economic war?" Again, he asked: "Why not go to the country, have an election and make way for somebody who will settle it, if you will not?" I think that during the last general election the economic war was on, and I do not think that anybody, certainly any member of the Fianna Fáil Party, ever disguised our attitude or held back for one moment anything as regards the inconvenience that might be caused while the economic war would be in existence. Our cards were put on the table. The entire cards were put on the table. There was not a Fianna Fáil candidate put up by the organisation in any of the constituencies who did not put his cards on the table and who did not state his attitude clearly and say that he was standing by the President in the attitude that he had adopted on the economic war. On that issue we got back with a clear majority. That should be a sufficient answer to any Deputy who now gets up and says that if we cannot effect a settlement we ought to give way to some other Government or that the President should stand down and give an opportunity to somebody else to make a settlement.
There is another point upon which I want to touch and which was raised here last night by Deputy MacDermot in his speech. He talked about the present situation and denied that it was brought about as the result of threats by the British, or that the Treaty position was ever brought about as a result of threats.
I did not say that.
I inferred from the Deputy's speech last night that no such thing as a threat exists.
Not now.
Do you say that threats never existed?
I do not.
Therefore I may take it that the Deputy is of opinion that the position originally was brought about——
That does not follow.
——that the position originally was brought about as a result of threats and that the present position, following immediately, is the result of the threats used in the earlier stages?
Does the Deputy wish me to answer that? I do not want to interrupt him.
Go ahead.
My answer would be that when a Treaty is made at the end of any war, in a sense it is always adopted by both parties as the result of threats. It is adopted by both parties because they are threatened with something more unpleasant than the treaty may be if they refuse to make the treaty.
Perhaps the Deputy might be interested to know that at the signing of this particular Treaty there was a reference to the question of threats. I would, if I might, just quote——
I cannot quite see how the matter arises on this Vote.
In this way: Deputy MacDermot last night in the course of his speech said that no such thing as threats existed at the present moment. Am I right in saying that that was your statement?
Yes.
I hold that the present position has been mainly brought about by these threats, that it is a forced position and that it follows from the threats that were used at the time the Treaty was signed.
That is another question.
On the basis of that reasoning, we could go back to the landing of Strongbow. We could go back, at any rate, much further than the Treaty. I cannot see how what happened immediately subsequent to the signing of the Treaty or what immediately induced the signing of the Treaty is relevant at all.
Any way, Deputy MacDermot faces the fact that threats are in existence at the moment. We hold that the present position is as much a forced position as that which occurred at the time the Treaty was signed. That is our attitude. Deputy Davin was quite right in his reply to Deputy O'Higgins when he said that when Deputy O'Higgins addresses the House his speech generally resolves itself into a personal attack on the President of the Executive Council. There is a little bit of precedent for that kind of attack in this country. Many of us remember that away back in earlier days it was the kind of weapon that was used by certain types of politicians. It was one of their chief characteristics. Taking the Irish leaders, we have a very close analogy to the present situation in the case of Parnell. He was a leader who was not too prone to negotiate with the British except when he could do so on his own terms. The slogan in his day was that he was to be driven into his grave or into a lunatic asylum. They succeeded in driving him into his grave. John Dillon was characterised as the "melancholy humbug." William O'Brien was called the "Mad Mullah." The late John Redmond was described by a similar type of politician as "little Johnny Redmond who used to give out the programmes in the House of Commons."
That type of politician has always existed in Ireland and that type apparently still remains in Ireland. I sincerely hope and trust, however, that that kind of attack made upon the leaders of the Irish people, more particularly the President of the Executive Council, is not going to be successful now. That type of thing should have gone for ever. Deputy O'Sullivan in his speech stated that the President's main objective in leadership is always destruction. I do not believe that and I know as much as any other Deputy in this House about his attitude regarding peace and war for the last ten years. It is not because the President is here listening to me that I say that nobody has done more in the interests of peace than he has. There is nobody, as Deputy Fitzgerald should know, who went further than he did to prevent civil conflict.
Question.
There is nobody who went further to prevent that conflict or did more in the interests of peace than the President of the Executive Council.
On a point of order, it is not that I object listening to what Deputy Donnelly is saying at all. On another occasion I might be very glad to listen to him on this subject, but I do represent to you, Sir, that if we start going into these matters, there will be absolutely no end to it.
That is quite right. I have had occasion to stop Deputy Donnelly before on this matter. He has gone back to the Treaty and the Civil War. Neither the Treaty nor the Civil War is relevant to this debate.
With all respect, am I not to be allowed to reply to the suggestion made by Deputy Professor O'Sullivan, that the President's attitude has always been an attitude and a policy of destruction? Is there to be no reply given to that?
It is not for me to say whether a reply is to be given, but if a reply is to be given, it cannot have for its basis the Civil War or the Treaty. It must be confined to the administration of the President within a period.
We can carry all the abuse they can give us.
That was made as a general statement, and I am making a general reply to it and giving one historic fact—a memorable fact—in connection with it.
Whether historic or not, I cannot allow that argument to be developed. If I allowed it to be developed by one Deputy, it would have to be developed all round by other Deputies, and this debate would develop into something which we do not want it to develop into. The Deputy will have to confine himself to the administration of the President's Department in the last 12 months.
Very well, Sir. I was saying that I did not know anybody who did more in the interests of peace than the President, and I am sure that there is nobody in this House who regrets more than he that there should be any friction whatever between the two peoples—the English and the Irish—that there should be any friction at all between the people on the other side of the water and ourselves. I have often heard the President say that, and I know him a long time. Then, when the jibe is hurled across this House, and he is taunted about running away from the Republic and all the rest of it, my memory goes back to the speeches that were made during the general election. I was on the platform with him in Leix-Offaly and I would ask Deputies to go back and read the speech that he made in Birr and see whether or not that jibe and taunt is in keeping with what was expressed on that occasion. I maintain that it was the policy of the President also, and, as far as I know, it is the policy of the organisation that is responsible for this Government and responsible for returning the Government to power, that the unity and independence of this country was the ultimate objective and the main objective, and that, in the meantime, domestic, social and other economic matters, affecting the people's welfare, should be seen to. But the ultimate and the main objective is to secure the unity and independence of this country. That is on the very frontispiece of our Constitution, and I maintain that during the course of the entire campaign, and in all the speeches that were delivered from our platforms during the election, that objective was never withheld for one moment from the public.
To come to the question of the economic war: Deputy Rice and Deputy Dr. O'Higgins made a terrible complaint about the language used by Deputy Hugo Flinn with regard to the people across the water—that they were defaulters, embezzlers, and all the rest of it. We have not been called anything else for the last two years but embezzlers. The members of this Party and the President himself have been called embezzlers. I have heard Deputies in this House get up and say: "Why, our word ought to be our bond; we ought to have the courage of men and to honour our bond and pay the money," and so on. The ex-Minister for Agriculture often said—it was his pet theme—that we were embezzlers and defaulters, that we had dragged down the fair name of our country, and all the rest of it. Personally, I am glad to see that the note has changed recently and that members of the Party opposite are beginning to allocate a little of the blame to the English as well as to the people who occupy the Front Bench here. I am glad to see that change, and it is quite possible that, as a result of some of the speeches of that kind delivered from the opposite benches—similar speeches to that delivered by Deputy MacDermot last night—that some of the old brigade are beginning to examine their consciences and to wonder whether or not they ought to get back to the political faith they once professed. I know that their progress in that direction may be slow and that it may be hard. The ordinary countryman, the ordinary farmer, has a saying to the effect that if you make a fool of yourself it is very hard to admit it, but it is nearly impossible to do so after you have made a public fool of yourself. Possibly, as I say, it is beginning to get in on the brains of the people opposite that it might be a good thing to get back to their old political faith.
Some Deputy, also talked about arbitration. Of course, there must be arbitration in this economic war. Nobody in this Party ever said otherwise, but we said that there is no such thing as arbitration when it is a packed jury. I question very much whether the Treaty—I hope, Sir, that I am not going too far back in this, and that I am not out of order—would ever have been passed in the Dáil originally had it not been for the letter from Mr. Lloyd George, and read by the late Arthur Griffith to the Dáil at the time, to the effect that all the finance clauses of the Treaty were a matter for arbitration, that England would put up her claim, and we would put up ours, and that it was to be left to an impartial arbitrator. In this particular case now they want the arbitrator to come from within the British Empire. We hold that such an arbitrator would not be impartial. We want an outsider as the arbitrator. Surely, there is nothing unreasonable about that. Nobody on this side ever refused an arbitration court, but it must not be a packed court, and I say that, if we had the assistance and help and the unity of opinion which the Opposition could give us in this Assembly with regard to this particular matter, we would have brought a settlement about long ago. Undoubtedly, as I say, arbitration must take place if this dispute is to be settled. Nobody objects to it for one moment provided that the court is a fair court and that our side get as fair a hearing as the other side. All history points to the necessity for that.
When Deputy MacDermot made these suggestions about payments and ending the matter and all the rest of it, I think he said last night that we repudiated what is known as the Ultimate Financial Settlement. Undoubtedly, we have repudiated the Ultimate Financial Settlement. I always thought it right to repudiate it, and I based my reason for thinking it a good and sound policy to reject that Ultimate Financial Settlement on another report that was made to the Dáil—not this Dáil, but the old Republican Dáil—in 1920. Mind you, the authority I am going to quote is an authority which nobody can dispute— the authority of the late General Michael Collins. He gave a summarised report of the financial position between the two countries, which he was asked to submit to the Dáil by the Republican Cabinet. When we hear talk about making more payments to Britain, it would be well for Deputies opposite to bear this report in mind. I would ask Deputy MacDermot to pay particular attention to it. The summarised report is as follows:—
"England stands arraigned with having through her financial machination:—
(1) over-taxed us to the extent of at least £400,000,000;
(2) drained our capital to the extent of (at a moderate estimate, as already set forth) £1,000,000,000;
(3) destroyed flourishing industries, and generally retarded our industrial development;
(4) banished some millions of our population and made the remainder ‘pay,' as Grattan said they would pay, ‘the price of their enslavement.'"
That is the summary made by the late General Michael Collins.
Will the Deputy give the reference?
It is from the Official Reports of the Dáil from January, 1919, to June, 1922, and it is contained on page 95, column 1. The people who negotiated the Ultimate Financial Settlement were armed with that report at the time they went over to negotiate. They went across the water at that time and, of course, the English were not content with all this plunder of years. Notwithstanding that a man, for whom the people opposite profess to have the greatest admiration, made that report to this Assembly in 1920, notwithstanding the fact that they knew and admitted that these figures were taken, not from any Irishmen at all, but were arrived at as a result of commissions set up and conducted by Englishmen—notwithstanding that they knew that this amount of £400,000,000 had been taken from this country in over-taxation of one kind or another from the time of the Union up to the outbreak of the Great War, that our capital had been drained and our industries destroyed—they proceeded to leave these things as they were and to hand over £5,000,000 a year in land annuities, police pensions and so forth, and, in case they had not gone far enough, they agreed into the bargain that six counties of this country should go. Was there any reason why that financial settlement should not be repudiated, or is there anybody with the smallest amount of commonsense who would not revolt against such incompetency? Perhaps I should not use the word "incompetency." There must be something more than mere incompetency behind a settlement like that. That is one of the reasons—and I want Deputy MacDermot to take note of this—that I also argue that somehow or other threats were in the air even in 1925. That is what I believe.
I am basing my argument on what I have read and I know the admiration that the people who were negotiating the Ultimate Financial Settlement had for the writer of that report. Consequently, I come to the conclusion that the threats still remained. Deputy O'Higgins spoke this evening about forgetting the past, living in friendship, overlooking the wrongs of centuries. What a grand and charitable thing that would be! I have looked up the works of some people who wrote on that theme. In a famous book, the late Mr. T. M. Healy dealt with that idea of forgetting the past. I am very sorry that Deputy O'Higgins is not here to hear what the late Mr. T. M. Healy had to say on that question. I hope that Deputy MacDermot, when he is handing out a big supply of olive branches to the people across the water, will remember this:
"Wiseacres advise the losers and the wronged to ‘forget the past.' No people have more need to remember it. That the past has no bearing on the present and that brooding on it is ill for soul and body, is a conceit of despotism. Other races are taught at their mother's knee that their welfare has been influenced, hindered or promoted by the tyranny or the heroism, the crimes or the virtues of vanished men."
That was Mr. Healy's idea about forgetting the past, so far as these people are concerned. From 1916 to 1921, did we not make the welkin ring with these injustices? I am sorry that Deputy MacDermot referred to that last night in the strain he did, because of the presence on this side of the House of a Deputy who is a member of the family most closely associated with the Rebellion of 1916—Deputy Miss Pearse. Do we know that leading up to the Rebellion of 1916 the idea was that the years during which agitations had been led by the persons referred to by Deputy MacDermot—the constitutional leaders—had been utterly futile? Did not the robbery go on all the same? Had we not lost £400,000,000 from the time of the Union up to the time of the Great War? Deputies on the opposite side are not yet convinced. They want to go on handing them more money from the Irish people.
Deputy Donnelly asked: did not the robbery go on just the same? Largely as the result of the activities of the Irish Party, before the European War broke out there was a difference of over £2,000,000 per annum between the taxation raised in this country and the money spent on government in this country. That difference was in our favour and not against us.
Deputy MacDermot should, in his spare moments, go to the Library and read that detailed report by the late Michael Collins. He should also look up the findings of the Childers Commissions and the other commissions at which British experts reported against their own Government. The net result is that this country has lost £400,000,000 and, according to some Deputies on the opposite side, we are not finished paying yet. According to Deputy O'Higgins, our word is still our bond. We are to go on paying. But for the fact that the late Government was put out of office and that Deputy de Valera was elected as head of the Executive Council and this Ministry established, this £5,000,000 would still be going across the water and into the British Exchequer. Ireland would still be bleeding financially as a result of the connection between Great Britain and Ireland.
If anybody says to me, as Deputy Rice said, that somebody should apologise for what Deputy Flinn said as regards defaulters and embezzlers, I say to him that the only difference between my attitude and that of Deputy Flinn is that I would substitute the words "plunderers and robbers" for embezzlers. I hope that Deputy MacDermot will get the whole of these records when the political outlook was changing and when the people of this country saw the futility of the Irish Party going to the House of Commons. The people embarked upon a new phase of agitation which led to the setting up of the present Assembly. If Deputy MacDermot would look into all these things I believe it would cure him of his love, or pretended love, for the English Empire.
I think I am at least as familiar with the financial relations between this country and Great Britain as is any Deputy on the opposite benches. I have written as much about them and spoken as much about them, in my time, as any Deputy on the opposite side has done, but I am unable to see what their relevance is to the present discussion.
I do not think that the Deputy knows as much about them as the late Michael Collins did or as much as the President of the Executive Council does. I do not say it in any offensive way, but I prefer to take the President's opinion and I prefer to follow his attitude in the economic war rather than the attitude adumbrated by Deputy MacDermot in his speech last night. Some Deputy mentioned, in the course of the Debate in a sort of sneering way, the money being provided for the establishment of a mercantile marine. I think that we ought to go ahead with the establishment of a mercantile marine. Deputy Fitzgerald knows as well as I do that one of the great objectives of Griffith was a mercantile marine. He wrote about it many years ago. A mercantile marine is not going to be constructed for the purpose for which Deputies opposite say it is. A mercantile marine is absolutely essential to the development of any country. Is there any reason why the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that we are going to build ships to do our own carrying, should be distorted and used so as to put another weapon into the hands of the people across the water? Deputies on the other side ought to be proud to see a Minister taking that matter in hand. They ought to help in a case like that. Many years ago, I thought of what a grand thing this would be and I read pamphlets about it. I thought at one time that it was an impossibility. Now, by dint of hard work, many of the things that some of us believed impossible will become realities. These things should not be approached in a spirit of antagonism and a spirit of ill-will such as has been displayed here by some Deputies.
Deputy O'Higgins also referred to the fact that President de Valera went to Geneva as the head of the State. The Deputy's language was more eloquent than elegant, if the notes I took are correct. According to the Deputy, the President "bleated like a lamb,""howled like a wolf," was "very harmless abroad and very dangerous at home." The visit of the President to Geneva was in the interests of this country. It was made with the best intentions so far as this country was concerned. There was, of course, one flaw when he went out to Geneva. He made a bit of a record when he presided at the League of Nations. Those who went out and occupied that position before him were handed a written speech by the Secretary of the League of Nations. That did not work in the case of President de Valera. He made his own speech. He made the statement which he believed to be most beneficial from the national and international point of view. Every newspaper paid tribute to the attitude he took up on national and international matters. Even those papers which opposed him most fiercely across the water described him as a realist and said it would be a good thing if others had adopted the same attitude at the League of Nations. Yet we have this abuse coming across from the Opposition Benches. If he had not gone; if he had not attended the meeting of the League of Nations, it would not have done either, and we would have had another tirade of personal abuse, or we would have had abuse of some other kind.
So far as I can see, it does not matter in the slightest what attitude he takes up; it does not matter what he does; it does not matter how he acts. There will always be some individual on the Opposition Benches to take his cue from some word or action, and the inevitable abuse must come across the floor of the House and on to the head of the President. I suggest that that is not going to get the Opposition very far. I thought I saw signs of a relenting in that attitude last night, and I was glad when I heard Deputy Cosgrave say that he held, as Deputy Flinn said, the English Government to be equally culpable with us, or something of the sort. He blamed the English Government for carrying on this economic war as well as ourselves. Twelve months ago we were the embezzlers and they had all justice and right on their side. We had signed an agreement and, as I said before, our word was our bond. That is beginning to weaken now, and I welcome the changed attitude. There is no use in anybody on the Opposition Benches getting it into his head that the Government is going to give way on the economic war. The Government is not. As I said at the commencement of these remarks, we are making a certain case. Let the English put forward their claim and let them prove it, if they can, and we will put forward our counter claim—I am sure that is the President's attitude—and let it be left to an impartial arbitrator.
Deputy MacDermot talked about the type of court to consider the question and the issue that would be raised. The type of court is an outside arbitrator who will be impartial, and the issue that will be raised is, possibly, the financial relations of the two countries. Will Deputy MacDermot, for one moment, even now, suggest that, in any international arbitration that is going to take place, with regard to the financial position between this country and England, all this should be left out of consideration, that all the reports of their own commissions should be left out? It is not the question of the land annuities alone that may, perhaps, have to come up for consideration; it is not the question of the £5,000,000 a year which Deputy Cosgrave and his colleagues signed away that may have to come up. There are quite a lot of ramifications attached to this matter, and there are many far-reaching things which may have to be gone into before this question is finally settled. There are people in this country even to-day who believe—and I do not think it is very foolish on their part either—that there ought to be a little compensation due to this country for all the wrongs done in the years gone by, even taking them on their own figures. Surely to goodness, as Deputy Davin said, if there is a Party in this country which is the Government and which not only stands for keeping at home the money we have at home now, but which will go further and look for restitution of money that should never have left the country, ought you not to give them, if only for the sake of the country itself, support and co-operation, and stop abusing the head of the Government, who is responsible for the attitude taken up at the time?
Personally, I was very sorry that Deputy Donnelly was interrupted at the point of the theme at which he was interrupted, because I am quite certain that if Deputy Donnelly were putting forward a case for the canonisation of President de Valera, he would have, in President de Valera's speeches, ample evidence to justify that canonisation. I remember, some years ago, a man in the employ of the President brought out a book called "The One Hundred Best Sayings of President de Valera." I, at the time, thought of bringing out "The One Hundred Second Best Sayings." So far as mouthing pious remarks is concerned, I have never known anybody as good at it as President de Valera. Unfortunately, very often, facts do not coincide with his mouthings.
When he was speaking, Deputy Davin poured out—I might even say, frothed out—at me an unlimited number of questions. I had not time to make notes of them all but he asked me if it was not a fact that, in a delicate international matter such as is being discussed between this country and great Britain, no member of the Opposition in Great Britain would ever criticise the Government and he also asked if I could quote such a case in England or France when they were fighting. He said that we, through our action, made British statesmen say to themselves: "If we only hold on a little longer we shall get better terms than we can get from President de Valera." While he was speaking in that fashion, I remembered that, a few months ago, two of the President's Communist or Extreme Left Labour friends came over from England. They were members of the British Opposition and they came over to this country and saw President de Valera. They went home and said that President de Valera did not stand quite as perfectly for the Socialist state as they did but that he was very satisfactory. What was President de Valera doing talking to these men? They were members of the British Opposition. They were, from Deputy Donnelly's point of view and from Deputy Davin's point of view, traitors to their country. They came over here and it looks to me as though there is a certain relationship between that action of President de Valera and the fact that he now employs his police to go out as agents provocateurs to try to induce other people to commit sin. He was, apparently, trying to seduce these two English Members of Parliament from their loyalty and allegiance to Great Britain just the same as his police try to do now. There is a peculiar unity all through his policy and all through his history.
Deputy Davin called on us to say why we were not standing, man to man, with President de Valera in this matter. I am not really quite suitable for belonging to any Party because I am not going to accept things from Fianna Fáil or from the Labour Party or even from Fine Gael, if I disagree with them. My own opinion is that the moral laws that apply to society, either national or international, are the same in substance and in rigour, although different in modality, as the moral laws applying to persons, and, because President de Valera, in trying to save his face in regard to certain appalling actions of his in the past, commits this country to a certain course, according to Deputy Donnelly and Deputy Davin, the rest of us have to say that truth has no reality whatever; that there is a greater loyalty than truth and that is, to back up President de Valera and his record. We have to say, "Yes" when he says "yes" and "no" when he says "no," irrespective of the facts of the matter. I am not going to do that for President de Valera or anybody else. Years ago, John O'Leary said that there some things you should not do even to free your country and there are many things which I, for one, am not going to do, even to save President de Valera's face.
What is the position with regard to one item with which we are dealing— the economic war? People have rather overlooked the history of it. The Fianna Fáil Party in an election went out and said that they had paid a certain number of lawyers—they said they were eminent but some of us did not think they were eminent—who told them that we had a legal case for the retention of the land annuities. For a period, they went out and told the farmers "You will be able to keep the land annuities in your pocket", but, later, that was modified and President de Valera said "We will collect them but we will give them back to you in the way of abolition of rates and so on." When he came into power and when the annuities were due to be sent to England, he proceeded to retain them and there were various stages of negotiation. It will be remembered that he went over and negotiated. There was a question about arbitration, and, here, I may as well say that, personally, I shall always stand against this question going for arbitration to any international court which would be absolutely disastrous for this country. There was, as I say, a question of putting the matter to arbitration. The British referred to certain discussions at Imperial Conferences and said that the court to arbitrate in the matter should be a Commonwealth Court. President de Valera said that, on principle, he must stand for an International Court and again, he went over—or if he did not, somebody went for him—and there were alternatives discussed. There was a suggestion of settling by negotiation, with two representatives of the British and two representatives of the Irish Government. Both seemed to think there were possibilities in that line. President de Valera said: "Before these negotiations take place you must take off the tariffs you have put on our goods." The British said: "Right, but in that case you will pay over the money that was previously paid. If, as a result of these negotiations, it is decided that it should not have been paid, we will pay it back.""No", said President de Valera, "I am putting the money in a special Suspense Account." He sent his messenger-boy, Norton, over to break that to them.
On a point of order, may I call your attention to the terms in which the Deputy who is speaking has referred to the Leader of the Labour Party in this House? He referred to him as "his messenger-boy, Norton."
I was referring merely to the function he was fulfilling on that occasion.
A point of order has been raised. It is not parliamentary to refer to a Deputy of this House as anybody's messenger-boy.
I was merely referring to the function he was performing on that occasion. There was a proposal for negotiation. The British said: "We will either negotiate with you as we are, with the tariffs imposed, or we will negotiate with you as we were, with that money sent over. Whatever decision is arrived at will be seen afterwards." President de Valera refused that. "No," he said, "you must take off the tariffs; I will retain the moneys, and we will negotiate that way." Anybody knows, and particularly anybody who is associated with President de Valera knows perfectly well, that what would have happened then is that years would have gone by while he went on with his argument; he would have been retaining the land annuities; the British would not have been imposing the tariffs; until finally the British would tell him that the thing had to come to an end. It was an attempt to get them into a certain forced position. He refused those negotiations. That is now well over a year ago. I think it is the best part of two years ago. During that time the negotiations could have gone on. The tariffs have been on. He refused to negotiate unless the tariffs were taken off. He was allowed to retain those moneys that were previously sent. Meanwhile, we have been going on for almost two years since that time, with exactly the condition he refused to accept operating, and no negotiations at all.
At the time of the last election his explanation as to why he was having that election was that we, by our propaganda and the speeches we were making, were creating the impression in England that he and his Party had not really the support of the people, and that the British were being kept back from pusillanimously surrendering to him by the mere fact that they thought he was not representing the people, but that the people were really with us. His whole attitude at the time of the election was: "I am holding this election to give you, the Irish people, an opportunity of making it abundantly clear that I have your support, because that is necessary to me in getting this matter settled. The only thing that is preventing my getting a complete victory over the British in this dispute is the fact that they are misled by the Opposition. Make it clear that the Opposition are only the Opposition and have not the support of the majority of the people, and I will settle this dispute." What has he done to settle it since? The time has gone on. Nearly two years have gone by since then. Now we are told: "You should keep quiet." He had an election to make it clear that he had a majority. He got a majority. What is he complaining about? He told the people that when he got that majority all was going to be plain sailing for him in settling this dispute on his own terms. Now, the Davins and all the rest of them are complaining——
Might I call your attention to the fact that the Deputy has referred to Deputy Davin as "the Davins"? He previously referred to Deputy Donnelly and Deputy Davin as "the Donnellys and the Davins."
I merely used it as a sort of generic term, representing types of persons and of minds. If the President on that earlier occasion had said to the British: "Very well; you keep on your tariffs, and we will negotiate and see what can be done," he could have been doing that ever since. We would be in exactly the same position as we are in, unless he had made some sort of bargain on the matter. That is the history of the thing. What is happening? When President de Valera gets up and says something which is untrue, as he did in relation to historical authorities with regard to the Seanad, we are to say: "We know in our minds that these are all lies, but we will get up and say they are all true." When his departure from truth was demonstrated in the Seanad, Senator Connolly—I have forgotten what he is Minister for——
The Deputy has alleged that the President has said in this House what is untrue.
Is anything wrong with that? Everybody knows that not only has he said in this House things which are untrue, but his whole stock-in-trade consists of what is not true. When he is proved in the Seanad to have said what was not true, Senator Connolly gets up and talks about a personal attack on the President. The moment you stand for truth you are necessarily making a personal attack on the President——
Is the Deputy entitled to discuss the proceedings in another House?
It is neither customary nor advisable.
The Minister seems to suffer from that disease which we associate with jacks-in-the-box. Any time President de Valera wants to pick a quarrel with somebody, it is expected that, with that blind loyalty which Deputy Donnelly is so proud of, and which I admire in him, as I have often admired it enormously in certain dogs, we ought, with the same dog-like fidelity, to say: "Oh, yes. Master is always right."
We will do it anyway.
Yes, but the Deputy is not going to expect other people to nullify completely their rational powers, to refuse completely to stand for truth, and merely to accept whatever President de Valera says, irrespective of truth. That is an inversion of a hierarchy. I quite agree that his friendship and devotion for President de Valera are worthy, within their limits, of great admiration, but, when he puts them over and above truth and right, then I say he is inverting the order completely, and is behaving in a way that is infrahuman.
I do not like to interrupt the Deputy——
I do not mind in the least.
——but I have no greater admiration or loyalty for the President than Deputy Fitzgerald had.
That is not quite true. I admit that I have not the beautiful nature of Deputy Donnelly. The Deputy may remember that in one part of Geoffrey Keating's History he digresses—as I am doing at the moment—and talks about the sort of calumniating habit in Ireland. That seems to come from our having an unduly developed analytical side to our minds. I admit that I have that national failing to an exaggerated degree. Although I was closely associated with President de Valera—I travelled to England with him, and walked around the ring with him in jail—there was no time when I was not critical. There was a certain intimate address I had for him, which indicated affection, and at the same time indicated what I might call a lack of awe with regard to his mental equipment.
When he was with you he must have had some intellect.
His intellectual capacity is very limited. Deputy Donnelly reminded us that there was an old saying that if you have made a fool of yourself it is hard to admit it, but if you have done it in public it is impossible. I have looked for what I might call the guiding principle in the policy of the present Government, and there is an extraordinary unity in that principle. Its guiding principle is based exactly upon what Deputy Donnelly said. Although Deputy Donnelly believes in going back to the past, and to the piled up wrongs of England against us, it is always considered bad form to refer to the President's past of the civil war period. Personally I do not see any reason, except from the point of view of historical truth, why it should not be completely overlooked, but there is one man whose mind never comes back from the consciousness of his action in 1922, and that is himself. The whole policy of to-day is due to the fact that you made a fool or a criminal of yourself in public, as the case may be, and, as Deputy Donnelly says, it is impossible to admit it. This country is being guided now entirely in the light of that fact.
The Deputy should not insinuate that the President or any other member of the House is a criminal. There are places in which to try criminals, but the Dáil is not a Court.
As a friend of mine said: "Utopia is opium for the people." That is the policy of Fianna Fáil—preach the Utopia and dope the people. If you look over the President's statements during the last couple of weeks, according to him we are in a state of transition. When he was talking about complete independence here I asked him to say how we lacked independence. He said: "If the Irish people had their way, would the British be in Cobh or in the Six Counties?" and so on. All I wanted was for him to say, since he has become the Government, has he found, as we were accused by the Irregulars of the time who said: "The Free State Government are only the tools of the British; they get their orders from the British as to exactly what they are to do?"
That was quite true.
That was black-guardly lying propaganda.
Winston Churchill then is a liar.
I am afraid the Deputy's powers of imagination are unlimited. We took no orders from the British. We did what we thought was the best for this country and nothing else guided us.
I have a distinct recollection that Lloyd George offered to lay on the Table of the House of Commons the letter of instruction sent by him to the Provisional Government directing and ordering the Provisional Government to attack the Four Courts. Was that taking orders?
No. My memory is that we had decided to do our duty with regard to this country in relation to dealing with certain criminals in the Four Courts and that that decision was made long before.
Not at all.
I happen to know what I am talking about.
Ask for the papers to be laid on the Table. You know what is in them.
I know well that even before General O'Connell, as he was, was kidnapped by these blackguards in the Four Courts we had decided that that action had to be taken. I do not know whether I will be allowed to develop this.
There is quite a simple way to settle it. You know what is in the despatches. You have the right to demand publication if they justify you.
The moment the election was held there was going to be no more nonsense from these blackguards. We had to act in a pusillanimous manner up to that point as, with the connivance of President de Valera, these men had a gun at our heads, because if the election had to be postponed over a certain date, although the Dáil voted for the Treaty and the majority of the people were for it, the Treaty would have gone. Therefore certain things had to be done within a certain date, including the holding of the election.
I trust the Deputy does not propose to fix the responsibility for the events of 1922 in the course of this debate.
No.
The Deputy has it in his power to settle it.
What is the policy of the President? We are not completely free; therefore, we are in a condition of transition. Everybody knows that that glorious word "transition" explains everything. He abolishes the Seanad. He agrees that there ought to be some sort of protection for the people, but in a period of transition the people's national aspirations cannot be interfered with. He has a quarrel on with the British. What is the argument about that? They had a legal case for retaining the land annuities. Deputy Donnelly and other members of Fianna Fáil were rushing around the country talking about a secret agreement of 1923 made by Deputy Cosgrave. What was all the argument about the secret agreement? Why was all the fuss made about this thing? What was one to gather? It appeared that one might say that the Fianna Fáil Party in bland ignorance examined the case and stated: "On the known facts we have a legal claim to retain the land annuities," but then suddenly they were presented with a secret agreement which changed the situation, which abolished the legal claim to retain the land annuities. Was that the argument? If the secret agreement, as it was called, in no way affected or nullified the legal right to retain the land annuities, what was all the row about? Why were all the Deputies rushing around the country talking about a secret agreement?
Why did you not publish it?
There seem to be gurglings from the Minister for Finance, but he has gurgled so often that I think we need hardly bother about him. Everything is explained; all this loyalty to the President and all the rest of it; all this tyranny of the President, his dictatorship and so on, are all justified on the ground that we we are not completely independent. He agrees that when we are completely independent the question of constitutional protection for the people's rights should be looked into, but not until we are completely free. People often wonder why he does not declare a republic. He is quite right not to, apart from the fact that, as any ordinary intelligent person in this country knows well, every right-minded person stands against a republic, because it would not be good for this country. The form of government, or whatever it may be, is judged by the end which is to be sought, and that is the well-being of the people, the common good. There is no doubt that, in the existing position in this country, its geographical position, its financial and economic strength, and all the rest, such an act would be bad for the people. Apart from that, the President does not move on to the republic for the reason that once he did all his stock-in-trade would be gone. The thing is that you have to keep on persuading the people that there is a wonderful time coming. He has done that consistently. He did it in 1922. He did it before the last election. He told the people, "You have only to get me into power and we will get a republic."
What about the general election in 1918?
The President was in jail at the time, and so was I, so he had nothing to say to the matter.
You became a Minister in the republic.
Yes, I became a Minister in the First Dáil.
A Republican Government !
Was there a Republic?
Was it not declared?
Was it made? It was an aspiration then, and it is an aspiration now. We are led to understand by the President. He plays around with the phrase "complete independence." I invited him to indicate how his Government is less sovereign than that of any other State. He says that there are British troops in Cobh and in the Six Counties. What I want to know is, has he found any limitation of the power of the elected Government here to provide for the well-being of the people in the Free State? Has he found it is limited as compared with the Government of any other country? In the usual way, he dodged that with a twist about British troops in Cobh. Does that affect complete independence? With regard to this republic business, does it mean an addition to our present position in that the British are at Spike Island and Lough Swilly and within the Six Counties? Is that the completion which is to be achieved before we are completely independent? Does he mean that the independence will be complete in geographical area, or will it be complete in substance as independence? The President is head of a Government which, in relation to this State, has more absolute power than any Government in Europe. There is nobody interfering with him. Any law which he wants to make, whether for the good of the people or otherwise, he can pass more expeditiously and with less interference than any other one body in any country in Europe. He plays about with the people's ignorance. When I referred some time ago to appeals to the people's ignorance and passion, the Minister for Education said that that was the sort of superior talk which came from Unionists, and so on. You have to pretend to the Irish people that they have no ignorance and no passion, which is itself an appeal to their ignorance and to their passion, and that is the sort of propaganda and dope that the present Government got in on.
There has been reference made frequently to complete independence. I maintain that the Free State is absolutely free within the meaning of the term as applied to a State. I remember years ago when agnostics and people like that used to say: "How could you say there is free will when a man cannot do all sorts of things he might want to do?" Let us consider freedom as States understand it. There is no complete freedom, because man is not made to be completely free and never can be; as long as he remains man he remains incomplete. The President plays about by pretending that this State should have a degree of freedom which is not possible with created freedom; it applies only to uncreated freedom. He suggests to the people that somehow or another, because God made us with our limitations, that means that the British Government are interfering with our freedom. He suggests then, by talking that way, that as human beings we can get to completeness, to a condition of things which really is not attainable. First of all, he suggests that complete freedom, sovereignty, autonomy or whatever term you may wish to apply, means something more than it actually does mean and, secondly, he suggests that people as human beings can achieve to a condition which is really not achievable by them.
I think the President should be disowned in relation to this Vote, because his policy is wrong in every possible way. It is wrong economically. It was either Deputy Donnelly or Deputy Davin who, talking about their constituency, said the farmers were doing fairly well. I know the case of a farmer, either in their constituency or next door to it, who grows many acres of wheat and beet. He may be making money. Actually, the price that the wheat can be sold for in the market is not equal to the cost of its production. The same applies to the beet. But the farmer can make money, because the people of this country are taxed in order to make up the difference between the price at which wheat can be sold and the cost of production. If you look at the thing in a completely materialistic way what do you find? This country would be the richer if that farm did not exist. The people have to be taxed to give money to that farmer. If he and his farm disappeared completely off the face of the map, what would happen? We could keep that money in our pockets and buy wheat or sugar or whatever it may be. I admit in certain circumstances that would be quite the right thing to do.
When we started the beet business we decided to subsidise the cost of production. Whether it was justifiable or not is another matter. The Minister for Finance would probably say it was not. One of the arguments for going ahead with it was not that a man would grow so much beet per acre, which would be turned into sugar, and that we would give him a lot of money and he would do well out of it; rather had it relation to a general agricultural economy. It was really because it would benefit the general agricultural economy of this country. If anyone said agricultural land should be put under beet and so produce masses of sugar, and for every ton the farmer should be paid so much bounty, everyone would see that that would mean that the policy would be all right as long as the people's savings remained, but when their savings were exhausted then the country was going to be in a state of bankruptcy.
The Government's economic policy is tending to make the country unproductive. I may mention that 85 per cent. was generally the figure given for the people directly engaged in agricultural production. In relation to a small industry you might say, "We will foster that on artificial lines, because it is small and it represents 2 per cent. of the general production of the country, and we will be able out of the other 98 per cent. to finance it and help it in an artificial way." Here is an industry maintaining 85 per cent. of the population, and it is being moulded and directed in a completely artificial way by means of a golden channel subscribed to by the people of the country. An acre of wheat is unproductive, because the farmer is not able to produce wheat unless he gets money as a gift from the Government, and that money can only come out of other people's pockets. The Government is destroying the market for beasts. It has embarked upon a policy of slaughtering calves in order to get rid of them. We are told to develop beet, wheat and sugar. When an acre of beet is grown it requires a subsidy from the Government, and that has to come out of some other productive activity in the country unless it comes out of the country's accumulated savings. What are the other productive activities of the Government that the subsidy could come out of? When an acre of wheat is grown it does not pay for the cost of production unless the Government gives it a bounty. The bounty must come from some industry which produces at a profit in order to have that surplus to give to the man who is growing wheat, or else it is coming out of the people's accumulated savings, and there is a definite time limit in that regard.
So far as tobacco is concerned, exactly the same thing applies. The money is not given directly; it is given in the nature of relief of taxation. I recognise Government policy as unity and so far as their economic policy is concerned, while I am not going to say that we will see the country bankrupt to-morrow, what I will say is that the life-time of their economic policy is really governed by the accumulated savings in the country. Whatever loss per acre is made in regard to beet and wheat, that is a mathematical problem. If one knew the value of the capital in this country one could place a time limit as to when the resources of the country would be exhausted; one could place a time limit on the life of that economic policy.
Now, what is the social policy? The President's social policy is class war, and it is his own record that drives him to that. If I said that everybody will admit that the more educated and the more intelligent people in this country tend to support us, whereas the less educated, the less fortunate, and the less intelligent people tend to support Fianna Fáil, I would be accused of having a sort of Party snobbishness. One argument that might be advanced by Fianna Fáil is that the people can only think in terms of class. They may say: "When a man has worldly possessions, material possessions, of course he supports your Party because it is the Party of the wealthy man. We are the Party of the under-dog, the poor man." The whole implication is the Marxian doctrine that the human mind does not know truth as truth; it only sees a form of truth in relation to class. We are supposed to represent one class, and Fianna Fáil say: "We stand for the poor man, the under-dog. Ours is the national doctrine." The coincidence that practically as an overwhelmingly general rule the more educated, the more intelligent people support us has to be accounted for by the fact that truth has no reality; it is only a vision seen through the eyes of class and the people when they belong to a certain class automatically react in a certain way, not because their minds are convinced of a thing but because it is in the interests of a class that it should be so.
The President, talking about the Seanad, said his heart hungered, and the dream of his life had always been to have an assembly of wise, impartial men who would view things completely and impartially from the point of view of their accumulated wisdom and would judge them in the way that wisdom would indicate. But, he said, they would belong to Parties; they would belong to one Party or another, and, therefore, you would not get an impartial judgment at all. It never seems to strike the President of the Executive Council that a man can conceive things otherwise than through the eyes of Party. It does not even strike him that if he were able to have this assembly of what he calls the wise, and if it happened that that assembly did support one Party rather than another that that support could be given for any other reason than that they were out to support a particular Party. It may be that they would not be supporting a policy because it was the policy of a Party but it never entered his head that they could support a Party because it was the Party with a policy. Every time anyone supports us we are told they are simply partisans. The President cannot conceive it possible that wise men, unprejudiced men, viewing things in the light of existing facts, could be right, and that he could be wrong. He says that a body, like the Seanad, ceases to be right when it agrees with a particular Party. The Seanad, as a general rule, agreed with us rather more than with the Fianna Fáil Party. From that the President argues that the Seanad is a party of hirelings, servile party creatures of ours. It is inconceivable to him that the Seanad could judge things irrespective of Party. It never strikes him that a body like the Seanad, judging things irrespective of Party, would be against him because his policy is demonstrably wrong, leading to destruction from its very beginning. His basis of production seems to be that farmers, instead of growing things that can be sold at a price equal to the cost of production, plus something for the producer, must depend entirely upon a system of bounties and subsidies. Incidentally, I think socially his policy is a most damnable policy. We are told that the labourer is worthy of his hire. Before this Government came into power there were many men in the country unemployed; they were in the unfortunate position that they were not worthy of their hire. They could not go out to hire for wages. When this Government came into power it increased the number of the unemployed. But it did more than that. The farmer, now that he grows wheat and potatoes for industrial alcohol, knows perfectly well he cannot say to himself: "I am happy. There is dignity and nobility in my work because I am producing food and goods for the people." He says nothing of the sort now. He says it would be much better to try to produce according to the old system, but I cannot do it. He sees that by producing early potatoes and so much wheat, the Government, by taking so much money out of the pockets of other people, are going to hand it over to him as a gift. He sees there is no longer any dignity and nobility in this work. Because he is producing something that is not really worth the labour and the cost of production and which could not be produced, except if the producer gets something from the Government in payment which is taken out of the pockets of other people. That is the President's economic policy. It comes to this: that as a result of his economic policy the farmers are now living on the dole. The late Minister for Agriculture said on one occasion it was no use going into farming in order to make a fortune, because you cannot do it. To make farming successful you have to do a good deal of very hard work, and there was a great deal to be learned about it. Now the farmer is simply on the dole. The same applies, in the case of the industrialist, because the Government has farmed out to them the right to tax other people. Workers are unable to be paid out of the profits, but industry has been given the power to tax other people. If there is a tariff of 50 or 60 per cent. put upon goods, that is really a tax on the people in order to make what is really unproductive work appear to be productive.
Socially and economically the President's policy is thoroughly bad. His whole policy is a policy of class distinction. A few weeks ago the President held up a certain class of farmers as people living on the fat of the land, and he pointed them out to the envy, cupidity and malice of other people. He asked these people, in so many words, to support him and they soon would be able to rejoice, especially all those that were humble. The Minister for Defence afterwards said that unless the farmers used their land as the Government, in tyrannical and dictatorial terms, ordered the land would be taken from them, and given to somebody more subservient to the Government's policy. Personally I deny the right of any Government to take the land from the farmers of this country. It has been already taken from many farmers. Years ago most of the farmers of this country bought out their land and were paying interest on sinking fund back to the people who advanced the money through various channels, including the Land Commission and other means. The Government last year passed an Act that purported to reduce the land annuities by 50 per cent. The Government has no right to collect any annuities which fell for payment prior to the Land Act of 1923. I deny their right to do so. By such conduct they make themselves landlords. Prior to the Land Purchase Act the landlord owned the land in this State. But the State now begins to butt in, saying: "You borrowed money from A or B, pay me now, and not the man from whom it was borrowed. The British Government will now have to pay the people to whom that money was due out of taxation. But I claim you must pay me." That to my mind implies an immoral policy of expropriation, and that is what is being carried on here. The President says: "You are appealing to a different class which must necessarily be regarded as enemies." This country, he says, this Irish nation—is not a unity. There is no use talking about the Irish people. In this country there are big farmers and small farmers. The country is not an entity, it is a cockpit in which there is to be conducted a continual fight between one Party and another. The President claims to have a majority Party, but his majority is one without any regard for justice. They won such support as they have obtained by dealing with everything that was ignoble, and by such methods, they hope to continue to get such support and in fact to become the permanent Government of this country. The whole policy of the President denies the existence of the Irish nation. What does the Irish nation mean? If it means anything it means, irrespective of these differences between us, that there is a common bond irrespective of class which makes unity between us and which is in reality what we call a reality. His whole policy denies that reality. It is economically disastrous, socially disastrous, morally disastrous. So also is his class war.
Mind you, all this is no accident. I do not want to go back to the past but you remember that the President is a person who up to a certain stage had a certain following. He decided he would make a trimming of his sails. But when he did certain people did not follow him. Now it is an accident that they did not go on and follow him because it was inevitable in his policy from the beginning. He misunderstood the situation that was created by the Treaty. He had then to say: "We have still to fight for independence." The passage of years made it abundantly clear to the people that we had got our independence and that there was nothing more to fight for; that the difference between the Free State and the Republic was all there was to fight about and that that difference was not worth a straw.
But he had led unfortunate men out to death fighting about a difference that neither he nor they could explain to-day. Consequently the policy of that Party had to have this orientation:— He had to soft-pedal and to talk about the social revolution. If they had all been like Deputy Donnelly following him with blind loyalty it would be all right. It would be all right if when he said "turn" they would all turn. But he forgot that the people have not that agility of mind that he and Deputy Donnelly have. It has been said elsewhere that the movement to the left brings you to the extreme edge of the pavement and you fall into the gutter. That is bound to happen. That is what is happening to all those poor devils that he led at the earlier stages and that is the inevitable movement of Fianna Fáil at the present moment.
The only clear principle in the President's present policy is his consciousness of his past. His whole policy is that he should set up as a dictator. That is behind his attempt to abolish the Seanad. We are now asked to vote a sum of money for his Department. What are we doing? If one casts one's mind back to an earlier period in Rome one finds that Rome had kings. When the king proceeded to govern according to his own will, and not in accordance with law, he was declared a tyrant. That was the meaning of tyrant. Now here we have the President who is using his power and authority to get himself made master over the law. Any law that stands in his way has to be changed. At his own will with his servile Party he can change that law and get it out of the way. He puts himself in exactly the same position as what happened in the case of the Romans who got rid of their king on the ground that he was a tyrant. When they got rid of the king they put the power in the hands of one man and called it a dictatorship. As far as we are concerned here, the power is now in the hands of one man.
Deputy Davin challenged me with a show of great heat and excitement to say whether the general election of 1932 and the general election of 1933 had not been freely held. I believe, as a matter of fact, that there was an enormous amount of dishonesty at the last election so far as personation and things like that are concerned, but I am not going to bother about these now. What I want to point out is that the President goes round the country appealing to the passions of one section of the community, and promising another section something, assuring them that he will retain the land annuities and that he has only to make it clear to the British Government that he has behind him the support of the electors of this country to put him in the position of being able to retain them. All we have got to do is to say "yes" every time he wants us to say "yes." But that is a thing I have no intention of doing. That is a proposal which can only be made by men like President de Valera, who can only think in terms of dictatorship and tyranny.
The reign of justice, as Catherine of Sienna says, is a conserving of the affairs of the State. The existence of the State is for the purpose of promoting a reign of justice among the people. What happens here? Justice is soiled at its very fountain. I referred to one case. To get back again to ancient Rome, it is of interest to know that there was a period when the laws were not notified to the people. That created such a condition of injustice that the laws had afterwards to be pasted up in the forum. When the laws were kept secret it was possible for the Senate and the Council to outrage justice. There has been one typical instance of that here. The Government, through the operations of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, have power to meet in the Council Chamber and to write down a statement—whether true or not — that they consider a certain association an unlawful association. The moment they do that anybody who belongs to that association, no matter how lawful are its rules and methods, can be brought before the Military Tribunal. The Military Tribunal is bound to take that order of the Government as complete evidence of the unlawful nature of the association. Anybody who is found to belong to that association is then due to be punished.
The Government on a certain day made an order declaring illegal an association which was not, and could not be, an illegal association. Having created that situation they arrested a man who was known to everybody to have taken the first and immediate step to rectify his position with regard to that association. They brought him before the Military Tribunal, and the Military Tribunal had no option but to find the man guilty, though they knew he was not guilty. The Military Tribunal knew that the Government was outraging truth but they had to find the man guilty when they had the evidence before them of the order made by the Government. That was a man that the Government knows perfectly well could not by any stretch of the imagination be a breaker of the law in relation to that fact. That man was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and served that sentence. That was an outrage against justice.
The Government that creates such a situation cannot ask or expect us to recognise sanctity in its authority. That was the authority that declared the National Guard, in their opinion, to be an unlawful association. Then this man who took steps immediately to disband the National Guard was arrested because, in the intervening space that had elapsed, he had been technically a member of the association which he was actually engaged in disbanding, an association which the Government, regardless of the truth, declared to be an unlawful association. That man was sentenced, against all justice, to three months' imprisonment. No Minister and no President, who acted in that way, can ask for any sanctity to be given to their authority.
Then there is another point in this connection. This is a country as we all know with a very bad record in this matter. It has a record of political achievements by means of revolutionary methods. It is a country which has not a long tradition of settling down and accepting things. I say that in the interests of order—and the President said he agreed with me—one is bound to suffer a certain amount of injustice, to suffer under it rather than rise up against it. But in this country we have not that tradition. We have seen certain political achievements as a result of revolutionary methods. But here you have a Government which is creating a position in which the farmer who wants to provide for his family sees his patrimony and his way of living taken away from him. The means he had and on which he relied to support his children are being taken away from him. He has either to sit down under that and go in with his family to the poorhouse; or, under the old tradition, he may well say that he is not going to sit quietly down under it.
People have seen the Government sending men whom they knew to be innocent to prison. If the Attorney-General were here I would ask him to deny, if he can, the sentencing of Commandant Cronin to three months' imprisonment for membership of a national organisation which was declared by the Government to be an unlawful association. In the case of a Government like that you have the position that its justice is beneath contempt. Its authority can have, in the people's minds, no sanctity. The same people who see the Government prostituting justice know that the Government's policy for the purpose of saving the President's face is leading the country to poverty and ruin. These things are done in a country with a very bad tradition of revolutionary methods. And, at the same time, what happens? You have other organisations that are specifically revolutionary defended by the Government. There has been no declaration of the I.R.A., which is an unlawful association. Some time ago, I think on a Supplementary Estimate for the Department of Education, I referred to the case of a certain man who was getting a pension camouflaged as a salary. I referred to a statement he made to a body called Sinn Féin. I described that as an unlawful association. The Minister for Education got up and either questioned or challenged my statement that it was an unlawful association, an association that declares that this Dáil is illegal, and that this Government has no authority whatsoever, but that somewhere outside there is another Government with the power of life and death, the power to control an Army and so on, and to say what shall and what shall not be done in this country. This is an organisation which says that some arcana body outside is the Government of this country with the right to order our lives and to have the power of life and death. The Minister for Education challenged my statement that such a body as that is an unlawful association. Of course, it is an unlawful association. It is unlawful not only from the point of view of the law of this country, but from the point of view of the eternal and immutable law which governs every country all the time.
The Government have taken no action whatever against the I.R.A. The members of that organisation are perfectly frank when they are brought into the courts. They deny anybody's right to interfere with them or with their arms. They have announced as their policy that they are an armed body ready to fight for the complete freedom that President de Valera talks about. They deny the right of this or any other Government to rule here. They deny the right of any Government except this arcana body outside to control them in any way. They deny the right of the courts to try them. There is also what is called a Congress Party, a sort of modern version of Saor Eire. It also denies that it is an unlawful body, but, of course, in the eyes of every person who recognises the moral law, it is an unlawful body and yet the Government leaves it perfectly free.
In the prosecutions that are taking place we find that the Government are showing a direct bias in favour of criminal organisations and against lawful and praiseworthy associations. That is the Government that has control of this State. The authority that is doing that is a body of men who have received authority to promote the reign of law here, but this Government is prostituting that authority. Its real activities are directed towards destroying order in this country. The coordinating force of that Government is the dictator, President de Valera—the man who has seized to himself, by the process of law but really by unlawful means, power that no dictator in Europe has attempted to seize to himself.
The Seanad had to be got rid of. One of the arguments against the Seanad was that they had passed the 17th Amendment to the Constitution which we introduced towards the end of 1931. We brought that amendment to the Constitution in when men had been murdered, when the jury system had collapsed, and when witnesses going into the courts to give evidence realised that if they kept their oaths and refused to commit perjury they had the prospect of being murdered by members of unlawful associations. When justice, which as I have said is the conservative force of the State, was being overthrown in this country we took possession of those extraordinary powers. This Government has resurrected that amendment to the Constitution. A day or two ago I read in the newspapers the report of a case in which members of the I.R.A. were being tried before an ordinary judge and jury in the County Longford. Anyone who reads the report will see that the judge indicated that these men were guilty. If anyone reads the evidence he will see that it clearly proved that these men were guilty. The jury found them innocent.
That sort of thing was happening in our time and we brought in the Seventeenth Amendment. There was a reign of terror, and, human nature being what it is, cowardly and weak, you could not get jurymen to bring in a verdict of guilty, even when they knew that the accused person was guilty, because they realised that they might have to face the assassin's bullet for doing so. I give that case as an illustration. The Government have the Military Tribunal. It brings Captain Hughes and the others before it while, at the same time, it brings cases such as this Longford one before a judge and jury, knowing full well that a special law is there, brought in for the purpose of protecting juries from terrorisation. The Government sent the Longford case before a jury, leaving the jury in the position of bringing in a verdict which the judge realised was against the evidence. The Government had the power to save the jury from that. They had the power to send that case before the Military Tribunal, which would not be subject to such terrorism, but these men were members of the I.R.A. The I.R.A. have complained that under President de Valera there are more Republicans in jail than Blueshirts. Well, these Republicans are not in jail. They are free men because the jury, by the neglect of this Government, were put in the position that they had either to find the men not guilty or face up to the terrorisation that the organisation could bring to bear against them. The Government know that, and yet they put the jury in that position, although in other directions they have used their power to send cases before the Military Tribunal. The President of the Executive Council is a man who is responsible for the Government policy. He comes here and asks the Dáil to vote money for the support of his policy.
There is one item in the Estimate that brings to my mind a little incident in the Acts of the Apostles where Ananias said that he got a certain amount for a field, and St. Peter said:
"Whilst it remained, did it not remain to them? And after it was sold, was it not in their power?"
The crime of Ananias was to pretend that he got less than he did. When we were the Government the present Ministers went up and down the country talking about us with our £1,700 a year. They said that they were not going to stand for anything like that. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that £500 a year for Minister would be enough, although he thought that the President should get £1,000 a year if he would agree to take it. The contemptible dishonesty of this business is the income tax. They went on doing their propaganda work around the country, but they did not work out the sum deducted for income tax purposes from the £1,700 a year. When that deduction was made we only got so much, but when they come into power the actual legal sum which goes to Ministers is not set down lest the people should see it.
The sum is given free of income tax, so that it will look that they are taking less than they really are taking. Nothing was so contemptible as, first, the propaganda that was put round, and secondly, the little subterfuge, as President de Valera did not want the people to know that—although Deputy Lemass stated that they should not have over £1,000 a year—when they came in they wanted more than £1,000, but did not want the people to know how much more. Such a Government as that has, and necessarily must have, nothing but the contempt of the people. When the President talks about a republic as the ideal and the objective, what is meant? It should mean that he is able to point to such and such a Government as one existing for the common good, to promote the welfare of the people; showing, after considering various forms of government, that the republican form will provide in the existing circumstances for the common good in a way that the Free State form of government will not. Has he ever attempted to get up and demonstrate that the republican form of government in existing circumstances represents an improvement in our present position? He has done nothing of the sort. None of the shricking women can do it. The President did get up and say that they would declare a republic only that they were afraid of certain things. What he means is that he would declare a republic to-morrow but for the fact that that action of turning the Free State into a republic would bring such a disimprovement in the condition of the people that even he, who has always shown an enormous heroism in sacrificing others, hesitates to sacrifice the people in that way. His action indicates that while he says he stands for a republic he admits that the republic he stands for is something which will injure the people of this country. The whole purpose of government is to have whatever form will benefit the people. The President's negation of argument in that matter is typical of his whole career.
The President says that he laments the fact that our meetings are broken up by hooligans. These people are always shouting "up de Valera." They are his supporters. It is a peculiar thing, but it is remarkable that when Fianna Fáil have meetings they are not interrupted, but that when we have meetings they are often broken up. I have seen bottles thrown at our meetings. It is undoubted that the supporters of Fianna Fáil tend rather to be the disorderly element in the community, more than the supporters of Fine Gael. That is noticeably true. Secondly, we notice that when President de Valera preaches his fiery doctrine, the people rally to him and actually do what he wants. But when he gets up and asks people to give him the authority that he is so proud of, saying, "I would much rather you behaved as human beings and as Christians than as howling blackguards and hooligans." What happens at the next meeting? The same riot takes place. They are not prepared to take his advice. It is interesting to notice from the indications we have that the supporters of Fianna Fáil are the worst elements in this country. It does not, to my mind, affect the true position at all if the worst elements are rather more numerous—it does not make the better elements better—although it does happen to make President de Valera President. It is a striking thing that the blackguard element are always shouting "Up de Valera," and it is a striking thing that when Fianna Fáil are having meetings there is not that blackguard element interrupting.
Deputy Donnelly talked about something the late General Collins said in the Mansion House in 1919. What is the use of dragging in such things now? If I remember the occasion rightly three men, one of whom was the celebrated Frank P. Walsh, who has done so remarkably well out of the Irish patriotic movement, came to the Mansion House and said that it would be useful propaganda to get various Deputies to speak about British financial wrongs towards this country. In such a case you get up speakers, look for suitable arguments, not so much in relation to the question as of propaganda value. Then, as the President did with regard to the Seanad, you get someone to look up quotations to support arguments to abolish the Seanad. He did not want anyone to see what was the real argument for and against the proposal. It was exactly the same in the other case. They were propaganda statements, made in the Mansion House in 1919, and Deputy Donnelly gets up now and thinks we must not be guided by what we think is reality or the truth because someone said something sometime and we must assume he had indefectible wisdom. That, if brought to the 100 per cent. point, would somehow destroy the whole case for Irish nationality.
Deputy Davin talked about what was said at the last election. I am sorry he is not here now. He said that Deputy Cosgrave said he was satisfied that if he was elected the tariffs on our goods going to England would be removed in three days, and that the land annuities would be reduced by 50 per cent. Ex-President Cosgrave had been negotiating during ten years with the British. On one occasion when President de Valera said that we would have to pay £18,000,000 or £19,000,000 a year in relation to a certain settlement, we got that wiped out altogether. Although we had Mr. de Valera, as he then was, pointing to the enormous annual sum we were committed to pay, President Cosgrave negotiated and got that wiped out. We negotiated with the British for ten years and we had some idea of what could and could not be achieved by negotiation. If I remember rightly, speaking from memory, at the time of that election, or after, everyone happened to know of certain rather backstairs communication between the members of the Government and the British. We happened to have some idea of the trend of that backstairs communication, and if Deputy Davin had the same information, I think he would have realised that in promising the land annuities would be reduced by 50 per cent. we were making a promise which we had every human reason to believe would not only be fulfillable, but would be very easily fulfillable. That was the truth with regard to that. To-morrow I should be prepared to tell the people that as soon as there is a Government—even this Government— prepared to negotiate with the British purely on the land annuities—not to argue about going before an international tribunal for arbitration, but rather that the discussion should be on the basis of our capacity to pay—that Government—or the present Government—could promise the farmers that the tariffs would be removed, and that they would not have to pay more than 50 per cent. of the land annuities to England. Not only am I satisfied of that, but I am also satisfied that the members of the present Government are satisfied on that point. Deputy Davin wanted information on another point. He asked why the previous Government did not make that settlement. The Deputy said that we declared at the election in 1932 that we hoped and expected to increase our majority. As far as I am personally concerned—I cannot speak for my colleagues—I did not expect anything of the sort. There was to be an election not later than September. The Ottawa Conference was coming off in 1932, and anyone who knows anything about negotiation should know that there were signs that we were less likely to get support at that election than before.
If we had gone to Ottawa in the month of August or July when it was known that, under the Constitution, there had to be an election not later than September we would not have had a strong authority for negotiating. Anybody who was going to negotiate at Ottawa at the conference at which there were great possibilities of achieving great good for our agricultural community—it could have been done even by the present Government if it had a care to do it—would know that it was pre-eminently desirable that the representatives of the Irish Government present at Ottawa should be representatives of a Government that had a prospect of looking forward to some years of life, be able to enter into agreements there and not be discussing agreements with a very strong probability that there would be a change of Government within a month or so, a change of Government which was more than a change, which was, in effect, a revolutionary change. There is no doubt about it that when we were negotiating in 1930 there was the fact that we were coming towards the end of our term, that there was a strong possibility of a change of Government, not a change of Government in the sense in which it occurs in other countries, a change between tweedledum and tweedledee, but a change which might represent an extreme revolutionary change. Already in 1930 that atmosphere was present.
There was also the fact that the world slump was only slowly affecting us. It is hard to say when you reach a certain point at what moment, if a man is losing money steadily, he is still able to pay or what moment he is not able to pay. There is always a somewhat dubious period. One might argue in 1932, however, that economically, it was difficult to pay. In 1932 there was an overwhelming argument on the basis of capacity to pay. I, personally, would have been against raising the question of the land annuities in 1930, but in 1932 there was the formula of the Lausanne Conference, the formula of liability to pay grounded on the capacity to pay. After that conference in 1932 our own incapacity to pay became demonstrably clear, much more than at any previous time. In 1932 you had the advantage of being able to show very clearly that you were unable to pay as you had been before. At the same time you had the Lausanne formula in support of negotiations for the retention or elimination of the payment of the land annuities. What was possible in that year might not have been possible two years before.
There is one thing upon which the House will be unanimous and that is that we have just listened to a very tiresome and tedious speech because the product of the petty mind must always be boring. We have listened to a speech which is the product of a small mind, brooding over small things. Deputy Fitzgerald, I am sorry to say, has left the House. In his speech he referred to some statements made by Deputy Donnelly and said that he admired Deputy Donnelly for his loyalty just as he admired loyalty in dogs. He might have added another phrase, and said that loyalty was a quality which was sometimes to be found in dogs, but was never to be found in curs. If there is one Deputy who owes a debt of gratitude to President de Valera it is Deputy Fitzgerald. He has told us that he was chained to the President when he was in prison. He has told us how he was an associate and companion of the President, but he should have told us, if he intended to be candid, how but for the President he would never have occupied the position in the councils of the First Dáil, that he did, because it was by President de Valera's election, and not by the choice of members of the First Dáil, that Deputy Fitzgerald occupied the position, as member of the First Cabinet that he held.
What we have listened to to-night in this speech was a slander on the President from the beginning to the end. It was the speech of a perverted mind looking at the present to find in it a reflection of its own past. We have been told that the mentality of the President has been to justify the past. Reference was made to criminal actions in 1922. What has brought this country to the condition in which we now find it except the murderous attack on the Four Courts launched in June, 1922? The Deputy who has just gone out knows the origin of that attack and the mystery of it is none to him. He has it in his power to solve that mystery and to make the truth plain to the people. There are certain documents in the possession of the Executive Council. If there is anybody wishes to challenge the statement made by General Macready—that the attack on the Four Courts was ordered by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, that General Macready refused to undertake the task himself as a British soldier in this country, and that instead the Executive Council here shouldered the burden for him—if there is anyone who can let Irish people know the truth of that mystery it is Deputy Fitzgerald and his colleagues who can ask us to lay on the table the despatches which were received from the British Government. I challenged him when speaking to make that request, and because he knew I was going to repeat the challenge, he has taken the coward's refuge and fled from the House.
The policy of the President and the attitude of the President and his Government in retaining the land annuities in this country have also been condemned. We have taken the stand in that regard that these annuities are not properly due, are not morally or rightfully due from our people to the British Government. The only justification that the British Government have been able to produce, the only substantiation which the British Government have been able to produce for their claim, has been the agreement of 1923. Deputy Fitzgerald has stated that there was nothing wrong in that agreement, that it merely confirmed what was in the existing law. If there was nothing wrong in that agreement, why was its text kept secret from 1923 until 1932? We knew nothing about it. We had been in office for some months and it had never been brought to our notice. The first time our attention was directed to it was in the despatch received from the British Secretary to the Dominions. We searched the records carefully and we then discovered that that agreement was in existence, that it had been signed in February, 1923, but had not been disclosed to our people.
Deputy Fitzgerald said there was nothing wrong in signing that agreement because it merely confirmed what was the position under the existing law. If there was nothing wrong in signing that agreement what was the motive for keeping the agreement secret? I know that if Deputy Cosgrave were in the House he would say that the agreement was not kept secret and that if Deputy Fitzgerald were here he would repeat that statement. Here is a despatch dated 15th July, 1925, from the Dominions Office in Downing Street. This passage occurs in it:—
"The Attorney-General may wish to put in the Financial Agreement of February 12th, 1923. This will, of course, involve publication, and it is clear that we cannot publish part only but must publish the whole. Have you any objection to this? So far as I can see, the only point on which objection may arise is as to (b) (Land Purchase, New Scheme)."
Then this is the text of the telegraphic reply sent on the 17/7/1925:—
"Secretary of State for the Colonies, London.
"Your letter of the 15th in petition of right case received to-day, Friday. Stop. Receipts asked for being sent to-night. No serious objection to publishing, if necessary, Agreement No. 2 about compensation or any part of it, but we cannot at present agree to publishing entire body of agreement. Writing."
Then, the text of that telegram was confirmed on 17th July, 1925, in the following letter:
On a point of order, Sir, is it in accordance with' the rules of the House to go in this detail into documents of so many years ago on an Estimate?
The whole policy of the Government on the economic war has been challenged by the opposite side.
The question of that agreement was raised in the debate. Whether such documents should be read is for the Executive Council to decide—not for me.
I was merely referring, Sir, to the question of order— as to the relevancy of these documents.
As the matter was raised in the debate, the Minister has the right to reply, and if in his reply he quotes certain documents, that is at his discretion—particularly if he is quoting them in full.
I should like to say—still on the point of order—that the matter was raised in the debate originally by Deputy Donnelly, one of the Deputies on the Government side. That led, as these things always do, to some extension of the reference by a Deputy on this side. Now we are going on to still further fields.
It is a pity the Deputy was not here to make that point when Deputy Fitzgerald was here, because it might have been more advantageous to the Opposition side in the debate if Deputy Fitzgerald had been stopped. However, this is my reply to the Deputy:—
"Dear——,
"In reply to your letter of the 15th instant, which did not reach here until this morning, I write to confirm as follows the substance of the telegram which did not reach here until this morning, I write to confirm as follows the substance of the telegram which I sent you to-day concerning the petition of right...
"I enclose, as requested, the two receipts in original, dated 13th September, 1923, and 29th November, 1923. Mr. Blythe sees considerable objection from the political standpoint to publishing in extenso the document setting forth the Financial Agreements of 12th February, 1923. If necessary for a successful defence, he would not object to the disclosure of the principal agreement (No. II) which is concerned with compensation. If your Attorney-General definitely advises that a successful defence would be materially prejudiced by non-disclosure of the entire document, perhaps you would send me-word to this effect so that we might, if necessary, discuss the matter furthere in London next Tuesday.”
If the 1923 agreement, in the words of Deputy Fitzgerald, merely confirmed the existing law as it stood on the day the Treaty was signed, why did Mr. Blythe see considerable objection, from a political standpoint, to publishing in extenso the agreement of 1923? When Deputy Fitzgerald says the whole policy of the Government is to justify their past, is it not quite clear that, in regard to the dispute about the land annuities at any rate, the whole purpose of the Opposition is to justify their past also? Any members of the House who listened to the earlier part of Deputy Fitzgerald's speech could only have come to one conclusion: that the Deputy would much prefer that this dispute should be protracted and long-drawn out rather than that the Irish people should succeed, and that the one thing he dreads is that the economic war might end and that our right to retain the land annuities would be fully conceded to Great Britain.
Deputy Fitzgerald is an unlicensed theologian. Most of the evils and misfortunes which befell the Continent of Europe sprang from men, with a little learning, who concerned themselves with matters of metaphysics and morals and indulged in word-spinning and tenuous thought without the real substance of knowledge to inform it. The Deputy, in the earlier part of his speech, said that even if the whole of his Party would agree to co-operate with us, even if Fine Gael did adopt the attitude which is taken up by the Opposition in the British House of Commons in regard, say, to the American debt, he would alone stand out against it. He asked, how could he support President de Valera who employs his police as agents provocateurs? The President has never employed his police or any other persons or any other instruments in that capacity. I said, when I was speaking, that Deputy Fitzgerald looked at the President through a distorting mirror of his own mind and saw in it a reflection of his own past. In the year 1931, an unfortunate man was murdered here in Dublin, and at the inquest it was disclosed that he had been used as a police agent by the Government of which Deputy Fitzgerald was a member. It was rank hypocrisy on the part of Deputy Fitzgerald to get up here and level the charge that we used the police or any other people as agents provocateurs. The Deputy made of his speech a mountain of falsehood, but he was very careless as to his facts. When the statements of a person, who is a calumniator or a prevaricator, are judged by the touchstone of fact and when they are tested by reference to what the facts are, their falsity becomes apparent to everyone.
Deputy Fitzgerald claimed that the more educated and the more intelligent people tend to support the Fine Gael Party. It is only 15 months since the general election was fought. I am not going to say that university graduates are more intelligent than the general run of mankind, but they are believed to be more educated. In the National University— the university which might be taken as representing the vast majority of the educated classes in this country—we secured two seats to the one seat secured by Deputy Fitzgerald's Party. Let us judge Deputy Fitzgerald's speech, and let us address ourselves to testing the worth of the wild statements it contained, by just taking that one little thing which we can test by the known facts. He said that the more educated and more intelligent people tend to support Fine Gael. In the National University we held two seats out of three and Deputy Fitzgerald's statement in that regard is proven to be false. He made another statement about the number of people engaged in the agricultural industry in this country. He said he thought they represented 85 per cent. of the population. That shows how little Deputy Fitzgerald, who was for ten years a member of the Government and who, I believe, has been living here since about 1914, knows about the country.
On a point of order, Deputy Fitzgerald did not claim that 85 per cent. of the people of this country were engaged in agriculture.
That is not a point of order.
Well, a point of correction.
There is a Deputy sitting on the Front Bench and aspiring to sit here sometime as a member of a Government and he does not even know what a point of order is.
I know that when you are up there is disorder about.
Deputy Fitzgerald said that 85 per cent. of the people of this country were engaged in agriculture. That is all he knows about the country, although he was a member of the Government for ten years and has lived in this country, I believe, since about 1914. In 1926 a census of agricultural production was published by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. In it it was stated that, I think, 63 per cent. of the population was engaged in agricultural production and 37 per cent. in other occupations. That shows, I admit, a greatly unbalanced economy, because in Denmark, which is regarded as, perhaps, the greatest agricultural country in Europe, the figures are, I think, 25 per cent. in agricultural production and 75 per cent. in other occupations. Judge the speech of the Deputy by that second fact—that he does not know what proportion of the population is engaged in agriculture— and see for yourselves with what little authority Deputy Fitzgerald can speak on this or any other subject relating to the Irish people.
The Deputy alleged that the policy of the present Government was a policy of expropriation. Once again, in that statement, we see Deputy Fitzgerald's mind reflecting his own past. He was a member of a Government which allowed its agents to walk into the houses of Irish citizens, expropriate their property and, then, precluded the people who had been injured in that way from seeking redress in the courts of the State. Goods were commandeered and property was destroyed in 1922 and 1923 and if the person whose property was destroyed or whose goods were commandeered happened to be a Republican, he could not seek to secure for himself compensation for the damage or payment for the property. We are told that we have adopted an immoral policy of expropriation. That comes out of the mouth of a Deputy who was a member of a Government under whom goods were wrongfully taken and who, when they were wrongfully taken, failed to fulfil the precept of the Seventh Commandment and make restitution.
We are told that we are setting class against class. That comes from a Deputy who was a member of a Government who would not allow a Republican to get employment in this country. I can speak with very intimate and close knowledge of this matter. I know of cases of officials, public employees, who were, by general assent, considered to be among the most efficient officers that the State could procure, who had served local authorities during the Black-and-Tan war, who had stood to their guns through thick and through thin and who were compelled, in 1925, to vacate posts that they had secured on their merits under the British régime because they would not sign a declaration to which they felt, in conscience, they could not subscribe. We are told that we are setting class against class by this Deputy, who was a member of a Government which would not allow a man, whether he were married, whether he had a wife and family dependent upon him, whether he had been unemployed for years, to get a job on his merits as a man and upon the weight of the family obligations that rested upon him, unless he happened to have served in the National Army. Yet, we are told that we are setting class against class.
Deputy Fitzgerald, in reply to Deputy Davin's challenge as to how they knew they would be able to reduce the land annuities by half if they came into power as a result of the election of 1933, said that, in promising to halve the annuities, they were making a promise they had reason to believe would be easily fulfillable. What reason had they to believe that if they came into power it would be possible for them to make a settlement?
Mulcahy was in Glasgow.
What reason had they to believe that they would be able to make a settlement which would enable them to reduce the annuities by half? That is a question which, I think, ought to be answered.
I have answered it.
Deputy Fitzgerald made the statement and I think that it warrants further investigation. We had been elected as the Government by the people in 1932 to retain these annuities. Because we had retained them, tariffs were imposed upon us and free entry into the British market for our goods was forbidden—at least, that was the ostensible reason why the tariffs were imposed and why the entry of our goods into the British market was restricted. We were carrying out our policy as a Government with all the authority with which a Government is endowed in a country in which, according to the people who had been on these benches for ten years, a civil war was fought to make the will of the people dominant. The people had expressed their will in regard to a certain matter. We came along vested with the people's authority. We were carrying out the people's policy and while we were doing this, the Opposition, which was opposing us on the platform, in the country and in the Dáil, the Opposition which was impending and obstructing us in every way, is able, when a general election is proclaimed, to make the statement that if they were returned to power, they would be able to halve the annuities and Deputy Fitzgerald said, in justification of that statement that was made, that they had reason to believe that that promise would have been easily fulfillable.
What were the reasons that enabled them to believe that? Had they entered into a bargain? Did they know that if they came into power the British would have agreed to take 50 per cent. of the land annuities? Did they know that? I am taking them at their word. I am not suggesting that Deputy Cosgrave when he made that statement did not speak without the book, and I am not suggesting that Deputy Fitzgerald when he got up here this evening and said that they had reason to believe that that promise would be easily fulfillable was lying. I am taking him at his word and for what his word is worth, and I am asking him what reason had he so to believe? Was it because there had been negotiations going on of which the Government was not aware, because if two countries are in a dispute and a citizen of one country has any truck or traffic with a citizen of the other, it is the duty of all loyal citizens to ensure that the Government has full knowledge of what is going on. If Deputy Fitzgerald had reason to believe that they would be able to halve the annuities, and if Deputy Cosgrave had reason to believe that, it is because they were aware of some discussions that had taken place with the other parties to this dispute and they had not, as was their duty as loyal citizens to do, disclosed those negotiations to the Government.
They met the man from Glasgow.
I do not care where they met. The fact is that they must have met someone somewhere.
Nonsense.
And if there was a mistake about Glasgow, there may not be a mistake about other places. Otherwise——
Knaves and traitors now stand aside.
——there must be no foundation for the statements the Opposition have made. Either they had reason to believe they would fulfil that promise or they made that promise and were not at the time they made it in a position to ensure that it would be fulfilled. They cannot have it both ways. Either you had your secret negotiations or else, you made rash promises, the only purpose of which was to deceive and mislead the people.
Shame!
It is a shame. It is a shame that any responsible political Party in this country or any person pretending to be a responsible politician should put himself in the position in which Deputy Cosgrave, Deputy Fitzgerald and Fine Gael put themselves.
And reduce taxation by £2,000,000!
There is just one other point. Deputy Fitzgerald said that when they went along to meetings people shouted: "Up de Valera" and "Up the Republic" and that that was a proof that the worst elements in this country were supporting Fianna Fáil. I do not know whether I would be justified in assuming that the whole body of Fine Gael supporters are to be judged by the members of that organisation who, from time to time, appear either before the Military Tribunal or in the police courts. Within the past six or seven weeks the members who have appeared in the courts of this city include certain of the biggest blackguards that ever disgraced this country. A prominent member of your organisation, a dismissed civil servant, was discovered to have forged the signature of the head of his Department. We know that man was guilty of abstracting from the post letters which were addressed to the head of that Department and that those letters had reference to his wife and dependents who were a public charge in Great Britain. We know that man went to the police and said that he had been set upon by certain men at 6.30 in the evening on O'Connell Bridge, his collection box taken from him and thrown into the river, and that he was beaten. We saw that incident written up in the United Irishman and we saw a reference made to the dismissal of that man from the Civil Service and it was described as victimisation. If I were to say that I am going to judge the whole of Fine Gael by that one sample of its membership and say that it is quite obvious that Fine Gael must be supported by the worst elements in this community, I should have as much justification for that statement as Deputy Fitzgerald had for the wild statements he made in his speech.
Mr. Belton rose.
Now we will settle it!
When the previous speaker, the Minister for Finance, tried to fasten responsibility for the position of the land annuities upon an alleged secret agreement made in 1923, I think it was due to the House that he should go to the beginning of that secret agreement and quote it. The Minister accused Deputy Fitzgerald of acting the coward and going out. He is following in the same way. Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches here and the President know that never once did a single Deputy who opposed the Treaty raise one word about the land annuities until the beginning of 1927. I challenge contradiction on that; I challenge any Deputy of Fianna Fáil in this House or any opponent of the Treaty to show that they have ever claimed, in a public declaration, a public speech, that we should retain the annuities in this country and that it was wrong to have paid them to Britain.
Until when?
Until the beginning of 1927.
That is nonsense.
It is not nonsense.
In 1920, man.
Produce the evidence.
Certainly.
When was the secret settlement published?
We will come to that.
When was the secret settlement published?
About October 1926.
Now you are at it.
In October 1926, and the next month at the opening of the debating season of the Blackrock Debating Society the Deputy's then Leader— then Deputy Johnson; now Senator Johnson—said he agreed with the Ultimate Financial Settlement.
Produce proof of that. Produce your stuff. Quote it.
You will get it in the reports in the daily Press of the inaugural meeting of the Blackrock Debating Society for the 1926 season.
It is your imagination. That is all it is.
It is not my imagination. The Deputy cannot show any evidence of his Party in this House having ever raised any objection to the Ultimate Financial Settlement.
I challenge you to produce Deputy Johnson's statement.
Will the Deputy produce any evidence that he or his Party ever raised, in this House, any objection to the Ultimate Financial Settlement?
The same man did it in this House. You are losing your memory.
My memory is sound. Will the Deputy give the reference then?
You are all wrong in the whole thing.
With regard to this alleged secret agreement, if it were not disclosed and if it were such a dreadful document that it misled the Fianna Fáil Party and that it misled President de Valera I wonder how this escaped his notice—Section 12 of the Land Act 1923:—
(1) The powers declared in Section 6 of the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, to be exercisable by the Lord Lieutenant or by the Treasury, shall henceforth be exercised by the Minister for Finance, and the notice provided for by sub-section (2) of the said section shall cease to be required.
(2) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the Provisional Government (Transfer of Functions) Order, 1922, all sums collected after the 31st day of March, 1923, in respect of purchase annuities in repayment of advances made or to be made in Saorstát Eireann in pursuance of purchase agreements under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, or any later Land Purchase Act other than this Act shall so far as not already paid into the Exchequer be paid into a Fund entitled "The Purchase Annuities Fund" to be established under the control of the Minister for Finance, and there shall, from time to time, be paid thereout by the Minister for Finance to the appropriate authority for the credit of the Land Purchase Account or the Irish Land Purchase Fund as the case may be an amount equivalent to the purchase annuities accruing due in respect of the aforesaid advances.
Deputy Davin was here when that Land Act was passed. Whether he opposed or did not oppose that section is immaterial.
It is very material.
No. It disclosed to Deputy Davin, it disclosed to his Party, it disclosed to this House and to this country what was to be done with the annuities accruing due under the Land Purchase Acts prior to the 1923 Land Act. Deputy Davin and his Party— the Sinn Féin Party as they euphemistically styled themselves then; the anti-Treaty or the irregular Party or whatever you like to call them—never raised a solitary objection to that Land Act.
You know the reason, do you not? You were not in the Party then?
When I went into the Party did I not bring them in here? Was not that the first day's work they ever did for the country? It is then they began to learn. It is then that President de Valera swallowed his empty formula.
And look at the way they turned on you since!
You are biting the hand that fed you. I brought you in here, and gave you £1 a day since. You have not yet learned to read and understand that section.
There is a shadow about that.
There is no shadow; there is substance. There are not many shadows where I am.
But substance?
There are not many shadows. When I sized up the Fianna Fáil Party I finished their shadow sparring, and I brought them in here. We will finish their jobs over there, and we will put them out into oblivion, where they never should have come from. Read that section. Does not that specify that something was to be done with the annuities collected? The annuities were collected. They were paid into the Purchase Annuities Fund; they were paid over to the proper authority. Did the Labour Party say anything——
May I answer that?
Certainly.
Will the Deputy, before he wastes public time in quoting this again, go down to the Library and read the remarks of the then Deputy Wilson and Deputy Johnson on this very issue? Go and educate yourself on it before you quote it.
If I am ignorant on this, and the Deputy is educated——
Go down to the Library and read it.
Just a moment. I gave way to you; I will give way to you again if you want it. If I was ignorant of the significance of this, then I would have some justification for pleading that I did not know that that alleged secret agreement was in existence.
It was explained to you by the remarks in the House.
Let us assume that I was ignorant of this. If the Deputy knows all about it, and knew all about it in 1923, how can he plead ignorance of the agreement that is enshrined in that section? Now, look here, throw over the bluff.
It is useless talking to you.
Throw over the bluff. Everybody in this country who entered public affairs in 1923 knew the provision that was made for the land annuities accruing due before the 1923 Land Act. Everybody here knew it, and it is pure misrepresentation, it is not true, and it is not playing the game for the President or anybody opposite to pretend he was not aware what was to be done with the land annuities in 1923. I am speaking as a citizen who believed then, and who believed when the Ultimate Financial Settlement was signed, that there should not be any payments made to Britain. I was the first to stand on a public platform in O'Connell Street and oppose the Ultimate Financial Settlement when President de Valera and company were standing on the fictitious rock of the republic that President de Valera let down in 1921.
No.
Yes. Why did he negotiate with Lloyd George? My position to-day is what it has been up to——
It is very awkward.
It is not a bit awkward. President de Valera may laugh——
Did you hear what Deputy MacDermot to-day said he would do—pay over £25,000,000?
Deputy Belton is entitled to make his speech without interruption.
They are only causing delay. Those interruptions are not going to unnerve me. Up to the sanction given to this settlement by the Dáil in July, 1927, when, for the first time the Dáil voted a payment on foot of that settlement, knowing that that settlement was in existence, I believed that the proper course was to repudiate that settlement. Once that sanction was given by that Vote there was only one honourable course open. That honourable course was a revision of that settlement, and it is for a revision of that settlement that this Party here stands. The laugh over there, and especially the big loud laughter of President de Valera, may change. President de Valera called an agricultural conference in Jury's Hotel in February, 1927. The question of the annuities was raised there. President de Valera said he had not made up his mind on that question. He would not allow discussion on it. I was there as chairman of the County Dublin Committee of Agriculture, and I challenge contradiction on that. I think if an attempt were made to contradict it I could produce the minutes of that meeting.
You followed his leadership afterwards.
He followed me in here and you follow that. Perhaps, if I were conceited enough I might say that he followed me.
You took the Party pledge and followed him.
I did take the Party pledge and I kept it.
You stood on the Fianna Fáil ticket under his leadership.
I took the Party pledge, which was that I would not take any position involving an oath of allegiance to a foreign king. Did I take any position involving an oath of allegiance to a foreign king? No.
I did not say you did.
When I put it up to the President I was a traitor. A fortnight afterwards he became a traitor himself when his job was threatened.
Nonsense.
I will take you over the whole course if you want it. Time is no object to me. I can stand here for a week. The serious aspect of the annuities question came when it was known that a Vote was being taken in the Dáil in July, and if that Vote was passed it was giving a sanction of some kind to this Ultimate Financial Settlement. I have here a copy of a letter which I sent by hand to President de Valera on 7th July, 1927, requesting him to come in to save the annuity position, and I have his acknowledgment for it. If the President contradicts that, I shall produce them here and now. He did not come in. The President laughs. The President has laughed at the sufferings of this country for which he and he alone is responsible. Why did he not come in here in the beginning of July, 1927? Why did he not come in when there were 45 Fianna Fáil members, 22 members of the Labour Party, six members of the Sinn Féin Party, and seven or eight members of the National Party, all of whom were then opposed to the Government and would vote together, who could form a majority in the House, and could have stopped that Ultimate Financial Settlement from ever getting sanction here? At the critical time what did he do? He went to Cobh to present a dog to the captain of an American vessel. That has been President de Valera for the last 14 years, and it is President de Valera to-day.
Why are you in the Party with the man who signed that secret agreement without the authority of this House?
He came in to reform.
What secret agreement? You claim that that is a secret agreement, the substance of which is enshrined in an Act passed here 11 years ago?
When was it signed by Churchill and Blythe—what is the date?
I think the 19th March, 1926.
Now you are at it again.
How long was it concealed?
Until October.
From March until October—it did not see the light until then?
No. What did President de Valera do when it was disclosed? Did he come in to see that this House would not ratify it? Of course he did not. Had all these negotiations been carried out publicly, would President de Valera be in this House? Of course he would not. The Minister for Finance talked about irregularities that took place in 1922 and 1923. Fancy irregularities during a civil war! Fancy comparing conditions that obtained then with conditions that obtain now.
I suppose you are blaming the President for not being in here at that time too.
Of course I am. Why not?
He was in jail.
Why did he not obey the will of the people and he would have been out of jail?
We can not discuss this Vote in dialogue fashion across the floor. Deputy Belton must be allowed to continue his speech.
The Minister for Finance said he knew people who were in positions in 1925 placed there by the British and who lost the positions because they would not sign a declaration. Yes. They served under the British régime; they were loyal to the British régime; they attended to their jobs during the British régime; and when a Government of Irishmen was set up here they would not sign a declaration to be loyal to that Government. They would not sign it at the dictation of the people opposite who, when it suited their book, signed a declaration and came in here. The Minister for Finance, I am sure, does not include in that category the wife of a very particular friend of Pádraic Pearse who had a quarter of his skull blown off in 1916 and who has since been an invalid and has had to undergo 35 major operations. His wife was unanimously on my motion offered a position as a doctor by the Dublin Board of Health last year, but the present Minister for Local Government refused to sanction her appointment.
That would be more relevant to the Vote of the Minister for Local Government.
I would not have mentioned it only the question of tolerance was raised by the Minister for Finance.
Tolerance with reference to the President's Department.
That is the position of this lady who served actively as a doctor and set up a hospital for the Irregular forces during the civil war. That is how she is thanked by the Republican patriots of to-day. The Minister for Defence outshone himself when he said, "We were elected to retain the land annuities." If a man is employed to do a job and he does not do it, an ordinary employer will sack him. It is claimed by everybody in the Fianna Fáil Party, from the President down to the smallest camp follower, that that Party was elected to retain the land annuities. If they did not succeed in retaining the land annuities, are they accomplishing what they set out to acomplish? The payments to Great Britain were about £5,000,000. There is a sum of about £750,000 of a sinking fund, which the British are not bothering about at the moment.
The British have collected £4,552,000. They claim they have collected all they require. Our Government are telling the poor, foolish people of the country that they were elected to retain the land annuities and their fight is to retain them and they will continue that fight. Of course, Britain can continue smiling, because she gets all the land annuities and the other payments, while we get nothing. If our Government has been elected to retain the land annuities and they are doing so, then they obviously are not carrying out their mandate. Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, was either right or wrong when he said the British Government had collected a little more than £4,500,000 through their special duties. Can anybody on the Government Benches contradict his statement? I do not believe anyone can. I doubt if there is a record kept by our Government to check the figures submitted by Mr. Chamberlain.
On 4th April, one of the officials of the President said:
"It is stated that the British duties produced £5,000,000 and he desires me to say that his information is that the actual yield in the financial year just ended is likely to be well under £4,000,000."
That is the President's information. A couple of days afterwards, notwithstanding the fact that our President's statement was published, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech said that the special duties had produced £4,552,000.
Is he right?
Can anybody in the Government say he is wrong? I am not in a position to say he is right, but can anybody in the Government say he is wrong?
You want it both ways.
I except reliable figures from the President. I cannot understand a situation where he indicates a figure of £1,000,000 below what the British say they actually collected. A reasonable interpretation of the President's statement would be that the amount might reach about £3,500,000, but according to the British the figure turns out to be over £4,500,000.
We are not accepting that.
Surely if a man to whom I owed money seized my goods and said he had realised £150 on my property, I would not contradict him and say he received only £50?
Unfortunately, they have realised hundreds of millions for years and you are forgetting about that.
I am dealing with the accuracy of the President's statement, which is of vital importance to this country. Did the President want to mislead the country when he made that statement or had he not accurate figures to go upon?
Does Chamberlain want us to keep right?
The President's figures were out by £1,000,000. As a matter of fact, I would be rather inclined to think from Mr. Chamberlain's statement that the British collected £5,500,000 instead of £4,500,000.
They are thieves, are they?
That is what has been stated on the other side. I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when I observed that £23,000 out of his Estimate was going to pay the salaries of officials in the Statistical Branch, if they kept statistics of our exports to England and if it was from him the President got his information. The Minister replied that he was not responsible for the use anybody made of the figures supplied. I asked him was he repudiating the President's statement, and I got no answer. I am now putting it to the President and I think it is due to the country to know if a Minister in a foreign country which is seizing our goods is correct in the statement made relating to the amount collected. The country ought to be told the exact position.
I think it was Deputy Davin who said that ultimately we would have to sit down at a table in order to settle this matter. Of course that is obvious. The biggest and bitterest wars ever waged in the world have had to be settled in that fashion. They had to sit down at a table and settle them. When we sit down to settle this dispute and start putting up claims which claim will we stand upon when we start reckoning the money that we paid by way of special duties? I wonder whether we should take the President's £3,500,000 that he said we paid in the financial year ended 31st March, or Mr. Chamberlain's £4,500,000 that he said he collected.
We will have a mighty big claim.
Is it not quite obvious that President de Valera made a false statement to mislead the country, or alternatively, he had not accurate figures to go upon and he merely made a guess? If he had no accurate figures is it not an extraordinary thing that while our goods are being subjected to special duties amounting to £4,500,000, there is no record kept at our ports of the quantities and value of those goods? I hope the President will clear the air about this matter. Of course I do not mind the Minister for Finance and other Ministers and Deputies. It is a case of when father turns we all turn.
You have no father over there.
They have only a foster-father.
We have all fathers here. Now the President was elected, and the Fianna Fáil Party was elected, on the cry "Elect us and you will not have to pay your annuities. Elect us and we will give you derating." Of course, they sent out a good yarn as to how they would get the money. "There is £5,000,000," they said, "which we will withhold, and which reputable lawyers have informed us we need not pay, and that it is illegal to pay." I put this to Deputies opposite. I was interested in this matter before they were, and I had a good deal to do with it before they came into it at all. A group, with which I was associated, met three representatives of the Party opposite in the beginning of 1927. Representing the Party opposite on that occasion were Mr. Seán Lemass, as he then was, Mr. Jerry Boland and Mr. Seán MacEntee, as they then were. But they could not swallow the idea then that the land annuities could be retained. I think Deputy Donnelly remembers a little conversation I had with him in a house at Merrion Square about that period.
I do.
Now there is not a shadow, or shade, of truth in the contention that the so-called republican Party opposite always stood for the retention of the land annuities. I challenge them to contradict that. The first K.C. that was asked his opinion turned the case down.
That is not true.
It is quite true.
I tell you it is not true.
I tell you it is true and I read his opinion.
Tell us all about it then.
Did Professor Magennis never show you a document in which one of the leading K.C.'s at the Irish Bar turned it down.
Never.
All right. I do not want to quote the man, but the President said it is not true. I say that the first counsel who was asked for his opinion gave his opinion in the negative.
The first counsel I asked?
I am not saying that you asked him, but I am saying that Professor Magennis and Colonel Moore asked him. There is no quibble here. Will the President deny my statement now?
I do not know anything about it.
The President got a question framed in a particular way, and put to counsel in a way that he could make only one answer.
Are you making the English case?
No, I am making the Irish case.
Nonsense and bunkum.
Nonsense and bunkum yourself. Let the President deny that the first K.C. that was asked answered in the negative. But the first K.C. he asked was asked in a certain way a question that could only be answered in one way, as a lawyer can do.
Was there no solicitor?
No, nor was there a Deputy Donnelly round at the time. These annuities are being collected now and the President admits that the British are collecting them. The President has said that is no concern of his. The President said that the obligation to pay the land annuities on land purchased under the Land Acts is an obligation to the Saorstát Government. The obligation to pay local rates is an obligation to the local bodies. There is no question on that. But the President said:
"No tribunal is needed to discover that these obligations cannot be discharged by the payment of duties levied by an outside Government."
The President ignores the fact that an outside Government is seizing from the farmers in this country £4,500,000 a year while he is taking no steps to prevent that situation. He insists upon the right of the Land Commission to send out the sheriff to seize upon the farmers for the annuities that the British are collecting while he is taking no steps to prevent them from being collected. He says definitely that:
"No tribunal is needed to discover that these obligations"—the obligation to pay the Land Commission—"cannot be discharged by the payment of duties levied by an outside Government."
Why does he allow an outside Government to levy any charges upon our produce?
What steps should be taken?
That is for the Government to decide.
You must have some idea.
Very well. The Deputy admits that an outside Government is taking them. If an outside Government is taking them for a certain specific debt what right has our Government to take that same debt from the very same people? Let Deputies opposite not wriggle out of this. Let them stand up to it now. The Government is before the dock in this country.
It is a good job they are not in it.
You came off very safe in years gone by. You will not always have the Military Tribunal at your command. The unarmed might of the people is the strongest force in this country and do not forget that the unarmed people are looking at your conduct this evening. I am putting the case that the President here admits that the British Government are collecting the whole of these moneys which he says he was elected to retain. All the solace the President has for the people of this country from whom these moneys are being collected, is "no matter what the foreign Government is collecting here, I must get my pound of flesh." Is not that the position? Deputy Smith asks what is he to do. I put it to the Deputies opposite and to the Government Party that we on this side are not expected to do anything. What are they able to do?
We are retaining the money.
But the British are collecting the whole money.
How could you stop them?
I am not the Government. If I had a deciding voice in the Government I would stop it, and I would stop it quickly, but I am not the Government. Do not put any responsibility on us, as Deputies opposite have been doing during the last few days about agriculture and the economic war. You started the economic war. You are the people responsible for carrying it on, and, if you are not able to save your own people, do not go on asking us what are we going to do.
Deputy Belton did not tell the House what steps this Government can take which would prevent the English Government from imposing tariffs on our goods going into their country.
I will answer the Deputy but not now. I take it that that question by the Deputy has only one meaning behind it and that meaning is this— a full admission that the British are collecting the annuities and the Deputy asks: "How can you stop them"? Is not that the position?
No, you are side-stepping my question.
The British Government say they are getting all the money that is due to them. We are accepting that position. I am asked to give a suggestion as to how the Government can stop them.
You are side-stepping my question.
Deputy Belton is entitled to make his speech without interruptions. Deputies have been interrupting him since he started. I would, at this stage, say that these interruptions are entirely disorderly.
But humorous.
Again I say the British are collecting the money that our Government state they are withholding. The Deputies opposite who are supporting the Government throw up their hands and ask "how can you stop them?" What is the meaning of that? Any man with an ounce of intelligence must see from that statement that the British have won and you are not able to stop them collecting the money.
Nonsense.
I repeat that the British have won. I turn back your question to you and suggest that you advise your President to face the fact that the British have won.
Nonsense. Have you been living in the moon?
No, but I have been paying for the President's folly and for yours, what neither the President nor you are doing.
We have no land.
I am there behind the plough where you never stood. The man behind the plough is paying for the £4,500,000 Britain is collecting from the farmers of this country, and the President says: "Pay and look cheerful; I can do nothing for you, but you pay me; you will pay the Land Commission." Then he adds insult to injury and says that he has remitted the payment of half the annuities, that the Land Commission or this Government have given a concession to the farmers. I can read his words here under the signature of the President's private secretary, who has the authority of the President. That is the President's position. Now it is time we looked the situation straight in the face. It is time we gave up all humbug about this matter. If this so-called war is going to be fought what chance is there for success? Where are we now? We are paying every penny piece that we set out to withhold. That Government over there was elected, given a mandate, as they claim, at least at two elections, to withhold that money and it has failed in withholding it.
You want us to surrender.
What have you to surrender? Are you not paying the money; what have you to surrender then? Do not be talking nonsense. The British are collecting the money in full.
Then what is the shouting about?
What are you shouting about?
And what is all your bluff about?
"Surrender," says Deputy Smith, and John Bull having got every penny piece of the money and they tell the country we are not paying. Are we not paying?
What more do you want?
John Bull does not want any more. I would advise you to stop the bluff and let us have the free markets. The war has been won by John Bull.
With the help of the Opposition.
That is a lie.
With the Government's help.
What do you think you are doing now?
I am pulling the mask off your faces. I am only reciting the facts. Can the Deputy contradict one statement that I am making? Will any Deputy on the Government side deny that John Bull is collecting this money? I challenge the President or any of his Ministers to contradict the statement made by Mr. Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons that every penny piece that this Government withheld has been made good to the taxpayers. Is there anybody in this House who will deny that? Face the facts straight. Come down to facts. Deputy Flinn has gone away after his insulting bit of a speech. Come down now to brass tracks.
You are sitting on them.
You are sitting on them and the President is sitting on them and they are stabbing him. Is there anybody there who will deny that? I would not say surrender. You have nothing to surrender, you are beaten to a frazzle.
"Sez you!"
Not "sez" I, but the facts of the situation are there.
Convince the country of that.
We are doing it quickly.
Yes, we are, and you are putting up the smoke screen to the people that we are playing England's game, but it is you really who are playing England's game. The war at present is not being waged against Britain but against Ireland and the Irish people.
Who is waging the war on the Irish people?
It is the British Government who are waging it.
The obligations of the farming community are specified in the title deeds of the land. In the case of every farm on which a land annuity is paid there is a land purchase agreement which specifies the advance, the rate of interest, the amount of the annuity, the number of years purchase and the terms for which the annuity is to run. The farmers have signed these purchase agreements as ordinary contracts. I am not a lawyer but I believe in law there is great regard for the sanctity of contracts. There are lawyers and budding lawyers on the Government Benches who know this better than I do. The ordinary plain farmer signed a purchase agreement to pay that amount and no more. But he is also paying these moneys to the British Government. What was the obligation on the farmers? Under the Land Purchase Acts the obligation was to pay something less than £3,000,000 for land purchase under the Purchase Acts prior to 1923.
Surely the farmer need not pay that to the British Government if he goes in for tillage. Then he will not have to pay any tariffs.
He need not pay that to the English.
The tariff?
If we are robbed going home and we have no protection from the police, well we have to put up with it. Is the plea the Deputy is making this: that we in this country, this ancient nation, standing on the rock of the republic and so on, cannot get protection from any highwayman who seizes us going home and robs us? Why does not the Government protect us and prevent John Bull from seizing £4,500,000 of our property? Will any Deputy give a reason for it? No. Yet, the Deputies who cannot give a reason for that go down the country during the week-ends and say that we are winning the economic war while we have John Bull smiling with all the swag in his pocket. Surely, if ever there was a Government of grown-up babies our Government is one.
May an unruly child ask you one question?
With pleasure.
The Deputy will agree, I suppose, that there is a sum of about £5,000,000 in dispute between the two countries?
About that.
Well, let us say that up to last December England was collecting that precise amount instead of the £4,650,000 that Mr. Neville Chamberlain spoke about. Will the Deputy explain to the country why there is a quota system on our cattle with England only taking half the number of cattle and, consequently, only collecting half the tariff?
I am sorry that the unruly baby of the family has put his feet in it. I am sorry for the unruly baby. I wish he had left it to the unruly parent to do it. The Deputy will remember that there was a lot of play-acting up to May and June of 1932.
And yet.
And yet. And, perhaps, after to-night it will be the beginning of the end of the playacting. The Deputy probably knows that all land annuities are due in May and June and in November and December. Half the instalments were due on the 1st May and the 1st June of 1932. No matter what talk there was of withholding the annuities and the other payments, no creditor, or alleged creditor, could act until there was actual default. The first default occurred in May. Of course the claimant waited—I am taking the business view of it—until he saw what would be done in June, but there was default in June also. Then the situation had to be reviewed and considered. Remember there were about £2,500,000 due by the 1st July of 1932 when the British acted. Then they put on a tariff of, I think, 20 per cent., but not on everything that was going in. That operated for some months— for how long, I cannot say—but it was not bringing in as much as the new debt that was accruing amounted to. Then they increased the tariff to about 40 per cent. That was altered again to so much per head on cattle of varying ages. The position was that they had a leeway to make up by the beginning of last year. They made up that leeway by the tariffs and the special duties that are still on. An announcement was made by a British Minister—I cannot think of his name —on the 19th or 20th of December last to the effect that if they continued to let into Britain live stock and goods generally from this country they would have collected by the end of the last financial year considerably more than their claim, and they did not want any more than their claim.
Honest creditors.
These are the facts.
And you believe them?
I do.
What about economic necessity?
I am not going to waste my time with the Deputy. He knows nothing about economics. Starting in step with the £5,000,000 accruing, the tariff that they have now operating on half the goods that we hitherto were exporting will give Britain £4,500,000 and the full amount of her claim every year.
And the chance of eating her own surplus cattle, because she does not want yours or mine if we had them.
The Deputy would be well advised to read and study something about the extent of Britain's surplus cattle. He would be well advised to consult with somebody in the cattle trade and in the feeding trade over in England. The weekly ration for London's population of 8,000,000 is 19.8 ounces. Of that total, Britain and Ireland contribute 3.2 ounces; the other Dominions, 1.8 ounces, and the Argentine, 14.8 ounces.
Whose figures are these?
He is a gentleman who, I think, knows a little more about the meat trade than either Deputy Donnelly or myself.
Who is he?
He is Mr. Millman, the chairman of the Smithfield and Argentine Meat Company.
I knew he was a foreigner.
My friend Deputy Jordan can see from these figures how small is the total cattle population of England and Ireland as represented by these figures in the English market. England has put on a tariff to collect what she wants and only what she wants, and we are proceeding with the war. We are paying her as hitherto. The President is callously indifferent to the harm he is doing this country. Perhaps in his ignorance he is doing it, but nevertheless he is doing it, and after the British have extracted all that hitherto they were getting, he wants to be paid again.
Is not the Deputy's contention this: that Britain is losing nothing at all in the economic war?
No. The reply to that was given by Deputy Moore on another Estimate a few days ago. How could Britain lose by the duties put on here? Take for instance, fat cattle.
We have imposed tariffs, in addition to retaining the money referred to.
Who pays the tariffs? Do we not pay them?
Who pays them on the other side, so?
It is a terrible pity economics were not taught in the schools years ago.
I do not think it would be any good for some Deputies opposite.
When the special duties were put on, if they had the effect of limiting the supplies to the British market, then it would affect prices on the British market, and the British consumers would be paying some of it. But what is the position? The British put £6 a head on fat cattle. Did that limit the numbers of fat cattle sent there? Of course, it did not, because, as we heard from the Minister for Agriculture a few days ago, we have 240,000 fat cattle for shipment to Britain every year. It is a question either of getting them there and getting a price for them or shooting them. Whether Britain puts on a tariff of £1 or £6 we will send the cattle there, because we have no place else to send them. What was the position in the cattle market to-day? Licences sold from £2 to £5 apiece. I can produce a man who was offered a licence to get into the British market. That proves that the special duties put on by Britain in no way curtail the supply of our live stock going there. They cannot control it, because we have no place else to send cattle. Deputies opposite talk about tillage. No one on the opposite benches or here talks about tillage who ever tilled a sod. Deputies opposite do not know what they are talking about. I say that deliberately.
Let the farmers opposite tell us about it.
Let any farmer on the opposite benches who has ever followed a plough talk about it. Not one of them can do so.
I could.
I make an exception in the case of my friend Deputy Kelly. We are told to scrap cattle, and till the land. In 1847——
Let us hear a little about that.
——we had 743,871 acres under wheat then.
But it was all exported.
We had 4,000,000 acres under tillage. I think we have 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 acres of arable land in the Free State. What are we going to do with the rest of it? Only 743,000 acres were then required for wheat growing, when we exported wheat. A half million acres under wheat would give us enough for our daily bread.
What was the acreage under wheat in 1847?
743,871 acres.
How many people died of hunger?
Be careful or more will die from hunger as a result of this game. Be very careful!
That is your cattle trade!
They died of hunger when we had the wheat.
Why did they die of hunger when we had the wheat?
Because the people's leaders were treated, as President de Valera is being treated, for telling them to hold the crops. John Mitchel was the only one who told the people to hold the food, and he was sent to Van Diemen's Land.
Some of us told the people the truth, to pay their annuities once, and their rates once, but not twice. Read the leading article, the scandalous article over which the President stands, in to-day's issue of that lying journal, the Irish Press with reference to me.
Which is subsidised by the Irish people.
There is a challenge to the Deputy in that article.
And I am taking it.
Get back to '47 and tell us about that.
I hope President de Valera will not bring us back to what was the position in '47. I am greatly afraid he will, especially with the number of "yes-men" behind him. If we had grown up in that way it would be all right.
Or as ranchers or graziers.
The Deputy knows as much about a rancher or a grazier as does a three-quarter rabbit that we used to call a grazier when I was young. Say that in 1847 we had 750,000 acres of wheat, my friend asks, how many people died of hunger.
From what cause?
That is what I want to know. Was it not all due to rack-rents? The military were sent out to collect the corn, which was protected by bayonets until it was shipped from the port of Dublin, just as the lorry from the Deputy's county—Armagh— No. IB 5464 smuggled cattle from Clonmel across the Border, after being seized by special police sent out by President de Valera, the line of communication being left open by the Minister for Defence, Deputy Aiken, who brought two tugs, McMahon and Mulholland, from Jonesborough.
There was no Border in 1847.
The Deputy must cease interrupting.
That is a prelude to the times that are coming—what happened in 1847. The country up to that had carried, from a deflationary period subsequent to the Napoleonic wars, about 2,000,000 on the hunger line. Owing to the failure of the potato crop in 1847, these people had nothing to eat, and famine stalked the land. The crops had to be marketed in order to pay the rack rents. Will all who are experts at mathematics have a look at the total of the rack rents, and national and local taxation then, and compare it with the annuities and national and local taxation now. The rack rents for the whole of Ireland never exceeded £16,000,000. Let any Deputy opposite contradict that. At that period national and local taxation did not amount to £8,000,000 for the whole of Ireland. That was in the period when we had 750,000 acres under wheat. That was the period when we had 4,000,000 acres under tillage. That was the period when we had the cursed landlord system in this country, extracting £16,000,000 of rack-rents so-called. But President de Valera, who represents the free vote of a free people in this country, has no hesitation in putting up a Budget of £30,000,000 for Twenty-Six Counties. And what is local taxation? I suppose you could put local taxation at anything from £5,000,000 to £10,000,000—say, £7,000,000. That is £37,000,000. There is another Estimate of the Minister for Finance for about £5,000,000. We are paying £4,500,000 in special duties to England and on top of all that the President wants us to pay him £2,000,000 for what he has the audacity to call a reduction of land annuities. Add all this up and you have the burden on land to-day under a republican Government. In the period of our grandfathers, who had to go through the horrors of a famine, blamed on the English Government, blamed on the system of land tenure, blamed on the landlord system, they were only extracting £16,000,000. What hope is there for the country now?
Compare the services given.
The services do not matter if you have not the income. We all know that provision is made for some services, but you will not have the wherewithal to pay the services. Deputy Smith, I am sure, does not want to hear the story of the fellow who willed thousands to everybody and when he was asked how he got all that money, he replied: "I have not got it, but it shows what I would do with money if I had it." I think nobody will accuse me of being a rancher. Nobody will accuse me of not being a tillage farmer. Certainly, nobody in this House would rather see the "Speed the plough" slogan adopted all over the country than I would, but it has to be done according to commonsense. People opposite should think over what they are advocating.
I have given you the figures for the area under wheat in 1847. I can give you the figures for the area under all crops and also the figures for cattle, sheep, pig, poultry, hen, duck and turkey production. I can show you the position on a graph here. I am going to put to Deputies opposite what was put to me eight years ago by the author of a pamphlet that I hold in my hand. I am going to quote from this pamphlet now and I hope that it will not be taken as politics, that it will be taken as economics. Think over it and if any Deputy can reconcile these figures with the big push for tillage, I will be inclined to take off my hat to him. I have been thinking for a number of years how I could reconcile tillage in the sense of producing the crops we have in this country with these economic facts. Speaking of the period from 1847 to, I think, 1925, this writer says:
"Butter prices have risen in much the same proportion as other prices, but much less than store cattle prices. The increase in the price of store cattle constitutes one of the outstanding features of the price situation as revealed in Table I. Since 1840, prices of store cattle have risen in the ratio of 100 to 440 or by 340 per cent. while the price of wheat has risen only 18 per cent."
There is the economic fact. It is for the President, the Executive Council, his Party and their advisers to get over it. I should be very glad to see them getting over it. You have one commodity that has risen 340 per cent in value. You have another commodity that has risen only 18 per cent. It is perfectly obvious that a business man will produce the commodity which has increased 340 per cent. and the country has drifted in that direction.
Driven in that direction.
It has drifted in that direction. The economic shackles that Britain has put upon this country through the economic war that Britain has won—there is nothing treacherous, there is no treason in that——
Britain has been trying to win in this country for 700 years and she has not won yet.
She would have won long ago if she had only the likes of you to deal with. Will the Deputy go down and preach that to his friends and neighbours who are throwing on the scrap heap their calves in the Abbeyfeale district? Will he go down there and tell them that?
Certainly.
He will not go even to his nearest relations. They have found out the difference.
Order.
Make the most of it, Deputy; you are in for the last time. That is the problem that the Party opposite has to consider—340 per cent. of a rise in the price of store cattle and 18 per cent. of a rise in the price of wheat. I am giving the comparative figures for, I think, 1926 or 1925. The variation has been greater since. I do not think wheat was ever as cheap as it is now—14/- per barrel for the best wheat. There is even a bit of artificiality about that price owing to with drawals of supplies. Fourteen shillings per barrel for the best wheat with very little moisture! For wheat with considerably more moisture, we are paying 23/6 and 25/- per barrel. That is 11/- per barrel more than the price for which we could buy the best wheat. What is the position of the cattle trade? I am not personally concerned with the cattle trade. I have only two cows.
A wise man.
A very wise man as events have turned out, but he would be a wiser man who would have kept the money and bought no cattle. He would have saved the price of two anyway.
What is the position? We had a market in Britain for about 20,000 fat beasts a month on the average. I do not know how the quota for stores is operating, but let us deal with the fat cattle alone. We sent to Britain last year 20,000 a month up to the end of December. Although we parted with 20,000 a month, we had at home sufficient for our requirements. On that 20,000 that we sent over per month, we paid a tariff of roughly £6 per head and we got a bounty of 35/- per head— a net loss of £4 5s. per head. Notwithstanding that we sent over to Britain 20,000 and lost on the home market £4 5s. per head on these for home consumption, what has happened? We still have that amount of cattle for export but Britain says:—"We will only take half what we took last year." Now, consider the position. We used to export 20,000 and even though we had that quantity to export we had enough still for the home market; but now we have an additional 10,000 at home since we will only get 10,000 away and there is no use for what is at home. What is going to be done about it? Are we to take them out and shoot them? And President de Valera is responsible for those conditions.
What did we do with the surplus cattle anyway? They would be there in any case.
What did our fathers and our grandfathers do? Did they shoot them and skin them and sell them? I am stating the facts.
Who killed Cock Robin?
I may tell the Deputy that the market for the little calf jobbers is gone also.
But who killed Cock Robin?
Aye, and who killed the calves? Now, it is not only that 10,000 we lose. We go down the line. There may not be 10,000 of a loss of two-year-old cattle and upwards without having, down the line, 10,000 yearlings coming along to make up that 10,000 two-year-olds next year, and 10,000 half-year-olds coming along to fill up the gap. That amounts to 30,000 a month of surplus cattle, or 360,000 a year. What are we going to do with them? Of course the Minister for Agriculture knows what to do with them. He will skin the calves. Supposing that you skin the calves, what will you do with the land that produced that 360,000 head of cattle a year?
Plant it and grow trees on it, as Senator Connolly says.
I see that the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Agriculture have just come into the House. They ran away before and had not the courage to wait and hear what I was going to say.
Now is your time.
Yes, and I shall avail myself to the full of it. That 360,000 cattle will have to be fed somewhere, and remember, we had only 4,000,000 acres of tillage when he had 750,000 acres of wheat. At best we will have eight or nine million acres for grass and meadow. What will we do with it?
Dr. Ryan
Grow rhubarb.
It takes a farmer, and not a medical doctor, to grow rhubarb. Mind you, the doctors, like the chemists, give very bad accounts of rhubarb, because they know that rhubarb has medicinal qualities, and the man that eats plenty of rhubarb has very little need for doctors or chemists. From the experience we farmers have had of doctors in this country, the fewer doctors we have in agriculture the better.
The farmers will never forget them anyhow.
No, they will never forget them, and the poor little suckling calves will never forget them. I would advise the Minister to add to his two slogans of "Drink More Milk" and "Drink More Light Beer," the slogan, "Eat More Rhubarb."
What about Deputy Belton sticking to his plough now?
To what?
Dr. Ryan
To his gun.
I did not catch what the Minister said.
No, you would not.
Well, I was just saying before the Minister came in——
Dr. Ryan
You need not repeat it.
It would be lost on anybody but you, and there is no man in this country who wants it more or who lacks this knowledge more. I am only giving it to you as a friend.
A Deputy
For old times' sake.
Exactly, for old times' sake—"when we were boys together."
Dr. Ryan
Before you left.
Before I pulled you along.
Before you were expelled.
That is the Minister's usual little stunt. Anyway, as I was saying, the price of wheat, since 1847, has gone up by 18 per cent. The price of store cattle has gone up by 340 per cent.
Why?
Dr. Ryan
I thought they were very bad at present.
I am giving the general level of prices before this country had met with the scourge of a Fianna Fáil Government. My information is not up-to-date——
Dr. Ryan
No, I would say not.
——because there is no use in compiling statistics during a period of unsettlement, during a passing wave of insanity that has seized this country; but when this country gets back to normal and when a Fianna Fáil Ministry becomes only a sad memory, then these figures can be brought up-to-date, but not till then. I move to report progress.