In introducing his Budget statement yesterday the new Minister for Finance prefaced his remarks by a quotation from the closing paragraph of his predecessor's speech last summer pointing out the serious situation that this country would have to face if a European war should break out. The words were eloquent as we might expect—not as unctuous as we expect from the present Minister—and they were true. I might go on and just continue the quotation to include a sentence which the Minister seems to have taken very much to heart. "We shall have to tax what we can and where we can." I think the Minister might have taken that as the text of the allocution that we heard from him yesterday. Apparently the Minister, in quoting his predecessor, was under the impression that he was offering some kind of excuse for what he called the serious Budget that he was introducing. Apparently all the other Budgets that have been introduced were mere bagatelles so far as imposing burdens on the people were concerned. He looked upon that statement of his predecessor's as an excuse. In reality, it is a condemnation. It is a condemnation because it is a proof that the Ministers have walked into this position with their eyes fully open. Knowing the situation that threatened this country, they took no steps to make the burden lighter on the people. On the contrary they continued the policy of extravagance that even before this had made the burdens they put on the people practically intolerable. Now, notwithstanding the foresight shown by some of their members they have added to these burdens. The Minister must admit again that they had plenty of notice of this. For we were assured by the Taoiseach that one of the principal reasons practically now two years ago why he entered into negotiations with the British Government was that he did foresee the European conflict. There is no question then of their not foreseeing the European conflict at that time; at least the Government were aware of it, so much so that they had determined to abandon the policy they had so obstinately stuck to for a number of years.
What steps has the Government taken in the last few years to put this country into a position to meet the heavy charges that would fall on the ordinary individual if such a conflict were to break out? Instead of, as I say, taking steps to put the country into a position to meet a situation of that kind they have done the very opposite. Instead of trying to save where money could be saved, they have deliberately embarked on a policy of expenditure the end of which no man can see. And that was their contribution notwithstanding the foresight that the Taoiseach had two years ago and notwithstanding the foresight that the ex-Minister for Finance had six months ago. What have we had? Instead of an effort to help this country to face that situation we have had play-acting at an extensive rate. Nothing else. What has been the Government's contribution to meet that situation? Further, wilder and more unjustifiable extravagance. That is all they have done. The only things they have done to meet the crisis are piling up taxation; assuming new obligations—the purpose of these I will discuss in a moment—and playing musical chairs with the Ministers. These are their sole contributions to prove to the country that they were doing something to meet the crisis. These were the only things that they could think of. I wonder what the present Minister for Finance was doing for two weeks in the Department of Education? Not getting education in finance anyway.
The Minister for Finance, in this statement of his predecessor, makes out an excuse for the present action of the Government. He says: "Those who heard these words at that time cannot be surprised at the announcement that a Supplementary Budget would be introduced to-day." What steps did the Government take to remove the necessity for such a Supplementary Budget? Not one. Not in any portion of the policy of the Government is there the slightest indication that even now they have woke up to the seriousness of the financial situation and the economic situation that faces this country. It is, I admit, essential that we should preserve our policy of neutrality. Whatever views we ourselves may have as to the rights and wrongs of the present European situation, and some of us have strong views, there is no other practical alternative to the policy of neutrality. But neutrality is not going to save the country if this is the type of Government we are to get. A country and a nation can collapse as the result of invasion or they can equally collapse as the result of incompetence on the part of those responsible for the government of the nation.
The Government since it came into office has given repeated proofs of that incompetency. But I doubt if it has given much greater proof of its incompetency than in the matter of the mismanagement of the finances of this country in the last two years and especially so in the last six months. Again and again protests have been made against the ruthless policy of imposing tax after tax, without any reference whatever to the taxable capacity of the people. Remember when the Minister's predecessor was introducing his Budget last May that some of us pointed out that a future would have to be faced in which the people would be less in a position to meet taxation, that there would be less capacity to pay and that there would be a diminishing return from taxation. The then Minister himself pointed that out. Had that any effect on his colleagues? I presume that that Minister when Minister for Finance tried as well as he could to impress upon his colleagues what he considered the frightful situation that was threatening this country. If he did—and I presume from his statement he did—it was a warning not merely to the country but it was a warning to the Government. But it had precious little effect on the Government in any serious effort at economy.
I admit economies have been made, but not on the immense expenditure where millions were being thrown away without any appreciable result so far as this country is concerned. But they did economies. I was anxious to bring into the House for the purposes of this debate a copy of one of the three Dublin newspapers that it had been customary to send to the Leader of the Opposition— total cost, 4d. per day. I had not brought my own copy. But I found an economy had been effected. I could not get this newspaper from the Library because the copy there was in use. Such are the economies effected. But the Minister for Defence was busy seeing that economies were effected at the time when there was a threatened increase of unemployment and at the time when the Government had a policy of heaping extra burdens in connection with the black-out. I must say that the black-out portion of the Government's policy is about as clear as anything else. There is a black-out in nearly everything so far as the clarity of the Government's policy is concerned. But at the time when in various ways burden after burden of expenditure was being piled on to the unfortunate citizen, that was the time for Ministers to reconsider their policy of extravagance. Instead they choose "to tax where they can and what they can," to use the words of the Minister's predecessor.
Yesterday the Minister drew our attention to the activities of his Economy Committee, and we were surprised to learn that in the main administrative Departments there were practically no economies to be effected, at least so far as the report goes up to the present. Yesterday, and when we were last discussing those serious financial matters, the Leader of the Opposition indicated where there had been increases in expenditure in administrative Departments and where there could be economies, but there was no hint from the Minister that any effort, any really effective effort, was being made in that direction, or that in fact it was engaging—if the word is not a contradiction in terms with the present Minister—the "active" attention of the Minister. He did indicate a number of places, items, headings, where they hoped to effect economies amounting to £400,000. The Minister and the committee had some method of arriving at that £400,000. It must have been come to as an addition of the sums under each of the five headings that he gave. I asked him to facilitate the House by telling us what was the sum that was estimated to be saved under each heading. He refused, and still the information must be at his disposal, because I do not see how he could arrive at £400,000 saving under five headings unless he knew the estimated saving under each heading. Therefore, we must take it for granted that, at a time when everybody knows and even the Government probably knows there is a prospect of increased unemployment in this country, the only places they can have economies are the places where the Government is giving work to the ordinary individual who would otherwise be out of employment. What are they? One is Land Commission expenditure—generally the improvement of estates. That work apparently is to be economised. The economy is not to be in Government Departments, not in this extraordinary, undefended expenditure on the Army, but in the ordinary labour that the Government employs for the improvement of estates, thereby helping to diminish at all events the problem of unemployment. The other items on which economies are to be effected are unemployment assistance, employment schemes, in which already last May there was a foreshadowing of economy, housing expenditure, draws on the Local Loans Fund. At a time when unemployment is increasing, the only place the Government can think of economies is in the giving of work to the ordinary labourer.
The Minister for Supplies speaking last night said that to meet the present situation there were two courses open, economy or taxation, and the Government were compelled to take the second course, taxation. Of course, as usual he tried to cloak himself, as the Government always tries to cloak itself, behind the suggestion that any demand for economy means economy in the social services. Is it not time, after repeated statements from different parts of the House, that that pretence and that defence should be dropped? There are other places than the social services in which economies could be effected. When the Ministers come forward and argue that any demand for economy means economy in the social services, it is because they have no case to put up against the plea for economics where economies could be effected without any attack on the social services.
The Minister, in a portion of his speech—one of the occasions on which he was inclined to be eloquent—spoke of the sacrifices that this country would willingly face for preserving its independence, for preserving its neutrality, but what the Minister did not do, and what no Minister has done up to the present, is to show in any way which would convince any reasonable man that their measures and their expenditure have contributed one iota towards securing greater safety for this country's independence, or towards the better preserving of our neutrality.
Take the various schemes of vast expenditure in which the Government has indulged in the last 12 months; take this immense increase of expenditure on the Army, the end of which, as I say, no man can foresee; take the black-out impositions which have been put on public bodies, on the Government itself, on private individuals and on industrial concerns. Does anybody pretend that either of those two classes of expenditure has contributed one iota to the aims which were referred to yesterday by the Tánaiste? Has either of them added a bit to our safety? Does the Minister think that this increase in the Army will put us in a better position to withstand an invasion by a foreign power if that foreign power can come to the shores of this country? He knows very well it cannot, and he practically confessed it in his speech yesterday. He knows there is no justification for that vast expenditure; that it does not help our independence or the keeping of our independence, and that it does not help us to preserve our neutrality. Economies can be effected in the ordinary manual labour given by the Government, but they cannot be effected in Government Departments, and no voice, apparently, is to be raised against the squandering of money on useless projects of the kind for which the Government stands and which the Government sponsors. That is the situation we are facing. The Government's only idea of facing a crisis like the present European crisis, their only conception of convincing the public that they are doing something, is the spending of money. Because of that outlook the people are asked to bear heavy burdens in addition to the intolerable burdens which had already been imposed on them. This is not the first Budget nor, with all respect to the Minister, is it the first serious Budget. There were other serious Budgets, and there were other heavy burdens put on the people. These are only additions to those other intolerable burdens which the Minister and his predecessor and the Government as a whole have heaped upon the people from time to time. To meet what? To meet a crisis in the very opposite way to the way in which they ought to meet it.
The Ministers confessed—every one of them who has dealt with the subject confessed in one way or another—that apart altogether from taxation the very coming of the war must place heavy burdens on the ordinary people of this country. What is their method of dealing with that? It is not by revising their policy; it is not by seeing whether there is any real reason for this immense expenditure in which they are indulging. That is not their method. Their method is: "Well, if burdens are being piled on we had better take our share in the piling on." At a time when they know well—we have it in the words of the Ministers themselves—that the people are pushed to the limit so far as their taxation capacity is concerned, that is the time that they chose to put on new taxes. At a time when the price of every commodity has gone up, most of them at any rate, that is the time they chose to increase these prices still further. I have here a cutting from—I dare not call it the official organ of the Party opposite, but, shall I put it this way?—what is not the official organ of the Party—the Irish Press, and the date is 8th November, 1839. I believe, strange as it may appear, that the information is correct.
