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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 22 Mar 1935

Vol. 55 No. 10

Central Fund Bill, 1935—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am rather sorry that the man who, at such length last night, tried to fling the torch once more into our midst is not here to see if he can quench some of the new sparks that must arise from the discussion of his sudden conversion to principle and constitutional government. I often find myself in a dilemma when I meet people who are fond of arguing economics. When, in order to support my argument, I turn to some official statistics published by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, I find that people merely laugh, shrug their shoulders and say "That is only Lemass." That is the point of principle which the Minister has reached. It may be countered that I am speaking of people who would have said that of him in any event, but I seem to recollect that, not so many months ago, a particular urban council in the Kingdom of Kerry called the Minister for Industry and Commerce names in the public Press which I would not be allowed to utter in his regard to-day in this Assembly. At any rate, they washed their hands of him as a man who had not merely deceived, but had deliberately deceived; as a man in whose promises they could put no trust; as a man who, even from the angle of their Party—and that is not a high standard—is not regarded by them as a standard-bearer. His opening last night was typical. He had been challenged by Deputy Morrissey with regard to 141,000 unemployed. That is a figure of which he should have had some thought, of which he should have some explanation to offer. What was his opening? The first time, he said, he saw Deputy Morrissey that Deputy was endeavouring to teach "The Red Flag" to certain people. It soon emerged that he never saw Deputy Morrissey employed in that way. He did not even pretend any longer to have seen him. Somebody had reported that. Then, there were the usual quibbles which will always raise a cheer from his own supporters—that if it was not in Clonmel he saw him, it might have been in Carrick or somewhere else.

He should not forget Clonmel town.

Let Deputy McGilligan make his own speech.

The Minister did at one time try to teach the people of this country a lot of things that could be described as "red," though he has got to an unusual type of pale pink at the moment. He is hardly the proper spokesman to put up to criticise people for their past. It even emerges from his discussion of Deputy Morrissey last night that he thought Deputy Morrissey not quite consistent because, in my time, Deputy Morrissey had complained that the unemployment figures did not represent the true position, and that he complained yesterday that even the figure of 140,000 unemployed did not represent the true position. It appeared to the Minister that there was some contradiction there. There was— but it was not in Deputy Morrissey. The Minister was strong last night on law and order. He knew that the gathering shadows of fiasco were darkening around his policy and he felt he had to be grand about law and order. I remember on one occasion in this House—the occasion of the election of Dr. O'Higgins as a Deputy—the Minister for Industry and Commerce, questioned about his attitude to law and order, explained that most people had grown accustomed to shooting in this country. Then he pointed to people like Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Cosgrave and said:

"You decided to give up shooting at a certain time, but I did not. I decided it was worth while shooting a bit longer. I have since decided that it was worth while stopping, but some of the people outside do not believe in stopping yet and I am not going to be the man to criticise them for that."

Now he is unquiet that people make inflammatory speeches. I remember another occasion, in this House, when I asked a plain question from Deputies opposite and asked for a plain answer to it—that if they knew who were the murderers of Kevin O'Higgins would they tell the police, and two Deputies, who are still members of the House, told me that they would be playing the part of informers.

Deputy Cooney; but Deputy Little himself made very much the same remark. He did not say exactly that, but Deputy Cooney queried if they were to become informers to help the police. To help the police to get the murderers of Kevin O'Higgins, according to Deputy Cooney, was informing. That is on the records of the House.

I have here a report of a famous Convention at which there was one sensible thing done. The man who was then Ceann Comhairle left the Chair when Deputy MacEntee began to speak, and said he was leaving the Chair because of that. Before Deputy MacEntee drove him from the Chair, however, Seán Lemass, now Minister for Industry and Commerce here— the upholder of law and order—said: "I was never a member of the Second Dáil, but I was a member of this body (that was Comhairle na dTeachtai meeting in the year 1926) and I held a position on the Executive as the head of the Department of Defence. In that position I sanctioned certain military acts, for example, the raid on Mountjoy in November last. I think it a most astonishing suggestion that my action needs any ratification from this body." So, the great adherent of law and order now, in 1926, before he was kicked out of the position of Minister for Defence of the Irregular forces, had sanctioned a military armed raid on Mountjoy and he was amazed that anybody would think of questioning his action or say that it required ratification by anybody.

Perhaps one would think it a little bit incongruous to be asked to carry a torch anywhere with Deputy Hugo Flinn or the Minister for Finance. But in the ex-head of the Defence Department you have good and heavy material with which to carry your torch. I am surprised that there was not added to the torch a representation of a tomb, to support the delicate symbolism of the grave—that Fianna Fáil would carry the undying flame to their graves. It would also allow of the counter-suggestion that the "grave" symbolised was that into which Deputies opposite said they would be laid before they entered this assembly—into which they came within 48 hours.

Only for the clemency of Deputy Mulcahy!

The President himself swore that he would be in his grave sooner than enter this Assembly.

The matter before the House is the Central Fund Bill and the administration of the past 12 months is relevant—not what Deputies, now Ministers, said seven or eight years ago.

Sir, the Minister for Industry and Commerce last night made use of a phrase like this: "That there was growing up in this country a type of crime of which we had experience before and may have experience of again." That was allowed last night. May I not answer that? He referred to Deputies on our side making inflammatory speeches in the country and using such phrases as "The anarchists are now in office" and "the former anarchists are now enjoying the benefit." Criticism of that was allowed last night; may I not answer? He talked about Deputy Morrissey's old-time doings in Clonmel in 1922 and 1923, teaching people to sing "The Red Flag," and so on. The Minister was allowed to go on with that also. May I not answer that?

The Deputy may answer those points, but the Deputy quite realises that he would not be justified in spending, say, half-an-hour in answering points that were raised incidentally.

I was present last night, Sir, and I submit, with all respect, that three-quarters of the speech, which lasted nearly an hour, was composed of what you now describe as irrelevancies.

It was taken up by quotations from Deputies' speeches and from United Ireland in the current year.

There was also questioning as to who was the constitutional Party and who now stood for peace, and quite an amount of reference to the Protestant Succession. May I not answer that? It occupied quite a lot of the speech. In fact, when a jeer was required to please the groundlings, it was the Protestant Succession that was trotted out.

That is one of the symbols for which you are standing out.

And which the Minister himself is accepting at the moment. Let me here and now deal with that. We hear now about the Protestant Succession, but the colleagues of the Minister for Finance went to Ottawa—I do not know whether there is a split in the Party over this—and discharged in set terms "their respectful duty to His Majesty" and accepted the Commonwealth there. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, who was so keen against the Protestant Succession here yesterday, went to the opening of the Welland Canal while he was in Ottawa, and made a speech on that occasion which was described in a Toronto newspaper as having been more "instinct with the spirit of Empire" than any other delivered that day. Let him keep his vulgarity about the Protestant Succession for this House as long as he can parade himself as the courteous little gentleman abroad, but let it be known to the people of the country that, as well as this vulgarity displayed here, he has the other—the Imperial instinct—to be used for political purposes!

I will pass from that episode—the 1926 meeting of Comhairle na dTeachtaí—which apparently causes trouble, stressing again that the Minister demanded whether his acts of a military type, armed acts which took place at a time when a Government was functioning here, when the civil war was over, an amnesty proclaimed and the cease fire order given, needed ratification. At such a time he admitted that he had instructed certain people to make an armed raid on Mountjoy and demanded to know why his acts should require ratification from anybody—and that man comes to this House now to talk of inflammatory speeches. I do not know whether it would be described as an inflammatory speech to refer to a man as a Judas or a Carey, or to recite a list of informers and put the then President of the Executive Council amongst them. Is that the standard by which to judge an ordinary inflammatory type of speech? The Minister said last night that we are now having the type of crimes of which we have had experience before, and that we may again have crimes of which we had experience before. That, at any rate, came from his heart. Last night he accepted the point of view of a county councillor referred to by Deputy Morrissey—that any allusion to the burning of a particular church in this country was political. I shall make this allusion to it. When I opened the paper and first read of that burning, I placed it myself as the work of a maniac. That was what I felt at first, but I have since had this doubt cast in my mind, that if it was a maniac who did it the Guards would have arrested the maniac, and I had the feeling that it is only because the Guards have an apprehension about arrests that, if arrests bring revelations and involve certain political disputants and agitators, then there is going to be criticism of the Guards for doing their duty. It is only that that prevents them making an arrest.

That is too far-fetched.

Will Deputy Donnelly agree that maniacs are not usually around places like Birr?

They are usually here.

Speaking for yourself and your surroundings. Leaving that out of it, are maniacs so usual that they cannot be recognised as strangers, people known to be a little bit abnormal, people with strange clothing or people acting strangely? Are maniacs not usually discovered?

Not always. It took them three months to get O'Neill.

I will tell you the type of criminal it is very hard to discover—the man who, committing a crime and being apprehended, does on account of his associations bring discredit upon certain organisations with whom that Party used to be in love, whether or not they now clasp them to their bosom as strongly as before. The Minister last night asked us to get principles, and suggested that it was because they had principles that they got where they are. I thought I should never again have to refer to the promises. Here they are.

They are wearing well.

They were so well scattered through the country that they can be got in every election committee room. They are everywhere except in the memories of the people who made them. This is principle. Here is what "Fianna Fáil can and will do for you." Here is "the more and more money and why should it ever stop." I wish strikers would begin to think of that. Here is the "plan for the farmer, the shopkeeper, the manufacturer, everybody." This is the "manifesto to the electors." Let me say briefly that there is more economics in those plans than there is republicanism. The republic is somewhat in the background, not as far as it is at the moment but it is somewhat in the background so far as those election promises are concerned. There is just an odd aspiration about our living still on friendly terms with our greatest neighbour, and our getting a bigger export market with the friendly neighbour.

Last night's man of principle, giving an interview with the Daily Express before the 1932 election, said that people had tried to frighten the community by saying that Britain would impose taxes if the land annuity money was retained, “but that” said the Minister, in one of those gusts of his, “is all mere nonsense.” That Minister's second resort was the one in which the Minister for Finance took refuge later—that we had alternative markets and people gasping for the goods we have to supply. Let us just briefly refer to those alternative markets. We have tried to stabilise our position with two of them. One is on the basis of a three-to-one exchange of goods with Germany, an agreement which, when published in this country, so frightened the people that when we came to the Belgian agreement there was no stated basis upon which the exchange of goods would take place. It was just that Belgium would try to take more goods from us. Whether the proportion was going to be three to one, seven to one or eight to one we did not know.

I am sure that every Deputy on the other side has at some time or another played roulette, and must know what it is to back the black and get evens, and on the red get three to one, but was there any Deputy in that Party ever foolish enough to go to a roulette table and continue to put on threepences on the basis that every time the owner of the table would scoop the pool, retain twopence and give him back a penny? That is the trade agreement with Germany. It is not that we will win occasionally. It is like the Irish Press—the longer it goes on the bigger the losses.

That is not in the Bill.

It is a mere picturesque analogy. The Belgian agreement had to be made in very loose and vague terms. There would be an attempt to trade with better conditions between us and Belgium than had heretofore existed. We will see at the end of the year how the percentage of trade goes. At any rate, those two agreements have been made, and with those there was one other—this amazing victory which we won over the British Government round about the beginning of this year. Senator Quirke, addressing a Fianna Fáil meeting in Thurles, said with regard to the coal-cattle pact "that so long as there had been a reasonable hope of defeating President de Valera there was little hope of a trade agreement with England, but that with the downfall of the Opposition there came soft words across the waves and eventually there came a welcome outlet for 150,000 extra cattle."

That is not too bad at all.

I think Deputy Donnelly was the only other person who attempted to put a face upon that amazing performance. I see he admires this gloss. Personally I do not. But let us take it as here stated. It is a victory. It is something we have wrung out of England, because it has now realised that President de Valera's position is unassailable. It is something which the British have given in a state of weakness. They are good terms for us. It is part of the prize which we, the victors, are wringing from the vanquished. It is the fruit of victory partially garnered. What did it amount to? It amounted to this, that we get rid of 150,000 extra cattle, and that in return for that we are going to buy all our coal from Great Britain.

That is not in the pact.

Well, this is in the pact, that all other coal will be charged for at a prohibitive rate. Would the Deputy agree that there is definitely added on to the taxes from which this country is suffering a definite tax on coal? As was said yesterday, bread is taxed; butter is taxed; tea is taxed; sugar is taxed. We now have a tax on coal. This is not a question of keeping out British coal and giving a preference in favour of some other nation. It is completely and entirely a tax on coal. For what? In order that we should be enabled to send 150,000 extra cattle into the British market. I do not know when that pact was made. I know it was announced somewhere between Christmas and the New Year. I know that on the 6th December we were discussing in this House various matters in connection with trade with Britain. Round about the 6th December, when I presume negotiations about this coal-cattle pact were going on in England, we had two ex-Republicans, Ministers of this Government, defending Britain. The Minister for Agriculture said, despite all the comments that had been made to the contrary, that the British market was not merely a good thing but was the best thing in the world. He phrased it this way, that in the case of a market like the British market, protected by quotas and tariffs, once you obtained a footing inside that market you got not merely the world price but something better. He further applauded the British for establishing such a position which we could use to our benefit.

The Minister for Defence, always notorious as an economist, took up the running next day. Remember, this is a man who used to breathe fire and slaughter against the British; a man who really had the ire of thousands of years of persecution in his blood; a man who generally saw red— but not the odds on it—when he thought of anything British. He told us in the House on the 6th December that it was wrong for anybody to think that the British had established certain economic machinery against us. It was wrong to think that there was any spirit of hostility about this. It was entirely British Sinn Fein. When he was questioned a little bit as to whether, apart from a general policy of British development, there was not room for a better Irish policy inside that, he told us this amazing story, as reported in column 878 of the Official Debates of the 6th December, 1934:—

"The British Government have quotas in regard to every country in the world, and in regard to this country. The Minister for Agriculture has gone into the figures and the quota restrictions against the Free State—the quota restrictions, not the extra tariff. The quota restrictions are fair, judged by the former imports of countries into England."

I questioned him as to whether they could be fairer, and gave him reasons why we could have asked for fairer terms than what we were being given. I was told that on the basis of my arguments we could demand the whole British market. That is on the 6th December. Supposing there were negotiations going on about the coal-cattle agreement, and that anybody on these benches was unfortunate enough, during that period, to say that we thought the British attitude towards us was not hostile or antagonistic but was merely pro-British; and that the allowances they had made for our entry into their market were entirely fair and that the quota arrangements were perfectly reasonable. Would not the welkin have rung with denunciations of us as helping the enemy if we had said anythink like that in such circumstances? Were there negotiators acting for this Government on the 6th December? If so, was it aiding them and holding up their hands to say that nobody could complain of the British attitude and that entirely inside their general policy their quota arrangements for our cattle were perfectly fair? I do not think that any negotiator finding himself interlocked with the British negotiators would have thought that that was a helpful comment from this side at that time. But that was the statement, that the quota was perfectly fair and that the British were not actuated by hostility to this country.

And Senator Quirke thinks we won a glorious victory in these negotiations. What have we got? The hard pressed Minister for Finance gets £400,000 extra on what the people have to pay by way of tax on their fuel. And we get "a welcome outlet" for 150,000 cattle, according to Senator Quirke, who used to curse the British market. The Senator welcomes the outlet when the victory is won. What do the British get? They have got a number of miners put back into work and so much relief in payments out of the unemployment fund. The British farmer has not been injured. The British Government have seen to that.

The farmers do not say that themselves.

They do say it. I have quotations here from the London Times. The leading article the next day after the pact, is headed: “An agreement, a useful agreement,” and in one part says:—

"The British live-stock industry can be reassured by the statement in the official announcement that the new agreement has been considered in relation to the arrangements for its assistance."

We have had meetings of the British National Farmers' Union in England and we had statements from the Chairman, Mr. Ratcliffe, who, in the beginning, was very apprehensive about the agreement. But what emerges? The arrangements made include a levy on imported cattle, and the editorial in the Times says:—

"that this unexpected surplus of about £600,000 to be derived from the extra Irish cattle will not, of course, fail to be observed by the farmers."

Mr. Ratcliffe of the Farmers' Union suddenly finds that his difficulties were not as great as he had believed. So that in return for the charge which our own citizens will have to pay for British coal, we get leave to send 150,000 cattle to England, and the tariff on those cattle will bring to the British Exchequer at least an extra £600,000. That £600,000 is to be put aside as the nucleus of a fund to help our competitors to build up their live-stock industry.

May the Lord keep us from victories like that for many a day. Instead of slaughtering the cattle and throwing them on the wayside, we get them sent out to England—still at a ruinous price. The British said they would collect the land annuities from us, and confessing that they have been collecting every shilling withheld, they have this additional £600,000 earmarked now for another special fund. The British Farmers' Union has been given an assurance that it has been earmarked for the purpose of helping them to build up an industry that we are so anxious to get out of. While that arrangement was being negotiated two terrific Republicans, two of the men most hostile to England in this country, say that the British Government are quite fair in their attitude to agriculture generally, and that in their arrangements with us they are actuated by no hostility. We are told that the quota arrangements are quite fair. And all that was said while the negotiations for the agreement were going on. There have been talks about agreements. This Government has made three—the three to one agreement with Germany; with Belgium the unmentionable agreement on which we are bound to lose; and we have the victory wrung by the strong party from the weaker in the agreement with England.

That agreement with England shows that we gain nothing because the whole of the quota weapons continue to be used by England against us. As a result of that late agreement the money England secures from us piles up to much more than what the British said they would take. That surplus is going to be used to build up an industry antagonistic to ours. That must inevitably have serious repercussions in the whole country. I take it as a measure of a growing intelligence in the Fianna Fáil Party that only two people in that Party could be got to say anything in favour of it. It speaks more for Deputy Donnelly's glibness than for his intelligence that he was able to speak in favour of it. He was up against a terrific problem. I forget his exact words, but I remember saying to myself at the time that it was a good effort, an effort to solve the problem the speaker has got to deal with; and what that speaker had got to deal with on that occasion was an astounding problem.

Recently the Statistics Branch published a volume of agricultural statistics. I want to refer to that publication in brief. The number of people employed in agriculture in this country has gone down by 12,000 in two years. And those are the two years in which we have had in operation schemes for bounties on beet and wheat and subsidies for peat. But the result of all these schemes is a lowering of the number of persons employed in agricultural occupations in these two years by 12,000. I saw yesterday that the Labour Party had presented a demand to the Minister for Agriculture for the fixing of agricultural wages. I have seen their statistics, gathered by them from their own officials with regard to wages, and I see it stated that in only two areas, Dublin and Offaly, do the wages rise above 20/- a week. I remember when the Labour Party raged wildly when people were getting what was phrased to be "30/- on the Shannon." It was actually £2 5s., but let us pretend that it was 30/-. I remember the time, too, when they raged wild against the Parliamentary Secretary, who, equating the wages to the rates of agricultural wages, gave 22/- a week on relief schemes. We have it in the phrase used by Deputy Cosgrave yesterday, that the Parliamentary Secretary went on to add that anybody who would try to take that 22/- from them would be torn limb from limb. Twenty-two shillings apparently was 2/- more than the average agricultural wages. It certainly was above the actual present wages in all counties, except Dublin and Offaly, and even if they are added in, the average is not above 20/-. Yet even with less wages being paid agriculture finds itself, with all the advantages given to it, unable to support 12,000 previously so engaged.

Let us turn to the other side of it— the side which the Minister for Industry and Commerce so shamefully neglected last night. Deputy Morrissey said that there was one figure which required better explanation than had yet been given of it. There are at the moment signing on 140,000 people as being in some degree of unemployment. We have had a variety of explanations of the amazing increase shown by this figure, the opening one being that of the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Flinn, who said that that was due to the fact that, in the old days, people had to walk miles to the registry in order to sign on and that nowadays they have not. I asked immediately afterwards for the statute, statutory order or Departmental regulation which put upon anybody the necessity to walk any length to sign on, and I was told that these were not to be had. The Parliamentary Secretary's statement was a complete fabrication. We were told about the new stimuli to sign on to which these people were reacting, but all of these stimuli had lost their force, even the Parliamentary Secretary admitted, about six months ago, and yet the tot of those registered had gone up week by week in the six months. The Minister has now tired of hearing these figures quoted against him as representing the unemployment position.

We have now three divisions—the people entirely without means who are looking for work in order to get wages to support themselves, the people with some moneys and the people with less moneys. I suppose we will all fit into that scale of those who have more, or, rather, let us say, since it is a descending scale, who will have, as the years go on, less and less on which to live. At any rate, we have 140,000 registering, and the reason for the increase in the last six months has not yet been given, and no attempt to give an explanation has been made. Concentrate only on the last six months. It is positively clear that there has been an increase, yet there is not the hint of an explanation. In addition to that—and it is the side I would rather turn to— we have the employment figures. The Minister always says, with a sort of catch in his voice, as if conscious of all the praise being poured out about him and of which he is really undeserving, that there are more people in employment than ever before. That could be said of almost every year since the Free State started. I do not think it is right for the Minister to claim it for his three years. I think there was a decline in the middle year, but let that pass.

There are admittedly more people employed, but there was always an upward rise. Has it stopped? Has the rise the same momentum as it had previously and, apart from the momentum that upward swoop always had, has it got any additional strength by reason of all the tariffs, subsidies, credits, reserved commodities and every other aid that has been given? The Minister last night attempted to criticise a figure of mine by saying that I had fallen into the error of taking the excess of the unemployment insurance fund figure at any time over a previous time and dividing that excess by four and pretending that that represented the real situation of employment. I did do that and I stated quite clearly what that meant. I stated that I was following his own definite assertion that this was the best way to get an estimate of the people who had gone into employment. The calculation is easily enough understood. If a man is in employment for 50 weeks, there are 50 stamps, each valued 1/7, attached to his insurance card. The value of these works out roughly at £4. So if you have to transform a money surplus as between years to be compared into a tot of employed persons you divide by four. That does not of course represent what actually happens, because it is based on the assumption that each man who has gone into employment stays there for 50 weeks.

You can get another figure. You can get other figures of numbers of employed, but these other figures will relate to intermittent, broken periods of employment. If you took as your basis that a man only gets work for 25 weeks in the year then you will divide your money surplus only by two and you will then have a different result; but as to numbers employed and the period of their employment you will get exactly the same comparison between any two years. The Minister launched that in this House one day as the best test; the positive test, by way of figures that could not be challenged, as to the employment that was given. Accepting it as such I asked questions here to get these figures exact because in their presentation there was a change back and forwards from time to time when the Minister was on the move. When the figures were not going too well he changed sometimes from the financial to the insurance year. Sometimes he gave us figures in relation to the Fund, and sometimes in relation to the stamps sold, but, in the end, we got the figures perfect for comparison. I state again here that these figures show that, in my last year, the new employment given in the country in insurable occupations was some 11,000 people and in the three years 1932, 1933 and 1934, taking the Minister's figures as accurate—and they are still to be analysed—he has got 18,000 people on to the rolls.

That is the first thing that emerges. My period was supposed to be one in which industry was decaying. The complaint was that aid was not being granted to industry. The country was generally in a decline—the Minister's phrase was "in bankruptcy." Everything was represented as bad, but there were 11,000 new people put into insurable occupations in my last year, the last complete year I had. The Minister then took up the running with his tariffs, his quotas and his many aids and, in addition, we have this grand new situation in which, according to himself last night, production and wealth were developing on every side. In that amazingly favourable economic situation he adds on 18,000 in three years—6,000 people a year. Without the aids, I had 11,000 in one year, and with all these benefactions he has 18,000 in three years.

Now let me make again my first comment, which I think is of importance in this respect. We used to be reminded about the emigrants. They are now stopping at home. We used to hear that 30,000 of them left the country each year. Of course that figure came down, because it was not a good figure for the Minister to deal with, but it has never dropped below 15,000 a year. If then there are 15,000 people per annum looking for employment, newcomers to industry clamouring for work in industry, and the Minister, with all these aids he has given, can only put 6,000 people per annum into employment, he is losing ground at the rate of 9,000 people per year. He has done, he boasts, all that a man can be reasonably expected to do for industry. And yet he is not holding his own with the unemployed. If this were all it is serious enough. But we cannot stop here; this is not the true situation. It is much worse than that.

The Minister in October of 1934 was perturbed, as he still is, about the public attention that was being riveted on unemployment in the Irish Free State. He called in the Press and he issued a statement to them. One would have thought that a Minister, full of himself with regard to industry, and, as Deputy McGovern said last night, running around the country with his little key to open factories, in a musichall sort of way every week-end——

He is the official prophet.

Is it p-r-o-p-h-e-t or p-r-o-f-i-t? I think the profiteers are mainly on that side, but I leave that point as Deputy Corry is not here. Deputy McGovern talked about the Minister running around with his little key. One would have thought, with the little key so much in evidence, that when he called in the Press he would have talked of industries in which occupation was given. What did he found himself upon? Relief schemes and house building. He made this amazing claim: "In house construction in 1926-7 the number of houses built was 3,711, giving average direct employment to 7,800, while in 1933-4 the number of houses built was 6,960, giving average direct employment to 14,700 people." That is not the best of it, or the worst of it, from another angle. This is a statement issued on 27th October, 1934. He must have had the calculations and returns on which to base these figures, although when I asked for them later in a Parliamentary question I was told he had not got them. Still he spoke as if he had them: "In May, 1934, the estimated direct employment on house construction was 21,500 people." Let us take it that represents the fact—21,500 people employed in house building in May last year.

To anybody approaching this problem in a studious way a few things had to be determined in relation to that figure. First of all, one had to find out how much was new employment beyond that given in Deputy Cosgrave's time. I asked questions about that, and they are on record. First I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce and he said he had not the figures. I got them eventually from the Minister for Local Government. I found that there were not 6,000 people employed on house construction in the year 1931 at any time, so that 15,500 represented the new employment in house building in 1934 over 1931, which is my year for comparative purposes. There is one other matter to be investigated. Was that 15,500 a seasonal figure; was it a number that would go down very much in winter? I thought it would. I again asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and he told me he had not the statistics. Then I asked the Minister for Local Government. He had statistics about subsidised houses being built by local councils and being built here in town. I asked as to the number of people employed over each of the quarters of the year. From the reply to that it emerged that subsidised house building is not a seasonal occupation—the numbers did not vary by 1,000 between summer and winter. If that is a correct statement, then there were, through the year 1934, 15,500 new people employed at house building.

The last point to be determined was: do the people employed in house building pay into the Unemployment Insurance Fund? They do, as it is an insurable occupation. They are bound to pay and their employers must subtract the contribution and pay it in. Let us relate that to the other figures. The Minister shows in the year 1934, over the last year in which I had charge of the fund, an increase of 18,000 people, and he claims that 15,400 are on house building. He makes a further claim—relief schemes. On relief schemes, according to the October statement, the amount expended was £182,000 in 1931-32, giving employment to 3,907. In 1933-34, £400,000 was expended, giving employment to 8,572.

Relief schemes fall into different categories. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary, on one occasion when the Labour Party were assailing him for the 22/- wage, what percentage of the relief money went into works that were of an insurable type and he told me more than 50 per cent. Although I am sure Fianna Fáil, in another mood, would rage at the thought that when we were the Government we gave anything like the relief moneys given now, let it be assumed that 1931-32 represents what we gave. There is an increase, as far as relief schemes are concerned, of very nearly 5,000 people. Let us take it that only 50 per cent. were in insurable occupations. You have, therefore, something over 2,000 extra in the year 1934 on relief schemes, and you have 15,500 new on house building, over and above what were employed in our time. The total is 17,500, and the best the Minister can show from the full statistical returns is 18,000 in all branches of industry.

Where is the industrial development in that? Relief schemes and house building. I am not running down house building as a method of employing people if the money is well expended, if the service of the money expended is provided for and received. It is not merely good economics, but very good humanitarianism. It would even be good spending it if there was not a proper return. But then one has to think of this, that while you can in this way get people into employment somebody will hereafter pay for that— ratepayers who can pay will bear the burden of other people's houses. It is only a forestalling of employment, and, further, everybody knows that it is not going to be lasting, that unlike industry proper it is going to come to an end. At any rate, it comes to this: that with tariffs, mountainous in height, with aids and subsidies lavished on every side, productive industry can only claim in all branches 18,000 people, and that relief works and house building between them can absorb all these except 500. Does that mean there is any progress towards the 84,605 people who were promised employment? That was only in a few industries. We have 18,000 employed in three years, that is the best boast of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. If 17,000 odd of these are on relief schemes and house building——

Is the Deputy satisfied with that conclusion?

I am quite satisfied with this conclusion as a general conclusion, and properly understood. I gave these figures, or something like them, in a previous public address, and, of course, by leaving out certain things which in fact I said, I was misrepresented as making out that there was no increase in any industry. I know certain industries in which there has been an increase of employment— in some cases, of thousands of workers; but I also know a good number in which there has been a decrease. I also know that the category "insurable occupations" comprises more than industry—it includes trade and commerce. But what was promised here was employment and what we are talking about is employment. It matters not that there are 24,000 employees finding themselves in insurable occupations for the first time, if there are 24,000 others being dismissed from other occupations. What I am looking for is the surplus, the advantage to the country. What is the increase? Let nobody be so foolish as to think that I am dropping into an error which can be easily exposed by saying that the clothing trade alone showed a bigger increase than what was given as the net figure of increased employment all over the Saorstát, subtracting the house-builders. Boots and shoes will probably show as much. The test of increased employment is the net increase in the moneys of the Insurance Fund, when these moneys are transferred into figures of employees. And that net figure is obtained after adding together all the newcomers and subtracting all those who for any reason have fallen out of insurable occupation. It is quite clearly proved in the last two years that you can get a plus figure in certain types of industry, but it is only by causing a minus to emerge in other branches of employment. The Minister in charge of industrial operations leans on this as his strength—the insurable occupations and the fund derived from the payments made into that fund by people in employment. He boasts that the grand result is a figure of 18,000 in three years. That same Minister told the Press that 21,500 had got direct employment in house-building in May, 1934.

Let me advert for a moment to the word "direct." I do not know what the present relationship of indirect to direct employment is. In my time we had a calculation that for every man directly employed in any labour activity you could count on another person brought in indirectly. Some people said that that figure was too low and that you could count on two indirectly employed to every one directly occupied, that when you get work going you drag in other people on the sideline. Let us assume that it is one to two. If there are 21,000 employed directly on house-building that does not exhaust the effect of such employment through the country. There is at least another 10,000 brought in to supply furniture, kitchen and other utensils.

Everything that goes to the furnishing of houses has to be looked to. These 21,000 houses are not being built for nothing. These have to be occupied. There may be a lag in the extra employment certain later to arise but there are obviously later needs to be met. The furnishing people are not blind. If they see houses going up they know that there will be demands for certain types of furniture and they prepare for it. They prepare for it ahead, and so the lag decreases. In the Minister's own statement there is the situation. It is a serious situation. Supposing 6,000 people per annum are being occupied in new types of industries and that no one is going out of occupation, you can absorb only half the people now coming on the work line, looking for employment, every year, and you make no pretence of touching whatever was the old employment problem. It emerges further that really the only activity in industry is through house-building. Surely, that situation is very precarious. Every one knows that housebuilding is a phase and that while it may go on for some years, it passes out. That is not what was promised. If that represents the principle of which the Minister for Industry and Commerce boasts, then he is an unprincipled man in holding on to his office. That is a situation the Minister might address himself to rather than talk to Deputy Morrissey about the Red Flag or about his activities as a constitutionalist and as an abider with the law and a man who always was an adherent of law and order and an enthusiast for it.

There is one other side of this that has general relation to the country. If there are 12,000 people less in agriculture than there used to be, that is a 12,000 decline in spite of all the money lavished on wheat, beet and on the other things, for all of which subsidies the people are paying by taxes on sugar, tea, bread, butter and coal. The net result is a decline of 12,000 people there. When we turn to industry on the other side we find that the chief activity is housebuilding. Looking at the table in the front of the Estimate does not give a complete picture of the taxation of the country, but it will do for comparative purposes. It will be seen from that table that from year to year during the period of the late Government these figures were brought down until in the end the exactions for supply had been brought to the figure of nearly £21,000,000 in 1930-31 and £21,725,000 in 1931-32. In spite of the promise to reduce that figure by £2,000,000 you find the 1931-32 figures increased—to £24,000,000, £26,000,000, £32,000,000 and £28,725,000. You have an increase and, viewing it from one angle, the angle of the load on the people, it is a heavy, back-breaking, oppressive burden.

Let us take another side of it. If all these moneys are raised and spent in the country—supposing we can deposit that—it means that, instead of £21,000,000, an average of nearly £28,000,000 over four years has been spent in the Saorstát. The increase is more than £6,000,000 yearly or £24,000,000 in four years. Now, it has been always claimed that the money was spent in the country and let us argue on this assumption. Let us take the Fianna Fáil picture of £24,000,000 extra being pumped out into circulation amongst the people, new industries springing up on every side, or, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce said last night, wealth and production evident on every side. The Minister for Agriculture has said, as far as agriculture is concerned, that the picture was never rosier. According to them all, that is the picture of agriculture and of industry, and £24,000,000 have, in addition, been pumped out and forced into circulation. Surely, £24,000,000 pumped out in that way should lead to an increased demand for goods. Are these goods being demanded? If so, are the industries supplying them? There are now no competitors to supply them. The Minister for Industry and Commerce often asserts that imports have been cut down next to nothing. The cutting of imports means nothing if the people have less purchasing power. If people kept their purchasing power, then even against tariffs, the same imports might come in if there was a huge demand for the goods. The Minister says that imports have fallen. Is the deficiency being supplied by home producers? If so, should we not have an enormous number of people in industry and should not the Unemployment Insurance Fund show a great rise? Should not that react on the agricultural community and should they not be feeling the benefit flowing from the towns? What is the situation? Twelve thousand people extra are gone off the land and the only industrial activity appears to be housebuilding. £20,000,000 have been pumped out amongst the community to increase their purchasing power.

In the end we can bring all this down to one test. In a country where you have no great extremes of poverty and wealth, where there is no fantastic amount of the wealth of the country gobbled up by a few people, where it is pretty evenly distributed (and while, in the main, there are differences here wealth is pretty evenly distributed), surely you can get this calculation easily made, that when you divide the mass of your population into the entire production of the community you arrive at something which is called the standard of living. If you are going to maintain more people and retain only the same production, you can only rear these people on the same production by having them supported on a lower standard. If we are to have the same number of people with lower production we can only achieve that in the same way by lowering the standard of living. If you have more people and less production your standard of living is going down still lower.

I want to find out from those who say that they are representatives in this House of the working classes, whether, in fact, the people have represented to them anything about the standard of living. Do they know whether it has gone up or gone down? Remember again the favourable situation that the Government are in. Having broken and made bankrupt the farmers, whose stock has been thrown on the markets almost for bankrupt sale, they have enforced at the cost of the producer in the background a lowering of the town prices of food, and town prices form a big part of the budget of any working-class family. Are the standards of living and the cost of living the same as before? The working classes in this country have got to make up their minds to this: that if this country is going to carry more of a population, with less production, it is going to be at the expense of the standard of living. If the cost of living goes up and men find that their wages are not what they used to be, then you will get the Australian position immediately in this country, with this difference, that this country being so small, the reactions will take place here more quickly. In Australia the situation was simple. You had tariffs and an industrial wages board. When tariffs were raised the cost of living went up and men, finding that their wages did not buy the same amount for them, demanded increased wages from the Industrial Board. The increase in wages raised the cost of production, and then there was a clamour for new tariffs which was acceded to. In turn, the new tariffs increased the cost of living. The worker again found that his wages were not able to buy what they bought before, so he asked for more. That went on until the community was nearly broke.

We can build up here in the same way. We can have a lower standard of living for the community, but will people deliberately accept that if they know that the cost is to be that? The whole of this economic struggle as well as the whole business of the economic war and policy of the Government can simply be made pivot on that one point. We have the example of some labour organisation sending in its demand for agricultural wages to be fixed. They are scandalously low. They are lower than they were with us. Their standards of living have been depressed, and they are not likely to put up with it. That is the case of the agricultural workers. But what about the townsmen? Are they finding that it is as easy to live now, or easier, than it was before, and if not will they long endure that with all the multiplication of tariffs and increase in costs? As Deputy Dowdall promised, "they are going to make as much profits as they can out of these tariffs."

Deputy Dowdall did not say that.

Deputy Dowdall is reported in the newspapers as saying that.

Deputy McGilligan was not in the House yesterday when Deputy Dowdall stated what he did say on that occasion.

Let me read what Deputy Dowdall said, as far as the newspaper is concerned: "Trade should be left in the hands of the business community."—I wonder does he agree to that?—"With regard to the statement that people were taking advantage of the tariffs, it was only human nature to do so." Did he say that? "And personally he would avail of them to make as much profit as he could."

The Deputy should have been here yesterday to hear what Deputy Dowdall did say.

Deputy Dowdall said yesterday not that he was determined to do it but that it would happen.

Deputy McGilligan said that Deputy Dowdall expressed his intention to do it.

Deputy Dowdall said yesterday that he would make as large a profit as possible.

I must say that Deputy Dowdall is an unfortunate man, nearly as unfortunate as the Minister for Finance.

But not as unfortunate as Deputy McGilligan, because Deputy Dowdall has some honour and honesty.

If he had honesty he would not be associated with you.

I do not call that dishonesty—that he is going to make as much profit as he can out of tariffs. Remember that is a view that a number of people approve of, and it is a view that is being impressed on the workers of the country. We have not the Australian situation in this country in this respect: that in Australia, when tariffs went on, the workers looked to get their part of the benefit. Is there any reason for putting on tariffs except to increase purchasing power in the country? Will anyone demand tariffs simply to help industrialists. There is no national economics in that. Of course, there is individual economics. The only way in which this thing can be explained and made tolerable to the community is by saying that purchasing power flows out through the masses of the community in increased wages to the people still in employment and by putting more people into employment. Now, we have not got more people in employment. I do not see more wages but I do see costs rising. The agriculturist apparently has made up his mind that he is not going to tolerate any reduction in his standard of living. If not, and if agriculture is depressed, if 12,000 more people are being put out of it, and if the burden is going to be thrown on the fellows in the towns and they have to take up this burden from their fellows in the countryside, there will be an extra increase on them. So that, eventually, this matter will boil itself down to the reality, now at last emerging, that if you get the same population and a lower production, or a bigger population and the same old production or, worse still, a bigger population and a lower production, there can be only one result and that is a lower standard of living.

That is the price we are going to have to pay, and for what? Look at this paper in my hand! I have often said that this talk about a republic was so much nonsense. There is no republicanism in that document except of the man who is made to say that a republic means all that, and that that can never happen under the Commonwealth. But the republic axiom is in the background.

It is a pity the Deputy was not here when Deputy Belton was speaking. He would have enlightened him.

Or when Deputy Donnelly claimed to be a sham republican.

That was welcome, at any rate. It threw off some of the hypocrisy. At all events there is plenty new under the Fianna Fáil sun if not under the Republican shade. What are people being made to suffer for at the moment? Deputy Donnelly used to be the one man wanted the export of this £5,000,000 stopped. Does he believe the President when he says that the only difference is that the money is now going unwillingly that used to go willingly before? Does that ease the standard of living for anybody—the difference between the words "willingly" and "unwillingly"? When it was going willingly we had good trade relations with that country. We had a market there which even the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Agriculture, and, occasionally, the Minister for Industry and Commerce all claimed to be good, and that a minority claimed to be no good. It is receding and is fast becoming fainter every day. Are the people who are comfortably placed here going to continue this economic war at the expense of the standard of living of the poorly paid in this country until the crash comes?

What is going to happen when all these chickens come home to roost eventually? They need not come home because, of course, one can borrow. The Minister for Finance looks sad at that. At any rate, if you cannot borrow you can tax up to a point. The Minister for Finance must be a mournful man, because there is a point beyond which you cannot go, especially when you get the warning that income is down by over three-quarters of a million from what it used to be. Any thinking man who takes the trouble to look around and see what is happening will see this: that for years we have had this vast collection of money, but it has brought no improvement. There has been no repercussion in trade. We have 12,000 more people out of agriculture. The Fourth National Loan was a failure, and the latest Corporation loan was ditto. Taxation is not going to yield what it used to. What is going to be the result? Is that a prospect that can be faced with equanimity, or are we going to get the same face-saving device about the old-time Republicans? Is it worth while going on any longer simply to get that face-saving clause? Would it not be better to realise what the situation is? Senator Quirke, in connection with the coal-cattle pact, said that we were strong and that the British had to give in— that we were going from strength to strength. There is a point at which a good arrangement might be made, but once that point goes nothing can be made except a much worse arrangement.

The figures that I have given should be receiving the attention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He would be better employed doing that than attempting to reflect upon Deputy Morrissey's past and parading himself now as being so strongly in favour of law and order and constitutionalism. Let him explain those figures, let him explain his own figures about house-building, let him tell us what hope there is of increased production, let him give us figures and not these wild statements that "everywhere you look you see increased wealth and increased production," when everybody who looks anywhere sees the reverse—free beef, destitution, doles, nothing in the way of production, but plenty in the way of expenditure. And it will be expenditure that will bring us down in the end.

No starvation.

Who is talking about starvation?

I do not know whether Deputy Dillon was applauding the armour-plated audacity with which Deputy McGilligan has endeavoured to prove that the economic condition of the country in the year 1935 is less satisfactory than it was in the year 1931 or whether he was merely offering to Deputy McGilligan an expression of his gratitude at the fact that he had ended a speech which was long and boring. Last night, after the Minister for Industry and Commerce had concluded his speech, Deputy McGilligan got up to speak about brass bands. He is an authority on bands. There was a time when he was a big drum in the Cumann na nGaedheal band. He is no longer a big drum there but they still put him up on occasions, possibly on the principle that empty vessels make most sound. He is a gentleman who has been soundly beaten in the Dáil, in his own constituency and in the country. He opened his speech this morning by a reference to Deputy Morrissey's skill as a vocalist. Apparently, Deputy McGilligan was dissatisfied with the Minister for Industry and Commerce because, last night, he elicited the admission from Deputy Morrissey that he began his career in public by singing "The Red Flag." Like some others who used to wave the banners of social reform and political advancement in this country, he has now dropped the Red Flag for the Union Jack.

A large part of Deputy McGilligan's speech was devoted to an examination of the unemployment statistics. He pointed to the undeniable fact that there are considerably more people in receipt of unemployment assistance— that is, of assistance in relief of their poverty directly from the State—than there were when we took office or than there were at any time during the ten years his Administration was in power. The explanation of that fact, which is one of the things the Deputy demanded, is very simple. A census of those who are in receipt of unemployment assistance has recently been taken. The results of that census are now being analysed. One of the first things that has emerged is that more than half the people who are in receipt of unemployment assistance to-day are to be found in the poverty-areas that were formerly under the control of the Congested Districts Board. They represent a class of the population whose wants have been neglected ever since the British Administration left this country and our predecessors abolished the Congested Districts Board, which made these people their particular care. These are the people who did die of starvation when we had members of the Administration—I do not know whether they were responsible or not; the earlier part of the speech which a member of that Administration made here this morning leads me to doubt the responsibility of that gentleman—proclaiming that it was no part of the duty of a Government in this country to succour their citizens when in a state of starvation.

That statement has been denied and admitted to be false by colleagues of the Minister on three separate occasions in my presence. That is now trotted out in the absence of Deputy McGilligan in the hope that it will secure currency.

Deputy McGilligan could have stayed on here. If he is absent, he is absent of his own volition.

The statement made by the Minister was admitted to be false on three separate occasions.

He may deny it, and others may deny it, but, nevertheless, it did represent in fact the policy of the Government of which he was a member.

That is a monstrous and conscious misrepresentation.

When Deputy Dillon was himself uncertain as to where his political future lay, when he was still spinning like a political weather-cock, I have not the slightest doubt that he would have made the same charge against the Cosgrave Administration.

Despite all the "ifs" and "buts," the Minister's statement is a grossly inaccurate and deliberate perversion of the facts.

Why did not Deputy Dillon first come into public life as a supporter of Cumann na nGaedheal and as an associate of Deputy McGilligan instead of as an opponent? If the fact he has referred to was plain, if what Deputy Dillon now proclaims as the truth was patent to his conscience in 1932, why did he stand as an opponent of Deputy McGilligan's Party in the general election of that year? Why did he attack the then Administration? Why did he not have the sincerity and courage to come out as a friend and supporter of theirs and help them when the odds of battle were against them? The reason is quite clear —that in those days, when Deputy Dillon could look at these facts with an impartial eye, he was of the same opinion as we are, that the Cosgrave Administration were neglecting to discharge of the essential obligations of a Christian Government to its people.

That is a very different hat you are jumping on now from the one you were jumping on five minutes ago.

As I have said, the real reason why the number of people in receipt of unemployment assistance greatly exceeds the number of people who returned themselves as unemployed and out of work in the Census of 1926, is due to the fact that for the first time since an Irish Administration took over the Government of the Twenty-Six Counties the poverty-stricken elements among our people, the people who live in a condition of chronic poverty, are having something done for them by the Central Government. Previously, the local authorities, out of their limited resources, did endeavour to assist them, and on that account the amount which was being paid out, or the number of people who were in receipt of home assistance in the Twenty-Six Counties, was very much higher than it ought to be. The increase in the number of people in receipt of unemployment assistance, which is, as I have already said, very marked, has been accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the number of people who are to-day in receipt of home assistance. So that, so far as the conditions in relation to employment of the general mass of the people are concerned, these figures do not indicate any change for the worse. There are, however, definite indications of a change for the better. It is undeniable, except by those who are so blind that they will not see, that the new industries which have been established in this country have absorbed into employment a considerable number of people who were previously workless.

I notice that Deputy Morrissey has fled the House also. Deputy Morrissey lives in Nenagh. Is Deputy Morrissey prepared to stand up here and advocate the closing of the aluminium factory which has been established in Nenagh, on the ground either—which I hold would be a nonsensical and ridiculous ground and repugnant to commonsense—that that factory has not employed people resident in Nenagh or in the Nenagh district, or has only given employment to Nenagh residents who were formerly engaged in other occupations there? Deputy Morrissey is a representative in this House for the Tipperary constituency. Will he advocate the closing of the Thurles sugar factory on the grounds that it has put more people out of employment than it has given employment to? Deputy Fagan is a representative of Longford-Westmeath. There is some sugar beet grown there. Will Deputy Fagan advocate the shutting down of the sugar beet factory on the ground that the farmers of his constituency have not got an additional cash crop, or an increase in the cash crops they already have, by reason of the fact that these sugar beet factories have been established?

The plain fact of the matter is that the unemployment figures, in the form in which they are now presented, are not capable of a reasoned analysis and interpretation at the present moment. We have provided for the people on both sides of this House and for the people of the country an essential statistic which our predecessors refused to provide during the years they were in office and which, in fact, so far as the Census of 1926 and its relation to the employment conditions were concerned, they suppressed until it could be suppressed no longer. Whatever the ultimate analysis of these figures may show, at any rate we have treated the problem in the way it ought to be treated. We have endeavoured to find out what is the extent of unemployment, what is the extent of poverty in the country, how it is distributed, and when and how it occurs so that we may be able to supply a reasoned solution of the whole problem.

Another plan?

Oh, Lord!

Yes, another plan; and if the Deputy wants to look at plans, presented in a rather second-hand and hand-me-down fashion, I would refer him to the programme which was solemnly adopted at the Fine Gael Convention which was held yesterday. Is it Convention or Ard-Fheis? I think Convention is more symbolical of the Commonwealth. There he will see a lot of talk about a comprehensive plan for the solution of the unemployment problem and for the raising of the school-leaving age, while a Government Committee has already been established to investigate that proposal. There he will see the whole organisation of the corporative State glossed over by a resolution declaring that Parliamentary government must be paramount in this country.

That is a change in any case.

In any event—to get back to Deputy McGilligan—on the lowest computation, and I am not going into a prolonged analysis of the figures now, one thing is clear: that excluding altogether the employment, which the Government's house building programme has given, over 15,000 additional people have been put in employment in industrial occupations in this country—and that before the programme of industrial development has got fully under way. The Deputy himself had to admit that in regard to certain of these trades, the clothing trade, the boot trade, and certain other trades, there had been a considerable expansion in employment. He could not deny it. Let him look at the figures issued already for the Census of Production in 1933—not in 1934 or 1935, but in 1933, when our policy was only being initiated. It must be remembered that the first time that a Government here declared for protection was in the Budget of 1932. That was the first time that any indication was given to the people that the Government of the State would foster industrial development in this country. In 1933, just a year afterwards, when the census of industrial production was taken, the figures that have been first published, in relation to the trades that could be most easily examined, indicate already a considerable increase in the number of people in employment.

Which trades?

A number of them.

A number of them.

Ready-made clothing.

No—not boots nor ready-made clothing. They have not been dealt with yet as far as I remember. Deputy McGilligan asked did we know whether the standard of living had gone up or down. Does Deputy McGilligan contend that it has gone down?

Heavily.

Will Deputy McGilligan give the basis for that belief? Will he state the facts upon consideration of which he has come to that conclusion? Speaking from recollection, I can say that any economic indicator which is within our knowledge shows the contrary. The reports of the inspectors who visit the schools under the Department of Education indicate that the percentage of children suffering from malnutrition has considerably declined during the past three years. It has declined by at least 50 per cent. Is that an indication that the standard of living has gone down? Is it an indication that the standard of living of the poorest classes in our population has gone down? Is it not an indication to the contrary? After all, the people who are suffering from malnutrition must be people who are living on the subsistence line or below the subsistence line. If the proportion of children suffering from malnutrition has gone down, is not that a clear indication that the standard of living of the poorest class amongst us has gone up? When that has gone up the standard of living of the classes above them has risen as well.

Might I remind the Minister for Finance that we had made arrangements with the Minister for Agriculture to allow the Pigs and Bacon Bill to be taken to-day, and the Minister for Agriculture is anxious that Independent Deputies should not be squeezed out of the debate?

The arrangement was that the Opposition was to take one hour, and then I was to be allowed to conclude. Deputy McGilligan spoke for over an hour and a half.

Does the Minister for Finance wish the whole arrangement to be abandoned?

Of course I can understand the Deputy's difficulty. Deputy McGilligan has never honoured an arrangement which was made by his representatives.

Let the Minister carry on. I quite understand. I regret that I interrupted.

Might I ask whether time has been allotted for dealing with the Pigs and Bacon Bill—if it is going to get a Second Reading to-day?

All I am in a position to report to you, Sir, is that so far as we are concerned we indicated to the Minister that, if he could arrange with Independent Deputies, we would not endeavour to prevent the Pigs and Bacon Bill getting a Second Reading to-day, and that adequate time would be left between this and the Committee Stage, when the details of the Bill would be disposed of at greater length. We did not purport to speak for Independent Deputies, and the Minister left us under the impression that he intended to approach them individually himself.

I have been speaking to the Minister about it, and I have agreed on principle, but if we are going to be left only five minutes we cannot stick to our arrangement.

That is for the Minister for Finance to decide.

I should like to suggest that this arrangement should have been definitely fixed outside the House. I cannot have any say in the matter.

It is a matter for the Party which takes responsibility for Deputy McGilligan, and not a matter for the Minister for Finance. An arrangement was made last night——

Let us have the Bill now.

I was going on to deal with the question of the standard of living. There are a number of taxes which are generally regarded as economic indicators. I can only speak now in relation to two of them. One of them is the amusements tax, the other is a tax on what is essentially a luxury article. The yield from amusements tax this year will surpass our estimate, and will be better than the yield last year or the year before.

And the yield from the tobacco tax will be very high.

It, also, will be up.

Quite. Wherever you are paying the dole you will find that will be the case.

The return from what was known as the McKenna duty on clocks and watches will also be up considerably, as compared with 1930 and 1931. People do not buy those things unless they can afford them. They will do without those things unless they are provided with all their other needs. Those are articles upon which people spend their money last, and the fact of the matter is that once again those taxes are showing an increased yield. It is possibly true, as Deputy Dillon says, that wherever the State provides for the poverty stricken elements in the community the yield from amusements tax and from the duty on tobacco and luxury articles goes up, but if that be so, what does it indicate? It clearly indicates that the standard of living of the population, as a whole, has gone up. That is what Deputy McGilligan wanted to know. Deputy Dillon's admission must now make clear even to Deputy McGilligan that so far from the standard of living in this country falling it has considerably improved.

In the opening part of his speech Deputy McGilligan referred to the trade agreement with Germany. In the course of his speech he indicated that he had an extensive knowledge of what are generally known as the trick-of-the-loop trades. He discoursed learnedly on roulette. He talked about placing your penny or your sixpence or your shilling on the red or on the black, as the case may be. He then went on and made a joke about the man who would put down threepence and expect to get back only a penny in return. Of course, that is very amusing. That man would generally be regarded as a simpleton, but there are many simpletons in this world, and I suppose to Deputy McGilligan's mind the man who is most to be commended is the man who is least simple.

When Deputy McGilligan was Minister for Industry and Commerce there was an extensive trade carried on between this country and Germany. Deputy McGilligan, in the days of his wild youth, when he had all the irresponsibilities of office—because when he was speaking from these benches I think his principal characteristic was irresponsibility—and had an opportunity of negotiating trade agreements with Germany, playing roulette, and backing the red or backing the black or the yellow, or in his case the crown and feather. How was the balance of trade in those days? Deputy McGilligan put down a considerable sum of money. He was not playing in pennies. He was playing in millions when the Shannon Scheme was being constructed. At that time at least between £8,000,000 and £10,000,000 of Irish capital was expended largely in Germany. How was the balance of trade in those days? How many pennies did Deputy McGilligan get back out of his shillings? Not one. The balance of trade was normally 1,000 to 1,500 per cent. against us in those days. That is how Deputy McGilligan used to play roulette.

Of course it is quite easy for him here to make a joke. He reminds me of the picture: "Laugh, Clown, Laugh." He must laugh when he sees the success that has attended the efforts of the present Minister for Industry and Commerce to secure an equitable trade arrangement between this country and Germany. He must laugh in order that he may make people forget his own failures when he endeavoured to negotiate agreements of a similar kind. On occasions in his speeches Deputy McGilligan is slightly amusing. But in the opening passages to-day he was not amusing. He was merely disgusting. He referred to the very regrettable incident at Birr, an incident I am sure which has shocked and would shock beyond expression every decent man of whatever class or religion or country he may be, but which to Irish-men and to Catholics must be an occasion of very great sorrow. Does not that incident bear on its face the marks of having been carried out by a person who was not in the full possession of his faculties?

Precisely what Deputy McGilligan said.

Precisely what he did say! He began his reference to this incident by saying that when he read of the thing at first he was inclined to think that the outrage was the work of a maniac, but when days passed and no arrest was made he began to think otherwise, he reasoned with himself that if it were the work of a maniac the culprit would be speedily apprehended. Then he went on to make a shameful innuendo which disgraces not merely Deputy McGilligan himself, but every member of his Party associated with him, who was sitting in the House and did not protest against it. He made the innuendo that the Gárda—the great bulk of whom were recruited and trained under our predecessors, under the Government of which the Deputy was a member—had refrained from doing their duty in a case which, if it can be proven to be the work of an organisation or individual in full possession of his senses and identified with any organisation, would outrage the conscience of every man amongst us—one would not except even the Gárda, against whom Deputy McGilligan has levelled this shameful charge.

The Deputy went on to impute to the Gárda something which only can be described as covert sympathy with the action of those individuals, or else abject cowardice—that they, because they thought it might be displeasing to this person or to that person in authority, had failed to make an arrest in the case. Can any other construction but that be placed on Deputy McGilligan's words? He now makes that charge against every member of the Gárda, because he cannot confine this allegation merely to those who are stationed in the town of Birr. He is bringing this indictment against the superior officers of the Gárda and against the other members of the Gárda in the county and area in which the incident occurred. He has extended his indictment further to bring in every member and officer of the Gárda from the Commissioner down. Does Deputy Dillon stand for that? Does Deputy O'Leary stand for it? Does Deputy Roddy stand for it? Or do the Opposition Deputies who sit in this House for that constituency stand for it? Yet that is the charge which Deputy McGilligan has levelled against the Gárda to-day— that these men, bound to apprehend criminals, know the persons responsible for this, and have failed to make an arrest or detection.

There is a motion on the Order Paper in the names of Deputy Cosgrave and Deputy Costello, demanding an investigation into certain incidents which are alleged to have occurred on 10th February, 1934. I hope that those sitting with Deputy McGilligan on those benches and those who are associated with him will put down a motion demanding an investigation into the charges which the Deputy has made here against the Gárda. I do not see what else, as honourable men, they can do. I cannot see how they can get out of the dilemma which he has placed them in. Either these charges should be withdrawn or else the House should hold an inquiry into them. Those of us who know Deputy McGilligan and some of those associated with him regard these charges as being worthy of him and worthy of a member of an Administration who shipped out of this country the murderer of Sergeant Bergin and kept him outside this country and only tried him for murder when he returned to this country.

This matter does not arise on this Bill.

However, I do not want to go into that. I am sorry that I allowed myself to mention it.

Hear, hear!

No person can justify here the charge and the innuendo made by Deputy McGilligan——

I advised the Minister to sit down a quarter of an hour ago, and now he is getting himself into it.

Deputy McGilligan has made this charge against the Gárda because all things seem yellow to him.

I have tried to keep the Minister out of the mess into which he is falling.

It is because all things seem yellow to the jaundiced eye that Deputy McGilligan makes the charges that he has made in this House.

The Minister will be in another mess in a minute unless he keeps off that.

Deputy McGilligan, in the course of his speech, referred to the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, last night, in which he pointed out that the failure of this Government in relation to political and social matters could only properly be evaluated and appraised when contrasted with the policy of the Party opposite. We cannot, naturally, in a debate of this sort, adequately defend the policy of the Administration without referring to the policy of the Opposition and comparing one with the other.

In the course of his speech, the Minister for Industry and Commerce pointed out that as Deputy Morrissey had advanced from "The Red Flag" to the Union Jack, so, too, are most of the members of the Party opposite advancing, in the view presumably of those who are now leading them, from the Tricolour to the Union Jack, when they proclaimed for the first time in unequivocal language to the people of this country that they were going to adopt the Commonwealth and its symbols. It can be pointed out that one of the symbols of the Commonwealth is the Throne, and indissolubly linked up with the Throne is the acceptance of the principle of the Protestant succession in this country. You cannot blink it. The symbol of the Commonwealth is the Crown, and the Crown must descend to the heirs and successors of William and Mary, they being Protestants.

I do not think the Minister should pursue that.

I am dealing with the question of symbols. There is no question of bigotry or intolerance in this. It is merely a fact that this great Catholic nation is going to accept the principle of the penal laws.

The principle of the penal laws. What were they passed for except to establish this Protestant succession? The martyrdoms at Tyburn—to what were they due?

How does that deal with the Bill?

We are dealing with the general question of Government policy.

There is no money in Tyburn.

We are, but I do not know that Government policy has anything to do with the Protestant succession.

Throughout this country, you will see roofless monasteries and ruined and desecrated shrines——

I am not going to listen to the Minister along that line. We are discussing Government policy and Government administration. Whether another Party advises a Commonwealth policy, or not, might be discussable, but to pursue it in the way in which the Minister is pursuing it is not allowable on this Bill.

I am going to say that these things remain in our midst as symbols in this connection. We are not going to accept that. Let Deputy MacDermot and Deputy Cosgrave, with his Papal honours thick upon him, take them if they wish. They are not for us. Let Deputy Esmonde's uneasy spirit find rest in the bosom of Queen Victoria. She is not for us. Let Deputy Dillon, who proudly refused, as he proclaimed once on a public platform, to stand up for the "Soldier's Song" sing "God Save the King," if he likes. That national anthem is not for us. Let Deputy Morrissey do as he has already done—drop "The Red Flag" and wrap the Union Jack around him. They are not for us. You can have your Commonwealth and you can have these symbols. If we have to operate at the present moment within the Treaty, we operate within it in the words of a man who, we were told the other day, opened the door to a Republic for us. We operate this Constitution in this spirit—I am quoting from Vol. 1, Col. 571 of the Dáil Debates—and in this spirit only:—

"Certain people have spoken of duress. They do not like the Constitution; they do not like the Treaty. I wonder if some of the signatories to the Treaty liked it very well? I wonder if it represented all that they would have wished to secure for their country? I think they liked it just as little as any member of this Dáil, but they took it and they signed it. They signed it, if you like, under duress. If you want to talk poetry let us say they signed it with a pistol to their heads, or rather, let us say, to the head of their country.... The whole position for seven centuries back has been a position of duress, and the position is likely to remain, in all essentials, a position of duress, for many a long year to come."

Again, speaking later in the debate upon the Constitution Bill, as reported in the same volume at col. 647, Mr. Kevin O'Higgins, who did, undoubtedly, I admit, help to open the road that we are pursuing, said:—

"Undoubtedly, there was duress on the facts; undoubtedly, the big stick was there. The fact that war stood as an alternative is undeniable —the fact was that war was explicitly presented as an alternative to one of the signatories."

Then, again, he said:

"We do not think that, in passing this Constitution, we are fixing the ne plus ultra of the Constitution of the country.”

We are not discussing the Constitution.

I am dealing with this question that has been raised about the Commonwealth, and I am saying that the facts remain as they are to-day.

The acceptance of the Constitution surely does not arise on this Bill. The Constitution has been accepted and passed and it is law.

Why not quote your Minister for Justice?

Perhaps you would allow me to intervene, Sir. There has been mention already of this Commonwealth question several times in this debate, but the arguments pro and con have not been advanced by anybody. There has been no attempt to discuss whether or not we should remain in the Commonwealth.

Deputy MacDermot himself raised that point, if I might say so.

What strikes me about it is that the Minister is quoting from a volume of Dáil Debates, in which certain statements were made relevant to the acceptance of a certain document. That does not arise on this Bill because the Constitution has been passed and is law.

The policy of the Government in reference to this matter has been asked for and I am merely pointing out that we are to-day in the position in which the late Mr. Kevin O'Higgins was in 1922 and 1923. We are here under duress; the duress still remains.

When the President of this country addressed a request to the people on the other side to state, plainly and unequivocally, whether the Irish people were free to secede and whether, if they did exercise that right of secession, which Deputy MacDermot claims they hold, any sanctions, economic or military, would be invoked against them, he failed to get a reply. Therefore, as I say, our position remains to-day in 1935 what it was for those who accepted the Treaty in 1923. We are here in the Commonwealth, we operate this Constitution under duress.

Question put and agreed to.
Bill put through Committee without amendment and received for final consideration.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."

The Minister for Finance has elected to repeat in this House a hoary misrepresentation of something Deputy McGilligan said when here as Minister for Industry and Commerce. On that occasion the Official Report revealed that Deputy McGilligan said: "Will it be contended that the Government of Saorstát Eireann should stand by while people died of starvation for want of work? Some might take that view, but," said Deputy McGilligan, turning to a member of the Labour Party, "neither I nor you would subscribe to that view of Government responsibility." Time and again the Minister and his colleagues have sought to divide that statement into two parts and represent Deputy McGilligan as saying that in his opinion the Government were entitled to stand by while citizens of the State perished from starvation. The Minister knows that statement was never made, and it is an unworthy and a futile thing——

Did they not die of starvation? They did.

——when it has been corrected time and again, to dish it up when the individual concerned does not happen to be present in the House to deny it on his own behalf. The next thing is that Deputy Donnelly wants to dig up the preposterous fraud of the Adrigole scandal. There was neither foundation nor substance in the allegation that any person who died in Adrigole died of starvation, or as a result of any neglect by the Government of this country, or failure to do anything that they could or ought to have done. It is silly and bad for the country as a whole to dig up an imbecile allegation of that kind. It has been made and abandoned in this House three separate times in my presence, and it is only futile to try and dig it up now. It only gives rise to the use of language in this House which is an embarrassment to the authority of the Chair, because when allegations of that kind are made it is necessary to repudiate them, sometimes even in violent language, in order to bring home to the public how baseless they are. I sincerely hope that the necessity for doing that will not arise now or hereafter.

I should like, as a representative of the constituency where Adrigole is situated, to say that nobody at any time died in Adrigole of starvation. The suggestions made about that case were entirely without foundation, and a slander and libel on the people of the locality.

That is so. I should like to say that the Government at that time had made as good provision for the people as the Government to-day have. I shall just quote a statement made by Deputy T.J. Murphy some time ago at Youghal, when he said, talking of the Unemployment Assistance Bill, which was introduced with such a flourish of trumpets, that it was no better than home assistance or outdoor relief. Deputy Murphy has made accusations here on several occasions against Deputy McGilligan. He was a member of the West Cork Board of Health at that time and was in a position to make provision for these people, even if it were true that that they died of starvation.

There was no necessity to make provision.

I only know the facts as to Adrigole as they were reported in the daily Press of the day, including the Irish Independent, the Irish Times and the Cork Examiner.

Could you not find out from your colleague, the Minister for Local Government, who has the files?

Possibly there was as little foundation for the accusation about starvation at Adrigole as there was for the statement that a Deputy in this House laughed at the murder of a man. On the other question, when Deputy McGilligan was in the House he made certain statements relating to Deputy Dowdall, which Deputy Dillon knows, so far as they were applied specifically to Deputy Dowdall, in view of the fact that he accepted Deputy Dowdall's disclaimer, were without any foundation whatever. If Deputy McGilligan wished to controvert the statement I made he could have stayed in the House. I will not accept any person disclaiming what was really, I think, Deputy McGilligan's inner mind on the matter except Deputy McGilligan himself. If he at any time is misrepresented either here or elsewhere, he has done more to lower the level of public life by misrepresentation than any other man who has engaged in it since the days of the Parnellite Split.

Might I intervene just for a few moments to say something by way of personal explanation? I tried to say it on Wednesday night and I tried to get an opportunity last night, but I failed.

This is not a personal explanation.

Mr. Burke

It is a personal explanation and it will be very brief.

It is certainly a statement which will involve making a speech after the Minister, who moved the Final Stage of the Bill, has concluded on it.

Mr. Burke

I only want to say three words. Deputy Murphy made certain statements here about me the other night which were absolutely untrue.

I cannot allow the Deputy to proceed any further on that line.

You will have another day.

Mr. Burke

I hope I shall. I want it to go forth to the country that that statement was untrue.

The Deputy must sit down.

Mr. Burke

I will sit down—I have sat down.

Question put and agreed to.
Barr
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