I move:—
That a Select Committee be set up to inquire into the incidence of the special duties collected by the British Government on Saorstat agricultural produce and to report on ways and means whereby the burden of the economic war will be equitably borne by all sections of the community; That the Committee consist of eleven members who shall be nominated by the Committee of Selection;
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records.
In moving this motion, I may say that I am sorry that we have not a bigger attendance in the House. We have not even as full a House as we had an hour or so ago when we were debating the affairs of Abyssinia and Italy. I am sorry that Deputy Norton is leaving after his eloquent address on the evils of unemployment. There can be no evil without a cause, and one of the principal causes of unemployment at the present time is the subject matter of this motion. I do not intend to go into details or to give figures that have been given a dozen times over on the incidence of the economic war, for the reason that a certain common ground, broadly speaking, has been arrived at. There has been substantial agreement here that when our Government ceased to make payments of about £5,000,000 a year on foot of the Ultimate Financial Settlement the British said that they would collect them, and set about doing so. They published returns subsequently claiming that they had collected them. The figures they gave have not been disputed by our Government. In fact, they have been accepted by it. It does not appear that our Government is doing any book-keeping in the matter to see whether the British claim has been satisfied by the produce of those tariffs, whether it has been exceeded or has not been satisfied. On the whole, it has been accepted that the British have collected those tariffs.
Figures have been published showing that the huge amount of £4,500,000, with the exception of about £100,000, has been collected off agricultural produce. If that sum of £100,000 were closely analysed, it would, I think, be found that it too was indirectly collected off agricultural produce, so that it is substantially correct to say that agriculture is bearing the whole burden of the economic war. That has been accepted substantially in debate by the President as common ground.
There is a bit of a divergence after that. It is claimed by the Government that considerable help is being given for the growing of wheat and beet, and for the production of peat which they claim is, roughly speaking, an agricultural product. I am not going to differ with the Government on that point. The encouragement of wheat and beet growing was part of the Government's agricultural policy before the economic war, but to put that policy into force would require inducements by way of prices or bounties, or something of that nature. I do not differ with the Government on that. In fact, I strongly favour the growing of these crops. My point is that to encourage their growing inducements would have to be offered. If we never had the economic war, and that the growing of these crops was considered to be good national economy, as I believe it is, then inducements would have to be held out to grow them, inducements at least equal to those which are now being held out in order to give the people engaged in that particular kind of economy an equal return. Therefore, the financial help offered as a necessary inducement for a change in the agricultural economy cannot be taken as in any way compensating for the losses sustained by the economic war. Of course, agriculture has also been called upon to bear the cost of the industrial revival. It is quite right that it should, but then the burden has proved to be too great on agriculture in its present weakened state. I do not want to develop unnecessarily that line of argument. I merely want to show the common ground that has been arrived at.
There is, as I have said, a divergence of view. I admit that. I propose to deal briefly with that particular point. The Government may think that they are right. Their views differ from ours on that, but they ought to give us credit for honestly holding the contrary view. I submit that the matter is of sufficient importance to warrant investigation. We are asking the Government to set up this Select Committee to investigate that divergence of opinion. We guarantee to put up the case for agriculture. If we fail to make our case before the Committee, then we will be silenced, and no more will be heard of this matter in the House, certainly not from that angle. There is ample evidence of the belief held throughout the country that agriculture is bearing the whole strain of the economic war, that it is becoming impoverished and bankrupt as a result of that, while in the case of subsidiary industries that are being financed and nursed by the State, you have thousands growing rich out of them. If it were established beyond doubt who is bearing the loss, and I think that is what the Government is afraid of—our submission is that agriculture is and that we will establish that if the Select Committee is set up—then the whole matter would be brought to a head, and brought to a head quickly, because no longer could anybody be taunted with the question: "Do you want to pay?" If we got the whole claim in the morning, we would have lost in the last three years more than all we are asking would be worth to us. The remission of the annuities in the morning would not compensate for what we have lost. There was a time, perhaps, when a settlement could have been made, and the Government could have claimed a victory. The best they can do now is to have a quick settlement, so as not to make matters worse than they found them. One section of the community has to bear all that loss.
Deputy Norton told us a moment ago that roads require to be made, that land requires to be drained, and that the unemployed could be engaged on that work. Deputy Norton, however, does not realise this important fact— that land that does not require to be drained is not paying its way at present. How would it pay the State to drain land which, at best, would be second or third rate land, if first rate land requiring no drainage, is not paying its way? I do not want the Government to accept these statements. They will not accept them, I know, but will try to contradict them. For two or three years, we have been making that case, and the Government has been contradicting it. To carry on a controversy like that is pure waste of time. It is not in that sense that Deputy Kent and I have introduced this motion. We do not want the motion to be considered in that way. I am not going to make a case in detail to show that agriculture is bearing the whole cost, but I assert that. I am not going to prove it, because I do not want the discussion on this motion to develop into a controversy on that question. Government Deputies who have their ears to the ground know that farmer-supporters of the Ministry have gone to the Government and asked them to relieve them of the burden of the economic war. They have told them that they will bear their fair share without squealing, but that they will not bear any more. I am not going into detail to prove that the farmers are bearing the whole burden, but that is held by the farming community. I do not want to feature that, but I do urge that it is sufficiently important to make the Government sit up and take notice. When such a large section of the community feel that they have this big grievance, it is worth while investigating it. What I want to establish is a case for investigation rather than the proposition that the farmers are bearing the whole cost. Whether any particular section is bearing the whole cost cannot be settled here or on a platform. The claim can be made, but it cannot be settled by controversy. It can be investigated by a Select Committee, and the case I want to make is for Select Committee investigation. I submit that the farmers have a prima facie case on which to base an investigation, and it is for that investigation I am asking. That is what prompted this motion. The Government have held investigations for various classes of public servants. They held an inquiry—and rightly so— six or seven months ago, into the grievances of the busmen and tramway men. When any industrial trouble occurs in the city, the Minister for Industry and Commerce is prepared— and quite rightly—to set up machinery to investigate the cause of the trouble. Why not set up the machinery here suggested, or any similar machinery which may suggest itself to the Government, to investigate a grievance which is held by farmers throughout the country without regard to political affiliations. If the farmer fails to make a case, his mouth will be shut and, even if he is suffering, it can only be said that he suffers equally with the rest of the community and, therefore, has no grievance.
If the Government reject this motion, I suggest that they will do so for one reason and one reason only—that they are afraid to face the issue, that they know the case for the fanners is unanswerable. They know the farmer has been cheated and robbed. They know the economic war has failed. They know that if they had a so-called win now and England said they would not collect the annuities any more, would remove the tariffs and have free trade between the two countries, Fianna Fáil would have lost the economic war because the country has lost more in the last three years than that win would be worth. If the Government reject this motion, it is obvious that they do not want to get the matter out of the region of controversy. While it is in the region of controversy, they can say one thing and others can say another and only those people who are interested will investigate the matter and ascertain who is right and who is wrong. The man in the street will say that it is only a political wrangle. If the Government think they have a 50-50 chance, or even a sporting chance, of being declared right, why not have this investigation by a Select Committee? The farmers are not afraid to face investigation because they know what the result of the—investigation will be. Deputy Norton, who has always voted with his Party, against motions of this kind, gave us a long lecture a moment ago on unemployment. He spoke about standards of living and that sort of thing. Within our resources, we would agree with that. The farming community are 50 per cent. or a little more of the entire population of the country. Their sons and daughters have grown to be men and women during the last three or four years, and as there is no emigration and no resources left to help them into other walks of life, they are left without an outlet. Their whole time is given working on the farms. What remuneration do they get? None. Slave labour is the lot of these young men and women, who cannot escape out of the trap in which they have been caught, and who must work at home for nothing, except the poor fare they eat. They are being robbed by this economic war. They are paying the price.
Deputy Norton and his Party never have a word to say for these potential wage earners. If a standard of living and of wages commensurate with what trade unions rightly demand in other trades were insisted upon for these sons and daughters, farmers could exist here. If the economic war becomes acute, perhaps it would then be all the better as it might be settled. I do not want to make the case that agriculture is bearing the whole burden, but I am submitting that a prima facie case is sufficiently strong to have the matter investigated. The issue at stake is sufficiently important to be investigated. The number of people affected by the depression in agriculture warrants investigation as well as the importance of agriculture in the economic life of the nation. I submit that if the Government refuses to set up this select committee, to investigate the matter, the only conclusion to be drawn is that they are doing so with a guilty conscience, and are afraid to face a free and a full investigation because they know how badly they would come out of it.
