Central Fund Bill, 1936—Second Stage.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

I move that the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this measure is to give statutory authority for the issue from the Central Fund of the total of the supplementary grants for the current financial year which were not covered by the Appropriation Act in 1935, and, secondly, the amount of the Vote on Account in respect of the coming financial year, which the House granted yesterday. The measure also, in accordance with the usual form, confers on the Minister for Finance powers to borrow, issue securities, etc. In the current financial year, 20 Supplementary Estimates, totalling £930,879, were presented to the Dáil and passed. Of this total, £5,086, representing the amount of the Supplementary Estimate for External Affairs passed in the early part of the year, was included in the amount authorised to be issued from the Central Fund by the Appropriation Act, 1935. The balance of the Supplementary Estimates, £925,793, is similarly provided for now in Section 1 of this Bill.

The total of the estimated expenditure on the Supply Services for 1936-37 is, as I explained to the House yesterday, £27,514,783, to which there has to be added £370,000 which, in due course, the House will be asked to authorise by way of an additional Supplementary Agricultural Grant. Of the £27,514,000 odd, £9,850,000 has already been voted on account and Section 2 of this Bill authorises the issue from the Central Fund of this amount. The balance will be covered in due course by the Appropriation Act, 1936. Section 3 of the Bill, in the usual form, empowers the Minister for Finance to borrow up to £10,775,000 odd, which is the sum of the amounts mentioned in Sections 1 and 2. It also provides that the Bank of Ireland may advance to the Minister any sum or sums not exceeding, in the whole, that amount.

General Mulcahy

The Minister yesterday parted with the important discussion that took place here with the statement that the Opposition did not want a settlement of the dispute with Great Britain, which is causing so much economic havoc to this country, because they realised that if this dispute were settled, their occupation would be gone. It is just as well that the Minister would understand that we all realise that these statements will inevitably and frequently come from him and from his associates, and I should like him to understand that just as inevitably and as frequently as they do, he will be told from these benches that they are quite appropriate, coming from a Minister, who, when he became the bearer of Ministerial responsibility here, thought it part of the necessary plan to improve conditions, to improve the atmosphere of this country and to develop its culture to characterise the leader of the Opposition as a Judas Iscariot, a Pitt and a Castlereagh. It comes quite appropriately from people who accepted parliamentary institutions here only when they had figured out mathematically that they could control them from the very day on which they entered them, who were disappointed and who from the day they did enter parliamentary institutions were as destructive in their policy of the economic, the national and social interests of this country as they were when they were outside.

Until the Minister can address himself in suitable terms to the national and economic questions of the day, and as long as he attempts to hide behind statements such as that which I complain about, he is going to be reminded of how suitable, both to their past and to their present, these utterances are. Yesterday he listed all the various sums to the extent of £6,700,000, the difference between the Estimates presented to the House to-day and the Estimates presented to the House at the beginning of 1931, and suggested that the difference between these two sets of Estimates represented, as it were, the difference between the efficiency, the Christianity and the modern spirit of the present Government as compared with the Government which they succeeded. He attempted to persuade the House that this £6,700,000, more than was expended in 1931-32, was being spent on wider and more kindly administered social services, and because of the Government's more fatherly, or, if you like, more motherly, interest in the development of agriculture and the building up of Irish industry. He said that this £6,700,000 of an addition was wanted, and wanted only, because of better social services, better development of agriculture and the development of industry.

Let us look at some of the items the Minister mentioned. A sum of £1,000,000, he indicated, covered work under the Land Commission—the improvement of estates and the contribution to the purchase price of lands now being purchased for the settlement of either the present tenants or other tenants on them. The amount needed for the reduction of the land annuities by one-half was given as £2,180,000, and the amount for bounties and subsidies as £349,065. Under the Department of Industry and Commerce for the development of the industrial alcohol business, for turf development and for mineral development generally, he gave us a figure of £230,146, these being all additional to the Agricultural Estimate. These items make a total of £3,759,211. There are three other items that I should like to mention, namely, old age pensions, unemployment assistance and relief. The increase in respect of these three items make a total of £1,632,636. The Minister remarked that the increase of £3,759,000 in the total of the items to which I first referred entirely applied to the agricultural industry. I submit to the Minister that three-fourths of the additional sum, representing the increases in old age pensions, in unemployment assistance and in relief, is also going to bolster up the present agricultural situation, so that out of the figures he mentioned yesterday, we find an increased expenditure of £4,959,000 going to agriculture. In our opinion, that is going to bolster up, in a miserable, incompetent and futile way, an important industry, the foundations of which are being destroyed and due from under the industry by the Ministry's policy.

It is important for the House to understand that all this additional money is being spent not on the development of agriculture, not on the satisfactory development of industry, not on better social services for those people who require, because of their circumstances, to be assisted by the State, but on a miserable attempt to bolster up the most important industry in the State which is being destroyed as a result of Government policy. The Minister claimed in his address to the House late last night that they are neither extravagant nor incompetent. He challenges all and sundry to say whether any of these additional items can be saved. The answer I give to him is that practically all these additional items could be saved if the Ministry, instead of destroying the agricultural industry, were to pursue a policy that would help it. Whatever industrial development, whatever social services, whatever fabric of commercial machinery we had in the country, they were all fed, built up and kept alive by the fact that our people made the best use of their agricultural resources, developed them, extended the industry, increased the profits of the industry and did it in their own intelligent way, guided by the experience of the people who went before them and their own intelligence applied to modern conditions. This Government, which boasts that it is going to spend £6,700,000 now, more than the previous Government was spending at the time the members of the present Government were complaining about expenditure, instead of creating conditions here that would enable the people to develop their resources and make a profit out of them, is doing nothing but interfering with the people, preventing people from pursuing their avocations and making a profit from their industry that is not only necessary to the well-being of agriculture, but necessary for the future well-being of every interest in the State.

Mr. Davin

Does that apply to housing?

General Mulcahy

It applies to every blessed thing in the country. If Deputy Davin thinks that the boards of health, the urban councils, or the Dublin Corporation can continue to spend on housing what they are expending on housing, while agriculture is being reduced to the position in which it is to-day, he is living entirely in a fool's paradise, and the people who trust him to guide them by his advice, or who trust him to assist them in fortnightly conferences with the Government, are going to be sadly let down.

Mr. Davin

You are sorry for your past.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!

General Mulcahy

I am very sorry that we have a condition of affairs here in which we are asked to face Estimates of £6,700,000 more than the Estimates put before us before the present Government came into office. Instead of that sum being applied to work that would show itself in the increased betterment of the people here, it is being poured down a sink that is the joint making of Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party.

Deputy Kissane is sometimes spoken of as a person who is almost of Ministerial rank or, at any rate, as a person worthy of Ministerial authority, such as a Parliamentary Secretary. We understand from the Estimates that the only difference in capacity between a Parliamentary Secretary and a Minister is that represented by a sum of £100 a year. We, for instance, pay within £100 a year of the salary paid to the Minister for Finance to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. Deputy Kissane was addressing himself to the position of agriculture recently and the conditions of unemployment. He reiterated the cry that is so often uttered as a Fianna Fáil achievement—that our population is increasing to-day at the rate of 20,000 persons a year, that there is unemployment as a result of that and that the only solution for that unemployment is a back-to-the-land policy. Whether we are to have a back-to-the-land policy or a policy of industrial development here, we cannot solve the unemployment problem and we cannot provide for our increasing population if we continue to squander our agricultural resources in the way in which they are being squandered. It is for that reason that I want to put in front of the Minister some facts that he himself must have and that his colleagues must have, so that he may address himself to them, and tell us in what way the £5,000,000 that I speak of is in any sense assisting agriculture to-day, giving promise of assisting it or any other industry to-morrow, or helping to assist the unemployed.

It has been pointed out before that the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government may be put briefly as replacing the production of live stock and live-stock products to some extent by the growing of cereals. I know it is difficult to see completely what is happening in this country by simply standing at our ports and observing what is happening there. To stand at our ports, however, gives us some idea of what is happening in the country; but what is actually happening in the country is infinitely worse than the situation as disclosed at the ports would indicate. The substitution of live stock and live-stock products by cereal growing is the Government's policy. They say:—

"We can cut down some of those products that we are producing in quantities above our own needs; we can cut down the export of these and the import of cereals."

Last year, to take the net figures for the export of live stock and live-stock products, our farmers lost £11,000,000. There was a fall, in other words, of £11,000,000 in the net exports of live stock and live-stock products. There was a fall in the net imports of cereals and feeding stuffs to the extent of £4,000,000. Let us assume that these cereals that went unimported to the extent of £4,000,000 were actually grown here by Irish farmers and that they got the profits from them. Even if that were so, looking at the situation only from the ports we see our farmers lost £7,000,000 last year as compared with the year 1931. If our farmers lost in exports £11,000,000 on live stock and live-stock products and if our ports were open to receive all the feeding-stuffs that could come in, no one would believe but that the feeding-stuffs that would be brought in would be infinitely lower than were coming in before the gigantic reduction took place in the exports of live stock and live-stock products.

"In most countries the primary producers still grow food for human consumption; in Czecho-Slovakia they are producing it to feed motor cars! In the hour of the greatest need the authorities remembered that sugar beet, potatoes, rye and maize-in fact, any vegetable material rich in starch or sugar—can be used to manufacture industrial alcohol. A cwt. of potatoes or sugar beet will yield an imperial gallon of alcohol, which, in turn, can be mixed with petrol in a proportion of 30 per cent. alcohol to 70 per cent. petrol. In Germany over 100,000 tons of home-produced alcohol is consumed in this way every year; is it so surprising therefore that the 650,000 Czecho-Slovkian farmers who are officially recorded to be growing sugar beet and potatoes in 1930 remembered this fact in their darkest hour for a generation, and, with corn, cattle, sugar, and most other products sinking to record low levels, exerted pressure to provide a new market for their products?

"The result was a victory for the peasants. To-day Czecho-Slovakia is the only European nation, apart from Latvia, in which the sale of petrol undiluted with alcohol is forbidden—and the price of that alcohol, as fixed by law, is 2/11 per imperial gallon. By this means large quantities of sugar beet and potatoes have been taken off the normal market and have at least yielded some profit to the producers. With petrol available in 1933 at less than 4d. per gallon (excluding duties) the victory for the peasants has been purchased at the expenses of the motorist and the national revenue, for less petrol imported means less in taxation. But with nearly 40 families out of every 100 engaged in producing the nation's harvest it is natural that the peasant should play a prominent rôle in influencing public opinion."

Of course, and no wonder. Last year we had to draw the attention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the fact that there was a substantial reduction in the consumption of some of the very necessaries of life. We found that hosiery, boots, shoes, soap and candles were being consumed in lesser quantities. That was what the 1933 census of production figures revealed. We have now the same figures for 1934 and we are still in the position that essential commodities such as boots and shoes, soap and candles and confectionery are still below the consumption point of 1931. It is for that reason that I ask the Minister for Finance to stop his hypocrisy as to what this money is wanted for. It is not to give better or more kindly administrative social services. I would ask the Minister to just ask the Labour Party in some of their fortnightly conferences with the Government what they think about the kindly administrative services? It is not given for the improvement of agriculture which, after three or four years of high subsidisation, is giving no more boot-making employment to-day than in 1931 and is giving less wages for the employment given. It is not helping industry, because the industries that have been hustled into existence by monopolies, subsidies and tariffs by the present Government are even to-day crying out that they see no future in front of them and I doubt if they have any future in front of them. As I have said, the Minister by this £5,000,000 additional expenditure is only putting taoibhíns on the soles of industry; he is only putting props to industry by the policy he is carrying out.

Mr. MacDermot

The expenditure which the Minister asks us to sanction may or may not be justified, but I am sorry that, at any rate, he does not reassure us by adopting a different tone when recommending it from the tone of triumph in which he spoke to us yesterday. If anybody in the Government has to represent the cause of economy, it must be the holder of the public purse. I should like him to pay the tribute of vice to virtue of pretending to be economical, even if in fact he is not. I do not know whether he is really quite as spendthrift in his outlook as he represents himself as being, or whether he has not come to the conclusion that the popular thing to do is to boast of expenditure. Possibly behind the scenes he is really not quite as prodigal as he appears to be on the surface. I think it would be a good thing for preserving the sort of balance there ought to be between the needs of the people and the needs of the public purse that the Minister for Finance, at any rate, of all the Ministers, should adopt a conservative tone in these annual speeches that he makes to us on the subject of expenditure.

The question whether we are over-spending or not is by no means an easy one. I will not pretend that it is. The present Ministers, before they came into power, spoke about the matter with very great confidence. I am not going through the tale that has been told thousands of times of the statements they made about our national expenditure before they took over the reins of office. But, on hearing Deputy Mulcahy just now committing himself to the proposition that if the economic war was settled some £6,000,000, I think he said, could be knocked off the present expenditure, I felt that he was being almost as rash, though not quite as specific, as the Fianna Fáil leaders were before they came into office; and that, if Deputy Cosgrave resumes the reins of Government once more, Deputy Mulcahy is running a very grave risk of having the sort of speeches made about that statement that Deputy McGilligan so often makes here about the statements of the Minister for Finance and others before they came into power.

As a matter of fact, I confess that I do not see much prospect of great reductions in our expenditure. The programme of the Fine Gael Party includes several points which will call for greatly increased expenditure. They are points of which I approve personally. For example, old age pensions at 65——

Mr. MacEntee

Sixty, I think.

Mr. MacDermot

No, 65—the raising of the school-leaving age, not to speak of the relief of agricultural land from rates. All these things will certainly put increased burdens on the Exchequer. I do not think it is reasonable to suppose that the savings which would accrue, as I am sure they would accrue, on the settlement of the so-called economic war, would be any more than sufficient to balance the extra expenditure that would be called for by these points in the programme of the Opposition themselves.

As I say, it is very difficult to judge whether a country is over-spending or not. I suppose if a country is over-spending the result ought to show itself every year in increasing difficulty in balancing the Budget. The Minister for Finance does have his difficulties in balancing the Budget, and it has on more than one occasion been very questionable whether he really has balanced the Budget. But, at any rate, there has not been any such grave disproportion between revenue and expenditure in this country as there has been in many other countries, and as there still is in many other countries. Another sign of over-spending by the State is an increase in unemployment. It is very difficult to tell here whether unemployment is increasing or not, because a proper system of figures for the unemployed did not exist and exact comparisons are really impossible. It is plain that there is a great deal of unemployment; but it is very hard to say whether unemployment is increasing or not. Then there is the question of wages. If a country is being overtaxed, you expect the result to be that the taxpayers are unable to give such good wages as they used to be able to. But there again, outside agriculture, it is not easy to prove, and I doubt if it is possible to prove, that the state of wages in this country is such as to give indications that the Government is over-spending.

However, if we are not over-spending, if these Votes that the Minister invites us to make are within our means, there are certain consequences that inevitably follow. One is that which was alluded to yesterday by Deputy Dillon, and which has been alluded to by several of us last year and the year before, and, I think, the year before that— the ratio of 1 to 66 as a ratio between our means and those of Great Britain must be all wrong, because nobody would suggest that Great Britain could bear an annual expenditure at the present moment of over £2,000,000,000. Another consequence that follows is that the claim, to which once again the President alluded last week, that Great Britain owes us a bill of £300,000,000 or £400,000,000 for over-taxation is all wrong. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding about this question of our having been overtaxed during the 19th century by Great Britain. I imagine that nine people out of ten who say that we were overtaxed are under the impression that it has been proved that during that period £300,000,000 or £400,000,000 more was extracted in taxation from this country than was spent in this country. This is not the case, and nobody who examined the facts has pretended it was the case. It is not what the Financial Relations Commission decided at all. They were given an inquiry to carry out of a limited scope. They were asked to decide what the taxable capacity of the two countries was and to say, on the basis of that taxable capacity, whether or not we had been taxed too much during the period since the Union. If you actually compare what was spent in the country with what was taken out of the country you get a very different result indeed. Certainly, for the 20 years or so before the European War there is little doubt that Great Britain was spending considerably more in this country than she was extracting from it by taxation, and that even before that time the extra amount, over what was spent locally, was no more, and probably much less, than Ireland would have been committed to if she had control of her own defence, she being an entirely independent country.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is not that a matter of rather ancient history in relation to this?

Mr. MacDermot

I have done with the subject now, Sir. I admit that it is ancient history in a sense, but unfortunately it is contemporary in relation to the main problem that threatens the financial structure of this State, because it is one of the matters that are impeding the President from settling our financial relations with Great Britain in a rational manner. In any case, Sir, I pass from it. I insist, however, that it is quite clear that, if we are not being taxed beyond our capacity now, the case that we were being taxed beyond our capacity in the 19th century is so weak as to be non-existent.

Now, the amount of comfort or prosperity that can be distributed through the country by means of Government expenditure is trivial compared with the amount of the benefits that can be distributed through the country by flourishing industries. Accordingly, the main thing to be considered is whether or not the general financial policy of this State is favourable to the development of our industries, including, of course, our main industry, agriculture, on sound lines. I suggest that there is really much less difference of opinion on these subjects between the different Parties than may appear at first sight. People continue to talk as if there were two entirely different philosophies still held by the Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael Parties on Irish economics. I do not think there are. I think that they were different a few years ago, but I do not think they are different now. I do not think there is any part of the Government's economic policy to which the official Opposition are radically opposed, apart from the dispute with Great Britain. They may consider—in fact they do consider—that the Government over-rate the importance of such matters as wheat and beet, but the Opposition themselves, if they came into power, are pledged to continue those wheat and beet schemes. Therefore, there is no great difference between the two Parties—there is only a difference in emphasis—as far as these schemes are concerned. There used to be a great difference on the subject of our cattle and the British market. The Fianna Fáil partisans used to talk as if there was something immoral and unpartiotic about the rearing of live stock, and also used to preach the doctrine that the British market was done for and was becoming less valuable as every year went by. Now, however, only the most out-of-date Fianna Fáil speakers, such as, perhaps, Deputy O'Reilly, who spoke here last night, say so any longer. They not only have to admit in words, but to admit much more eloquently by their actions, that the British market and our live stock trade are of the utmost value to this country. The fact that the British themselves have adopted a policy of agricultural protection, so far from detracting from the value of the British market to us, is, on the contrary, calculated to enhance it. The Fianna Fáil supporters themselves have to admit that. All sorts of schemes and regulations have come in, and have come in to stay, in connection with that policy of agricultural protection for the British farmer. The market for agricultural products in Great Britain is being every day more scientifically organised so as to secure that good prices shall be obtained by British farmers for their products, and, consequently, by Irish farmers too, assuming that we conduct our business with any common sense.

Mr. Moore

Such, for instance, as butter?

Mr. MacDermot

There may be failures and exceptions here and there. No doubt there are. The business of revolutionising the position of British agriculture is a long business, but it has been undertaken. For the first time in a very great number of years, there is a determination in Great Britain to see that the farmer there gets a fair deal—and a fair deal for the British farmer means, inevitably, a fair deal for the Irish farmer also, unless, of course, we are engaged in the sort of economic strife in which, in fact, we are engaged. The condition of English agriculture has often been described as deplorable, and so it may be still as compared with the position of other British industries. The fact remains, however, that I do not think there is any agricultural labourer throughout England getting a wage of less than 35/- per week, and that the average weekly wage of agricultural labourers in this country is, I suppose, certainly not more than half the rate of wages of the agricultural labourer in England. That is an indication—whatever may be said with regard to the state of British agriculture—that we have a long way to go to catch up with conditions there and to be in as good a state, from the point of view of the agricultural industry, as the British are.

As I say, it does not appear to me that there are fundamental differences of philosophy between the Fianna Fáil and United Ireland Parties on the subject of these agricultural matters; nor, I think, are there such differences with regard to the policy of industrial development. There, again, the difference is only one of emphasis. The Government, of course, indulges in a much louder flourish of trumpets about the benefits of the work of the Minister for Industry and Commerce than the Opposition would be inclined to do; but I do not think that any Deputy in this House is against the policy of developing Irish industry, and I think that, probably, there is not a Deputy in this House who does not, in his heart of hearts, admire the extraordinary energy and determination with which the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in spite of much discouragement, has, in fact, built up a very respectable volume of new industrial production in this country. Certainly, I admire him for it and I take off my hat to him for it. However, neither the industries he has started nor any other industries in this country can be put permanently in a flourishing condition, or felt to be on a sound basis, unless we see that the buying power of the community as a whole is being maintained and is likely to be maintained and to improve. So, we come right back to agriculture and to the question of the extent to which agriculture is being hurt by the policy of the present Government in relation to Great Britain. I do not think that anyone on either side of the House would deny that agriculture is being hurt, although, naturally, the Opposition would say that it is being hurt much more than the Government would admit. I, Personally, think that it is being hurt much more than the Government will admit. The Government are fond of saying that the Opposition do not want a settlement with Great Britain, and the Opposition are equally fond of saying that the Government do not want a settlement with Great Britain. Personally, I believe that both Parties want a settlement, but the Opposition are not in a position to do anything about it. The responsibility of making a settlement is in the hands of the Government. After all, what can the Opposition do? The Government have talked vaguely about the duty of everybody to fall in behind them in regard to this dispute, but, as far as I can make out, that means that the men who made what they regarded as an honourable agreement with Great Britain a few years ago should now come forward and say that that agreement is invalid. Well, now, surely it is not reasonable to ask anything of the kind, even if Ministers believed that the Opposition had a doubt about the validity of that agreement, and I do not think that they have a doubt about the validity of it. I am quite sure that they thoroughly believe in the validity of that agreement, and that they would be guilty of an act of dishonesty and weakness if they were induced now to repudiate that agreement and to declare that it was invalid.

I think the Deputies not belonging to the Government Party have quite frequently shown their desire to co-operate, so far as they could co-operate in a practical manner, towards a settlement. I do not know of anything in the history of the official Opposition, unless it be their vote against the trade agreement the other day which I, personally, think was a very mistaken vote, that could be reasonably argued to be a proof of their not desiring a settlement. I believe the Government also desire a settlement, but unfortunately they desire it in far too remote and academic a manner. It is no practical use desiring an end unless you desire the means to that end, too. I am convinced that the Government have not, up to the present, made an earnest attempt at a settlement. I do not think that the British Government either have made as earnest an attempt at a settlement as they should have, but I am convinced that our own Government have not done so. Every time that I hear the President speak, including his speech in the Dáil last week, I am more convinced that proper steps have not been taken towards obtaining a settlement.

As has been said over and over again there are only two ways to go about it: one is by having the matters in dispute adjudged by a tribunal, the other is by negotiating, by meeting face to face, and arriving at some compromise. I see no likelihood of the Irish Government ever convincing the English Government that it is right to treat the Cosgrave financial agreement as a scrap of paper. I see no likelihood of the British Government ever convincing this Irish Government that it is right to treat the Cosgrave financial agreement as being perfectly valid. If the positions of the two Governments were reversed, I think it is perfectly possible that their opinions would be reversed.

Supposing it was the British who had agreed to pay us such and such a sum per annum under an agreement which we had no desire to keep secret, and which we had pressed them to publish: under an agreement which at the time seemed fair to all parties, under an agreement which introduced no startling novelty, but continued the payment of sums that had always been paid before: supposing then that our Government having, as I say, come to such an agreement as that, and having received for a number of years moneys from Great Britain on the basis of that agreement, and suppose in two British general elections, just as happened in this country, the Government that made this agreement with us was returned to power, even though the British people knew that the money was being paid over to us; and then supposing some future British Government came into office and repudiated the whole agreement and said it was waste paper just because the British Government had neglected to get a formal endorsement by Parliament—I suggest that President de Valera and everyone of his colleagues would be making Europe ring with denunciations of the perfidy of Albion in ceasing to carry out the agreement that had been come to. On the other hand, I do think that for anyone who lets his mind run back over Irish history it is very difficult to reconcile oneself to paying the British anything that one can honourably help paying. I quite admit that. I also admit that the conduct of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in not getting the formal endorsement of the Oireachtas, even though it did in effect disclose that agreement—the country knew what was being done whether it knew the terms of the actual agreement itself or not—and even refusing the request of the British that it should be published was amazingly foolish and I have never yet heard any intelligible explanation of it.

Consequently, I can understand the point of view of our own Government about this matter, and as I said a few minutes ago, I cannot quite see our own Government ever being brought to adopt in toto the British point of view, nor can I see the British ever being brought to adopt in toto the Irish point of view. What is to be done about it? Only two things can be done. One, a tribunal to judge, and the other, compromise. I think it makes it plainer to say compromise, because negotiations can come to nothing unless both sides are prepared to compromise. Now, as regards the tribunal, the President certainly has not done all that might have been done to get a fair tribunal. He says that, on the ground of principle, he cannot accept a Commonwealth tribunal. I wonder why? Why is it that principle comes in just about that matter when there are so many other matters that it does not come in about. Principle does not prevent us from accepting every possible advantage that the British Empire has to offer us; it does not prevent us from accepting and granting, of course, Imperial preferences; it does not prevent us from allowing our young people to accept positions in British Government services of all kinds; it does not even prevent us from allowing recruiting to go on for the army and navy here; it does not prevent us from allowing our goods to be exhibited at the present moment at Olympia under the title of British industries at the British Industries Fair. In all these matters our principles seem to be lamentably weak, but principle comes out very strong just over this matter of a Commonwealth tribunal. Personally, I think that in order to adopt this very high line about principle, the Government should have walked out of the Commonwealth. If the Government had declared a republic here, they would have been in a perfectly good position to say that principle made it impossible for them to accept a Commonwealth tribunal, but they did not do that. They have no intention of doing it, in my opinion, and it is very sensible of them. But, while they are prepared to accept whatever advantages may flow from the British connection, it seems to me to be a little inconsistent that they should erect this point of the Commonwealth tribunal into a matter of such fundamental principle, because nobody will persuade me, or I think will persuade any Deputy in the House who considers the question for a moment, that it is on the point of fairness that a Commonwealth tribunal is rejected. So far as fairness goes, there is not the slightest doubt that we could refuse to start proceedings until we had got a tribunal so composed that we were satisfied it would give a fair decision. I have not the slightest doubt that if representatives from Ireland and representatives from Great Britain got together and looked around to select a chairman, they could easily find one from within the Commonwealth.

Mr. Jordan

What I am trying to say is that the President told us that he offered arbitration, but he never told us what the arbitration was to be about. It would be interesting, and might help towards a settlement, if one knew just what it was he was prepared to arbitrate about. If the subject of arbitration is only to be, whether the annuities were legally due before Deputy Cosgrave's agreement was made, then we have to realise that the fence of Deputy Cosgrave's agreement has still to be got over. Perhaps that fence can be got over by compromise. I am not clear that that matter could be judged by a tribunal, or whether there is any code of law available to a tribunal to decide whether such an agreement is legal or not. As a matter of fact, international custom we know has treated secret agreements as valid quite frequently.

There are a lot of difficulties in connection with arbitration, though I believe that with earnestness they could be overcome, and arbitration brought about. But I would rather see a frank effort at compromise. When one has said that, one has really said enough in the way of complying with requests constantly made by the Government to suggest a solution. The Government say that everyone who criticises the economic war is calling upon them to surrender, and any such person is asked to state on what terms he would settle. That seems to me to be unreasonable and unfair. One would naturally settle on the best terms one could get, if one has made up one's mind that compromise is desirable. The thing to do is to go into a conference and start bargaining, just as at the sale of a heifer or any other commercial transaction, to see what is the most you can get the other party to concede, and what is the least distance you have to go.

The case for compromise is overwhelming. It is overwhelming from one point of view, because in actual fact these sums of money are being collected by means of tariffs, whether we like it or not. Any compromise on the basis that we have to pay half instead of the whole amount, for instance, would be a gain, especially as the President admitted that we are paying the full amount in a more injurious form than in the old days. I think from the British point of view, also, a compromise is desirable, because it does serious damage to their prestige all over the world that this conflict with us is going on. They have dozens of good reasons for wishing to be on good terms with us, and I believe-and I am not a bit ashamed to say it-that the British, as compared with most nations, are a generous nation, and that their natural inclination would be to deal fairly and even generously with us financially, if only the right atmosphere could be created.

The desirability, too, of segregating this financial question from the constitutional question seems to me to be obvious, because any constitutional settlement that had a financial taint about it, and that gave people an opportunity of saying that we were selling Ireland's rights for money, any such arrangement would be open to attack, and would eventually lead to bad relations again between the two countries. Of course, economic considerations cannot be disregarded when we come to consider our constitutional relationship with Great Britain, because to become a separate republic would certainly mean grave economic misfortune. It would seriously complicate our employment problem by shutting avenues of employment that are open to our young people, and it would, no doubt, greatly interfere with our getting the favourable treatment in the British market for our farmers that is accorded to Great Britain's own farmers. Penal tariffs might be removed by financial adjustment, but we would still have to face other economic difficulties, if we took the constitutional step of separating ourselves from the Commonwealth and repudiating our allegiance to the King. But, for the moment, what we are concerned with is this financial dispute.

I conclude by pressing on the Government with all the earnestness I can, the point that, up to the present, the sort of attempt to settle that one would expect to see made by men who meant business has not been made, that the two opposing sides have climbed to the mountain tops of principle and have stayed there enunciating grand phrases about national rights instead of coming down to earth and getting to business. Business in this matter means compromise, and without the spirit of compromise nothing can be done. With the spirit of compromise, I believe everything can be done.

Minister for Defence (Mr. Aiken)

Deputy MacDermot is still very young. I should like to believe that all he has stated here to-day was true, but we know from experience that his deductions and assumptions are based on altogether wrong foundations. This nation has never found the British Government generous. Never at any time were the British Government prepared to admit that we here had ordinary, human rights. They looked upon this nation as a convenience for themselves. We had to do not what we wanted to do or what was good for our people but what suited the British and what they wanted us to do. I should be prepared to compromise with the British. I would compromise with them on the basis that I would not sue them for the wrongs they did in the past—and to that extent only. I should make jolly sure that they were not going to commit wrongs in the present or in the future. We have got to see once and for all that this nation is not going to be the servant or the slave of the British Government's will. If we once compromised on this matter by admitting that the British had any right to control our actions we should be doing a thing for which future generations would curse us.

Mr. MacDermot

How are the British doing that?

Mr. Aiken

Mr. O'Leary

It is your job to deal with it now.

Mr. Aiken

Not a single Deputy on the opposite side will say that, if there were a financial settlement on a just basis between this country and Britain, we should pay them £5,000,000 a year.

I welcome the comparative figures given as to what is provided for social services compared with those of the previous Government, in the year 1931-1932. I cannot understand-and I believe no sensible man could understand-the attitude adopted by Deputy Mulcahy in this House, and the almost passionate language he uses in telling us that this additional £6,000,000 is being poured into a sink. He said that this £6,000,000, which is being raised over that of the financial year 1931-1932, is being poured down a sink. Would Deputy OLeary say, or would anyone who knows anything about dairy farming say, that the £750,000 provided for subsidies and bounties to dairy farmers is being poured down a sink?

Mr. O'Leary

Will the Deputy tell us how it is to be distributed?

Mr. Davin

I shall not give way to the Deputy. He will have his own opportunity of answering my question. I assert in the most positive way-and I have some knowledge of the dairy farming business both from my service on the committee that deals with these matters, and, also, as the son of a dairy farmer, and associated with dairy farmers all my life—that every penny of that money is going into the pockets of the dairy farmers, and were it not that that sum has to be taken into consideration in connection with the price of butter, the price of milk to dairy farmers to-day would be only 2½d. per gallon. Let us have some answer from Deputy O'Leary when he comes to speak as to whether that £750,000 is being poured into a sink. Would any Deputy, would even Deputy Mulcahy, who, I suppose, has left the House in order to attend the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis, assert in an honest way that the £736,000 to be provided or which may be granted to public authorities and private individuals for the construction of houses, is being poured into a sink? That sum and sums previously provided have helped already in the erection of 42,000 houses for the people of this country. Probably 50,000 will be erected through the agency of these grants in the coming year and through facilities of this kind. Would they assert that the 40,000 or 50,000 people who got the benefit of these grants to provide themselves with decent houses, are going to add to the number of alleged Communists in the country at the present time? Is that the opinion of Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy O'Sullivan and other people with elastic consciences of that kind? Was that their policy when they gave these grants in the past? Would Deputy Roddy assert that the £606,000 provided for the improvement of estates was devoted to better and more effective work in his régime than at present? Would he suggest that that money is now all going down the drain pipe that Deputy Mulcahy talks about? That £606,000 has found work and wages, and assistance for thousands of people who otherwise would have no work in the areas where it is being spent. I want a straight answer from Deputy O'Leary, and I am sure that all the Deputies in Dublin will come in to hear him giving his views on where the £750,000 provided for the dairy farmers is going. It is a subject on which he can talk with some authority, and it is about time that he gave his honest opinion on a matter he knows something about. The same applies to Deputy Roddy in respect of the £606,000 provided for the improvement of estates.

We support this Government because we know that they are providing these additional sums for social services never provided hitherto, and if, through the mistaken judgment of the people, the present Opposition came back to office they would probably wipe out all these social services which were not provided in their time. They are, of course, telling the people now that they would adopt the policy of the Fianna Fáil party, but if it is only a question of the difference between the individuals who are to administer the same policy, I prefer to continue to support the people who have made it possible for these social services to be initiated rather than other individuals who did nothing when they had the opportunity. The only complaint I make with regard to these additional social services-and it is a complaint which I hope the Minister will deal with-is that the moneys provided annually are not being spent within the year for which they are provided. The Minister can give some information regarding the extent to which money will go back to the Exchequer under these various subheads at the end of the present financial year.

We on these benches know that, in accordance with the public promise given by President de Valera in 1933, a sum of £250,000 was provided in the 1934-5 Estimates for widows' and orphans' pensions. Not one penny of that very large sum found its way into the pockets of the widows and orphans of this State, simply because the Government did not implement the legislation and bring it into operation in time to enable the money to find its way into the pockets of the proper people. I also know that in previous years a large percentage of the sum allocated for the improvement of estates went back into the Exchequer at the end of the financial year. We also know that the manner in which the present widows' and orphans' pension scheme is being administered will make it utterly impossible for the sum allocated in the present year to go into the pockets of the proper people. The Ministers for Finance and Local Government are responsible for that.

I ask the Minister for Finance-and it is a matter of policy-to state quite frankly was it the intention of his colleagues in the Cabinet and of the members of the Party, when passing the Act, to provide weekly payments which would be lower than the amounts previously given to necessitous widows and orphans by the local authorities. I am assured by the General SEcretary of my own Party that there are hundreds of cases throughout the country, and I know several cases in my own constituency where pensions have been granted to widows and orphans which are much below the amount previously paid by the local assistance authority. I want to know definitely if that was the intention of the Government and, if so, how it was that this sum of £250,000 is provided when it is well known that it is not likely to be spent if that is the clear-cut policy of the Government.

Under the heading of "Army Pensions for Able-bodied Persons" we find that 3,254 persons are receiving service pensions amounting to £154,960 per annum, under the terms of the 1924 Act. Under the 1924 Act there are, I believe, applications to the number of 50,000 odd persons, and we find that up to the present only 490 persons have been granted pensions, amounting to £25,985. Under the 1934 Act we have, under the title of "Probable Additional Charges," the extraordinary sum of £286,260 included in the Estimates for the present year. I want to know, and before I vote on this matter I am entitled to know, how many service pensions that sum represents, or is it put there as a round figure as the £250,000 was set out as the provision for widows' and orphans' pensions in the last financial year, and none of the money paid out. We all know, and the Minister better than anybody else, that this Government, not alone publicly pledged itself to refuse to pay pensions to able-bodied persons, but pledged itself to repeal the 1924 Act which made provision for that purpose to the number of 3,254 persons. The members of this Party have some responsibility for persuading the Government to change their point of view on that question, with the result that the 1934 Service Pensions Act was passed, and, having some responsibility in that respect, we are entitled to know what this figure of £286,260 represents, and how many pensions it covers provided that it is intended to be paid out during the present financial year.

I do not want to see that figure in the Estimates, and the taxpayers asked to find that sum by way of direct taxation, if the money is not going to be paid out, particularly when the Government are reducing the provision for unemployment assistance allowance by that £110,000. They intend, I pre-sum, to cut the unemployment assistance allowance by that £110,000, but I want to know if they honestly intend to pay out that sum of £286,000 odd during the coming financial year, and, if so, how many persons will be covered by that payment. I hope the Minister will not forget that point, and that he will make his position a little clearer than it appears to be from the Estimate.

All right, then. This is notice of my future intention to ask the Minister to reply to that question if he can do so. I admit, and nobody can deny it, that this policy of tariffs, bounties, subsidies and guaranteed loans to farmers and industrialists, has had the effect, particularly in cases where high tariffs have been given to certain industrialists, of putting up the cost of living in this country to a figure for which there is no justification. The members of this Party have, on innumerable occasions, drawn the attention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and other Ministers to the high prices charged to the community for flour, bread and other necessaries of life. It appears to me that the commission called the Prices Commission has not taken, and is not taking, any effective steps whatever to control prices or to keep them within reasonable limits, so far as the population of the country is concerned. If this Prices Commission is a failure, then cut it out altogether and save the money which can be saved by abolishing that body, that is if the Minister cannot hold out some hope that it will do more effective work in the future than it has done up to the present.

I read with interest a statement made by the Chairman of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade at a recent function at which the Minister for Industry and Commerce was entertained, in which he alleged-and the Minister agreed -that certain classes of articles which were being turned out by some of our new industries were of a bad type, of an inferior quality, and that the price charged in some cases was unnecessarily high. There is no use in the Minister for Industry and Commerce making these admissions at a function of that kind, or here in this House, if he is not prepared to take the most effective steps to deal with the people who are fleecing the community and who, at the same time, are getting assistance by way of bounties and subsidies from the taxpayers of the country as a whole. Some steps should be taken——

An Ceann Comhairle

By the Minister for Industry and Commerce?

Mr. Davin

——by the Minister for Finance who pays the salaries of the members of the Prices Commission, to compel them to take more effective measures in the future than in the past.

Mr. MacEntee

Surely the Deputy by a side wind cannot make the Minister for Finance responsible for the administration of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce?

The Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, nearly eighteen months ago, made representations to the Government on this matter and implored the Minister for Agriculture and his colleagues to take such steps as would prevent the continuance of this reduction in the wages of agricultural workers. We also put forward a proposal for the establishment of an Agricultural Wages Board, which would have power to fix district minimum rates of wages for agricultural labourers. The Government have not taken effective steps to deal with that proposal; they have neither accepted nor rejected it. That is why the Labour Party have a motion on the Order Paper for the purpose of asking the House to compel the Minister for Agriculture, the Government, to set up an Agricultural Wages Board. I hope that Deputy Belton will give that motion his approval.

Mr. Belton

Sure, if the Labour Party do their duty-they have failed to do it so far.

Mr. Davin

I await with interest the action that Deputy Belton will take on that particular motion. I am prepared to admit that Deputy Belton has always paid his agricultural labourers at a reasonable rate.

Mr. J.M. Burke

Read the Independent to-morrow.

Mr. Davin

I am afraid I will have to get someone to translate the remarks of our friend. I am sure he realises the unfortunate position in which he is placed, sitting behind Deputy Mulcahy, who made the remarkable statement that the £6,000,000 provided in these Estimates over and above what was provided in 1931-32 are merely being poured down a sink. I suppose he has now gone to the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis for the purpose of driving that silly statement into the heads of the foolish people who are probably there listening to him at this moment.

Professor O'Sullivan

I hope the Minister for Finance will realise that he has got a friendly warning from Deputy Davin. I am reminded by a colleague that it was a very friendly warning, but I am afraid the Minister will treat it in the way in which, apparently, as I gather from Deputy Davin's speech, he has treated all the other friendly warnings he has got from the Labour Party. A very useful contribution to the settlement of the question of the wages of the agricultural labourers, that very friendly warning coming from Deputy Davin, perhaps much more friendly than it was a warning!

Deputy Davin pointed out the amount the farmers were getting. He also made reference to their losses. He did that en passant. It was a little thing that could not altogether be ignored. He did admit there was some counter-balance—I think that is the phrase he used—that there was a setoff to what they received in what the farmers were compelled to lose. He pointed out that in recent years the wages of the agricultural labourers have gone down. He did not try to find the underlying cause of that decline. He did not explain how it was that his Party, in the last three or four years, have been entirely unable to cope with the problem of the wages of the agricultural labourers. They have been able to make no advance to secure any improvement in those wages. Neither they nor their allies, the Fianna Fáil Party, have made any advance in that direction. As a result of the mighty efforts of his Party and the Fianna Fáil Party, the wages of the agricultural labourers have gone down. That is what Deputy Davin has to show this House as a result of the activities of the Fianna Fáil Party, of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party, which the Labour Party so heartily supports on every occasion. They continue to support Fianna Fáil despite the very friendly warnings given now and then which, I have not the slightest doubt, the Minister for Finance by this time knows exactly how to treat.

Deputy MacDermot, in the course of his speech, expressed some doubt as to whether the amount raised by way of taxation this year to meet the services the Government have imposed on the country is not too much for the country to bear. He pointed out how various Parties had learned a lot since they came to this House. Apparently Deputy MacDermot has also learned something. He used to say—I hope he will correct me if I am wrong—that the burden of taxation, especially in so far as it has to be borne by the agricultural community, was one of the great evils from which this country was suffering. But, leaving aside the question of the absolute amount of taxation, whether it is the £27,000,000 confessed to, plus the £5,000,000 confessed to by the Minister for Finance, or whether several more millions will not have to be added to that in the way of concealed taxation and concealed services —concealed, I mean, so far as the general annual statements are concerned—there are the £2,000,000 that we are withholding from Great Britain, in addition to the annuities. Those £2,000,000 were on the Estimates in 1931. They are no longer on the Estimates, but the people of this country are being taxed in order to raise that £2,000,000. They are being taxed according to the bargain to which the Government have agreed. They are being taxed by Great Britain so far as that is concerned.

I gather from Deputy MacDermot here to-day that he was convinced that the Government had changed their views on the cattle industry. I have tried in vain to find out what are their views on the cattle industry. We have tried again and again to elicit any definite line from the Government as to what their policy was. For six months it is one thing and for the other six months it is another thing. A person would imagine, from the concluding of the coal-cattle pact, that they were beginning to open their eyes to the unwisdom of their economic policy, but then we see the bounty for calf skins still apparently the policy of the Government. We see the Government bidding high prices for bulls and live stock, for what? In order, apparently, to enable the Government to spend their bounty upon calf skins. How else can they spend it?

I have dealt, both to-day and yesterday, with the position that the Government, either wilfully or otherwise, set themselves out to arrive at, and that is the destruction of a certain type of economy in this country. Whether that meant the destruction of a class apparently did not matter. It is sometimes extremely difficult not to believe that in aiming at the destruction of the established agricultural economy in this country the Government were not also aiming at the destruction of the particular class who were responsible for the carrying on of that particular economy. Certainly, if they wanted to destroy that class they could not have acted in a more efficient manner than they have done. Now, when they see the people at last awakening to some consciousness of the injuries inflicted on the country, we have an effort on their part, I will not say to go back, they never do things, as I said, wholly or fully but half, to draw back and we had the coal-cattle pact. Whether or not, as I say, they set out to destroy the class of independent farmer, and by that I simply mean the man who can exist without Government subsidy of one kind or another, who can exist on the produce of his farm and of his work, certainly their policy had the effect of largely wiping that class out of existence.

I find it hard to believe that something of that kind was not in their minds when we see the particular way and the particular manner in which they are pushing the division of lands. We had the case in County Wexford. That was not a case of the division of ranches. It was a case in which nine farmers were given notice that their land would be acquired by the Land Commission and the biggest of these farms was 90 statute acres. In a county well known for its tillage, the owner of that particular farm tills more than the average. He employed five men and two women permanently— and that is the farm the Government proposed to take over! What conclusion can anybody draw from that, except that it is the settled policy of the Government to do away with any farmer who gives employment? There were nine farms altogether, and the biggest was 90 statute acres. Seven of them, I am told, were in a good condition, even for County Wexford, from the tillage point of view, and the smallest was 15 acres.

I had occasion a couple of years ago to call attention to what I thought were the unwise, thoughtless speeches of some members of the opposite Party that seemed to be cutting at the root of a certain kind of proprietorship in this country; that seemed to regard the employment of workers almost as a crime; that in this House denounced large employers as if they were people who did not give employment but were grinding the faces of the labourer and the poor. A lot of that kind of talk is finished, but some 12 months ago I heard it on reliable authority, although the speeches were no longer of the same fiery character, that action was going to be taken in connection with farms of this kind. The speeches are more moderate but the conduct is less moderate. When I mentioned this Wexford business, it was not so much for what it is in itself as for what it portends for this country and for the evidence that it offers to us of what must be the considered policy of this particular Government; and I think that it is well that the farming community of the country should realise that, just as well as they have been made to realise what are the consequences of other aspects of the Government's so-called agricultural policy.

It is not alone that particular class of the community that suffers. In a modernly organised community, if you hit at one class—especially at a class so basic as the agricultural community of this country—you must hit at all classes, such as the ordinary workers in the country towns. It is folly to think that you will not hit them. It is folly to think that you could hit one class and at the same time benefit another class. Possibly you can do it for a year or two, but not for very long. As a result of this policy of the Government, the people in the country towns are being damaged, and they are also being damaged by the development of modern means of transport, such as buses. That being the case, surely it should be the policy of the Government to see that their measures did not further damage the situation of these people; but yet we have various proposals that only have the still further effect of damaging the country towns, such as the proposal to do away with pig markets.

Barring the appeal to the national instinct and the exploitation and abuse of it by members of the Government, the great plank of their policy was to provide employment. Deputy Mulcahy to-day gave figures which throw a considerable light, after three and a half years, on that aspect of the Government's policy. Out of the famous 85,000 additional that were to be put into immediate employment, according to the promises of the Government, how many do they claim to have put into employment? I am not asking how many they have put into employment. I am merely asking what is their claim, and does the country think that that is a sufficient return for the increased expenditure to which the Ministry stands committed to-day? They give money in relief. What does most of the boasted expenditure of the Government amount to, except in relief in one or another form? Has there been any really effective attempt to deal permanently with this problem of production and employment? Why, the very boasts of the Minister yesterday are an argument to the contrary; and Deputy Mulcahy, in striking language, drew attention to that. The Labour Deputy, who was present, apparently even did not know what he was talking about. If you take away the numbers engaged in the housing industry—a very necessary undertaking, as I say, but certainly not economically productive in the ordinary sense—what inroad have you made in that 85,000? No wonder the people are flying the country! It is a sad commentary on the whole policy of Fianna Fáil.

Deputy Davin had a mild word or two to say in reference to labour conditions in the new industries that have been set up. He had to call attention to that matter, and he did call attention to it, despite the efforts of the Minister to prevent him doing so. He called attention to the increased cost of living involved in the policy of the Government; but when speaker after speaker stood up from these benches here and pointed out that the policy of the Government meant increased prices, did we get any support at the time from Deputy Davin or his colleagues? Did they not blindly accept the word of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the effect that the higher was the tariff the lower was the price? Now, the Labour Party, because they do apparently come in touch with labourers occasionally, acknowledge that one of the deplorable results, or at least one of the regrettable results, of the Ministerial policy is the increase in the cost of living; and I have no doubt that a friendly, a very friendly, warning will go forth from that Party to the Government.

Whether the policy of the Minister for Industry and Commerce is a good or a bad policy, or whether he has not run a sound idea to death, may be debatable, but at least the Minister can claim that his policy is not getting a chance: that whether his policy of going all out for industries in this country, and putting up every kind of industry in this country, is sound or not, it cannot be tested as a result of the wretched policy of the Government with regard to agricultural matters. How can any Minister who believes in his policy, when he is faced, perhaps in a couple of years, with the failure of these industries, believe that his policy is unsound, when he knows that one of the causes of the failure of these industries is the decreased purchasing power of the community?

Our attitude on a settlement has been clear all along. Whenever there was any question of the Government negotiating with the British Government in this matter we tried to help them all we could. Again and again we have stated that this country is not able to pay the sums of money it was able to pay some years ago. Again and again we stated that, just as there had been readjustments of the financial relations between other countries, so there must be a readjustment of the financial settlement between this country and Great Britain. We gave every help. Even the President himself acknowledged that the speech of the Leader of our Party, on one of the historic occasions on which he tried to settle this matter, was helpful. Of course it was helpful. It was helpful because it was meant to be so. The Minister stands up and glibly says—I wonder whether it is worth while paying attention to some of his statements—that the Opposition do not want a settlement. He says, in effect, that if there were a settlement it would mean the end of our Party. Well, then, let him make the settlement and put an end to our Party, if he thinks that that would be the effect of such a settlement. Let him make the settlement. But no, he will not make it. He will not be let make it. I say that there is every evidence, from the conduct of certain Ministers, that they would make a settlement if they were let, but they will not be let make a settlement. The policy is that industry and agriculture and finance can go to ruin, but that the one thing that must go on is the war.

We were told last night by the Minister for Finance that the Government are anxious to settle this question, that every member of the Government is anxious to settle it. What we should like is not a statement of that kind from the Minister, but some tangible evidence of an effort to honour that particular statement, and some real approach to a settlement by the Government. We want now what we have always wanted from the Government, not words, but deeds. We all know perfectly well that on one occasion when there were great hopes of a settlement of this dispute, when the President himself and others undertook it, when there was hope that after the previous failure the two parties might be nearer to each other than they were before, we found that they were much further apart as a result of new claims put in by the President. Yet, we are told that the man who is capable of conducting negotiations in that way—the Minister, when speaking last night, was speaking for every member of the Government and, therefore, I presume, for the President—and the Government are still anxious for a settlement. All that I can say is that if that Party and that Government are anxious for a settlement, then there is not the slightest doubt that they are as inefficient in diplomacy as they are in everything else.

I referred last night to the fact that there was only one really thriving industry in the country, namely, the Civil Service. I do not wish to say a word against the hard work performed by civil servants. Members of the Opposition who have had experience of Government know the very hard work they do, but the Civil Service, I say, is the principal industry that the Government has promoted. The reason is that they have advanced step by step since 1932 in the direction of more and more State control. They blindly in that year plunged into certain lines of policy that led them very much further than they ever contemplated. Not a day passes in which we do not see greater evidence of State control, not in furtherance of any thought-out plan, but as a result of the hand-to-mouth policy pursued by the Government. We have more and more State control for business men and farmers, and by reason of the number of documents they are obliged to fill up an effort is being made to turn them, practically speaking, into civil servants.

I have still to learn, and I would be surprised to learn it from the Labour Party or from the Government Party which used to be so eloquent on it, that relief works are any real contribution to the solution of the problem of unemployment. All that the Minister had to boast of yesterday was more relief works of one kind or another.

Mr. J.P. Kelly

The Estimates placed before us are a clear indication of the healthy financial position of the State. The decrease shown is over £823,000. As a result of that, I think the people can anticipate a satisfactory budgetary position this year. The members of the Opposition have made very feeble efforts to criticise the Estimates. I regard that as a very good sign. Of course, they told us, as they always do, that bankruptcy is facing the country and facing its principal industry. They told us that 12 months ago and two years ago, and again during the course of this debate. It is rather a peculiar thing that bankruptcy should be facing us at a time when we are in a position to reduce the Estimates by a substantial figure. The Opposition have not told us why, in their opinion, bankruptcy is facing us. They did not tell us that two years ago, or even last year, when the Estimates were higher than they are to-day. But, whenever the opportunity presents itself in this House, that is the line of argument they pursue: that bankruptcy is facing us. They even tell us that when there is a tax reduction of 35/- per head on the finished cattle that we send to the English market. They have the same story when a pact is concluded that is favourable to our farmers. That is the attitude of people who, a year ago, appealed to the Government to get for this country the same terms which, they said, were then being enjoyed by other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations: to get for us the terms that those countries got at Ottawa. Yet, when our Government get very much better terms for this country the Opposition come out with the story that we are faced with bankruptcy.

No matter what the Government do, whether they reduce the Estimates or increase the price paid to the farmer for his wheat, they are told by the Opposition that their efforts are leading the country into a state of bankruptcy. The efforts of the Opposition to criticise the Estimates were, in my opinion, feeble and non-constructive. They are never able to put up a constructive argument on any matter that might be of use to the Government. Perhaps I should say that in this debate their arguments were non-destructive. We have now reached the position when it is immaterial whether or not the English people read the speeches made by the Opposition in this House. At one time certain classes in England were inclined to take their speeches seriously, to hold them up as an example as showing that our people were whining, and that it was only a matter of a few months until England had brought us to our knees. We have got beyond that now, and the English people cannot be influenced any longer by the deplorable speeches made in this House from the Opposition Benches.

Deputy Professor O'Sullivan said that the erection of houses was nonproductive. That proves quite clearly to me that it is at least one reason why the last Government did not promote house building. When these Estimates came up in the past, why were not larger sums of money devoted to the erection of houses? According to Deputy O'Sullivan that work was unproductive. The Deputy also said that it was necessary work, even though it was unproductive. If it is unproductive now, it was unproductive in the past, but if necessary now it was equally necessary in the past. Yet the Deputy has the audacity to come along and criticise the spending of money on the erection of more houses. Very few social services are reproductive. Perhaps that is the reason why the last Government did not provide more money for necessary social services. Deputy Mulcahy spent a good deal of time trying to prove from statistics that even though there was increased tillage there was less paid employment in agricultural districts. It is reason able to expect that the Deputy spent a good deal of time preparing his figures, but it is quite clear that more employment is being given in country districts. I know that ranches of 200 acres, on which one man was formerly employed, have been divided into ten holdings upon which at least ten families find employment. Of course that is not considered employment according to Deputy Mulcahy's figures. Nevertheless, employment is now being given on the land that was denied to the people in the past, and they are getting a decent livelihood.

The non-co-operation of the Party opposite with the Government has resulted in a number of people being placed on unemployment assistance. I will be generous and say that the followers of the Deputy's Party did not give extra employment, and in numerous instances dismissed men who in the ordinary course would have been employed. The best answer to the Deputy's statement is that there has been a reduction of £110,000 in the vote for unemployment assistance. That is a healthy indication of the new conditions that are developing in the country, as the Government does not anticipate that they will be called upon to provide for the same number of unemployed this year as during the past year. Deputy O'Sullivan asked if value was given for the money expended on social services. I say definitely that value for the money is being given in the different services. No Deputy can point to any of these social services in which value is not given. Value is certainly being given for the increased Vote of £133,000 for the Land Commission. There has been increased activity on the part of the Land Commission in putting the people back on the land. That money is being well spent. There is also an increased Vote for housing, and an increased Vote to the Department of Industry and Commerce. A good deal of play was made with the suggestion that farmers were not able to buy new clothes. I can assure the House that woollen mills that were working halftime, or that were closed during the regime of the late Government are now working full time. If they are not making cloth for farmers they are making it for somebody else, because some are working overtime.

Deputy MacDermot went to great length to prove that conditions in England were much better in the agricultural districts than they are here. He said that higher wages were paid in England. I should like to refer the Deputy to newspaper reports of proceedings in the House of Commons on March 2, where there was a censure motion expressing profound regret at the inability of the Government to provide any effective policy to deal with fundamental causes which rendered whole areas derelict. In the course of the debate Mr. Dalton, whose constituency is Bishop Auckland, Durham, said that in the surrounding areas more than 50 per cent. of the population were unemployed, and more than 80 per cent. had not worked for over a year. In some of these areas he said that 90 per cent. of the whole population was unemployed. When Deputy MacDermot was telling us of the good conditions that exist in England, and of the high wages paid to the workers, he should have mentioned that in some districts very few people were working, and that in other areas 90 per cent. of the population was unemployed. I suppose Deputy MacDermot can see very little good in anything Irish. The very fact that he went to Mr. Thomas and asked him to make a favourable settlement with Ireland, and also interviewed five British Cabinet Ministers, and impressed upon them the necessity of making a favourable settlement, should show him that the English Government is as hard-hearted now as it was when Mr. Cosgrave went to it for a remission of £250,000. The Deputy should know that England is not going to give anything to this country for the love of it. Anything we are going to get from England we are going to get because of our ability to get it.

Mr. Belton

The coal-cattle pact.

Mr. Kelly

Yes, the Opposition hailed the first pact with delight.

Mr. Belton

I did not.

Mr. Kelly

They hailed it with delight, even though there was then a tax of 5/- on coal. Now, when that tax is taken off coal, and when more cattle are going to the British market, we are told that the flag was hauled down. That proved that the Opposition were not sincere in their arguments. They thought that the people would not accept the first coal-cattle pact and they let it pass. They were afraid the people would welcome the last coal-cattle pact, and that is why they opposed it with vehemence. Of course Deputy Cosgrave wanted to set out to look for a more comprehensive settlement. The pact was so good that he wanted still more pacts along the same lines. I think Deputy Belton also wanted a comprehensive settlement along those lines. Yet the Party opposite stated it was a bad pact. We have the Party saying one thing and the Leader saying another thing. We had Deputy Dillon stating that he would have no wheat or beet schemes when his Party got into power, but we have the Party stating that they would still continue wheat-growing and beet-growing.

Mr. T. Kelly

What are you talking?

Mr. Belton

Something which is above the head of the Deputy. I am sorry the noise I have made has wakened the Deputy from his slumbers. If he wants to sleep, he should stretch himself on the benches outside. This is not a sleeping chamher.

Mr. T. Kelly

I am well aware of that.

Mr. Belton

You do not seem to realise it. Deputy J.P. Kelly, when he saw me rising, cleared. The farmers of Meath who supported him on the platform asked him to come here to the Ministry and put their position before them. He would not come with them. I challenge him to contradict that. I challenge him to meet me at Ballivor and tell the farmers what he handed out here. Farmers gathered on the streets of Ballivor to give a reception at the last general election and at the local elections to Deputy Kelly and Deputy O'Reilly. What would they think of the stuff he served out here to-day? He said that those who voted against the pact were, in effect, voting against a reduction in the tax on cattle of 35/- per head—a reduction which would make agriculture prosperous. If a reduction of 35/- per head in the tax would make agriculture prosperous, what would a reduction of £6 per head make agriculture? And what a crime that Government has committed against agriculture by being responsible for having that tax of £6 per head imposed and levied on the cattle exported from this country for almost the last four years. If it is such a great thing to get a reduction of 35/- what must one think of the crime of the people responsible for the imposition of this tax of £6 per head?

I am glad it is not denied. Is it not a fact that wheat is being grown very largely upon conacre, because the people who take the conacre are too astute to grow it on their own land and rob their own land? Is it not a fact that on large tracts of land in Meath and Louth wheat is grown three and four years in succession? I defy contradiction on that. What condition will that land be found in when it is turned up by a tractor? Wheat one year, wheat again next year. If the ordinary rotation were adopted you would have to grow root crops. You would have to feed these root crops to cattle, and these cattle would have to get to the market. That means that to have tillage in this or any other country you must have live stock. The produce of tillage with any sort of good rotation, or at least 80 per cent. of it, will be fed to live stock. That 80 per cent. of your produce will require a profitable market.

Let us examine the market which the Minister for Industry and Commerce boasted of a few days ago. I have the reference, but I need not give the exact quotation. I know if I give the substance the Minister will accept it. He said that the pact last year enabled us to export 150,000 more cattle, with an increased income of £1,000,000. Now the Minister may know the price of some goods, but he probably does not know what is a fair price for cattle. Does he imagine that £6 and a few odd shillings per head for cattle in England is a good price? He gave us the figure of 150,000 cattle additional last year, but tied to their horns was at least £6 per head—a free gift from a free people. For what purpose? To pay the land annuities about which we have heard all this tripe and declarations to the effect that "We will never pay. We would not lower the flag."

Play was made with the statement by Deputy O'Sullivan that housing, although a big industry at the moment, was not reproductive. Of course, that is true and cannot be denied. We have cases in County Dublin where farmers unable to pay their rates, offered land to the Board of Health of County Dublin on which to build labourers' cottages, so that they, the farmers, might have enough money to pay the rates. How are these labourers to live if agriculture is reduced to that position? What is the use of building houses if you have no employment to give the people? Deputy Davin wants to know what attitude I will adopt when his motion for the appointment of a wages board comes up here for consideration. I welcome a wages board. This motion for fixing agricultural wages is rather belated sympathy, coming from the Labour Party, with the agricultural worker. The policy that has driven away the income from agriculture is the policy that has reduced agricultural wages. It is an old saying: "You cannot get more out of the meal-tub than you put in." If there is only a certain amount of wealth to be distributed out of the agricultural meal-tub you have to share what is there. If that amount is small, those looking for a share must take a small share. That is the position, and that is the condition that has reduced agricultural wages throughout the country.

There will be time, as the Ceann Comhairle has pointed out to many speakers, including myself, to go into the details of this Estimate, but, in view of the scanty information the public got with regard to the coal-cattle pact, and the decision of the Minister for Agriculture to withdraw the cattle export bounties from 19th February, I wonder to what this sum of £2,180,000 for bounties will be given. It was mentioned in the debate that bounties are given for the export of butter. That is so, but the producers of butter have to pay a levy of 39/-per cwt. on their butter to provide that, and the butter consumers of this country have to pay it in the inflated prices of butter here. When we had any butter to export, we exported it at a loss and we were almost paying the British for taking it. I should like the Minister to say a few words in explanation of the meaning of this provision of £2,000,000 odd for export bounties and subsidies.

The bounties have been withdrawn from agricultural produce exported and a reason, a very flimsy reason, given that they did not, in their entirety, find their way to the producers, but it has been stated by Deputy Davin that there is a way of enabling them to find their way to the producers. It could be done by increasing the grant in relief of rates on agricultural land. But that is not being done. The Government acknowledge that agriculture is paying the entire amount of the withheld moneys and this Estimate shows no variation of, or departure from, the previous policy of the Government. While they have agreed to a pact which acknowledges Britain's right to collect the payments under the coal-cattle pact, and while they admit that the agricultural produce being exported will pay that sum of £5,000,000, they have made no provision in these Estimates to compensate agriculture for that payment.

All the compensation given is a reduction of the land annuities by half. That total benefit amounts only to about £2,000,000. There is a further sum of £3,000,000 which agriculture has to pay and would it not be the merest justice to say that, while this economic dispute lasts, the farmers should be relieved entirely from the payment of any annuities to our Government here, not by way of relief, but by way of justice, because they are paying them to the British, and for no other reason. They are also paying the Local Loans and Pensions and those two items together amount to considerably more than the entire agricultural rate on the agricultural land of the Free State. Would it not be mere justice, and not a privilege or a relief, if the Government made provision in these Estimates to provide the Guarantee Fund with sufficient moneys to cover the entire estimates of the county councils for the current year and on to the conclusion of the economic war? Those are items which are absent from this White Paper. There is no need for special pleading for any particular section of the community, and if I am pleading for this consideration for the agricultural industry, I am not doing so on personal grounds of pleading for the farmers, or for the agricultural labourers, but the agricultural industry is the very foundation of the State and the only possible market for Irish industry. If that is bankrupted, I do not see what hope or future there can be for the industries which, we are told, are springing up here every day.

In the discussion on the Estimates, we shall have a better opportunity of going into the details of these various items and debating more fully how the economic war is affecting agriculture in its different departments, but, in general, the Government is conniving at the robbing of the agricultural industry while claiming to be developing the industrial arm. Taking as the starting point the need for an industrial arm as well as an agricultural arm, it is essential, if we are ever going to have industry in this country, to preserve the agricultural arm in a healthy condition. The Government, however, is going the best possible way about amputating that arm, and the method adopted by that attempted amputation is making impossible the development of the industrial arm. I do not think I will take up the time of the House any further with this matter, as it has been fully debated in a general sense this week and last week, and to debate it in a particular sense would, I think, be more or less in conflict with the ruling of the Chair and certainly against the spirit of this debate.

Mr. Kehoe

I must confess that having listened for the last two or three hours patiently to the arguments which have been adduced, I presume for the benefit of those who intend to support this Bill—whether those who adduced them will persist in voting against it or not I do not know—I am as much in the dark as when the debate began. It is possible that that is due to my want of grey matter, although I do not plead guilty in that respect. The Fianna Fáil Party may have erred in their past career and in their present one but I say one thing is certain, and that is that in our previous incarnation, we must have been guilty of some terrible crime, to have fathered on us now all the round platitudes of Deputy Professor O'Sullivan and company and the tiresome, though well-intentioned and well-equipped oratory of Deputy Belton. After all, Deputy Belton knows what he is talking about, but I must say the same does not apply to Deputy O'Sullivan. By what authority Deputy O'Sullivan speaks for the farmers I do not know. He spoke during the course of this debate about emigration from Kerry. All I know is that at one time he set a bad example himself and did not return there in any case.

Much play has been made of the fact that the Opposition do not want a settlement of the economic war or any other war. I think, after all, that there is some truth in that, because what would the Opposition do once the ghost of the economic war was laid?

It stalks across the stage twice nightly chanting:—

"Maid of Britain, ere we part

Give, oh, give us back our mart?"

That is the song of the siren, and apparently if it be once laid, the Opposition will be like Othello—their occupation will be gone. I am sure if the economic war were settled the Party opposite would be at a loose end for something to do. Consequently there is something to be said for the allegation, humorous or otherwise, that really they do not want this dispute settled at all. I did not quite follow Deputy Belton in his arguments as to the production of stock and wheat, although I recognise he is an expert on this subject. After all, he speaks differently from the rest of the Opposition when it comes to that. Deputy Belton talks clearly and authoritatively about beet and wheat and about protection and subsidies. On several occasions he has confessed himself a whole-hog protectionist and a whole-hog believer in the policy of growing wheat. I for my part am quite prepared to accept the testimony of Deputy Belton as against that of Deputy O'Sullivan or any other member of the Opposition on the question of tariffs or of increased tillage. He knows at least what he is talking about, which is one of the reasons why I suppose they took care to eject him from their Party.

On the question of stock, after all, is it necessary to have an "all-stock" policy for this country? Is it not necessary that stock should have its proper proportion with the rotation of tillage in the agricultural economy of this country? It has a place undoubtedly, but need Ireland be studded with stock? Deputy O'Sullivan used a very sinister phrase—and I may say that Deputy O'Sullivan and other members of the Opposition are very fond of using that adjective "sinister" and applying it to the motive and the alleged machinations of the Government. Deputy O'Sullivan was singularly unhappy in one phrase which he used in his long and platitudinous oration. He referred to the accumulation of wealth in this country for several years past, and he dwelt long and lovingly on the advantages of that accumulated wealth, due, I suppose, to the existence of cattle and everything connected with cattle. Deputy O'Sullivan should have remembered the famous couplet of a very famous Irishman:

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

I think it cannot be gainsaid that the history of Ireland before the advent of the present Parliament was one of desolation owing to the exaggerated importance of stock. It can hardly be denied that stock has a place in the agricultural economy of this country, but that place should not be unduly magnified. On the one hand, the present Government has brought about increased tillage by providing subsidies and tariffs and on the other has ensured that the country shall not be overburdened with an undue prevalence of stock.

Deputy O'Sullivan pleaded petulantly, or rather commented sarcastically, on the export of cattle to Germany, and on the inadequacy of the German and Spanish markets as a substitute for the British market. I do not think anybody said that they would be a full substitute for the British market or that they are an adequate substitute, but at least they are something worth having. Following the policy of not putting all our eggs in one basket, I do not see what is wrong in opening up these other markets, and in developing them as far as possible. After all Deputy O'Sullivan should be the last to complain of opening up a market in Germany as Deputy O'Sullivan resembles his British prototype, Haldane, not necessarily in ability, but in the fact that his spiritual home is in Germany. Deputy O'Sullivan's objections seemed to be concerned less with his allegations that Ministers or Deputies here are mishandling these matters than with the fact that we exist, certainly with the fact that Ministers exist and occupy their present positions at all. His objections seem to be to the fact that they have the temerity to occupy the seats of the mighty which Deputy O'Sullivan and his colleagues at one stage of their career occupied. That is the whole head and front of the Deputy's attack on this side.

The economic war has been discussed ad lib. and has formed the stock-in-trade for the orators of the Opposition for the last four years. I do not hesitate to prophesy that it will furnish the stock-in-trade of the same Opposition for the next six years. I seldom rise to speak in this House; it may be because of my inability to cope with the oratorical efforts of the Opposition, but I do suggest that in all this oratory about the economic war there is not a thing which could not be compressed into a speech of 20 minutes' duration. Their arguments have been repeated over and over again with a venom and with a personal rancour that we would regard as astonishing coming from an opposition Party in any other Parliament in the world. If this is a war, as it is,—it may not be a spectacular war; I do not say it is—it is a strange thing that we cannot show a united front against the common enemy. Enemy may be a grandiloquent term but that the enemy is there no one can deny. England is alien to us in a thousand ways. It must be regarded as our antithesis economically, culturally, and religiously, and it is a strange thing that the state of affairs which obtains in every country which has a foreign enemy cannot obtain here. I say advisedly, that if the Opposition for the last four years had been less virulent in their attacks and less open-mouthed in their allegations and in suggesting ways in which this Party could be attacked, the British would not be put into the position of saying “Leave them alone, let them attack and eat each other like Kilkenny cats.” That has been their traditional diplomacy in dealing with this and other countries for years. The Opposition Deputies by indulging in these virulent personal attacks on Ministers are helping them to carry out that diplomacy in the case of the present economic dispute.

If this Central Fund Bill is going to be passed, if the Opposition do not propose to hold it up, then what is the meaning of all this pin-prodding? When pacts are being entered into and negotiations are being carried out which tend, in some way, to alleviate the present conditions of distress in various parts of the country, the Opposition are not satisfied. They tell us that the Government are not doing their best to remedy matters. They speak of negotiating and then, if negotiations are not successful, it is necessarily our fault. So far as settling the economic war is concerned, there are two ways of doing that; one is by way of complete surrender and the other is by way of negotiation. Who is to say that the Government have not done their best? If failure has accrued out of whatever negotiations have taken place, who is to say that it is the Government's fault? Would it not be the duty of a patriotic Opposition at least to assume that the other side are at fault, whether they are or not? Should not a patriotic Opposition assume that the other side are in the wrong? Unfortunately, the members of the Opposition think more of having a week-end display in the provincial press, and letting their constituents know they were doing something, and they concentrate all their endeavours on prodding the Government for all they are worth.

I am not a politician in any sense of the word and I speak very seldom in this House, but I cannot let this occasion pass without saying that the Opposition, on this occasion, have done a mean thing and a low thing, a thing that would not obtain in any other country. We are fighting a battle, and I can assure the House that we are going to get there in the end. The Opposition in this case have adopted a very unworthy attitude. They are willing to wound, but are yet afraid to strike. They suggest amendments which they hesitate to support in the Division Lobbies. They have lost no opportunity of criticising the Government and they have taken up a stand which is unworthy of any Opposition. This country is not in a normal state. If it were the Opposition would be normal. We are engaged in a highly important struggle, but there are many people in this country who do not want to realise that; they prefer to shut their eyes.

When it comes to a question of tariffs and subsidies and the economic war, I think Deputy Belton and myself find ourselves on sure ground. Suppose we were to remove the tariffs, what would be the position? If we took the tariffs off we would let our market be flooded with English flour, bacon, and everything else. Why, the position is unthinkable, and yet there are some members of the Opposition who would recommend adopting that course. There are all sorts of complaints about tariffs and subsidies and bounties. Do these things not obtain in other countries? Have not many other countries their systems of tariffs and subsidies? Some may consider it folly, but if so, we are in very good company, because there is a ring of tariffs around almost every country in the world. Of late years the tariff question has assumed immense dimensions, and if we err in the matter of tariffs we are in good company.

I trust the Opposition will not oppose the passage of this Bill. To be quite candid, it will make very little difference whether they do or not. I suggest there is always one effective answer. In view of the ultimate fate which awaits you on this debate, just as on any other, I suggest it would be at least good manners to conduct your controversies with less acrimony and with less virulence than you do.

Mr. Roddy

Deputy Kehoe has certainly introduced an element of lightness into this debate that was hitherto lacking. After listening to Deputy Kehoe, I have come to the conclusion that it is a tragedy for this country that he was not a member of the Fianna Fáil Party when they were in opposition. If he were a member, I am quite certain, by virtue of the sermon which he has preached to the Dáil this evening, he would have prevented them bringing that note of acrimony and bitterness into debates which was so characteristic, and he would have prevented them misleading the country in the way they did prior to the elections in 1932 and 1933, by the number of promises which they made and which they knew perfectly well they could never hope to fulfil. As long as they are in power in this country they can never fulfil those promises. It is amazing to me how Deputy Kehoe, who stated he is not a politician, ever became a member of the Fianna Fáil Party—a Party of politicians.

Mr. Kehoe

I am not a politician.

Mr. Roddy

I think the first question we have to ask ourselves in discussing this Bill is whether the country can endure the expenditure proposed in the Vote on Account. If we want an answer we have to go back to the speeches made by the members of the Government when they were in opposition. I do not think there was any Minister so eloquent on that subject as the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I would be inclined to give that Minister pride of place, and after him I would select, perhaps, the Minister for Finance. Other Ministers, of course, were also eloquent on the subject. I remember an historic debate here when we were discussing a similar measure to the one under consideration to-day. The members of the then Opposition Party, now the Government Party, one after another stated at that time that this country could not endure a Vote for supply services of more than £20,000,000. To-day we are asked by the Minister for Finance of a Fianna Fáil Government to vote a sum of approximately £28,000,000 for identically the same purpose.

Quite recently we were told by a very distinguished professor that the purchasing power of the agricultural community has decreased by £20,000,000 during recent years. I forget the exact words, but that was the substance of it—that the purchasing power of the agricultural community has decreased by £20,000,000 since 1931. If that is so, I ask the Government how do they consider that this country to-day is able to endure expenditure to the amount of £28,000,000 for the purposes of supply services alone, apart altogether from Central Fund services and other hidden taxation, the amount of which we know nothing about at the moment? Surely there is not a Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches who does not know, if he speaks his mind quite truthfully and honestly, that the conditions in his constituency, especially amongst the farming community, have worsened considerably since the start of this so-called economic war? If he speaks his mind truthfully, he will also state that the conditions amongst the trading community have also worsened since the beginning of the so-called economic war.

We have merely to look at the rate position in the different counties to realise that conditions have worsened considerably. Even the arrears of unpaid Land Commission annuities have increased very substantially as compared with 1931 and 1932. As a matter of fact, there has been an abnormal increase since the present Government came into office. All these facts show quite conclusively that this country cannot possibly endure expenditure on the scale proposed in this Vote on Account. If, as the distinguished professor said, the purchasing power has decreased by £20,000,000 during the past few years—which statement, by the way, was not contradicted by any Government Minister or any member of the Fianna Fáil Party——

Mr. Lemass

It must be minus about £10,000,000 now.

Mr. Roddy

The figure given by the professor was £20,000,000. The Minister is not going to draw any red herrings across the trail. If the purchasing power of the agricultural community has been reduced by £20,000,000 since 1931, is it not quite easy to envisage the effect it has on the industrial programme in which the Minister for Industry and Commerce is engaged? If that £20,000,000 was in circulation amongst the traders, the agriculturists, the business people, the manufacturers and other sections of the community, would it not help enormously the industrial policy in which the Minister is engaged—would it not enhance enormously the prospects of the success of that industrial policy? Would it not increase considerably the output of the different factories in which the Minister for Industry and Commerce takes so much pride?

The Minister for Industry and Commerce yesterday asked triumphantly: "What items in this Estimates can you reduce? Can you reduce the Land Commission Estimate? Can you reduce the Local Government Estimates? Will you reduce the Estimates for Social Services?" I hold, and I have always held, that the expenditure on public services in this country should be proportioned to the ability of the people to meet it. Apart from what I conceive to be the whole fundamental weakness of Government policy, the position is aggravated—and aggravated considerably—by the fact that they are trying to put a policy into operation in a period of five years which normally should take 100 years. The same thing can be said to be literally true of almost every other activity of the Government. As the Minister for Finance yesterday mentioned the question of social services, I should like to ture on social services, I should like to deal just briefly with that matter. There is an enormous amount of money being spent on social services at the present time. I admit that, under normal conditions and normal circumstances, those social services are necessary, but I further submit again that that expenditure on social services should also be proportioned to the ability of the people to meet it. I also think that in existing conditions and circumstances the people of this country are not in a position to meet the enormous amount of money that is being spent on social services at the present time. Public boards throughout this country are being forced by legislation, ministerial orders and otherwise, to embark on a series of schemes of social services, to such an extent that the expenditure on social services alone, as one item in the Government catalogue, has increased enormously during the last two or three years.

I do hold that, whilst those schemes are necessary, there is no justification on the part of the Government for forcing public boards to go ahead with schemes when the people are not in a position to pay for those schemes. After all, if you are going to have a normal development in this country, if you are going to have a development policy in regard to social services, then it is only fair to the people of this country that that policy should be spread over a reasonable period of years, and that that policy and development should be put into operation in a normal way over a period of years. It is unreasonable and unfair to interfere with the natural social and economic development of this country by a policy of that kind, involving as it does the expenditure of a very big sum of money.

Deputy Davin referred to the cost-of-living figures. He asked the Minister for Finance if something could not be done to check the increasing price of commodities. As compared with Northern Ireland, there is a difference of some 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. in the price of almost every commodity which is used by the people of this country. In the price of ordinary commodities, such as sugar, meal and other commodities of that character, there is a difference of approximately 30 per cent. to 50 per cent., and on top of that increased price we have still to pay a tariff to sell the produce of agriculture in exactly the same market as the farmers of Northern Ireland, and proportionately we have to bear in addition a very much higher expenditure on our public services in this country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us on one occasion that "the success of every industry is dependent very largely on the success of the plans that we devise for the restoration of prosperity in agriculture." By that, I assume, the Minister meant that the success of his industrial policy in this country depended entirely upon the success of agriculture. On the one hand we have a distinguished University professor stating that during the last few years the purchasing power of the farming community has declined by £20,000,000.

Mr. Lemass

That professor has certainly distinguished himself.

Mr. Roddy

The Government of which the Minister is a member has increased taxation during the same period by approximately £6,000,000. It is something more than that, but we will agree on the figure of £6,000,000. In addition to that, the farmer has to pay a tariff on the produce he sends across to the only market in which he can sell his produce, even yet, at any sort of a reasonable profit. In addition, the Minister for Agriculture has recently taken off the bounties, at least some portion of which, I think, did pass to the farmer, although it is very difficult to say exactly what amount of the bounties did pass to the farmer. However, he has to bear all these handicaps, and yet he has to compete against the farmers in Northern Ireland and in England who are buying the raw materials of their industry at 30 per cent. to 50 per cent. below what the farmers in this country have to pay.

Mr. Seán Brodrick

Is the Minister rehearsing his election speech?

Mr. Lemass

I do not know what the Party opposite think of it but when I try to get information on this matter I am more confused than ever.

An Ceann Comhairle

About the Central Fund?

Mr. Lemass

We had Deputy Roddy here now expressing the opinion that the amount spent on social services is more than the country can afford. We all heard him say it. A few months ago I was of opinion from statements in the Press that the policy of the Party opposite was to provide old age pensions for everyone over 65 years.

Deputy Roddy went further and talked about the reduction in the purchasing power of the agricultural community. He is not the only speaker from the opposite benches who talked during the course of the discussion about the fall in agricultural prices. Agricultural prices have fallen. We can get precise data as to the extent to which they have fallen. There is a monthly index figure for agricultural prices published and, as it is published by my Department, I can vouch for the accuracy of it. That figure shows that for a considerable time past there has been a decline in agricultural prices— a decline only arrested last year. The tendency is now upward. But from 1929—mark the year—to 1935 there was a continuous decline in agricultural prices.

Deputy Roddy tells us that the purchasing power of the farming community has been reduced by £20,000,000. I do not know what he means by the purchasing power of the farming community, but I take him to mean that the farming community got out of the sale of their products a profit in cash of some millions of pounds, and that the amount of that profit had been reduced by £20,000,000. I do not know if Deputies take the same meaning out of his words as I do, but when he spoke about the decline in purchasing power he obviously meant a decline in the cash profit which they get from the sale of their produce. £20,000,000! The total value of agricultural products sold from Irish farms in 1929, in Ireland or outside Ireland, in any part of the world where a market could be found, was £43,000,000. Is it seriously contended that half of that total selling price represented a cash profit to the farmers? I do not think anybody will seriously contend it. Under 25 per cent. of the selling price represented the cash profit, but if 25 per cent. of the selling price represented the cash profit, then the purchasing power of the farming community, according to Deputy Roddy's figure, must be about minus £10,000,000 of it.

That is the figure for 1929. Deputy Roddy was talking about the decline which took place since 1931. £43,000,000 in 1929. Here is one fact that Deputies opposite should get into their heads and keep there. Between 1929 and 1931, over a period of two years, agricultural prices in this country fell by to a greater extent than between 1931 and 1935, a period of five years. There was a decline of 30 per cent. in agricultural prices in that period of two years, during which the Cumann na nGaedheal Government were in office and when their policy for the benefit of agriculture was in full and complete operation. That is all the farmers remember about the benefits which the Cumann na nGaedheal agricultural policy conferred upon them.

Mr. O'Donovan

There was not £6 per head on cattle.

Mr. Lemass

Allowing for that £6 per head, and all the evils which the economic war, that they provoked, had brought upon the country, the decline in agricultural prices since 1931 has been less than the decline in the previous two years. Again I refer Deputies to the excellent statistics which my Department make available free of charge for their information and edification. The agricultural price index for 1929 was 139.3. In 1931 it had fallen to 110.1, a decline of 29.2 per cent. In 1935 it was 83.6, a decline of 27 per cent. There has been a decline, but the decline over the five years of the Fianna Fáil Government, with the economic war in full blast all during the period, was of less consequence to the Irish farmers than the two years of Cumann na nGaedheal Government between 1929 and 1931.

Anyway, let us find out where they stand on this question in relation to agricultural prices. The trouble with farmers is that the price they get for their produce is too low. That is their sole trouble. They are not getting sufficient in cash for the produce they have to sell. We have endeavoured to help them by the reduction of the land annuities. There is a provision in this Vote on Account for a substantial sum to relieve the rates on agricultural land. There has been no falling off in the volume of agricultural production. The total quantity of agricultural goods produced has not diminished. The sole trouble with the agricultural community is that the prices of farm produce are too low. We have been trying to raise them.

Every proposal we brought in here, designed to increase the price of agricultural produce, was opposed by the Party opposite, and when these measures were before the House we heard their usual moans about the effect upon the consumers and the undesirability of raising the cost of living. When we increased the price of pigs, who was it talked about the higher cost of our breakfast? The Irish Independent came out a couple of weeks ago with a big headline announcing that the Government had failed again—it was going to increase the cost of the Irish breakfast. Here again the Government were fixing a minimum price for pigs, so that pig producers would get a better return. The Party opposite are opposed to it.

We have them to-day bemoaning the rising cost of living. What makes up the cost of living index figure? Food prices. If the cost of living index figure is rising, it is due entirely to the fact that measures designed to increase the prices of farm produce are taking effect and that farm prices are rising. Yet they want to raise farm prices and, at the same time, they try to get whatever little political capital they can out of the unpopularity of the rising cost of living. In fact, the cost of living has not risen very much. It was lower in 1935 than in 1931. It was lower in 1935 than in any year in which Cumann na nGaedheal blessed the country by governing it.

One would think that the value of money had been halved as the result of Fianna Fáil administration when one hears their speeches. The cost of living is lower than at any time during which they were in office. It is tending to go upward. Because it is tending to go upward they are trying to get support amongst the people in the towns who are affected by the rise in the cost of living. But when they go down to talk amongst the farmers they speak in a different tone. They say that the prices of foodstuffs are not high enough and they criticise the Government because we are not making them higher. They want to have it both ways. Unfortunately for them, however, the people in the country can read in the newspapers the speeches they make in the towns, and vice versa. There is a general consensus of opinion amongst all classes that they are only humbugs and that in these matters they are only humbugging—trying to get political support without a vestige of policy to justify that support.

They have spoken also about unemployment. In fact, Deputy Cosgrave in his speech to-day, when dealing with unemployment, said: "I say that the cure for unemployment"—he did not say what the cure is, but he was referring to the cure—"I say that the cure for unemployment, which has been aggravated to enormous proportions by Government policy, cannot be found while the economic dispute with Great Britain remains unsettled." What is the Cumann na nGaedheal policy on unemployment? The economic dispute with Great Britain started in 1932. Was there no unemployment before that? If the cure for unemployment is merely to settle the economic dispute with Great Britain, what is the explanation for the growing unemployment in 1931? There was no economic dispute then, but there was plenty of unemployment. If Deputy Cosgrave and his colleagues knew the cure for unemployment, then why did they not apply it? If they had applied it, they might still be the Government.

Mr. Brennan

We are waiting for the Minister's plan.

Mr. Lemass

We want to get the views of the Party opposite on the Minister's plan.

Mr. O'Leary

That is your job.

Mr. Lemass

Surely the Party opposite have some responsibilities to the people who sent them here. They have no responsibility to us, but they have come here at the request of certain misguided people who voted for them in order to take part here in the council of the representatives of the people. We are here as a council. It is here that national problems have to be discussed and solved. If they have any useful function to serve in this House, it is the function of giving us their contribution to the total fund of wisdom that can possibly be applied to the solution of these problems. They have a responsibility and they cannot shirk it by merely keeping their policy a secret, if they have a policy. When they talk here about unemployment, they leave themselves open to the charge of hypocrisy—a mean kind of hypocrisy—unless they are prepared to back up their speeches with positive suggestions for the easement of the position. They cannot get out of their responsibility for making such positive suggestions merely by such foolish statements as Deputy Cosgrave made to-day. As a matter of fact, he went further than that. He indicated a desire to see industrial development promoted in this country and, what is more, he quoted from some secret document, which, apparently, is an outline of the policy of Fine Gael, and from which this is an extract—I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the extract as I have not seen this secret document—but this is the quotation he gave:

"It shall be our policy to encourage the development of new and existing industries, suitable to our needs and resources, by every efficient means, giving existing tariffs every chance of justifying their continued imposition."

Can Deputies opposite remember one single occasion upon which I came in here with any Bill designed to promote industry in this country, or to promote the development of existing industries, on which Deputies opposite did not vote against it? I shall not ask them to reply immediately. I shall give them from now until this day week, during which they can search all the records of this House, and all the Volumes of Debates from the beginning of 1932 up to date, in order to see if they can find one solitary occasion on which the attitude of the Opposition was not one of opposition to the measures proposed. I agree that they were not always unanimous in their opposition, and that individual Deputies sometimes took an attitude in regard to particular industries of non-opposition, if not exactly of cooperation. For instance, we had Deputy Morrissey coming in on one occasion, just on the ringing of the bell for a division. I remember that he had got half way up the stairs before I had a chance of telling him that the vote related to the granting of protection to the aluminium factory which had been started in Nenagh. Deputy Morrissey did not vote against it on that occasion. We must admit that. No; he went down the stairs.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is scarcely a question of major policy.

Mr. Lemass

No, Sir, it is only a matter of historical record. I think, however, that it is a question of major policy that the solution of the unemployment problem is bound up with the question of industrial development. I believe that nobody can suggest any method of solving the unemployment problem in this country which does not involve the development of our resources to the fullest possible extent. Any solution of the problem of unemployment must involve that, but the Party opposite, who are now so anxious to bespeak themselves as friends of the unemployed, have on every occasion tried to sabotage and destroy and defeat the industrial policy of the Government. "Settle the economic war," they say, "and you have settled everything"—as if there were no evils or abuses in this country to be settled when they were in office and when they were on terms of friendship with Great Britain and were paying £5,000,000 to Great Britain in order to cement that friendship. Their cry now is: "Settle the economic war, and you can settle all the issues in dispute, including Partition."

Deputy Cosgrave made a speech to-day about Partition, in which he said, in effect, that the major question before the Irish people was the solution of the problem of Partition. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the print. I am sure that there are Deputies in this House who will not believe that Deputy Cosgrave had the audacity to speak about Partition until they read the report themselves. Who was the first Irishman in this country who ever assented to Partition? Deputy Cosgrave himself! Long before the Free State was established, long before there were ex-Republicans in charge of the administration of the affairs of three-fourths of Ireland, those who stood for the Irish people, those who represented the Irish people, even though they represented them in an alien Parliament, and even though their outlook in national affairs was limited and confined in every way by their affiliations, would not and did not assent to Partition, and some of them chose to go out of public life rather than assent to it; and when the Treaty was brought about in 1922 and accepted by a majority of Dáil Eireann at that time, those who accepted the Treaty used as an argument in favour of its acceptance the clauses that were stated to be designed to make an end of Partition. It was not until 1925 that these clauses were deleted, and deleted with Deputy Cosgrave's full consent.

Mr. O'Donovan

Where were you a that time?

Mr. Lemass

I was in jail. That i. the agreement that Deputy Cosgrave now wants undone. He tries to make a political point out of urging upon this Government the rectification of the mistake he made, the repair of the wrong he did, and the removal of the Partition that he himself tried to perpetrate in perpetuity. That is, however, merely political posturing.

Mr. Brennan

Hear, hear! That is just what it is, purely and simply.

Mr. Lemass

Well, I am glad that Deputy Brennan recognises that. Deputy Cosgrave has no interest in the question of Partition. He merely recognises in that question an opportunity of side-tracking the major issues. He knows that he does not have to face the major issues so long as he can talk about this business of Partition. Let us take him and his Party up on that. Let us ask them what is their policy on the question of the restoration of the Oath, when they say that they stand for the implementing of the Treaty. They say that they stand for the implementing of the Treaty. Well, the Oath is in the Treaty. Do they stand for its restoration in the Constitution?

An Ceann Comhairle

That has nothing to do with the question at issue.

Mr. Brennan

No, Sir. It is just political posturing.

Mr. Lemass

They always say: "Oh, we cannot deal with that because Partition must be settled first, and Partition is a big question." As Deputy Cosgrave said to-day, even in error:—

"A mere passing wish that unity should be accomplished does not constitute a policy, nor does it show that any real consideration has been given to the problem."

What was his speech except a mere passing wish that attention should be given to the problem? Search through all of it, and you will find no trace of any idea or real consideration of the problem in the speech from the beginning to the end of it. This economic war will be settled some time.

Mr. Curran

Why not now?

Mr. Lemass

It will be settled as soon as the Party opposite get sufficient moral courage to admit responsibility for it, and to admit their error in instigating it. We have them here denouncing the penal tariffs on our cattle. Time and again I have pointed out that the idea of these penal tariffs was conceived and produced by the people opposite, and fully developed before being sent across to the British Government for adoption. The suggestion was made to them by the Party opposite at every cross-roads in the country. I hold, then, that they should at least keep silent——

Mr. O'Leary

As you did in 1922.

Mr. Lemass

——when the consequences of the adoption of that suggestion are evident all around the country. However, it did not quite work out as you anticipated. It did not quite work out as the British were led to believe by the Deputies opposite it would work out. We will get at some time and at some stage a realistic conception of the position, and when we do, and when the Party opposite have sufficient patriotism to give the Government the assistance of their silence while negotiations are in progress, then we may make more progress.

It was announced early this year, as I pointed out once before, that negotiations for a trade agreement were proceeding with Great Britain. Deputies opposite can, perhaps, explain why Deputy Cosgrave chose that moment— some days following that announcement—to start his bombardment of manifestoes, statements, interviews and speeches, justifying the British case on the land annuities: justifying their claim for demanding the annuities at that time. He had been silent about the land annuities for 12 months before. He has been silent about them since. It was only during those few weeks, when he knew that he could do the utmost damage to the interests of this country, that he opened up that campaign. All that we ask from the Deputies opposite is their silence. We do not ask them to do any positive work for the good of the country. We cannot expect that from them, but we do ask them to give us the co-operation of their silence when we are doing important work for the nation.

Mr. O'Leary

Why do you agree to pay the land annuities to them now?

Mr. Lemass

We have not agreed. Nobody in this country ever agreed to pay the land annuities except Deputy Cosgrave and Senator Blythe, and they kept the fact of their agreement secret for ten years. The rise in the cost of living is agitating the Deputies opposite. We are told that the price of a number of commodities here is higher than in Northern Ireland, and that consequently we are at a disadvantage as against Northern Ireland. I do not know if a separate index figure is kept for Northern Ireland. I assume that the cost-of living index figure for Great Britain includes Northern Ireland, but what is a fact which can be easily established is this: that the difference between the British cost-of-living index figure and ours in 1931 was greater than it is to-day. Our cost-of-living index figure is moving closer to the British figure now than when the gentlemen opposite were managing the affairs of the country.

I appeal to the Deputies opposite to try and realise that they can serve a useful function here, but if they are to do so they must first of all get their facts right. They have never done that despite all the free publications that I send them, all the masses of figures that I give them in these documents as well as in reply to Parliamentary questions and in my speeches in the Dáil. Despite all that, I say, they have still got their facts all wrong. The first thing that I would advise them to do is to get their facts right. When they have done that, let them consider them, and, having considered them, determine upon some policy for dealing with them. When I say "determine on some policy," I mean agree upon some policy. I admit that there are individual Deputies in the Party opposite who have ideas as to how our circumstances should be dealt with, but their ideas are purely individual, and they have not succeeded in getting them accepted by their colleagues. If the Deputies opposite are going to have a political Party they must have an agreed policy, and if they cannot get that they should not be masquerading as a Party. Having got their facts, and having got a policy, the next thing they must do is to make their policy known. Let the country see it. It must be capable of standing the fire of whatever criticism is directed against it. There is no secret about our policy: there never was. We let the country know clearly and precisely where we stood, and that is why we are here. It is because nobody knows how the Deputies opposite stand on any matter, important or unimportant, that they are over there and they will remain over there. If ever they want to come back to the Government Benches they should take my advice and get their facts right first and their policy clear. Let them get a policy that they can stand over: one that they will not have to run away from when it is criticised. If it is a sound policy it will be improved by criticism. If it is not sound, then it is just as well that it should disappear.

On that basis, and that basis only, have the Deputies opposite any political future to look forward to. I do not think that it would be a good thing for the country that they should get back into office. I know that they will not agree with me on that, but if they want to get back, then they should take my advice.

An Ceann Comhairle

What is the Minister's advice on this Bill?

Mr. Lemass

My advice is that it should be passed. It is going to be passed, because the Deputies opposite will not vote against it. It is necessary that money should be provided to carry on the services of the State, to pay Deputies their allowances, and, generally, to carry on the machinery of government. Money must be provided for all these purposes, and Deputies opposite could not possibly conceive the situation which would be created if this money were not provided. Therefore, they will vote for the Bill. They have that much intelligence, and I congratulate them on it. In conclusion, my advice to them on the major question is to get a policy and to stick to it, and, so far as this Bill is concerned, to vote for it.

Mr. Minch

I could not help smiling while the Minister for Industry and Commerce was speaking. He is a born actor. One would have thought that his heart was breaking and that the tears were pouring down his cheeks——

Mr. Belton

They were.

Mr. Minch

——when at the same time he was simply letting loose a lot of hares in this Assembly in order to avoid facing up to this Vote-on-Account. During the whole course of his speech there was not a single reference to the Vote-on-Account, and I congratulate the Minister on being able to speak so long, so eloquently and so sensibly, but never a word about the Vote-on-Account. He was sensible in one reference he made, but I suppose I will be pulled up by the Chair if I develop it. That was the reference he made to the old Irish Parliamentary Party. Any time that there is a tribute paid to that Party it is worth listening to, even in this House. When the White Paper was handed round I noticed on one side figures amounting to £27,000,000. In this country, as in other countries, we have, since the post-war period, become accustomed to thinking in millions, even though we do not realise what millions represent. I have been told that if a million men were placed in line along the road they would extend from Belfast to Dublin. If that is multiplied by 27 we can get an idea of what 27,000,000 would represent. In the Free State there are 3,000,000 people—men, women and children— and if we divide 3 into 27½ we get 9. Therefore, it costs £9 per head to run the country. In all fairness to the taxpayers, and to wealth producers, whether they are labourers or business men, I ask is that economic administration; is that economic running of a small State? This is an infant State barely out of its growing pains—if it is not getting more growing pains. Is that amount of money a fair and an economic amount to run this country?

When the Minister for Industry and Commerce was speaking he referred to the magnificent speeches that he and his colleagues had made up and down the country, east and west, at two general elections. That was the period in which I entered politics. We had the very reverse of these speeches to-night. Originally a plan was placed before the people at the crossroads, in the streets, and almost on the hillsides, showing that the previous Administration was extravagant; that it was squandering the nation's money and frittering away the livelihood of those who had to make it. They pointed out that if they got into office they would reduce expenditure in the Civil Service by millions of pounds, and also in the Government Departments. We find no excuse being made to-day for not reducing expenditure by £2,000,000. When I listen to the humbug and to the insincerity of the Government Benches, and watch the smoke screens that are put up to hide the facts from the plain people, I get tired of having to spend even a few minutes in the House. A few days ago we had a debate on the coal-cattle pact. We then heard what a magnificent achievement that was, following the negotiations between the civil servants of the two countries. To-day we have discussed the expenditure of millions of money, and the coal-cattle pact. But the question was obscured from the beginning, and no one could find out whether it was on a pound for pound basis or a 50-50 basis. All we know is that the country is facing a policy of drift. There is no direct course, and no energetic pursuit of a particular policy. There is a splashing to the right and to the left-about-turn. They are playing two tunes on one whistle, with the result that there is no national outlook and no cohesion on the part of the Fianna Fáil Party.

I listened to attacks on ex-President Cosgrave on the question of Partition. I do not think it is right to go back on the past. We have heard bitter recriminations and personal remarks. If we had unity in the Free State we might do better afterwards in trying to bring about unity with our colleagues in the Six Counties. This Vote-on-Account should be examined seriously by the Government Party. I do not believe that it has been investigated by some Deputies. They will simply walk through the Lobby when the Division bell rings and record their vote. The machine will do the rest. We sometimes hear remarks about the Opposition Party consisting of people of no ability. I suppose we may yet have to face the position that the Seanad had to face, and that a Bill to abolish the Opposition will be brought in, to end all opposition.

Mr. MacEntee

Do you feel that that is what you desire?

Mr. O'Donovan

I am afraid I must agree with the statement recently made in Cavan by Deputy McGovern, that the Ministers were bluffers, and that the Minister for Industry and Commerce was the greatest bluffer of all. Having heard the speeches that were delivered from the Government Benches to-night, I have to agree that Deputy McGovern was right. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, as Deputy Minch stated, did not refer to the Bill that is now under consideration. He talked of many things that happened from 1922 down, and mentioned Partition. I protest against the Minister's references to Deputy Cosgrave in regard to Partition. If the Minister had done in 1923 what he did in 1927, and if he had come into this House and had tried to build up this State, I venture to say there would be no Partition. It ill becomes him to try to throw dirty water at a man who did his best to build up industries here, and also the State. The Minister talked about the 300 industries that, I understand, he has established. He said that he was very interested in the development of agriculture. Knowing what is happening in the country, I can tell the Minister that he has killed that great industry which gave more employment than all the others. He has killed agriculture while trying to develop the others. Agriculture at the moment is dead. It is true that a few are growing wheat and a few growing beet, but out of the 400,000 farmers in this State, how many acres will be required to produce our requirements in wheat and beet? Is there any record of the wheat being grown in the wilds of Connemara, in the hills of Kerry, or in West Cork? They can neither grow wheat nor beet there. They may have a little peat, but, owing to the recent coal-cattle pact, the peat question is forgotten. On going into Government offices now I do not see the peat fires. We have to burn English coal, and it is back in the fireplaces in these offices.

Judging by the speeches we heard from members of the Government Party, I am afraid that it is not possible to educate them as to the crimes and follies that they have committed against this State. We had two days last week, and two days this week, devoted to efforts to try to explain to that Party the error of their ways. Still they come here with the cheek for which they are famous and ignore everything that was said. They do not realise the demoralisation that they have brought on the State; they do not realise that they have made one vast soup-kitchen here with their doles and free beef. They do not realise that at the present time this is a nation, practically, of pensioners, officials and idlers. There is misery and starvation down the country. I know farmers who have no salt to use with their potatoes. They are faced with the situation that the flying squad and the bailiff are out to collect annuities that they have already paid to England. Government spokesmen deny that England is getting the annuities. The Minister for Agriculture stated last week that the farmers of this country were not paying the annuities to England. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said this evening that the annuities were not being paid to England, yet we had the Fianna Fáil Government sending civil servants over to England to negotiate a trade agreement, while a tariff is still being maintained against us.

That is a clear and frank admission that the Government of Great Britain has a right to collect the annuities. Great Britain is getting the annuities, and the Fianna Fáil Government is also collecting annuities from the farmers. Can that state of affairs continue? It cannot. If we look back at the promises made by Fianna Fáil before they got into office, when the public services were costing £20,000,000, and which they said they could reduce by £2,000,000, we find that they are costing £28,000,000 to-day.

The wheat and beet schemes are a success in so far as they are a help to the areas that can grow them, but increase the acreage and where are you going to get a market? If you increase the acreage of wheat to any appreciable extent and if you have a fairly good year, so that you reach the peak point of production, you will be producing all your requirements. What are the countless farmers who cannot take advantage of the wheat schemes and who have to depend on the dairying and cattle industries to do so that they can meet their rates and annuities, clothe and educate their families and pay labour, where necessary? Where are they going to get the money for that when the cattle exported to the only market available carry a tax of £4 5s. on their horns? Where are these farmers going to get the money to support their families and pay their way in the State? When the Government effected the coal-cattle pact, they should have taken their courage in their hands, done the big thing and stopped the humbug. By doing that, the President would not have been going with his hat in his hand any more than he did by making the settlement he did make.

The Minister for Finance dealt last night with the bacon industry. He referred to a statement made by Deputies on this side that the bacon industry was in a parlous condition. So it was. He cannot claim credit for having it in the position in which it is at the moment. It is not his Marketing Board that caused that but the ordinary law of supply and demand. There is a scarcity because conditions were so bad in the country that people had practically gone out of pigs. It does not pay a man to feed pigs, with the cost of production so high, and it is this law of supply and demand which caused the price to soar. The Minister cannot claim credit for the present rise in price.

The Minister referred last night to a meeting of the Cork Farmers' Union Abattoir. He quoted a speech by the chairman and other members referring to the turnover of the Cork Farmers' Union Abattoir but he conveniently left out the important speech. He read the speech of the chairman, Mr. O'Sullivan, and the speeches of Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Halliden, but he did not give the speech of Mr. Lehane who commented that they were working on an overdraft of £1,100, had a loan of over £2,000 and that nearly three-quarters of their assets were made up of debts and stock-in-hands. They had debts to the extent of £16,500, he said, or nearly three times the subscribed capital and that struck him as being a colossal sum. He had heard that some of their shipments to America had been returned and he asked if that was so and, if so, the quantity and why. The Minister should have read that statement when he read the others last night. I may tell him that the Cork Farmers' Union Abattoir had a big turnover——

Mr. MacEntee

Would the Deputy read the speech of Mr. Foran which follows immediately?

Mr. O'Donovan

I have read the speech I wanted to read. I have no objection to reading the statement of Mr. Foran. I have given you your answer and I may tell you that it is no wonder that those who supplied pigs to the abattoir went out of pigs having regard to the Government's admixture scheme. Owing to that scheme, they have to buy feeding stocks at practically twice their value. Whole maize was selling recently at the Cork ports at from £4 10s. to £4 12s. 6d. per ton and the pig feeder in West Cork had to pay for the admixture about £7 a ton. That was a difference of £3 a ton for a very inferior food. That ran up the cost to the farmers of West Cork. If the farmers of Cork County or of Munster were allowed to blend and consume the cereals they grow, it would reduce the cost of production to such an extent that pig feeding would be profitable to them. At present, they have to pay the cost of transport of barley or oats from Kildare, or, perhaps, counties further off, to Cork. They have to pay the cost of the rehandling and then they feed this inferior article to their stock. The result is that the pig feeders of Cork have not made money on pig feeding. They are not in a position, as the result of pig feeding, to meet the demands of the flying squad or other demands. It is right to protest against this burden of £6,000,000 which has been added to the Estimates. It is, of course, only in keeping with Fianna Fáil policy through and through. It is the policy of the rake's progress. I venture to prophesy that this policy will soon come to an end because the people in the country now realise what they did. They were fooled once; they were fooled twice, but I can assure the Government that they are not going to be fooled a third time.

Mr. Dockrell

The Minister, in introducing this Vote on Account, challenged this Party to state what Estimate they would reduce. To make our flesh creep, he asked: "Do you want to reduce the old age pensions?" He also mentioned other items. That is a very convenient way of getting out of expounding in greater detail—as the occasion would require—the policy of the Government. Now I would like to refer to some of the matters that we were left in doubt about. There is very grave doubt as to the capacity of the country to bear expenditure at the present rate, and while the present war is going on. There has been, in both political and economic spheres, a spread of uncertainty, produced amongst the various sections of the people by the uncertain action of the Government, which leaves many people in doubt as to what policy the Government are pursuing, or in what way they themselves ought to shape their course of action. I think that question, if it was gone into more fully, would go a long way towards explaining the sort of invisible or unexplainable growth in the figures of unemployment. Undoubtedly the unemployment figures are calculated on a somewhat different basis to what they were some time ago; but, making all due allowance for that, there is a large section of the community at present unemployed. I would like to suggest to the Government that one explanation of that phenomenon is that there is, through the whole community, a sense of uncertainty as to what way the policy of the Government is being shaped.

I would like to ask the Government is there a war on at the present time? If there is a war on, is there any battle? I would like to assure nervous people that I am not suggesting that an Irish expeditionary military force should be despatched to the shores of the neighbouring country. But I am suggesting that if there is a war on, the logical conclusion would be to have either an engagement or a battle, and that the place that that ought to be fought would be round a table to see what terms could be obtained. I would, also, like to ask is this an economic war or a political war? Or are the two questions so inextricably bound up that they cannot be separated? Deputy Belton yesterday pointed out that we are paying far more, at the present time, than the £5,000,000 originally demanded by the British. He said that a cheque should be written for that amount. Well, certainly if a cheque could be written, without prejudice, it would save us in this country many millions.

As an instance of the uncertainty that we seem to be living under at the present time, the President states that we ought to be free to leave the British Commonwealth of Nations, and if this country is prepared to go on to a republic, he is prepared to lead them. Now, whether this is to be a workers' republic, or some other brand of republic, does not really matter at the moment. But I suggest that the President is putting the country under all the disadvantages of leaving the association in which we were, without having yet made up our minds, whether we want to leave it or whether we want to go on to a republic. I suggest that that is a part of the question that this Party is anxious to get an answer to from the other side. What favourable turn of events, if we are merely fighting a political issue, are we waiting for? It is usual in the course of a war to try and manoeuvre the enemy into such a position that one side will lose far more than the other. I would like the Government to give us some idea as to when they think some turn of events will leave us in a favourable opportunity for a settlement. We are being importuned by the Government to fall in behind them in the demand for the abolition of the annuities. Is that the problem? Can that be regarded as the only outstanding question? I think the Government would say it is not so.

In the course of this debate Deputy Belton suggested that having given our coal and cement trade to England, it left England in a very favourable position, and that we might as well go on and settle the whole question. The President indignantly informed Deputy Belton that we were at present paying the annuities, or rather that England was collecting them from us under protest. I would like to suggest to the Government that, under protest, they might make a settlement of the economic war, and that that would certainly leave this country in a very much more favourable position than we are in at the present time. We have been told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the Government have settled their policy far in advance, and that everybody knows what their policy is. We had in the last few days a visit from a German delegation. That delegation has just left our shores. I would like to suggest to the Minister that no body of people interested in German goods here were summoned to meet those delegates. The Government were unable, or unwilling, to give those people interested any advice as to what the trend of their negotiations was, or as to whether our people ought to deal with those Germans or have any association with them in commerce or not, and, in fact, the last agreement we have made with England destroys the last vestige of any excuse for retaining the emergency duties as at present constituted. These emergency duties were brought in at a time when it was suggested that England might put additional duties on the products of this country, and when the Government wished, to be able to retaliate immediately. While that was the Government's contention, and this Oireachtas gave the Government these powers, I would suggest that, under the guise of emergency duties, protective duties are being put on from time to time without debate or criticism by this Chamber.

I can quite understand the Minister saying: "Oh, well, of course, the reason we put those on is that when somebody starts, or is prepared to start, an industry we must immediately put on a protective duty." I would, however, suggest that that is a two-edged sword, because it leaves the people in industry uncertain as to any period they can depend upon without interference with their sources of supply of raw material, or the market for their finished products. Usually, in most countries, it is the policy for a budget to be brought in once a year. The Government more or less declare their policy for the year, and the people can shape their plans for the ensuing 12 months, but now we do not know, from day to day or hour to hour, what new tax will meet our eyes when we open the morning newspaper, and, shortly afterwards, we receive by post a synopsis of the duty which is going to be imposed. I suggest to the Minister that this is one of those cases in which, while he may be increasing employment on the one hand, he is substantially reducing it on the other. In other words, he is losing on the swings what he is making on the roundabouts.

Deputy Dillon used to say, on the opposite benches, that our scheme for the agricultural industry was too fantastic, that he would not be found dead, as he used to say, trying to carry out the schemes that this Government had put into operation. The British people now are recognising that the sooner they get to the position when they can grow their own food and supply their own wants as far as possible, the better it will be for them. Our whole policy is directed towards making this country self-supporting, so that it will not have to be dependent on the steamship or on the foreigner for its food or clothing. We have gone a long way towards doing that. Will anybody on the Opposition Benches say that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has not carried out his promises as regards the creation of industries?

I wish some of the Deputies for County Louth, Deputy Murphy or Deputy Coburn, were here. That is the one county in Ireland where the Government candidates were well beaten at the last election. The Opposition beat us two to one. I would ask any fair-minded Deputy to go into Dundalk or Drogheda to-day and ask anybody there what is the position in that county since the Government came into office. Take the boot and shoe industry. I read the other morning that the quota for boots and shoes had been fixed at 600,000 pairs. It used to be almost 3,000,000 pairs. Have we kept our promises in regard to that industry? Notwithstanding that, at the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis to-day, wherever it is being held, delegates are being told by Deputies from those benches that the country is being ruined and ruined rapidly. Deputy Dr. O'Higgins, in a speech eulogising Deputy Cosgrave, told the delegates that if Deputy Cosgrave got back to the wheel he was the one man that could save the country. The very identical Deputy said the same about General O'Duffy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should now get back to the Bill.

Mr. Donnelly

I am pointing out the inconsistencies and the changes that have taken place inside the last two years in the attitude of Deputies opposite. Deputy Cosgrave cannot save this country any more than anybody else, because his whole political history is against anybody of ordinary intelligence believing that. When I hear farmer Deputies—and I say this to Deputies Holohan and Fagan— mention Deputy Cosgrave, I would ask: "Will you put him one query——"

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing Deputy Cosgrave's administration or policy. Let us discuss the policy of the present Government and their administration on the present Bill.

A Deputy

He is discussing the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis.

Mr. Donnelly

We have got alternative suggestions from the Opposition, and we are told that it is time the Government got out of office. Naturally then, we ask the Opposition what would be their policy if Deputy Cosgrave got into office. When Deputy Cosgrave comes along in this House and suddenly professes an interest in the people of the North of Ireland, naturally enough any native of that portion of the country is glad of the fact that anybody takes notice that this country has two Governments. The £27,000,000 that is being voted in these Estimates, plus the £11,000,000 that has been voted in Belfast, makes £38,000,000 for the Government of this island of ours. Deputy Minch was quite right in stating that it took approximately £9 per head of the population of the country as a whole to govern this country. That could have been avoided. I am one of those people who believe that that could have been avoided, and I was astounded when I heard Deputy Cosgrave in this House express his willingness to get back again to the question of trying to remove partition, more particularly when I read in this House a quotation from the late Lord Birkenhead in which Deputy Cosgrave accepted the proposed boundary as a final solution of that end of the Irish question. He seems to have got another bee in his bonnet now. Deputy Cosgrave seems to have a very comprehensive alternative policy to that which the present Government has put into operation. The criticism that President de Valera gets for not settling the economic war will fade into insignificance as compared with the praise which will be bestowed on President Cosgrave for this constructive suggestion put forward by him in another place. Here is the alternative we are going to be faced with. Here is the alternative to the policy of the present Government to supply money for the carrying out of which these Estimates are introduced.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Money is being asked in this Bill to finance the policy of the Government. No money is being asked for in this measure to finance Deputy Cosgrave's policy. We must discuss what is in this measure. No doubt Deputy Donnelly will find an opportunity of discussing Deputy Cosgrave's policy on another occasion.

Mr. Donnelly

Before you came in, Sir, other Deputies suggested alternative policies to the policy which these Estimates are introduced to finance. I was only dealing, in passing, with one of the items in these alternative policies. That is, that they are going to do away with Partition and that this country should be possibly one big colony inside the Commonwealth. However, out of respect to the Chair, I shall leave that aspect of the matter. I take it that is going to be their policy in the future, and that it will not be one of barren criticism. On everything that the Government attempted to do in the past, it did not matter what it meant to the ordinary citizen, it did not matter what employment it would create, or what town would reap the benefit, we got nothing but barren hostile criticism from the Opposition, who said that the Government can do nothing that is right.

Deputy Dockrell made one shrewd remark in dealing with the question as to whether the present economic war could be settled in regard to one item—the retention of the annuity moneys—apart from the political issue. I think he suggested that the Government should inform the House as to whether it was their intention to go all out for their original objective of the Republic. I do not think anybody on this side of the House, either here or outside—I for one did not, and all my colleagues are of the same feeling— made any secret, good, bad or indifferent, as to what the final objective of the Party is.

Mr. O'Leary

Deputy Derrig did.

Mr. Brennan

Deputy Norton does not believe you.

Mr. Donnelly

I am not the keeper of Deputy Norton's conscience.

Mr. O'Leary

Or of Deputy Derrig's.

Mr. Donnelly

I am only saying, with all respect to Deputy Dockrell, that I do not believe that any Deputy on this side ever in the slightest deviated one iota from what we believe to be the big national objective, and that is the independence of this country.

It will come some day or other and if we have to advance sooner than perhaps it might be prudent to advance, I sincerely hope that none of the obstacles of the type we sometimes used to meet with in the past will confront us. I sincerely hope that they will be out of the way and that we will have more unity amongst our people in making towards the big national objective. The whole life of this movement has been only 20 years, from 1916 to 1936. We all recollect the strides that have been made during those 20 years. We all have a good idea, and so has Deputy Dockrell, as to where the main opposition came from when that great national advance was taking place. I hope when we get once more to bedrock, when we think the time is ripe to go forward once more towards the national objective, that obstacles of the type that existed in the past will not bar our way. I believe that with a united country, with our people thinking rightly on national lines, there will not be very much to keep us back from attaining that objective.

Anybody who, 20 years ago, would have told the young men of the country that they would be here as legislators even in a Parliament for only 26 counties, would have been laughed at. There were people who made what was then looked upon as an extravagant claim, and yet that claim was realised. When we give utterance to hopes that we may get to our objective sooner than many people think, let us not be laughed at. I believe it is the destiny of the country, and if we keep the big national objective in sight all the time, it will be the best method of retaining unity amongst the best elements in the country.

Deputy Minch was in an entertaining mood to-night. He talked about the speeches that we made all over the country and he referred to our promises. He said one thing, however, that I cannot subscribe to, and that was that the sooner this Government got out of office the better for the country as a whole. That was merely a pious hope, but I expect that the wish was father to the thought. Let me assure the Deputy that this Government is not going out of office as quickly as he or others think. I really believe that if we went to the country to-morrow, with the policy we have here at the moment, we would be sent back into office again. I think that shrewd politicians of the type of Deputy Brennan would hardly disagree with that.

Mr. Brennan

They might.

Mr. Donnelly

I do not see what alternative there is in the country to-day to the present Government. We have had the examples of the local elections. No sane man or woman would send back the Opposition. They have not organised their ranks sufficiently to give any confidence to the people. The Opposition talked about the last coal-cattle pact, described it as moonshine, and said it did no good. I do not believe that. Why did they not have a division on it when it was going through the House? Deputies opposite should remember that there is an economic war going on between 26 counties of this little country and a very wonderful Empire. Deputy Dockrell this afternoon, in a nice plausible way, said that the President should write out a cheque and hand it over to England as a kind of final settlement for the annuities. I remember reading the findings of British experts; I remember reading the reports of the Childers Commission and the Primrose Commission. Let me take the words of the late Michael Collins, who said that from the time of the Union to the outbreak of the big war England fleeced this country to the tune of £400,000,000.

Deputy Cosgrave is now very anxious about Partition, but he should recollect the period when the Six Counties were given away and, on top of all that, he wrote a substantial cheque for £50,000,000 of your hard-earned money for the British, and the only receipt he got was a Degree out of Cambridge University. We are told that the policy that this Government is putting into operation, is standing over and wants this money for, is to be brought to a full stop. We are told that we should go out of office and allow a better Government to take our place.

I do not believe that that represents the true feeling in the country. We have carried out our promises, irrespective of what may be said here. We carried out our promises in regard to housing and drainage. The record of the Minister for Industry and Commerce as regards industry and the work he has done for this country will live when he is a very old man, and will live long after he has passed away.

I never could understand why members of the old brigade over there, men who were in the Irish-Ireland movement, men who were part and parcel of the national movement in the days of Sinn Féin, should ever oppose the policy this Government is putting into operation. It was Griffith himself, more than anybody else, who preached it. In the old days we were anxious to give the home markets to the Irish farmers, to give the farmers first claim on the markets in our Irish towns, and to establish industry. We have succeeded in doing so to a great extent. We wanted to establish industries in our towns, so that the artisans and workers would have the money to buy from their neighbours, the farmers, who brought their produce into the towns. We wanted to keep out the foreigners. From the moment this Government took office we have not had to make apologetic speeches, such as were made for the dumping of German oats into Cork, which took place under the Cosgrave régime.

We are going ahead with our policy. This Bill will go through. The social services have to be catered for. The old age pensioners have been brought back to the standard at which they were before the late Government reduced pensions by 1/-. The men who fought for their country, and who were crippled and broken in health by doing so, have got pensions, and we do not ask them what views they hold in politics. The Government are inspired by the sole idea of doing what is right and just. Above everything else, we are hopeful that, when this economic war is settled, we will have more people than we have now going forward towards the big national objective.

Mr. Brodrick

It is rather strange that in every Estimate that has been submitted here since Fianna Fáil came into office, it is the same section of the people who are being asked to continue suffering. If you look over the different Estimates you will be struck by that extraordinary fact. I should like to make reference here to one particular Estimate, the Gaeltacht services. I observe that the Estimate for Gaeltacht services has been considerably reduced. If there is one Estimate that deserves increased expenditure, it is the Estimate for Gaeltacht services. I think the Fianna Fáil Deputies from Galway, Deputy Mrs. Concannon, for instance, will agree with me that this is a type of service deserving of an increased grant. We all know the position in the Gaeltacht. We know the conditions under which the people there live. There are some Deputies better informed about the conditions of the people in the Gaeltacht, and I think they will be with me in urging the Government to give more favourable consideration to the claims of the Gaeltacht. It is the one service in which I expected to see the Estimate increased.

As regards all the other Estimates, you will find that the Estimate for Agriculture has been decreased by about £300,000. The Agricultural Grants have gone down from £900,000 to £370,000, and Forestry is down by £76,000. Against that you will see that in the case of the Office of Public Works there is an increase of £14,000, and their estimate of expenditure for the coming year is down by £57,000. You will also see that the increase in the Office of Industry and Commerce is in or about £118,000. I see no reason why there should be such an increase in the Office of Industry and Commerce and the Office of Public Works. The people who were suffering during the whole time are asked to pay again in the coming year.

We also have the bounties, and I am particularly interested in one industry. As the Minister for Agriculture is not here to-night I would ask the Minister for Finance to give an answer to what I am going to put to him. In the year 1932-3 a small industry for the export of seed potatoes to foreign countries was established in the West of Ireland and in Donegal. There was no help asked from the Government at that time. The farmers and the merchants who were exporting the potatoes took the matter up with the Department officials, and I know that in County Galway in that particular year 136 tons were exported. They were exported to different countries outside England. What is the position to-day? You will find in the Estimates that on farm produce, including potatoes, there is going to be a saving of £450,000. In 1935-6 we have already exported from County Galway 1,783 tons, and we expect that by the end of the season 2,000 tons will have been exported. In 1932-3 we worked without a bounty. In 1933-4 we got a bounty of 17/6 per ton. We have exported those potatoes to Spain, Portugal, Algeria and the Canary Islands. There is great trouble entailed because they have to be graded, and the farmers are under great expense in order to export the 2,000 tons of seed potatoes to those countries. As I say, the Government had not to intervene in order to form that foreign market.

I would say that about 50 per cent. of the potatoes grown on an acre of ground are fit for export. They have got to go through a one-and-a-half inch ring or one-and-a-quarter inch ring as the case may be. The rest of the potatoes are called ware potatoes and are used for home consumption or sent to the British market. If the farmers of Galway are to be deprived of the bounty of £1 per ton on those potatoes it will be a great hardship. 2,000 tons for export purposes means about 400 acres. There is another benefit; in a county where a great deal of beet is grown it serves as a crop for rotation purposes. If the Minister makes inquiries he will find that a big amount of employment is given. The price we are paid for the potatoes in Galway is £2 per ton plus £1 per ton bounty. That is the cheapest price at which potatoes can be grown. The farmers are prepared to grow them at that price, but if the bounty is withdrawn— and it means only about £2,000 to give a bounty of £1 per ton—you will for all time be finished with the export market for seed potatoes. I would ask the Minister to bring that matter to the notice of the Minister for Agriculture.

It is quite possible the answer will come that alcohol factories are to be established in this country. What we call ware potatoes can be utilised in alcohol factories, and at the same time we could export the smaller potatoes, which have made a name in practically every country in the world. They are every day being shipped from Galway, and I suppose the same thing applies to Donegal. For the alcohol factories here you will have plenty of what we call ware potatoes, but for God's sake let us keep up the market we have made. We have not asked the Government for much. The farmers and the merchants in the county established those markets. We would ask the Government to help us to keep that market, and the only way in which it can be kept is to give the people who have worked hard to establish that market £1 per ton bounty, which I believe would not amount to much more than £2,000 per annum.

Mr. Anthony

I think it is only fair to the Minister that I should not occupy more than seven or eight minutes. I think the Minister will himself admit that I am always fair in those matters. I understand the Minister is to get from some time about 9.30 to reply; I will endeavour to say all I have to say in about five or six minutes. I listened to the speech made by Deputy Donnelly here to-night, and really that is the urge which made me get up to speak at all. Deputy Donnelly spoke about all the things that the Fianna Fáil Government had done, but he neglected to tell us about the things which Fianna Fáil promised and which they have not done. What about the £2,000,000? I do not want to go over the plan which has been so often spoken of here—the Fianna Fáil plan to reduce taxation by £2,000,000 when the Budget represented a sum of £21,000,000. That would bring the national expenditure down to £19,000,000, instead of which we will be faced this year with a Budget possibly over £31,000,000. That does not look like reducing national expenditure by £2,000,000. We were to end partition. Have we gone the right way about it? I will leave that to Deputy Donnelly. Have we solved unemployment? That was another of the promises made by Fianna Fáil. Not alone were we to bring back into industry every unemployed man in the country, but we would have to send for our kith and kin across the Channel and bring them all back, even down to the figure of one.

We were told that there were two Governments in this country. Deputy Donnelly, for whom I have a wonderful respect, is one of the greatest assets that the Fianna Fáil Party ever had, and judging by his speech to-night I do not wonder at their success in the country, because Deputy Donnelly can speak more clap-trap and flap-doodle in half-an-hour-than the whole of that Party put together. That apparently is the kind of thing which is spoken at the cross-roads and which has put Fianna Fáil into power. Deputy Donnelly again fell into error when he spoke about the promises made by Fianna Fáil. They were published as promises, but according to one of his own Party they were not promises; they were merely statements. That is on record; they were "merely statements."

Mr. Donnelly

Will you go up to Dundalk——

Mr. Anthony

Certainly; I have been there before.

Mr. Donnelly

——and you will see some of our work.

Mr. Anthony

Mr. O'Leary

I will not detain the House long. A definite challenge was made to us as to what was our policy with regard to the unemployment problem. Our policy has been given clearly to-day by the leader of our Party at our Ard-Fheis, and I have not the slightest doubt, if we were in office to-morrow that, with the money at the disposal of the Government, we would make a far better attempt at solving that problem than the Fianna Fáil Government has done. Deputy Davin talked about wheat and beet. Very well, let us talk about wheat. I want to know now what the flour-milling industry costs this country at the present year? I was in Macroom a short time ago and saw an unfortunate labourer's wife paying 6d. or 8d. more than she should pay for a half stone of flour and that was because of this interference with the milling industry. I should like to know now from the Minister for Finance what amount of employment does the flour-milling industry give? We pay 10/- to 12/- a sack more for our flour than is paid in Northern Ireland or in Great Britain. We use about 3,000,000 sacks. That means that on this commodity alone there is a tax on the people of £1,500,000. I remember a few years ago reading the report of the Tariff Commission that went into the question of flour milling in the time of the late Government. They found that if all the flour needed in this country were milled in this country it would give employment only to 153 persons in addition to the people in temporary employment in the industry already. Let us take it that it is giving employment to 300 hands. Would it not be good business to give a pension of £3 a week for life to every man engaged in that industry and let them enjoy it, instead of the country paying £1,500,000 a year for this industry?

We are struggling hard to solve unemployment. What is happening to-day? Never before had we so much unemployment. Fianna Fáil went to the country and they said they would put 86,041 additional people into employment and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, as he then was, said there would be so much employment opened up that we would have to bring our own people back from America. What is the position to-day? Deputy O'Sullivan spoke about the number of people who are leaving this country for England. I think it is the duty of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to get these figures so that the people may see the situation that has been created by this emigration from this country. I did not hear Deputy Davin speak about the conditions under which the people in industries are working. I got up for one reason more than another and that is to read to the House the extraordinary speech that Judge O'Donnell made in Cork yesterday at a meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Nobody can say that Judge O'Donnell is biased against the present Government, because they put him into his present position. I will conclude my remarks by reading part of the speech for you. I ask the Government to investigate what he states and find out the truth of the statements named. The statement in the paper is headed:

"A Great Risk."

He went on to say that he considered it an appalling state of affairs to see little girls on the streets at all hours of the night and it was a 100 to 1 chance that these girls would grow up as the Society wanted them to grow up. There was a great risk for the future of such children, and if parents could realise the great danger to the girls' health and morals they would not allow their children to be out in the streets at night.

"I am told that young girls are employed here in your city at wages from 4/- to 5/- per week and hours ranging from 9 o'clock in the morning to 7 o'clock at night,"

said the judge.

"And if our social system is such, I am afraid there is great danger for the safety of such girls."

Mr. MacEntee

He said that this expenditure is not reproductive—that it does not produce work in the ordinary sense. I am quite prepared to agree with Deputy O'Sullivan that expenditure upon housing may not produce work in the ordinary sense. He meant the sense in which it reproduces itself ad infinitum. But this increased expenditure upon housing does produce less work for the doctor and less work for the police and, in that sense, it is productive of very great good to the community, because it enables our poorer people to live as decent citizens, to bring up their children under decent conditions and to provide them with comfortable homes. That is one of the items which Deputy Mulcahy, who was Minister for Local Government, and had responsibility for drawing up the housing programme under the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration, says could be saved. Deputy Mulcahy wants the Government to abandon this housing scheme, to go back to the conditions under which the slums were rapidly spreading and increasing in County Dublin. (Interruption.) Deputy Anthony was not here when the House heard Deputy Mulcahy on this question. Deputy Mulcahy was, I believe, expressing the opinion of the Opposition Party in regard to these problems. If they were in power they would save all this expenditure and go back to the amount devoted to this purpose in 1931-2. The provision for housing in that year, which was the last year Deputy Mulcahy held office, was £212,000.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take the remaining stages now.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 5 Mar 1936