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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 27 Feb 1936

Vol. 60 No. 9

Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) Bill, 1936—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Debate resumed on the following amendments:—
1. To delete all words after the word "That", and substitute the words—"viewing with the gravest concern the continuing losses to the people occasioned by the dispute with the British Government, the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to the Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) Bill, 1936, until the Executive Council has given the Dáil an assurance that the Executive Council will now take steps to negotiate forthwith a comprehensive settlement of the matters at issue between the Irish and British Governments."—(Deputy Cosgrave).
2. To delete all words after the word "That" and substitute the words "the Dáil declines to give the Bill a Second Reading because
(a) it offers no reduction of the gross burden of the economic war which has resulted in a substantial increase in taxation and in the cost of living, and
(b) it abandons the principles for which the economic war was stated to have been embarked on, and
(c) it does not provide for a comprehensive settlement of the dispute between this country and Great Britain."—(Deputies Belton and Anthony).

Last night I suggested it would be well for the House to face the realities in this question and not to be dealing with pretences. Deputies who have spoken on the Opposition side have all been labouring to pretend to themselves, to the House and to the country that the real difficulty in this issue between Britain and ourselves is the waywardness or the wilfulness of the present Government, and particularly my waywardness and my wilfulness. Let us go back a little and see the origin of this dispute, and get the whole thing in its proper perspective. For years before we were returned as a Government we held that the payments, in particular the land annuity payments to Britain, were not due to Britain either legally or morally. We made that case in the country, we made that case here. The case was met by the then Government in the country, and the case was met here and we argued it for something like six years. During all that time the basis of the arguments on the other side was that by the Land Acts, etc., these moneys were due to Britain. Never once in the whole of that time was it suggested that these payments were being handed over to Britain in virtue of an agreement which had been arrived at by the then President of the Executive Council and a British Secretary of the Treasury, Major Hills.

There was, as you will remember, before the election of 1932, an electioneering pamphlet issued at the public expense by the then Government for their side, in which the opinions of eminent counsel were cited as to the liability of the State to pay these moneys over to Britain. But not in the whole of that argument on their side was it once stated that the reason that the moneys should be paid over was because a contract to pay them over had been entered into by the then President of this State. There was reference, undoubtedly, to the Ultimate Financial Settlement, but that was pushed aside. As I have repeatedly stated—I am not going to quote the exact words here—the effect of the brushing aside was that the Ultimate Financial Settlement had nothing to do with the paying over of the moneys, that it was not the basis or the authority for the payment, that the liability, in other words, did not rest on that document at all. All the time the argument was that the liabilities depend on other things—the Land Acts, etc.

That was the position when we took office. We were prepared to meet the British case from that standpoint. We told them in advance by public statements that it was our intention, when we got into office, believing that these moneys were not due, to do what any private individual in similar circumstances would do and that is retain these moneys until it was proved definitely that these moneys were due. We expected that the British, as they afterwards did, would come along with their statement of the case. Mr. Thomas, the then Secretary for the Dominions, noticed that statement of mine and sent us a despatch in which he stated that these moneys were due on the basis of a formal agreement as binding—I think he said as binding as the Treaty of 1921 was, a formal agreement binding in honour and in law on the two Governments. That surprised me somewhat; I did not know what he was driving at, and I sent a despatch asking him if he would be good enough to point out to us what was this formal undertaking or agreement which until that time we had not heard about. To our amazement he sent us back a statement that a certain document was signed in February, 1923, by the then President, agreeing to hand over these moneys, and this was further confirmed by the Ultimate Financial Settlement of a later period.

I asked the Minister for Finance, the Department of Finance and the officers of the Department of External Affairs if they had any record of this famous agreement, and to let me have it so that I might know what its terms were. I got a tattered and torn document which I exhibited on one occasion here to the House, but which has been strapped up with ribbon and tape and wax since in order to try to put it in something like a condition in which it would last. It should have been kept in its original form as an exhibit for all time. It was such a remarkable document that it even aroused the curiosity of Deputy Belton, who wanted to come over and have a good look at it. I called it a thing of shreds and patches and that is what it was. I found it was on the basis of this document, which contained only a single signature, quite unlike any document or treaty or undertaking between Governments that I have ever seen, that it was held by the British that these payments were due to Britain. We had to face then a completely new situation. To what extent were we bound by this document which had been kept secret during all these years from the Irish people? We had been aware of the Ultimate Financial Settlement which had been kept secret for nine months, but this was a case of a document nine years hidden away. Was this respect for treaties? As I mention that, I would say that my regard for treaties and contracts is much higher, to put it at its worst, than the regard for them that the Deputies on the opposite benches, in certain statements that they made, have shown.

I remember the Treaty debates well, and I remember that one of the things I used to contend against on that occasion was the suggestion, which was very common, that this country could enter into a treaty, but that on the day it was signed it could be forgotten, that it was imposed on us, and that therefore it need not be regarded. I admit it was imposed, but I recognised then, and I recognise now that even under that threat, the dire threat of force, when documents like that are signed they are constantly used as an excuse by the opposite party to persist in the threat and to persist in the exploitation, if it is a question of exploitation, to which it seemed to give sanction. I know full well that treaties between nations when they are entered into, even under duress, are very difficult things to get out of. I admit I have always held that there is no moral binding force in a treaty imposed by force. I have given an example here in this House before and I believe it is sound. If somebody or other comes along and takes from me by threat of force something that is mine, let us say my watch, and in order to try to legalise his title to it, compels me to resign my title to that watch, I say if ever I can get a chance by force to come back on that robber, to compel him by similar means to give me back my watch, and also to compel him to relinquish the document he has taken, and to hand me a document by which he surrenders any right that might have been given to him by means of the first document, I shall use that force.

It is obvious, in the case of force, that there is no finality about it. There is no moral right secured by treaties got under threat of force. All of us remember the Treaty of Versailles and the circumstances under which it was signed. I ask all of you who were of age to think at that time, did you not know when that treaty was signed that in it there were the seeds of future wars? So it shall always be, but that does not take away from the fact that when you have documents signed like that, they will always be held up by the party which secured your signature to the treaty by the use of a threat, as a barrier if you ever make an effort to get out of the position into which you have signed yourself. I say, then, I have as high a regard for contracts as our opponents at least. I believe that in everything I have said in public in regard to treaties and all the rest of it, I have tried to set as high, if not a higher, standard. It is precisely because I do not want to see any representatives of this country signing an agreement under circumstances like that again, that I have said if we make an agreement with the British it ought to be an agreement which would correspond to realities as regards the consent of our people.

Then, on every occasion when there was a question of a treaty between ourselves and Britain, I have stipulated as a condition that the treaty should be submitted to our people for their ratification, under conditions which would remove the possibility of threats. I have made the case that it is only under such conditions you can have agreements which will be loyally accepted and loyally fulfilled. If there is any element of waywardness shown in the Bill, it is in our adherence to, and not in any departure from, the letter and the spirit of the idea that contracts which are voluntarily entered into should be carried out honestly and fairly. This document was signed in 1923. Was it a document which was, as Mr. Thomas held, binding in law and in honour on our people? I hold it was not, and I held all the time it was not. It was a document the full terms of which were never revealed to our people. They were not revealed to this House. On the occasions on which there was any reference to such an agreement having been signed or made, there was always evasion on the part of the Ministers who were then in office. When there was a question of its publication for certain purposes in Britain, the Government then in office here refused to agree to have it published.

There was a document, the terms of which were such that it would not be politically convenient for the Executive then in office to have that document published in extenso. Suggestions are made that there was some sort of implied ratification of its contents by means of Appropriation Acts and so on. There again there is a departure from a well-known principle, a principle which was argued in the British House of Commons on one occasion by Mr. Healy, and his arguments were accepted by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith. His argument was that appropriations should not be used except to pass moneys that were already granted by previous legislation. The whole idea that Parliament here is supreme over the Executive, and that it is only by their representatives in Parliament the people of the country can be bound in financial matters, was departed from. That was a well understood principle, but it was set aside.

Accordingly, I say that our people, either through their Parliament or their votes, were never parties to that agreement. I repudiate the agreement and I have always repudiated it on that basis. I say it is not binding. Is it a trifle? Was this matter over which we are talking a mere trifle? Was it something that we could lightly set aside and forget about? What was it? Up to 1931 about five and one-third million pounds a year were paid over to Britain and we got nothing in return for it. It had to be paid by means of produce, of course. We would have to pay it by sending over cattle, sheep or other produce. It had to be paid in that way for a long period of years or else by the way Deputy Cosgrave deplores, by the depletion of our foreign credits. It had to be paid anyhow. What relation does this sum bear to our resources? I have frequently quoted the estimate of the British Treasury, given, I think, by Mr. Baldwin when he was Chancellor—66 to 1.

The Grand National.

The gentlemen opposite, of course, are so clever that they do not want any officials. They can go over like Deputy Cosgrave and make agreements overnight. They do not want any help from experts of any kind. Deputy Brennan will sneer at the estimate of the British Treasury officials on the matter when it was to their advantage to put it the other way. The estimate of the taxable capacity of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as compared with this State was 66 to 1. That was the ratio—66 to 1. Taking it at these figures, our payments to Britain of five and one-third million pounds would correspond to a payment of £330,000,000 from a country with the resources of Britain itself. There you have an amount which is ten times the sum that the British Government have stated they could not pay in war debts to America without being swamped. Our payment to Britain was ten times the amount, on the ratio I have given, of the £33,000,000 a year that they were paying to America when they stopped. On the 66 to 1 basis, again, an amount of only £500,000 from this country would be equal to a burden of £33,000,000 due from Britain to the United States. Britain could not afford to pay that amount; yet this country was supposed to pay on a ratio of ten times that sum.

It was the contention of Deputies opposite that we should agree, and continue to pay this debt, and forget that it was ten times as heavy a burden upon us as Great Britain was called upon to pay, and which she found she could not continue to pay, to the United States. We talk about the tax upon our cattle. I remember Deputy O'Sullivan going down to instruct the farmers of Kildare, on one occasion, in the early stages of the annuities question. And he threatened the Kildare farmers that if they refused to pay these annuities the British would put a tax of £1 per head on their cattle. I pointed out to the people of Kildare that they were paying very much more than £1 on their cattle and handing it over as a luck-penny to Great Britain.

In 1932 when we came into office we were paying five and one-third million pounds; and the whole of our fat cattle trade did not realise that much. So that in paying the land annuities we were making a complete present of all our fat cattle to Great Britain with something to spare. For the whole of our fat cattle we were getting nothing per head. In that year our total cattle trade amounted to something over £12,000,000. It works out that the payment was equivalent to a tax on the whole of the cattle trade of nearly £7 per head. We were doing at that time—what was kept hidden from the Irish people— we were making a continued payment of a tax equivalent to £6 19s. 2d. or nearly £7 per head. That was the payment agreed to. According to Deputy Cosgrave, we entered into that contract to pay and agreed it was due. If we agree, according to Deputy Cosgrave, that it is morally and legally due, then we may expect some little mitigation. If we go over to the British Treasury, admit that this secret compact and agreement was binding upon our nation, then we commit ourselves to the position which we had in 1931—a position in which, if the trade was to amount to what it did in that year, we would be handing over more than the whole of our fat cattle to Great Britain without getting anything in return. I think, if you put together all the live pigs, bacon and butter, you could, if you were prepared to pay it in that way rather than by means of cattle, get possibly some little mitigation in the conditions. That was the position the nation found itself in. It was not from our waywardness. It is not by contracts made by the present Government that we find ourselves in our present position. If there is to be blame for the present situation, it must be laid upon the shoulders of the people who entered into that contract without any legal necessity whatever.

Now, last night we had a suggestion to the effect that we destroyed some bridge that had been made. We have heard that kind of statement made over and over again. I tried to trace it, and tried to find out how it originated. I associated it with the statement made by Deputy Mulcahy.

Another Glasgow statement.

I said I associated it with the statement made by Deputy Mulcahy here. Did the Deputy make that statement?

What statement?

I said I associated the Deputy with those rumours, but I was astonished last night to find it quoted by Deputy Dillon. We have been trying to get at the basis of this thing that has been talked about so long, but up to the present we have not succeeded. We find now that the Independent quoted from its Ottawa correspondent. My recollection was that the Irish Press sent over a special correspondent. I do not believe the Independent did, but that is by the way. We have got an interview here, and just imagine the interview which was made the basis of the statement that we were going to have an immediate settlement. I do not know anything about it. I cannot believe that there was anything of the kind. The Minister for Agriculture was one of the deputation over there; he did not know it was made. The Vice-President himself could not remember anything about it. He was in Ottawa, of course, and the Irish Independent was here. This is one of the things one has always to be very careful about. When a person goes elsewhere he is generally pestered with a number of newspaper men who want a story home. Every one who has been at any conference knows that immediately he comes out these newspaper men come round and ask “Any news; anything we can say?” I have had more than once to deal with matters of that particular sort. I have had many a time to refuse even to say a single word. If you said a word it was magnified into an article.

66 to one, I suppose.

I do not think I could make that estimate on the basis of the figures on which the other was compiled. They were always magnified. I looked through the report of this particular interview and I find here in the Irish Press a denial of Reuter's report. I find in the Irish Independent“an exclusive interview,” if you please. The Vice-President of the Executive Council, with a representative of the Irish Press on the other side, chose to give an exclusive interview to the Irish Independent. I do not think there is anything in this that gives any basis whatever for the statement or for the rumours that there was any bridge made there; that there was any agreement to agree, as Reuter puts it, made there. There was none whatever, and I can say to the House that the British attitude as regards the determination of this dispute has always been based on these two positions: “Either you negotiate on the basis of accepting that document as binding, in which case we will hold out to you a hope that there may be some mitigation,” or, “if you dispute that, you must put the matter for trial before a Commonwealth tribunal.” That has been the invariable position taken up by the British Government——

Hence the coal-cattle pact?

——"either you accept the 1923 document as binding the nation, and negotiate on the basis of that acceptance, or you take up the other position—that the two Governments cannot agree on that matter— and then you submit the matter to a Commonwealth tribunal." There has been no change whatever in the British attitude in that matter as regards the determination of the dispute. Now what about this Commonwealth tribunal? It is suggested: "Why not leave it to the Commonwealth tribunal?" The British Government took up the position that it was a matter of principle with them. We took up the position—and I think we are equally entitled to take up the position—that it was no less a matter of principle with us that it would not be so. We never bound ourselves to do that; neither did our predecessors. The 1930 conference contained no such provision as that—that disputes between member States of the Commonwealth should be so submitted. That was resisted, so far as I know, by my predecessor in the Ministry of External Affairs. All that was done at that conference in relation to a tribunal was to indicate the manner in which it should be composed if and when it was agreed by the parties that they were going to submit any particular dispute to such tribunal. We are not breaking any contract that was entered into. This State, through its then representatives, signed the optional clause, the agreement with regard to submitting disputes to the permanent court. The attitude of this State at that time was clear about the matter. It was possible, of course, to submit disputes to a Commonwealth tribunal, but I do not think that anybody here in this country would have the hardihood, with the memory of the Feetham Commission constantly in their minds, to suggest that a matter of life and death, as it would be in a sense to our people—the matter of whether we should bear that burden— should be submitted in that way. If the others maintain that in principle it must be so, we in principle and as a result of the unfortunate experience which this country has had are not prepared to recommend to our people, or to take responsibility for the submitting of that matter to a court constituted in that precise way.

We have had a deadlock, therefore, on these two points which the British have made vital; first, as I have said, that if we negotiate with regard to the amount it must be on the prior acceptance of that contract as binding; and secondly, if we do not accept that contract as binding then we must submit the matter to a Commonwealth tribunal. Will Deputies on the opposite benches tell us what we should do under those circumstances? Of course those on the opposite benches who hold that contracts are honourably binding on the parties will find it very difficult indeed, having been parties to the contract, to say that they could not negotiate on the basis of that contract being binding. We, however, do not think that that contract is binding. We cannot negotiate on that basis, and if there is to be a consideration of amounts it must not be on that basis, but on some other basis altogether. It has never been proposed by the British or accepted by them that there should be negotiations on any other basis. Do Deputies opposite want the matter to be referred to a Commonwealth tribunal? We would be glad to hear their responsible spokesman telling us what they want to have done with it. They have suggested mitigation. They have suggested that the payment of those sums now is a heavier burden than it was some years ago; that more agricultural produce would have to be given in order to pay it; all of which is quite true. But they seem to suggest that if they had the handling of it they would admit that this money was due—morally and legally due— and that they would then ask the British to reduce the amount. I say that is not possible for us. "Mitigation" is a very dangerous word when used by the British Chancellor in regard to amount. It does not suggest reduction such as Deputies on the opposite benches told the country people they would get if they had the doing of it.

"Go over," they tell us, "and make a settlement." We have gone over. We have been there more than once. The British Ministers have been here. We have met British Ministers here. I have met British Ministers in Downing Street. Whole delegations from here have met British Ministers, and the results of all the conversations have been all the time the same thing: "You accept the amount; you accept the contract as binding. After you have done that, after you have given up completely the right of the people to keep those moneys as a matter of right, after you have abandoned that position and given away the Irish case for the legal and moral retention of those moneys, then we are quite willing to consider some mitigation." The other position they have taken up is: "If you do not do that, then we are prepared to submit the legal question, leaving aside altogether of course the general equity, to a Commonwealth Tribunal." There are two disputes going on at the present time between ourselves and the British. One is a financial dispute, which has led to this attempt to compel us, by tariffs, to pay moneys which we hold are not due. There is another dispute of a political and constitutional character. We have never mixed up these two disputes. We have never tried to make the solution of one dependent on the other, but the British have. I think most Deputies will have seen the statements made by the former Secretary for the Dominions which show that very clearly. When we went over as a delegation I had some difficulty in trying to get it understood that we were there dealing with the financial issue only, but as no result came from it, it did not matter very much. However, I want Deputies and the country and anybody else who is interested to know that we have never at any time attempted to make the settling of one of these disputes dependent on the settling of the other.

If I might refer to that political dispute, we took up a certain position when we came into office. We came here pledged to do certain things. We said that when we were elected we would do these things, and we got the approval of the people for the doing of them. When we came into office we set about doing them. We held that we had a legal and a constitutional right no less than a fundamental and a moral right to do them. Who have been proved to be wrong in their contention in this dispute? Is it we who said we could remove these things and that we had a right to do it and frame our Constitution, or is it the gentlemen on the opposite benches who tried to argue that we had not the right? Who has been proved by our own courts and even by a foreign court, the British Privy Council, to be right in this matter? Judgment has been given by the British Privy Council against the British contention and it has been held there that we were within our legal rights and constitutional rights even in doing the things we have done here.

In doing what?

Making the constitutional changes that we have made. If the Deputy does not remember them he can look them up. As I say, there have been two disputes. There has been a constitutional dispute in which we have been proved even by the British Privy Council to have been legally right. There has been the financial dispute in which we still hold that an impartial tribunal will prove us to be right. I have no reason to mix these two up — no reason to try and make the settlement of one of the disputes dependent upon the settlement of the other. It is the British who have all the time been trying to make one of these dependent on the other.

I do hope that when people talk about this economic dispute they will take it in its proper perspective and realise how it has begun and what the Government have been trying to do. We have been trying to save this country from payments which mean a burden which this country could not continue to bear without suffering severe hardships. It has been said that we have not been able to prevent it. That is true. We have not been able to prevent our people suffering tremendously from the effects of the bargain which Deputy Cosgrave made. We have been trying to lighten it for the future. We have been trying to get into a position in which these payments, which are unjustified, will not become the lot of this country for decades of years. On account of the position to which this country had been reduced by past policy, as we had been brought to depend on the British market almost exclusively for our agricultural produce, the British used the position to which we had been brought to extract them from us against our will. Deputies opposite, of course, will say that if your watch is taken it does not matter whether you give it willingly or whether you submit to force—it is taken from you anyway. I hold that there is a very big difference. I hold that there is a very big difference between the position in which the British are forced to take these moneys from us against our will by imposing discriminatory tariffs upon our products and the position we would be in if we handed over the moneys voluntarily as if they were due. There is a tremendous moral difference between the two positions.

I believe that right will ultimately triumph in the matter. I may be wrong in that belief, but it is a belief I have held to fairly firmly all my life. I believe that right in this case will triumph ultimately too. I believe these moneys are rightfully ours and that every cent that is extracted from us by using the position to which past British policy has largely brought this country is a wrong done to this country and that that wrong will ultimately have to stop. If we accept the position that Deputies opposite take up then there is no wrong being done. There is a question of an acknowledgment of something that is due to the British.

Perhaps before I pass away from the subject it may not be any harm for our people to remember some of the contentions on which we base our right to the land annuities, even from the British legal point of view. I think we have proved in the past that what we have done has been more in accord with the British legal point of view than what their own Ministers were doing. I am not dealing now with the fundamental question of the national right or anything of that kind. I am keeping it on the narrower plane. On the basis of equity, I think we have an unanswerable case. On the basis of national right, I think we have an unanswerable case. But let us take the case from the British legal point of view in regard to land annuities. When the 1920 Act was passed the Exchequers of the two parts into which it was proposed to divide this country were given, as it was boasted, a free gift. We smiled at the free gift part, because we remembered that sums very much more than that were due to our country on the basis of over taxation. Sums two and three times the total amount of the land annuities had been extracted from this country as was held by British Commissions and by British officials. This free gift, however, was boasted of. Mr. Lloyd George spoke of "a free gift" to enable us to set up housekeeping—the free gift that was going to be given to the two parts of Ireland, North and South. They were to be allowed to collect from the farmers the debt which was due to the then State, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The two Governments were to be given the right to collect these annuities from the farmers and to retain these moneys in their respective Treasuries.

That was the position when the Treaty was negotiated: that the two parts of Ireland—Ireland as a whole, if you like—were entitled to collect or the Governments of Ireland were entitled to collect from the farmers the annuities which were due to the State and to retain these in their own Exchequers for general purposes. That was the position in regard to the land annuities when the Treaty was negotiated. The Treaty, from the British legal point of view, was afterwards grafted, so to speak, on to the 1920 Act. There is not a line or particle or syllable in the Treaty that could not be regarded as a step forward from that Act. Mr. Lloyd George's sole purpose was to try to get two Parliaments functioning in this country. That was his aim. But the Parliament here did not function by reason of the fact that the elected representatives did not go to it. Because it did not function he had to improve his offer. His offer was something in advance of the 1920 Act to be given to the people in this part of the country. Was it consistent with the idea of making it a more attractive advance from his point of view that "the free gift" was to be taken back? Of course it was not. There was no retraction of that free gift. I am calling it by the term they called it themselves. There was no retraction of the free gift. It was left there.

There was only one clause in the Treaty dealing with finance. What had that to deal with? Had it to deal with the retraction of the land annuities? It had not. Under the 1920 Act the British Imperial Parliament was still to be responsible for what were called Imperial services. They said: "We want to be paid for these services; we want to be paid an Imperial contribution." That was what was in the 1920 Act in this regard. The two parts of Ireland were to pay for certain services which were to be regarded as Imperial services. They were called on to make Imperial contributions. That was altered by the financial clause of the Treaty. That is the particular way in which this so-called Imperial contribution was to be made. We were to be held responsible for whatever proportion of the public debt of the United Kingdom might be held to be fair and just when off-sets and counter-claims were taken into account. It was obvious that that change would have to be made, because the British were no longer performing the services for us that they had intended to perform by the Act of 1920. It would be ridiculous for us to be performing the services ourselves and at the same time paying the British for them. They thought we would have sense enough to realise that and to object to it. Consequently, one particular clause of the 1920 Act, the one relating to Imperial contributions, was changed in the Treaty. Any payments that were due or would have been due under the 1920 Act were commuted into a different payment, namely, whatever sum would be found to be fair and equitable after the counter-claims were taken into account.

We know that there was a certain Boundary Agreement in 1925 and we know that the then President of the Executive Council shouted out that they had made a good bargain, that they had got off with a big nought. This big nought meant that the Article Five was ended. The British, therefore, had themselves agreed that whatever liability was on this State as a result of the financial clauses of the Treaty was assessed at zero from that date.

Therefore, there has been no taking back of "the free gift." I am repeating the word "gift." You can put it in quotation marks in your mind. There was no retraction of that "gift" in the Treaty. The retraction is not to be found anywhere in the Treaty. The question of the Imperial contribution which was provided for in the 1920 Act was changed for obvious reasons into another commitment which was ultimately resolved into no liability. Why then should these moneys be paid over to Britain? How are they due to Britain? Under what head are they due to Britain? On no basis that the British could show except on the basis that the then President of the Executive Council went over and signed an agreement under which it was agreed that these payments should be made. That was such a thing to trumpet to the country, that was such a wonderful bargain, that in modesty it was kept secret for nine years. Do the Deputies who are going to support the view that is put forward by the leaders of the Opposition stand for handing over these £5,000,000 yearly, agreeing that they are due when they know they are not due?

I remember when we were arguing on these lines throughout the country it used to be said, "Oh, he wants to take portion of the 1920 Act and not the rest of it; he wants one portion of the financial clause and not the rest. What about the Imperial contribution? It is true that the 1920 Act made a `free gift' of the land annuities, but what about the Imperial contribution? We did not hear what he is going to do about the Imperial contribution." I have told you into what the Imperial contribution was turned. It turned into a financial clause in the Treaty, which by the Boundary Agreement was turned into no payment as far as this country was concerned. Even if we had functioned under the 1920 Act it would be interesting for us to know how we would stand financially under it as compared with our present position. That is a very interesting thing to examine. The 1920 Act is in operation in Northern Ireland and it is in operation there in full in all its parts. There has been no Treaty to supersede it there. There has been no financial clause and no Boundary Agreement to end it. It is interesting to see how it has worked out there. Those who have studied the 1920 Act understand, and some who have not studied that Act would understand their country's rights in this matter somewhat better if they did study the Act. This 1920 Act provided, on the one hand, for "a free gift" and, on the other hand, for an Imperial contribution from the two portions of Ireland. At the time the Imperial contribution on the whole of Ireland was assessed at £18,000,000 for the initial period. After that initial period of a year or two a Joint Exchequer Board was to be set up which was to examine the details of the expenditure from year to year on the basis of taxable capacity—comparing our capacity with the capacity of Great Britain, that is, comparing the capacity of the two parts of Ireland to pay with the capacity of Great Britain. On that basis the contributions were to be estimated. The estimate for the first year was £18,000,000, and that was to be divided in the ration of 44 to 56. Northern Ireland was to be assessed at 44 per cent. and this portion of Ireland at 56. That is to say, the North would pay 44 per cent. of the whole and this part here 56 per cent. of the whole.

On that ratio of 14 to 11, you can easily see that the payment which would be due by the North would be something less than £8,000,000, and that the amount here would be a little over £10,000,000. For the first period, both the North and the South were to get the annuities as a free gift, but we would have to pay towards Imperial services, the national debt, and other services, something like £10,000,000 here, while the people in the North would have to pay something like £7,920,000. That was only for the initial year or, at most, two years. A Joint Exchequer Board was to be set up which was to determine afterwards whether these were equitable sums or not, and in proportion it was to allocate the amounts that were to be paid by the North and the South. The Joint Exchequer Board has been working in the North. There was a provision by which, if more was paid in a particular year than was justified in the circumstances, then it could be reduced, the circumstances being the services rendered and the wealth of the community to meet them. What happened? This sum of nearly £8,000,000 was scaled down to £6,800,000. It was scaled down still more rapidly in succeeding years.

I have some figures here which I think may prove interesting to the Deputies opposite. They will be able to see from them how this part of the country has been treated by the financial changes—from the financial provisions of the 1920 Act to the financial payments that have been made by the preceding Government. These payments, as I have told the House, were scaled down rapidly. A liability of £7,920,000 became actually only £6,685,000. If we take the period from 1926-27 to 1931-32, a period of six years, the total sum of money which we handed over to Britain amounted to £32,812,308. In the same period the net payments in the case of the Six Counties amounted to £4,000,000 odd, while gross amount of the Imperial contribution proper was £5,623,000. In other words, during that period, instead of a ratio of 44 to 56 the ratio has been 1 to 8, so that a ratio of comparative equality has been turned into a ratio of 1 to 8. I am not taking in these figures the amount of the annuities which the North retained, so that this great bargain, financially, which has been made, compared with the position, financially, that we would have been in if we were treated on the same basis as the North, which retains the annuities, works out in this way: that over that period a ratio of 44 to 56—a ratio, as you can see, of comparative equality—has been turned into 1 to 8. During the ten years 1922 to 1931 the total amount that we paid over in land annuities was £54,611,000. That includes the £3,000,000 odd which was paid over before the Land Commission was finally transferred.

As I have said, these payments in the North were scaled down very considerably. In the year 1932-33 the net payments in the way of Imperial contributions made by the North amounted to £75,000. The estimated amount for the year 1933-34 was £29,000. If the 1920 Act had been in force here in the year 1932-33 the amount that we would pay on that head—the payment that would correspond to the original payment of £10,000,000, and if we were to retain the ratio of 44 to 56—would be something like £95,455. That is the position. I think, therefore, that the gentlemen on the opposite benches will not in future be very anxious to tell us all about the £10,000,000.

It would be a lot better than the coal-cattle pact.

Undoubtedly. I would advise the Deputy to talk in that spirit to the gentlemen in the Party to which he once belonged. To take up where I began: that is, the basis on which you have to consider this whole question with the British. All we claim under this coal-cattle pact is that there has been, in fact, some mitigation of the hardship—no more. We are not trumpeting it in any particular way. We say that we did not enter into any agreement that this other part of the money is due. We recognise the fact that it is being taken against our will. All we say about the present pact or agreement is that it is, in fact, some mitigation, but does not interfere in any way with our rights to claim that these payments, or the exaction of this money, be stopped. The British are using the position in which they find themselves to extract payments which we hold are not legally due. We have not been able to do better than we have done in this pact. It is somewhat of an improvement of the position in the past, but it is made without any renunciation of our claim. It is made without any kind of prejudice to our claim, and I think that the British would hold on their side that the matter is being dealt with without any prejudice on their side. It is an agreement without prejudice to the existing dispute, which still remains to be settled. We heard talk about the British market and that we had thanked God that it was gone. I do not think anyone thanked God that it was gone.

A Deputy

Senator Connolly.

If Deputies gave the whole of Senator Connolly's speech, and not a single phrase, the sense in which he thanked God would be clearly understood. He was speaking of the condition in which this country had been placed on account of the policy of having ranches and bullocks for export side by side with the export of human beings, and he said that if the policy of exporting human beings stopped side by side with the export of cattle, and if that meant that the British market was gone, then he would thank God. From 1917 to 1921 when we spoke to the Irish people we said that that was precisely what we wanted to stop; that we wanted to build up here, as far as we could, a country which would be able to support its own people. We pointed out that the land was fertile, and that the people were strong enough and intelligent enough to work out their own destiny and could provide a livelihood for themselves in this land. We said that there was no need to continue the policy of exporting cattle and to be dependent on the British market if by carrying on that policy we should have in consequence the devastation of our countryside. We all thanked God that such a thing should stop, and we set out when we came into office to try to remedy that position. To a considerable extent we have remedied it. It is true that we cannot change it overnight. No one suggested that we could change overnight from the position in which the British was the market for our exports and that we took British goods in return. We set out to manufacture our own requirements, and having done that, we have for the present to try to get a market for our surplus. The obvious thing to do was to try, as far as possible, to change from a system of producing goods for a market which was obviously glutted. I was quoted as having thanked God that the British market was going. I did not do anything of the kind. In so far as it could be secured for years past, I have had every speech examined to see if there was any place in which I could reasonably have been accused of thanking Heaven for the passing of the British market.

August 9th, 1933.

What I said was in the same sense in which Senator Connolly said.

On a point of order, on the 9th August, 1933, Volume 49, column 1610.

That is not a point of order.

If Deputies go through my speech as a whole, or through reasonable extracts, I am perfectly certain the House will see that I explained my remarks.

Volume 49, 9th August, 1933.

That is a pitiful interruption. It is absolute stupidity. I say that there are two contexts in which I might have made use of that expression. One was the context that I have explained, in which I might have said that it was a good thing that the British market had gone if it meant turning our countryside into ranches, and having a man and a dog on them instead of homesteads. If I said that that was the extent of the British market, then I might have thanked God. Another thing I might have said, not thanking God for it, was that I was accustomed when in opposition to try to get the Minister for Agriculture and the Executive to realise that the British market was, in fact, diminishing; that the value of agricultural produce everywhere was going down and that it was going to cease to be as valuable as it was in the past. I pointed out that as a fact the British market was going.

Is it going?

The British market is going compared with the past. The reasons are obvious, because you have the competition of the Argentine and elsewhere.

And we have the pact.

In fact it cannot be questioned that the British market as it was in the past and in the years of the war has disappeared practically. We told Deputies on the opposite side who were talking yesterday, and who talked about the drop that has taken place since we came into office, that there has been a fall in the value of agricultural produce.

In the world market generally until quite recently.

It is not in our time the change has come about. It is a mistake for anybody to calculate on the British market being in the future what it was in the past for Irish produce. Even then it brought with it a reduction of our population and a number of other disasters.

We believe that, and we are prepared to argue it with the Deputy at any time. The fact is that every other country has doubled its population, while in this country of rich land the population was halved, although we were during the whole of that time a prolific people. While there may be other causes, that one is pretty obvious. It is pretty obvious that if we have to compete with prairies this country must become a prairie. If we have to compete with lands carrying only six or seven people to the square mile, we must get into a position to compete with them. That warning was given by British Ministers and by experts to British agriculturists. We quoted the statement several times. Agriculturists were warned that that day was coming. I stated, time after time, that it was a mistaken policy to build on the idea that the British market would come back. Opposition Deputies have been going around the country trying to suggest that if their Party got back into office the British market would be miraculously restored. The British have a right, as we have a right, to put on tariffs. We have the right to protect our industries. We only say to the British that it is to the discriminatory tariffs we object— tariffs deliberately put on to extract moneys which are in dispute and which we hold are not due. If we start, or if we continued, to pay this burden of £5,000,000 a year, I think it is not unlikely we would find ourselves, if we tried to build up industries, with a demand from the British to allow their goods in and not to put tariffs against them, or that they would put tariffs against us. There are certain things we cannot stand for if the British do. They have a right to do certain things. We have a right to protect our industries. If they want to protect their industries we can claim an equal right. All we claim is that tariffs should not be put deliberately on our products, to extract payments which we hold are not due.

Does not the pact recognise that?

The pact does not recognise anything of the kind. The pact is a pact by virtue of which we conceded certain things to the British in return for certain concessions from the position they had established.

At £4 5s. 0d. per head on our cattle.

Our fundamental case is not prejudiced by that pact. That pact, or agreement, in so far as it has been agreed to—it has not been signed—is an agreement which is being implemented, in so far as it can be, by the legislation that is necessary on both sides. That agreement, or pact, or whatever you like to call it, is not a recognition on our side that any of these moneys in dispute are due to the British, or that the British have any right to collect them from us. What we do say is this: that, in return for the—British taking more cattle from us and levying a lesser tax on our cattle——

But levying a tax just the same!

We know that they were levying a tax, but there is a difference between recognising an actual fact and admitting that it is legitimate. There is, and has been, no recognition on our part of the right of the British to levy these tariffs.

Even if we accept the pact?

I repeat that there is no recognition in this pact of the right of the British to levy these tariffs. There is cognisance taken of the fact that heretofore the British were levying certain sums on our cattle, rightly or wrongly—rightly from their point of view, but wrongly from ours. There is cognisance taken of that fact. That is admitted, and the British have bargained to reduce these tariffs in certain cases and to take larger quantities of certain commodities of ours in other cases in return for our taking coal, cement and so on from them.

And we have accepted that.

There are some people, evidently, who cannot see the difference between recognising the right to do something and taking cognisance of the fact that something is being done. If some people cannot recognise the difference between acknowledging the fact that a thing is being done, and appreciating whether it is right to do so or not, I am afraid I cannot say anything more on the matter. If such people think that that is too small a point to be proceeded with, then there is nothing more to be said. However, the position we take in this pact is that certain conditions, which are bearing heavily upon the agricultural community of this country, are recognised, and well recognised, to be bearing heavily on our agricultural community. We believe that these conditions should not obtain and that our people have been brought, very wrongfully, to the point of being compelled to bear a burden which they ought not to be compelled to bear. We believe that we have secured a mitigation of that burden, without any prejudice to our original case or without any question as to the right of the British to levy these tariffs. For that reason we are asking the House to implement that agreement or pact, or whatever you like to call it, in that sense and in no other sense. We believe that this pact is an improvement on the position of last year. We believe, furthermore, that it is an improvement which has been obtained without any sacrifice on our part of the position we have taken up. I am quite willing to admit that, if I were a negotiator with the British, and—I do not mind saying it here to everybody— if we were in a stronger position than we are at the moment, I would not make that agreement.

In other words, the flag had to go down?

The flag had to go down to that extent, yes; but not in the sense that we do not still retain our right, or that we do not hope that right will yet triumph.

[Interruptions.]

We are asking the House to implement that understanding, or pact, or agreement, in that sense and in that sense only. We claim to-day, as we claimed when we came into office, that these moneys are not due. We are prepared now, as we were prepared then, to submit the whole question to a tribunal in which there will be no restriction; and that is a big thing for a small country to do.

Might I ask the President is he prepared to submit this question to the Permanent Court of International Justice of The Hague?

The question as to which court this matter might be submitted to would have to be carefully examined. I have said in the past that, if there is a court on the impartiality of which we can depend, we are willing to submit the question to such a court; but, as I was going to say, when Deputy MacDermot interrupted, that is a very big thing for a small nation to do. It is a very big thing for a small nation to submit such a question in such circumstances—a nation that, in the nature of things, cannot have the influence or cannot have knowledge of the ways of presenting the facts—to the judgment of a tribunal of that sort, biassing them, if you like, unconsciously.

Unconsciously?

Yes, unconsciously, and sometimes consciously. I am sure that Deputy MacDermot has read of some of the past cases in which there were tribunals of that sort and in which he knows that influence was used.

A Deputy

Only dishonest minds.

Yes, only dishonest minds; but history should make us a bit cautious in that respect.

I suggest that there is hardly a country in Europe that would not be biassed in our favour as against England on this question.

When Deputy MacDermot makes such a remark, he must be as innocent in this matter as when he said that all we had to do was to go over to settle with the British agree with their contention, tell them that we wanted so-and-so, and that we would get all we wanted.

I never said so.

Well, that is what Deputies opposite said. Their attitude to us was: "Do not say boldly that you believe that this secret agreement was not binding on our people; do not take a firm stand on a position like that; just go over and say to the British that you will accept their contention in that regard—say that we are a small country and that there are many reasons why they should be generous towards us and so on—and everything will be all right." I remember the Deputy's speeches here.

I do not accept that paraphrase of my speeches.

All right. I do not ask the Deputy to accept the paraphrase. All I say is that the impression that his speeches made on me, as well as the speeches of other Deputies, was that if we went over and asked the British to look at our conditions and to realise that, by past policy, their six votes to one resulted in certain things happening in our country, they would generously consider the whole position and say whether there should not be what would be regarded as, if not a generous, at least a reasonable settlement. It must be remembered that there are two sides to this, and that, when the British come to meet us, they will not come, as Deputy Cosgrave would like us to go over, unsupported. They will have all their officials, everyone of whom will be like a general in an army—determined to win at all costs and to extract every penny that it is possible to get. When questions like that are brought up, there is no question of generosity. That is the British attitude. Their attitude is to extract every penny they can get. We cannot blame them. That is the way things are done and it is only foolishness on the part of our people to think we can go over like that, and, with palavering words, make a good bargain. You are not going to do it that way and the Deputy has shown himself completely and absolutely misinformed when he imagines that, so far as bias is concerned, in the countries of Europe, the bias would be in our favour. The bias would not be in our favour. The countries of Europe, at the present time, are, every one of them, working and bidding for British friendship.

And markets.

For British friendship, for political reasons. Markets do not come into this particular case.

And even for the President's own friendship.

No. The President's friendship, unfortunately, in this case, is only accounted by the amount of our resources to put behind the friendship. It counts for nothing more. I am not such a fool as to think that it would count for anything else. These are the hard facts of reality in the light of which all these things have to be examined. I say it is a very big thing for a small country to agree to arbitration by the representatives of other countries, but it is absurd for anybody to think that we should be compelled to accept, as a principle, that we are not to choose, as people generally do in cases of arbitration, our own representatives from whatever source we like.

However, our position is stated. I hope that the background I have given of this whole dispute will give an air of reality to this entire matter, and that we are not going to have people talking here in the sort of way in which Deputy O'Higgins and others talked, as if it was only because of the impossibility, to use another word, made use of in this connection, of the President and of the members of the Executive Council that this matter has not been settled long ago. You can settle if you give in; you can settle if you accept this burden; you can settle if you accept the burden which, as I have said, meant the giving of all your fat cattle in 1931 or £6 19s. 2d. a head on all your cattle in that year to meet that payment. If you are prepared to do that, very good. We are not prepared to do it. We think it would be most unfair to our people, and, in recommending this agreement, we are not abating one jot the claim we put forward in regard to these payments. We say they are not due, and we say that even if you were to accept the 1920 position, with all the Imperial contributions, and reckoning our position on the basis of the position in the North, we would be paying only a very small fraction of the sum we would be compelled to pay under the 1923 agreement, if we were to accept it. That is the position from which the House should examine this pact. It is put forward without any detraction of principle, or any departure from principle, or from the position which we adopted, and I think the House ought to accept it.

In the course of his observations, the President said that a certain agreement was kept from the House for nine years. I have here a volume of the Dáil debates, Vol. 3, dated 12th July——

Will I be allowed to make another speech?

A statement was made here with which I want to deal.

Will I be allowed to make a speech in reply?

Deputies have no right to make a second speech. The Leader of the Opposition has already spoken. Other Deputies on the same side will have an opportunity to reply to points raised. If every speech made and every argument objected to were to be answered by Deputies who have already spoken, debate would never end.

There was an allegation made that a document was kept secret for nine years. That statement is untrue. It is untrue in substance and in fact.

Will I be allowed to answer this statement?

I have documentary proof of it in this volume. Is the Dáil to be prevented from hearing it?

The Deputy has other members of his Party who can speak.

May I submit, Sir, that the President of the Executive Council makes a personal charge against a Deputy that he withheld from this House an agreement which he personally signed in London, purporting to act on behalf of the Executive Council? While it could not be regarded as the right of Deputies to answer observations made when they themselves have already spoken, it is surely an exceptional case when an allegation is made that an individual Deputy, acting as President of the Executive Council, withheld from the House a document which he signed on behalf of the Government.

I will submit, as against that, that if a Deputy makes explanations which will suggest that I have wrongly informed the House, I also should be allowed to reply and the thing can be kept going ad infinitum.

The President always takes the precaution of speaking after me in dealing with this matter. I have closed up his newspaper on the transaction.

Another Glasgow stunt.

No personal charge was made; the arguments were political. There are, I presume, to be other speakers who can give any quotations which the Leader of the Opposition wishes to cite in rebuttal.

Then, in essence, I am muzzled in regard to the matter.

Why did you send over to the Treasury begging them not to publish it?

I can deal with any of you boys anyway. That is one thing certain. I have already dealt with your newspaper. You got into office by false means and you will get out by honest means.

This country, at the present time, is suffering great distress and great losses. There are quite a number of people who have acted in such a way as to inflict grave injury on this country, politically and economically. The economic effects of these actions are pressing very heavily on the country at the present time. The people who have injured this country in that way are Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Kevin O'Higgins, William Cosgrave and the MacEoins, the O'Sullivans and the Mulcahys. Ireland was deserted by them; her interests were neglected; they had responsibilities which they did not live up to: they had work to do which they did not do. So the country turned and it put Eamon de Valera at the head of an Irish Government. Some of the people who did the country wrong are dead and gone and can interfere with him or interrupt him no longer in his work; the others, if he consults the Minister for Industry and Commerce, he will find, are reduced to such insignificance in the matter of importance or influence in this country that they cannot impede him in his work. They have been handed back before the country by his Minister for Finance and labelled Judas, Castlereagh, Carey and Leonard McNally. They have been stamped from the public platform by the mob called into existence by the Minister for Justice, when he called upon his mob to clear the accursed crowd out of the way.

At any rate, they sinned and they are gone; now Eamon de Valera is head of an Irish Government; our people are suffering and an Irish Parliament asks him what he is going to do about it. That is what matters. The Dáil is asked to pass to-day a Bill reducing certain tariffs on English goods coming into the country as part of a new agreement by which we will take certain goods from Great Britain and she will take certain goods from us, while, at the same time, she takes the moneys that are at present in dispute. Will the President and will the members of his Party accept it that they have been called in by this country to remedy the wrongs done by the Griffiths, the Collinses, the Cosgraves and the O'Higginses and will they stand up to the work there in front of them? We have no political reputations to bother about here on this side. The man who gets into his dungarees and does the work, dirtying his hands and dirtying his face, does not matter; he has no dignity to think about. But he goes about his work. We do not care what may be said with regard to anything in the past, but we do care, and the individual members of the Fianna Fáil Party, I am sure, care, about what happens to this country in the future. It is because the present agreement indicates that the President is going to do nothing to help this country and that the passing of it would be simply throwing dust in our eyes and allowing him to throw dust in his own that we are opposed to the passing of this measure, and that we ask him what he is going to do to get the people out of their present economic difficulties. The President wishes to confine the discussion with Great Britain to the land annuities. He is prepared to discuss that matter to a definite conclusion, but he does not indicate to us what that conclusion is to be. He tells Deputy MacDermot that he is not sure what kind of tribunal he would go before. If the President is to be assisted in any way by the people or the Parliament, he ought to be clear in his own mind on this question, and he ought to let us know what he is clear about. I suggest that he is clear in his own mind that he would not put this case before an international tribunal in preference to a tribunal set up within the British Commonwealth of Nations and that he would not put it before a tribunal within the British Commonwealth of Nations before he would discuss it with the British face to face. He knows he would get a better settlement from a Commonwealth tribunal than he would get from an international tribunal. He believes that in his own heart. He knows that he would get a more satisfactory settlement by discussing this matter face to face with the British, as a business or a national matter, than he would get from any tribunal, whether looking at the matter from the equity or the legal point of view. We look at the President carrying on his antics with this conviction—that he is going to get nowhere with them, because he believes in his heart that he would get a better settlement with the British by meeting them face to face than he would get in any other way. The longer he keeps from facing the British in that way, the greater are going to be the losses of our people.

The President confided to us to-day that the British will not discuss the land annuities with him unless he discusses the constitutional position of this country and its relations with the British Commonwealth of Nations. The President has lectured us about taking cognisance of facts. Does the President propose to take cognisance of the fact that the British refuse to discuss an economic or financial settlement without, at the same time, discussing whatever kind of settlement requires to be made in respect of the political disputes that exist between us and the British Government? His attitude to-day is all the more amazing when he tells us that the British have said that if he admits the legal position with regard to the land annuities, so that they can discuss it without loss or principle from that point of view, they will consider a mitigation of the burden of the land annuities. The indication is that if he settled with the British the political or constitutional difficulties outstanding, the mitigation might be much more considerable than it would otherwise be. If that is the position between the British and the President, then we should not hear it by mere suggestion or implication. We ought to have a clear statement of what the position is and a clear indication of what the British offer is.

The President has told us that he could get off some of the land annuities if he admitted they were legally due. He has told us that he would not be allowed to bring even that to a conclusion without settling some constitutional difficulties, and that if he settled those with the British, he would get off more. He tells us to-day that he is not going to do anything about it. The President has seen this country destroyed by Griffith and Collins. He has seen this country plundered and robbed by Cosgrave and his colleagues. He came in here in 1932 to remedy these things. The situation has not got better. What is the President going to do, now that the responsibility is on his shoulders? The present proposal is a finicky proposal. I asked the Minister for Finance, in relation to the Bill before the House, what were the items in respect of which Customs duties are going to be reduced, what were the original Customs duties on these items before the 19th February, what were the additional duties borne by British goods before 19th February, what would be the ordinary Customs duties on these goods and the additional duties on British goods after 19th February? What did the Minister for Finance tell me? He told me that it had not been possible in the period since the questions were received to extract the information sought. The questions were put in on Friday last and the answer was required yesterday. One would imagine the information would be already in the Minister's hands as to what duties were going to be charged in future in respect of the items dealt with in this Bill and what duties were charged previously. The President and the Minister for Finance are in such a hurry that they want all stages of this Bill passed to-day, and we cannot be told what the amount of the duty on each of the items involved in the measure is going to be.

The President talked about secret agreements. This is a secret agreement. Nobody knows whether it was signed or not. If it was signed, nobody knows who signed it. Nobody knows how many cattle, or how many horses are to go across. We have been told that bacon is equated to cement. We do not know what is to happen our bacon if cement factories are established here. Cattle, we are told, are equated to coal. If coal development takes place here, we do not know what is to happen our cattle. We do not know what duties are to be charged on the sugar and electrical goods which may be imported. We do not know what the farmer is to get out of the agreement and what the Revenue is to get out of it. We are told in a leading article in the Irish Press that the import of British coal was 1,000,000 tons greater in 1935 than in 1934, and that it is anticipated there will be a further increase this year. The article then says:—

"That is a factor that will help to determine the amount of the quotas of cattle, horses, sheep and so forth. These quotas will be fixed from time to time in accordance with the extent of the trade between the two countries."

What has happened is that civil servants have been asked to go across and meet civil servants in Great Britain and, no doubt, say: "The pact that was made last year was a rotten pact. It gave the British more money from this country than had actually been withheld from them. We cannot continue that." We cannot continue that. We want to make a new pact, and when the British, who are concerned, as I stated, only with getting what they claim was wrongly withheld from them, mark out on the dotted line the things that could be done in order to allow them to retain the amount of moneys that they consider to be due to them, and the Executive Council here send civil servants across to do a business transaction, to sign on the dotted line where the British Treasury indicated they could sign, and leave the British the amount of money that the President and the Executive Council, were, in their opinion, withholding from them wrongly. The President says it is not a departure from principle, that it is a recognition of a fact and that, recognising certain facts, they made this agreement. It is, we are told, without prejudice to anything that may be done either in regard to the general financial dispute with Great Britain or our political dispute. But when is anything going to be done in regard to that?

If the President can recognise a fact in connection with certain relations between himself and Great Britain, when is he, or any member of his Party, going to recognise the facts that stare them in the face from every county in this country? When the Executive Council introduced their Emergency (Imposition of Duties) Act in 1932 what did they tell the people? Deputy Hugo Flinn told them that when they put on these duties here they were arming themselves against the British attack, and that when the Act was operated here, poor unfortunate Thomas was going to be put in this extraordinary position: that because the Irish Free State would not pay him the annuities, he was going to collect those annuities from the English consumer. The Minister for Finance told us of certain overriding facts that made it desirable and important and necessary that the Dáil would pass that Bill so that the British themselves would pay the tariffs. The economic war having been opened by the President, as he indicated, and having been answered by the British tariffs, the House was told here by the Minister for Finance and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance that it was the British people who would pay the tariffs that were being imposed on our cattle and agricultural goods going in there.

Deputy O'Reilly stated that a day's dislocation, perhaps, had been created, nothing more; that prices for agricultural produce to-day may be lower, but they were not very high hitherto, and there was not the slightest reason within a week or two why prices would not go back again to what they were before the stunt policy was adopted. On the 14th July, 1932, when the foundation for this policy that is being pursued under the Emergency (Imposition of Duties) Act was laid, Deputy O'Reilly said there would be a day's dislocation and in a week or two, at the most, prices of agricultural produce would go back to what they were. Is Deputy O'Reilly prepared to face the facts that now stick out of the situation?

The Minister for Agriculture endeavoured to persuade the House last night that certain arguments that were being put up with regard to the situation were entirely wrong. He wanted to persuade the House that there was, in fact, no restriction in the number of cattle going out, and he implied that there was going to be no restriction. With a certain amount of pride he stated that between 1926 and 1932 the average cattle export was 724,904 head and that Great Britain alone took 670,000 cattle in 1935. Great Britain last year was taking 670,000 cattle, whereas her previous average was about 724,000, that is, in the years before the economic war began. What our farmers are con cerned with, and what, I am sure, the Fianna Fáil Deputies who accept the President's leadership in this matter are concerned with, is what the farmers got for the cattle that were taken off their hands. What did they get? In the years that the Minister for Agriculture was speaking about the farmers got over £13,000,000 for the average export of 724,000 cattle. What did they get for the 670,000 cattle that were sent to Great Britain in 1935? They got £5,375,000. The Minister is claiming that we sent out of this country nearly the same amount of cattle as we previously sent out, but we got only £5,375,000 as against £13,000,000.

When will the President take cognisance of that fact? The position is even worse than it seems, because the people, including the farmers, had to be taxed to provide bounties to force these cattle out, not only over the tariff walls in Britain, but to grease their way into the hands of the Germans or whatever other foreigners were taking the extra cattle exported. When is the President going to face that fact and the other facts that flow from it—the impoverished condition of our farmers and agricultural labourers and the growing impoverished condition of our towns? Is the President going to sit still and say: "I am not going to accept the principle of saying that we owe the land annuities. I am not going to accept this, that or the other thing that the British want"? Is he going to stick inside his wall of glass in Merrion Street, free from any of the domestic cares, any of the economic cares of the farmers throughout the country, free from the growing economic cares of many commercial and business people in the country, and is he going to allow that situation to drag on?

The President says it is right for him to hold these annuities, it is right for him to take up the attitude he has taken on constitutional matters and that these things will adjust themselves in time. How did circumstances adjust themselves in time in the past except by men who had responsibilities facing up to them, going into wherever the battle-ground was, whether around a council table in Great Britain or a police barrack in the country here, and fighting the fight that had to be fought there? How long does the President think that he can sit calmly and quietly where he is and do nothing to improve the situation outside? How long must he sit there to bring the situation to a point at which it will be impossible for him or anyone else to deal with it? Does he not know that every day that passes greater difficulties arise, not only for himself but even for the British? Does he not know that every day that passes creates greater difficulties in this country for any class of society or any people in any class of business who want to do their business honestly and straightforwardly? The growing amount of unemployment, the growing amount of taxation that is being put on the people for relief are indices of a problem that is growing, not only for the President and his Government, but for everybody, whether in agricultural, commercial or manufacturing life, who is endeavouring to carry on the business of the country.

Coincident with the beginning of this economic war with Britain, the theory was started that what was killing this country was the cattle trade and that live stock and live-stock products were going to be replaced by the growing of cereals. We ask the President to tell us clearly what he thinks about these matters, too. We ask Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party to understand what has happened politically, financially and economically in this country for the past 20 years. We ask them are they going to speak their true minds or are they going to sit back in their benches ignoring the facts that are crying out to them from every county in Ireland?

As reported in the Irish Press of March 26th, 1934, Deputy O'Reilly said that to his mind the cattle trade was the curse of the country and that it had ruined more families in the last 20 years than any other business. I want seriously to ask everyone of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party, from the President down to the humblest back bencher, does he not know that the industry of agriculture is going to be the foundation of the life of our people here, that we cannot have industrial development or commercial success if our agricultural industry is injured? Do these Deputies not know that live stock and live-stock products are going to be the life and the foundation of that industry? Do they not know that their tillage policy cannot be pursued without an increase in live stock and live-stock products? Do they not know that their tillage policy cannot be pursued unless we have external markets and that these Irish Press headlines, this dope that is given to the people periodically, suggesting that there is going to be tillage development in this country and that that tillage development is going to compensate for all we are losing in outside markets on our live stock and live-stock products, are just one right-down big public lie? What else are they? I would ask Deputy Donnelly is there any farmer in his constituency who believes that tillage development can go on without our having external markets for live stock and live-stock products? Deputy Donnelly is prone to too much honesty, if not here in this House, at least during the time he spends outside it, to say anything else but that the farmers of Leix and Offaly do not believe that they can develop their tillage without external markets.

A Deputy

It would be impossible.

How does he think that the farmers can be helped out of the difficulties in which they find themselves if these plain things which everyone believes, and which are believed by Deputies themselves when they are outside the House, are going to be denied by the Fianna Fáil members when they come in here? Will the President look at the conditions of agricultural employment which exist to-day? The Minister for Industry and Commerce was patting himself on the back last night on the fact that somebody could be got to admit in this House that, there was an increase in the number of persons employed in agriculture throughout the country. Goodness knows there ought to be an increase in the number of persons employed in the agricultural industry if there was any particle of truth in any single line of all that has been written with regard to the tillage policy which the Executive Council are doing so much to help by way of subsidies and by way of advertising and propaganda generally.

The total increase in the area under crops in the country is said to be 166,495 acres. I suppose 160,000 would represent the acreage under wheat and about 50,000 acres the acreage under beet, both of which crops are heavily subsidised. What is the position in agriculture as regards employment as a result of all that? Would Deputy Donnelly say how many additional permanent agricultural labourers were employed during 1935 as compared with 1931, taking into consideration the increase in wheat-growing and the increase in beet-growing in the country? There were only 419 more men employed as permanent agricultural labourers in June, 1935, than there were in June, 1931. With all our subsidised crops under the wheat scheme, the beet scheme and the tobacco scheme, there were only 419 more persons employed as permanent agricultural labourers in June of last year than in June, 1931. There were several counties where there were less permanent agricultural labourers employed last year than in 1931. One of these counties was Wexford, the most subsidised of our counties. There was a fall there of 78 permanent agricultural labourers. In Carlow there was a decrease of 105, in Kilkenny a decrease of 237, in Tipperary a decrease of 301, in Limerick a decrease of 246, and in Kerry a decrease of 203. There were 78 less in Sligo, 76 less in Longford, 188 less in Cavan and 84 less in Monaghan. These figures show the reduction in the number of permanent adult agricultural labourers employed on the land in June, 1935, as against June, 1931.

Another remarkable feature of the situation is that when you take farmers, temporary and permanent agricultural labourers, and persons above 18 years of age and below 18 years of age, there were 5,878 less persons employed in agriculture last year than there were the year before, in spite of all we are told about the great development of tillage.

What about the emigration figures for that period?

Deputy Donnelly should concentrate upon what is being done for agriculture to enable the people to get out of the difficulties in which they find themselves. If there is anything in what the President argued —he did not argue it to-day, but he and his Ministers argued it at various times—that the tillage policy of his Party is going to provide a market for our agriculturists that is going to compensate for the loss of the British market, we should like Deputies to address themselves to the signs of the times existing at present which would show that there is nothing in their contention. There were 5,878 less persons employed in agriculture in June, 1935, than there were in the year before in spite of the increase in acreage, the subsidies, bounties and everything else that could be done like that. Not only is employment in agriculture in that peculiar position from the point of view of numbers, but the amount of money that is circulating amongst agricultural labourers has decreased in an enormous way.

The total number of permanent agricultural labourers employed in June last year was 89,000. To take them at their face value, the figures published by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, as to the value of agricultural wages, and to assume that they are not more than that, means that the agricultural labourers employed permanently throughout the country lost £711,000 last year compared with their earnings in 1931. I do not know how many months in the year a person described as a temporary agricultural labourer gets work in the country. But if he gets three months' work, then, on the figures quoted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce as to the value of agricultural labourers in temporary employment, agricultural labourers have, in addition, lost £128,000, so that £840,000 less was paid to agricultural labourers last year than in 1931.

Deputies on the other side of the House, as well as on this side, know what this country has gone through. They know that this country had difficulties to face before 1913. They know the type of difficulties that were placed by the British Government, and by British interests in this country, in the path of the movement that tried to get the Home Rule Bill passed in 1912 and 1913, and they know that the general spirit in the country at that time was able to raise up and to support whomsover were the leaders and to counter those difficulties. They were able to find new leaders when the occasion arose. They found new leaders who faced up to their responsibilities in the circumstances of 1916. They were prepared to lay down their lives in order to bind the people more closely together by stimulating their feelings, by the genuineness of their action, pointing out to the people the way they should go in making their demand for the freedom and liberty of the country. They pointed the way to the Peace Conference that was to take place after the war. They did not succeed in getting our people into that conference, but the feeling inspired in the people by the leaders of that time brought the people over the difficulties that stood in their way until the Peace Conference was open to them and until they did find themselves admitted to the Council of Nations. They did find their way there, with the leaders of South Africa, with the leaders of Canada, with the leaders of Australia, and with the leaders of New Zealand— all standing as representatives of their people and asserting that they were sovereign in all matters affecting their own States, and that their people were in a similar position as the people of Great Britain.

The President boasted here to-day that he had taken action that the British had denied he had a right to take, and which the British Privy Council by a judgment had upheld. He declined to say what that was. But there is nothing that the President has done affecting our constitutional relations and rights with Great Britain that was not done before he came in here. He speaks of the wiping out of the Privy Council When a Privy Council Bill was put up here and when Lord Hailsham said we had no right to pass it, will the President deny that Deputy Cosgrave stood on a platform in Donegal and told Lord Hailsham what the position was and fully outlined that position?

Why wait for us to do it?

Because we killed the Privy Council without any pyrotechnics or sword display, or heroics or waltzing about amongst mobs.

You voted against it.

It was dead. So that when the President boasted that he wiped the Privy Council out of the position of having an effective influence in Irish affairs the fact is that it was gone long before he ever put pen to paper about it. When will the President wake up to the responsibilities that are on him in respect to the internal problems of this country, or the international position of this country, and take his place like a manly representative of this country, the type of representative that this country is entitled to have because of the fact that everybody knows the difficulties that this country stood up against during the present generation? Everybody knows the position that was hewn out for this country in the League of Nations, and the British Commonwealth of Nations, not only by the physical struggle and courage of our people as a whole but by the manliness, the integrity and the intelligence of the people who bore responsibility for leadership.

The President talks about the land annuities as a war debt. What was his position with regard to war debts? Did he not, in his position as leader of this State, practically appeal to the American people not to have any mercy on, or to give any consideration to, the British appeal to be allowed off war debts then owing to America, by reason of the fact that they were unable to pay off those debts because they had forgiven the war debts of other countries? Would it not have been much better for the President of this State, who was put into the highest position of the League of Nations by the work of the leaders of this State who had gone before him, if he had realised what the effect of the international war situation was, and if he had spoken with greater judgment than he spoke of England's debts to the United States of America? Could he not have given some thought to a line of appeal that war debts should be mitigated in some such way as would lead not only to better international relationship but would provide him with a very strong argument for the mitigation of this country's debts to Great Britain.

I should like to see the statement that the Deputy has referred to in its context.

We could get it I am sure. But the President did go out, and, practically, did appeal to the American people not to have any sympathy with the British people and not to leave them off their war debts.

Not like that, but by contrast when the British refused to consider the burden placed upon us in this State.

Yes. Instead of standing in his international position in the way in which the President ought to have been standing, considering the position he held or was going to hold in the League of Nations, and taking time by the forelock, pre-judging the situation and having his mind made up, he allowed himself by action of the British against this country if you like to be dragged into the position of throwing oil on fire, and dealing in a most irresponsible way—even when we take the interest of this country alone into consideration— with a matter that must be settled at some time internationally, and when that settlement comes, it is bound to have a better effect on economic relations and international relations throughout the world.

The Deputy would oblige us by telling us about this matter at some appropriate time.

I shall be very happy to give the President any information I have about it, and I shall be very glad to see the President develop a mind in regard to what should be done in connection with the debts that exist internationally, and that are crippling political harmony and economic well-being. The President, again as President of this State, goes to Geneva and takes a line of action with regard to sanctions against Italy that is in full harmony with the British line of action. He sees that the British line of action is a logical and sound line of action internationally, and is in accordance with what he considers the best international policy to pursue. But when he comes home, where at times he plays the part of journalist to the leading articles in the Irish Press, he has nothing but criticism of and sneers at the British for pursuing an armament policy in a world in which he knows that a country which is not prepared to protect itself in arms might very easily get short shrift with regard to its interests in a few years. Why cannot the President pursue a sound, decent line in general international politics, and it might have a better effect on our own internal situation here?

The President seems not to have made up his mind either as to how he is going to treat the international situation outside or the national situation here, but our concern is that he should open his eyes to what is happening our farmers, our agricultural labourers and our townspeople here; that he should realise the losses that are being occasioned; that he should shoulder his responsibilities in those matters, and face in the direction in which the fight has to be made, if a fight has to be made; that some members of his Party, knowing something of what the people have gone through, knowing something of what they are likely to go through, should face up to the situation and should get clear that they must establish, in some way or another, harmonious political relations with Great Britain; that we do demand in the British market rights and facilities above any people in Europe; that, if we do not get them, our national life is going to be prejudiced here; we are going to be poorer; we are going to have less luxury, less gaiety, less of that spirit in the country without which you cannot have progress, you cannot have social harmony and you cannot have any kind of decent national culture. Just as our people are being injured economically to-day, they are being injured morally to-day. Our people are being set back in their ideals with regard to culture, and in so far as the Irish language is concerned there is no progress of any kind being made to save for the country the national language while there is a chance of its being saved. The futility that is indulged in by the President, in his approach to every political and economic problem creates divisions of all kinds from one end of the country to the other; brings make-believe and deception into everything that is touched in a public way; and until the President makes up his mind that something must be done, until he sets out the alternatives and gets clear on what he is going to try to do, all those losses are going to continue and all those bitternesses and futilities are going to exist in every walk of life.

The President asks us to state what are the problems that have to be settled with Great Britain. Why should he be afraid to put down on a list what are our problems? We have the problem of Partition. We have the problem of our constitutional relations with Great Britain. We have the problem of our economic and financial relations with Great Britain. Does the President want any assistance in dealing with any of those? If he does he will go first to the British, and he will see what exactly are the obstacles that the British are putting in the way of our getting a settlement of Partition that would be agreeable to him; of our getting a settlement of any constitutional difficulty in a way that would be agreeable to him; of our getting an economic settlement or a financial settlement about which he could agree with the British: and he will then come to this Parliament and tell this Parliament what those difficulties are.

I do not like to inter rupt the Deputy, but I have done that several times, and told them again to-day.

What has the President told us to-day? He told us that he could get some of the land annuities taken off if he admitted that they were legally due, but that, in fact, he could not, because the British also tack on the constitutional difficulties.

As this is a matter which we should like to get clear, perhaps I may interrupt the Deputy. I stated that the British Chancellor said that if we accepted the agreement as being binding, and got to a common basis on that, then there might be some mitigation. That is all that was said. That is the only point we have reached in that regard.

The President also said that the British had mixed up the constitutional and financial matters, and implied that he could not get a settlement of the financial matters without a settlement of the constitutional matters.

The Deputy can refer to Mr. Thomas' statements for that.

Surely to goodness when the President sees the condition to which this country is reduced, when he realises that his present attitude is one of sitting inside in his office in Government Buildings and letting the situation go on and those losses continue, he should consider it worth while setting down in greater detail in respect of those matters—partition, the constitution, the economic and financial position—what are the difficulties raised by the British against a settlement between the present Government and the British Government?

With regard to Partition, the British apparently are not going to consider the matter.

But will the President give us the whole position in a more definite and detailed way? Is he going to sit in his office and see the income of our agricultural community dropped from £12,000,000 a year to £5,000,000 a year for what the Minister for Agriculture tells us is practically the same amount of cattle, because the British say: "We are not going to do anything for you about Partition"? Is the President going to sit in his office and do nothing about it?

Will the Deputy tell us what we can do about it?

I am asking the President is he going to sit inside there and do nothing?

Bunkum! Will you tell us what exactly you think the President ought to do to change the British will in the matter?

When the President goes to the British for the purpose of settling completely all the difficulties that are outstanding under those heads which I have mentioned, and comes back and tells us what the difficulties in the path of this settlement are, then we will be able to talk to the President and tell him what we think about Partition and every other aspect of it.

White Papers have been distributed already to the Dáil. They were published some years ago regarding such an investigation, and the whole of the arguments on both sides.

In the meantime, the President is going to sit inside and do nothing. Civil servants went across to London at the beginning of this year and signed along the line drawn by the British Treasury making a new agreement that would give the British Treasury only what they considered they were entitled to. Then the attitude of the President here is that he is going to stick where he is and the people are going to suffer losses. To my mind the President is simply a deserter from his responsibilities. The unfortunate people of the country having been promised a great development in this country, the building up of industries, the protection of our agriculture, increased employment for our people, are being left to stew in an economic position that they never thought they would experience or which any of their fathers never thought they would experience and that after being promised a leader to fight for them and to defend them whether they had the institutions of government in their hands or not, whether they had an international position or not.

One of the reasons why we oppose this measure is that it is of no use. So little use is it that the Minister for Finance could not tell us yesterday what the duties were or what the duties are going to be on the items affected by the Bill. There is no use pulling the wool over your eyes or trying to pull it over ours or trying to pretend to the people that prices will be up in a week. There is no use in prices going up. Higher prices could have been got for fat cattle in the Dublin market to-day from English buyers, but the fat cattle were not there to be sold because the condition brought about by the policy of the Minister for Agriculture is that the fat cattle are not there to be sold.

Will the Deputy develop this economic thesis?

Extinct as the British market is, according to the President and his Ministers, we had not sufficient cattle to fill the quota in the British market last year. To-day, when higher prices could have been obtained for fat cattle they were not there.

If they had been there possibly the prices might have been lower.

The President and the Minister can do nothing to relieve the people of the difficulties in which they find themselves or to safeguard the Irish industrial future until they make up their minds that they are going to do their part as responsible Irish leaders to settle the difficulties that they were put there to settle, and the longer they remain there without attempting to do that the bigger will be the blow they will strike, not only at the happiness of the people to-day, but at their prospects in the future.

In the course of the debate on this Bill a fairly large portion of the ground covered did not seem to be strictly within the realms of the Bill. I do not propose to follow Deputy Mulcahy into that wide realm of matters which he has traversed and will endeavour to confine myself to the Bill, to the amendment, and to the matters which arise out of them. Quite frankly, I regard the agreement which we are asked to approve in this Bill as a settlement which takes the form of exchanging certain commodities, of which we have a surplus, for certain commodities of which the British have a surplus. To the extent that both countries can exchange their respective surpluses, I think the arrangement provided for in the agreement and in the Bill is something which has much to commend it from the point of view of sound common sense and from the point of view of promoting a scheme of distribution of trade and commerce which is inevitable in any system of society where one country produces more goods than it can consume under existing circumstances and where another country requires those commodities because it does not produce them on its own. I think, therefore, that, viewed from that standpoint, the settlement to which legislative effect is being given in this Bill is something which, from the point of view of good economics and sound common sense, has much to commend it to the House.

The attitude of the Opposition to the Bill is a strange one. Last year they were in favour of the coal-cattle pact and actually voted for that pact with the knowledge that the coal when coming into the country was subject to a tax of 5/- per ton. So that in 1935, looking at the matter from the point of view of the agricultural community, on the one hand, and the consumers of coal, on the other hand, they voted for a coal-cattle pact which was not as effective or as advantageous as this agreement is and which, at all events, definitely committed them to the acceptance of a pact which involved payment in the form of taxation by our own people of a sum of 5/- on every ton of British coal imported into the country. The Party opposite not merely spoke in favour of it as a business settlement, but actually went into the Division Lobby and voted for that coal-cattle pact, which, as I say, from the point of view of the agricultural community, is not as beneficial as the agreement which we are asked to ratify by legislation to-day.

To the extent, therefore, that this agreement is an improvement on the 1935 coal-cattle pact, I am in favour of it. I think the House, if its real feelings in the matter were allowed to be revealed without the threat of the operation of the Party Whip, would be found to support the agreement as something which is, from the point of view of the agricultural community, an advance on the position as they previously knew it. At all events, whatever the attitude of the farming community may be within sight of the Whip's lash in this House, the individual viewpoint of representatives of the agricultural community in the country is that this agreement is an advance on the position which has existed up to now. To that extent, this agreement is to be preferred to the coal-cattle pact of 1935. There is no Deputy but knows perfectly well that if he were asked to choose between the coal-cattle pact of 1935 and the agreement of 1936 he would prefer the 1936 agreement.

I regard the Opposition amendment, not as a sincere effort to find a solution of the difficulties which exist between the two countries, but as an attempt to make political capital out of the situation which exists. I regard the amendment as being part and parcel of that squealing and defeatist policy which is being carried on by many members of the Opposition for the past four years on every platform around the country. In the worst days of the economic war, in the worst days when efforts were made to collect the land annuities and when efforts were made to collect the rates, Deputies opposite and persons belonging to the Party opposite who are not in this House, encouraged in every possible way a defeatist mentality throughout the country on the non-payment of rates and on the non-payment of land annuities.

This amendment to-day is part and parcel of the same mentality; it is part and parcel of the same outlook and it is part and parcel of the same campaign to try to weaken the position of this country in the face of an economic war which challenges the economic and national standing of this country. We are told in this amendment that the Bill should not be passed by the House "... until the Executive Council has given the Dáil an assurance that the Executive Council will now take steps to negotiate forthwith a comprehensive settlement of the matters at issue between the Irish and the British Governments." We are told impliedly in this amendment that we can get a comprehensive settlement of the matters in dispute between the two countries. We are told by inference that the only difficulty in the way of securing a comprehensive settlement of the issues in dispute between the two Governments is the unreasonable attitude which is being pursued by the Irish Government. Nowhere in the amendment and nowhere in the speeches which have been made on the opposite benches has there been a single criticism, however mild, of the attitude of the British Government in carrying on an economic war against our people. The whole attitude of the Party opposite has been "our Government is wrong," and not once in the course of any speech from the benches opposite has any attempt been made, no matter how mild the language, to offer one single word of criticism against the British in this matter. Like Deputy MacDermot last night, I dislike the philosophy which is enshrined in the saying: "My country right or wrong," but, as between that philosophy and the philosophy of the Opposition, I prefer that philosophy. I prefer the declaration, at all events, "My own country right or wrong" rather than what the opposite benches have expressed: "The other country right or wrong."

We are told that we can get a comprehensive settlement, and we are told that the only thing that stands in the way is the recalcitrant attitude of the Government. I happened in 1932 to be in London in an effort to settle matters in dispute between the two Governments, and I must say from my experience on that occasion that the President did everything that any man could do to settle the dispute between the two Governments. If the negotiations did not then take place, and if a satisfactory basis of settlement was not then found, that was not due in any way to any difficulty put in the way by the President, nor was it due in any way to his hands being tied by his Executive Council. The then attitude of the British Government is the same as the attitude they are pursuing now. Their attitude in 1932 was: "We do not care what your claim is to retain these moneys; you must pay or the tariffs will go on.""Pay the money" was the attitude of the British Government, "and we will submit the matter to a Commonwealth Tribunal." These were the only alternatives offered to the President then, and, so far as I can judge, these are the only alternatives offered now. In face of that the Opposition Party suggests that we should resume the status quo and continue to pay this disputed money which we have held for four years and then consent to the matter being referred to a Commonwealth tribunal, a Commonwealth tribunal which they themselves refused to accept as a competent tribunal to judge an issue of that kind between various States now comprised in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Opposition tell us “to get a comprehensive settlement.” I have indicated what I believe to have been the British view in 1932. I heard their views with my own ears from their own spokesmen. I should like to know now from some member of the Opposition whether there has been any change since then in the British attitude. If there has been a change we ought to know, on the authority of any person who is competent to make a settlement, that there has been a change. The Party opposite say: “Get a comprehensive settlement.” I do not know on whose authority they make the statement that a comprehensive settlement can be got. Their reluctance to indicate the basis of their belief that such a settlement can be got must be taken as further evidence that this is a humbugging and hypocritical amendment, not designed to assist this nation, but designed to make mean Party capital out of a situation about which they ought to be as gravely concerned as any other Party in the State. But, seeing that they have told us that it is desirable to get a comprehensive settlement and seeing that they have apparently believed that a comprehensive settlement can be got, are we not entitled to know from them on what basis that settlement can be negotiated? Are we not entitled to have from the members of the late Executive Council, the Party which hopes they may be the next Government, some indication as to the way in which they, if they were called upon to do so, would settle the economic war? Are we not entitled to hear from Deputy Cosgrave and from the members of the front bench opposite what their views are in respect of a settlement of the economic war? Should we not be told by them not only their authority for saying that a comprehensive settlement can be got, but also the basis on which it is possible to arrive at a comprehensive settlement of the matters in dispute between the two Governments? We have not had in any speeches from the opposite benches, nor in the many speeches which members of the Party opposite make throughout the country, a single indication as to the basis upon which they can get from the British a comprehensive settlement of the economic war. Long before there was any economic war they showed themselves to be incapable and incompetent to get a settlement of the outstanding political differences which existed during their term of office. Now they tell us they can get a comprehensive settlement, and they can do that in more difficult circumstances than those which existed when they were not able to get a partial settlement from 1922 onward—except the kind of settlement that could be got by always surrendering to the British. Now in this amendment they ask the House and the country to believe that they can get a comprehensive settlement to-day. I will concede that if a government or nation is in dire need any settlement could be got in 24 hours, but let us have no mistake as to the kind of settlement it would be. A speedy settlement of this matter can be got by this Government if this nation is prepared to surrender the position which it has taken up——

They have already done so.

If we are prepared to haul down the flag and to say to the British that we have lost the war; if we are prepared to continue to contribute to the British Government the sum of £5,250,000 for the benefit of its Exchequer, you can get a settlement by paying that money and by indicating that although you still believe you are entitled to it you are gladly prepared to pay it over to another Government by raking it out of the pockets of your own people who are ill-equipped to make such a contribution to the finances of another country. It is always possible to get a settlement with your adversary. It is always possible for a weak man to make peace with a bully, but make no mistake about it that such a peace is on the bully's terms. We can get a settlement of this economic dispute and of the political dispute with Britain if we are prepared to adopt the attitude of the weak man—the rôle of suppliant seeking from the bully any settlement that the bully is prepared to give. That is the settlement which you can get to-day if you surrender. It is the settlement the Party opposite want this nation to plead for. Speaking for myself and the members of our Party, I want to say that any settlement on the basis of surrender would not give you a settlement of the matters in dispute. There would be found men and women in the country who would accept no such settlement just as, in the 1933 election, when the majority of the electors preferred to carry on the fight rather than accept the offer of the three days' settlement which Deputy Cosgrave made.

Are the Deputy and his Party prepared to share in the sacrifices?

If the Deputy will have patience I will talk to him in a minute or so about the sacrifices. I want to say that any attempt by the Government to haul down the flag and to put over a surrender settlement would be bitterly opposed by everybody who realises that a satisfactory termination of this dispute is vital to the economic, fiscal and national development of the country. Even if the President were to haul down the flag and to make an unfavourable settlement with the British, I doubt if, in existing circumstances, it would be possible to commit the majority of our people to accept any such settlement as a permanent settlement of our relations with Britain. We can, of course, if we want a settlement continue to pay the £5,250,000 a year to Britain, to collect the annuities in full from the land annuitants and export them to Britain.

And the half along with them.

We can continue, of course, to have the most cordial relations with the British, such as the Opposition had from 1922 to 1932, if we are prepared to continue to export to Britain £5,250,000 a year. I would like to ask Deputy MacEoin, who is probably going to speak in this debate, whether the settlement that he envisages involves the continued payment to Britain of £5,250,000 per annum? If the Deputy answers in the affirmative, then we know where the Opposition Party stands. If he answers in the negative, we are entitled to know from him, since we have not so far got it out of the leader of his Party, what grounds there are for saying, or believing, that you can get a settlement with the British without paying the land annuities in the existing circumstances.

Commonsense.

Deputy Minch has all that.

Let us take commonsense.

Nonsense is probably the right word, but Deputy McGuire said commonsense. If Deputy McGuire believes that you can get a settlement with the British without paying the land annuities, he should be on the front bench and in the first seat on the front bench, because that fertile mind of his should not be obscured on a back bench. From that exalted position, Deputy McGuire might tell us with whom his Party have had discussions which lead them to believe that, with commonsense, they could get a settlement of the dispute without paying the annuities to Britain. Deputy Cosgrave did not say that he was convinced that he could get a settlement without paying the annuities. Deputy MacEoin will not say it when he comes to speak, and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney will be careful not to say it in this House.

They have not as much commonsense as Deputy McGuire.

Or the Minister for Finance.

It is left to Deputy McGuire, who sits on the second-last back seat, to discover a recipe for the settlement of the economic war.

Of course, there is no commonsense in that side of the House.

Is it possible to find out from the Party opposite whether they honestly believe that you can get a settlement with the British without having to pay the land annuities?

Of course, you can.

Here is another wizard sitting on a back bench who has discovered that such a settlement can be got. We will test that in a few moments by references to another important point. Although there are three Deputies sitting in the front bench opposite—those sitting on the back benches are apparently prepared to contribute their recipes for the solution of this difficulty—nothing can be screwed out of the occupants of the front bench to indicate their policy for a settlement of the economic dispute. Is not the plain fact of the matter this, that there is no Party in the House and no Deputy who believes that, in existing circumstances you can have a settlement with Britain unless you continue to pay the land annuities? Does not everyone realise that the British attitude from 1922 to 1932 has been to continue to demand the payment of the land annuities, and that the British people were not even prepared to accept a deposit of these disputed moneys outside the jurisdiction of this Government, or to allow the matters in dispute to be decided by some competent tribunal? Does not everyone know perfectly well that the attitude of the British is to collar the annuities as quickly as they possibly can and to keep pouring them into their own Exchequer?

When the Party opposite talk about a comprehensive settlement, do they mean a settlement which involves much more than the annuities? What kind of settlement precisely have they in mind? Have they a settlement in mind, for instance, which will enable us to live in amity and concord with the British by putting back the Oath of Allegiance in the Constitution? Have they a settlement in mind which involves the continued payment of £5,250,000 to Britain? Have they a settlement in mind which would restore the Governor-General to his former dignity? Have they a settlement in mind which involves making the Treaty of 1921 superior to the municipal law of this country? Is that the kind of settlement the Party opposite have in mind when they talk about a comprehensive settlement, involving putting the Oath back in the Constitution, exalting the Governor-General to his former dignity, making the Treaty superior to the municipal law, and continuing to send £5,250,000 of hard-earned Irish money to replenish the coffers of the British Exchequer? If that is not the kind of settlement they mean, will somebody on the first, second or third Opposition Benches tell us what they have in mind, what kind of settlement they believe they could get; and what authority there is for that belief?

Do you want us to pay your tickets over to London as well?

I do not think anyone has asked the Deputy to make him an object of charity in this House.

I did not say that. The Deputy has asked for so much help that I suggested we should provide the tickets to London.

The Deputy's Party's performance in this House, on any dispute between this country and England, has distinguished itself not by helping the Irish nation or the Irish people, or any Irish Party. Its actions and its records, in February, 1923, in particular, have shown it to be a Party which is much more concerned with helping Britain than helping any other country. Nobody in either Party who wanted to help Britain would have signed the agreement that Deputy Cosgrave signed. The case that could be made for that agreement is that they did not know what they were doing: that they were inexperienced in office, and of what was involved. While a generous country might make an allowance for incompetency, that agreement could never be justified by any advertence to law, by any advertence to facts or to any canons of justice or equity. In future I advise the Party opposite, even though it might smudge their faces a bit to defend their attitude in connection with that agreement, to say that they did not know what they were doing then. At least, that attitude would be understandable. But to stand up in London, and to stand up here, and to say that these moneys are due to Britain, when every legal authority knows that they are not due, is only to cut a figure in this House which no national Party has ever previously cut. Deputy McGuire told us that, actuated by some inspiration of commonsense, the Opposition Party believe they can get a settlement which will not involve payment of £5,250,000 by this country. May I remind Deputy McGuire that before he became a member of the Party opposite, the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in 1931 asked the British Government, not for a remission of the £5,250,000, not for a moratorium of that amount of land annuities, and not for cancellation of a single halfpenny of the annuities, but for a moratorium merely for one year of £250,000 due in respect of compensation, and that application was contemptuously rejected by the British Government. In 1931, a moratorium could not be got for £250,000. Yet, the Party opposite have the hardihood and the audacity to tell the intelligent men and women of this country that they could secure a cancellation of £5,250,000 in 1936.

The Deputy ought to apply his commonsense to that.

Deputies opposite may fool themselves with delusions of that kind, but the intelligent electorate will always remember that when a moratorium for £250,000 could not be got in 1931, they are not likely to get a cancellation of £5,250,000 in 1936.

We have not asked for it.

Why ask for it now?

Because the country has been sold by the Fianna Fáil Government. There is a good case for remission.

There was a good case in 1931.

The country was prosperous then.

The Party opposite does not know when it has a case. In 1923 they gave that case away and also £5,250,000 yearly. In 1931, Senator Blythe, who was Minister for Finance in the then Government, thought the Government has a case. He may have been wrong and Deputy McGuire may have been right. At any rate, the Minister for Finance in the Cumann na nGaedheal Government thought they had a case and he asked for a postponement of the payment of £250,000 for 12 months. The request was contemptuously rejected by the British Government and there was no moratorium. This is the Party and these are the people who are now going to secure cancellation of £5,250,000, which the British contend we owe but which is disputed here. The attitude taken up here is supported by eminent counsel. The Party opposite promises the people nothing less than a comprehensive settlement, yet they could not secure a moratorium in 1931. Having regard to the blundering settlement that they made with the British, I do not think the people of this country will ever entrust them to make a settlement again. However, if the people in a spirit of hardihood were willing to let them make another settlement with Britain, they should make sure that the nation's cheque book is left behind in Dublin, because it is obviously a risky experiment to send people to London ill-equipped to make a settlement, and incompetent from the point of view of not knowing their own case. The only thing generous about them is the cheque book which belongs to this nation. I think the people will be inclined to remember 1923 and 1931 and that the Party opposite will never again be called upon to make a comprehensive settlement.

Mr. Brodrick

Time will tell.

If the Labour Party comes in we will be all right.

Mr. Brodrick

What did you say when the Labour Party went over to secure the election of Mr. J.H. Thomas? Deputy Davin went over.

I challenge that.

Let us forget about that election.

Mr. Brodrick

I hope Deputy Davin heard what I said.

I challenge you to prove it.

Mr. Brodrick

Did not members of the Irish Labour Party go over to support the Labour Government in England?

We are not discussing what the Labour Party did at any particular election. I call upon Deputies to discuss the motion and the amendment before the House.

We will have wages for agricultural labourers after this pact.

Reference has been made in the debate to the economic war and to its effects upon the agricultural community.

And the agricultural labourer not getting a wage of 27/-.

One would imagine from the speeches made with regard to the economic war that there was only one class suffering from the economic war, and that was the agricultural community.

That is the only section that is paying for it.

Deputy Belton says that is the only class that is paying for it. I might remind Deputy Belton that there are people in this country, people in the towns and villages and cities of this country—town workers, agricultural workers, artisans and so on, as well as small farmers—who have been experiencing an economic war, not from 1932 to 1936, but, in the battle against adversity and misfortune, from the time they were born until they die.

I quite agree.

These people, who know what the real ravages of an economic war are, who have experienced an economic war all their lives, and who have not any capacity to bear it, are entitled to some consideration, and I think that, at least, their view-point is entitled to be heard. Let us realise, at all events, that there are people in this country who are suffering the pangs of an economic war as well as the agricultural community: people who have been suffering an economic war all their lives, who have been enduring adversity and misfortune all their lives. Are their prospects and their interests to be bartered in order that an agreement can be arrived at on any terms—terms of surrender and of hauling down our flag?

Was not the coal-cattle pact a surrender? Tell us something about that.

Evidently nobody understands it except Deputy Belton himself.

I think that Deputy Belton is invincible to any kind of intelligent explanation of anything, and I despair of trying to convert him now. However, as I said at the outset, Sir, and as I want to say now, I regard this amendment of the Opposition as a shallow, humbugging and insincere amendment—an amendment designed for no other purpose than as part of the agreement of squealing which has been carried on by the Party opposite for the whole period of this economic war. They know that this settlement, although it is by no means perfect, is something better than the coal-cattle pact of 1935. They voted for that pact of 1935, and I hold that they are insincere when they say that they do not want this settlement and that they are not prepared to approve of it. So far as this amendment by the Opposition is concerned, I think it bears, on the face of it, all the attributes of insincerity and dishonesty, and I think it will be voted for with considerable regret by the farmer members of the Party opposite.

The Deputy himself voted against the coal-cattle pact of 1935. What has happened since?

Yes. I voted against the coal-cattle pact of 1935 because the coal coming in here at the time was carrying a tax of 5/- per ton.

What do you think of it now?

I just want an understanding of the position. It is a strange political wind that makes political bed-fellows out of Deputy Belton and Deputy Anthony. It must have been a rare storm that made these two Deputies into a kind of political twins in this amendment—Deputy Belton representing the City of Dublin and Deputy Anthony representing Cork—and neither of them wanting the economic war settled unless they can get a comprehensive settlement of it.

Yes, including tram-fares.

Deputy Belton could not tell us on what basis he would get a comprehensive settlement.

That is not my job. That is the Government's job.

And, so far, we have not got any basis for a comprehensive settlement from Deputy Anthony.

A Deputy

Well, there is a treat in store for you.

Maybe there is a treat in store for me; but I rather imagine that this duet of Deputy Anthony and Deputy Belton on this motion is a kind of a Laurel and Hardy picture with which many people like to entertain themselves outside this House. As I say, Sir, I think that this is an insincere amendment and, furthermore, I think that this is not the time nor the place for wasting time on insincere amendments of this kind. I hold that the settlement that has been made is a better settlement than the one that was made last year. It is not by any means an ideal settlement, I quite admit, but it opens up a chance, perhaps, of settling the whole fundamental dispute; and if there is any prospect of getting a settlement of our dispute with Great Britain on a basis that will do honour to this country and that will recognise our country's essential equality with Great Britain, then I think that any opportunity of getting that settlement should be embraced. On the other hand, I hold that any settlement with the British which would involve a hauling down of the national flag and a surrendering of our position to Great Britain would be a settlement for which it would be impossible to get any approval in this country, and which would cause further strife and disorder in this country instead of the peace and order which we all desire but which some people would lead one to believe can easily be got by such a surrender.

What is the £4 5s. 0d. for?

I believe that this pact is a great improvement on the pact of last year, and I have been persuaded largely of that fact by the attitude of the Opposition Party. For some reason or another the Party opposite generally seem to become infuriated when there is any advance made towards better conditions in this country. When any advance is made towards better conditions, the Opposition always seem to become more keen, and the amount of energy they put into their efforts is always very great indeed. At the same time, I should like to remark that I hope this pact is not in any way going to give any degree of permanency to the cattle trade as it hitherto existed in this country. I think that that would be a calamity and, in that connection, I think that most of the talk from the opposite benches is mostly for propaganda purposes. They believe they are deluding a number of people who, at one time perhaps, before the advent of the late Government, got some profit out of that particular industry. People engaged in that industry, mainly in the line of distribution, and perhaps certain sections engaged in the raising of stores, previous to the advent of the late Government and the collapse of cattle prices in 1931, got some profit and undoubtedly had some savings out of the industry, but, at the same time, as an industry, it has been proclaimed for many years by many authorities, and at one time by many members on the opposite benches, that that particular trade was the cause of many of the great misfortunes of this country. One of the greatest misfortunes, they held, was the depopulation which arose from want of employment and, therefore, it is reasonable to connect them and to decide that the cattle trade, population and employment are not bedfellows and are not generally found together.

Deputy Mulcahy gave some quotations from remarks of mine which he possibly got from the Press. Those quotations did not mean exactly what he read into them. They meant just what I have said—that the cattle trade in this country was looked upon by the greater part of the people who had to emigrate as the curse of this country. Great Britain is undoubtedly going to foster here whatever industry is most suitable to her purpose. There was a lot of talk about tariffs and quotas and industry generally, but I am absolutely convinced that Great Britain, if we never had an economic dispute, and even if we paid the £5,000,000 and another £2,000,000 in addition, would retaliate immediately if we set up tariff barriers against her industrial production. Naturally, we could not expect to have it both ways. What was the position we were faced with here as a result of the world collapse of prices, which, incidentally, Deputies on the opposite benches do not believe in? For weal or woe, emigration had ceased, and there is no sign that it is going to be open again for some considerable time, and we were faced with the problem of trying to absorb as many of those people as we could.

Some counties had rather acute problems. Counties in which there were a number of small holdings, thickly populated areas, had a very severe problem. Counties like Meath did not have that severe problem because, owing to its cattle condition, there were not people there, and we were fortunate in that we have a lot of land on which people can be placed. That solves to a large extent the labour problem there and it solves the question of emigration, but I am convinced that the British Government would have retaliated with tariffs, even if there were no such question as the withholding of these annuities. That would have been the one and the only road open to them. We are now purchasing coal in return for cattle. This agreement lasts for one year. We may not need coal next year or we may need only half the quantity. What then? If the people continue to go on the land, there will be fewer cattle produced and we shall want a lesser cattle market, but we shall certainly want more food. It always seems strange that in a country like this the best land was the land which carried the least people, and that land in County Mayo of a poor description for conacre always ran around or about £5 or £6 an acre, whereas land around Tara and the richest parts of County Meath could make little more than £3 or £3 10s. 0d. before the economic dispute.

What is the Deputy getting for his land on the 11 months system?

Is it not let on the 11 months system?

No. Who informed the Deputy of those things? He should go and find out the truth. My land is both tilled and stocked as good as yours.

By yourself?

By myself, certainly. I had land and owned land practically before you were born.

Oh, you are not that old.

Oh, yes, I am. Deputy Belton is not so long in possession.

He is a great authority now, you know.

That is one of the positions this country has to face up to. It is a position which the Party opposite does not want to face up to. Why? Because they know perfectly well that they will not have the responsibility.

The other question we have to face up to is also a rather serious one. It is the matter of inducing people to hold on to cattle which are every day becoming of less value and asking them to refuse to take on a different form of economy. No matter what our political prejudices may be, force of circumstances will compel us to change whatever economy we had if it is out-of-date and to adopt a new one. Every business man in Dublin has had to do that, and has had to do it in recent years, and perhaps two or three times. With all the talk there is about the cattle trade, the prices of cattle, and this market in England which is so sound, so healthy and so good that we should actually keep a lot more cattle —somebody across the way said that we have not got them because we killed the calves—this is strange information. The position in that market in 1934 for the three months ending November was that Scotch short sides, national mark, the best beef produced in England and produced generally from our stores, were worth 82/3. Last year, during the same months, they were worth 77/3. The English national mark selected in 1934 was worth 65/4; last year it was worth 60/8. Those prices are for 112 lbs. dead. Argentine chilled hindquarters were worth 56/10 during those three months in 1934, and in the same three months of 1935 were worth 60/-. Stranger still, Australian frozen hindquarters were worth 34/11 in 1934, and last year they were worth 37/1. Why is that? Simply and solely because the British farmer has not got a selling organisation or an organisation of any kind. His meat is placed on the market just as his grandfather put it on, and it is not of the quality or the appearance of this chilled meat. He is handicapped in every way. The butcher who sells his meat does not want to sell it because he has no interest in it. His interest is in the Argentine, where his money is sunk, and the result, so far as the British farmer is concerned—and he admits it to-day and these figures prove it—is that he is in a declining market.

Are members on the opposite benches entitled to try to persuade the people that we defrauded them and ruined them? We did not do that. We told the people—I said so here myself and the Minister confirmed it—to keep as few cattle as possible and have them as good as possible, but to go into other things. Can anybody on the opposite side tell me how we are going to progress so long as we have only one commodity here to sell and only one customer? If we have not industries here to maintain our population, where are they to go? And if they do leave the country, what is the use of talking about national tradition or the national language? We cannot have it both ways, and the people do not want it both ways. If we go to an election to-morrow morning we will get better results than we did on the last occasion. We know that well. What, then, is the use of wasting time here? What is the use of creating bad temper by what I may describe as impertinent suggestions and insulting phrases? Why cannot we realise the difficulties we are up against and co-operate in some way or another? Is that how people of one household make a deal or a bargain? Do they carry on the same conduct as the people on the other side? If they did, the house would not stand long. The whole place would collapse. I am convinced that there are men on the other side who would rather that the whole House should collapse than that we should succeed. But succeed we will.

I am sorry that Deputy Norton has left because I wanted to tell the House, in Deputy Norton's presence, what a valuable asset the country has in the Deputy. When President de Valera let down the Republic, Deputy Norton stepped into the breach. In his efforts to-night to make what I considered a most contemptible speech, he forgot what ought to be his duty—that is, what happened to the labouring community since the economic war started. Deputy Norton kept very wide of that mark. In bidding for the Left vote, as against Fianna Fáil, he has not time for these things. Deputy Norton had outbid Fianna Fáil for that vote and that has taken up all his time. He wants to know from the Opposition what their plan is for a comprehensive settlement. When the Government was in Opposition, they did not answer questions like that. They thought it was an impertinence to ask them such questions. They said that it was the job of the Government to provide the answers to such questions and that it was not for them to make suggestions to the Government of the day. Now, when they find themselves in a hole of their own making, as they have definitely admitted, they say: "What is the way out of this, boys?" Deputy Norton also wants to know what is the way out. The President, Deputy Norton and other speakers mentioned that this country could not continue to pay £5,250,000 to Great Britain and exist. Are we not doing that and much more at the present time? How much are we paying at present by way of penal tariffs? We are paying not alone the annuities but £2,000,000, representing pensions and local loans. We are also paying half annuities at home. What are we paying out of? We are paying out of our depleted assets. They are depleted to the extent of the British tariff on every beast we sell, whether for home or foreign consumption. Is not that the position?

Deputy Norton comes in and wants to know what would become of the country if we had to pay £5,250,000 per year. We are paying over £10,000,000, if you allow for tariffs which we have to make up. The Minister for Agriculture admitted last night that the price which the British pay for live stock here is the basic price. Consequently, with that as a basis, it does not matter whether those who buy our cattle are Germans, Spaniards or Belgians, because they are buying them at the price that Britain pays for them, which price is less the annuities. Then, we have people saying that the country could not continue what it was previously doing when it had a market. The President told us to-night that, in 1931, when we were paying £5,000,000 to Britain, we were paying at the rate of £7 per beast exported to Britain. Let us take him at his word. In 1931, the average price we got for cattle exported to Britain was £16 11s. If we did pay £7 per head, we still had £9 11s. left to play with. This year the average price was £8 7s. per head and we are paying Britain the annuities all the time. As President de Valera admitted, both to-day and previously, we are paying them in a manner which is more calculated to injure the people than if we were paying them directly.

The President started his speech to-night by asking us to face up to the realities of the situation and leave out the pretences. I wish the President would leave out all that old history, which is pure nonsense. To my mind, it seems like the old story: "Mary sat down and told me the old story, over and over and over again." We had the Government rehashing the 1923 agreement. When the leader of the Opposition wanted to answer the President he was not very anxious to hear him. He asked permission to make a second speech in reply. The leader of the Opposition merely wanted to quote ten lines to show that the agreement had been properly brought before this House in 1923. One would imagine from the fuss made about this Bill that we were considering some matter of very weighty importance—some weighty decision that the Government had come to and in respect of which this House was asked to decide whether or not the Government was worthy of support. If any decision has been taken by the Government, what is it? In considering the Bill before the House, we must have regard to its implications. Certain advantages are supposed to accrue to us as a result of the remissions which we propose to make in this Bill. What are these advantages? Deputy Norton tells us that this is a much better pact than the coal-cattle pact, but nobody seems to have told us exactly what the pact is.

We have been told that there is a type of exchange in this pact—the giving of one thing for another. We are given coal for cattle. The Minister for Agriculture gave us to understand last night that there was an end of the quota system, so far as we are concerned. That must have been startling news for the Minister for Agriculture, and it must have been very startling news for the Minister for Defence, who said last year that not alone was Britain entitled to inflict this quota, but it was perfectly fair and equitable as far as we were concerned. Deputy Corry, Deputy Donnelly and Deputy O'Reilly told us there was not room in England for another beast of ours at that time. After that we got the coal-cattle pact and now the Minister for Agriculture tells us that there is no quota so far as we are concerned. It is not, so far as we can ascertain, printed into any pact or Bill and we would like to be assured of the fact. Let us see what we have got, and let us see the reasons which prompted the present pact.

It has been alleged from the Government Benches that we have complained that we are getting coal from Britain, that we have complained that we are getting cement and iron and steel from Britain. I am not going to complain of that, and neither did anybody on this side of the House complain of it. My complaint is that if the Government are at war with some nation, no matter what nation, and if there is any truce with regard to certain matters, the Government ought to see that they get their pound of flesh. They have bargained for British coal, British cement, British iron and British steel. Is there anything else Britain wants to get rid of? Is there anything else we have to bargain for? Did we even bargain over those other things? Was there any necessity for that bargain in order to get a reduction of the tariffs? I have here by me, taken from the Irish Independent of September 16th, 1935, an account of evidence given in the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts issued in London as a Blue Book, and it includes the following exchanges at a meeting held on May the 30th, when Sir Richard V. Nind Hopkins, K.C.B., of the Treasury, was examined. The account reads:—

"Mr. Albery, M.P., asked the witness if he could give any idea of the figure up to date, and what was going to happen when the receipts from the Irish Free State special duties had caught up with the expenditure, by reason of the default of the Free State.

Sir Richard Hopkins: The receipts from the duties just caught up with the default, falling directly on the Exchequer, within the limits of the financial year which has just closed, but the balance is so small as to be hardly worth taking account of. During the current year I anticipate, as far as one can see, that there will be a very considerable surplus, and during the year the Government will have to take a decision as to what is to be done on the matter.

Mr. Culverwell, M.P.: The Government are not bound to reduce the duties to bring in the appropriate amount?

Witness: The Act said that the duties were imposed with the object of reimbursing any public fund of the United Kingdom which had suffered loss through the Free State default, and it was said that the whole produce of the duties was to be paid into the Exchequer. The point now is that the receipt of the duties is more than sufficient to balance certain of the Exchequer outgoings."

I maintain that whatever reductions we have got we have not got them as the result of a pact at all. We have got them as a result of the fact that Britain was collecting the amount which was in default, and more, and that the new basis so far as live stock is concerned is going to bring her in all that she requires to meet the deficit.

The Minister for Agriculture told us last night that he felt it would take the Opposition all their time to make the farmers complain. The farmers are well off, he says. They certainly are well off! All we have to do is to go through the country and make a few inquiries in order to find out how well off they are. Let us, as the President says, face the facts, face the realities of the situation and cut out the pretences. What is the position? Are we paying the annuities by way of tariffs? Originally our annuities were £3,000,000. Britain is now collecting £5,000,000 off our live stock, and President de Valera's Government are collecting 50 per cent. more. All that has to be found by the farmers, and yet the Minister for Agriculture tells us that he believes it would take the Opposition all their time to keep the farmers complaining. The Minister last night alleged that the Opposition were endeavouring to spread disaffection amongst the farmers, endeavouring to make the farmers themselves believe that they are badly off when they really are not. I wonder if the Minister for Agriculture thinks that other people in this country might be guilty of endeavouring to spread disaffection amongst the farmers? For instance, some of the Catholic Bishops in their Lenten Pastorals make certain references to the conditions existing amongst the farming community. Will President de Valera pay any heed to what these Bishops say? It surely will not be alleged by the President or the Minister that the Irish Catholic Bishops are endeavouring to spread disaffection amongst the farmers.

Which particular one is the Deputy referring to?

I will quote extracts from two Pastorals.

Which Pastorals are you going to refer to?

In my own time, Deputy, I will quote the Pastorals for you. Do not hurry; you might hear them too soon.

I want to hear them now.

You will hear them.

The Deputy should have read them himself.

He should have. The Most Reverend Dr. Keane, Bishop of Limerick—is there anything wrong with him, Deputy Donnelly?—in the course of his Lenten Pastoral says:—

"Many questions are still discussed and, as far as may be, decided from the political point of view alone, and many seem to be incapable of taking any other, even when that other may be concerned with the social virtues that regulate the conduct of men towards one another. We have an instance of this in the attitude of many to the sufferings that have come on the agricultural community. Everyone who knows the countryside knows that these sufferings are very real and in certain cases very distressing."

So was the famine in '47.

Is that the comparison you make?

Why not go back to the hair shirt?

The pastoral goes on to say:

"It is surely, then, not in accordance with charity to be indifferent to the condition of such an important section of the community, nor in accordance with justice to misrepresent its gravity or its cause. And yet this is done and for no other reason apparently than that the exigencies of party politics so demand."

It is a pity the Minister for Agriculture did not read that before he accused the Opposition of endeavouring to spread disaffection amongst the farmers by having them complain of the condition brought on them by the economic war. Would Deputy Donnelly like to hear another pastoral?

Let us have the other one. I have a few of them myself, but they are of a more ancient date.

Speaking of the farmers, the Most Reverend Dr. Kinane, of Waterford—there is nothing wrong with him, I hope; Deputy Donnelly apparently agrees he is all right, and I am sure Deputy Corry will agree that he is a trustworthy, decent man who knows his job—says:

"It is with feelings of the greatest pain and the gravest concern, then, that we see them reduced to their present parlous condition."

I need not read any more; that is quite enough.

Have you any more?

What I have read is quite enough. We have the Minister here accusing the Opposition of endeavouring to spread disaffection amongst the farmers by having them complain of their condition. We had the President, Deputy O'Reilly and Deputy Norton telling us to-night of the dwindling British market. I have here before me a very important document which I am sure Deputy Donnelly has seen before. It is one of the documents issued by the Fianna Fáil Party for the 1934 Local Government Election. It is a great document. It deals with the British market and the number of cattle it could not take, but which we are making arrangements to-day to put into it. It winds up with the glorious phrase: "What price the British market now?" Is not that a most appropriate phrase to-day?

£4,500,000.

Plus British coal, British cement, British iron and British steel. That is the price of the British market to-day. Has it not become enhanced in value since that was printed? Furthermore, it shows the constantly shifting values of Fianna Fáil. The peculiar thing about it is that they do not appear to notice those shifting values, but they are constantly shifting. We have on the face of this document the statement: "The English farmers, faced with a huge increase in stocks, a decrease in killings and a collapse in the prices of farm produce, are utterly impoverished." Mind you, at the same time as that was being circulated amongst the farmers of Ireland we were paying £6,000,000 to endeavour to get into that British market. It cost us £6,000,000 for that year and the year before. Turn over to the back of the document and you will find a few gems. No. 1 is: "The Fianna Fáil policy ensures prosperity to farmers." We have evidence of that all over the country to-day— farmers laying aside dowries for their daughters, educating their sons and daughters and building houses. They are all paying their annuities and rates punctually. There are no complaints and we have nobody on the dole. The Fianna Fáil policy ensures prosperity to the farmers!

Here is another gem: "The Government by refusing to pay tribute to England will have saved £14,514,435 for the Irish people by the end of the year." Is that not very good? What really happened that year? I agree that at the end of that year the withheld moneys amounted to the sum stated, but, on the other hand, the amount received by us for live stock exported in the same period dropped from £18,000,000 to £6,000,000, a loss of £12,212,207. During the same period the British collected in duties on our exports £11,757,000, whilst we paid in bounties £6,322,000, and our levies in respect of butter and bacon amounted to £1,200,000. That left us with a total loss on our side of £32,191,207 in our effort to save £14,514,000. That is what Fianna Fáil thinks good business. That is the same type of business we have in the pact before the House to-day. In our efforts to save £14,000,000 we lost £12,000,000 on our livestock exports alone within that period, Britain collected from us over £11,000,000 in duties; we paid bounties totalling over £6,000,000 and we levied over £1,000,000. If that is the type of business Fianna Fáil wants to carry on for this country, then I for one shall not urge them to do any business or to make any settlement.

We have another item here in this statement. "Under the calf slaughtering scheme and the new Bill to give compensation for diseased cows, the cattle industry will be placed on a sounder footing with a view to increasing quality rather than quantity." How are we placed in that respect? How has that plan succeeded in the cattle industry? The Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce boasted here some time before Christmas, as evidence of the prosperity of agriculture in this country, that we had 100,000 more cows in this country than we had in 1931 and, mind you, they were right. We have over 100,000 more cows. Why had we 100,000 more cows than in the year 1931? Because we cannot get rid of the old cows. You cannot give them away. You cannot do anything with them. There is no farm in the country with five or six cows amongst which there is not an old stag or two which the farmer cannot get rid of. If you want proof of that, here it is from the statistical abstract published by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. In 1935 we had 101,694 more cows than we had in 1932, when Fianna Fáil came into power, but in 1935, as against 1932, with that number of extra old cows, we had 346,072 less cattle under one year. Notwithstanding the fact that we had over 100,000 more cows in 1935, we had practically 350,000 less young cattle. Part of that is due to the slaughter of calves and part of it to the sterility of the old cows. That is the evidence of the prosperity which this leaflet promised to the farmers of Ireland if they elected Fianna Fáil—"Vote Fianna Fáil and continue the national advance." The national advance was that we lost £32,000,000 in endeavouring to save £14,000,000.

And the people voted Fianna Fáil.

And the people voted Fianna Fáil. Of course, mind you, I do not blame the people. I remember hearing members of the Fianna Fáil Party speaking down my country before they came into power and they promised the people: "If we get into power, we are going to retain the annuities." They did not tell the people the real thing. They did not say: "We will make you pay them and we will retain them." All they said was: "We will retain them," and the people went away with the impression that they were never going to be asked to pay them at all. The people were told: "We will retain them and we will derate the land for you." How did these two things come off? Was it any wonder the people voted Fianna Fáil? Mind you, if Fianna Fáil could redeem the promises they made, they would be one of the greatest political parties in the world. They said: "When we get into office we are going to reduce taxation by £2,000,000." They got office, increased taxation by £6,000,000, and there is not a budge about it. If the Government could retain the annuities, if they could derate land, and if they could, at the same time, reduce taxation by £2,000,000 without impairing the social services, they would be worthy of support. They are on their trial for long enough now.

Not as long as you were.

No, they will never last so long as that. The Minister for Agriculture told us that the quota will not be taken into account any more. That is not in the pact. We heard murmurs and talk about that, but it is not in the pact. Is it not a rather strange commentary on the whole situation as presented by Fianna Fáil for the last two years? We were told by the Minister that the British market was chock-full and that there was no room for another beast. Deputy Corry quoted from a speech made by the Minister for Agriculture in England to that effect. We were told that not only were we being restricted, so far as quotas were concerned, but every other Dominion was also restricted. Speeches to that effect were delivered up and down the country by Deputies opposite. I think I heard Deputy Donnelly refer to that matter at the Galway by-election. I like to hear Deputy Donnelly. He is a very good open-air speaker, and Deputy Donnelly told us that there was no room for Irish cattle in the British market. He told us that the market was not there for New Zealand, South Africa or any of the other 100 per cent. loyal States and, consequently, it was not there for us.

We had published the other day some figures that show what happened in the period when the restrictions were against us. Take the period 1931-1935. The Irish Free State supplies to the British market dropped from 4.28 to 2.47; Canada supplies went up from 3.81 to 7.40; Australia from 5.30 to 7.17; New Zealand from 4.38 to 5.04, and South Africa from 1.51 to 1.81.

What is the Deputy quoting from.

I am quoting from the table supplied to the Irish Independent and published on 26th February, 1935.

Do these figures represent quantities or values?

It is immaterial.

Oh no, it is not.

On the one hand we have a document which tells us that the British purchasing power has gone down. If you take it in money it is more in my favour; if you take it in animals it is entirely against you. So no matter which way you take it it is against you; but it is immaterial. There is one thing, in any case, about this particular pact. The British farmers are quite delighted with it. I am sure they are much more delighted with it than the Irish farmers are.

Deputy Norton said this is a great pact, much better than the coal-cattle pact, and that he could not see, for the life of him, why the farmer element in the Opposition were opposing it. We are not opposing the settlement as it stands. We want a better and a more comprehensive settlement. To my mind, what is presented to the House to-night is another milestone, and a very sinister milestone, on the Fianna Fáil road to failure. I do not know what hope there is to be found in the President's speech for a settlement of the economic war. If we are to take the President's attitude, as he delivered his speech to-night, we must feel that in our time or, at any rate, in the time of the present Government, there is absolutely no hope whatever of a settlement of the economic war. Deputy Norton bore that out also. The farmers throughout the country, the men among whom the Minister for Agriculture said dissatisfaction is being caused, will have to continue to pay all this money, the burden of which is equated in the price the British put upon our live stock, no matter where sold. That is the prospect before the Irish farmers. No hope of settlement; no release from the obligation that the Fianna Fáil Party has placed upon them, and nobody else.

The President also told us that the price of agricultural produce has dropped considerably all over the world in the last few years. It did no such thing. The index figure of agricultural produce prices in this country was 113.7 in 1932, and that dropped to 83.6 in 1935. In England the figure was 122 in 1932; 107 in 1933, and 117 in 1935. Yet the President tells us that if agriculture is depressed in this country —and this will be a great consolation to the farmers—it is depressed everywhere else as well. That is very poor consolation.

There is one other thing I should like to know: The Minister for Finance, speaking here recently on the question of the coal drawback, informed the House and the country that the reason the coal tax was removed was because he found he could balance his Budget without it. That is important. I hope it is true, because it is to everybody's interest that the Budget should balance, and moneys that ordinarily flow into the Exchequer ought to be welcomed by everybody. It would mean a certain relief in taxation; it would possibly mean more employment and money for other things. Questions were asked yesterday if the Minister withdrew the bounties, which he said he has withdrawn on live stock, was he going to devote this money in any other way towards relieving agriculture, which has to bear the brunt of all these payments—payments which they were never asked to bear before. Agriculture was never asked to pay police pensions and local loans. Now agriculture has to do all that. The reply from the Minister for Finance indicated that he was not going to devote any of those moneys for that purpose. It will be interesting, when we come to consider the matter, to know whether or not the Minister has balanced his Budget without having recourse to those economies as far as bounties are concerned. I think that, having regard to the condition in which agriculture finds itself to-day, a condition to which it has been forced by the present Government, it is only right that some relief, either by way of rates or otherwise, should be given to the agricultural community from the undue load that has been placed upon them by the present Government.

In conclusion, let me say that what I regard as the most sinister aspect of the present debate is the utter hopelessness of any definite settlement of the outstanding matters. Some of us had hoped that the President would say something which we might hang on to, and in view of which we might tell the farmers down the country that there was some hope left in the offing; that this year, next year or the year after they would be relieved from the burdens which are placed upon them. But no hope whatever has been held out. Is it any wonder that we are dissatisfied with a settlement of that type? Is it any wonder that we ask, and is it not time we should ask, that the whole outstanding matter should be settled? Does Deputy Donnelly think that a more favourable opportunity is coming next year, the year after or five years hence or ten years hence?

When you will conduct yourselves.

When is it coming? Are the farmers of this country to continue to pay the annuities twice over? As Deputy Belton said, and rightly said, has not the whole principle of the thing been abandoned as far as retention of the annuities is concerned? Once you make a bargain, saying: "We will remit so-and-so if you remit so-and-so" you are admitting the principle of the collection of the annuities, no matter what the President may say. If you say: "I will take off so-and-so, if you will take off a certain amount and collect the rest," is not that an understanding? You say: "You are collecting £6 off our two-year-old cattle; instead of that, collect £4 5s." To my mind, Sir, the pact and the motion before the House ought to be rejected. It ought to be rejected until the Government can give us some idea of what they are going to do in this matter; until the Government tells the people of this country, whom they have fooled, what they are going to do in this matter. When the last election came on they asked the people: "Return us, so that we may settle the economic war." Now their mouthpiece, Deputy Norton, tells us it is a matter of one man bullying another, and if there is going to be a settlement it is going to be on the terms of the bully. When are we going to get away from that, and come to equal terms with Britain? There is certainly something due to the people of this country. There is certainly something due to the farming community of this country, and until the President and the Government tell the people when they are going to settle this matter, when they expect a more favourable opportunity of settling it and what the terms are, I say this ought to be rejected.

A Chinn Comhairle, in putting before the House the reasons which prompted them to put down this amendment one would expect from the Opposition if not a definite logical case in support of the amendment, at any rate, a certain amount of consistency and coherence. But one listened in vain to Deputy Brennan's speech, in its survey of very many matters, for any indication that the Deputy was speaking to this particular amendment which we find on the Order Paper. The amendment reads:

That viewing with the greatest concern the continuing losses to the people, occasioned by the dispute with the British Government, the Dáil declines to give a Second Reading to the Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) Bill, 1936, until the Executive Council has given the Dáil an assurance that the Executive Council will now take steps to negotiate forthwith a comprehensive settlement of the matters at issue between the Irish and British Governments.

Not alone has no case been made in support of that amendment, but the Opposition speakers have not even spoken in such a way as to lead one to believe that they had even considered in advance what policy they were going to put before the House and before the country in this debate. We have just heard Deputy Brennan telling us that this pact is a sinister milestone on the pathway of the Fianna Fáil Government to failure; while earlier, we had another speaker, a representative of the agricultural industry, Deputy Bennett, telling us that this pact is better than the pact we agreed to last year. Which of the two Deputies are we to believe? Is Deputy Bennett not being a little too straightforward and too manly for his colleagues when he tells us that this pact is better than the pact we had last year and to which the chief Opposition Party gave their unanimous support? Yes, A Chinn Comhairle, the very fact that the Opposition have neglected to make any case against this pact shows that they realise it has advantages for this country.

What are they?

And the fact that they have avoided telling the country what their alternative is, or even what they mean by the term "to negotiate forthwith a comprehensive settlement of the matters at issue between the Irish and British Governments" shows that they have no policy to offer as an alternative. Last year undoubtedly there was quite a different atmosphere in the House. There was an attitude of relief amongst the Opposition Deputies that a trade agreement had been concluded. This year a trade agreement, which is at any rate substantially in advance of the agreement of last year, is received with thunderous opposition—opposition which consists largely in descriptions of the present state of the agricultural industry, but which really has no bearing whatever and has not been related to the pact at all.

The agricultural community does not count?

Deputy Brennan seems disappointed that Deputy Cosgrave was not permitted to make a second speech to explain to the House that the agreement which he made and which he signed in 1923 was not a secret agreement. Deputies on the opposite side were told that if Deputy Cosgrave felt he had a case, and wanted to make a second speech to justify his position or to explain matters more clearly to the country, he had very many able lieutenants on that side of the House to explain the position, but I notice that Deputy Brennan in dealing with the matter confined himself simply to stating that Deputy Cosgrave had introduced this matter and brought it to the notice of the Dáil in a very proper manner in 1923.

And other Deputies will tell you that too.

What was the proper manner? If the Deputy looks at Volume 3 of the Official Reports of the 26th June, 1923, column 2498, he will find that the particular Estimate in respect of which it is claimed by the Opposition leader that this question of the agreement and the financial transactions which it involves, the transfer of those large sums of money yearly to the British Land Purchase Fund, that brought the whole matter before the Dáil, occupies a very short space in the Official Reports— about two and a half or three columns. What were the circumstances in which this matter was brought to the notice of the Dáil? The circumstances were that an Estimate, in regard to which it was admitted that proper notice had not been given, was brought into the Dáil rather suddenly and this is what the then President said as reported in column 2498:—

"I am asking the Dáil to-day to take up a particular Estimate, the Land Purchase Annuities Estimate, and if I have permission to explain shortly the reason for taking this, I think that Deputies will agree that it is necessary, and that any fault that there is in the matter of not having brought it on before is my own. It was understood in the Ministry of Finance that the Dáil was not adjourning this evening, that it would be continued during the week, and that it would be possible to introduce this Estimate after due notice, this Estimate is one which is concerned solely with accounting transactions as to which no controversy can arise, and I hope that the Deputies will accept the Estimate and enable us to make the payment. The Estimate deals with purchase annuities payable under the existing Land Acts. ... The law provides that these annuities are to be collected henceforth by the Government of Saorstát Eireann, and that the proper amounts should, in due course, be paid into either of the funds out of which dividends and sinking fund payments in connection with the various land stocks are paid. These stocks would continue to be managed by the British Government, but it is part of the present arrangement for the adjustment of past land purchase transactions that we should pay over the annuities and leave it to the British Government to pay the interest to the stockholders. Then, annuities when collected are paid direct into our Exchequer as part of the miscellaneous revenue, and this Estimate, when passed, will enable us to make the necessary issues out of our Exchequer to the British Government."

Will the Minister read a little further—what Deputy Wilson said and what the President said afterwards? This is the matter which was kept secret.

Then Deputy Wilson said:—

"Are we to understand from the Minister that this money is the payment made by the tenants for their land, and that there is nothing out of the Central Fund? I would like the Dáil to understand that. This is the money collected as annuities from the farmers which we are now paying over."

Then the President said:—

"The actual sum due to pay the annuities is much greater than the sum which comes in. At the recent negotiations which took place in England we came to a provisional arrangement which binds us, or in which we accepted liability for the payment of a certain sum pending a settlement regarding the major question."

That is what was kept secret.

That is a provisional arrangement.

Perhaps the Deputy, or somebody else, will explain why it was that when it was suggested by the representatives of the British Treasury that this agreement should be published the representatives of the Irish Department said, in reply, that Mr. Blythe did not wish, for political reasons, that this agreement should be made public. Furthermore, when the British Treasury pressed to have the agreement published, so as to avoid, or to meet in advance, any question that might have been raised in the British Parliament—at least that was the reason they gave—they were told that one particular part, the most important part of the agreement, so far as the Irish people were concerned, should be pasted over. That is, naturally, one of the reasons why people consider that this agreement is properly called a secret agreement, having regard to the manner in which the question was brought before the Dáil, having regard to the fact that the formal sanction of the Dáil was never sought, having regard to the fact that our representatives told the British that they did not wish to have the agreement published, and having regard to the fact that they actually discussed pasting over that portion of the agreement, lest it should be made public in Great Britain when it came up in connection with some law case.

Which portion?

The portion relating to the land annuities. I shall let the Minister for Finance go into that matter more closely. According to Deputy Brennan the British are going to lose nothing by this pact; the reasons they had in mind for making this pact were that they found that, even under the altered conditions and the readjustments which have taken place in regard to the duties on cattle and the quotas, they will get more money than they require to meet the deficiencies in the British National Exchequer, while Deputy Cosgrave, on the other hand, in his statement to the Press, contended that we were handing over a large part of our industry, a large part of our iron and steel trade and other trades, to the British; that we were handing over, as it were, part of our industrial power to the British. The Deputies cannot have it both ways.

I suggest that this pact should be regarded in another way and that it can legitimately be looked upon as a payment which the British Government are making to get again that footing in the Irish market which they lost, and that the British Government, on their side, are quite anxious to get back into the Irish market and to recover some portion, at any rate, of the trade they have lost during recent years. Deputies are so busy crediting this Government with ideas of selling their country and of making bargains the idea for which, apparently, originated with the British themselves, which are of no real advantage to this country, but which are simply dictated by the British Exchequer experts, that they take very good care not to point out that we on our part have got very substantial considerations, and that the British, for their part, have got what they consider the advantage of getting some kind of footing again in the Irish market for coal, cement, and possibly other articles.

Deputy Brennan stressed the fact that there has been an improvement in the British market and in the British agricultural position since 1935. Can he possibly deny the statement of the President that not alone since the Fianna Fáil Party came into office, but long before, the British market had been a declining quantity, and that that position was greatly accentuated about 1929, 1930 and 1931? The Deputy, if he does try to make the point that the British farmer has achieved some measure of relief and that his position, according to the agricultural index figures, is somewhat better this year and last year than it has been in preceding years, and that it is better comparatively than the agricultural index figure for the Free State would indicate the Irish farmer's position to be, should have regard to those other loyal countries which, according to the Deputy and his colleagues, secured enormous advantages in Ottawa, advantages which, apparently, the Irish Free State, had it been under the control of a wise and statesmanlike Government, would have also enjoyed. If the Deputy looks up the Economic Journal for December, 1935, page 628, he will see there a table showing the position as far as the Dominion of New Zealand is concerned. I will just take two figures from that table: The index number of export prices in 1926 was 100, while the index number of export prices for 1933 was 58. That is an indication of what the position was in New Zealand, and that is an indication of what happened in a country which had particular advantages in regard to climate, in regard to the organisation of its agriculture, and last, and by no means least, having regard to the special link of friendship that exists between New Zealand and Great Britain. I suppose New Zealand is one of the best organised agricultural communities in the world.

Can the Minister say whether there has been any improvement in that figure since 1933?

I cannot. An extract from the New Zealand Government publications points out that between 1928 and 1932 the index figures indicated that the volume of exports increased by 18 per cent. in respect of the greater quantity of exports. After making provision for payment of interest and other fixed claims, they received in 1932 34 per cent. less for their exports as compared with 1928. For an export trade of 18 per cent. more, they got in 1932 34 per cent. less. Still Deputy Brennan will tell us that we are not being fair to the country. We are fooling the farmers when we tell them that the conditions of agricultural depression had touched the Irish Free State even before the present Government came into office, and that this depression had extended to a great many other agricultural countries, including some of the British Dominions which have been held up to us as examples of what can be achieved by paying particular attention to keeping your place in the British market.

If the Opposition were a little more frank and if they told the country the circumstances that they have in mind as to the conditions under which they think a comprehensive settlement of the matters at issue between the two Governments can be effected; if they gave some clue at least during the course of this debate as to what line of advance they have in mind or what policy they intend to pursue, it would be a great stroke of business for them. It would make the country feel that, instead of finding fault with the Government for everything it does, the Opposition had some constructive criticism to offer. Even, as Deputies on the opposite benches admit, the Government has done somewhat better this year than last year. But finding fault with the Government and saying that they cannot possibly agree that anything good can come from this side of the House, is not of much help. If the Opposition were to concentrate on putting before the country the alternative they have to offer, then I think they would rally to themselves some support. Because, after all, if the Party which they represent is to continue to hold the important place in the life of the country which it held in the past, it is necessary it should have some policy. It is just because people—even those of them who are dissatisfied with the present Government and feel they do not agree with it—do feel that no policy is being offered to them by the Opposition that the Opposition are not receiving support. On everything else the Opposition have declared that they are at one with the present Government. The very items of policy that they condemned here day after day, and month after month, they have now come to accept. There is no difference between us only this matter of the economic dispute. In regard to that we are as wise now as at the start of this debate. If the Opposition would show the country that they have some policy to put before the people, besides, as a general rule, a mere policy of destructive criticism, I venture to say it might be good political tactics and a good thing for the country.

The country has not been given any alternative whatever. In this debate there has been no attempt at any real criticism of the terms of the pact. We have heard nothing beyond the argument that the Ministers should have gone over. If the Ministers do go over, I do hope that they will never make the same blunders that their predecessors made and that they will not hurriedly put their names to any documents affecting the welfare of the community for a long period of years without very serious consideration. As the Minister for Industry and Commerce pointed out last night, if this Government reached a position in which they felt that they could enter on equal terms into an arrangement with the British Government, the Ministers here will not be too shy to do so, and they will not display the least sign of that cowardice attributed to them by warriors like Deputy Brennan. When this matter reached an acute stage in October, 1932, a strong delegation representing the Irish Government went over to London. The occasion has not arisen since for any such delegation to go over. It was well understood by the Opposition and by the country for many months past that negotiations would likely be in progress for the continuance or the determination of the coal-cattle pact. That matter has been handled, and handled very successfully, by officials representing the Irish Government.

Hear, hear.

I think that a special debt of gratitude is due to the officials. They are the men behind the scenes who very often give valuable advice and carry out practically to the point of conclusion agreements of this kind. We have been very well served indeed and we are very well pleased with the work that our officials have done for us in any negotiations of this kind. If the occasion should arise that the Ministers themselves felt that this comprehensive settlement could be brought about, they would not allow any personal or other considerations to withhold them for a single moment from taking the steps that would be necessary to bring about such an arrangement. The position has been very fully and clearly stated by the President of the Executive Council to-day. He has brought Deputies back to a realisation of the position that we need not deceive ourselves into believing in any other policy except the policy of continuing steadfastly onward with our own policy, developing our own resources and industries and maintaining our population, as far as we can, in reasonable comfort and security. Any other policy but that policy of proceeding steadfastly ahead, building up our own country economically, so that we can face the future with confidence, would have very fatal results for the nation. If those concerned in this dispute realise that we are going ahead with our policy and that we are not to be shaken from it; that the country that elected us supports us in that view, and that the country realises that our case is a just one, then the sooner will the other party to the dispute come to see that they will have to get down to brass tacks. They will have to take some serious steps if they have in mind the opening of negotiations leading to such a substantial settlement, as the Opposition seem to think is possible.

Deputy MacDermot referred to the fact that the making of this agreement, at any rate, has shown that the British have abandoned a certain position that they had taken up; that they have not, as our opponents would have led us to believe in the years that have passed, harped back to this or that point of constitutional change nor tried to bring past history into the dispute. They have realised, as the decisions referred to to-day by the President have shown clearly, that we were fully within our legal and constitutional rights in any action of that kind that we have taken. But it is to the good, as Deputy MacDermot has pointed out, that we have an agreement of this kind. If it helps on the way towards a fuller agreement nobody will be more pleased than the present Government. We want it made quite clear, however, that so far as we are concerned, we shall not barter any national rights either now or in the future for any economic advantage. If we were to do so, there is not the slightest doubt but that the criticism that we have heard in the Dáil to-day and yesterday would be multiplied a thousand-fold throughout the whole country, and rightly so. The Irish people, no matter what the difficulties of the situation may be, or the burdens that may be placed upon them, and particularly on the agricultural community, would not be prepared, I venture to say, to accept a settlement that would in any way take from our national rights or that would not be a full recompense for the sacrifices that have been made in this struggle up to the present, nor do I think that any Deputy will get up and say that the people would be prepared to accept such a settlement.

Mr. Morrissey rose.

Before the Deputy speaks, I want to announce that I have been informed that it is agreed that the Minister for Finance be called upon to conclude at 9.30 p.m. I, therefore, ask Deputies to bear that understanding in mind and express themselves with brevity.

It is rather a pity, Sir, that you were not in a position to convey that to the House at 3.20 this afternoon before the President started on his marathon.

Surely the Deputy is aware of the arrangement that was made?

Surely, Sir, I will be allowed to make at least one speech without the offensive interruptions of the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Education told us that there should be more frankness. He reproved Deputies on this side because, he said, they had not faced up to the motion or the Bill before the House; that nobody on this side had attempted to explain what the motion in the name of Deputy Cosgrave meant. I have been waiting for the last two days for some speaker on the Government side to tell us what this so-called pact means. I waited for an hour and 40 minutes to-day, when the President was speaking, to hear from him what was meant by this Bill. Remember that this, the Second Reading, is the most important stage of this Bill; that it is a Bill to implement the pact, and that the Minister for Finance is not in the position to inform Deputies as to what the pact means or to give information regarding the tariffs on the articles comprised in the pact.

The President, to-day, gave a most amazing performance. If I may say so, we have had many strange speeches from the President, both inside and outside this House, but I do not think that any Deputy, whether he sits on the Government side of the House or this side, has ever listened to such a speech from him as that which we had for an hour and 40 minutes to-day. It was an appalling performance. Anybody who looked across at the Government front bench could see that even the President's Ministers were appalled. They were terribly disappointed, obviously, every one of them. They were so depressed that at least three of them hid their faces behind their hands.

The Deputy would make a good photographer.

It is no harm to notice things in this House. I would ask, Sir, if it is possible to control the Minister for Finance.

I noticed that, during the President's speech, Deputy Morrissey was engaged in conversation and I presume the Deputy does not think that we ought to sit in silence wrapped in wonder at the words of wisdom that fall from his lips.

So long as the Minister does not get enmeshed in his own wisdom I do not mind. The President, as I was saying, took us back a long way in his speech. As one of my colleagues remarked, you could get the greater part of it in the files of the daily newspapers of 13 years ago. It consisted not of an explanation of the Bill before the House, but of the benefits which, he maintained, this country had lost by refusing to accept the Act of 1920. The President proceeded at length to explain to the House how much better off financially we would be to-day under the terms of the 1920 Act than we are under the Treaty. I agree that, financially, it would be hard to devise any measure which would put the country in a worse position financially than it is in to-day. The President, Deputy Davin, Deputy Norton, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that we were getting valuable considerations under this particular Bill, but not one of them has given any indication of what the considerations are.

I want to issue a challenge, and I hope Deputy Donnelly will be in the position to take it up because I am confident that he is the only one on the benches opposite who could deal with it. Is not this the position under this pact, that we get nothing whatever except the right to sell more of our cattle, with the tax attached? The difference between our position to-day and our position two years ago is this, and this is the pact in a nutshell—that two years the British were collecting the amount of the withheld money. I do not think anyone disputes that. The British were collecting their money and our total coal trade was not put in pawn. They were not given a monopoly of the coal market, as well as one third of our cement trade, and our Government was not forced to surrender one half of the special duties which were imposed in retaliation for British tariffs on Irish exports. That is the position.

In his speech the President admitted that the British drove a hard bargain with the civil servants who were sent over to represent the interests of this country. The position to-day is this, and no Minister or Deputy on the opposite benches can deny it, that the British get not only the full amount of the withheld moneys, but a complete monopoly of the coal trade, representing over 3,000,000 tons a year; and one third of our cement trade, while the special duties here are halved upon steel, iron and electrical goods, sugar and sugar products. Any victory in this pact is a victory for the British and a retreat for us. I do not care about the figures. I do not care if it is said that we are going to export double the number of cattle exported last year, or whether the tax on them is to be £4 5s. 0d. or £5 5s. 0d. What really matters is that the British are going to get the full amount of the annuities, plus the ex-R.I.C. pensions, plus local loans and other withheld moneys. No one can deny that. Our position is considerably worse to-day, as the British are not only getting the full amount of money they claimed but they are getting our coal trade and other things.

When introducing the Bill the Minister for Finance said that the British Exchequer would lose £800,000 and the Irish Exchequer about £200,000. He explained that the figures were to be taken with the greatest reserve. In the name of goodness, what is the use of making a statement like that on such an important matter? The figures are either accurate or not. If they are accurate they need not be taken with any reserve; if not accurate then they ought not to be mentioned in this House. Whatever the British Exchequer may lose, or whatever the Irish Exchequer may lose, or whatever doubt there may be about the amount that will be lost, there can be no doubt about this, that Irish farmers are going to continue to pay the full amount of the annuities to Britain, plus the ex-R.I.C. pensions, plus local loans and other charges, as well as £1,500,000 pounds to President de Valera on top of these charges, whereas their total direct payments, prior to Fianna Fáil coming into office, were less than £3,000,000, so far as the land annuities are concerned. To-day the farmers are forced to pay— where they are able to pay—indirectly to Great Britain, and directly to our own Government, roughly, £6,000,000 odd. I do not think these facts will be contested. Deputy MacDermot said that this was not a one-sided agreement; that we are getting substantial consideration for anything we gave. The Deputy carefully refrained from giving us any idea of what these substantial considerations are. There were no substantial considerations and I venture to say that Deputy MacDermot knows that as well as any other Deputy.

We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his usual form. Everybody can admire the Minister for Industry and Commerce as a fighter. He does his best to put a face upon a very bad case. If he has a very bad case he does his best to sustain a simulated sense of the indignation to which he is roused by the destructive criticism of the Opposition. I do not think there is any man in Irish public life who has so completely divorced himself from any contact with truth in debate in the House as much as that particular Minister. I am sorry owing to your suggestion, Sir, that I am prevented from going into many other matters with which I would like to deal. We had a typical speech from Deputy Davin. In his usual whirlwind fashion he made charges all round and got himself into a huge question mark, by hurling queries of all sorts at the Opposition. Of course, there was no question to the President, upon whom responsibility rests for having a policy to settle this matter; who is in his position to-day because he, by whatever means you like, convinced the people of this country that his policy and that of his Party were infinitely superior to the policy of their predecessors, and that they could therefore make a much better settlement. Now, they are so far reduced by the challenge from this side of the House that they want us to lift not only the country but the Fianna Fáil Party out of the mess they are in. Deputy Davin stated that if Deputies were to discuss this matter in a fair and impartial way they should be provided with proper information in the official way. Deputy Davin, not having been provided with proper information in the official way that would enable him to discuss the matter in a fair and impartial way, immediately proceeded to say that he was 100 per cent. in favour of the Bill. Speaking in the full depth of his ignorance, he told us that it was a much better settlement than the coal-cattle pact of last year.

I can only come to the charitable conclusion that it was lack of essential information was responsible for Deputy Norton's display in the House to-night. Knowing nothing about the Bill, nothing about the pact, and having no proper information or official facts before them, yet these Deputies are prepared to swallow everything. So much for the consideration that was given to the Bill in this House.

I would like to approach this matter from a different point of view to other Deputies. I followed the debate very closely and, naturally, was very much interested in Deputy Cosgrave's speech when moving the amendment. What struck me as remarkable and as peculiar was the phraseology of the amendment, particularly the last two or three lines of it.

...Until the Executive Council has given the Dáil an assurance that the Executive Council will now take steps to negotiate forthwith a comprehensive settlement of the matters at issue between the Irish and British Governments.

Until that assurance was given the Deputy asked that the Bill should not be given a Second Reading. The Minister for Industry and Commerce put some queries to Deputy Cosgrave, as to what might be construed as proper matters to be included in a wide comprehensive settlement. Amongst other things the Minister asked Deputy Cosgrave if Partition might be included and the reply was: "Yes, Partition as well." That is reported in the newspapers to-day. In a sense I was glad to hear Deputy Cosgrave saying that in any wide comprehensive settlement that hereafter might be made with the English, the fatal work done as regards Partition might, to some extent, be undone, and that he was willing to include Partition. I do not know how far political assurance can go, or how far political audacity can go. I have often heard people making speeches which they repudiated the following day, and in a matter of this kind, with a history such as Deputy Cosgrave has, when he comes along in the year 1936 and says to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he was prepared now to put in Partition as one of the issues that could be included in that wide comprehensive settlement, one must regard it as a similar repudiation. Unfortunately for Deputy Cosgrave, the English always had—I believe it is a trait in their character—an extraordinary way of dealing with people with whom they had negotiations. Particularly, they had this peculiarity; that, if they happened to "best" an Irishman in negotiations, whether it was due to their cleverness or his own stupidity, they always published the fact as a proof of their cleverness. Whether it was due to their cleverness or to our stupidity I cannot say. But I find that, according to the Belfast Telegraph of November 30th, 1934, there are extracts given from the Daily Telegraph, dealing with the life of the late Lord Birkenhead, written by his son. There it is said that, in December, 1925, Mr. Baldwin had to make a compromise with Mr. Cosgrave, under which, in return for monetary concessions, the Free State accepted the existing boundary as final. Deputy Cosgrave now wants that to be included in a comprehensive scheme for adjusting our differences as between Ireland and England. However, that is not the worst of it. Deputy Cosgrave went a little bit further than that, and this is why I am so amazed that he should advert to this aspect of the question at all. In December, 1934——

The remark made by the Leader of the Opposition was in reply to a query put to him across the House. That remark comprised just one sentence. The Deputy, having dealt with that matter, should proceed to the question before the House. The question of Partition, per se, is not under consideration.

The comprehensiveness of this amendment, Sir, was dealt with last night by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and, in reply, Deputy Cosgrave said that the question of Partition was to be included. It is in connection with Deputy Cosgrave's record as regards Partition and in connection with what he did in the past that I am giving these quotations.

On a point of order, Sir. While I cannot understand some of Deputy Donnelly's references, surely the reference to what some people said some years ago cannot be germane to this discussion?

It is not germane.

I wish to say, Sir, that if the President of an Executive Council, before this Government came into office, went to another Government—the Government of another country—with an agreement that he said should be regarded as final, surely I am entitled to ask why that question should be re-opened now by the very people who then said it was a final settlement? Surely I am entitled to refer to the occasion on which that question was re-opened by the gentleman to whom I refer?

Surely, you are right.

But the statement made by Deputy Cosgrave in 1925——

I am referring to the settlement which Deputy Cosgrave made where Lord Birkenhead said that "if the Dáil was to be persuaded to acquiesce in the Boundary——"

The Chair has told the Deputy that a debate on Partition is not in order; neither is the history of the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition towards Partition. A passing reference was made to it; the Deputy has replied and must get away from that subject.

Very well, Sir, but if I might continue with what I was saying——

There is only one way of challenging the ruling of the Chair.

Well, Sir, I think that last Sunday week, in the town of Fermoy, Deputy Cosgrave said that if this was all that could be done the present Government should get out. He obviously thinks that, if the present Government should get out, or should be put out, he could make a better settlement than the one that has been made by this Government. I suggest that, after all his efforts in the past, he has been driven into a different sense and a different mentality than that which he used to hold when he believes that, in the comprehensiveness of this amendment, he can get back again on the political issues. The President said to-day that the British always wanted to differentiate between the political and economic issues. One of the speeches delivered by Mr. Chamberlain in a debate on the land annuities in the English House of Commons was as follows:—

"Opposition speeches had not made any distinction between one kind of debt and another, because they thought the default of the Irish Free State was exactly the same as the default of Germany or the technical default on war debts of this country to America."

The words I am quoting are taken from the Daily Telegraph of 19th June, 1934. Mr. Chamberlain continues:

"As a matter of fact, this dispute between the Irish Free State and ourselves, although in its present acute form it arose on account of the withholding of the annuities, was really an incident in a political dispute. It must not be supposed that a political dispute could be settled by turning the other check and saying: `Do anything you like; we shall always give way to you.' If we were prepared to concede that the Irish Free State should become a republic, and that certain other breaches of the Treaties between the two countries might take place, then that might settle the dispute."

That was published in the Press, and, I believe, published in the public records of this House, and still we are told by Deputy O'Higgins that the President has blasted the bridge over which a breach could be made, and still the pretence is made that the President introduced political issues into the matter when the delegates came home from Ottawa.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer. Deputy Brennan spoke here this afternoon. He is a Deputy for whom I have a very great regard. I am sorry, however, that he should have done one thing that he did this afternoon. I have been here since the last general election, and this is the first time—and I hope I will be here as long again before I see such a thing happen—that I have known of Deputies to make political propaganda out of pastorals issued by the Bishops. I sincerely hope that, in documents of that kind, the propaganda department of the Party opposite will not in future have Deputies like Deputy Brennan reading out Bishops' pastorals in support of the kind of thing Deputy Brennan said to-day.

You asked him to do it.

Yes, that is true, in a sense.

Well, then, forget it.

Another statement made by Deputy Cosgrave in his introductory speech was that this Government, since it came into office, had destroyed a system of agricultural economy which took a long, long time to build up. I admit it took a long time to build up, but the people who were responsible for building up this system of agricultural economy that was in operation when we came into office made a good job of building it up, because, when they started it, about 90 years ago, there were 9,000,000 people in this country, and when they had established that system of economy of which Deputy Cosgrave is so proud, there were 4,250,000. The population of quadrupeds in Ireland to-day amounts to something around 4,818,000. The human population used to be double the animal population but it is the reverse now.

In what condition was the unfortunate human population when there were 9,000,000 here?

Deputy MacDermot can get an answer which he will not, I am sure, dispute. I went to considerable trouble to inform myself on that aspect. There was a commission appointed by the British Government to go into the question of agriculture here at one time. It was called the Devon Commission and Deputy MacDermot can get its report. In order that they might destroy the system of economy that existed and blot out the small farmer, that Commission came to the conclusion that farming in Ireland was carried on too small a scale and that the best thing to do was to amalgamate the small farms and blot out the human population. That was done and the small farms were put together. They are the ranches of to-day and that is what Deputy Cosgrave deplores is going out of existence. Deputy MacDermot can verify my statement. He has only to ask for the report in the Library, and, if I am wrong, I will publicly apologise.

What the Deputy says has no bearing on the question I put to him, which is: Is he aware of the misery and appalling poverty that was spread throughout the country when that large population was here?

I am aware of this, that the greatest export of food, while the population were starving, which took place in the past took place in 1847, the year in which something like 1,000,000 people died of hunger. What is the use of Deputy MacDermot trying to convey that the system of economy in operation when we came into office was the best that could have applied to this country? It was the best that could have applied at the moment. This has caused sudden inconvenience to a number of people. It has come as a sharp jolt or shock to certain sections of the population and I am not such a fool as to get up and say that there have not been inconveniences as a result of what is taking place. We are trying to make things easier for the farming community.

Will the Deputy allow me to interrupt once more? I am not defending any particular system of economy. I am merely suggesting that the time has come when we should stop referring to the period when there were 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 people in the country as if it was a sort of Golden Age.

I think it was the bitter knowledge of the fact that half of the population in this country were blotted out of existence that brought Parnell into public life. I have seen in some of the papers recently—and I think Deputy MacDermot must have felt a little proud—where Deputy MacDermot was referred to as the Parnell of 1935. I do not think, judging from his remarks to-night, that the same spirit actuated Deputy MacDermot in entering Irish politics as actuated Parnell when he came in to rescue the people from a system of agricultural economy that made them serfs and paupers.

There are more paupers in the country to-day than there were when you came in.

Not at all; that is where the Deputy is wrong. Deputy O'Leary, I understand, missed his train home to Cork the last time he was going home, and he will always miss his train if he gets these ideas.

I suggest that the Deputy should come down and tell us about the advantages or disadvantages of the Coal-Cattle pact.

We have tried in making this pact, to make things easier for the ordinary farmer. I can quite understand the Opposition attitude to it. It will be much more difficult now for the Opposition to go down the country and to say "The country is down-and-out". The more pacts that are made by the present Government, the more difficult it will be for them to say to the people "No effort is being made for you; you are going to starve and you are down-and-out." The most extraordinary remedy I ever heard for the position of farmers who are in a bad way—and it is possible that many of them are—is to say to such a man "There is no hope for you." That is no good and it is no palliative. What a farmer, or any person in a tight corner at any time, wants is encouragement. He wants some type of redress and some effort by people in a position to make it to make his lot in life a little less hard than it otherwise might be.

By sending the sheriff on him?

If Deputy Belton draws me on to that track about sheriffs and bailiffs, I might have to go back and reply to him. I do not want to go outside the terms of this amendment.

You did not get inside them yet.

I can quite understand Deputy Belton's interruptions. There is a wonderful similarity in the phraseology of Deputy Cosgrave's amendment and his. Deputy Cosgrave wants a wide comprehensive settlement and Deputy Belton, in clause (c) of his amendment, wants the Bill rejected because it does not provide a comprehensive settlement of the dispute. There must have been some kind of collusion in the drafting of these two amendments judging from Deputy Belton's interruptions, and I think Deputy Cosgrave and he must have consulted each other before they were tabled.

That is why it is so difficult for you to tackle them.

It is not a bit difficult for me to tackle them. I give this advice to Deputy Belton—he has often taken my advice—the pages of this country's history are studded with instances of this type.

Surrender.

That is true. There have been defeats as well as victories on the pages of this country's history.

You admit it then?

But all those items have been moulded together to form the history of the country and the long-drawn out struggle that has taken place between the two countries is composed of items and incidents of this kind.

A good face on a bad case.

Not at all. It is a better face than Deputy Cosgrave put on the question of Partition. I would say to Deputy Belton that he is treading on very dangerous ground, because if he keeps going on and once more falls in behind the leadership of Deputy Cosgrave he might be selected to go across and make one of these comprehensive settlements, and come back, as Deputy Cosgrave did, with an honorary degree from Cambridge University, and he might also get the freedom of the City of Manchester beside the monument to Allen, Larkin and O'Brien. Is that not a happy future? Anything at all is possible with Deputy Belton in the mood he is in at the moment. If anybody had come out of this House last night and had told me that Deputy Belton, one of the most famous politicians in the country, a good Irishman, a man who took part in the Rebellion of 1916 and who served his country well—I give him all that credit—had referred, in his speech proposing his amendment, to the dictum of Fintan Lalor, that the land of this country belonged to the people of this country, as so much rigmarole, I would laugh at the man who told me. I defy Deputy Belton to go to a meeting anywhere in North City and tell his constituents that the words of Fintan Lalor upon which the land movement, the Land League and practically every other national organisation were founded are so much rigmarole.

On a point of correction. I asked where the gospel of Fintan Lalor was enshrined in this coal-cattle pact.

The Deputy may not make a second speech.

I gave no opinion on Fintan Lalor.

I was surprised when I heard that. Deputy Belton referred to an interview given by the President to the Daily Telegraph, in which he mentioned the unity of Ireland, which might come within a comprehensive scheme, as so much tomfoolery. Is the unity of Ireland tomfoolery? I put that to Deputy Belton.

If such a state of affairs is brought about as will enable us to regain the lost province, will it be tomfoolery?

No, but it is not in this pact.

Deputy Cosgrave says that it is in his comprehensive scheme, and, if you were talking to him, he must have informed you.

I was not talking to him.

Let us suppose that the economic war was settled overnight and that no pacts were necessary. I put this to people who thought like Deputy Cosgrave and still think like him. I remember referring in this House, when talking about the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, to a report by Michael Collins that from the time of the Union to the outbreak of the Great War Great Britain had robbed this country of something like £400,000,000. During the last 14 years, as a result of what the British Government have done to us, the people with whom we are negotiating——

Deputy Belton is good at figures, and Deputy O'Higgins said last night that he thought, above all things, we should have some mathematics with regard to this pact. While Deputy Belton is shouting about this £4 15s. per beast——

£4 5s. or whatever the figure is.

What is the £4 5s. for?

I am assuming that the economic war has disappeared overnight and that no pacts are necessary.

The Chair is assuming that the debate on all stages of this Bill will conclude to-night.

If these gentlemen would cease interrupting, I should not be very long. I should like to hear Deputy Belton apply himself to this problem. During the last 14 years, the 26 counties of Southern Ireland have paid £360,000,000 in taxation. The figure for Northern Ireland was £11,000,000 per year which, for 14 years, amounts to £154,000,000. In the last 14 years, as the result of negotiations by weaklings, as a result of negotiations by people who had not the courage to stand up at all times as President de Valera has done, £518,000,000 was collected and spent in taxation in this little island of ours. And Deputy Belton is talking about this £4 5s. per bullock, which seems to have got on his brain.

Your Party helped to increase the taxation.

This pact is going to give them the annuities this year.

Do not make any mistake about this: I appreciate the difficulties of the Executive Council. I appreciated the difficulties of Deputy Cosgrave in 1925. I was one of those members of the Republican Party at that time who did. President de Valera at that time did not go around the country stabbing Deputy Cosgrave in the back. We made an offer—I was one of the members responsible—that if Deputy Cosgrave at that time stood for whatever rights this country had under the Treaty, we would stand with him. We had the first pact welcomed. The second pact, according to Deputy Belton, is no good. According to Deputy Cosgrave, it does not go far enough. I wonder what the President could do which would satisfy mentalities like those? When I got up to speak to-night, I made one resolve— that I would avoid recrimination. I trust that recrimination will be eradicated from our discussions. We want everybody's help in this matter. If the scheme for further settlement is to be comprehensive or successful, not only on economic issues but on major political issues, recrimination is one of the things that we must avoid. I do not intend to indulge in anything of the sort and never did to any extent. I know that Deputy Belton now regrets to a great extent his reference to the Fintan Lalor dictum and to the President's interview with the Daily Telegraph. Perhaps they were hastily-spoken words.

You did not carry that dictum out in the pact.

This pact No. 2 is better than the previous one.

That does not say much for it.

Still it is something. Would Deputy Belton undertake to go across to London and get anything better?

Yes, if you give me the power.

Deputy Donnelly should not invite interruptions.

Deputy Belton says that this pact does not provide a comprehensive settlement of the dispute between this country and Great Britain. I am asking a natural question. What is a comprehensive settlement? Deputy Cosgrave did not tell us.

You hauled down the flag. Settle the economic war. You hauled down the flag and rolled it in the gutter.

"Settle the economic war." Settle it on the best terms you can get. Go back to the old system of agricultural economy. Go back to the ranches and to the bullocks.

That has nothing to do with it.

That is the settlement, boiled down. There are no farmers in this country complaining about this pact or the previous pact. When I use the word "farmer" I do so advisedly. A number of cattle dealers are kicking up a row, but no farmers. Deputy Belton is one of the wise men of the agricultural community who got out of cattle and went into tillage farming beside a big city.

Will you allow me one minute to deal with these statements?

If all that we hear regarding the state of affairs under the régime of the last Government be true, I wonder why the Agricultural Credit Corporation was set up. Perhaps Deputy Roddy or Deputy McMenamin could inform us as to that. It was set up to provide money on easy terms so as to tide farmers over their difficulties during the régime of the late Government. I do not think I have much more to say on this subject. Perhaps I have gone on a bit longer than I had intended. I do not want to monopolise the time too much. I will say, in conclusion, that I am voting for the pact, and I will also say that I still have confidence in the Executive Council. I differ from Deputy Belton in this respect, that when I give my loyalty and allegiance to a leader I do not allow myself to be turned into a battledore and shuttlecock, shifting from Party to Party as the spirit moves me.

My Party, right or wrong.

Deputy Roddy rose.

As seconder of one of the motions, I want to submit——

There is only one motion before the House. Deputy Roddy.

I think this is most unfair. As the seconder of a motion——

Order! There is one motion before the House, and to that motion there are two amendments. Deputy Roddy.

The Minister for Education charged the Opposition with making no case for the amendment on the Order Paper in the name of Deputy Cosgrave. Speakers on the Opposition side advanced very strong and cogent arguments in support of that amendment, but the most convincing and the most overwhelming argument that could be advanced in support of it is the condition to which this Government has reduced the farmers. The amendment speaks for itself. There is nobody who is acquainted with the agricultural conditions in this country who does not realise that the policy of this Government in so far as it affects agricultural conditions, is the strongest and most convincing argument that could be advanced in support of the amendment.

The President wandered over his favourite hunting ground to-day. He gave us the history of the last ten years and he dealt with all sorts of matters that have absolutely no bearing on the Bill before the House or on either of the amendments. I think the President of the Executive Council ought to be in a position to know what is happening in the country and to know the conditions existing amongst the agricultural community. I thought that he would have held out some hope to our agriculturists or at least that he would have made some reference to the terrible plight in which his policy has placed them. But, no. The impression one gleaned from his speech is this, that so long as he is head of the Government in this country there will be no settlement with Great Britain and the case either for or against the payment of the land annuities will never be settled because, so far as I could infer, President de Valera will not be satisfied with any tribunal that might be appointed by people living on earth, or by anybody in heaven either.

We have to face realities. The members of the Government who have spoken on this Bill have steered clear of the main issues implied by this pact or arrangement recently entered into. They have made practically no references to the nature of the pact or what it really implies. They have dealt with all sorts of side issues and, so far as I can understand from the tactics pursued by them, their object was to keep the discussion completely away from the arrangement we are supposed to be dealing with. It is obvious to me that no Minister on the Government Benches is satisfied with that pact. It is perfectly clear from the half-hearted manner in which the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce spoke in support of it yesterday afternoon that they are thoroughly disgusted with it. I believe there is not a member of the Government Party who is not disgusted with it. They certainly gave the country, by implication, clearly and definitely to understand that they would on this occasion secure a much better settlement, a much better pact than that which is before the House.

I will try to some extent to bring this discussion back to realities. I will remind the President and every member of the Government Party that what the agriculturist in this country wants at the moment is the removal of all barriers against the export of his live stock. No expedients, no pacts, no arrangements, no subsidies, and no bounties devised or entered into by the Government can ever ensure to the agriculturist a chance of making any sort of a decent livelihood until he has the right to export freely his live stock to the English market. This agreement apparently has been hammered out with such hard bargaining that the motto of quid pro quo, as one newspaper termed it, can very well be applied to it. The British Treasury officials apparently saw to it that when the terms of the pact were being arranged it was ensured that the moneys withheld by our Government would be paid in full to the British Government.

I agree with the case made by Deputy Belton yesterday. We have before us a Bill for the purpose of implementing the terms of the pact. The pact arrangement itself provides that this country shall continue to pay duties on the export of live stock to the British market. When the terms of the pact were being arranged it was clearly and definitely understood by the civil servants who acted on behalf of the British Government that when these duties were collected the moneys realised by the collection would be applied to the one specific purpose of paying the annuities withheld by the present Government, and paying other moneys due to the British Government. No matter what the President may say or what the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Finance may say, the annuities are being paid and they know they are being paid. If the annuities have to be paid, why not pay them straightforwardly instead of by duties in this fashion.

The fact that the bounties on cattle and horses are withdrawn under this pact means that the practical value of the British concessions have either been completely nullified or very seriously reduced. In the case of old cattle, classed as mincers, the withdrawal of the bounty actually offsets the reduction in Customs duty and thus the actual position remains very much the same as before. There are many small farmers, not merely in the West, but in other parts of the country who are not able to finish off cattle at the age of two years so as to make them suitable for the British market. They are forced by virtue of circumstances to hold the cattle until they are practically four years old. These farmers are forced to bring their cattle around from fair to fair. In the past, the big inducement to a jobber to buy the cattle was the fact that he was able to get a bounty of £1 on each beast. That bounty has now been withdrawn, with the result that these unfortunate farmers have been placed under a considerable handicap. In many cases they may be forced to dispose of their beasts at a ridiculously low price. In many instances at fairs at the present time you can get as good a price for a year-old beast as for the class of beast I mentioned.

The real and practical advantages of the new arrangements in this pact really go to the British miners. The Minister for Finance withdrew the duty of 5/- per ton on English coal. The withdrawal of that duty primarily benefits the people of the City of Dublin and other Irish towns. The amount of that duty was practically £500,000. As against that, the Government now proposes to withdraw bounties amounting to approximately £450,000 so that one amount balances the other, and the unfortunate farmers of the country, as a whole, are made to pay very substantially for the coal requirements of the country. I agree that the Minister in withdrawing the duty on coal did the proper thing, but the point I want to make is that because of the withdrawal of the bounties in respect of the export of cattle, 75 per cent. at least of the farmers of this country to-day who are dependent upon the production of live stock and live-stock products, are forced, by virtue of the arrangement, to bear the full brunt of the economic war without any prospect or hope of any remission whatever.

I would ask the Minister to bear this further fact in mind. There are many small farmers who are living on very small holdings in many parts of the country in the South and West who must cut and depend largely on turf for both fuel and income, whose land is of very poor quality, and who are particularly hard hit by this arrangement. They are forced not alone to pay whatever taxation may be involved in the new arrangement made by the Minister, but they are also forced to contribute a certain amount towards the purchase of coal by their better-off neighbours. Professor Joseph Johnston some time ago pointed out that the purchasing power of the farming community in this country had been reduced by £20,000,000. If the Government persist in their present policy of gradually reducing the farmer's income, I ask you to what extent will the farmer's income be reduced in the course of another 12 months or another two years? Surely to goodness the President and the Minister for Finance must realise if there is to be any chance at all of the farming industry surviving, if there is to be any chance at all of the people engaged in the industry making a decent livelihood, the conditions under which the industry is carried on must be placed in such a secure position that the farmers will be able to estimate the profits that they are likely to make out of it, in the hope of arranging for its fuller and better development.

Unless the position of agriculture— and the success of the whole State depends upon the position in which the farmers find themselves—is placed on such a secure foundation as will ensure for them at least a chance of making a reasonably comfortable livelihood, then it is inevitable that the efforts the Government are making in other directions to industrialise the country will fail. If the farmer's income, under the policy pursued by the Government up to the present, has depreciated to the extent of £20,000,000 in a period of three years, how much, I ask, will the purchasing power of the farming community depreciate if the Government persist indefinitely in that policy? Surely it is time for the Government to face up to realities. I submit that this pact, while it does confer certain slight advantages in two or three different directions, is of no practical value to the people engaged in the main industry of this country at all. If it is the policy of the Government whilst it is in office to continue year after year to make pacts of this description, then I submit they cannot hope to make any impression on the unfortunate condition in which agriculturists find themselves at the moment.

We have had a lot of figures given here to-day in connection with farmers' production and agricultural prices. Deputy Roddy just now alluded to the position of the small farmers, and we had some references to the "comprehensive settlement" that is going to be made. I should just like, in the short time at my disposal, to give a few figures in relation to the position of the small farmers of whom the Deputy spoke. In 1928 the small farmer got for butter exported the sum of £4,495,885, and in 1931, three years later, he got only £2,071,291. Although he sent more butter in 1931 than he sent in 1929, he got £2,500,000 less for his butter in 1931. In 1928 he received for bacon exported to the British market £4,362,112, and in 1931 £2,200,000 for the same bacon.

Where was it? In cold storage?

Follow it up. It was probably like your rhubarb—sour. In 1928, in respect of eggs exported, the farmer received £2,902,000, and in 1931, £2,030,000, showing a reduction of £872,000 in the price of his eggs in that market. The price received in respect of the total exports of beef, butter, eggs, bacon, etc., in 1928 was £14,948,255, while in 1931 the price received in respect of similar exports totalled only £8,858,320. That shows a reduction in the price of our agricultural exports of £6,085,935 in a period of four years—a reduction of 40 per cent., although there was then no economic war. Deputy Cosgrave knew all that when he was President of the Executive Council in 1931. In addition to the price which the farmers were getting, showing a reduction amounting to £6,000,000 within four years on their agricultural produce, they were paying the full annuities to Britain, for whom Deputy Cosgrave was collecting them. With the full knowledge of these facts—and I want you to realise the nature of the "comprehensive settlement"—Deputy Cosgrave went over to England in 1931 as President, and appealed to the Government there for Heaven's sake to give him a moratorium on £250,000 of the annuities. They told him to go back and pay it. This is the man who is going to make a "comprehensive settlement."

That is what the cattle pact says—go and pay it.

It will be as comprehensive as your pact, at any rate. We got a majority of the people of the country in 1932 to support us in withholding the annuities. We went before them again in 1933, when there was a 40 per cent. tariff on cattle exported, and we got a bigger majority still. We went before them again, on a selected franchise, if you like, in 1934, and got another majority. That is the position. Knowing that, what is the attitude of Deputies opposite?

Why pay the annuities, then?

Let the Deputy shut up. On the very night that Deputy Norton, leader of the Labour Party, endeavoured to pave the way for negotiations on this matter, Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, as reported in the Official Debates, 14th July, 1932, column 1034, Volume 43, said:

"I suggest that the Executive Council should take the course of saying to the British Government: We will hand you over this half-year's annuities. We will hand them over to you, reserving the status quo, but we will hand over without prejudice, and if the results of the arbitration are such that you are entitled to retain them, you will retain them; but if the results of the arbitration are such that we are entitled to get them back, we will get them back.”

That was the contribution by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney towards a settlement. President de Valera went over the following day, and what did Lord Hailsham say to him? He said: "Hand over the year's annuities before there can be any negotiations." Those who were out shouting about tariffs on cattle in the 1932 Elections were, also, the very people trying to make bullets for the British Government to use in the fight. If the representatives of the people here in this Dáil stood together in this economic war it would not have lasted two months. How could anyone expect, if I had a quarrel with Deputy Donnelly in the morning, and if he had a fisticuff match, and I saw his colleague coming behind and giving him a dig in the back that he would win. That is our present position. That is the position which we have had to face up to for the past four years while we have in Opposition people worse than the carrion crows. There is only one cure for all this, and that is to take these people out before the country and let the people finish them. Let them send them back, fewer in number and more miserable than they are at present, if that could be possible.

Then we are asked why not make a comprehensive settlement. That is the contribution made up to the present by people who are endeavouring to prevent the payment of the annuities, to upset local authorities and to render the working of every arm of government impossible. That is the position Deputies opposite take up, and then they ask why not make a comprehensive settlement. We will settle this question, and we will settle it without the Opposition. It will be a settlement in which no principle will be given away.

That is gone already; there is no more to give away.

We will not give away even the tariff on Deputy Belton's rhubarb.

You will put a tariff on sugar instead.

We will do the job which the people of this country, in three successive elections, ordered us to do, namely, to hold on to the annuities and to prevent the robbery of the people. Now just one other word. We heard a lot about the cattle pact. Unfortunately owing to the agricultural policy of our predecessors we have a surplus of cattle which was proved even to-day in the Dublin Cattle Market. The prices proved there was a surplus.

I thought the prices were to come back.

Every jack-in-the-box holding for the last four months, is rushing in with his cattle. The only way we can secure a proper cattle population basis is that everything must be rationalised.

Why not shoot off a couple of hundred thousand cattle.

It was an awful pity they did not shoot you off, too. I do not want to say any more, and shall make way for other Deputies who are anxious to speak.

I would not merely like, but I would thoroughly enjoy, answering Deputy Corry's alleged points which he has just put to the House; but, in view of the fact that there are some other speakers better entitled to speak in this debate than I am, and that there are only about 30 minutes left, I must deny myself the luxury of replying to the Deputy. I should like to tell him, in passing, that we were very glad to hear what he said, that he and his Party will settle this matter. That is what we are asking them to do.

Well, then, keep your mouth shut.

I should like also to follow Deputy Donnelly, especially in his panegyric of Parnell and others who established the rights of the tenant farmers to the land. I should like to tell him of the way Parnell and his successors pledged the credit of the country that the Irish farmers would pay their annuities, and to remind him that it remained for the first Irish Fianna Fáil Party to teach them to default in their payments. Time does not permit me to go further into this matter, but I have a duty to perform before I sit down.

A serious charge was made by the President of the Executive Council against the Leader of the Opposition. The charge in itself is so ridiculous as to be nonsensical, were it not that it was given further currency by the Leader of the Executive Council, who repeated and reiterated his charge about the so-called secret agreement. The President repeated the charge that when Deputy Cosgrave was President of the Executive Council he kept from the Irish people and their representatives the fact that the agreement of 1923, dealing with the annuities, had been made. At the conclusion of the President's speech Deputy Cosgrave repudiated that allegation, but under the ruling of the Ceann Comhairle he was unable further to develop that repudiation. On Deputy Cosgrave's behalf, I wish to do so to-night in the few moments that remain to me. The charge, repeated, not for the first time, by the President, is that Deputy Cosgrave made some sort of shameful agreement in 1923, so shameful that he and his colleagues were unable to tell the Irish people what it was all about. So far from being shameful, so far from being apologetic for that agreement, Deputy Cosgrave and his colleagues have shown over and over again that that agreement was entered into for the benefit of the Irish people. There was nothing shameful about it, nor was it in any way a secret agreement.

Why did you refuse to agree to publication?

The Deputy will not draw me. I have ten minutes in which to do a job, and I am going to do it. The allegation by the President is that it is a secret agreement, kept secret deliberately by the present Leader of the Opposition when he was President of the Executive Council. I have dealt with two points. Let me deal with the third point. Implicit in the President's charge is the allegation that the liability of the Irish farmer tenant purchasers to pay their annuities to the stockholders who advanced that money for the purchase of their land rests upon this secret agreement. It does not rest upon this secret agreement, nor upon any other agreement, whether made by the President of the Executive Council or anybody else. I hope to be able to deal with that before I sit down. Let me deal with the question as to whether this agreement was ever brought before the notice of the Dáil, or before the notice of the people of this country. On 26th June, 1923, Deputy Cosgrave, who was then President, introduced into the Dáil— from which the present Government were absent at that time waging war on the elected representatives of the people, and that is why this agreement was secret—an Estimate for the sum of £3,133,575. For what purpose? To pay the land annuities. I have not time to read it all; you can read it at column 2409, Volume 3 of the Dáil Debates of 1923. When introducing that Estimate Deputy Cosgrave, then President of the Executive Council, explained that the land annuities which were being collected from the tenant farmers were being sent over for the purpose of being distributed, through the machinery of the British National Debt Commissioners, to the people who had lent the tenant farmers the money. He told the House it was being done, and explained it in answer to Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Wilson, then Leader of the Farmers' Party.

At column 2498, Deputy Cosgrave, then President, said:—

"The Estimate deals with purchase annuities payable under the existing Land Acts."

Is not that clear? He goes on:

"The law provides that these annuities are to be collected henceforth by the Government of Saorstát Eireann, and that the proper amounts should, in due course, be paid into either of the funds out of which dividends and sinking fund payments in connection with the various land stocks are paid."

Is there any secrecy about that? He continues:

"These stocks will continue to be managed by the British Government."

Is there any secrecy about that statement? Is there any secrecy about saying that to the Dáil, from which at that time the members of the present Government were absent, waging war on the elected representatives of the people? Deputy Cosgrave continued:

"But it is part of the present arrangement"

—that secret agreement which we hear so much about—

"for the adjustment of past land purchase transactions that we should pay over the annuities and leave it to the British Government to pay the interest to the stockholders."

You can finish the rest there if you are honest enough to read what Deputy Cosgrave said then to the people's representatives who were here at that time. At column 2499, Deputy Cosgrave went on to deal with "the recent negotiations which took place in England." He said:

"The actual sum due to pay the annuities is much greater than the sum which comes in. At the recent negotiations which took place in England we came to a provisional arrangement which binds us. ..."

There is your secret agreement for you; there is the secrecy connected with that transaction.

In July of the following year Deputy Cosgrave again referred to the matter. If you are honest enough and decent enough to read it—it has been referred to often enough by Deputy Cosgrave in his public speeches, but that does not satisfy even the President of the Executive Council—you will find it at column 1143, Volume 4, of the Dáil Debates; there he again refers to the matter, draws attention to this fact— a fact which Deputies will have to know and which the people of the country will have to realise—that, under this alleged secret agreement, so far from there being any liability imposed on the tenant farmers or on the Irish taxpayer which did not exist before, there was a liability of nearly £1,000,000 per annum placed on the British taxpayer under that so-called secret agreement, which they would not have had to pay if that so-called secret agreement had not been made. So much for the shameful part of that agreement.

I have just told the House that an Estimate was introduced for the payment of the annuities. That Estimate, in accordance with the procedure of the House, had to be made law. It was made law. It was made law by the Appropriation Act of 1923, and that Appropriation Act came four times before the Dáil and four times before the Seanad; so that nine times here in public, in the absence of the Fianna Fáil Party, they were told about those arrangements which had been made by Deputy Cosgrave; nine times they were told that the annuities were going to be paid to England, and we are told here by the President of the Executive Council that Deputy Cosgrave kept that agreement secret. If you are honest, read item 8 of the Schedule to that Act; read item 15 of the Schedule to that Act and read item 25 of the Schedule to that Act. If you are not honest you will not read it, but if you do read it you will find there set out specifically every item of money that had to be paid under that so-called secret agreement. And that was not enough. The Land Act of 1933 was passed in this House, and four times—not counting the First Stage—that Act went through the House, and in four stages it went through the Seanad. Section 12 of that Act, which was so much canvassed subsequently, was passed by this House; it was canvassed four times here on four stages, and four times in the Seanad. So much for the lack of publicity given to those arrangements, so much for the liability to pay.

I want to make a last point on the question as to whether this agreement imposes our liability to pay or not. Deputy Cosgrave, in answer to articles in the Irish Press over Christmas, has completely repudiated and refuted every such argument. Article 42 of the heads of working agreement made by General Michael Collins in 1922 recognises the liability of the Irish tenant farmers to pay those annuities, and agreed pending capitalisation——

Will the Deputy read the reservation of General Collins?

Article 42 of the heads of working agreement which was made by General Michael Collins in 1922 provided for no liability, because the liability existed apart from that, but for the recognition of the liability of this country to transfer the annuities for payment of dividend and sinking fund on guaranteed land stock, pending capitalisation and pending agreement, if such agreement could be come to, for settlement of a lump sum in discharge of the liability to pay those annuities. That is what General Collins agreed to in 1922. He did not agree to the liability to pay the dividends and sinking fund. That existed in accordance with the law of the Irish Free State—an Irish law, not a British or any other law. There was imposed on us by law—and by international law, not by British law—the liability to continue to transfer the annuities, when they were collected, to their proper source, to discharge the dividend and sinking fund. It is not under Article 42 of the heads of working agreement that the liability exists. It is not under this so-called secret agreement; it is under the Irish Land Purchase Acts that the liability is imposed on the tenant farmer for his annuity. That annuity is appropriated in discharge of sinking fund and interest on guaranteed land stock. That is where the liability arises.

How can you find out whether we are liable for annuities or not? The President said to-day that he will not have a Commonwealth court. He will not have a Commonwealth court and he will not have a court of The Hague.

He said he would not have the Feetham Commission over again.

Why will he not have a court of The Hague? Why will he not have an international court? Because he cannot square it. He has not got enough influence to induce the members of the court to decide in his favour. He wants a court that he can square. He has refused a Commonwealth court. He has refused the Permanent Court of International Justice, which the last Government, through Deputy McGilligan, on the part of this country, subscribed to without reservation. He has refused to let this dispute go before that court at The Hague. He has also refused to let the courts of this country decide this question.

Shortly before the election of 1933 a writ was issued against the Minister for Finance and the Attorney-General, and my name was to that writ. The object of that was to let the Irish courts decide the issue as to whether the Government were bound to pay the annuities or not. We never got the fiat of the Attorney-General. What we did get was the section of the No. 2 Act of 1933, the second Act they passed when they came back after the General Election of 1933. The Land Purchase Annuities Fund Act of 1933 was passed for the specific purpose of putting an end to that action which had been instituted. In face of that section and that Act it would be impossible to go on and get a decision of the Irish courts on this question. So that the Government have barred the Irish courts and the Commonwealth court and the international court, and all they want is a court they can square.

That is a grand patriotic speech.

Deputies Fagan and O'Donovan rose.

I understand there was an understanding arrived at outside the House that the Minister for Finance should be allowed to conclude the the debate at 9.30. Of course, the Chair is governed by Standing Orders and if arrangements made outside the House governing the proceedings here are not observed the Chair has no power to enforce them.

Let the Minister conclude the debate.

I am sorry that Deputy Costello has left the House. It is unusual for me to congratulate a member of the Opposition upon his speech, but I think we can all admit, however much we may differ in other respects from Deputy Costello, that he has proved himself to-night to be one of the ablest counsel for the defence that any of us have had the pleasure of listening to. It is unfortunate for his case, however, that to those of us who know the facts even such a display of forensic eloquence does not carry conviction. It is regrettable, too, that while we were listening to it we had not the advantage of having Deputy Costello's client in the House also. Of course, skilled lawyers on occasions keep their clients out of court. There is a temptation sometimes to put them in the witness box and when a client on occasion goes into the witness box that is his undoing. It would have been Deputy Cosgrave's undoing if he had been here to-night to answer some questions which I should like to put to him.

This debate was turned on the issue of the 1923 agreement, the circumstances in which it was signed and the justification which there was for it. Deputy Cosgrave has recently endeavoured to justify that action, not only in the public Press, but here in the House, but he has not been candid with the people. This agreement of 1923, I say deliberately, came as a bolt from the blue to his colleagues in the Executive Council. It did not originate in a discussion as to whether we were responsible for the annuities accruing due from time to time in respect to the pre-1923 Land Acts. It did not originate in a discussion as to whether we were liable for the R.I.C. pensions or not, although they are also included in the agreement. It originated in the disavowal by the British Government of their liability to pay to the Irish railways moneys which were due to them under an Act passed by the British Parliament in 1920. In October, 1922, as our people will recollect, the railways here were in a perilous condition. It was feared that owing to the dislocation of traffic they would probably be compelled to close down. The then Provisional Government took the matter up with the British Government and pointed out that, according to their view of the position, large sums—I think £1,500,000—were due from the British Exchequer to the Irish railways and that these sums ought to be paid immediately.

At the same time, there was another issue alive between the Provisional Government and the British Government. I am speaking now from recollection, but that issue, I think, was as to the exact amount for which the Provisional Government was liable in respect of R.I.C. pensions. The Provisional Government, just then, was hard driven for funds. There was a question as to whether £800,000 should be paid to Great Britain in respect of the pensions of the former members of the R.I.C. The Irish Government wanted £1,500,000 from Great Britain to keep the railways going. The British Government said: "We want £800,000 from you in respect of these R.I.C. pensions." The Provisional Government pointed out that they had not the funds and were not likely to be in a position to pay. After some negotiation, the British Government said: "If you pay us £600,000 in respect of local loans and other liabilities we will lend you £800,000 to discharge your liability in respect of the R.I.C. pensions." Again I should like to say that I am speaking from memory and the figures may not be exactly correct, but that is the main trend of what happened at that time.

On 12th December, 1922, when these matters were still at issue, an invitation was received from the British Government to send representatives to London to discuss this and other matters. In a review of financial matters which were then outstanding it was pointed out that possibly this question of the land annuities might arise. I do say this, and I challenge Deputy Cosgrave to deny it, that some of the people who were best competent to advise him told him that there was no urgency about this matter of the land annuities and that no discussion should take place, either with the British Ministers or the British Treasury, until we had fully satisfied ourselves that we had any liability for this £135,000,000 of Irish land stock. That was represented to the then President Cosgrave on the 14th December, 1922. I cannot tell what happened subsequently.

You are chancing your arm.

Deputy MacEoin says I am chancing my arm. Deputy Cosgrave has a remedy. Let him put down a motion for a select committee to inquire into these matters. Let him do that and we will see how this 1923 agreement was signed; we will see what investigation took place to satisfy him, though some of his colleagues were sceptical at the time, that we were, in fact, liable for £135,000,000 worth of land stock. That is simple and easy. There is one man who can put the full facts before the people. There is one man in whose power it is to unlock the confidential files. There is one man who can come and ask for a select committee to inquire into this and put the documents before the people, and that man is Deputy Cosgrave. I cannot. In any event to discuss mainly this question as to whether Great Britain was liable to pay us £1,500,000 in respect of obligations to the Irish railways and to ascertain how far the then British Government were prepared to facilitate us in respect of minor commitments under the Treaty a delegation went to London. That delegation on the 12th February signed the "Secret Agreement."

It has been alleged by Deputy Costello now that there was no secrecy about this matter; that Deputy—then President—Cosgrave brought in a Supplementary Estimate which gave the fullest information possible to the House as to what had been done in London. Let us see exactly how this matter was brought to the notice of the Dáil. You will have observed that Deputy Costello adopted very selective tactics when reading from the Dáil Debates. He began at a place selected by himself and then ended at another portion selected by himself. Then he was good enough to say:

"If you want any more you can read it yourself."

Let us see how this matter was brought before the House, because it is a brilliant example of the typical Cosgrave manner of Parliamentary manoeuvre. When we were in opposition there was one thing we did acknowledge about the then President and that was that he was an astute parliamentarian. We said there was no person could manage the Dáil business with the same facility and with the same cleverness as Deputy Cosgrave. But I am afraid that that is Deputy Cosgrave's limitation. He is too clever to be at the same time intelligent, and often he is too astute to be entirely honest with the Dáil and with the people. The House was referred to column 2498. If the House had been referred to column 2494 it would have seen the prelude to this essay in Cosgrave parliamentarianism. In column 2494 there is a report of a debate upon the Finance Act for the year. President Cosgrave has moved an amendment granting exemption of income-tax to certain charities. It is important that we should bear that fact in mind and it is also important to bear in mind that Deputy Gerald Fitzgibbon, as he then was, has just pointed out that part of the amendment which Deputy Cosgrave had moved to introduce into the Finance Bill of the year had been embodied in the current British Finance Bill. Here is the background of this transaction: a perfectly innocuous amendment, one which would be welcomed by all sections of the House—to exempt certain charities from income-tax—is introduced into the Finance Bill. It is adopted unanimously. Nobody is taking any interest in the proceedings as very often happens on the Committee Stage of a Bill. There are three or four members sitting here, some of them possibly more or less somnolent. One, the Minister in charge of the Bill, is, however, wide awake; he has to get the Bill through. The Minister in charge of the Bill that day was President Cosgrave, and without difficulty he persuaded the House that the section ought to be inserted in the Bill. It is done in the following way:—President Cosgrave says:

"I move that the new section be inserted in the Bill.

Mr. Blythe: I second.

Question put and agreed to."
President Cosgrave then arises and begins in this soothing strain:
"Just like the matter that we have now passed——"
Remember, this was an Estimate, a Supplementary Estimate, binding this country to pay £3,100,000 odd a year, and it is introduced in this form:
"Just like the matter that we have now passed, it is almost impossible to say that one can exhaust any subject just now when, day after day, matters are coming under our notice which had not been contemplated."
Note that this was on the 26th June, 1923, and we are being told now by Deputy Costello that the introduction of this Supplementary Estimate was a complete exposure to the Dáil of the pact that had been signed on 12th February in London. However, listen again to what Deputy Cosgrave says on the 26th June, 1923, about the pact which he signed on 12th February of that year:
"Day after day, matters are coming under our notice which had not been contemplated."
Did you ever see a Hindoo charm a snake? Does it not look as if Deputy Cosgrave had learned the technique from such a master? For he says:
"For example, in that last section that we have dealt with, there has been corresponding action by the British. They met us fairly in regard to that, and now comes our responsibility."
They have agreed to exempt charities from income tax and now comes our responsibility. In return for that exemption our response is to hand them over £3,100,000 per annum.

Where was the Minister for Finance that time?

Is there anything to be deduced from President Cosgrave's statement except that one was a quid pro quo for the other?

"They have met us fairly in regard to that and now comes our responsibility. I am asking the Dáil to-day to take up a particular Estimate, the Land Purchase Annuities Estimate, and if I have permission to explain shortly the reason for taking this I think that Deputies will agree that it is necessary, and that any fault that there is in the matter of not having brought it on before is my own."

He signed the Agreement on 12th February, 1923, and he delayed in bringing the Estimate before the Dáil until the 26th June, the very last day of the session, and late in the evening of the very last day, and he goes on to say:

"It was understood in the Ministry of Finance that the Dáil was not adjourning this evening, that it would be continued during the week, and that it would be possible to introduce this Estimate after due notice."

Then President Cosgrave went on to say everything that Deputy Costello has just read for us—but he did not read this though the Minister for Education did:

"This Estimate is one which is concerned solely with accounting transactions, as to which no controversy can arise."

This Estimate is now put before the House as a proof that the "Secret Agreement" of 1923 with its terms were fully divulged to the Irish people. And how was it put before the House? It was put before the House merely as an accounting arrangement. What does an accounting arrangement mean? It means that you will keep your accounts and that I will keep my accounts during a provisional arrangement, and that when the whole transaction is to be completed and wound up, then the accounts will be balanced one against the other, and whosoever owes anything will pay it to whomsoever it is due. Is not that the meaning of an accounting transaction?

Would the Minister tell us something of the advantages or disadvantages of this pact?

Later on, in reply to a question by Deputy Wilson, President Cosgrave, as he then was, then said:

"At the recent negotiations which took place in England we came to a provisional arrangement which binds us, or in which we accepted liability for the payment of a certain sum pending a settlement regarding the major question. That sum in all amounts to"——

Not £3,100,000 for which a Supplementary Estimate was introduced. The sum which President Cosgrave led the House to believe under this provisional arrangement he was bound to pay was not £3,100,000, but in his own words it amounted "to about £160,000." We are now told that this agreement of 1923 was fully exposed to the Dáil and fully exposed to the people. I think that I cannot do better, in concluding the reading of these very interesting extracts from the Dáil Debates, than to refer to a little interchange which took place before the Estimate was agreed to Deputy Wilson said:

"In other words... it is deducted by the Minister for Finance from the payments to the local authorities so that we get it both ways."

President Cosgrave replied:—

"I suppose the Deputy will not deny that it is very hard to catch the farmers."

And here is a gem of real bucolic intelligence from Deputy M. Doyle:—

"You are catching them very well in this case, anyhow."

And you have netted them.

Deputy Doyle had a prophetic instinct. He knew exactly what was happening. Let us see now how far President Cosgrave went in his endeavours to keep the terms of this agreement from the Irish people. I say that the speech which he made on the 12th June, 1923, was carefully phrased so as to lead the Dáil to believe that only a provisional arrangement had been entered into, and that the Supplementary Estimate was only to give validity to a certain accounting transaction. We often bring Estimates before the Dáil merely to keep accounts right, and to satisfy the Comptroller and Auditor-General. There was an occasion upon which we brought in an Estimate for over £3,000,000 and not a penny piece of public money passed. It was merely to regularise a certain book-keeping position, and that is what is meant by an accounting transaction.

People who understood the position, or thought they understood the position, when they heard President Cosgrave say that this was merely an accounting transaction, did not for a moment believe that we were going to pay over £3,100,000. What President Cosgrave did wish them to believe, and did try to make them believe was that the utmost liability even under this provisional arrangement was for £160,000 a year. Now, if he was not concerned to give this impression of the terms of the secret agreement of 1923 to the Irish people, why was he concerned for the succeeding three years to keep from the people the exact text of the agreement? Here it is in black and white. Deputy Costello says that it has nothing to do with the payment of the land annuities. But the first Article of Part 1 states:—

"It is agreed that: The Free State Government undertake to pay at agreed intervals to the appropriate fund the full amount of the annuities accruing due from time to time, making themselves responsible for the actual collection from the tenant-purchaser."

If a man put before the Dáil a Supplementary Estimate on the 12th June, 1923, and said that it was only an accounting transaction and if he had nothing to conceal, why did he hold up the text of that article for over three years? Because the people would plainly see that there was more than an accounting transaction behind that particular Supplementary Estimate, and because the people would plainly see that this provisional arrangement involved them not in the payment, at the worst, of £160,000, but of a sum of £3,100,000. Can anybody deny, in face of the records, that every attempt was made by Deputy Cosgrave and the then Government to keep these facts from the Irish people? If anybody has any doubt about it, here is an extract from a letter which has been published and referred to before. The letter is dated the 17th July, 1925, and in it there is this passage:

"Mr. Blythe sees considerable objection from a political standpoint to publishing in extenso the documents setting forth the financial agreements of the 12th February, 1923.”

Was not that an attempt to keep something secret, and to withhold something from the Irish people? If Deputy MacEoin was a juryman, bound to do justice on oath, and if that document were put before him with the question: "Was there an attempt to keep this matter secret?" what answer could he give except "Yes," on the face of that evidence? And not merely that, but I say if these files are examined—and the man who can have these files examined is Deputy Cosgrave—they will show that there was a suggestion to publish this agreement in a bowdlerised form, and to cut out altogether Part I relating to the land annuities transaction, and to publish Part II as Part I. If that statement is controverted, I am willing to prove it before any tribunal Deputy Cosgrave chooses.

We have been told that this whole transaction was exposed to the Dáil on Wednesday, 3rd February, 1926. Three years after the agreement was signed, Deputy Connor Hogan asked the President

"whether the text of the Financial Agreement of the 12th February, 1923, entered into between the Government of the Saorstát on the one hand and the British Government on the other, and containing, inter alia, provisions as to the collection and disbursement of moneys advanced under the Land Purchase Acts, 1881-1909, will be communicated to the Dáil.”

We have been told that this is not a secret agreement, that the Dáil was aware of everything contained in the agreement. Here was a member of the Dáil—possibly not on 12th June, 1923; I should have to refresh my memory on that, but, at any rate, he was elected in August, 1923—asking the then President of the Executive Council on 3rd February, 1926, when this agreement was going to be presented to the Dáil. If it was not a secret agreement, what objection was there to presenting it to the Dáil? If it was not a secret agreement, and if it was fully exposed to the House in the Supplementary Estimate upon which Deputy Cosgrave relies for his justification, what objection was there from the point of view of the then Government, what breach of confidence could there be, what impropriety could there be in referring the Deputy who put down the question, and who was entitled to the truth, and to all the information a Minister has at his disposal, relating to a matter of public interest—if it was in the public interest to publish it— what objection could there be to President Cosgrave referring Deputy Connor Hogan to this alleged debate on the Supplementary Estimate of 1923 and saying that the terms were fully disclosed there? He could not because such a statement would be obviously untrue.

May I ask a question for the sake of enlightenment? I understood from the President's speech and earlier utterances, that the very existence of that agreement was unknown until the British Government disclosed it. How did Deputy Connor Hogan know about it?

It had been referred to as a provisional arrangement. I am not saying that the existence of the agreement was unknown to some people. I am merely saying that, so far as certain members of the Dáil and the people were concerned, the very existence of such an agreement was unknown. I will tell you why. Because all reference, or practically all reference, to this Supplementary Estimate of 23rd June, 1923, was suppressed in the Irish newspapers. The only reference published at all was Deputy Cosgrave's statement that this was merely an accounting transaction. Deputies can look up the records in the National Library and they will find that what I am saying is true. The report was tucked away in one corner of the Irish Independent so that it was taken to be a cursory transaction. People outside the Dáil were not aware of it. The 3,000,000 souls who had to find the £3,100,000 were not aware of its existence. When the question of the payments was raised in the House and in the country, the existence of this agreement was never once referred to by the then President Cosgrave. Let me come to his answer to Deputy Connor Hogan:

"The Government have recently been considering this question and several kindred matters. A decision has not yet been reached, but I hope to be able to give the Deputy a definite answer before very long."

The poor Deputy never got his answer, and the papers were never published, because the decision come to, after consideration of the question by the then Government, was that they would not publish the secret agreement of 1923.

This Bill which we have been considering to-night and this pact which the Opposition have attempted to criticise——

Will you quote what Connor Hogan said about it in the Irish Times last week?

As the Deputy has reminded me, I will quote one other thing. An attempt has been made to use the name of Michael Collins to justify the secret agreement. I think if the heads of the working agreement are read it will be seen that against Article 42 of that agreement there is an asterisk, which points to a reservation made by General Michael Collins with regard to the land annuities.

Who shot him?

It is a discreditable thing to use his name to justify the "Secret Agreement" and those who pretend to be his loyal comrades and attempt to play on his memory to cloak their own misdeeds should be ashamed.

(Interruptions.)
The Bill now before the House originates in the "Secret Agreement" of 1923. If it had not been for that Agreement, the British could not make any case, and could not advance any claim for retention of the land annuities. When they did come to make such a claim they did not base it on the White Paper published by the Irish Government in 1931. They did not base it on any reading of the Land Acts, 1881-1909. They based it on the Secret Agreement of 1923. Any title or claim they have to the annuities is derived from that, and nothing else. The Bill we are considering to-night originates in that Agreement. The amendment which the Opposition have on the Order Paper asks this House to reject the Bill. We had better be clear about that, because I have no doubt that the Opposition are quite clear what rejection of this Bill would involve. It would involve rejection of the working arrangement entered into. What will be the immediate consequences? Deputy MacDermot has pointed out that whatever else this agreement does, it gives us a wider market for our agricultural produce, and if the Dáil decides that it will not accept this Bill and the arrangement entered into without prejudice to the difference between the two Governments—if the Dáil decides to reject the Bill as the Opposition wish it—then the market for Irish cattle and other live stock will be restricted, and there will be higher tariffs on our cattle, horses and sheep. Some of these will be increased by 33? per cent. and others by 100 per cent.

You said at one time that that made no difference; that the English people would have to pay.

That is the policy which the Opposition stand for in this debate. They want a narrower market for Irish live stock and higher tariffs against them. That is their policy. That is what Deputy Fagan and Deputy Finlay are going to vote for. That is the policy Deputy Dillon is gloating over—a narrower market and higher tariffs. That is the practical alternative the Opposition have to advance as against this Bill. The House can decide that, without prejudice to either side, it will accept a reduction of British tariffs against us and will accept enlarged quotas, or it can do, in the alleged interests of the farmers, of course, what the Opposition wants it to do. They are full of solicitude for the farmers. We saw Deputy Dillon weeping about the sad position of the fairs. He wants to make them sadder by having fewer buyers for our cattle. He wants to have fewer licences. He wants higher duties. We must get home to the country the alternative which the Opposition are offering as against this pact—a narrower market and higher tariffs.

(Interruptions.)

That is an extraordinary policy. I can quite see that Deputy Finlay and other Deputies do not want me to finish. I suppose he cannot insure against getting home this to the Irish people, as he did not get home to the other people——

On a point of order, Sir. Is not Deputy Finlay entitled to speak at the moment?

Deputy Finlay is not as bad as the other Deputy.

The pact of last year was all right, but this pact is not.

The Minister must be allowed to make his speech.

But I was not allowed to make a speech.

This policy of a higher tariff is an extraordinary one. To ordinary intelligent beings, it would scarcely seem to be a rational policy, but I am not going to do the Opposition the injustice of saying that for these purposes this is an irrational policy that they have adopted. They have no small opinion of themselves. According to this amendment, they think they could bring about forthwith a settlement of all the issues involved, including a settlement of the partition question.

Give us back the bounties.

Deputy Fagan wants bounties on greyhounds.

Yes, I could do with a bounty on greyhounds.

The Minister must be allowed to make his speech.

The Chair should not address me in particular.

The Minister must be allowed to make his speech, and the Chair is not addressing any particular Deputy.

Yes, but I was not allowed to make a speech.

The Opposition say they can settle these issues with great ease—"forthwith" is their own word for it. I know that the Leader of the Opposition has no small opinion of himself as a statesman, and regards us as being mere amateur Ministers.

Hear, hear.

Yes, amateur; that is right.

When they adopt this extraordinary policy, we ought to ask ourselves why do they adopt it. They adopt it because their purpose is to capitalise the hardship of the people and to trade in misery. They talk about a settlement, but the fact is that they do not want a settlement. They think that this arrangement is an advance towards a settlement. The people outside also think it is. The Irish Times blazoned it across their pages as such; and it is because the Opposition think that this pact represents some advancement—whether it actually does or not—that they oppose it.

You have admitted that you will not pay the annuities.

They wanted the economic war to start. It was Deputy John Marcus O'Sullivan who talked of the possibility of the British taxing our cattle—wanting them to do it. You will often hear the hurler on the ditch telling you how to strike the ball, and in the same way Deputy O'Sullivan told the British how to strike, and Senator Blythe was also ready with his advice as to what horn a tax should be put on. They wanted the economic war to start, they want it to continue, they want it intensified, because it is only by the defeat of our people that they see any hope of a return to power. I am wondering if any people listening to Deputy Costello grasped the significance of his remark when he said that early in 1933 he wanted the issue, as to whether these annuities were payable to Britain or not, to be tried out here. Does anybody think that Deputy Costello wanted that verdict from an Irish bench in the hope that it would justify us? Is there anybody foolish enough to believe that? Is there anybody who thinks so little of Deputy Costello's intelligence as to think that he thought that if that court were to decide in our favour the British would have any regard for the verdict? Not at all. They would turn around and say, if the court had found in our favour, that they were not concerned with the legalities of the matter, and that they were pinning their faith to the secret agreement of March, 1923. Yet this Irish lawyer, with nothing to gain for his country, was willing to bring this dispute into the Irish courts and to act as an advocate for Great Britain. It was not the first time. The White Paper which was published in 1931 was an attempt to justify the British claim to these annuities, and in June of 1933 the Deputy, whose arguments were rejected by the Irish people, was ready to open it up again, not in the interests of the Irish people, but in the interests of the British Government. I repeat that the Opposition do not want this economic war to end. Their one hope is that it should not end. They do not want a settlement.

Yes, we do.

They do not want a settlement.

We do. This is not a settlement.

They do not want a settlement because their only hope of being returned to power lies in the humiliation of the State and the defeat of the Irish people. They say that they accepted and commended the original coal-cattle pact.

I never did.

They welcomed the original pact because they thought at that time that it was the beginning of the end, but they were disappointed in their hopes. The moment it became public that negotiations were in progress for a renewal of the pact on more favourable terms, the Opposition went all out to jeopardise the outcome of the negotiations, and secure a breakdown in the negotiations if they could.

Nonsense.

The very moment it was announced that, pending the outcome of the negotiations, the old coal-cattle pact would be renewed, we heard an attack on that pact. We had the attacks on British coal— coal of the very same quality, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce showed, as had been imported into this country during the nine years that Cumann na nGaedheal were in office. We had these attacks on British coal and were told how bad the British coal was, and these attacks were made by the very people who, only 12 months before, were describing the Continental coal as unburnable.

Did that not strengthen your hand in negotiation?

Deputy Corry is the principal expert in that respect.

The President said that nobody signed that agreement. He was ashamed to stand over it.

In introducing this Bill and describing the effects of the new arrangement, I was studiously moderate. There was no need to exaggerate. It was made, as I pointed out, without prejudice to the issues which have arisen between the two Governments. The people understand that and they realise it fully. They would not wish, and they have no desire, that we should acknowledge the right, as distinct from the power, of the other party to the dispute to collect the annuities. They see that as the background to this pact and they know that, in all the circumstances, on the practical facts, it is one which they can accept. I feel that if that issue were to be put to the country to-morrow, our action in making this pact would be fully vindicated, and the Opposition would be condemned by the people for what they have shown themselves to be in this debate, a mere factious Opposition, seeking not the benefit and welfare of our citizens, but seeking, as I have said before, the defeat and humiliation of our people.

Loud and prolonged applause.

Will the President tell us now who signed this agreement?

Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 72; Níl, 49.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Browne, William Frazer.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Cooney, Eamonn.
  • Corbett, Edmond.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Corkery, Daniel.
  • Corry, Martin John.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Doherty, Hugh.
  • Donnelly, Eamon.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flinn, Hugo V.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Geoghegan, James.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hales, Thomas.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hayes, Seán.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
  • Houlihan, Patrick.
  • Keely, Séamus P.
  • Kehoe, Patrick.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Kissane, Eamonn.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • MacDermot, Frank.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Maguire, Conor Alexander.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
  • O'Doherty, Joseph.
  • O'Dowd, Patrick.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Pearse, Margaret Mary.
  • Rice, Edward.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Victory, James.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.

Níl

  • Alton, Ernest Henry.
  • Anthony, Richard.
  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Bennett, George Cecil.
  • Bourke, Séamus.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Broderick, William Joseph.
  • Brodrick, Seán.
  • Burke, James Michael.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cosgrave, William T.
  • Costello, John Alysius.
  • Daly, Patrick.
  • Davitt, Robert Emmet.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
  • Dolan, James Nicholas.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Finlay, John.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Keating, John.
  • Lavery, Cecil.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McGovern, Patrick.
  • McGuire, James Ivan.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Minch, Sydney B.
  • Morrisroe, James.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, James Edward.
  • Nally, Martin.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Neill, Eamonn.
  • O'Reilly, John Joseph.
  • O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
  • O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
  • Redmond, Bridget Mary.
  • Rice, Vincent.
  • Roddy, Martin.
  • Rowlette, Robert James.
  • Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Motion declared carried.
Bill accordingly read a Second Time.
Agreed to take remaining stages now.
Barr
Roinn