Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 9 Jul 1936

Vol. 63 No. 10

Appropriation Bill, 1936—Second Stage.

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

Mr. Dillon

Yesterday I gave the Minister notice, by your leave, that I proposed to direct his attention to a matter which has arisen in connection with one Department for which he is responsible. Recently the Minister appointed a new chairman of the Commissioners of Public Works in the person of ex-Senator Connolly. That procedure was something for which there was no exact parallel in the past, because a gentleman who had been engaged actively in politics was suddenly and precipitately transferred to the Civil Service. The Opposition deliberately refrained from comment upon that new departure, because we had no desire to make the work of Mr. Connolly—as he now is—in any circumstances more difficult than it would ordinarily be, but, having taken up the responsible position of chairman of the Commissioners of Public Works, Mr. Connolly appeared at a meeting held in Trinity College, Dublin, recently, and there delivered a speech of a controversial character, dealing with current political issues in a reasonably trenchant way. It has long been the established rule of public life in this country that persons in the Civil Service will refrain from taking part in controversial politics of any kind during their tenure of office. From that rule it would appear that Mr. Connolly has very widely departed, and while we have no desire to dwell unduly on what may have been an indiscretion or an error of judgment, I think we are entitled to ask from the Minister for Finance a very categorical statement that a speech of that character was not delivered with his approval, and that in future he will require members of the Civil Service strictly to observe the well-established convention that speeches of that character must not be delivered by them while they continue in the service of the State.

It would be open to us, Sir, perhaps, to deal with this matter more controversially and to employ stronger language. If, however, an adequate undertaking is forthcoming from the Minister for Finance, it would serve no useful purpose to exaggerate what may have been no more than a casual incident into a serious cause of complaint or a grave act of misconduct. On the Appropriation Bill, Sir, as a whole, we are entitled to ask the Government, generally, whither the policy, which they proclaim, is leading this country. The President, on a recent Estimate, took occasion to announce that it was his intention to bring before this House and, subsequently, before the country, a new Constitution. One of the star features in that new Constitution was the creation of a new constitutional person in the State who, to use the President's terms, would be the ultimate custodian of the people's constitutional rights. Now, we on this side of the House have taken the view at all times that in political matters the will of the majority of the Irish people is sovereign, and that they have an absolute right to determine at all times what the constitutional position of this country will be. In our view, if the people of this country wish to be led out of the Commonwealth of Nations, they have a perfect right to give orders to whomever may be their leaders to lead them whither they wish to go. I submit, however, to this House that it is a very great crime against the Irish people to delude them into pursuing a course of action which may result in terrible losses for the people themselves.

I think all Parties in this House are agreed that our people want, and are prepared to make any sacrifice to have sovereign independence and national unity. I think also that no greater mistake can be made by any politician in this country, or by any public man in this country, than to imagine that at any stage of our history the Irish people will be prepared to set in the balance, against what they conceive to be the proper national status of this country, any material consideration. Once any body of men get it into their heads in this country that the people are prepared to depart from their determination to have for Ireland national sovereignty and independence for some material consideration, they make a mistake which will ultimately sacrifice the confidence of the people. I believe that our people want national sovereignty and I believe that the great crime that President de Valera has perpetrated against our people is that he has used all his powers of persuasion to persuade our people that national sovereignty and independence are indissoluble from the conception of a Republic and that, unless you have a Republic, you cannot have national sovereignty and independence.

I say that that statement is false, and I say that a man in the public life of this country, who devotes his energies to persuading the people that that statement is exclusively true, is doing this country great injury and is betraying the confidence of our people. If a young man, who is a supporter of our Party, came to me and told me that while, from all material points of view, he felt that we were right, nonetheless he could not get out of his head the idea that the national position of this country demanded the declaration of a Republic, I would say to that young man: "Leave our Party, then, if you cannot be convinced that your attitude is mistaken, and join a Republican Party which will be an honest Republican Party and which will have as its immediate object the declaration of a Republic and the vindication of national honour without counting material cost." It is because, however, we believe that the national sovereignty of this country and its traditional claim to independence are effectively vindicated by membership of the Commonwealth of Nations that we stand for that constitutional position, and my submission to this House is that something graver even than that is involved, because although the vindication of a right at any given moment is important, the preservation of the thing you fought to get is infinitely more important. I say that the only effective means of vindicating the right of this country to be sovereign and independent, the only effective means of securing the unity of Ireland as opposed to the Free State and the Six Counties, and the only effective means of maintaining those things for all time against the aggression of any European Power, or of Great Britain herself, is by establishing and maintaining our position as a sovereign and independent nation in the Commonwealth of Nations, and I would not wish, in any coming general election, to have the vote of any man or woman in this country who did not believe that with all the sincerity that I believe it. I would regard it as a great tragedy if the people of this country failed to face those issues, to make up their minds honestly upon them, and to vote in accordance with the dictate of their conscience. Great as the catastrophe would be, in my opinion, for the Irish people, and all they stand for, if our people were forced into declaring a Republic after the next election, I think it would be an infinitely greater catastrophe if our people were induced in a general election, such as is coming upon us now, to vote upon false issues and to allow, in such a general election as is coming upon us, the fundamental issue to be overshadowed by things which are, in comparison, trivial and temporal.

I want to ask the President, therefore, to stop back-sliding; to stop fooling his own Party, and to stop fooling the people of this country. We are being told that there is going to be a new Constitution; that some kind of puppet is going to be set up as the ultimate custodian of the people's rights. There is only one vital question that has got to be answered in connection with that new Constitution, and that question is: Does the Constitution provide for the retention of His Majesty the King in the Oireachtas of this country? If it does, it leaves this country within the Commonwealth. If it does not, it takes this country out of it. I ask this House, and I ask this country to face that issue, and to recognise that if the President comes before them proposing a Constitution which is designed to evade that issue, and to confuse the people's minds upon it, he is coming before them for a dishonest purpose. I ask the House to adopt words spoken in that connection by a man to whom much lip sympathy is paid by members of the Fianna Fáil Party. I venture to quote the words of somebody whose good faith as an Irish nationalist has not yet been impugned by supporters of the Fianna Fáil Party. Thomas Davis wrote:

"On an equality with England and out of reach of her rapacity there is nothing in the privilege of the monarch to which Ireland could be averse. The respective advantages of each country would compel from them mutual respect, and the Throne would ever be the honourable medium of adjusting international differences."

Applying that to the situation obtaining in the Commonwealth of Nations to-day, I adopt every word and line of it, and I ask Deputies to insist that the leader of Fianna Fáil, President de Valera, will face that issue honestly and plainly, and take the people into his confidence upon it; that he will not approach it at the general election which, in all probability, will supervene before another Appropriation Bill is discussed here, with a dishonest and fraudulent attempt to persuade the people that they were in the Commonwealth and out of it, and that they could continue so indefinitely. I believe that sovereign independence is ours within the Commonwealth, and I believe that unity can be achieved. I want to say, in that connection, that national unity in this country, to be of any value, must be national unity based on the consent of all parties. I hope I will not be trespassing too far on the patience of the House if I venture again to quote the same man in that connection. Thomas Davis wrote:

"However closely we study our history, when we come to deal with politics we must sink the distinctions of blood, as well as of sect. The Milesian, the Dane, the Norman, the Welshman, the Scotchman and the Saxon naturalised here must combine regardless of their blood, the Strongbowian must sit with the Ulster Scot, and he whose ancestors came from Tyre or Spain must confide in and work with the Cromwellian and the Williamite. This is as much needed as the mixture of Protestant and Catholic. If a union of all Irish-born men ever be accomplished, Ireland will have the greatest and most varied materials for an illustrious nationality and for a tolerant and flexible character in literature, manners, religion, and life of any nation on earth."

May I commend these words to the politicians in Northern Ireland and in Southern Ireland who, instead of trying to put doctrines of that kind into practice in their respective spheres of influence, waste their time and damage the national interest by discharging broadsides at one another across the Border? If this is a Christian country at all, it would be infinitely better for politicians on both sides to try to preserve Christian peace and Christian decency in their own spheres of influence, than to spend their time upbraiding one another and stirring up all those passions that can be a curse to this country by ebullitions delivered from the safe skyline of their respective States. In Northern Ireland and in Southern Ireland peace is badly wanted between Protestant and Catholic, and between native-born and naturalised Irishmen. Hanging over the country at present is a cloud of apprehension associated with the 12th July in Northern Ireland. Whatever politicians may have said recently or in the past, every ordinary man, Protestant and Catholic, hopes and prays that when that festival, and other festivals which are the occasion of such celebrations have passed, there will be peace and quietness between all sections of the people, either in Northern Ireland or the Free State, and anyone who utters a word, on one side or the other, calculated to inflame passions, will do grave disservice to whatever political Party he is associated with, and, what is infinitely worse, do grave disservice to Ireland. I feel very strongly on this matter at present, because I feel that democracy in the world is threatened, and I think that our country can make a great contribution to protect democracy and individual liberty for the people of the world if we only put our minds to it. I see dictatorships on the Continent of Europe, and in the Far East, running amok and trampling on the rights of their small and defenceless neighbours, and I feel that the individual democracies of these countries is going to be destroyed, one after another, if they cannot combine in defence of the things in which they believe. Mind you, there are many people, obsessed with the necessity of preserving international peace, who take up the position that under no circumstances will they be induced to fight. I say that it is of vital interest to the whole of humanity that all who believe in democracy and individual liberty should combine to devise a Rubicon on which they would be prepared to stand, and behind which they would be prepared to fight. I say that the greatest service to the cause of international peace at present would be that the democracies of the world should come together and combine their genius, whatever it may be, to abate any existing international evils that obtained, by agreement, and to agree amongst themselves to notify all and sundry that there was a Rubicon behind which united democracy would stand together and fight to win, or be ultimately and finally destroyed. Nothing was more fatal than to seek to defend precious ideals by warning dictatorships or tyrannies, of the kind that we have existing at present, that under no possible circumstances would the democracies of the world fight. Unless we are all prepared to become the slaves of these dictatorships, we should inform them now that while we stand for international peace, and are prepared to make sacrifices, there is a line beyond which we will not go, and if they attempt to cross it they will meet with the opposition of a series of peoples who are prepared to fight for that freedom, prepared to die for it. I believe we can make a contribution to that through international influence, and in that connection I refer Deputies to a letter that appeared from one of the most distinguished defenders of international understanding and free institutions living to-day, Professor Nicholas Murray Butler of Colombo University. He wrote a long letter to the Times, the full substance of which I commend most especially to the members of the Fianna Fáil Party, because it is written from the detached point of view of an American democrat, who looks back on the evolution of that great free country to which he belongs, and points out how along similar lines the redemption of the democracy of the world may still be achieved. He ends his letter with these words:

"The findings of the international conference held at Chatham House in March, 1935, on the invitation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, surely indicate the first steps that are to be taken. Those findings were unanimously supported by some 60 of the world's leading statesmen, economists and men of affairs, coming from a dozen countries. They point clearly to the fact that international monetary stabilisation and the lowering of barriers to international trade are essential to that return of confidence upon which alone co-operating action by men or nations can be built. We must first of all rebuild the broken confidence of men and nations in each other, and then proceed to lessen or to remove the economic temptations to armed conflict. Given these, other gains will rapidly follow."

I urge the members of the Fianna Fáil Party to study that letter and those words, and to consider carefully whether they have not got a very special application to our country.

The President, speaking at Geneva, says that he deplores on behalf of the Irish people, and of all the small nations of the world, that the Great Powers cannot learn the lesson that wars end with peace conferences and always have done so. If that be true, if that be the universal lesson of history, why cannot the sequence of events be deliberately altered and let the peace conference precede the war, instead of the war the peace conference? Does it not sound strange to hear President de Valera uttering these words of infinite wisdom at Geneva, when we in this country look about us at the casualties of the war that has been ravaging Ireland for the past four years? Four years ago President de Valera told this House that he had tried to settle but that, because Britain and he could not agree about fundamental matters of principle, there was no use holding conferences because negotiations could get nowhere. Accordingly the war was started to settle the matters of principle which made the conference impossible. In Geneva we have to confer first and fight afterwards but in Ireland we have to fight first and let somebody coming after the President do the conferring.

Surely in this country we can give the world a lead in the practice of the doctrines that the President so eloquently preaches? Cannot the President go even at this hour to Great Britain and say that, while he does not ask her to admit fundamental facts as he sees them, and that while he denies her the right to demand that he shall admit fundamental facts as she sees them, they have common ground in one matter and that is that somebody must pay the holders of the land bonds and that rather than fight a war to decide who shall make the payment, they shall sit down together to discuss that question? Would that not be the most eloquent tribute that could be paid to the course of action which President de Valera recommends to the whole world? I know of no matter that is outstanding between Great Britain and this country that could not be amicably settled. We are told, in tones of deep drama by the President, that the ports are occupied and that while that is true the chains of oppression are wrapped round the lily white limbs of Ireland. Surely a matter of that kind is capable of being resolved if an attempt is made to resolve it. If the President feels that any national indignity is involved by providing accommodation of that kind, which he himself admits would have to be provided in case of war, some approach to settlement might be made on the lines that, while Great Britain would undertake to lease these ports from us, thereby acknowledging our inalienable right to their territorial possession, we would in exchange pay back to her whatever rent we received for services whereby British gun-boats would co-operate with the Ministry of Fisheries of Saorstát Eireann to protect our fishermen in their own fishing grounds on the west coast of this country. I do not say that in these exact terms an arrangement could be arrived at but surely along these lines some pact might be effected which would remove the causes of irritation and annoyance which according to the President at present exist. With goodwill, matters of that kind can be overcome.

The reason I deal with these matters is to appeal to the Fianna Fáil Party to make up their minds as to the fundamental issue. Do they accept before the people the responsibility of taking this country out of the Commonwealth of Nations? If they do, can they not persuade themselves to do it with dignity and honesty at the earliest possible moment? If, on the other hand, they mean, as I believe many of them at the backs of their minds really do, that they want to stay in the Commonwealth because they know that, through that, national dignity and national security can best be obtained, I ask them to set themselves honestly to the task of establishing good relations with the other members of the Commonwealth by endeavouring honestly to overcome the causes of misunderstanding or irritation that exist between us and Great Britain or any other member of the Commonwealth with which we are associated. I believe that in doing that, not only would Ireland derive great benefit, but that Ireland would be given the opportunity, as I believe she has the will, to do real service in the cause of human liberty and the cause of democracy the world over.

I believe that, as a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, her power for good would be immense. I believe that as an isolated republic her power for anything would be negligible. I believe that if her ultimate destiny were an independent republic of 32 Counties she would become the pawn of whatever big Power held the field in Europe at any given time. I believe she would sink to the same international status as is at present occupied by the small independent nations of Europe, masquerading as independent countries and taking their orders from the Foreign Office of some neighbouring Power. I should be long sorry to think that the Irish nation would take up such a position in the life of the world. I believe that as a member of the Commonwealth we can exercise an influence out of all proportion to our numbers or wealth. I believe that we can carry on an imperialism of the only kind that can be justified, an imperialism of peaceful penetration of ideas and of men throughout the world where we shall be everywhere welcomed, genuinely and honestly. I believe that if this country has a destiny at all, that must be the destiny it has and I should be proud to be part of the generation that started it on the way to do that kind of work all over the world. I think that all Parties would be bitterly ashamed, if by mishandling the opportunities which have been made available, we threw away these unprecedented opportunities and brought Ireland back to the miserable position from which she has been rescued by so many men of past generations who have done such splendid service to the country which we are trying to serve now.

Mr. MacDermot

Deputy Dillon has travelled eloquently over a very wide field, perhaps a wider field than anybody else has hitherto travelled, on an Appropriation Bill in this House, at any rate, during my time as a member of it. I listened with satisfaction, from beginning to end, to what he said, and with almost complete agreement. If I have to strike one note of doubt it is in relation to his suggestion that there should be a lining up of the democracies of the world against other forms of Government. Now the issue which is really important as a world issue is the preservation of peace and justice, and democracies are not always the most peaceful and not always the most justice-loving. And while I am entirely in favour of directing our minds to wider issues than our troubles at home, and while I am entirely in favour of being prepared to make sacrifices for the good of the world as a whole, I think that we might do more harm than good if we started off in a spirit of antagonism to nations with a form of government other than that of democracy. I say that as a democrat. The line that is to be drawn in the world, to-day, is not between democracy and autocracy but between those nations that want peace and justice, and those who do not. The line is between those nations which believe that the most valuable gifts, both material and spiritual, are brought by peace, and those who think that the best and most glorious aim is war, that the main business of men is to fight, and that the main business of women is to breed children for fighting. What I would rather deprecate—I do not like to use so strong a word as clap-trap— is that sort of language which is used in labour circles in England and in this country and elsewhere and which seems to imply that we ought to start a general alliance of democracies in opposition to other forms of government. I think that development of thought on those lines might lead straight to war instead of away from it.

If Deputy Dillon's speech represents the unanimous opinion, or the almost unanimous opinion of the United Ireland Party, then I find myself in closer sympathy with them than I have ever been, not merely since I left them but even when I was a member of that Party. In the first place he urged us to be broadminded and unselfish in our general view of world affairs. It was exactly on that point that I had, very reluctantly, to part company with my colleagues. It was exactly because they attacked, in very strong terms, the President of the Executive Council for standing along with the other 50 nations which condemned the aggression of Italy, and because they alleged that the President missed an extraordinary opportunity in doing that before he had exacted his price from the British Government in regard to the settlement of our home affairs. I am very glad indeed to see that they have so completely departed from that point of view.

Secondly, Deputy Dillon has given great prominence to the position of the King. I think it is none too soon. I think it is perfectly futile to shut our eyes to the fact that the King is the key to the whole situation; that there is no real acceptance of the Commonwealth position that does not involve the acceptance of the Crown and all its implications. In the past I have been reproved for tactlessness because I insisted on bringing in the name of the King into our discussions. I have been reproved privately by leading figures in the Opposition for having stated that I desired to see the day come when the name of the King would be regarded with respect and affection in this country. My feeling is that there is no use any longer in shutting our eyes to the realities of the situation. Nobody in this country is likely to become over-snobbish or over-courtierlike about royalty. But if the Commonwealth is to be accepted not merely because of the material advantages that we derive, if we want to work in harmony with the other members and in a spirit of free and loyal partnership, we must realise that the one link that holds the whole thing together is the Crown. If we are sincere in our desire to reunite Ireland as one country we must surely realise that our attitude towards the Crown plays an enormously important part. We must realise that not only does an attitude of dislike and disrespect for the Crown antagonise people whom we wish to conciliate in the North, but that if things were in such a condition in the Irish Free State, that the King was able to come over here, and to be received in the cordial spirit in which he would be received in South Africa, it would be possible for him personally to exercise most valuable influence in bringing the north and south of Ireland together.

The third point which specially struck me in the speech of Deputy Dillon was the appeal he made to President de Valera and the Executive Council to bring the question of a republic to an issue. I introduced a motion in this House some time ago which called upon the President to do that very thing, either to abandon republicanism, or to appeal to the country for authority to establish a republic. Only a small proportion of the Opposition supported that motion. There has been a feeling that it was not safe to bring the question to an issue. There has been a feeling that a great many people were content to remain in the Commonwealth because of the material advantage involved, because of the advantage to our trade, and the advantage of citizenship to numbers of our people who go and get employed in various parts of the Empire, and that those people might go on being in favour of the Commonwealth so long as they were not called upon to say so. I heard Deputy Dillon say to-day that no one should stay in his Party who accepts the Commonwealth merely because of the material advantages they are getting out of it, and yet believe that it is inconsistent with our independence. I agree with him. I admire that sentiment, and I do think that all of us should try to teach the people of this country to make up their minds on the matter of principle, and decide whether or not national dignity and the traditions we have inherited from our forefathers are really inconsistent with free and equal membership of the Commonwealth. I am, therefore, glad to echo the appeal Deputy Dillon has made to the President of the Executive Council and to the Government Party, as a whole, to face this issue without more straddling.

The great defect of Government policy on many matters has been a tendency to straddle. They have straddled for years on the subject of the maintenance of order; they have straddled on the subject of the I.R.A. until just the other day. They have ceased to straddle on that subject, and I take my hat off to them for doing so. That is the very best thing they have done since they came into office, and I am inclined to think that their coming into office was worth while for that alone, because it is something they cannot go back upon, and it will be of infinite importance to the welfare of the country in years to come. Having ceased to straddle on that question, let them cease to straddle on the national issue as well. They do infinite harm by pretending that this country is not free when it is free. They do infinite harm by pretending that we are in the Commonwealth under duress when, as a matter of fact, we are free to go out of it. There is no compulsion to stay in the Commonwealth other than the compulsion arising from the inevitable and logical consequences of becoming aliens. If people who have risked everything in the past for national independence are not prepared now to risk the logical consequences of being aliens, that appears to me to turn everything glorious in our history into rubbish and to spoil the national record of this country. I cannot believe that the attitude of the Government is at bottom the attitude of the country, and I do hope that when the next election comes—or before the next election comes—the Government will make clear to the country that we have reached the parting of the ways and that the people should decide on the merits of the case whether or not they are content to be free and equal members of the Commonwealth, or whether they feel that the national dignity cannot be sustained except by setting up a republic.

This debate was opened by some comments on the speech of Mr. Connolly at a meeting of University students. It was a speech which I read with a great deal of interest, and I must confess that I share the opinion of Deputy Dillon that it was an improper speech for a civil servant to deliver. Mr. Connolly has so lately become a civil servant, and has been so very active a politician in the past that I think one may look upon this misdemeanour with a rather indulgent eye. It certainly is entering into the partisan politics of this country to tell a lot of young men that we are not really free, and that we are prevented by threats of war and economic sanctions from clearing out the social evils which have poisoned our body politic. It is not only an incursion into partisan politics, but it is absolute nonsense. Mr. Connolly and everybody on the Government Benches knows that we are free to execute any social reform we like without interference from across the water.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy has reproved a civil servant for an indiscreet utterance and I think it would be quite inconsistent for the Deputy now to engage in controversy with the civil servant in question.

An Ceann Comhairle

The matter raised by Deputy Dillon and Deputy MacDermot was quite in order but both Deputies will realise that they should not reply in this House to a speech by a civil servant to the making of which they have taken objection.

Mr. MacDermot

I accept that. Let me say that, leaving Mr. Connolly's speech out of the question, it is characteristic of the Government Party to represent that they are engaged in repelling an aggression upon this nation, that they are engaged in fighting as best they can an outrageous attempt to crush our economic life. That is a contention that will not bear a moment's examination. There has been nothing in the action of Great Britain or of any other country to interfere with any schemes we may have for improving our social conditions here at home. If Great Britain had really designed to bring us to ruin, to impose her will upon us, she could have done so. She could have done so by preventing the entrance into her ports of any Irish Free State goods whatsoever. Instead of doing that, the British Parliament were content to try to collect the exact amount they claim to be due to them. Subject to that, they have actually co-operated with our Government in making the arrangements most favourable to their trade and to our trade. The days when it was held that the British market was a bad thing—a thing we ought to be delighted to see the end of—have passed. It used to be felt by members of the Government Party that our trade with Great Britain was actually incompatible with our liberty, that we could not consider ourselves free until we had reached such a point that the British market was of little importance to us. That is just struggling against the facts of nature. The Government have creased so to struggle. They have made the best arrangements they can with Great Britain and it is time we departed altogether from the philosophy that the existence of such arrangements constitues a check upon our freedom. We must not go on blindly revolting against fact. We should justly resent and revolt against aggression by any foreign nation, but we must not go on talking as if this country could not be free so long as it was in our interest to retain the goodwill of another country, because it will always be in our interest to retain the goodwill of the market across the water. The truth of the matter is that the relations which the Government have been building up with the British Government for the last year or two have been of great advantage to the country and will be increasingly of advantage to the country, and it is only, unfortunately, because they are so much in the habit of feeling themselves bound by their own absurd actions in the past that they do not go further and wipe out all the causes of dispute between us.

Deputy Dillon has urged that the President should import into his own dealings with the British the spirit of conference and conciliation that he is recommending to others. I would urge the same thing. I repeat the statement that I made here on many occasions that no effort at compromise has been made even yet throughout the whole course of this dispute with Great Britain. There is no economic war. It is absurd to say that there is an economic war, when, in fact, in the greater part of our relations, we are doing our best to co-operate with each other. But there is a very damaging financial dispute between us and Great Britain and it is entirely inconsistent with the principles that the President has been laying down at Geneva that he should not make an attempt at getting a compromise. It is common ground that in regard to the arbitration tribunal the two Governments cannot agree. At least, they cannot agree until our Government has stopped straddling as to whether we belong to the Commonwealth or not. If we were out of the Commonwealth we could demand an international tribunal. If we were in it, we could accept a Commonwealth one. So long as they are straddling on the national issue we cannot get a tribunal. But seeing that the British are collecting the full amount, any businesslike compromise would be a gain for this country. I suggest that the Government should offer the British Government some smaller annual payment than the British are at present collecting.

There are things in that speech of Mr. Connolly's with which, so far from my feeling inclined to quarrel, I warmly agree, things that if read in their right sense by himself and by the members of the Government Party would help——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has admitted the impropriety of discussing that speech.

Mr. MacDermot

Let me forget that speech. Let me urge on the Government to adopt the advice that has been given them by somebody whom I need not mention. Let me urge them to adopt the advice that has been given them to look into first principles and to cherish a spirit of justice and a spirit of peace, and thus try to get internal freedom. Internal freedom is threatened not by outside interference but by all sorts of things within our borders that the Government should set their hands to getting rid of—by all sorts of shibboleths, narrownesses and intolerances.

It has become the custom here to regard it as a test of patriotism always to applaud what our Government does when they are having a dispute with a Government in another country. That is not a test of patriotism. About a month or two ago we were all grieved to learn of the death of a well-known Englisman, G.K. Chesterton, who was a good friend of Ireland, and I noticed that unlimited praise was given to him in all our newspapers. A number of our public men spoke of him with great warmth and admiration. Now it is worth considering for a moment what were the qualities, what was the point of view that made G.K. Chesterton the great man he was. G.K. Chesterton was English of the English. He loved England with all his heart and soul and yet throughout his entire life he was chastising England and chastising English Governments. Whenever he saw the slightest glimmer of what he considered to be injustice in the attitude of the British nation towards other nations he was always prompt to point it out. He regarded the principle of "My country, right or wrong" as much the same as saying "My mother, drunk or sober, I will stand over whatever she does." True patriotism does not consist in that attitude at all. It would be a very good thing for this country if it were realised that a man may love it with his whole heart and yet consider it his duty to fight with all his strength against anything that he considers mean or unjust or wrong in the conduct of his fellow countrymen.

Mr. Morrissey

The point has occurred to me——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will give way for a moment. Deputy MacDermot stated that the discussion on this Appropriation Bill began on very wide lines. Deputies are aware that the Appropriation Bill simply gives statutory effect to the votes passed on the Estimates. The proper subject for debate on the Appropriation Bill is administration, including policy. However, there being no other business on the Order Paper to-day, the Chair will not rule strictly. Usually the Appropriation Bill has been taken as formal business. Only on three occasions was there any discussion. In no instance was there a discussion on any Stage other than the Second. To-day, however, the Chair has no inclination to rule stringently.

Mr. Morrissey

Sir, you have used yourself the very words I was proceeding to utter with regard to the argument as to making the range of discussion wider. But since he came into the House, Deputy MacDermot proceeded to make the discussion much wider altogether. Because the Deputy, taking advantage of the debate, came to the House and I suppose he hoped through the Press to tell the country once again what he considers were his reasons for resigning from the Fine Gael Party.

An Ceann Comhairle

That scarcely arises on the Bill.

Mr. Morrissey

I am in thorough agreement with that. I want to say, in passing, that it is extraordinary the number of people in this country who, within the past week, since the result of the Dublin elections became known, are so anxious to set themselves right with us. The result of the Dublin elections is just amazing; and one result is that it has got Deputy MacDermot to admit in this House that he is nearer to the members of the Fine Gael Party than to the Government Party.

Mr. MacDermot

On the contrary, Deputy Dillon has come nearer to me and not I to him.

Mr. Morrissey

Oh now! In any case the Deputy, if I might say so, flatters himself. I do not think there is anybody, inside or outside the House, who cares what Deputy MacDermot's reasons were for setting himself up as an Independent member of the House. However, I am not going to follow that line. I am going to talk of the present financial position and the things which more immediately concern the people of this country. I want to remind the House that we are asked in this Bill to authorise the Government to appropriate for the services of this country an enormous sum of money, a sum that in our opinion is far greater than this country can bear, a sum of money which imposes for national taxation alone, almost £12 per head on every man, woman and child in this country. We have an enormous increase in national taxation and, side by side with that, we have a big increase in local taxation. We have these huge burdens placed on the people at a time when the income of the country is reduced almost by half. Together with that, we have the cost of living increasing day in and day out.

The present Government, through their various activities, are responsible for placing a burden on the people of this country that the people cannot bear. The Government by its action is increasing the cost of all commodities and increasing particularly the cost of the necessaries of life. It is increasing the cost of living beyond the point that the community can stand. We are given by the Government two reasons in explanation of these increases. When the Government are accused that instead of carrying out their promise to reduce by at least £2,000,000, the taxation in force in this country when they took office, they say "yes, but look at the social services we have provided." Whilst not admitting for one moment that the social services such as they are, which have been provided by the present Government, are responsible for the very large increase in taxation, I want to put this to the Party on the opposite benches, that a great deal of the money which they have to provide for what they call social services has to be provided because they have failed to carry out the very definite promises they made. Instead of boasting of some of the services, such as unemployment assistance, free milk and free beef, they should rather be ashamed to have to say that that is the reason for the increase in taxation, because if the promise had been carried out, that they were going to find employment for every man in the country who was idle and willing to work, there would be no necessity to provide £2,500,000 for unemployment assistance. If men were able to get work they would be able to buy their own beef and milk. I do not say that even if you were to reach that stage, there would not be people requiring free milk and that it would not be a desirable thing to have free milk to a certain extent. I believe it would, but the cost would hardly be worth talking about.

I suggest to Ministers and Deputies opposite that, when they talk about the money they are providing for unemployment assistance and other forms of social services, they ought to remember that that is a clear and definite proof that they have failed absolutely to provide that employment which they promised. They ought to remember that it was on that very definite promise—to provide employment for the unemployed, to provide so many jobs that they would not have sufficient unemployed in the country to fill them —that most of them are sitting on the opposite side of the House to-day. Deputy Tom Kelly laughs. Deputy Kelly knows quite well that he and many of his colleagues got the votes of the unemployed in the City of Dublin by telling them that they would have them all employed within 12 months.

Mr. T. Kelly

I did not say that.

Mr. Morrissey

Deputy Kelly, I suppose, allowed it to be said for him. Perhaps he did not see any of the Fianna Fáil propaganda which was issued to that effect. He knows that after they have been four years in office there are over 7,000 people in the City of Dublin alone on outdoor relief, and that, notwithstanding the enormous increase in tariffs and duties and the so-called factories that are supposed to be in the city and in the country, there are more unemployed to-day in the City of Dublin and in the country generally than before the Government first took up office. They boast of the fact that they are making provision for the unemployed and that one of the reasons why we are asked to vote so much money is that this Party have taken on themselves the obligation, if not of providing work, at least of providing maintenance. They have not done either one or the other.

We are asked for this enormous sum of money notwithstanding the fact that this year the Minister for Industry and Commerce, acting for the Government, having failed to provide work, and in order to balance the Budget of the Minister for Finance, makes two Period Orders under which he deprives between 41,000 and 45,000 unemployed workers of unemployment assistance for over six months. So that, from the 2nd June until the 27th October, that number of men are denied unemployment assistance. The Government got their votes on the plea that they would provide them with work, and when they found that they were not able to do that, when they were forced into it by this House, they had to provide them with maintenance. They are now failing to do that even, because they have made an Order depriving, as I say, between 41,000 and 45,000 men of unemployment assistance. These are the facts which I should like the House to face up to. These are the matters with which the people are concerned. These are the matters with which they are immediately concerned and which must be their immediate concern. These people are more concerned with finding employment and finding the wherewithal to live than they are with many of the matters Deputy MacDermot was so eloquent about to-day.

I want the Minister for Finance, or whoever is replying to this debate, to give the House some idea of the number of persons unemployed that they propose to put into employment this year. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister that question last week. I did not expect to get a very definite figure, as it would be too much to expect, but I wanted to be told, even approximately, by what number they hope to reduce the peak figure of 145,000 unemployed by putting them into work—not by laying them off under a Period Order and deeming them at work, because, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce told us, it was very difficult at certain periods of the year to decide whether people living in rural areas were working or were unemployed. Because he could not decide that to his own satisfaction he deems them to be unemployed. I am sum that the people are forced to pay by way of taxation, is in my opinion, crippling the country. It is taking away from the people money which should be going into work that would help to absorb the unemployed. I am afraid that, as a result of the drain on the country for the last four years and the additional taxation that the people have had to meet, the prospect of men and women getting into permanent employment is farther off than ever it was.

The President, in the last speech I think he made before he went to Geneva, declared that no Party had ever put before the country a more definite and detailed policy. He challenged anyone to point out where they had failed to carry out that policy. What is one to say in reply to a statement like that? The President is either entirely ignorant of the position in the country, or he thinks he can go on indefinitely making people believe that black is white merely because he says so. It would be much easier to tell the President about the promises he has not carried out. One of the President's promises was that he would find employment for all the unemployed. He stated definitely during the election campaign that he had a cure for unemployment such as no other country had. The cure was such that we are faced to-day, as I say, with a greater number of unemployed than ever we had, and there is this enormous burden placed on the shoulders of the people to try and keep the unemployed alive, many of them barely alive, and so far as those who are affected by the Period Orders are concerned, the Department are not concerned whether they get work or maintenance during the next six months. That is an aspect of the situation to which I should like the President to turn his mind. It is one of the matters with which he might concern himself. If the President devoted a little attention to those very material facts that affect the everyday lives of the people whose votes he got on the definite promise that he would make life easier and more pleasant for them in this country, then he might not be so keen about speaking of the detailed definite policy that he would put before the people in order to obtain their confidence.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Morrissey has pointed to some of the fundamental facts that have to be taken into consideration in considering the expenditure of this amount of money. One can point to other things that concern our prestige, either at home or abroad, our good relations with other countries, our strength against other countries in fighting such battles as have to be fought in the world and in these respects much depends on the use we make of our resources, whether in materials or in men. We have been talking about the Crown. We might as well put the Crown in its proper perspective, whether as regards our relations amongst ourselves or with the people in Great Britain. The Crown to-day, in so far as any action is concerned, is guided by the will, the instructions and by the deeds of the elected representatives of the people, whether in the Free State or in Great Britain. If the elected representatives of the people here put into Ministerial position, as an Executive Council, men who cannot find paths for pursuing in a harmonious or constructive way whatever work we have to do with the elected representatives of the people in Great Britain, installed in Ministerial office, it will take something higher than the Crown to help them.

We have established here a State co-equal in status in every way with the State of Great Britain, an international position in which we are in regard to Great Britain in no way subordinate in any aspect of our external or internal affairs any more than they are subordinate to us in any aspect of their internal or external affairs. If we could realise that and realise the work that has been done in bringing that position about and what exactly that work was, the spirit in which it was carried out, and the men by whom it was carried out, we need not bother so much about the Crown. If we here cannot help ourselves, no Crown can help us, no symbol erected no matter for what purpose in any part of the world, whether at Geneva or in London, can be of any use to us, and if the people who mouth about Christianity and social well-being, such as our Ministers mouth here, cannot pursue some kind of constructive path, have some definite object in view, in whatever disputes arise between themselves and any Ministry in Great Britain, who mouth the things they do about international peace and justice and all that kind of thing, I do not know who can help them. Certainly no constitutional consideration of any kind can, and neither can any symbol erected for whatever purpose, either in London or Geneva.

We thoroughly realised from the very beginning, as every member of the Fianna Fáil Party realised from the beginning, that such constitutional issues as are raised here are raised to obscure either political weaknesses in the Fianna Fáil Party or weaknesses in their ability to carry on the work of this country and particularly to carry out their promises. Why we discuss constitutional issues on this Vote is because they are being dragged across the situation here by the President to the prejudice of the work of his Ministers, to the prejudice of the work of the people, and in order to hide the hollowness and emptiness and the sham of his whole public position. We are asked to pass a Bill which involves the voting out of the Central Fund of £30,009,520. When we look back at the Appropriation Bill in 1931, before the Fianna Fáil Party came into office, we find that it was £23,132,939, a difference of about £6,876,000. There is this in addition, that if the 1931-32 Estimates were examined, another £2,000,000 have to go on to that in respect of moneys expended for the payment of local loans. You have, in fact, a difference of £8,876,000, not to talk of what was slipped out of the Estimates in respect of wheat and put on to the people.

This represents the additional sum that we are voting out of the Central Fund, having been collected from the pockets of the taxpayers. Apart from all that, we have the fact that, over the counters all through this country in respect of bread, flour, butter, bacon, and in respect of unemployment assistance payments, extra national health insurance payments, and rates paid in urban districts towards the Unemployment Assistance Fund, there is additional money being paid. Where does it all come from? It all comes from the unfortunate people who, in so far as they are rural dwellers, have had their income practically destroyed by the practical destruction of what was two-thirds of their entire market and by the reduction of the standard of wages in the country's industries. In addition, the policy of the Government has increased their cost of living. It is because we are asked here to vote a salary for the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Agriculture, that we oppose this.

We have now come to the point at which we must look above the details and view the matter along broad, general lines. The Ministry must realise that they have taxed the people to the utmost extent to which they can be taxed and that they are spending enormous sums of money, and as a result of that expenditure, so far from their being an increase in the productive capacity of the people, so far from there being any improvement in the standard of living and so far from their being an increase in employment, the very reverse is the position.

There is not any aspect of our commercial, agricultural or industrial life that the blighting hand has not touched. Even if some additional industries have been established in the country, they have the shadow of fear at their doors. Some of our most important industries that got protection in our time, that were growing steadily and that were giving increased employment, have at their doors to-day, as a result of the general policy of Fianna Fáil, the fear that they can no longer keep employed the people that they have been employing. One reason for that is the reduction in the purchasing power of our people. Another reason is the enormous tariff walls, quotas and all the rest, that are now made to surround some of the industries set up in this country—all kinds of industries of mushroom growth, the orange-box establishments that have been set up and that are undermining and eating into the soundly organised and traditionally developed industries of our country. No doubt, the Minister can say that out of this sum of £8,876,000 there is a type of expenditure represented by £1,500,000 that was not voted before, namely, the expenditure for unemployment assistance. While some part of that money does go into the hands of the people who did not receive that kind of relief before, the greater part of it, when going into the hands of young men, goes with this note from the Government: "This is all I can do for you; we have been expending money to develop, to assist and to subsidise agriculture; we have been expending money in an endeavour to develop industries in the country and although we are spending £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 more than our predecessors spent—in spite of all our predecessors that direction, we are not able to do more for you to-day than to give you this 6/- or 8/- or 10/- in the way of unemployment assistance."

That is the kind of note that is being handed out by the Government to-day to any young man who is getting unemployment assistance, and the reason for it is because the Government do not see any chance of doing anything more for him to-morrow. If the Government take the most favoured county in the country, from the agricultural point of view, and examine it, or if they take the most favoured industrially-situated concern in the country and examine it, they must see that our prospect of employing additional workers either in that agricultural county or in that industry to-morrow, is decreasing rather than increasing. Over and over again we have drawn attention to the fact that, in spite of all the subsidies given to agriculture, permanent agricultural labour is decreasing in employment, and that wages have been substantially reduced. Even if we take the Ministerial figures, we find that the wages pool, in respect of ordinary agricultural labourers, has been cut down by £1,000,000, and that if the position is examined minutely, the fall is still greater. We are simply feeding the people, in so far as it is possible to feed them, with their own tail, and it is poor feeding they are getting.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce—we regret the circumstances which prevent him from attending in the House—has left nothing unsaid and nothing undone to create the illusion of employment in the country. We have had the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Finance speaking in much the same way. The real truth is that we cannot continue to go on destroying the agricultural industry and at the same time have employment for our people, have either industrial development or any prestige either at home or abroad. Whether you have a republican constitution, a monarchial constitution or any other kind of constitution, you cannot provide for the well-being of your people, or show any strength in the eyes of people abroad, if you destroy your own resources.

In view of the new change that has been brought about in Great Britain, where the Ministry are directing their attention to the interests and the concerns of British Agriculture, we want to know what our Government is doing to see that the traditional interests and the traditional rights of this country in the British market are being safeguarded. On four occasions recently, attention has been drawn to the statement of the Vice-President in Ottawa, that we were on the eve of making an economic settlement with Great Britain. We have had it stated here that the statement of the Vice-President at that particular time was denied both by the President and the Minister for Agriculture. The President was informed that on no occasion had the Vice-President made any denial of that statement. The President said that he would draw the attention of the Vice-President to that statement. In spite of the President's assurance that he would do so, we are still in the position, as regards our people, whose main concern it is, that it was possible to make a settlement in the summer of 1932 that would secure for our farmers their traditional rights and interests in the British market; that would secure for us here the necessary foundation for developing our country industrially, and of increasing its prestige and strength abroad. In column 2697 in the Dáil Debates for the 18th June, 1936, we find this:

"Mr. O'Kelly: We have, of course, no agreement with the United Kingdom, but the path towards a settlement of the dispute with Great Britain has been smoothed."

This question was then put to the Vice-President:

"Would it be correct to say that the presence of the Irish delegation at Ottawa helped to pave the way towards a settlement of bring it nearer?

"Mr. O'Kelly: I think I can safely say that is so. We have very friendly and pleasant contacts, and undoubtedly we have made progress. We have, I believe, reached a basis of settlement. It is impossible to fix the date on which agreement will be arrived at, but it is measurably close."

That was the interview that was given to the representative of the Irish Independent. In the course of an interview with the representative of Le Matin, the Vice-President is reported to have said that there would be a committee of arbitration of four members nominated, two by London and two by Ireland. M. Barrés, the representative of Le Martin said:

"It seems to me that that is no solution, for the English arbitrators will give the case to England and the Irish arbitrators will give the case to Ireland.

Mr. O'Kelly (smiling with an air of a man who knows more than he says): Perhaps! But it is the solution that can put an end to the tariff war on which England has just embarked.

M. Barrés: Do you think you are on the even of a solution more in accordance with Irish wishes?

Mr. O'Kelly: Yes."

Now, although in every year since 1932 our farmers have lost up to £10,000,000 of their income, no information of any kind has been given to this House as to what were the terms upon which the British, in consultation with the Vice-President, and no doubt with the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in 1932 were prepared to end the economic war. The only indication that we have had on that was a statement by the President that the British would not settle these matters without settling the political matters. But that is all the more reason why something should be done if we are being held by the President and his Ministry to our present miserable position, and to a more miserable position in the future when greater and more powerful vested interests will have been established in the British market, filling the place that we ourselves of right held in that market until the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party interfered with it. If the political issues raised by the President are interfering with the position, it is all the more reason why the people of this country should know what the British were prepared to do to settle the economic dispute that exists between this country and Great Britain, because it is not the Minister's loss and not the Minister's trouble that is the problem. It is the loss to the country and the loss to our people that is the problem. The Ministers have no function in this country, sitting on the seats in which they are, or working in their offices, than to serve the people who have put them there. They promised the people of this country that there would not be a war. They promised them that they would have employment. They promised them to reduce their expenses by £2,000,000 a year, and instead we have a growing situation of misery every year.

Now, as has been pointed out, we are approaching the time of a general election. The President, for whose Department we are voting money here, has indicated to this House that he is going to put a constitution before the country. If he does, the putting of that constitution before the country will have no other reason than to endeavour to blind the people of this country to the economic situation which they have been brought into as a result of the policy of the President and his Ministers. It is not for the purpose of making any settlement as between the people of Great Britain and ourselves; it may be likely to create greater difficulties. If the Ministry have no greater contribution to make towards a settlement of the problems and the difficulties of the people of this country than simply the putting of a new constitution before them, then the sooner they go to the country and let the country decide whether they are going to allow constitutional issues to stand between them and the satisfactory carrying on of their own business here in this country, and the harmonious carrying on of their business between the representatives of this country and the representatives of Great Britain, the better. The policy of the Ministry is simply to give us, in the same brutal and persistent way that they brought about the destruction of 1922 and 1923, the economic counterpart of that civil war.

To-day it is possible for representatives appointed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to go to Great Britain and to make an agreement on coal. We are informed by the Press this morning that a secret agreement between the British colliery owners and the Committee appointed by the Irish Free State Government, regarding the price to be paid for imports of coal brought into this year's coal-cattle pact, has now been concluded. It is possible for the Government to set up a group of people, and send them to meet the British colliery owners and agree on the price of coal—that price of coal being such that it transfers something like £300,000 from the Treasury of this country to the pockets of the British colliery owners. We have a situation here in which, although there was taken off coal a 5/- tax which went into the British Treasury last year, the people of this country are paying the same price for coal as they were paying last year, and secret agreements can be arrived at which, on their face, are nothing but agreements to transfer from the Treasury here to the colliery owners of Great Britain £300,000 of the ratepayers' money. Yet we are asked in this Bill to sanction a Vote of £5,354 for a Controller of Prices. I think the Ministry and the Controller of Prices are themselves responsible for the high price which is being charged for coal at the present time. Now, in addition to paying £5,000 a year for machinery for controlling prices, while the price of coal to the farmers is raised to the figure at which it is to-day, we have the Department of Industry and Commerce stabilising that price by a secret agreement with the British colliery owners.

We are asked to provide here £40,000 for turf, and although the Minister for Agriculture has transferred to the shopkeepers and bakers of this country the task of collecting £1,500,000 additional unnecessary cost in bread and flour, the Minister nevertheless provides for about £200,000 for a wheat subsidy here, so we are asked in these Estimates to contemplate additional expenditure in respect of turf and in respect of wheat. We are asked to pay advertising expenses for turf and, no doubt, for wheat. The illusion is being created in this country—by moneys spent on large posters, which may be found in the very heart of the city here, saying "Grow more wheat," and the illusion will be created in another month or two when in every part of the country we are going to get magnificent advertisements asking the people to use more turf—that more employment is being given in the country in wheat and in turf, whereas the figures which are before us show that there is less employment in agriculture even in spite of the wheat, and that there is less employment in the country in connection with turf.

Just as no expenses appear in the Estimates in connection with G.K. Chesterton, we are not voting any money in connection with Hans Andersen; but I know nothing that is more like what the Government are doing or more like the promises they made than the story in Hans Andersen about the four mice who undertook that they would make soup out of sausage skewers. They first came back after years of travel, and were able by Andrew Martins and gesticulations like those of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to create everything about the soup—the touch and the sight and the smell of it, and even its bubbles while boiling in the pot—every thing but the taste. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is in much the same position as that. We have placards throughout the country in regard to turf; we have statements here about the numbers that are employed, and we have an employment Order with a stroke of the pen wiping out unemployment. With regard to employment, the Minister for Industry and Commerce is able to create for the unfortunate people of this country everything except the taste of it. Just as the mouse king did not think much of the soup which had all the qualities of soup except the taste of it, the unfortunate people of this country are not getting any satisfaction out of the Andrew Martins and gesticulations of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Even the part of the money which goes in unemployment assistance is—to the greater number of the people of this country to whom it goes—nothing but a notice, "We cannot do anything more for you than this."

The second mouse, like the Minister for Finance, was a bit of a poet. After years of wandering around and examining the situation she found out that those who are poets can make soup out of sausage skewers. She told the king that she would appear before him every day of the year and would recite the poetic history of a sausage skewer. In spite of the Minister's poetic professions on the Budget and on the Financial Resolutions the people of this country have not got much taste out of the soup that the Minister for Finance has provided. The third mouse learned its experience in jail and its declaration was that truth was above everything else, and that it could not be done. That kind of thing would remind me of some of the people in this country, like the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, who simply said that industrial development, or, any national strength either, could not be built up here on Fianna Fáil promises. However, the naked truth, apparently, is looked upon as more of a lie than anything else, and we have to go to the fourth mouse to learn the lesson of what is happening in this country. The fourth mouse said that she stayed at home and learned it all out for herself, and that she now knew how to make the soup; and she said: "Now let the king stir it with his tail, and the longer he stirs it, the better it will be." However, the king was not having any. He said that it was a great idea for making the soup but that they could postpone the soup question for the present and that it would be a nice thing for the poorer people to look forward to until their golden wedding came about.

What is happening is that the Fianna Fáil Party have put the people of this country into the soup, and the remarkable thing is that the people have stood it for four years. We have here, however, something that shows that the Ministers' tails can be kept out of the hot water. We have a grant of £150 to prevent the Ministers having to pay income-tax, but what has been in the boiling water created by the Fianna Fáil Party in the country is the tails of the farmers and of the industrial community and of every other class in the country. £10,000,000 a year has been taken out of the farmers' tails; £8,000,000 a year more has been taken out of the unfortunate taxpayers in the country; and when it comes to what has been taken out of their tails over the counters in additional unnecessary demands for bread, flour, bacon, meat, and so on, we have another £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 to be added to that, and the people of this country are being driven to realise that you cannot make the national soup in that particular way. I say that they should be given by the Ministery as early an opportunity as possible of taking their tails out of that hot water, and if the President is toying with the idea —as, no doubt, he must be—that he is not going to show his hand, that he is not going to produce a Constitution, that he is not going to put himself into the position—a position in which he never was—of putting his cards on the table, let him go to the country at once. He can go to the country and say: "I am not going to put such an important matter as the Constitution before the Oireachtas and ask the Oireachtas to discuss it in the responsible way in which it should be discussed. I want to know whether or not I have the confidence of the people of this country before I discuss it. I want to appear before the Dáil as one charged with the responsibility and charged with the confidence of the people of this country, in order that I may ask the Deputies of this House to discuss it in a full and responsible manner."

The President can paint the members of the Opposition in the way in which his Ministers and his Press have been painting them—as a group of people who are ready to trample on his new industrial policy, who are ready to trample on all he has done for agriculture, and who are ready to wipe out all the increased social services that his Party have put into operation. He can paint the Labour Party as a Party that he has won to republicanism, but so far as the upholding of republicanism is concerned in this country, he can be told that they have got nothing from his policy but gall and bitterness. He can claim that, instead of appreciating what the Fianna Fáil Government has done for them in the way of giving £2,500,000 for the relief of unemployment and in the provision of social services and of relief works of all kinds, they are charging him and his Party, as I say, with simply giving them gall and bitterness in the same way in which he prided himself that the Opposition Party had been given gall and worm-wood to drink. Let him go to the country and ask immediately for a vote of confidence from the country to pursue the line he is pursuing, because he certainly cannot ask anyone in this House or anyone in the country to take seriously constitutional proposals put forward by people who have stood for four years over the disastrous things that are happening in this country, and with the Vice-President silent as to what the British were prepared to do in respect of economic matters in 1932, which enabled the Vice-President at that time to say that it was "a solution that can put an end to the tariff war," in which England had just embarked, and that would enable him to say then that, while it was impossible to fix the date on which agreement could be arrived at, "it was measurably close."

Every day that the present policy is pursued and that the people are held in the Fianna Fáil vice, in the circumstances brought about by that policy, not only gives them days of misery in the days that are passing but days which are destroying the opportunities for the future. As I say, Britain now is reviewing some of the most important aspects of her own agricultural policy. We expect to be in on that. We should be in on that in the most favourable way. We should be in on that as a people who realise that we are here co-equal in status as a State in every way with Great Britain, and in no way subordinate to Great Britain in anything we want to do here or outside; and sitting down in that manly spirit and with some conception of what Irish leaders in the past did and what Irish leaders in the past were prepared to do in leading the country through difficulties and dangers we should endeavour to see that the present opportunity is not allowed to pass without getting back for the people of this country what Fianna Fáil policy has lost for them.

The Ministers, as I say, have no function in this House or elsewhere except as servants of the people whose interests they said they were prepared to guard, and any delay in making up their minds as to what their immediate action is going to be, either in regard to their Constitution or in regard to an appeal to the people or to what line of policy they are going to adopt in sitting down with the British on this new economic development—any day's delay in making up their minds clearly and letting the people know clearly what their policy is and getting the people's confidence on that, is, as I say, a day of misery for the people and promises many days in the future of increasing misery. Even at this late date, they should realise their responsibilities as Ministers. They should realise their responsibilities as Ministers of a free Irish State, and should realise the miseries growing around them in every walk of life. They should listen to the appeals of people in every state of life—in agriculture, in industry and in commerce—and make up their minds that, however reluctant they may be to face facts, they are prepared to face facts to-day and give the country a chance.

Mr. Cosgrave

Sir, two or three matters stand out in connection with this Appropriation Bill that are of major importance. The most important figure is the amount of £30,000,000 which, as Deputy Mulcahy says, is practically £7,000,000 over the amount that was voted in 1931-32. To that £30,000,000 we can add £5,400,000 that the British collected, and a sum approaching £5,600,000 that was collected in what is called hidden taxation under the headings of sugar, flour, butter, bacon, rates collected in relief of unemployment assistance, extra national health insurance collection, and extra unemployment insurance. These make in all a figure approximately of £41,000,000. If we add to the £23,000,000 voted in 1931-32, the £3,000,000 for land annuities, we find that we are now asking the people to contribute both internally and externally £15,000,000 in excess of that sum. We are told that the reason for this big expenditure, and consequently big taxation, is the general policy of the Government. On the lines of general policy we are invited from the point of view of agriculture to view it as a change-over, and from the point of view of industrial expansion other than agriculture, as the great new development. Along with these two great advantages that we are told are conferred on the people by Government policy, we find a greater number of persons unemployed, smaller profits for agriculture —in some cases none at all—and generally a lower standard of wages being paid in industrial occupations. It is a costly change. Along with the change that has been of such benefit to the people, we have had to make provision for those who have no occupation at all, or who have been deprived of their employment, by way of unemployment assistance, and in certain cases with assistance from the local authorities. Whatever sums of money have been spent in unemployment assistance have been costly in their distribution. The Government takes credit for spending on unemployment assistance £1,500,000 more than was spent four years ago, but it is costing £500,000 to administer that money. While other bodies are called upon to contribute towards that £2,000,000, none of them gets any credit for it. The Government takes all the credit. They do not say on platforms or in this House that the rates contributed close on £200,000, and no information is given to the public to show that persons in insurable occupations, and employers, are called upon to contribute another £200,000. The Government takes the whole benefit, while it could not possibly be administered more expensively than is the case at present. What does it cost to collect the £2,000,000? It is quite possible the taxpayers are paying £2,500,000 to provide that £2,000,000.

Whenever taxes are imposed on exports or other items, a trader collects more than the actual amount of the imposition. It is all the same to a trader whether he pays it in taxation or on the original price of goods. He must get a profit, so that to distribute £1,500,000 it costs the taxpayers £2,500,000. It has now come to this, that in respect of the whole sum which the Government claims credit for spending on social services, over and above what was spent four years ago, the people who are supposed to benefit, and the wage earners, pay millions in excess of the £3,500,000 being distributed now over and above what was distributed four years ago. Why, the items I mentioned, sugar, flour, butter, bacon, rates in relief of unemployment assistance, extra national health insurance contributions, extra unemployment insurance payments, total over £5,500,000, being £2,000,000 in excess of the sum paid now for social services over and above what was paid four years ago, not taking into account the taxation now imposed on tea or on other items, which goes to make up the £6,000,000 extra taxation imposed since this Government came into office. So far as the change-over is concerned, the main item of cost is for bounties on the export of certain agricultural produce. The amount is down by £500,000 since last year. Except in one particular, it makes very little improvement in the price farmers get for their produce, and that is in respect of butter. Possibly butter bounties and subsidies are negligible in value, having regard to their cost. Butter does not appear in connection with this matter. It is one of those items of hidden taxation which it has been the privilege of the citizens of this country to pay for having this Government in office.

I suggest to the Minister that there is one item that he might include in his export bounties. It is not included there, but it might be an advantage to provide it in the next few months. I refer to a bounty on horses. About 12 months ago there was a by-election in County Dublin and the Minister for Finance spoke in Balbriggan in the course of the contest. At a meeting there he asked the audience what ex-President Cosgrave had done for the horse-breeding industry during the long period he was in office. The Minister answered the question, saying "nothing." The Minister stated that this Government was going to set up a commission. A commission was set up to see how to improve bloodstock breeding, and how to energise the production of bloodstock and improve prices. Last December a report was furnished either to the Minister for Agriculture or to the Minister for Finance—perhaps to both —but since then we have not heard anything about what the Government was going to do for the horse-breeding industry in the short time that is still left to them to bear political responsibility for government here. It is quite true that, during the ten years our Party was in power, we did nothing for the horse-breeding industry, but we did it no harm. It prospered to an extent that was hitherto unknown in the annals of bloodstock raising.

The fruits of that non-interference and the advantages that were derived by bloodstock raisers during those ten years are reflected in the victories won by Irish bloodstock on the hardest racecourses in the world, namely, in Great Britain. Notwithstanding the damage that the Minister and his Government have done to that industry I should like to see these victories repeated during the period of office of this Government, because it does not matter to us, unlike them, who is in political control or who has political responsibility in this country. What matters to us is how the country is progressing and must progress in spite of Government policy. It would be a great pleasure and satisfaction to us to see Irish bloodstock maintaining the prices which were paid for it during the period of our administration. I should like to know if the Minister has looked at the returns for the last three years of the previous Administration, and the returns for the three years for which he is responsible. I have not got the figures for the last year of his administration, but I think it will be found that the receipts from the sale of Irish bloodstock during these three years amount to not more than 50 per cent. of the sum received in the three last years of the preceding Administration. Mark you, they are not comparable years, because there was only one normal year in the three last years of the preceding Administration and there were two normal years in the three years of his period of office. However, whatever is to be said in connection with the relative advantages or disadvantages to the horse-breeding industry of the policy of either of the Governments, the question now arises, what is the Government doing to-day.

A number of questions have appeared on the Order Paper for some time past in connection with troopers. I should like to know if the Minister has considered an aspect of the trade agreement with Germany which may be of some moment. The Minister knows quite well the position of the farmers in the country at present. He knows, or should know, how difficult it is for a man who is in straitened financial circumstances and who has goods to sell, if he gets an offer which does not perhaps represent the value of the goods but which, nevertheless, means money to him, to refuse that offer. He may be forced to sell. In consequence of the trade agreement made with Germany, people have gone around this country and bought horses cheaply for the German Government simply because they want them at the moment whereas, if the owners were not induced to sell just now, they might get a better price from some of the other Governments of Europe at a later stage. We have had regular and continuous customers for a great number of years. There is one Government in Europe which buys horses from no other country except this. Does the new agreement can come that the German Government can come in and get some of the advantages which ought to be retained for that other country? Perhaps the farmers may be forced by reason of their peculiar circumstances at the moment to sell at prices far below the actual value of the animals. The horse-breeding industry in this country will continue to exist in spite of what Governments may do against it. It is something that is established, something that has made its name. Other countries will come here looking for troopers or other types of horses.

The Minister is not unaware of the fact that the commission which reported recently recommended the purchase of first-class sires. He has not bought any.

Dr. Ryan

There is plenty of time.

Mr. Cosgrave

There is no money in this Bill to pay for them and the purchases should take place in September next. There is no money here for them. Other people buy at all times during the year. At any rate, six months have passed since the commission reported and we have heard nothing about the matter since. Did the commission not recommend that there should be a remission of income-tax in the case of owners of stallions?

Dr. Ryan

What does that amount to?

Mr. Cosgrave

£7,000 or £8,000 a year.

Dr. Ryan

To whom?

Mr. Cosgrave

By reason of that particular taxation, along with the tariff war that is now on, we have lost the finest stallion that ever stood in this country.

Dr. Ryan

If the Deputy examines the matter he will find that the question of taxation makes no difference.

Mr. Cosgrave

It amounts to this. It is said that we did nothing for the bloodstock industry. One of the Minister's colleagues at a by-election told the people that they were going to do something for it. They set up a commission. That commission, I expect, was advised not to refer to the tariff war. I say that because they were all intelligent men and they made no reference to it.

Dr. Ryan

They were non-political.

Mr. Cosgrave

They were nicely balanced.

Dr. Ryan

If the Deputy were on it, they would refer to it.

Mr. Cosgrave

They made two recommendations, to neither of which the Minister has given effect. The Minister apparently does not carry any weight with the Executive Council.

Dr. Ryan

What were they?

Mr. Cosgrave

The income-tax concession was one.

Dr. Ryan

It does not make the slightest difference.

Mr. Cosgrave

The commission which was nicely balanced politically, according to the Minister, makes a recommendation that does not make any difference?

Dr. Ryan

If the Deputy were acquainted with the double income-tax arrangement, he would understand that it makes no difference.

Mr. Cosgrave

I know all about it. It so happens that I met one person some years ago who was interested in horse-breeding in this country. He has, perhaps, more money invested in it than quite a number of people who are engaged in the industry. He is not concerned with, nor was he at that time concerned with, the double income-tax arrangement. The Minister understands that?

Dr. Ryan

If the Deputy can give me an instance in private or in public which would show that it would make the slightest difference, I will say I am wrong.

Mr. Cosgrave

I am giving the Minister one instance. I am telling him of the statement he made to me. That man said that he had such confidence in this country that he had no investments outside it. He may not be in that position now but he was in that position five years ago.

Dr. Ryan

Why did the Deputy not do it then?

Mr. Cosgrave

My recollection is that we were not asked. May I say further that not only were we not asked at that time but——

Dr. Ryan

You would like to do it later at our expense.

Mr. Cosgrave

Will the Minister allow me for a moment. Will he just try to restrain himself? At that time, a decision which was subsequently given in England had not been given. Does the Minister recollect that? Does he recollect the case that went before the House of Lords, Lord Glanely's case?

Dr. Ryan

Yes.

Mr. Cosgrave

He knows that. The Minister says that did not occur since 1932?

Dr. Ryan

I do not think so, but I am not sure.

Mr. Cosgrave

Will the Minister accept my statement that it did occur since 1932?

Dr. Ryan

I do.

Mr. Cosgrave

Assuming it did, will the Minister further accept this; that it took place at a time long after a Finance Bill had been introduced and before corresponding legislation could be passed here? At the worst I shall say that if it was not since the Ministry took up office, it took place after the Finance Bill had been passed here in 1931 and before the Finance Bill of 1932 had been introduced. The Minister was asked about this sum two or three years ago. He was put in possession of the facts. Let us understand that although in 1931 and 1932 income-tax was a matter of some moment to English owners and bloodstock establishments in Great Britain and here, this particular case raised a new point. It brought in a man's whole agricultural prospects embracing cattle and the raising of bloodstock and so on, and a decision was given by the House of Lords. My impression is that that was in 1932 and fairly late in that year. However, the Minister says it does not mean much. It would not amount to anything but for the other tariffs against Irish produce. Is the Minister aware of the fact that at the moment there are at least a half a dozen of the best stallions of this country in England?

Dr. Ryan

Not for that reason.

Mr. Cosgrave

Then for what reason?

Dr. Ryan

It would not make the slightest difference to the owners.

Mr. Cosgrave

I say they are in Great Britain because of the tariffs.

Dr. Ryan

Not because of the income-tax.

Mr. Cosgrave

There is an opportunity of doing something now.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy started about income-tax.

Mr. Cosgrave

I did, and I see that the Minister now has the assistance of the Minister for Finance. We rarely see Ministers here except when they come to say their prayers.

Mr. MacEntee

Is not that a good thing?

Mr. Cosgrave

Quite. It is a very good thing.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy Cosgrave is rarely here for prayers.

Mr. Cosgrave

Perhaps, but that is not my fault. I think the commission reported in December last, but no provision has been made for implementing the recommendations of the commission. The Minister for Agriculture said that the portion of the report which dealt with income-tax was negligible, and that owing to the double income-tax arrangement it does not affect us at all. He says no one would buy a stallion at this time of the year. From what I know of the horsebreeding industry, people interested would buy a horse at any time, day or night. In a month's time there will be sales at the Dublin Horse Show. The Minister will say that you do not get that sort of horse at the show. Perhaps not, but surely some remarkable bargains are to be found at the Dublin Show. Doncaster comes on in September. Is the Minister going to make any provision in connection with these matters? When we adjourn now the Dáil will not meet again until October. We have no money provided for this purpose. What is the Minister going to do? My recollection is that the sum of money to be invested was in the neighbourhood of £250,000. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but taking it over a period of three years—I am speaking from recollection —I think the total sum was approximately £250,000. However, the Minister will have time between now and the close of the discussion, this evening, to make up his mind as to what his policy is in regard to that particular report.

The Minister for Agriculture has probably followed the proceedings that have taken place in the House of Commons across the water, in connection with the new arrangements that are to be made by the Minister for Agriculture over there. They have, I understand, at the moment, under consideration the imposition of a certain quota for frozen and chilled beef. I would like to know from the Minister whether or not he has made any representations on behalf of Irish agriculture in that connection. When I spoke on this matter, two years ago, a cattle slaughter Bill was under consideration here. I pointed out at that time that while New Zealand, under the Ottawa Agreement of 1932, was entitled to send to Great Britain 400,000 cwts. of beef, in 1933, the actual amount sent in 1933 from New Zealand was 700,000 cwts. In the following year for the first six months the export from New Zealand amounted to 500,000 cwts. These figures are significant to us because in the year following a quota was allotted to us for fat cattle. 300,000 cwts. of frozen beef would be the equivalent of 50,000 head of cattle, and in the following year the exports from New Zealand would be equivalent to 100,000 head of cattle. It was inevitable in these circumstances that the same quantity of finished beef would not be required from this country. The Minister will find all this information in the discussion that went on in the House of Commons. He will find that in the course of the debate it was stated that the consumption of beef in Great Britain had been declining. It had been reduced from about 68 to 60 lbs. per head of the population per annum. But it also transpired in the course of the discussion that while that was the case in regard to fresh beef, the consumption of chilled and frozen beef went up by about approximately the same amount.

Just at that time the British Minister for Agriculture was doing something to improve beef production in Great Britain or rather to improve the prices of it. In the Bill then before the House of Commons provision was made to allow the bounty to be paid on live animals which would be a day over three months in Great Britain. That meant of course that store cattle bought in this country—and the purchases were very extensive—were entitled to the bounty in the same way as if they were British raised cattle. Would the Minister tell us whether any steps have been taken to ensure that there will be no interruption, but if possible an extension, in the purchase of finished beef from this country during the next few years. It is fairly clear from the newspaper accounts that the people in other countries are looking after their interests in that connection. It appears that the people in the Argentine are very indignant about the amount allocated to them. Our position is different to that of that country and all other countries so far away. In the first place, British agriculture is to some extent dependent upon Irish agriculture; while that situation prevails, it ought to afford much greater opportunities for coming to an agreement than there would be in other circumstances.

The last thing I would like to say to the Minister is that during the last two days an interruption of the milk supply has taken place in Dublin. I have no special knowledge of the merits of that dispute. It is a regrettable dispute. I do not think that there is any excuse for the destruction of human food. Of course, the Minister set a bad example when he paid bounties on calf skins. I should like to know from him what efforts are being made for a settlement and what the prospects of a settlement of that dispute are. This is one of those things that should not have been allowed to occur. Unfortunately, in recent years, we are getting more than our share of these disputes. We had one last year, when the whole transport of the City of Dublin was interfered with for a long time. Ministers cannot complaint the difficulties are placed in their way by discussion of these matters in the Dáil. We are now coming to the close of a session. Milk is one of the necessaries of life, and it ought to be a Ministerial duty to secure that there will be no interruption of the supply.

Apart altogether from what we call the normal Government policy in connection with agriculture, there is the abnormal policy with regard to it. The Appropriation Bill of this year has been swollen, as the Appropriation Bills of recent years have been swollen, by the nonsensical and stupid dispute which has taken place. It has interfered with the rights of a great many people throughout the country. The Minister for Agriculture, more than any other Minister, ought to know what the effect of that dispute has been on farmers. If my information is correct, the number of farmers in a very serious financial position as a result of the dispute varied from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. A special effort should be made by the Minister for Agriculture to impress upon his colleagues the necessity, in the interests of the people I have mentioned, apart altogether from politics, for settling this dispute. I now find that the case to which I referred, Lord Glanely v. Whiteman, was decided in 1933—a date even later than that which I mentioned, against the Minister's date of 1931.

Mr. Coburn

I should like to say a few words on this Bill as it affects the office of the Minister for Agriculture who, I am sorry to notice, has left the Chamber. The maxim of the Fianna Fáil Party is that if money raised by taxation is well spent, taxation does no harm, but in my opinion a great deal of the money raised by taxation has been very badly spent. In other words, the raising of that money could have been avoided. I refer to the bounties and subsidies paid in respect of bacon and butter. The manner in which this whole question affects the Border counties is very serious and something approaching consternation reigns there at the moment amongst those farmers who have been in the habit of raising pigs. Pig-raising has been one of the chief items in their agricultural economy. At the moment, the position is very obscure. They do not know what is going to happen. As a result of the setting up of the Pigs Marketing Board, for which a large sum of money is voted, there is a possibility that the pork markets may be dispensed with altogether. These weekly markets were the medium by which the farmers disposed of their pigs. These pigs were formerly bought in large numbers by buyers from across the Border. As a result of this unfortunate dispute, to which so many references have been made in this debate and in other debates, the position has been worsened. I ask the Minister for Finance to impress upon the Minister for Agriculture the necessity of making some statement in the near future as to his Department's intentions in regard to this whole question as it affects the farmers of the Border counties. Meetings have been held during the past couple of weeks and resolutions have been passed by various committees of agriculture, copies of which, I presume, have been sent on to the Minister for his views. I hope some statement will be issued which will allay the fears that exist in the minds of those farmers as to the future of the industry. It is well-known that this is an industry which has given very good employment. As a result of the present position, many people, as Deputy Cosgrave has pointed out, have lost their means of employment. There may be only two or three here and there, but the "twos" and "threes" make hundreds and the hundreds make thousands. In that way, the unemployment figures have considerably increased.

These men were able to earn their livelihood without subsidies or bounties in the past, but little sympathy seems to be shown to them at the moment. If a little industry which employs half-a-dozen men is closed down in a town, there is a great flare in the newspapers about it next day. Official trade unionism takes very strong action when they find any danger threatening the employment of even half-a-dozen men in a factory. But they seem to forget altogether the position of these men simply because they happen to be distributed all over the country and to be found in "ones" and "twos." Men who killed pigs every week and who earned an honest living by attending these markets, have had that living taken from them by one stroke of the pen. No provision is made for them in this Bill, nor will provision be made for them in any future Bill, so far as I can see. This is an important question and one that should command the serious attention of the Minister for Agriculture. The commonsense and speediest way of dealing with the matter would be to settle the economic war, but no settlement seems to be in view. We have to take it for granted that there will be no settlement. The fight has to go on to give the appearance of being up against our former enemy—the British Government. Meanwhile, our people are suffering. The danger is that if the conflict continues much longer the settlement, even when it does come, will not be of much advantage to these people, for the reason that the tens of thousands of pigs formerly bought in the Free State markets by North of Ireland buyers are to-day being bought in Northern Ireland. The Northern Government have been quick to take advantage of the position in the Free State and, by wise legislation, they have enabled the farmers in the Six Counties to increase their pig population to such an extent that the exports from the Six Counties have gone up by leaps and bounds. Everybody knows that every extra pig exported from Northern Ireland means one pig less exported from the Irish Free State. If one takes the pig production of the Six Counties and compares it with the pig production of the Free State one will find a very big difference. We should have four times as many pigs as they have in the Six Counties. It is questionable if the pig production in the Six Counties is not more than half of the pig production in the Free State. The small production of pigs in the Free State is the result of this unfortunate dispute with England. The pork markets of the Free State along the Border towns are in danger of being closed down and, in fact, some of them have already been closed down. In the northern parts of the Free State along the Border the farmers last year were placed in the very humiliating position of seeking the aid of the local Deputies in order to get rid of their pigs. One found Deputies in the County Monaghan going around like penny-boys, calling the farmers together and saying to them that Mr. A could bring in half-a-dozen pigs this week and that Mr. B could bring in four or five pigs next week. The man who had a pull could get more pigs taken from him than the man who had not. That is a humiliating position for the farmers to be in and it is a very humiliating thing to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health and Deputy Rice going around in a futile way trying to help the farmers to get rid of their pigs. It is an extraordinary thing for a man to find himself in the position that, after rearing these pigs, he has to go hat in hand to somebody and ask him to take the pigs from him. That is a humiliating position in which to place the agricultural community.

I could speak for hours on the question of the prices paid for the pigs and on the question of the weights. The farmer has absolutely no guarantee that he is getting a proper return in the matter of the weights of his pigs or indeed of anything else he sells in that way. The system is that he has to depend upon the weight return given by the factor or the person who buys the pigs from him. That is an aspect of the situation to which I wish the Minister to give serious attention. We all know that at the moment the bacon industry in the Irish Free State is almost entirely controlled by the South of Ireland curers, and we in the northern counties are more or less left out in the cold. The quota given to our bacon factories is not enough to keep them going for one-third of their time. One can see at a glance the difficulties that exist along the Border and will continue to exist in a greater degree in the future.

The next question I wish to raise is the question of the levy on butter. Last week our markets in the North were completely upset through this levy. We had inspectors going around taking samples of butter from people in connection with this levy of 4d. per lb. The result is that our butter market is entirely upset and the people are in a state of consternation. It is strange that a farmer cannot be allowed to manufacture a few pounds of butter for sale as he did in the past without being troubled with this levy. These are the things that affect the livelihood of thousands of farmers in the Border counties. I would like if the Minister for Finance would impress upon his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, that the situation there is very serious. It is one that will require very careful handling if something approaching chaos is not to ensue. These are a few of the things I wanted to tell the House about these two industries.

I will not delay the House by going into details in connection with the various offices here to which this money has been allocated, but this I will say that notwithstanding all the preaching and talk of the Government in the last three or four years about the question of employment very much headway has not been made. I give it as my opinion, which I know does not find favour with the leader of the Labour Party—I give it for what it is worth—that the Government that is foolish enough to embark on a policy of endeavouring to cure unemployment is only going to create unemployment. I think the Minister will agree as a result of his four years in office that there is something to be said for the point of view that no Government can solve unemployment and that it is much better to leave it to people in private industries. The Government can best help private industries by making taxation as low as possible. The Government cannot have the sheep and the price of the sheep. They cannot take large sums of money annually from industrialists and expect these people to give the same amount of employment in the future as they did in the years when taxation was not so high as it is to-day. I hope Deputy Norton will realise, notwithstanding all the relief schemes, that there are as many unemployed to-day as there were four years ago, if not more. That is a fact that should have weight with the Minister for Finance. I know that the policy advocated by Deputy Norton and others is to do away completely with the cattle trade. I warn them that this will only lead to more unemployment.

Mr. Norton

Did not the Minister give you an assurance in his Budget speech?

Mr. Coburn

I would like as one who understands the position of the workers in this country to give some advice to Deputy Norton. If he wants to increase the membership of his Party he will accept my advice and act on it and he will find that he will be much better off as far as membership is concerned after the next general election or after the next municipal election than he found himself as the result of the Dublin municipal election. I give the same advice to the Government. I ask them to stop talking clap-trap at street corners. I tell the Government there is a good deal of honesty about the workers of this country, and the workers are not all fools. They know as much as the next man and at the moment most of them are convinced that the policy of the Government is only leading to further unemployment. I readily admit that in many ways the Government has done some good. I am prepared to admit that the Government has done much to improve the condition of the workers in various directions but I warn them they must be very careful that on the whole their policy is not reacting to the detriment of the general body of workers in this country. I am not referring to a particular section or sections of the workers, but to the general body.

I emphasise now and I want to impress on the Minister that he ought to do all he possibly can to reduce taxation. In that way he will give those who are in a position to give employment an opportunity of continuing to give that employment. Experience should have taught him that high taxation is one of the surest ways of creating unemployment. That is a fact that cannot be contradicted, and it might be stated here even more often than it has been stated. It is one, I think, that even Deputy Norton must himself admit. I tell Deputy Norton that until as he tells us himself the day arrives when the Government will take complete control of the activities of this country, he will do well to bear in mind that high taxation is bound to lead to unemployment. The sooner he and the Government realise that the better. I urge the Minister to do all he possibly can to reduce taxation which, I am sure, he has now found is seriously affecting employment in this country. I ask him to cut down the taxation that is crippling industry. Above all, I ask him to do his utmost to come to some agreement whereby the greatest industry in this country will get an opportunity of providing more employment in the future than it has been able to provide in the past. That can best be achieved by settling this senseless economic war. I should not have said economic war, for there is no war at all. If there was really a war on the men who are talking about war would be afraid to go out. Deputy Norton and the members of the Labour Party and all the great trade unionists are very fond of talking about war, but if there were a good fight on in the morning half of them would be afraid to go into it. This question of a war is only all talk. We are sick of war and want to live in peace.

Mr. Norton

Are you the only soldier?

Mr. Coburn

If it came to that possibly Deputy Norton would find out whether I am or not. I always fought my corner even against great odds. But being a peaceful individual, I am always out for peace and goodwill, not alone amongst our own people, but amongst other people. I think we could have peace and goodwill and everything going nicely here without lowering what is called our national dignity. I do not know really what national dignity means lately. There are so many definitions of national dignity and patriotism that one finds it difficult to get a correct definition. It would be to our interest, without lowering the national dignity, to settle this economic war and let the farmers, especially in the Border counties, get an opportunity of earning a livelihood in the future in the same way as they did in the past previous to the economic conflict taking place. No one knows better than the Minister for Finance that a settlement would ease the situation and make things easier for himself and the Government. It would be, in my opinion, a means of improving trade to a very large extent, not alone the home trade, but also the foreign trade. One of the tasks to which the Government should set themselves immediately is to bring about a settlement of this unfortunate dispute.

Mr. Costello

As the leader of the Labour Party, who is the sole representative here of his Party, does not appear to have any intention of speaking on this Bill, which proposes to take millions of money out of the pockets of the workers, if we are to take, as we must take, the word of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, I want to recall to the Minister's recollection what his Parliamentary Secretary said about last year's Budget, the taxation that was then imposed, and that continues——

Mr. MacEntee

This is this year's Appropriation Bill.

Mr. Costello

Perhaps the Minister will wait for the end of the sentence...the taxation that was imposed by last year's Budget, continued by this year's Budget, and given effect to in this present Bill. The Parliamentary Secretary said that what he liked about that Budget, and presumably what he must like about this Budget and the Appropriation Bill which is the machinery for raising the charges contained in the Budget, was that it brought home the facts to everybody, and particularly to the working man. He asked, "Why should not the working man be taxed?" That is what is happening in the raising of the moneys included in this Bill. Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Cosgrave already pointed to the huge increase in taxation embodied in this Appropriation Bill. A very large percentage of the money that is going to be raised as the result of the financial proposals of the Minister this year will be raised at the expense of the working man.

That is an aspect of the case that I should like to develop. I should like to see the result of the policy which brings the facts home to the working man. But I think we can leave the working of that policy to the working people themselves. They are beginning to realise what the result of the policy of the Government is in connection with the poorer section of the community—the policy of an Irish Government which, for the first time, has as the basis of its financial policy taxation of the necessaries of life. Without discussing it in this House any more, I am prepared to leave that to its natural operation when the facts have been brought home, and are still further brought home, to the working man. We will see in the course of a few months or so whether or not the working people will like, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance likes, to see the working man being taxed and the facts being brought home to every section of the community. While I appreciate to the full the importance of that aspect of these financial proposals, and the increased taxation embodied in the proposals contained in this Bill, I only want to advert to two or three topics of particular interest arising out of the proposals.

I had not an opportunity in the discussion on the Minister's Estimate or on the Finance Bill to develop some points to which I adverted in the discussion on the Budget proposals in reference to the powers of the Revenue Commissioners. We have in the Schedule to this Bill an item of £757,836 for the salaries and expenses of the office of the Revenue Commissioners. It is unnecessary to point out that that amount is a very large increase on the amount voted for the same purpose four or five years ago. The policy of the Government has resulted in a great increase in the staff of the Revenue Commissioners. It has resulted in the imposition of a huge number of tariffs, which have resulted in a huge increase of staff and a consequent increase of expenditure. But, in considering whether or not that expenditure is going to be properly incurred, I should like to raise a question that I have already adverted to, not in very great detail, as to the manner in which the Revenue Commissioner's staff will, during the forthcoming year, administer the law which will be passed by this Dáil in the course of the next week or so.

Mr. MacEntee

The Finance Bill became law yesterday.

Mr. Costello

If it has become law, as the Minister says, I assume the Governor-General has given his assent to it. Powers have been given by this House to the Revenue Commissioners and their staff, and I want, if possible, to get from the Minister an assurance that these powers will be exercised in a reasonable way. Wider powers have seldom been conferred upon a Government than the Minister sought for and obtained from this House. Even though this House gave him these very extensive powers, I think it is the right of this House to ask that these powers shall be exercised reasonably, and shall not be used as an instrument of tyranny. They were sought by the Minister on the ground that he wished to get at defaulting taxpayers. We have made our position clear again and again, that we have no sympathy with the taxpayer who evades his taxation by means of fraud. We have made that position clear, and we stand by that position. We fully realise that every taxpayer who fraudulently evades his obligations to the State is thereby increasing the burden placed on the shoulders of other taxpayers who are honest and conscientious in the discharge of their obligations to the State. I think it is time that a halt should be called to the very widespread activities of the officers of the Revenue Commissioners in reference to groping into the past and raking up closed transactions where, in fact, there can be no allegations of fraud.

Now, I think that this House ought to get from the Minister an undertaking that, when the Revenue Commissioners' staff is using the powers which he has obtained from this House, it is only in cases of proved fraud, or in cases where fraud is very strongly suspected, those powers will be operated. Otherwise there can be no more potent instrument of tyranny in the hands of officialdom than the powers which this Dáil has been pleased to confer upon the Minister and the staff of the Revenue Commissioners' office. We have the Revenue Commissioners raking up past transactions and ignoring agreements solemnly entered into between an inspector of taxes and a taxpayer, throwing upon the taxpayer the onus of proving a negative. The power that is now being conferred on the staff of the Revenue Commissioners, enabling them to put upon a taxpayer the task of proving that, 30 or 40 years ago, he did not make the amount of income that the Minister or his staff said he did make——

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy is under a misapprehension.

Mr. Costello

I am under no misapprehension in reference to this matter. The Minister apparently, has got power which he did not intend to get, as I pointed out to him at the time. I have not got the Finance Act or the Budget proposals before me, but when the Finance Bill was going through, the construction was that from 1922 onwards, in respect of dead persons, past transactions could be reopened, but that as regards live persons, there was and there is, to my knowledge, no limitation in the Act, as it is now, in reference to the powers of the Revenue Commissioners to reopen past transactions where the person to be assessed is alive. The Minister may not have intended that, but that is the effect of the section.

Mr. MacEntee

No, that is not the effect of the section.

Mr. Costello

At all events, even if the power that the Minister has sought and obtained only goes back to 1922, there is no justification, in my submission, for using those powers except in cases where there is fraud, or in cases where, although the Minister's officials cannot prove fraud, there are the strongest grounds for suspecting fraund. I am prepared to go that length with the Minister and his officials, but I do think that in the operation of those powers the Minister should give an undertaking to this House that it is only in cases of fraud, or where it is strongly suspected there is fraud, those powers will be operated, and, further, that in cases where agreements were reached with the inspectors of taxes in past years those cases should not be reopened. I have a case myself at the present moment where not merely was there an agreement made each year between the taxpayer and his accountants and the inspector of taxes but an assessment was made by the Revenue officials and actually confirmed on appeal to the Recorder of Dublin. An endeavour is at present being made by the Minister's officials, under the Finance Act recently passed, to re-open that assessment and that amount which was confirmed by the Recorder of Dublin. Of course, that can be done, and even in cases where an agreement has been come to with the inspector and the taxpayer that agreement can be set aside the next day. Even in a case where an assessment has been confirmed by the court, again, that agreement can be set aside.

Mr. MacEntee

The court may have been deceived as well as the tax inspector.

Mr. Costello

The powers which the Minister sought for and obtained from this House were obtained on the view that there is one law for the ordinary people and one law for the Minister for Finance. As I told the Minister before, and as I now repeat; it is better for the law to be certain than just. It is better that there should be some finality to these transactions even though a fraudulent person gets away with it occasionally, and it is not very often that a fraudulent person gets away with anything very substantial where the Revenue officials of the Minister for Finance are concerned. There is an aspect of this matter that I would recommend to the Minister's attention. It is, that the fraudulent person is better able to deceive the officials of the Minister for Finance than the conscientious person, and it is on behalf of the conscientious person that I am making this plea, because the Minister has collected, to my own knowledge, thousands of pounds for the Exchequer of this country to which he was not entitled merely because honest taxpayers were so much afraid of the pressure that was being put upon them by the Revenue officials that, rather than go through the mental torture and agony of dealing with those officials: rather than go through months and months of cross-examination and inquisition, they paid up, as business men, something which can be described as nothing less than blackmail to the Revenue officials. That is going on again and again.

The fraudulent man does not mind that sort of thing. He is sufficiently thick-skinned to be able to withstand the assaults of the Revenue Commissioners. He has sufficient ingenuity to be able to defraud the Revenue Commissioners, and numbers of such persons get away with it; but it is for the man who has made an honest endeavour to pay what he thought he ought to have paid that I am pleading. He is the person who has suffered in the past. He has suffered more than the dishonest people, and that is what I object to in connection with the depredations, as they must be called, of the Revenue officials in the last 14 years. I will include the period of the last Government if that is any satisfaction to the Minister. Now, the Revenue officials have been let have their head for 14 years. They have gone into the past and raked up the past, the pre-Treaty past and the post-Treaty past, and I do think it is time that a halt should be called to that—that it should be made clear that it is only in cases of proved dishonesty or strongly suspected fraud that those powers will be used.

I repeat, with a full knowledge of my responsibility, that if this sort of thing goes on it will lead to increased tax evasion. It will lead to a position where honest people will honestly believe that they are entitled to use every possible method and device to evade the payment of taxation. That is an aspect of the case that I think the Minister ought seriously to consider. You have, on the one hand an expert staff, ruthless in their methods, without a conscience in their methods, knowing the law of income-tax and the reliefs to which taxpayers are entitled better than the taxpayers themselves. Do they ever tell a taxpayer, "You are paying too much?" Have they not on numerous occasions taken taxation from a taxpayer that they knew they were not entitled to get by reason of some relief that the income-tax payer had not adverted to, not being aware of his right to get relief in respect of it? The fact is that you have on the one side a taxpayer who does not know the intricacies of income-tax law dealing with a specialist in that subject, out to get the last farthing by any and every means. I do think that we are not far from the position where the taxpayer will feel justified, and shortly will be justified, in using every device to evade taxation. That is bad for the Exchequer; it is worse for the outlook of people in their respect for the law. If there was a line drawn and if the Minister could take his courage in his hands and say that from this time forward we will not look into the past in reference to income-tax transactions, but in respect of the future we will be ruthless in regard to the collection of the tax and the pursuit of fraudulent evaders, then I believe you would have co-operation from the taxpaying public that would pay the Minister better than the depredations of his officials, particularly the investigation department of the Revenue Commissioners.

It is about time there was a halt called in regard to excess profits duty. It is a ridiculous thing that 21 years after the imposition of a tax imposed in reference to the European war, people who never made the profits in respect of which the tax was imposed should be pursued for taxation on profits which their predecessors 20 years ago were supposed to have made. I think the Minister should give an assurance that the powers in reference to excess profits duty will not be further proceeded with. Those powers are being used in a blackmailing fashion on business concerns in the city and throughout the country in order to extract from the purchaser or the vendor of business premises some sort of a tax in order to get the transaction through in an expeditious fashion. The position is that neither the vendor nor the purchaser is bound to pay. Let us take it that the sale of a business is being proceeded with. Under the Act of 1933 a certificate has to be applied for to the Revenue Commissioners that there is no claim for excess profits duty. They will not give that certificate until somebody or other pays them something and that section, I submit, is being used in an improper fashion for the purpose of extracting tax in the form of excess profits duty while in reality it is nothing less than a blackmailing effort against those who are anxious that the transaction may be proceeded with and expeditiously carried out. A sale of business premises cannot be got through expeditiously at the present time because of this provision, and it is about time that stopped.

The next thing to which I wish to refer is a somewhat different matter. I want to speak about the Minister's own Department, and I want to ask him what he proposes to do in reference to the arbitration board for the Civil Service in the forthcoming year. We raised this matter last year on the Estimate for the Department of Finance and, so far as I am concerned, I have heard nothing further about the matter. We had the most explicit promise from the present President of the Executive Council when he sought the votes of the people in 1932 and 1933. The Party issued a manifesto to the electors at that time and sought a mandate to proceed with a number of the items mentioned in their programme. One of these items, taking No. 7, was:

"We are prepared to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of civil servants."

Four years have elapsed since the Minister came into power; more than four years have elapsed since that promise was made.

I raised this question in the House last year on the Estimates, and indicated to the Minister that so far as we were concerned we were prepared to concur with him and co-operate with him in setting up an arbitration board on lines similar to that which existed in England. I pointed out further that we could not see why, inasmuch as the financial structure of this State is modelled closely on that of the British financial structure, if that particular proposal in connection with arbitration in the Civil Service was not unconstitutional in England it should be considered unconstitutional in Ireland. We asked why it was, if the proposals in connection with arbitration for the Civil Service in Great Britain did not interfere with the power of the Parliament over the purse in Great Britain, a similar proposal over here for similar machinery would interfere with Parliamentary control over expenditure in this country. I would like to know what the Minister intends to do in reference to that matter. I know he has done nothing, that nothing has been achieved in the last 12 months. Is nothing to be achieved in the next 12 months, or may we take it that probably during the next 12 months there will be a general election, and we will have some effort made, belatedly, to carry out the promises made four years ago to the civil servants? Even belatedly it may be of some assistance to the civil servant, and even belatedly it may of some assistance to the falling political fortunes of the Minister's Party. I give him a present of that if he wishes to take advantage of it.

Arising out of this matter of arbitration in the Civil Service, I want to put one or two question to the Minister in reference to the policy of his Department in respect of the Civil Service as a whole. Disquieting rumours have been abroad for some months past in reference to certain promotions. Certain promotions have, in fact, taken place. Is it the Minister's policy to bring outsiders into the Civil Service and put them over the existing staff who have spent years in their Departments and who see, as the result of the one or two incidents that have taken place, the possibility of promotion to which they look forward and for which they worked for many years, swept away from them? In connection with the Minister's own Department one very disquieting incident took place and it was announced, curiously enough, by the Government Information Bureau. There is in the Minister's Department an assistant secretary who occupies the position of establishment officer. That is the key position in reference to the Civil Service of this country. Why it was found necessary for the Government Information Bureau to announce 12 months ahead that the existing holder of that post intended to resign, I do not know. The Government Information Bureau did that and they further announced that it was their intention to appoint the present Secretary of the Executive Council to that position.

I think that from the point of view of the staff in the Civil Service, that was a very disquieting feature. I make no reflections whatever on the particular individual. I do not even know him. I understand he is a very competent man, and I am not making any reflection on him. He was a politician. There was no point made by us on this side of the House when he was appointed Secretary of the Executive Council. It was recognised that there were grounds on which that could be justified, but why that particular person, who had been closely associated with a political Party, should be put into such a key position in reference to the Civil Service of this State as an establishment officer is, and holding the rank of Assistant Secretary of the Department of Finance, I do not know.

I think the Minister ought to justify that particular policy. It is a matter that has caused, I think, grave anxiety and disquiet in the Civil Service. It is not fair to the ordinary person, the serving civil servant who got into the Civil Service mainly by open competition, and has worked his way up through the years, now to find or to think that it is the policy of the Government that promotion in the Civil Service will depend on political service. I think the Minister should give an assurance that that is not so; that that is not his policy, even though in the particular instance to which I have referred a person who is closely associated with the political fortunes of the Party from which the present Government is formed was put in that position. He should give an assurance that that is going to be only an isolated incident, and does not indicate that it is the policy of the Ministry or the present Government to pitchfork their political adherents into good position in the Civil Service, thereby closing avenues of promotion which ought to be open to ordinary civil servants. There is another instance where that has happened. I am not going to refer to it now, beyond saying that an ex-Minister of the Government has been put into a Civil Service post.

Mr. MacEntee

As a reinstated civil servant. Do not forget that.

Mr. Costello

The Minister may possibly justify it in his reply. What I am after is not the particular individuals; I have been careful to say that. What I am after is to get from the Minister a declaration that it is not the policy of the Government to bring outsiders, whether they are political adherents of his or not, into Civil Service posts in such a fashion as will bar the promotion of ordinary civil servants. In connection with the topic I was discussing a few moments ago —the Revenue Commissioners' staff— there were rumours going around, fortunately so far not justified, that the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners is to retire in the course of a few months, and that that position was to be filled by an outsider. Now, above all positions in the Civil Service the position of Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners should not be filled by any person other than a person who has served on the staff of the Revenue Commissioners' Office or as an inspector of taxes. Certainly it would allay the very considerable disquiet which exists amongst officers of that Department if the Minister would give an assurance here in this House to-day. The Revenue Commissioners must be kept apart from politics. Notwithstanding all I have said about them and their depredations, I believe that they have kept apart from politics. But if it once is thought — even thought without foundation—that the Revenue Commissioners or their staff are open to political pressure, then it is a very bad thing for the Exchequer, a very bad thing for the Civil Service, and a very bad thing for the country.

There is one last topic that I want to mention. There is a Vote here for sub-sheriffs. I want to commend to the Minister the verdict of a Dublin jury the other day. I want him to see that somebody will instruct sub-sheriffs and their staffs in their legal obligations. In the course of that case it transpired that the person who was executing under a warrant of the Land Commission — a person paid by Government money; a person who will be paid in the coming financial year out of the moneys that we are going to appropriate here to-day — had no conception whatever of his legal obligations towards the debtor whose goods he was seizing. There ought to be somebody who will tell those people —court messengers or sheriffs—what their obligations are. The Minister or some person in the Government should take it upon himself to see that the sort of thing which was revealed in that case before a Dublin jury, and in respect of which that Dublin jury gave a verdict for £400 against the sheriff, will not happen again. It was revealed in the course of that case that the person who carried out the seizure and subsequently the sale had no experience whatever either with reference to seizures or to cattle or as an auctioneer. The particular person in question had been employed in a temporary capacity preparing voters lists in the Dublin Corporation. He was put forward in court as an expert auctioneer, and a person who knew all about the law of sheriffs. When questions were put to him as to whether he knew that he was under an obligation to the person whose goods he was seizing to see that those goods were not sacrificed as a result of his operations, he repudiated any such knowledge or any such obligation. I think it is up to the Government to see that those people who are going around seizing the goods of farmers and other people know their duty and their obligations to the people whose goods they are seizing.

I want to commend to the Minister, as I myself commended to the jury and the jury accepted it, the statement of an Irish judge in reference to this matter—that the sheriff, his bailiffs, court messengers, and everybody else, owe a duty both to the State, when they are seizing on behalf of the State, and to the debtor whose goods they are seizing, and that it is the obligation of the person who is seizing the goods to hold the scales of justice evenly between both parties. It would be a mere farce to say that the seizures which have taken place in the past 12 months were conducted in such a manner as to convince anybody that the scales of justice were held evenly between the parties. It was a pure farce. I want the Government or whoever is responsible for sheriffs—whether the Minister for Justice or somebody else—to see that those people who are making seizures for land annuities or anything else realise that they are under an obligation to the person whose goods they are seizing, first of all not to seize more than is necessary, and secondly, when they have seized, to see that a proper auction is held by a competent auctioneer and not by the sort of person who conducted the sale in the case which was before the Dublin jury last week, as well as to see that there are sold only goods to the amount that will be sufficient to pay the debt. I do not want to happen again what happened last year where a lorry was seized for a debt of £20 or £40—I forget the precise figure but it was some small amount of that kind—and the actual amount due was offered to the sheriff and refused by him. Some strange buyer—if I may use the expression used by one of the witnesses in the case last week— bought that lorry, although the actual amount which was due was offered by the debtor. He afterwards sold the lorry at a very considerably enhanced price and got the profit. I want to see that nobody makes a profit of sheriffs' seizures. £400 was given last week by a Dublin jury, and £75 was what was got at the auction. £75 was the amount given by the strange buyer for the goods which a Dublin jury said were worth £400. That strange buyer made a profit of the difference between £75 and £400. The strange buyer of the lorry made a profit of the difference between £20 or £40 and possibly £300.

Mr. MacEntee

That case is sub judice.

Mr. Costello

The case I am referring to is not sub judice.

Mr. MacEntee

There is a notice of appeal.

Mr. Costello

The case I am referring to was never brought before the courts.

Mr. MacEntee

The case in which there was £400 damages?

Mr. Costello

The case of the lorry I am referring to.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy has been talking for a long time about damages given by a Dublin jury. Notice of appeal has been given.

Mr. Costello

Not that I know of. I certainly hope it has, because it will mean another fee in my pocket.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Then the Deputy will discuss it somewhere else.

Mr. Costello

I hope so, but I was not aware, and I would not have referred to it if I had known, that a notice had been lodged. It would certainly be a great source of pleasure to me to know that a notice of appeal has been lodged.

Mr. McGilligan

Has it been lodged?

Mr. MacEntee

Has not a stay been asked for?

Mr. McGilligan

Has a notice of appeal been lodged?

Mr. MacEntee

Find out. I understand it has.

Mr. Costello

To my certain knowledge no notice of appeal has been lodged, but I will not discuss it any further.

Mr. MacEntee

I understand a stay has been asked for.

Mr. McGilligan

In order to consider an appeal.

Mr. MacEntee

Precisely.

Mr. McGilligan

You said a notice had been lodged. It has not, obviously.

Mr. Costello

Leaving aside that case last week, everything that I said is still relevant. It is quite clear that the people who are making those seizures have no conception that they are under a duty to the person whose goods they are seizing. It is quite clear that the provisions of the Land Act of 1933 and the subsequent operations of the Ministry in seizing cattle and other goods for land annuities are being used as a punitive measure and not in accordance with law. Now, in connection with these seizures the Ministry should carry out the law. They have not been carrying out the law, and I think I may make bold to say that, if the Ministry go one inch outside the law in the future in reference to seizures in connection with the collection of land annuities, I think they will be brought straightway before the civil courts, and that is going to mean that the poor people are going to pay for it in their tea and sugar and everything else. It means that the poor people will have to pay more because the Ministry will not carry out the law. It is in order to see that they will carry out the law in that matter and that they may know something about the law—and, apparently, they have not adverted to knowledge of the law in this connection—and that they should hold the scales of justice evenly as between the creditor and the debtor, even though they themselves are the creditor, that these people should not have any notion, as apparently and demonstrably they have, that this procedure of seizing goods and selling goods, as they have been doing, is merely a punitive measure. They should realise that that has no foundation in law whatever. They are bound in law, if they have respect for the law, to hold the scales of justice evenly between all parties. The scales of justice, however, in this matter of land annuities have been tilted down heavily by the creditor in the last few years because the Ministry is the creditor, and it must be remembered that the Ministry, who is the creditor, go out to collect the debt themselves; that they have all the cards in their own possession and that, in the course of what has been happening in the last few years, never once has consideration for the people, whose goods have been seized, entered into the minds either of the Government or of any of the persons who, on behalf of the Government, carried out these seizures.

That should stop. In the course of the next year, if there are going to be any more seizures, they should be conducted in accordance with law, and the subsequent auctions also should be conducted in accordance with law. If they are not carried out in accordance with law, there are going to be damages given by juries throughout this country, now that the attention of the people has been drawn to the manner in which the law has been flouted in reference to these matters; and, if there are damages in that way to be given, it is not the Ministry who are going to pay, nor is it the farmers who are going to pay, but it is every taxpayer in the city and country that will have to foot the bill for the Minister's depredations and lack of knowledge or flouting of the law in reference to these matters.

Mr. Norton

There are one or two matters, Sir, to which I should like to refer in connection with this Bill. The first is the matter of arbitration, which has been touched on by Deputy Costello. The Minister for Finance is personally aware, politically and officially, that in 1932 the present President of the Executive Council went into the constituency in County Dublin, where the Minister for Finance was a candidate, and there—obviously with an eye on the fact that civil servants had votes—definitely promised that, if elected to office, the Fianna Fáil Party would establish an arbitration board to adjudicate on the differences between the Civil Service organisations and the Executive Council. The President on that occasion used language which clearly indicated his desire to make it appear that he considered the establishment of an arbitration board something which ought to take place, irrespective of any election whatever, because he said he thought it was only right that an arbitration board should be established to adjudicate upon these differences.

Mr. MacEntee

Has the Deputy got the President's exact statement?

Mr. Norton

I have not got it, but if the Minister likes I shall arrange to get it and read it for him.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy should give the exact statement.

Mr. Norton

But, Sir, I read the same statement on a few occasions, and I know it off by heart.

Mr. McGilligan

We all know it.

Mr. Norton

And, as a matter of fact, I am surprised that the Minister for Finance should forget the promise that was specifically made on his behalf.

Mr. MacEntee

If the Deputy knows the statement off by heart, will he not give the exact words?

Mr. Norton

The President on that occasion declared in the Town Hall, Rathmines, in 1932 that, if elected to office, Fianna Fáil would establish an arbitration board to adjudicate upon the grievances of the civil servants.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy said that he has the statement off by heart. Will the Deputy give the exact text?

Mr. McGilligan

Oh, there is a wriggle in it, of course.

Mr. Norton

Is that promise challenged by the Minister?

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy said that he had the words off by heart and I ask him to give the exact text.

Mr. McGilligan

I would be quite prepared to countersign the Deputy's statement.

Mr. Norton

Everybody would accept the statement, except those who do not wish to accept it. The Minister knows that that promise was made in his constituency and that it was made at a time when the Minister was doing his best to woo all the civil servants in the County Dublin constituency to vote for him as the new saviour and deliverer of civil servants from the land of bondage. That was the role the Minister was appearing in in 1932, and the only thing it was necessary to do then, in order to give the Minister the requisite certificate in that capacity, was to promise an arbitration board to inquire into the grievances of the civil servants.

That was in 1932. In 1936 nobody can be accused of any impetuosity in asking the Minister what he has done in the meantime to redeem the promise which, I suggest, was made with his approbation. As a matter of fact, although I have no proof of it, I rather imagine that the stroke of promising an arbitration board originated in the fertile brain of the Minister for Finance. We were told then that an arbitration board was to be established to deal with the grievances of the civil servants. There was to be no question of a commission at all. The Minister and the Fianna Fáil Party had in mind a certain type of arbitration board which was going to be established. There was no question of a commission to be set up for the purpose of devising an arbitration board or for the purpose of seeing whether or not arbitration could be applied. A very specific promise was made on that occasion that an arbitration board would be established, but, having induced the civil servants to vote for him, and feeling assured of a term of office, the Minister was not so microscopic in implementing the promise as he was in framing the precise terms of the promise. Thus, he found an excuse for setting up a commission of inquiry. The commission of inquiry was asked how best the principle of arbitration could be applied to the settlement of Civil Service disputes. That commission of inquiry sat for 2½ years. I am sure the Minister was sorry that it did not sit for 10½ years. However, the commission took as long as it could, and as long as it sat it gave the Minister the excuse of saying, whenever any question arose, "That is a matter for the commission of inquiry"—although many times during the period the commission was deliberating on this matter, the Civil Service organisations, who thought the Minister would have no hesitation in implementing such a specific promise as had been made, wondered whether the setting up of such a commission was not just a dodge to evade the promise.

After 2½ years of fooling with this question of arbitration, the commission ultimately produced a report which indicated clearly that it had exceeded the terms of reference which had been sent to it by the Minister. After spending 2½ years, the commission produced ultimately a report, but not a report of the kind they were asked to produce, because the Minister had promised arbitration. There is only one meaning to arbitration, and that is the settlement of a dispute in an impartial way and by an impartial body. The commission of inquiry, which the Minister set up without any consultation with the staff organisations, produced a report suggesting that there were certain difficulties in the way of the establishment of arbitration, and suggesting a spurious form of arbitration which none of the Civil Service organisations would accept. However, the Minister's promise and the President's promise still stood. The President's promise in 1932 was to establish an arbitration board, and the Service organisations and the staff are entitled to expect that the President will honour that promise which was so specifically made by him. Instead, however, of taking steps to implement the promise which was made in 1932, the Minister for Finance last year produced the scheme of arbitration—and there is more scheme about it than there is arbitration—the object of which was not to grant arbitration to the Service but to offer it a type of machinery which is foreign to any ordinary conception of the principles of arbitration.

The Minister asked the staff organisations to accept a scheme, one of the provisions of which gave the Minister for Finance an absolute veto over the type of case which could be referred to arbitration. In other words, while pretending to establish an arbitration board the Minister was taking care that he could refuse to submit any particular case, or every case, to the judgment of the arbitration board. The Minister's scheme provided also that there should be a restriction on the kind of persons whom the Service organisations could send to the arbitration board as advocates. The Minister was free to select any representatives to appear as advocates before the board, but he would restrict the choice of the Service organisations, by prohibiting them from selecting as advocates persons of their own choice. The crowing piece of ingenuity on the part of the Minister was the provision in the scheme whereby he took power to say that he would not be bound by the award of the arbitration tribunal, but would consider it as a recommendation, if he saw fit to put the recommendation into operation. The Minister wanted to establish a piece of machinery which he was to label an arbitration tribunal, but under this machinery he would have power to prevent any particular case going to arbitration. He had an absolute veto over the kind of case that went to arbitration. He was handicapping the other side in pleading its case before the arbitration tribunal by restricting the choice of its representatives. Even if the Minister lost the case before the arbitration tribunal, having imposed these two handicaps on his opponents, he then refused to be bound by its award. He constituted this arbitration tribunal, as he called it, and was to have a say as to who the staff representatives would be, and a say in whom the official representatives would be. The chairman of the tribunal was to be appointed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and, as if all these safeguards were not sufficient, he wanted other restrictions as well, including the restriction that if he lost a case he was not bound to accept the award of the tribunal. A staff organisation might desire to take a claim for increased wages to the tribunal, but the Minister had a veto in his scheme which would enable him to refuse to allow it to go to arbitration. However, if he consented to do so, he stipulated that even if the chairman of the tribunal, who was to be appointed by a Minister, decided against him, he was not going to be bound by the award. That is the scheme of arbitration which the Minister now imagines is an implementation of the promise made by the President in Rathmines Town Hall in 1932.

I put it to the Minister that a scheme of that kind is not an arbitration tribunal; that it has none of the features of arbitration, as popularly and industrially known, that it is not in any sense, a court or tribunal which would decide genuine disputes between the Executive Council on the one hand, and staff organisations on the other; that it is by no stretch of the imagination anything approaching an honest attempt to honour the promise which was made in 1932. The Minister pleaded previously in this House that he had not the views of the staff organisations on this draft scheme of organisations which he submitted to them. He said that, of course, at a time when he knew perfectly well that, with the exception of one tiny organisation—all the members of which would probably fit in a city tramcar—none of the organisations would accept the draft scheme of arbitration. In any case, the Minister has had for the past month a very definite memorandum, written in simple and implicit language, and signed by all the staff organisations, indicating that the scheme of arbitration which he has suggested is utterly unsuitable to the needs of the Civil Service; that it is not arbitration; that it is in no sense an implementation of the President's promise; and he has been asked to convene a conference of representatives of his Department with representatives of staff organisations, for the purpose of establishing what will be a genuine arbitration board that will make a genuine attempt to resolve the differences between the Executive Council on the one hand, and staff organisations on the other hand. The Minister has been told that the service organisations desire a scheme of arbitration which will give no veto to one side or the other, which will enable all matters within a previously agreed category to be referred to arbitration, and which will not put any restriction on the right of either side to be represented by advocates of their own choice. He has been told that the staff organisations desire a tribunal whose verdict will be binding on both sides, subject to the over-riding authority of this House. Is there anything unreasonable in making a claim of that kind? Is there anything unreasonable in setting up an arbitration tribunal of that kind? The Minister now wants to say that he does not want to be bound by the verdict of an arbitration tribunal. But we had the extraordinary spectacle of the President coming to this House, and declaring in very specific language that he was prepared to accept the judgement of an arbitration tribunal, which presumably would not consist of Irishmen, on the land annuities dispute, and to accept it as binding, and to such an extent as to compel this country to pay an award of one, two, three, four or five million pounds yearly. While we have the President prepared to accept the verdict of an arbitration tribunal on the question of the disputed financial payments, we have the Minister for Finance not prepared to accept the award of an Irish arbitration tribunal on matters in dispute between himself as employer and the staff as employees.

I ask the Minister to say definitely where he stands or where the Government stands on this matter of arbitration. Does the Government intend to honour the promise that was made in 1932, or is the Minister endeavouring to drag out this discussion, until such time as we have another general election when the promise can be furbished up in new and perhaps more alluring language than before, in the hope that it will deceive some of the Minister's constituents a third time? Is that the object, or does the Minister recant and repudiate the promise made in 1932? Is it the position now, that the Government has no further use for the promise which was made then, and which did the political trick in that year? Is that the position, or does the Minister genuinely intend to establish an arbitration tribunal, in which the staff will have confidence and in which the legislature will have confidence? Every day in the week the Department of Industry and Commerce is engaged in endeavouring to promote the settlement of disputes through the medium of arbitration. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is constantly urging trade unions to submit their differences with employers to arbitration, yet, we have the Minister for Finance, who is in the rôle of an employer towards the staff, refusing to adopt the method for the settlement of disputes which has been recommended by his colleague the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to employers and to work people. The Minister has now had four years to think over the promise made in 1932. He has had in his possession for the last month a request from the Service organisations to convene a conference to discuss the establishment of an equitable scheme of arbitration. So far the Minister has been silent; he has not indicated what his intentions are. I should like to know from the Minister what he proposes to do in that connection. The staff organisations have waited now for four years to get some definite declaration from the Minister that he intends to establish a genuine arbitration tribunal. It is time, now that the Minister has had placed before him the views of the staff organisations that he should state what he intends to do in that particular matter.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer and that is the question of the provision made in the recent Budget for the expenditure of £2,500,000 on the relief of unemployment during the present year. I should like to inquire from the Minisster for Industry and Commerce when we are likely to see some steps taken to ensure that that provision is not merely a paper provision but that it will be genuinely utilised for the relief of unemployment. So far as I can discover, in large tracts of country which I have visited, there seems very little evidence that any of this £2,500,000 is being expended. Many of the towns and areas throughout my own constituency are suffering very seriously as a result of unemployment, notwithstanding the fact that we were told that this £2,500,000 is to be expended for the relief of unemployment this year. I should like to know from the Minister whether my experience in that connection represents the general experience of Deputies from other constituencies throughout the country. We could probably test the position more accurately if we could get from the Minister some definite statement as to how much of the money has been actually allocated for the relief of unemployment, in what areas are schemes in operation, and how many persons at present have been put into employment under the schemes envisaged by the Minister.

We were told recently, as a justification for the enactment of an Employment Period Order, that there was going to be an abundance of work in the rural areas between the 3rd of June and the 27th of October. I can see no evidence of any of that work about which the Minister for Industry and Commerce talked so volubly. This £2,500,000 has certainly not found its way into the rural areas or into the towns so far. I should like to know from the Minister what is being done to expedite the expenditure of the money, when the money will be expended, and what number of persons will be taken off unemployment assistance benefit through the medium of the work provided under these schemes. The House is probably on the eve of an adjournment and it may be some time before it meets again. We should, therefore, have from the Minister for Finance who is responsible for the Budgetary provision some indication of the general way in which it will be spent, when it will be spent, and approximately the number of persons who are likely to be employed in this way.

The last point which I desire to raise has reference to a report which appeared in the Press yesterday and which indicated that the Minister for Finance, if he does not appear in the rôle of the American uncle in relation to unemployment assistance benefit, at least does appear in that capacity in connection with totalisators on greyhound racing tracks. The Press reported yesterday that the Minister for Finance had instructed counsel to go into the courts and there offer on his behalf a sum of £10,000 in settlement of an action against him.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not in these Estimates.

Mr. Norton

I suggest, Sir, that while it is not in the Estimates in this financial year the Minister is consenting to pay £10,000.

An Ceann Comhairle

There will be an Estimate for that sum.

Mr. Norton

All right, Sir. Quite apart from the sum, I think I would be entitled, on the Vote for the Minister's own salary, which is provided for in this Appropriation Bill, to question the manner in which he discharges his duty as Minister for Finance and custodian of the taxpayers' money. Would I not?

An Ceann Comhairle

That would have been relevant on the Vote for the Minister's Department.

Mr. Norton

Who knew, Sir, that the Minister was going to appear on this generous rôle until the newspapers were opened yesterday and we saw the Minister shovelling out £10,000 of the people's money in settlement of this claim?

An Ceann Comhairle

The matter is not before the House at present. The Vote which must be introduced later will afford an opportunity for discussion.

Mr. Norton

Do you rule then, Sir, that it is not permissible for me to raise the question of the action of the Minister for Finance in instructing counsel to go into court and make an offer of £10,000 in settlement of a claim against him before even the court had given a decree against the Minister? Would I not be entitled, on this Appropriation Bill, to ask whether the Minister was justified in making any offer at all, and whether he proposes to tell the House the circumstances under which he as Minister for Finance—a Minister whose salary is provided for in this Bill—took the unusual course of spending £10,000 without even the consent of the Legislature?

An Ceann Comhairle

The only knowledge which the House has of that matter is that obtained from a newspaper report. The Estimate which will come before the House later, will put the matter in order for discussion. That discussion should not be anticipated.

Mr. McGilligan

Might I put the matter this way? The Minister, on taking office, found himself faced by a promise made by his predecessor in 1931 in regard to the establishment of a tote system at this greyhound course. For that period, and particularly during the past 12 months, he has refused to fulfil the promise. Surely his conduct in neglecting to fulfil that promise, which resulted in the payment of this £10,000, is relevant on the Appropriation Bill?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister's conduct would arise more properly on the Estimate for his office.

Mr. McGilligan

Does not his Estimate arise on the Appropriation Bill?

An Ceann Comhairle

The details of an Estimate cannot be discussed on an Appropriation Bill.

Mr. McGilligan

I do not suggest that they can, but did not the conduct of the Minister in failing to fulfil the promise written down in his office in 1931 result in the payment of this £10,000? His conduct during this year in bringing that to a head is surely open to discussion on this Bill.

Mr. Norton

I cannot delay very long on the matter. What strikes me as extraordinary, and what I think will strike the general public as extraordinary, is that the Minister for Finance goes into court and offers a sum of £10,000 in satisfaction of a claim made against him. His counsel who appeared there declared, as portion of his defence, that the Minister had, in fact, made no compromising promise such as would justify the payment of any compensation. But after some discussion in court, counsel for the Minister and counsel for the plaintiff announced that they had made a deal and settled the matter by the payment on the part of the Minister of £10,000 to the plaintiff. Consequently, in the same year as we find people cut off from unemployment assistance benefit we are going to pay £10,000 in compensation for this totalisator machine, and all this without any indication to the House as to what the responsibility of the Executive Council was in respect of any promise made. I should think this is an appropriate occasion for the Minister for Finance to make a declaration setting out the circumstances of that case. I think there is grave public disquiet that because of a change of policy on the one hand, or because of an alleged promise on the other, which the Minister stated was not a promise that bound him, the Exchequer has to be asked to pay the substantial sum of £10,000 to the plaintiff in this case. I never knew anybody who found it so easy to get so much money out of the Minister as this body, and that, apparently, through very little responsibility on the part of the Minister. I think the Minister should use this occasion to tell the House the full circumstances surrounding that case. Was there any definite promise made to this body that they would be permitted to establish this particular type of machine? On what terms, and by whom was the promise given? Did the Executive Council think they were bound by the promise made and who generally was responsible for the change of policy that resulted in the State being compelled to pay this £10,000?

Mr. McGilligan

This matter of a promise to the Civil Service has been discussed by quite a number of people. I do not want to say much upon it, but I recall with interest hearing the Minister making his humble explanation, and trying to get away from the plain words, and plain statement not merely in the speech at Rathmines, but incorporated in the manifesto produced to the electorate before the 1932 election. The Minister's attitude to-night comes upon me with surprise. Though the Civil Service feels sore at the lack of fulfilment of the promise in the manifesto of 1932, nevertheless, in their recent communication with the Minister, they asserted that the Minister has not yet denied that there was a promise and that the promise was that an arbitration board would be set up. Lest there should be any doubt on the matter, I direct attention to the fact that in 1932 the present Government, going for election, produced their manifesto and that manifesto was couched in the following terms:—

"Fianna Fáil seeks a mandate to proceed with the fulfilment of the items in its programme. Item 7.— We are prepared to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of civil servants."

Mr. Norton

Exactly as I said.

Mr. McGilligan

I said I could countersign the words used by the Deputy because I had them under my eyes. The actual words were: "We are prepared to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of civil servants." Has that been fulfilled? I understood that up-to-date while there may have been evasions, trying to explain the non-fulfilment, there has been no attempt on the part of any Ministers to show that the statement does not mean what everyone will read into its words: "We are prepared to establish an arbitration board to deal with the grievances of civil servants." I look forward with a certain amount of interest to hearing the Minister trying to explain—and I thought his interjection was that he was going to explain—that that does not mean a promise to the civil servants to establish an arbitration board.

The Appropriation Accounts we are dealing with have got to such a height, in regard to moneys levied on the people, that possibly they could better be called expropriation accounts. I agree with Deputy Cosgrave that extortion, of a certain type, may temporarily increase the amount of the revenue raised and the opportunity the Government may find for spending. But eventually extortion will work to the detriment of the Exchequer if it can only balance its Budget by making the majority of the citizens unbalance their domestic budgets. If the Government can only achieve the balancing of the national Budget by making people sell their stock, let their premises go into disrepair and not meet their debts, if it induces local authorities no longer to pay their way out of moneys they actually get from the rates, if it increases the indebtedness of the local authorities, as has been done, by a sum of £9,000,000 in three years, and if the national Exchequer is to be overburdened with debt in the same period, then if the Minister does achieve, nominally even, the balancing of his Budget it is at a cost that will inevitably show and show quite soon.

We are voting these huge sums of money. What are they for? We are apparently going to carry on, despite all the warnings of people at home and abroad, this scheme of economic nationalism. This scheme has been tried and found wanting by most of the nations of the world. It is a scheme which is meeting with a derision that is only a preliminary to its general abandonment. It is a scheme that has been the subject of discussion where men of all nations are called together in economic conferences in the last two or three years, and it has met with their disapproval. In fact there is quoted in most booklets that deal with the world situation evidence that shows a lightening of the clouds of depression after most of them have decided to abandon economic nationalism and to open up international trade. I have tried, on many occasions, to show, just exactly what was the situation in other countries. I have shown that people who were counted amongst the foremost leaders of international thought and society have expressed their view without any show of doubt on the whole question of economic nationalism, once a phase and popular phase, but now completely unpopular. And it is unpopular not because it has not got a chance to prove itself, but because, having got that chance, it has disproved itself. I spoke again and again about the position of the Balkan States, who are trying to get their tariff barriers lowered. I have spoken in the same connection in reference to the Danubian States, who have come to the same conclusion. I stated that Mussolini had gathered together the group of nations with which he is associated— Austria, Jugoslavia—who made a series of treaties, the pivot of them being, in Mussolini's own phrase, that they had to lower their tariffs in order to have their complementary national economies interlocked, with the view of getting a better life for their people. I have said before, and repeat it, that the foremost economic leader of any French Government in the last two-and-a-half years announced to the whole Chamber of Deputies that economic nationalism had not proved a success in any country in which it had been tried. He asked for comments upon that statement, and no one said nay to that deriding comment.

I point now to this most significant fact: that before Congress last year the President asked from Congress, and got leave, that if he reduced any tariff on imported goods coming into America by at least 50 per cent. he need not go back to Congress; and only if he decided to make a reduction of a figure over 50 per cent. was he to be forced to recall Congress to have it discussed.

Mr. Moore

The average of tariffs being?

Mr. McGilligan

Very much lower than ours, whatever that may be. There is no general tariff wall—possibly Spain had such a wall, but it has recently been lowered—as high as ours is at the moment. Would the Deputy like to interrupt again?

Mr. Moore

I should like a little more detail on that.

Mr. McGilligan

Certainly. The two leaders in economic nationalism were France and America. France has not merely abandoned it, but has abandoned it with the phrase that it has "nowhere proved a success." The President of the United States asked leave to make a reduction of 50 per cent. The President of the United States sent to an International Conference at Geneva Mr. Cordell Hull, his Secretary of State, and Mr. Cordell Hull inaugurated a study movement in connection with economic nationalism. The basis of that movement was, so far as I can see, accepted unanimously, but I have not read through the complete account. At all events, nobody voted against it. The basis on which he got acceptance was this—that the result of tariffs throughout the world had been not an increase in employment in any country but a decrease. In the interest of mankind generally, as well as in the interest of the unemployed in the different countries, Mr. Cordell Hull got over 54 nations to agree to inaugurate a series of studies into the effect of economic nationalism with a view to the reduction of tariff barriers. That same gentleman, in May of this year, delivered what was described universally by the newspapers as an "attack on economic nationalism." It is reported in the Press of the 15th May, and it is described as having been delivered the night before. Mr. Cordell Hull said that "the nations were all bowed down in the muck and mire of extreme economic nationalism, and the world is a net-work of discriminations." He went on to say that he hoped Britain, Japan, France, Germany and all the important countries would soon see the way clear to proceed simultaneously to support the doctrines of economic liberalism.

That same gentleman, responsible for that series of utterances, announced more recently than May that as America had led the world into the chaos in which it now finds itself, America should here and now take the lead towards the restoration of economic sanity.

Mr. Moore

Has it yet done so?

Mr. McGilligan

It has—by the 50 per cent. reduction.

Mr. Moore

That is only a promise.

Mr. McGilligan

It was carried through in nine commercial treaties within a month of the permission and in seven others afterwards. The barriers are coming down but they are not coming down fast enough and, until they are brought down faster, the world is going to find itself in its present situation, with very little appreciable change in the volume of unemployment. Despite that, we are going gaily ahead. If there is one set of papers which annoys Deputies more than another it is the sheaf of Imposition of Duties Orders which they receive regularly at the rate of about half-a-dozen per week. We go gaily ahead. If we were not to look outside the country, what is the result of economic nationalism, as we see it? Again, I have given these figures but they will bear repetition. So far as agricultural products are concerned, we have subsidised two or three crops at the rate of £3,000,000 per annum. What do we get for that? We get a decrease in the number of permanent employees on the land and an increase in the case of those temporarily employed. These about balance. There is no increase in the number of those who get wages for working on farms. There is said to be an increase in the number of farmers' families employed on the land. We do not know what the precise figure is but we shall find out one of these days. Certain agricultural grants are disposed of according to the number of persons working on the land. If a farmer can enter up his children as working on the land, he may get a bigger portion of the agricultural grant. Apart from the fact that there is no increase in the personnel employed on farms, those who used to be employed on farms find that their wages are down. The amount of purchasing power from agriculture is down by over £750,000 a year. We pay £3,000,000 in subsidising crops and the result is that those employed get more than £750,000 less wages than they used to get. In other words, we pay £3,000,000 a year to get in purchasing power £750,000 less than used to be got.

What does industry show? The biggest test on the industrial side is the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The figures are there to be checked. Every man who is in insurable occupation must have a stamp put on his card for every week he is in work. The tot of these stamps and of the moneys that pass in shows clearly—there is no question of dispute—what is the extra amount of employment given. That amounts to 25,000 persons taken in terms of whole-time employment. What we pay for that, we have yet to find out. Where do these 25,000 come from? I have dealt with this matter over and over again and my figures have not even been argued about. They may be challenged and a few thousand chopped off here and there. I do not regard the Minister for Industry and Commerce as a reliable guide but, according to the figures given by him relating to the building of houses, at the time he spoke in 1934 there must have been between 15,000 and 20,000 people extra employed in the building industry. The figure is probably nearer 15,000 than 20,000 but on the Minister's figures it might be more than 20,000. There were about 1,000 more employed in the sugar beet factories—another subsidised business. A certain number of extra people were employed because of the vast extent of the relief schemes. We have not the figures because the Ministry hides them. But we can garner the fruits of economic nationalism here and now.

We spent £3,000,000 in subsidising agriculture and there has been no permanent extra employment on the land, though certain members of the families of farmers have been thrown out to pretend to work on the land. We pay £3,000,000 for that. A sum of £750,000 less in wages goes to the agricultural community. We may get 25,000 extra people employed between industry and building but the big majority are in building. The latest claim for the whole of the tariffed industries is a tot of about 9,000 people. That makes no allowance for the people put out of other avenues of employment.

Mr. Moore

For instance?

Mr. McGilligan

Dockers and tobacco people. A number of instances can be given if the Deputy wants them. The number of employees in commercial houses is down. The Deputy may say that that is a good change. It may be. He will say it is better to have people employed in productive industry than merely in exploiting goods, but from the angle of employment—and it was from that angle tariffs were looked to in this country so far as election promises went—are we any better off? What about the wages of those employed in industry? There is a reduction there. I am speaking of the wages handed out to each of these people at the end of the week. They are down by varying figures according to the industry concerned but they are down on the whole.

Mr. Moore

For adult workers?

Mr. McGilligan

Adult workers, undoubtedly.

Mr. Moore

No.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy denies that. The Deputy should read the Census of Production figures and make an ordinary calculation, dividing the number of people now in employment against the wage fund created in industry. If the Deputy tells me that that figure has to be adjusted because there is a vast number of juveniles in this employment he will then be accepting the arguments constantly put up from the Labour Benches and as constantly derided by his own Minister. The Minister tells me that the adult workers used to be about 2 per cent. and that that has not changed. If that be a fact, the Deputy can make his calculation and divide the number in employment into the fund created in industry.

Mr. Moore

Does the Deputy hold that tradesmen's wages have been reduced?

Mr. McGilligan

I could go through the lists and have them tabulated with regard to the different industries, but I have not time at the moment to do that. This I tell the Deputy: that the wages on the whole are down. The Deputy knows that there is not much good in talking to a man and thinking he is going to be satisfied because he has got the same number of shillings or perhaps a little less than he got previously, when that man is thinking all the time in terms of the exchange value of his money, when that man is thinking of what he can buy with the wages he gets. Can he buy as much of the necessaries of life now as he used to buy with the same amount of money?

Mr. Moore

Quite.

Mr. McGilligan

The Deputy cannot be very much interested in the details of running a house.

Mr. O'Leary

He is not a married man; he knows nothing about running a house.

Mr. McGilligan

Apart from that, the Lord may be providing for the man who has not to buy across the counter. Is the Deputy talking to me about the index cost-of-living figure? No explanation has been attempted as to that figure. Does not the Deputy know that in every country in the world except ours, when the depression came on, the first drive against the depression was to try to increase the amount of money which the agriculturists got for their produce, even though that meant an uplift in the cost-of-living figure? If we have achieved even an apparent lowering of the cost-of-living figure, or if we have achieved this, that the cost-of-living figure has not shot up as much as it might, how is that being done? It has been done through free beef and things like that. Is that sound? Is that good economics? Why should we find it a proper thing to depress the farmer and hope for general good conditions in the towns, when the whole world, except a few countries that depend on export markets, have adopted a policy totally the reverse of ours? The experience of every other country in the world has been the very opposite to ours. They have tried to raise the prices of agricultural produce. We are depressing these prices, and then, though we do depress them and though the cost-of-living figure may be artificially lowered because there is a calculation made in the matter of free beef and things like that, nevertheless every man who is on the destitution or the semi-destitution line knows that he is paying more for his necessaries of life, for the things he has to use, than he was a few years ago. The Deputy cannot forget that the Government which he is supporting in this activity, and which the Labour Party is supporting, has taxed certain necessities and has pleaded as a justification for doing so the fact that the taxation of luxuries was not yielding as much as before and that the reason for the taxation of necessities is because they are necessities and that they are forced to rake in taxes from the great multitude of the people. No country set out deliberately to impose income-tax on the lower level of the community. This country did. It has achieved it by taxing the commodities used by the people. It is not income tax in the ordinary sense of the word, but it comes to the same thing. In imposing income-tax we do what is regarded as logical and humane. We calculate what is a man's subsistence allowance, his personal allowance. He is not taxed on that. The Government accepted that viewpoint, but they turn around and tax the man's necessities of life. They might just as well tax his income down to the man with £1 a week. That man is taxed at the moment. At any rate, we have there economic nationalism. We can see its results abroad and we now see them at home.

The worst folly of the Government has not been allowed to eventuate in this country. There has been a forced circulation of money in the community, money that is achieved by mortgaging the future. The people have withdrawn their bank balances, and people who had investments abroad have realised them. The local authorities are spending, but they are not meeting the service of the debt. The Government has mortgaged the future to a certain extent. It has borrowed and spent all it could, and we are having at the moment the benefits of the spending. We are not feeling yet to any great extent the disadvantages of the borrowing. That will be spread out over the next generation, which will feel the impact of the Fianna Fáil Government. The Government has compelled the local authorities to borrow and spend what they borrowed. On behalf of the nation the Government has borrowed, and it has added to the national debt and spent the money. Now we are in the position that every house built and every acre of land provided is an addition to the national debt.

Despite all these things, what can we see in the way of production? It is easy to pile up expenditure and to provide for services in the way the Government is doing, but no man in his own household would inaugurate and carry on increased expenditure for himself and his family unless he saw his income rise. But while the national income is falling the Government is increasing expenditure. There is nothing in the way of extra production which would enable the country to bear the weight of the additional services which have been thrown on the people in order to catch votes for the Fianna Fáil Government.

That is the economic side of the picture. Where are we on the national side? We are told at one time that at any rate, whatever might happen to this country externally, that if there was a good national purpose behind it the people would be prepared to tighten their belts and to suffer. The people have tightened their belts and they are suffering. But what are they suffering for, where is the national purpose? One finds a great deal of comments about the policy of the Government in these last few days. A great many people who have not been vocal about the Fianna Fáil Government up to this have suddenly found their tongues loosened. One man spoke to me to-day and said that he knew all along that the Government were wrong economically but he had been compelled by their national aims to support them. But then he said: "they are no longer republicans; they are good old stick-in-the-Commonwealth like the rest of you." What are they going to do now in the matter of the national position? What about their external and internal policies?

We were told at one time that the establishment of the Military Tribunal in order to put down crime in the country was bound to be regarded as a giving in to British propaganda. We were told that it meant that there were people in this country so vicious that they could not be ruled by ordinary means. President de Valera told us recently that if he had the making of a new Constitution, and he is supposed to be making it now, he would include the Military Tribunal as a permanent plank in that Constitution. Has the President accepted for the time that British propaganda that the people are so vicious that they could not be ruled by the ordinary means of government? He has done much worse. During the Dublin municipal elections his Minister for Finance made what was one of the most disgraceful, unfair, audacious and vicious speeches ever made by any person with any sense of responsibility in the State. He was questioned by an interrupter as to how he made a connection between the I.R.A. and murder, and his answer was explicit. He said: "We have the proofs and you will get them one of these days." And he added the monstrous words, "then these people will do no more shooting." May I analyse that? It means, I take it, that the Minister, as a member of the Executive Council, and who at that time was just fresh from imposing a ban on the I.R.A. as an illegal body, had seen a series of reports; that as a member of the Executive Council he was interested in trying to find out who committed that outrageous murder; that he had got evidence submitted to him and, as a member of the Executive Council, he had made up his mind upon it. What had he made up his mind about? That the I.R.A. was connected with it, that certain individuals belonging to that body were connected with it; that it had proof connecting these people with that crime, and he was convinced that these people were going to be hanged. If that is not prejudging an issue that is before the courts I do not know what is. The Minister said that publicly—the Minister who at one time described the members of the Military Tribunal as the bloodhounds of the Executive Council. The Minister is now in charge of the bloodhounds—it is not my phrase—and he announces in a public speech, which these bloodhounds can hear, that he who controls their commissions had made up his mind, on some of the evidence submitted to him, that certain people who were going to be produced before the Military Tribunal were guilty of that crime and should be done to death.

The President who derided the Military Tribunal, and the Minister for Finance who described them in that way, are now engaged in building up a Constitution. Probably their honour as officers will save that Tribunal from taking any lead like that, but Ministers think they can come out in public and give a lead like that to a body that was set up to be judicial in the trial of cases and impartial in its evidence; that they can go on to a public platform and say these things in the heat of the moment and then proceed to build up a Constitution containing such a body, which they will apparently lecture in that public way. They think they are going to end the internal difficulty that has arisen with regard to the so-called external point of difficulty.

I wonder is the external difficulty taken seriously? It was a good election cry, just like the 84,000 people that were to be put into production and the money that was to be forthcoming as a result of the Fianna Fáil industrial and economic policy when they got in. Where is the external difficulty now? As far as one can see, we are operating this way against our deadly enemies—trying to choke them with our best butter, as used to be said was the other way of killing a dog; selling it to them at less than the price we have to pay for it at home. We are helping them to build up their livestock industry at the expense of ours. We are hunting timidly without settling a variety of matters that were on the point of settlement when the Government came into office—such a settlement, for instance, as would prevent the conflict in Lough Foyle some weeks ago. Because we are at loggerheads with our enemies the British, whose livestock industry we carefully foster, and whose butter is provided for them cheaply, we cannot enter into negotiations about the Lough Foyle dispute because it might prejudice a still greater struggle we have with them. We are going to attend at the Meat Board. We will rub shoulders there with our ancient enemies.

When the President is called into the House on the League of Nations debate he finds himself forced of a sudden to declare that collective security has gone, and that if this country ever had faith in the League of Nations as a protector against attack by an aggressor nation it should abandon such faith. Then, when he is asked what is his policy for the defence of this island, he says, in answer to a series of questions put to him, that this country is not yet in the mood in which it can respond to an application for an alliance with Great Britain. He says that we will not ally with them, but we have this great security, that if a nation wants to attack us we know, and can rest confident in the knowledge, that Great Britain will not allow anybody to attack us. We will not ally with them, we will call them our enemies, we will not make agreements about Lough Foyle or anything else, but we will rely on them to see that no other nation will hit us. That is national policy.

What about this Meat Board? Sometimes chances do recur even in the lifetime of nations; but, chances missed once, generally go past and are never brought back. We missed Ottawa; we had a chance there for an economic settlement. We had a chance of entering into economic relations which we could enter into without loss of dignity. If we had entered into economic relations, undoubtedly the political differences would be smoothed over. We lost that chance. Some of the delegates there thought they had not lost it at the time. We were told that there was going to be a settlement within three weeks. So the Vice-President stated, and he has never denied that in this House. At any rate, Ottawa was lost.

The Ottawa agreement is now running out. The British are now facing up to a regularisation of their market for meat imports. They have announced quite openly that they are going to take one line of procedure. All meat imported from any place outside the Dominions is going to be taxed. Meat coming from the Dominions is not going to be taxed. The British farmer is going to be subsidised. The £4,000,000 which the British farmer is to get is now going to be meticulously measured out to enable the British farmer to get into the production of the best type of livestock—the livestock that we used to supply. They are now in a position to regularise that industry, because they have in recent years, under the cloak of the tariffs, got into their hands quite an appreciable number of the good herds of this country. They have not merely taxed us to the full amount that we said we would withhold from them, but they have got, as part exchange, capital goods from us in the shape of animals which they are now going to make the basis of their better-regulated livestock industry. At any rate, that market is still open to us. It is still open to us either as a foreign country, or as something inside the British Commonwealth. Circumstances have not enabled us to move outside the British Commonwealth but, apparently some circumstances, or some sort of secret pride, will not allow us to get the material advantage of being a member of the British Commonwealth while we are still in it.

The Ottawa chance now recurs. It was lost before. Is it going to be lost again? The agreements now being made are being made despite the immense amount of British money invested in the Argentine. Arrangements are going to be made against Argentine interests. They are going to be made first and foremost for the British producer, and, secondly, for the Dominion producer. Great Britain, according to the President's speech at the League of Nations, is perturbed at the thought of war. The British are taking steps to ensure a bigger production of home-produced or near-produced foodstuffs. This country is obviously the place to which they would ordinarily look. We have something to bargain with.

Mr. Moore

Great Britain, then, is looking for economic nationalism, and it will be their ruin?

Mr. McGilligan

Great Britain is not looking for economic nationalism. It is a country which must get markets abroad and could not possibly look for economic nationalism. One of the evils in the world, as well as economic nationalism, is war; and war is driving them to the type of insurance that everybody regards as the second worst thing to economic nationalism. Great Britain must get her insurance that way if there is going to be war. The nearer their foodstuffs are to be had in abundance, the less dissipation will there be of naval strength to guard them, and the Deputy knows that. That is the situation that we are faced with, and because Deputy Moore is still flirting with economic nationalism, because he is not yet sure that it has failed, and not yet able to read the signs of the times abroad, not yet able to learn a lesson from the experience of other countries, with that experience written down for everyone to read——

Mr. Moore

Would the Deputy allow me to read one quotation from a man who ought to be very interested in this matter? The speaker is Sir Harry McGowan, the Chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries which, I believe, has a capital of £95,000,000 distributed all over the world. Speaking a few weeks ago, about two days after Deputy McGilligan made the first of his statements about economic nationalism having been repudiated by practically every country in the world, Sir Harry McGowan, speaking of economic nationalism, said:—

"So far as one's vision can pierce the future there seems little likelihood of any disappearance of this feature. I.C.I. is, therefore, regrettably forced to follow its tendencies by adopting a policy of entering upon the establishment of local factories wherever the demand in a country is sufficiently large to make the establishment of an enterprise there economically sound. By this policy we combine the manufacture on the spot with some share in the remaining import trade. As the local market grows imports tend to increase."

Sir Harry McGowan says that "so far as one's vision can pierce the future there seems little likelihood of any disappearance of this feature." He ought to know a thing or two about it. He has been watching it just as closely as the Deputy.

Mr. McGilligan

I have yielded to the Deputy to give a quotation, but I do not want a speech from him. The Deputy has thrown Sir Harry McGowan into the scale against 55 nations, and he says very much the same as what is summed up in the international labour office report, namely, that the tendency away from economic nationalism was observable, and that it was only checked by those who had emerged from war conditions. With the imminence of war there is a natural strengthening of the view in favour of economic nationalism, but Sir Harry McGowan does not say that economic nationalism is the best thing for the world.

Mr. Moore

His statement does not indicate that the countries are running away from it. He says, "as far as the eye can pierce."

Mr. McGilligan

Because the cloud of war does not allow the eye to see straight. I would advise the Deputy to read the International Labour Office report, which is a marvellous production. The two things are there set in contrast. The report runs on two lines, that the general tendency of the world and the only healthy tendency of the world is in favour of the lowering of international barriers. It says that the healthy and sound movement towards this has been checked because of the appearance of war. It by no means says, nor does anybody who has given any thought to it say, that economic nationalism is in itself a good thing.

Mr. Moore

That was not what the Deputy was on at all. The Deputy was contending that the countries were abandoning it.

Mr. McGilligan

And so they were. In so far as they are not perturbed by the threat of war, they are still abandoning it. America has abandoned it. Despite Sir Harry McGowan, let us leave the world aside. Have we not seen the proofs of it here? Can anyone say that this country is progressing? If we can keep up an expenditure of about £50,000,000 over five years, extra to what we used to spend, we can carry on until the source from which we get that £50,000,000 has dried up. But what are we doing? We are spending that money uselessly, because it is useless if there is no new production. Think of all it has taken to build up the source from which much of that money is taken in the way of foreign investments, bank balances and things of that kind. Can anyone tell me, viewing what has developed in this country, and taking it away from threats of war by England or by anybody else, that our present situation is better than what it used to be? Economic nationalism has been tried here and has been found wanting, as it has been found wanting elsewhere. Let us abandon the phrase that it is a blessing in disguise. It is a disguise, but it is no blessing.

When I was interrupted I was speaking of the national objective. Will Deputies opposite tell me that the national objective is being as strongly pursued as they said it was going to be when their Party came into office? Will they tell me that they still have the confidence of the country on that matter? One does not want to single out individuals, but one does know of defections from the Party opposite. Will Fianna Fáil say that they have the support of their people generally for the programme they are carrying on at the moment and, if not, can they lay their fingers on where they have disappointed their supporters? Is it in economics or is it in nationalism, or is it in both? We no longer see those vast gatherings of people meeting and applauding Fianna Fáil speakers. We do see the same multitudes gathering at meetings heckling Fianna Fáil speakers. Their programme is somewhat in decay and their reputation is certainly in the mire. Their speakers are hiding. The meetings are not so many as they used to be, the voters are not as enthusiastic, the workers have not the same energy. Why has the Party gone so weak so suddenly? Whence the cause of the flabbiness? Why is there not the same gathering here to applaud President de Valera when he wants to make a speech on principle such as we used to see in this House before? There is no longer the same ring in the voices of Fianna Fáil speakers announcing that they were no political Party but that they were a sort of national phenomenon as, I think, they described themselves before. Why are they more uncomfortable even in this House, and certainly outside of it, than they used to be? Whom have they disappointed or, rather, whom have they pleased? If you give a licence to one man, how many dozen do you disappoint? For every one that your put into a post in the Civil Service, when at least 20 other people think that they are as well entitled to it, you find yourself left with 19 disgruntled people. If you try to run a policy on these lines of giving licences to favourites and posts to favourites and making promises which cannot be implemented, it does not take even the three or four years that the Fianna Fáil Party have been in office to get the hollowness of the whole thing exposed.

That is the position at the moment and yet the House is asked to vote this sum of money. There is only one hope that Fianna Fáil has in this Green Paper before us, and that is the point that Deputy Norton touched on at the end of his speech—whether this £2,500,000 road scheme can be got going in time sufficiently to synchronise with a possible general election and thereby help the people who will be walking the bog roads also to walk to the polling booths to vote for the people who are supplying the people's money to them. That is the only little bit of hope that there is in this mass of appropriations. Can the £2,500,000 road scheme be got going? Can we forestall the disappointment of the electorate and can we wheedle back some people to support us? If so, the £2,500,000, according to Fianna Fáil, will be well spent. What is the case for spending this £2,500,000? The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us in this House, about the month of April, that the unemployment problem dealt with a matter of 40,000 people. He had a turf scheme, he said, which was going to employ 50,000 or 10,000 more than represented that problem. That was all due to the industries that had been established as well as to house building and a few other things. But despite that the unemployment problem loomed so large in the eyes of the Minister for Finance that instead of lightening the load on the taxpayer he wants an additional £2,500,000 for a road relief scheme. Who wants relief if the Minister for Industry and Commerce is providing work for 40,000 and if by the simple procedure of making an Order certain people can be deemed to be employed during a period of the year? What is the necessity for a £2,500,000 road scheme in those circumstances? Are the roads in a bad state of disrepair? Is there any business reason for getting this sum of money spent? I need not wait for an answer. Everybody knows there is only one reason for the spending of that sum of money and that reason is, that Fianna Fáil as a Party need some little bit of sustenance for their supporters. They could not give them work. They do not like going on with all this relief of destitution. They cannot cajole them any longer with the national objective. They have decided not merely to ban the I.R.A., but the Minister actually goes and proclaims one of them a murderer—a man who will never do any shooting again. And the Minister does that, apparently, before that man has been paraded for his trial; he announces that, so far as he is concerned, he has prejudged the issue, and he gives his pointer to the men who are going to try that man.

The Minister and his Party must feel somewhat disappointed. They have failed in economics, they have failed nationally and acted outrageously when the life of a man, who is condemned by the Minister for Finance, is at stake. They are no longer getting the support that they wanted. We are now asked to pass this Appropriation Bill. Let us hope that it will be the last this Minister will ask us to pass. I submit that the tot can be lowered; it can be lowered without doing any harm to the people; it can be lowered by the disappearance of certain items only brought in in order to let the Minister wave the flag of war and endeavour to get the spirit of his people revived. I hold that there is a good economic arrangement to be made, and if, Ottawa having been lost, the Minister fails to get in on the new arrangement, then his disappearance from office will not eventually compensate for that defect. The Minister ought to realise that what is approaching him is something that will mould the fortunes of our people for many years to come and that he is gaining nothing by his appearance of belligerency. The belligerency has been derided. The people who were supposed to be belligerent do not count it as such. The Minister sulks in his corner. If I were to make an unworthy comparison, he is sulking in his tent.

Mr. J.M. Burke

You are striking him on the heel.

Mr. McGilligan

It is more than the heel—it would apply to another part of his anatomy. The Minister has a body of experts around him. It was referred to in the course of the discussion on the Estimates that the Minister had a specialised body gathered around him. The Minister could ask those people who were sitting here while this battle was raging, while economic nationalism was being developed to the full and while the loss of markets was increasing every day, to turn their attention to that and not to such matters as deliberating about academic banking points, and get them to advise him so that he could advise us on the policy that he is carrying on at the moment. I would be content to leave it to them.

Mr. T. Kelly

I think I can claim to be one of the best from the point of view of attendance in this Chamber. In all my experience, extending over years, I can say that I never heard a more dismal debate than that to which we have listened, if we except the man who has just gone out. Having regard to the jubilation that was evident over there to a very remarkable degree as a result of the municipal elections, one would have expected a much better discussion. Why has all the enthusiasm disappeared? Why was it necessary to wait for Deputy McGilligan to come along? There was a lot of strategy fixing up speakers until the Deputy entered the Chamber. Everybody likes to listen to Deputy McGilligan. Undoubtedly he is the best man on the Opposition. It is a pity that such an able man is over there. If he were here he would be appreciated. But we would not have to wait for him; we would have plenty of other men ready to speak. Something must have gone wrong after all the enthusiasm of seven days ago. Maybe it was not such a victory at all.

Deputy Morrissey is a very good-humoured man, so far as I know him, but when I happened to smile this evening at one of his observations he got rusty and asked me did I know there were 7,000 on the relief list in Dublin. I do not know the exact number, but I know there are quite a lot and I am sorry there are so many. Might I suggest to the Deputy that, after all, 7,000 people would represent about 1,000 families, and there are between 80,000 and 90,000 families in Dublin? My figures may be wrong, but I think I am near the mark. The proportion of families on relief here is not too large, having regard to the population. A lot of the people on relief include the lame, the halt, the blind and others incapable of work. Those people cannot earn their living, and, in the circumstances, I do not think that there is any reflection on the Government, who are trying to do their best to help the people.

What is the position to-day compared with the position in former years? I believe I could go back 63 years at least. When I was about five years old I began to take notice; in the community where I was born one had to take notice. At that period the British Empire was at the peak of its prosperity. The riches of the world went into London and Britain. What did they do for the people of Ireland when they were the governors? Very few here have an idea of how the poor in Dublin were then circumstanced. There was a lot of talk here to-night about nationality and the Commonwealth and all that sort of stuff. I am interested only in the people amongst whom I was born and reared. In those days the poor were not thought anything of. The poorhouses were there for them. The amount of relief given was very small. Only for the charitable organisations, especially the St. Vincent de Paul Society, I do not know what would have become of the poor. I remember when there was a death a pauper's coffin would come in. I well remember the white boards, and when the corpse was put into the coffin the lid was nailed, not screwed; we knew what was happening when we heard the hammering of the nails any time we passed the poorhouse.

In the churches at that time a notice was posted from Cardinal Cullen calling on the faithful that whenever a foundling child was discovered it should be brought to the nearest church to be baptised. What was the reason? At that time there was wrangling at the boards of guardians over the religion of a foundling, over the religion of a little child found in the streets or in the alleys. That was during the height of the British Empire's prosperity. I could relate many other things concerning it, but I do not want to do so because it would take up too much time. As the years rolled on and I became a member of the Dublin Corporation, was not unemployment rife then? Will there ever be a period in this or in any other country when unemployment will not be a problem? I said before here, and I do not think it is necessary to repeat it amongst intelligent men——

Mrs. Concannon

And women!

Mr. T. Kelly

——and women, that the vast majority of the people are born poor, and will continue to be born poor as long as the world is a world. As a member of the Corporation I remember that every Christmas we used to hand out large sums of money years ago for the purpose of the alleviation of distress, and there was actually a permanent distress committee formed by the Corporation and in existence for years here. When your own Government was in power a few years ago, in every provision shop in Dublin there was exhibited the sign "Relief tickets taken here," and you are blaming this Government for their free beef, free milk and all the rest of it. You ought to remember that people have recollections over here. We were told a while ago that to sup with the devil one would want a long spoon, but when you talk about those things you are up against a man who has a long memory. This Government, in my honest opinion, is doing all that men could do to reduce unemployment. I do not know of any period in the history of this city when the poor were so well looked after as they are at present. I challenge contradiction on that, and I do not think anybody can contradict me. I am sorry that Deputy Morrissey made that statement to-day. I believe he is a good-hearted man, and I believe he is well-intentioned, but probably his recent incursion into Dublin municipal politics has soured him. I advise him to keep out of them for the future.

Mr. Morrissey

I am not surprised you give me that advice in view of the results.

Mr. Kelly

I am giving it to you in all good faith. The recent election will be of no solid comfort to you. Unfortunately, matters have arisen in connection with that which I deeply regret. After all, I am a parish politician. I take the rough with the smooth. I am as bad a politician as there is. I make more promises on election placards than any other man, and I forget all about the promises the next day. A man says to me: "You promised this and that," and I say to him: "Did I shake hands with you after I made the promises?" to which he replies: "No, you did not." The reason for that is that I do not shake hands with anybody. I am perfectly safe in that. Every time there is a debate here out come the Fianna Fáil promises. Fianna Fáil made those promises in good faith. They believed they could do those things. When they got up against the real facts they were up against difficulties, and they are doing their best.

I leave Deputy McGilligan's remarks to the Minister to reply to. He is well able to do it. I do not want to get into high economics or any of that sort of thing, but he referred to America and said that America was now breaking down the barriers which made her powerfully rich. She had barriers up against the world, and that is how she became so rich that her millionaires were as thick as blackberries. Then they were not even satisfied; they wanted more and more, and a lot of them became gamblers, but the gamble burst on a day, I think it was in October or November, 1929. That is what brought it about, but I do not think that America is ever going to do away with the barriers which made her wealthy, and made her people comfortable and prosperous. Deputy McGilligan speaks about the economic stone wall that is being erected around Ireland. That was Griffith's policy. He often said: "We will build a stone wall around Ireland and let nothing in," so if the Government are carrying out Griffith's policy I do not see why you should blame them.

I am not going to speak any longer. I have spoken now for ten minutes, and that is quite long enough for an ordinary man. I would not have stood up at all were it not for the remarks concerning unemployment and all the rest of it. I know what I am speaking about, and I know very well that the Government are doing good work. They are carrying out now as well as they can the democratic programme of Dáil Eireann which I read at the first Dáil meeting on 21st January, 1919. That programme set out what they were going to do for the democracy of this country—that no child would want food, clothing or sustenance, that the poor law system would be reformed, and certain other great measures brought in. None of those things was done for years. It was not until President de Valera and his men took office that a really genuine attempt was made to carry out that programme, and God speed them at their work, say I.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister to conclude.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

This debate has been rather like a ragman's sack, with an odd end of every sort in it. We had Deputy Dillon's eloquent disquisition on the fact that no consideration of material gain would induce the people to yield on a matter in which they thought the national honour was concerned. I am glad that Deputy Dillon at last has come to recognise that fact. The whole of his public efforts during the last four years has been devoted to inducing the people of this country to put material considerations before the national honour. I suppose that to-day we see Deputy Dillon, with his hands up, announcing the failure of the Fine Gael policy. The difficulty about Deputy Dillon is that he thinks too little and talks too much. We had an example of that policy in his speech to-day. He was talking in vacuo about the new Constitution which is not before us for discussion. What will be in that Constitution remains to be seen, and the people will have an opportunity of determining for themselves whether it does represent an advance towards the goal for which we in this movement—including some who are now on the opposite side of this House—have been working so long. When the Constitution is before us we can discuss it, but until then I think it would only be a wearisome waste of time to talk about it.

We then had Deputy Cosgrave on the subject of stallions, alluding to the fact that wealthy owners of stud farms in this country have to pay tax, in the same way as in any other business, upon the incomes which they derive from the profitable business of keeping stallions. He alleged that this was detrimental to the horse-breeding industry in this country. But when he was questioned by Dr. Ryan in regard to the matter he shifted his ground completely, and said that the disabilities which that industry labours under at the present moment arise entirely from other causes. Then we had Deputy Mulcahy, I believe, on Hans Andersen and fairy tales; and last of all we had Deputy Coburn talking on pigs and butter, and on capitalism; about the doors he crowed at and the doors he did not crow at—in short, giving us a full recital of his exploits as a farm-yard cock-a-doodle-do.

To crown all, however, we had the ex-Attorney-General, the former legal adviser of the Administration which, up until 1932, was headed by Deputy Cosgrave, who proceeded to tell us, in regard to the Appropriation Bill, that it is a Bill to take millions out of the pockets of the workers. Now, one might expect that at least an ex-Attorney-General-a one-time leader of the Irish Bar—might know what the real purpose of an Appropriation Bill was. The Finance Bill, I admit, imposes taxation, but the Appropriation Bill is the legislation which enables money to be taken out of the Exchequer and put back into the pockets of the workers. It is the Bill which gives us authority to spend money upon the public service, upon the wages of the Civil Servants, of the Gárda Síochána, of the Army—of one hundred and one other public officials—as well as upon widows' and orphans' pensions, upon old age pensions, and upon the varied services that are carried on by the Departments of Agriculture, of Industry and Commerce, and of Education. Whatever else the Appropriation Bill does, it does not take money out of the pockets of the workers. As I have said, it is the Bill which takes money out of the Exchequer and puts it into the pockets of the workers and of the community generally, and when, Sir, I have pointed out the manifest error into which the former Attorney-General has fallen in regard to the Bill under debate, I think that we can, by a consideration of that fact, evaluate fairly all the things that we have heard from the Opposition in the course of this discussion to-day.

Now, Sir, I think I could say quite truthfully that there is no limit to the audacity of ignorant men. They rush in where angels fear to tread. They make suggestions and assertions which people who are well-informed would not dare to make. I think it was yesterday that the House passed the Fifth Stage of the Finance Bill. The House agreed and decided by a solemn vote that the Finance Bill for the year would become law. I am not certain whether Deputy Costello was in his place or not on the occasion. I suppose, if he had been here, he would have voted with his Party and, with his Party, would have been defeated. The House, however, heard certain proposals which, I submit, Sir, were fully discussed—proposals designed to secure the due and proper collection of the revenue of this country, and proposals designed to curb the dishonest taxpayer in his efforts to evade payment of what is properly due by him, and to protect the honest taxpayer against the consequences of that evasion. The House must remember in that connection that if an income-tax payer succeeds in evading the payment of tax which is properly due by him, it is not the Exchequer which loses. As I have said before, we have to get the money to carry on the public services, and if we fail to collect the full amount of income-tax which is properly due—if some man by some subterfuge or trick or concealment manages to evade the payment of his income-tax—we simply have to call upon the general body of the taxpayers, the honest hard-working people of this country, to make good that man's default. Therefore, as I have said, it is not the Exchequer which suffers from the efforts of a dishonest taxpayer, but it is every other honest citizen in this country who has to suffer. I am sure that it was by a true appreciation of that fact that the House, having heard the arguments for and against the proposals which we have submitted to it in the Finance Bill of the year, has decided to give us the powers and the authority which we think necessary in order to ensure that the revenue which is due to the State, and which we require to carry on the public service, will be properly and duly collected.

Mr. Coburn

Was that the Minister's opinion in 1931?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes, it was.

Mr. Coburn

Not according to the Minister's speech which I was listening to.

Mr. MacEntee

What have we had from Deputy Costello to-day? We had a most audacious request. I think the Deputy must have spoken with his tongue in his cheek. He has asked us—asked me here, on the day after the Finance Bill has been passed by an overwhelming majority of this House, or at the least by a substantial majority—not to enforce the law. He asks me to guarantee that the Revenue Commissioners will not exercise the powers which the House has given them in order, as I said before, that they might collect what is properly due to the community as a whole. Now, I think that almost beggars description. I can only remember one thing to parallel it, and that is a statement, which also came from Deputy Costello, to the effect that if a dishonest taxpayer got away with it—well, in his view he deserved to get away with it. There is one thing about the Opposition and that is that their capacity for changing their position reminds one of a weathercock. For instance, to-day Deputy Costello, who, when the Finance Bill was before the House, was prepared to cheer the dishonest taxpayer who was getting away with the goods, now asks me to be ruthless against the dishonest taxpayer and to suspend the law against other people.

I want to say this: That, so far as the revenue laws are concerned, they are going to be enforced without fear or favour. I have come definitely to the conclusion that the fact that the State could not make assessments if an income-tax payer succeeded in evading his obligations for a period of six years—the fact that they could not make assessments after that date was merely an inducement to the taxpayer to conceal his true income, because he knows that if he can manage to conceal it for a period of six years—or at least he felt up to this that if he succeeded in concealing his true income for a period of six years—then the law and the Revenue Commissioners have no terrors for him and he could proceed to sit down and enjoy his illgotten gains. I think that it is not in the public interest that taxpayers should feel that, if they should succeed in defrauding the revenue for a period of six years, they can then live with impunity. The one thing I want to bring home to everybody is this: That it is much better in the long run for an income-tax payer to make a true and accurate return, so far as he can make it, of his income and get a clear discharge from the State for these taxes which are due.

And I believe there is good public reason for that. After all, we have to admit that those who pay income-tax are, by comparison with the people whose income is not large enough to warrant collecting direct taxation from them, in a rather fortunate position. Most of them are in fairly comfortable circumstances, and it is not an unjust imposition to ask them to pay income-tax. Income-tax, as we collect it and as it is collected in Great Britain and certain other countries, is a very just and equitable tax indeed. There is nothing which would justify evasion of that tax on a large scale by income-tax payers. But, if you take the case of people not in that rather fortunate category of income-tax payers, the working man or the working farmer, and those who are living upon small incomes, they cannot evade taxation, because, just as our predecessors did, we also are compelled to levy what is known as indirect taxation, that is, taxation upon consumable commodities. We have it on tea, on sugar, on tobacco on stout and beer, and if a person does not want to pay indirect taxation, then he can do—as Deputy Cosgrave told the House when he was President of the Executive Council— without sugar, without beer, and without stout. That is the only way he can get out of the payment of indirect taxation. The great mass of the people —almost 95 per cent. of them—cannot evade taxation in that indirect form because, of course, they have to consume these things in order to live. Since the less fortunate section of the population cannot succeed in defrauding the revenue, why should the more fortunate section be given privileges which are denied generally to the community?

I wish to make it clear, therefore, that the best way of dealing with the Revenue Commissioners is to deal with them honestly. The Revenue Commissioners, the inspectors of taxes and those enforcing the revenue laws, have no other concern except to collect the amount which is justly and properly due from any individual. If there is an income-tax payer who is in any difficulty as to what is assessable for income-tax and what is not assessable, he can go to the inspector of taxes and he may be quite certain that the inspector will not take from him one penny more than the taxpayer justly owes, and he can have all difficulties regarding income-tax law and revenue law and the complications about which Deputy Costello was talking, cleared up, and cleared up by a person who will hold the scales evenly as between the taxpayer on the one hand and the revenue on the other hand. It is not the practice and it is not the tradition of the Revenue Commissioners to try to take from the taxpayer what he does not owe.

I may go further and say this, that the Revenue Commissioners are always prepared to deal as leniently as they possibly can with a defaulting taxpayer, even with a taxpayer who has been, I will not say proved guilty of wilful fraud, but who, there is very grave and serious reason to suspect, has been guilty of wilful fraud. They are always prepared to deal leniently with that class of offender because they do not operate the income-tax law as a penal code. They collect it just the same way as they collect taxes upon any consumable commodity. All that we heard from Deputy Costello about the Revenue Commissioners having an expert staff who are ruthless and without conscience in their methods, is merely the sort of thing which a lawyer will utter who is pleading from his brief. Deputy Costello does not believe it. On the contrary, I am perfectly certain that he has good reason, within his own knowledge, to bear testimony to the reasonable way in which the Revenue Commissioners deal with cases of the sort.

Let us be quite clear about this. We heard stories here about cases being reopened where settlements had been arrived at. I say this, that no case has been reopened where the taxpayer making the settlement made a full disclosure of all the facts, all his assets to the Revenue Commissioners. I know cases where a taxpayer, after investigation by officials of the Revenue Commissioners, was ultimately discovered to be operating four accounts and a settlement was reached. What happened? The settlement was reopened because the taxpayer paid by cheque drawn on a fifth account. I heard of another case where a settlement was arrived at similarly, and then by a mistake on the part of the taxpayer, in dealing with his assets, it was discovered that he had £80,000 on deposit, which he had not disclosed when seeking a settlement. Do you think the Revenue Commissioners would be doing their duty to the State which employs them, to the people of this country who pay taxation in order to pay their salaries, and to all the other citizens who would have to make good—let me repeat— the deficiency if we failed to collect income tax and other taxes due upon that £80,000 of concealed deposit? Do you think the Revenue Commissioners would be doing their duty if they did not make the person guilty of that concealment pay up? Deputy Costello talked of a case in which a decision given by the court had been reopened. Here was a case in which the taxpayer not merely deceived the Revenue Commissioners, but went into court and deceived the bench. When the settlement was reopened he threatened to bring the Revenue Commissioners into court, but his courage failed him, and he settled outside court and paid the Revenue Commissioners what they told him was properly due from him. Why was that? Because if he had gone into court it would be proven that he had perjured himself by making a false declaration of assets, and he would have found himself, not settling with the Revenue Commissioners by a monetary payment, but possibly serving a sentence of imprisonment for being guilty of perjury and contempt of court.

If taxpayers who have succeeded by making false income-tax, returns in defrauding the revenue did not live in the Twenty-Six Counties but lived in Great Britain, if they were British income-tax payers, every time they made a false declaration of their income to the Revenue Commissioners they would leave themselves open to a charge of perjury. It is due to that fact that the Revenue Commissioners in Great Britain are able to deal with the situation which we have brought in a special provision in the Finance Act of this year to deal with. I do not know which defaulting taxpayers would like best; a salutary term of imprisonment in addition to the alternative which we are giving them of paying what they justly owe.

Before I touch upon a question raised by Deputy Norton and also by Deputy Costello I might refer to another point which Deputy Costello made in his speech. He said that there had been certain disquieting statements made in regard to promotions. In that connection, the Deputy mentioned the announcement which was made at the beginning of this year that the Chief Establishment Officer, whose services I very highly appreciate and whose retirement I very much regret, had indicated to me that for certain personal reasons he proposed to retire at the end of this year and that another officer of the Civil Service, a very competent officer, as Deputy Costello himself had to acknowledge, had been designated to take his place. The Deputy seemed to think that because an announcement of this sort had been made a long time in advance, there was something sinister about it. I should like to tell the Deputy that that announcement was made after consultation with, and on the advice of, my advisers. It is the first time we have had to announce the retirement of a high officer of the Civil Service in this way, but I understand it is customary to designate some time in advance who the successor of the retiring officer is likely to be. There is nothing unusual or sinister in the fact that we have made this announcement.

As to the person chosen, Deputy Costello admits that so far as he knows, he is a very competent official. I can bear testimony to that. I can say that he is both competent and conscientious and, in my judgment, in every way fitted to succeed the very experienced officer whose place he will, in due course, take. I make no apology for recommending the Executive Council to appoint that officer, because the duties of an Establishment officer are possibly the most difficult any civil servant could be called upon to discharge. Not everybody would have the requisite qualifications to fill such a post. In the first place, he must be a person in whom the Executive, the Minister, and the Service as a whole will have confidence. He must be firm; he must be impartial; he must be a person of unassailable rectitude in every way. I am satisfied that the officer who has been chosen as an Assistant Secretary designate of my Department, as the Chief Establishment Officer designate, has all the qualifications that are required. The Minister for Finance must necessarily work in very close co-operation with such an officer and I, at any rate, feel that I could not have chosen more wisely. I make no apology to any person for having suggested him to the Executive Council for the position and for securing the assent of my colleagues to make that appointment in my Department.

The Deputy also referred to another appointment which has recently been made. In that case, I would like to make it clear that the person appointed to the position in question had a claim to a very high office in the Civil Service, a claim dating back before the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Free State, a claim based on sacrifices which he made in order to serve this people abroad. In no way is he being treated differently to any other member of the Civil Service of Dáil Eireann. He has come back into a position comparable to that from which he retired. I say that he has retired from politics wholly and will henceforth be a civil servant subject to the limitations which membership of that Service involves.

People in glass houses ought not to throw stones. When we came into office, we came in in circumstances which, in the opinion of a great many people in this country, would have warranted our adopting a different policy to that which we did adopt towards those who were in the public service. It is no use reopening the whole position, but we all know what happened in 1922, 1923 and 1924, when there were no Civil Service Acts to regulate the admission of civil servants. We disturbed no person in his position. There even had been some appointments made just prior to our assumption of office. I make no apology for the course which we pursued. I believe it was in the best interests of the country. I believe it has justified itself in the honest and zealous service which those people who were appointed by our predecessors, in the circumstances I have mentioned, have given to us. I can certainly say, in regard to one of the Departments for which I have responsibility that, in respect to persons who were appointed to very high positions there, I could not expect any better service from other men. I am prepared to say that. I think that what we have done has been justified by the results in the Service.

The one thing which I set myself to do, when I became the Minister responsible for the Civil Service, was to keep it free from politicalisation. I looked upon every individual in it as a person upon whom I could depend, as a person in whom I could have confidence, and as a person who was prepared, like myself, to give the best he could in the interests of the Irish people. I say that policy has justified itself, and I am perfectly certain that when the time comes for us to leave office, any appointments we have made of people who might appear to have political affiliations, will be found equally to have justified themselves by results. We have made comparatively few appointments. There is a great responsibility on members of the Executive Council, and the law gives— quite properly—to the Executive Council and to Ministers certain powers in regard to these appointments. I think that, when the circumstances warrant it and justify it, it would be wrong for us not to exercise these powers. They are exercised very sparingly.

General Mulcahy

The Minister's claim is that the Fianna Fáil Government has lived up to our standards.

Mr. Norton

Is that what is wrong?

General Mulcahy

That is the explanation.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy will please remember that I did not open this subject in debate. It need not have been opened here, but since the Deputy's colleagues have opened it, I am entitled to say this—and I do not want to start cutting notches in sticks, one against the other—that we have made very many fewer appointments to the Civil Service in what is known as the public interest, than when the Deputy's Party was in office.

General Mulcahy

The Minister's statement is that we laid down an excellent staff, and that Fianna Fáil are going to follow that standard.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not want to decry what the Deputy's Party did. I did not open up this subject. It was the Deputy's colleagues, Deputy Costello and Deputy McGilligan, that opened it up. Deputy McGilligan talked about jobs and said that when one appointment was given to one person it disgruntled 20 others. If I were to pursue that line I might say in regard to Deputy McGilligan that in his case he would not expect that because all the jobs were kept within the family circle.

General Mulcahy

The Minister implies that the appointments made by the Cabinet previous to Fianna Fáil were appointments of a kind that served Fianna Fáil magnificently, and as well as anybody could, and he explained that any appointments they have made will do the same for any subsequent Government.

Mr. MacEntee

I have said, and I have no desire to go back of it, that those whom we found in the Civil Service appointed by my predecessors, as far as I have come in contact with them, have given me as loyal and zealous service as I could expect from any men. The Deputy's Party may have been responsible, but these people have justified themselves by the results. But the Deputy need not try to behave like a babe in a kindergarten class trying to dot the "i's."

General Mulcahy

The matter is very important and it is well worth while being clear about it.

Mr. MacEntee

It is not the first time that the Deputies opposite have raised this matter here. I hope that appointments in the Civil Service, and promotion in the Civil Service, will not be raised here again unless there is some glaring scandal to be exposed. I do not want to be a party to having any glaring scandal concealed. I would much rather come cut in the open and deal with it; but there are no glaring scandals.

Deputy Norton and Deputy Costello touched upon the question of arbitration and wanted to know what the Government's position is in regard to it. The position, in that regard, is the same to-day as it was in January, 1932, when the President, then Deputy de Valera, said: "I believe it is only right that there should be an arbitration board for the Civil Service, to deal with matters between the Service and the Executive." That is our position to-day. We are taking steps to set up such a board. Deputy Norton said that when this undertaking was given no question of setting up a commission of inquiry was mentioned. Did the Deputy think that any Government would be entitled to make such a far-reaching innovation in our Civil Service without first of all having a searching investigation into all its circumstances? The terms of reference to the Brennan Commission made it quite clear that the principle of arbitration had been accepted by the Government. The Commission drafted a report in the light of the fact that they must devise a scheme of arbitration which, of course, would be consistent with the fact that financial control is vested in the Oireachtas, that is consistent with the ordinary safeguards the constitution imposes for the protection and safeguarding of the interest of the citizens in this State in regard to matters of public expenditure. The Commission did evolve a scheme which would work.

Mr. Norton

Scheme is the word.

Mr. MacEntee

An arbitration scheme or, if you like, an arbitration tribunal.

Mr. Norton

Scheme is better. Stick to scheme.

Mr. MacEntee

Alright. I shall stick to scheme, but I am going to stick to scheme because I believe that the Report has given an arbitration scheme, in the words of the Deputy, in which the service can have confidence.

Mr. Norton

Nobody believes that.

Mr. MacEntee

If we take the trouble to prepare a scheme, and embody it in a Bill, and bring it before the Oireachtas, we shall do it because it will be a workable scheme designed to give effect to the President's undertaking.

We have heard a lot of talk about the fact that the Government referred this matter to a Commission of Inquiry. But it is strange that those for whom Deputy Norton professes to speak did not say at once, when this Commission was set up, that the President did not mention anything about a commission in the course of his speech at Rathmines in which he dealt with this along with a multitude of other matters. They did not start, then, to decry the commission. Instead they prepared evidence; and the one fact that emerged in the course of the hearing by the commission, was that the evidence disclosed that there was no unanimity amongst the staffs, representatives themselves as to the form of the arbitration they desired.

Mr. Norton

There was unanimity against the Minister's scheme in any case.

Mr. MacEntee

I shall deal with that in due course. As I said, the staffs themselves were not unanimous in the proposals they submitted to the Board.

We have been blamed for delay. But it took the staffs a long time to formulate their proposals before this Commission. But what then were the facts? As I have already said a dozen times, this interim report of the Commission of Inquiry clearly demonstrates that on account of constitutional difficulties inherent in any scheme of arbitration for the Civil Service, there was the desirability and necessity for having this whole matter fully investigated. What, then, was the position? We set up a tribunal in May, I think. The Commission was formally appointed on the 22nd of June, and from the 27th of October, 1932, to the 6th of April, 1933, it heard evidence on arbitration. The delay between the 22nd of June and the 27th of October was due in some measure to the fact that the staffs were not ready to submit their proposals to the inquiry. On the 5th of February, 1934, the Commission's interim report was submitted to me. On the 14th of February, in reply to a question by Deputy Norton, I said I received the report but was not in a position to state when it would be published. On the 25th April, 1934, at a meeting of the Civil Service Representative Council, the staff-side leader said that it would be desirable and reasonable that the Executive Council should have the views of the Representative Council before reaching a decision on the Commission's interim report. He added that it would be most unfortunate if the staff side who attended the Council was not consulted. On the 16th May of that year the interim report was presented to the Dáil, and on the 17th May it was published in the Press. On the 18th May, 1934, a statement was issued by certain staff service organisations condemning the report. On the 19th May, 1934, all the staff organisations were presented with a copy of the interim report and notified that the report would be discussed at a meeting of the Civil Service Representative Council to be held on 24th May. On the 4th July the Civil Service Federation intimated on behalf of their constituent associations that they would not take part in the proposed discussion on the interim report. Naturally, if the Civil Service organisations were not prepared to discuss a report made by so weighty a commission as the Brennan Commission, prepared with a great deal of trouble and signed by the overwhelming majority of the members of that commission, representative of every shade of opinion and of every interest in the community, they had only themselves to blame for any delay which subsequently took place.

Mr. Norton

The Minister said "representative of every shade of opinion."

Mr. MacEntee

Yes.

Mr. Norton

Except Labour.

Mr. MacEntee

The Commission was representative as a whole of the overwhelming majority of the people.

Mr. Norton

You are talking of "shades of opinion."

Mr. MacEntee

There were people there as well entitled to call themselves labour representatives as others are.

Mr. Norton

Who were they?

Mr. MacEntee

Does the Deputy think that only those who happen to belong to his organisation or some other organisation are entitled to call themselves labourers?

Mr. Norton

Who were these people?

Mr. MacEntee

Those who are workers.

Mr. Norton

Who were they? Give us their names.

Mr. MacEntee

I am not prepared to canvass the personnel of the Commission in that way. There were people there who earn their living by their own toil, and they signed the majority report.

Mr. Norton

What are the "shades" you are talking about?

Mr. MacEntee

I said they were representative of every shade of opinion and of every interest. Am I to proceed to discuss what members may fall within the definition of "shade of opinion," and what others on the other hand, would come within the categories which comprise "every interest"? Amongst those who signed the majority report are people who have to earn their bread as the Deputy and I and other workers have to do. They are not representatives of any privileged class. I was giving the history of this matter when I was interrupted.

General Mulcahy

More gall and vinegar.

Mr. MacEntee

We proceeded then to draft a scheme and, on the 8th June, 1935, the approved draft scheme was submitted to all the staff organisations with a request for their written observations upon it. That scheme has not received, so far as I am aware, very careful or detailed consideration from the staff associations. They simply rejected it incontinently, without any regard to the labour which had gone to its preparation and without any regard to the consequences. One thing the staff organisations must get hold of, as I said before, is that we have given nobody a blank cheque. If they do not proceed to consider these proposals in detail, if they do not take as much trouble as we did to draft their proposals in detail or submit their criticisms of the scheme which we have put before them in detail, then I think they are going to get nowhere. Certainly I am not prepared, in view of the complexity of this question, to spend valuable time discussing these matters to and fro across a table unless we get some definite skeleton upon which to work. That would be merely a waste of time and would lead us nowhere.

General Mulcahy

Have the fortnightly conferences between the Labour Party and the Government broken down?

Mr. MacEntee

That does not arise on this question.

General Mulcahy

It arises on the question of wasting time.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy would not be suitable as chairman of an arbitration tribunal in that regard. I am speaking now to the Civil Service as a whole and I wish to say that, if we are to get anywhere in regard to this matter, they will have to do as much as we have done for them. We have submitted a complete scheme and, before we can get any further in regard to negotiations or anything else, we must have from them a statement similar to that which has been circulated. When we see that statement, we shall be in a position to say whether there would be any use in arranging a meeting or not.

Mr. Norton

Would the Minister answer two simple questions? The first question is: Is the scheme which the Minister has submitted to the staff organisations the Minister's last word on arbitration? The second question is: Will the Minister call a conference if he gets the detailed views of the staff conception of what an arbitration tribunal should be?

Mr. MacEntee

I am not going to answer those questions. I am not in the dock with regard to this matter. I am stating what the position is. The organisations ought to remember that the sands of time are running. We have a very heavy legislative programme in front of us. If the Civil Service organisations are going to take up the non-possumus attitude they have adopted up to the present, they may be in grave danger of losing their scheme altogether.

Mr. Norton

"Their scheme." The scheme is not a scheme of arbitration at all. The Minister called it a "draft scheme." It is really a "daft scheme."

Mr. MacEntee

If it does not reach the Statute Book in this Dáil, I am afraid some people will be "dafter" than we——

Mr. Norton

Make another promise —a better one—and keep it.

Mr. MacEntee

A very sound and practical scheme has been devised. We are prepared to implement that scheme. We are prepared to put it on the Statute Book but we are not prepared to put it there if it is not going to be worked.

Mr. Norton

Nobody wants that scheme. You have been told that long ago.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy has been talking about organisations. The fact is that his letter was signed by 19 out of 31 organisations.

Mr. Norton

Give us the titles of the 31 organisations.

Mr. MacEntee

There are 31 organisations in the Civil Service and the Deputy's communication was signed by 19 of them. Even if signed by the 31 it would not matter. Nobody gave a blank cheque——

Mr. Norton

A dud cheque.

Mr. MacEntee

We are prepared to write our proposal on the Statute Book as the best we can do for the Civil Service while, at the same time, discharging our duty to the citizens.

Mr. Norton

Is the promise of 1932 thrown overboard?

Mr. MacEntee

It still stands, and we are going to give effect to it.

Mr. Norton

It is not standing now; it is on its back.

Mr. MacEntee

I am not so adept at back-chat as Deputy Norton.

Mr. Norton

The statement of the Minister was inaccurate.

Mr. T. Kelly

No.

Mr. Norton

Deputy Kelly should be on the Front Bench.

Mr. MacEntee

In any event I prefer to state once more the position with regard to arbitration. I think the Brennan Commission devised a sound and practical scheme. We intended to implement that scheme but it is questionable now whether it is worth our while to go ahead if we are still to be met with the passive resistance which the staff has shown to us ever since that scheme was published.

Mr. Norton

It is a bad scheme.

Mr. MacEntee

Whether it is or not I think the Civil Servants would be crying out yet for arbitration and they would continue to be met in the way they were met prior to 1932 were it not for the fact that we set up that commission to the report of which we are now prepared to give effect. As I say we are prepared to give effect to the recommendations of that commission and let Deputy Norton take care if some other people come to take our places that when they appreciate the difficulties in this matter——

Mr. Norton

Why does the Minister anticipate that somebody else will take his place?

Mr. MacEntee

Because unlike Deputy Mulcahy when he was here, I do not think I hold this office, or that we hold the Government in perpetuity. We do not think that we shall last forever on the Government Benches. We are not going to make the mistake our predecessors made. Possibly Deputy Norton may be here on these benches some day and I warn him now if he does reach here that he will not be so ready to concede to everybody everything they ask for.

Mr. Norton

I ask the Minister to look at the manifesto.

Mr. MacEntee

The manifesto stands and our scheme fulfils the pledge in the manifesto. I was going to say something about Deputy McGilligan. The Deputy talked about reputations being in the mire. Now the report of the commission on the gold mining in Wicklow has given Deputy McGilligan's reputation a perpetual mud-bath which will neither beautify nor cleanse it.

General Mulcahy

Perhaps the Minister would call him a rat or a leper or something like that.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill passed through Committee and reported without amendment.

Report Stage agreed to.

Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."

Mr. MacEntee

On the Fifth Stage I would like to refer to a matter which was raised by Deputies Dillon and MacDermot. The Deputies referred to the report of an address recently given by a member of the Civil Service before the Irish Students' Association at Trinity College. I would like to make it clear that prior to speaking on this occasion the officer in question consulted me as to whether there was any objection. He informed me that the invitation to give the address was extended to him and had been accepted by him while still Minister. A short time prior to the date fixed for the delivery of the address he had become a civil servant, and it occurred to him as the date of the engagement drew near that the delivery of his address might be questioned. In view of the fact that an undertaking to speak on the occasion had already been given and also because the officer informed me that his address would deal with the subject in an abstract way and would not touch in any event on internal or Party matters, I informed him that under the circumstances I would raise no objection to his fulfilment of his original engagement. Ordinarily, I would not have granted permission as civil servants, particularly those in the more responsible posts, speaking on occasions of this sort run the risk of trenching on matters of public policy in regard to which there may be conflicting opinions, and, in a way which would be contrary to the public interest, may subsequently find themselves involved in public controversy. I know that the officer concerned would greatly regret that any words of his might lead to such a development, and that he does not wish his statement on this occasion to be applied to subjects of current controversy. Accordingly, I think we need not discuss the matter further.

General Mulcahy

I would like to ask the Minister whether on this stage of the Bill he would address himself to the most important question raised here by a number of Deputies. That is the position of our agricultural industry at the present time in relation to live stock and live-stock products and the new committees and conferences that are about to be formed immediately in Great Britain with regard to the meat market there. We have set up here a very expensive machinery of Government. There have been many references to the enormous increase in the expense of that Government since the Fianna Fáil Party came into office. The people who support that cost of Government have, as their economic foundations, the farming community in the country. Now, since the Fianna Fáil Party came into office the farmers have lost in exports of live stock and live-stock products alone up to £12,000,000 a year. This is reflected to the individual farmer by the prices of cattle. I will deal simply with the prices of cattle at Irish fairs. The departmental statistics and the prices realised by Irish farmers at Irish fairs are published in the various departmental publications including the Irish Trade Journal. In the year 1930 the price of two to three-year-old store cattle at Irish fairs averaged £15 12s. 9d. In the following year, that is 1931, the average price was £14 17s. 6d. Last year the average price was £6 17s. 9d. The price for store cattle three years and over, and fat cattle of various kinds fell in the same proportion so that there was a drop between the year before the Fianna Fáil policy was put into operation in this country and last year of £7 10s. per head in the price of store cattle two to three years and upwards. There was a drop of £8 4s. per head in the price of store cattle three years and over, and there was a drop of £8 7s. in the price of fat cattle two to three year old. There was a fall of £8 17s. in the case of fat cattle three years and upwards. That is the position of the farmer in respect to the live-stock industry. He is hit in the same way in regard to live-stock products.

We sent a deputation to Ottawa in 1932. The sending of that deputation was planned before the Fianna Fáil Party came into office. The deputation was for the purpose of making arrangements there that would improve the 1931 prices and get back to the 1930 prices as far as possible. Nothing was done by the deputation this State sent to Ottawa. As Deputy McGilligan has pointed out, an opportunity arises this year of remaking our claims and getting back as far as possible in the British market to the 1930 prices or at least to the 1931 prices. There is not a man, either in the Fianna Fáil Party or outside it, with any interest in agriculture, who would not be glad to go back to these prices. There is an opportunity this year of doing something to get back to these prices. There is, on the other hand, an opportunity to be lost. There is an opportunity that will prevent the setting up of vested interests in the British market prejudicial to our interests there.

It has been stated by the Vice-President, whatever took place at Ottawa, that negotiations took place there which promised in a very short time—"immediately" was his word— to end the economic war that had arisen between ourselves and Great Britain and bring about a situation in which the British penal tariffs against our cattle would be taken off. Four or five times that statement has been repeated in this House, and the Vice-President's exact words have been quoted. The President has denied that the Vice-President made that statement. The Minister for Agriculture has denied that the Vice-President made that statement. On the last occasion on which the President dealt with the matter, less than a fortnight ago, he said he would draw the attention of the Vice-President to the fact that it was complained in this House that the Vice-President had never denied that the statement was made. On the face of it the statement was made. On the face of it negotiations went on in Ottawa which warranted the Vice-President in making the statement, and, as the President explained, a political matter was drawn across it. So that our farmers have suffered during 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, and up to now in 1936, the enormous losses shown in the fall in income from the British market of £12,000,000 a year in respect of live stock, and all because a political question was drawn across what was practically an economic agreement arrived at there.

Is the same political question going to be drawn across the possibility of successful negotiations in London during the coming months that will restore our position in the British market, give us a market for the produce which our farmers are capable of producing, must produce if they are going to make use of the ordinary resources of our country and must dispose of if this country is going to be prosperous or rear up any kind of an industrial fabric to give employment to our people?

That is the vital question facing both the Government and the people at present. The Government are in office because they swore to the people that the interests of the people would be the thing that they would keep in mind, that they would avoid war, that they would avoid losses to the people, and that they would build up industry. They promised to every man, woman and child over 14 years of age working at agriculture an income of £16 per head per year more than they were getting in 1931. I have shown what they are getting. Their whole future prospect of any kind of a decent livelihood out of agriculture depends upon what happens at the meetings in London within the next couple of months and on the decisions arrived at. We want to know what the Government are going to do about the matter. Are they going to leave the people of the country in the position in which they were left after Ottawa?

Mr. MacEntee

With regard to the question of the meat supplies to the British market, I can only say that the High Commissioner is keeping in touch with the British authorities in regard to that matter, and so far the arrangements have not been unsatisfactory.

General Mulcahy

Is the Minister aware that the only thing that was ever concluded by the High Commissioner in London was a gentlemen's agreement, and that as a result of that coal-cattle agreement £300,000 that went into our revenue last year is going this year to the British colliery owners?

Question put and agreed to.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.25 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 15th July.