I presume we can look upon this Finance Bill as a very practical expression of the general policy of the Government in this country. The taxation represented by this Bill—and the taxation not represented in this Bill, which, as I pointed out before, is a very considerable item and should be taken into account when considering the effect of this Bill on the country—would in any circumstances be a very serious thing for the country, but in the present circumstances, with the principal industry of the country practically ruined, with the purchasing power of the people greatly damaged, and with the taxable capacity of the community seriously decreased, this Budget, coming on top of the various other evidences we have had up to the present of the Government's reckless financial policy, can only be described as appalling. Not satisfied with the increases in taxation which they had already put on the country, the Government proposes, in the present instance, to make further increases. Several million pounds had already been put on by previous efforts on their part to deal with the finances of the country, and now that amount is greatly increased. As I said, it is not merely greatly increased by the amount mentioned here or by the amount that this Bill represents, but it is greatly increased by other taxes as well.
There are a number of taxes that are not mentioned in this Bill, but they should be taken into account when we are dealing with the amount that the country has to meet, and with the capacity of the country to meet the charge that is being placed upon it. There is a great portion of the sugar tax not referred to in the Budget or in this Bill. The butter tax, the wheat tax, even the extra amount that was levied for the unemployment insurance, the bacon tax—all these things which, in the normal state of affairs we might have before us, are not represented here. The amount as actually represented by the Bill and by the Budget would, in any circumstances, be a matter of very serious consideration for the country, but it is all the more serious because of the crisis that faces the country. Even the supporters of the Party opposite down the country, not merely Fine Gael supporters, but men of all Parties, farmers at the different meetings, having heard speeches, have now only one question to put. They may be appalled at, they may feel the extra taxes, but the question they are really interested in is, what chance is there of stopping the ruin of agriculture, of stopping the war that is causing that ruin? With our principal industry brought to that particular pass, so that it is borne in upon the supporters of every Party that the thing cannot continue, to impose a Budget of this kind on the people is nothing short of criminal.
I have seen the defence put forward by a prominent member of the Government that taxation and the Budget are means of securing a redistribution of property. What is there going to be left to redistribute if the Government continues on its policy, if the Government refuse to take into account, as they are quite obviously refusing, what the people are suffering? What will there be to redistribute? Does not anybody see that when the Government deliberately adopts, as I gather from the statement of the Vice-President that it is a portion of their deliberate policy to adopt, taxation as a method of redistribution of wealth in the country, that with the present conditions prevailing, with the destruction of the main industry, that it is nothing else than using pauperisation as an instrument of Government? I have heard of various forms of terror being used as an instrument of government; I have seen one great Government use starvation as an instrument of government, but of deliberate policy to use what, in the present circumstances, amounts to pauperisation as an instrument of government is possibly unique. What will there be to distribute when the Government has done with their policy and what evidence did the Vice-President find in this Budget, what evidence can he find in this Bill, of redistribution? Take this Bill, take the new taxes that are proposed in this Bill to be put on the people, and where is the redistribution? Possibly between individuals, but certainly not between what might a few years ago have been called the comparatively comfortable, and the poor. Where is the evidence of the redistribution of property of which the Vice-President speaks?
The new taxes are to be borne by everybody, and they fall, therefore, as indirect taxes will fall, in the first instance, most heavily on the poorer classes of the population, on the worker and even on the unemployed. What is there at the present moment that any of these people, put them in or out of employment, wear or eat or use or that they see—what is there that is not taxed, that they, out of their scanty means, do not pay a tax on to the Government, directly or indirectly? Where is the redistribution of wealth of which the Vice-President speaks? You have reached the end of that policy of redistribution, as was clearly acknowledged in this Budget, as was clearly acknowledged by the hints dropped by the Minister for Finance and the President. The wealthy have been raided to the full capacity already and, therefore, you have to fall back on the indirect taxation of every man, woman and child, be he poor, or be he a man with some little property. You have abandoned your policy of redistribution and, when the Vice-President spoke the other day of taxation as a weapon for the redistribution of wealth, he was living in the past, because as the whole structure of the Budget and the Bill shows the time when it was possible, by means of taxation, to redistribute wealth from an alleged well-off class for the benefit of a poorer class—that time has passed, and the Budget is proof of that.
It required only a couple of years of the Government in office, a couple of years of their policy, to empty those coffers. Saturation point has been reached, as has been pointed out again and again, and it is not the rich who are being taxed directly any longer. They all will have to bear it, the income tax people as well as everybody else, because this is bound to give rise to demands for higher wages. This is bound to affect industrial investment, and, therefore, it hits everybody, but directly, in the first instance, the money is taken not, as in the first Budget, presumably, from the wealthy—though there again it would hit everybody—but it is now directly taken from everybody, from the poor as well. Where is the redistribution there? The tax on tea, the extra tax on sugar, the increased price of bread, the increased price of tobacco—where is the redistribution of which the Vice-President boasts? Is there any evidence of it? There is none, and the reason is perfectly clear. The Government, some years ago, started on a financial rake's progress. So far as money is concerned and so far as economics are concerned, the Government have continued that, and now there is nothing left in the places where they thought there was money. Whether they like it or not, they are forced to levy taxes on all the people. Last year, and the year before, and in 1932, they pretended to tax the rich for the benefit of the remainder, but now they are forced openly to tax everybody. That is the position the Government of the country is facing to-day. It is facing this demand of increased taxation, this demand for increased revenue at a time when the principal industry, as a result of their policy, is on the very verge of collapse, when many of the farmers are already crushed beyond the verge of collapse.
There are countries in Europe that, as a matter of deliberate policy, have sacrificed deliberately the agricultural community in order to push on industrialisation. But what have you here in this country as a result of Government policy? Not merely the exploitation of the farmer for the benefit of industrialisation, but you have the exploitation of everybody and you have the sacrifice of everybody. The town is being sacrificed as much as the country. It is not the farmers alone who must ultimately bear the brunt of the fight that is now going on. The towns must bear it as well. That is what is so hopelessly contradictory in the Government policy. You take up this Bill and look at it; or you turn up any week in this House and you find new taxes or new tariffs proposed. For what purpose? Undoubtedly there is the plea on the part of these people of the building up of industries. There are plenty of examples of these efforts in this Bill; not a month or week passes but there are new taxes put on.
At the time that the Government are doing that, at the time when they are heavily taxing the people to build up these industries they are making the future of these same industries insecure and I might add hopeless and helpless. What chance have any industries of surviving in this country no matter what tariffs you impose and no matter what governmental methods you may think up? What chance have they of being an ultimate success if the purchasing power of the community is being ruined? What is the situation? Heavy taxation, not in thousands and hundreds of thousands, but in millions, is being added, and that not only with the present being less able to bear it, but with the future being pawned and bankrupted as well. If, as a result of the Government policy, you determine to ruin the primary industry of the country, where are you? Our primary industry up to the present and for a long time to come, no matter what the Government does, is the agricultural industry. If you make up your mind to ruin that primary industry how can you expect the others to live? You urge your policy of protection in order to build up industries here. Do you not see that you are cutting the ground from under that policy by the way you are ruining the primary industry? Do you not see that you are securing its failure and that you are not giving it a chance when you are destroying the purchasing power of the country? How can our manufactures, which, apparently, this Bill is meant to help and which the general policy of the Government is meant to foster, succeed with a population unable to buy them? How can there be that wealth distribution of which the Vice-President boasted the other day if the main industry is ruined? How can you have wealth to distribute when our trade has vanished, when our principal source of wealth has been destroyed, when the cattle trade alone in two years has lost to the extent of £6,000,000? What is the chance for these industries? None. What is serious is that the Government really is carrying on two conflicting policies in this as in everything else. We have plenty of examples of that every day in the policy of the Minister for Agriculture, and we have it here now again. In their agricultural policy on the one side they take drastic measures to secure its success and, on the other hand, they take equally drastic measures to secure that it will fail. What are they doing? They are not merely sacrificing the farmers. They are sacrificing the towns and the country both, not to an economic idea, not for the purpose of building up the country, but to an insensate political policy, to a dispute with their principal neighbour. One thing is clear and it ought to be clear at this time to the Government as it is becoming gradually clear to most of their followers in the country by bitter experience. That is that unless the markets are open for this country there is no chance for a revival of our principal industry. There is no chance of any permanent success for our minor industries. You are cutting the ground of any hope for any industry, great or small, unless you can open the markets. When I speak of opening the markets I do not mean opening them to the extent of £10,000 or even £100,000. All that sort of thing, these minor trade agreements, would be of some value if your main position was secure. As they are they are worthless. This is merely playacting and juggling with the situation. When the Government has deliberately thrown away millions of trade on which the future prosperity of the country must depend, it is absurd for them to think they can counteract the evil they have done by these minor trade agreements. What does £10,000 of an increase in trade here and £100,000 of an increase of trade in some other country matter when millions are being lost? If you had made these millions secure, all these minor agreements would be of additional advantage. But with the deliberate policy of the destruction of our main source of wealth the thing is ridiculous. If you think you can remedy a serious situation with the small palliatives that are scarcely palliatives at all, you are making a mistake.
The Government has made no attempt to justify such an imposition of taxation as is imposed by the Budget to which this Bill is relevant. It has not attempted to justify the other methods of raising money which the Government directly and indirectly has imposed. Many of these are not even mentioned in this Bill or in the Budget statement. It would be a very serious proposition and bad policy for a country like this that is trying to establish industrialisation to place on the people such a burden as this Budget is placing. If the Government is to make good the industrial position it is going a bad way about it in placing a burden like this on the people. But you have the position that, at the very moment this burden is placed on them, their trade is yearly disappearing by tens of millions. All that is nothing but criminal folly on the part of the Government. There was only one respect, in so far as this Budget was concerned, in which there was some bit of hope for the farmers. We had the alleged excuse for delaying the introduction of the Budget—that the Spring Show was coming on. There was at that time a hope that the Government would take better counsel in the matter of their Budget. Most of us would like to have seen the other Budget, the one that was to have been introduced instead of this Budget. Let us hope that as bad as this Budget is it is an improvement on what was to have been brought in eight days previously.