Deputy Keyes, who was in possession, to resume.
Transport (No. 2) Bill, 1944.—Second Stage (Resumed).
When we concluded the discussion on the Transport Bill last evening, I was attempting to argue the unwisdom of the Minister in indulging in his apparent optimism for the benefit of the new company, and I was endeavouring to point out that such optimism, evidently, was based on present conditions in the transport industry, in general. I was trying to show that the prosperity that, undoubtedly, exists at the moment in regard to transport is of a fictitious character, and due rather to the emergency situation than to the financial wizardry or genius of the man who has been mentioned as manager of the new company. My contention is that, with or without the financial wizardry or genius of that gentleman—and I have nothing to say against his undoubted ability or integrity—the transport industry of this country, in general, is bound to be a success at the moment, owing to the conditions that exist as a result of the emergency. I, therefore, think that it would be very foolish to base our hopes of the success of the new company on the success of the transport industry at the moment. When the emergency is over, conditions will probably be very different, and, accordingly, it would be very foolish for us to base our hopes for the future of the transport industry on the success that is attending that industry at the moment. When normal conditions are restored, with the return of private motor cars on the roads, and with the return of road amenities in general, the use of which will be the right of all citizens, conditions may be very different, and almost certainly will be different so far as the railways are concerned. For that reason, I am not as optimistic as the Minister seems to be as to the future of this new company. I am more inclined to be pessimistic, and my pessimism is based on the fact that I do not like the idea of entrusting the guidance of such an important industry as this to one man. I do not like the idea of giving complete control of such an important industry, linked up as it is with the national life of the country, through agriculture, various industrial occupations, and so on, to one man, no matter how efficient he may be.
The Minister, evidently, is not prepared to go to the length of nationalising the transport industry of this country. In 1933, I think, he said that he thought that private industry was a thing that should be controlled or modified, but in 1944 he is not prepared, evidently, to go the whole distance towards nationalisation of such an important industry as transport. I think that that would be the right thing to do now, because, notwithstanding the fact that we are guaranteeing something like £16,000,000 of public money for this company, it still is a private company, and that money, provided by the public, will not be under the control of this House, and, of course, if any question should arise about the management of the company in the future, the answer of the Minister will be that a private company should not be asked to disclose its affairs in this House. That being so, I do not see why we should ask the public to guarantee the capital and interest for this proposed company, if we are to be told, when a question arises as to the management of the company, that the affairs of the company cannot be disclosed in this House because it is a private company.
We are told that there will be a safeguard provided by the appointment of a board, but the members of that board, practically, will have no voice in the matter. The only thing that matters there is the chairman's voice. Undoubtedly, the person concerned here is a man of great ability and integrity, but any man is capable of slipping up, human nature being what it is, and I think that it would be wise to have a consulting board there with some voice of their own and some say in the matter: that the members of such a board should be picked from the various bodies that are concerned with the transport industry in general, such as people representing agriculture, industries, and all the things that go towards the making up of the national life of this country. I do not think that any one man should be entrusted with the powers that are proposed to be given to the chairman of this new company in this particular measure, because, once one man is given such powers, the natural inclination is to use them in a different fashion from that for which the powers given were intended. For instance, if the chairman attends a meeting of the board, as at present envisaged, his voice must be heard and obeyed. If the other people on the board disagree with him, their voices do not count; the chairman's decision holds. If they do not attend the meeting, then the chairman is a quorum in himself, and if they do attend, and the chairman himself is not present, then they are not a quorum. I think it is a very great mistake to give to any individual such extraordinarily wide powers in connection with such a vitally important industry as transport, and with such vast resources behind him.
It seems to me that the Minister is buoyed up by the achievements of this gentleman. The gentleman concerned, undoubtedly, has shown great ability in this matter of transport, but I say that his success in the matter of transport at the present time has not been due to his financial wizardry or genius, but rather to circumstances which are not under his control. As a matter of fact, I do not think the transport industry could have been prevented from succeeding at the present time, owing to the peculiar circumstances that prevail. I take exception also to the fact that the Minister, in choosing this gentleman to be manager of the new company, deliberately picked a man who was not a railwayman. The Minister indicated that he thought it was better to get a man for this position who was not a railwayman: that it would be better to pick a man who had no interest in railway business; but if every concern in this country is to be run by somebody because of the fact that the person concerned had no previous experience in it, then I think the Minister will find it hard to justify that position. Yet, apparently, the Minister is basing his argument for the appointment of the present chairman on the fact that, although he had had no previous experience of railways, he had had considerable experience in the running of street cars. There is a vast difference, however, between the running of street cars and the running and controlling of the vast network of the railways throughout the country.
It would appear also that the proposed chairman has similar views to those of the Minister, because he has put around him a number of individuals whose only experience of transport is in connection with the running of street cars or road transport. I think that there is a grave danger there, not alone to railway transport, but to the transport industry in general. I must confess that I am wedded firmly to the idea that rail transport will form our main system of transport in this country for the next 50, 60 or even 100 years, notwithstanding the aerial development which is bound to occur after this war. I feel very chary, therefore, of handing over the control of railway transport to a man who has had no railway training or experience, and whose only title to such a position is that he has had experience of road transport. The Minister is supposed to have a certain control, but what control he will have in that direction I do not know. It would appear to me that, once the appointment is made, the Minister will have very little power to recall or rescind decisions made by the man he appoints.
I do not propose to make a long speech on this matter, because I think I said all that I had to say in connection with this Transport Bill just prior to the dissolution. So far as the Bill itself is concerned, nothing has been changed except the date. The Minister, last night, said that Section 10 of the Act of 1933 will be continued, and I am very thankful for that, but I am anxious to know whether the conditions of service, hours of work, and so on, that were imposed under that Act, will be binding on the new company. I have failed to find anything in the Bill that would give me a guarantee or assurance on that point. I have been in consultation with some legal advisers, and they also have failed to find any guarantee or assurance that the already existing arrangements will be binding on the new company. If Section 10 of the 1933 Act is to continue to operate, however, I suggest that there is a direct violation of it in so far as the chairman of the new company has introduced a pension scheme—a copy of which I have in my hand at the moment—without consultation with trade union representatives. This pension scheme, I understand, was submitted to the members of the railway staffs individually, and they were asked to hand it back by the 1st June, as the scheme is to become operative on the 1st August. Now, I certainly would not stand between any man and the implementation of a pension scheme, but I cannot understand why there should be such a rush for the 1st August. If there is to be a pension scheme, why should it not have been submitted to the trade union representatives, and why should it not be made part and parcel of the present Bill? Why does the chairman seem to take powers to himself to promote a scheme which definitely prevents any consideration of it by the men's representatives? We have been striving for many years for the right of collective bargaining, and I hold that that principle is being violated here. Furthermore, I suggest that Section 10 of the 1933 Act is also being violated, in so far as the chairman of the company is promoting a scheme of his own, which is to be brought in on the 1st August. I think that any such scheme should be part and parcel of this legislation, because in the Acts of 1924 and 1933, legislation to provide pensions for the men was enshrined. The Minister says that that is not being eschewed under this measure. I think that he suggested last evening that the obligations of the old Act in that respect were discharged, but if pensions were not provided, surely to heavens, that obligation has not been discharged, and now we have a scheme introduced by the chairman without consultation with the trade union representatives of the men concerned.
Meetings took place, a scheme was produced, but it was not satisfactory to the men's representatives. The matter then went to the tribunal, and they held also it was not satisfactory, but that was the end of it. The men got no pensions, and the intentions of the Legislature, as expressed in the Act, were not given effect to. How it can be argued that that provision in the Act was discharged in the absence of the provision of pensions, I fail to see. A new feature is introduced by the chairman in submitting a scheme to the men, on the merits of which I do not propose to dilate, but I do suggest that the chairman has deliberately violated the spirit of the letter of Section 10 of the original Act in submitting a scheme to the men directly, eschewing consultations with the men's representatives. I put it to the Minister very seriously that that is the first overt action of his belying the statement that Section 10 is going to operate.
The conditions on which compensation is payable to the men rendered redundant as a result of this measure are such as to make it practically impossible for the men to get compensation at all. The Minister stated last evening, in justification of deleting the seven years' period from the old legislation and substituting a period of six months, that it was obvious that redundancy will disclose itself within six months. How it is so obvious I cannot see. There is another thing equally obvious, and that is that the company can keep all their employees in their service for six months after the Bill becomes law. They can then dismiss them at will, and all obligations as to compensation for redundancy automatically cease under this Bill.
The company would certainly be very foolish, having this provision in the Act, if they dismissed anybody at all within the six months. It would be good business for them to maintain their entire staffs for six months because at the end of six months there is no question of compensation in any form for men dismissed. Even if a worker is dismissed within that short period, in order to establish his claim for compensation for redundancy he has to prove that his discharge was not due to a number of other conditions. "Alteration of methods of working" is one phrase. In the old Act the phrase was "improved methods of working". All sorts of contentions can be introduced by the company to show that the worker's redundancy is not due to the amalgamation and hence that he has no claim whatsoever to compensation. However, the time specified makes it almost completely impossible for any worker discharged to get the benefits of such compensation as is provided for in this Bill. A six months' period is utterly useless and the phraseology in which the clause is couched appears to have been designed to rob the men of any right whatever to any claim for redundancy. We had a sufficiently painful experience of the earlier Act where men went to court to establish their claim for compensation for dismissal on the grounds of redundancy and found their claim was barred by various escapes provided for the company. These escapes have been intensified in the case of the present Bill so that it will be utterly impossibly to get compensation for redundancy. If that is the intention of the Minister we should be told so clearly, because the compensation clause as at present drafted is purely a trap and a snare.
Another point that arises in dealing with compensation is whether or not compensation is intended to cover years of continuous service or completed years of service, whether continuously worked or not. I know the mind of the railway company in this matter, as I happen to be a railwayman with 40 years' continuous service. I have at the moment before my mind the case of a man who spent 41 years in the employment of the railway company, and who was retired in the last six weeks on reaching the age of 65. There was a break in his service in 1931 owing to redundancy. There was a very bad slump in railway traffic at the time, and he did not resume his service until 1934. He worked since 1934 until last month. He then made application for the voluntary pension given by the company of 16/- per week, and he was informed that, because he had not completed 25 years' continuous service prior to his discharge, he could not get a pension. Yet he was in the service of the company for 41 years, with a break from 1931 to 1934. Now he goes out without one penny piece. I want to put it to the Minister in all sincerity that when you are dealing with a company with that outlook you should be very careful as to how you couch the language governing the conditions in which compensation is to be given to men who have given very long service. I could count dozens of men, practically 100 men, who have 38 or 40 years' service and who have gone out without one penny compensation. If the company are now going to be sheltered by legislative clauses of the kind to which I have referred, the chances of these men are going to be infinitely worse than before.
There are also some notable omissions in this Act as compared with the Acts of 1924 and 1926 relating to conditions of employment. In the case of the 1924 and 1926 Acts, it was provided that if men were called upon to perform services not analogous to those which they had previously performed, they could resign and claim compensation. There is a noticeable omission of that protection in this section. The Minister indignantly protested during the election against the allegation that some members of the clerical grade might be called upon to go to the bus depôts and carry out the work of cleaning buses. But there is nothing in this Bill to prevent the company offering a man in a certain grade work which would be normally carried out by employees in lower grades, and, on his refusal to take such work, discharging him without compensation. I want to know why these protective clauses of the earlier Acts have been omitted from this Bill. I would ask the Minister to reconsider the matter, and to see that the protection given under the previous Acts will be continued in this Bill of 1944.
Finally, I would make this suggestion to the Minister. He has given, as I have said earlier, a very serious commission to the chairman of the company. The chairman has, in all conscience, the biggest job in this country and surely he should have quite enough to do in endeavouring to make a success of railway and road transport in the country without interfering with the right of the men to select the trade unions to which they wish to belong. I want to complain that the chairman appointed by the Minister, in addition to his own job of running the railway, has gone out to canvass the men to leave the unions to which they belonged up to now and to become members of certain unions favoured by the chairman. He has gone to a member of the Dublin United Transport Company and instructed him to carry out this canvass during working hours. When the foreman in charge of the men objected to his coming there during working hours, he went away and came back armed with a letter from the chairman of the railway company entitling him to go in to this particular department and to try to seduce men from their own union and to join a union of the chairman's choice.
Further, as regards the clerical staffs, the members of the clerical staffs should now be sufficiently mature to know what union is best qualified to protect their interests. If the chairman does not see fit to select any member of the clerical staff to cooperate with him in the higher grades of the company, he should at least credit them with sufficient intelligence to be able to select their own union. Yet he has gone to a union in this city and invited them to cater for railwaymen and has tried to get these railwaymen out of the union already catering for them. Is the Minister surprised then that members of railway staffs, who have some faith in trade unionism, look on with fear at the approach of this man with dictatorial powers vested in him who, even before the final act in the drama is carried into effect, shows his hostility to railwaymen as such? I put it to the Minister seriously that he should have some control over the man he has appointed to this job, that he should ask him to mind his own business of running the railways and let the railwaymen run their business and select whatever union they think best qualified to look after their interests.
First of all I should like to say that this Bill would seem to me a genuine effort to solve the problem of transport in this country. The issue has been confused in recent months, but I can see no connection whatever between the Bill now before the House and any inquiry that may be going on elsewhere. I can see no change in the Bill on the general policy that has existed on the railways for the last 11 years. Hauliers in the country fear that this Bill will put them out of business. I cannot see any reason for their fears, and I make these remarks in an effort to reassure them, if possible, that this Transport Bill is not connected either with the Stock Exchange or with the destruction of the livelihood of men in honourable gainful occupations. I am sorry the Minister did not go a step further in the constitution of this new company. In addition to the chairman, there are eight venerable directors, as between the Transport Company and the Great Southern Railways, who, between them, are on the boards of 38 companies.
Or more.
Or more, maybe, but they are the niggers in the woodpile, I think. I am sorry the Minister did not see his way to get rid of them and I am also sorry to see that he kept the £4,000,000 worth of common stock. In a previous speech, I think I am correct in saying, the Minister stated that transport should never be subject to the gainful side of common stock. He has stated that he did not altogether approve of the Electricity Supply Board, but the Electricity Supply Board has given this country marvellous service in most difficult circumstances. The board probably suffers from human frailty like the rest of us, but it has done a really good job. The three alternatives the Minister had in framing this Bill were: a public company such as the Great Southern Railways, a board such as the Electricity Supply Board, or nationalisation under a Minister for Transport. I am sorry he has not decided on either the Electricity Supply Board arrangement or nationalisation. We in this country have not realised the trend in other countries such as Britain in the last five years, and our views on finance and public control of national services are truly represented by the old lady whom we meet when we come into Leinster House. I refer to Queen Victoria. The Minister is the first person who seems to be kicking against having financial control in the hands of Queen Victoria. She and her Ministers did a great disservice to the world. I think they can claim to be responsible for all these wars.
There are problems of transport which a single director may approach with a biassed mind. He may be perfectly honest in his approach. The first, which was raised by Deputy Keyes, is the point of rail versus road. The second is agriculture and commerce versus tourism. The mind of one dictator is bound to be biassed one way or the other, and I respectfully suggest that a Minister for Transport, with two controllers or two departments under him, one dealing with road transport and the other with rail transport, would give a greater feeling of security to industry, to commerce and to agriculture.
The next important point in relation to the appointment of a dictator is the continuity of the board which has been created. I have mixed with big business in England in my day, and the first question always asked when you start to discuss a business proposition is: "When you die, what will happen?" I suggest to the Minister that it is necessary to have a board, any member of which could replace the chairman at a moment's notice, and that all our eggs should not be in one particular chairman's basket, in case he is knocked down by a bus. I think that is a weakness in the Bill. I should hope that a board could be found in this country, membership of which would not be a reward for political allegiance. We had some years ago the example in Britain of the London Transport Board which absorbed about 55 companies and caters for between 9,000,000 and 10,000,000 people. It had a capital of, I think, £100,000,000 odd. It has worked successfully and quietly in a most amazing way. Speaking from memory, one of the conditions laid down in respect of membership of that board was that no Member of Parliament could sit on it. Another case of a national service on a somewhat similar basis is the B.B.C., which, I think, has been most successful.
In this case, however, we seem to depend on personalities rather than on organisations which can carry on when any particular person dies. One of the disasters in connection with railways in Ireland was that we, a poor agricultural country, followed the British tradition rather than the tradition in the northern countries, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, and I suggest that, before any final step is taken, before this sum of £20,000,000 is spent, some Parliamentary commission, or some other body of whatever formation the Minister likes, should visit the northern countries after the war and see how they deal with their problems. Are we to have a utility transport service here, or are we to have a luxury transport service? In Britain to-day, on trains doing journeys of up to 40 miles, there is no such thing as a first-class carriage. I think in a very short space of time here there will be no necessity to have a third-class carriage; everyone thinks he ought to travel first. I think those are important things; they are things which will give the people confidence in the genuineness of the effort to establish proper transport in this country. I would ask the Minister to consider them. I think the position of the workers—Deputy Keyes has dealt with it very closely—must be better under a properly financed company with sufficient capital than under a company which is pulling the devil by the tail and all the time trying to pay dividends. I will conclude by again asking the Minister to sack the old directors.
I cannot agree with the view expressed by Deputy Dwyer that this Transport Bill has nothing whatever to do with the tribunal at present inquiring into railway stocks. The outstanding feature of this Bill is that it provides generous treatment for those who will be holders of railway stock when the Bill comes into operation. The type of treatment which this House may decide to mete out to the railway stockholders will be influenced to a great extent by the findings of this tribunal. If the tribunal were to decide, for example, that a substantial number of the people holding railway stocks are people who have obtained them by improper means, then our reaction to that state of affairs would be to ensure that their treatment would not be so generous. But there is another aspect of the matter which must be considered. If this railway stocks tribunal finds, as it may possibly find, that the type of organisation which is at present controlling the railway company has given rise to serious abuses, then this House will have seriously to consider whether we ought to make permanent that type of organisation, because this Bill is designed to make permanent a type of organisation for the control of transport which has been set up, I might say, under an Emergency Powers Order as a temporary emergency measure, that is a type of control under which the assets of the company are owned by private individuals whereas the control and operation of the company are in the hands of the Government. That is the type of organisation we have in operation at present. That is the type of organisation which this Bill proposes to make permanent. If the transport tribunal were to decide that that type of organisation gave rise to certain abuses and certain improper conduct, then that type of organisation would stand condemned. Therefore, I think Deputy Dwyer was wrong in suggesting that this transport tribunal has nothing whatever to do with the Bill. I still hold that we would be ill-advised to pass this Bill without awaiting the decision of this judicial tribunal.
I do not see how the tribunal comes in. It would not be outside my functions to suggest that the terms of reference of the tribunal have nothing whatever to do with the government or management of the railways.
I accept your ruling. I have dealt with one aspect of it which, as an individual Deputy, concerns me in considering this Bill. I might say definitely that, no matter what decision the railway stocks tribunal may arrive at, I consider that this Bill is definitely bad. I consider that the handing over of all our transport to one dictator is bad. Deputy Dwyer dealt with another aspect of the question. He suggested that two dictators might be better than one, so as to provide a certain amount of competition. He also wanted to know what would happen if the one dictator, even if he had made a success of his business, were knocked down by a bus.
By his own bus.
Possibly.
Or by the bus which somebody else missed.
I think we ought to approach this question not so much from the point of view of considering the type of transport that has been in operation for a number of years but from the point of view of considering the best type of transport for the future. We ought to consider the question in this way: suppose there were no railways in existence in this country, would we proceed to provide them at the present time? What is the real object of establishing this big national company but to protect the railways, to preserve their existence? It would be a rash man who would suggest that the railways could be dispensed with now or in the immediate future, but it would be a still more rash man who would suggest that it is good policy fully to re-equip our railway system with a view to having it maintained as the backbone, so to speak, of our transport system for the next 50 or 60 years as one Deputy has suggested. In view of the fact that we are now passing through an emergency period, a war period, a period in which invention and science are making rapid strides, and that the inventive genius which has been brought into operation during this war period must of necessity, immediately after the war, be turned to problems of industry and transport, is it not possible that immediately after the war we may have very advanced new ideas in regard to transport, and that those ideas may be put into operation in other countries and may be capable of intensive study here? For that reason would it not be better to accept the recommendation of the tribunal of inquiry into transport and allow a period to elapse before tying the nation down to a rigid type of transport?
We may, for the purpose of considering this Bill, divide transport into its various categories. We have, first of all, railway transport, which is an old-established branch of transport, and which has been steadily declining, notwithstanding all the attempts made by the State to bolster it up. We have also road passenger transport, which is a new development that has made rapid strides, and which has proved fairly efficient and certainly capable of earning profits for those directing it, and of giving a good service to the community, in some outstanding respects a better service than can be provided by the railways. Then we have the third branch of transport— when I speak of transport now I am speaking of public transport, that is, transport for reward—which is the haulage of goods by lorry.
As far as the transport of goods by road is concerned, I do not think that any case whatever has been made for the setting up of a national company or a monopoly. Private enterprise should not need any restrictions other than the restrictions which are necessary in order to provide that the workers will have proper conditions of employment and wages, and that the vehicles used are efficient and reliable. Beyond these restrictions, there is no need for any control over the transport of goods by road. A sound policy in regard to the transport of goods by road would be to provide good roads, leaving private enterprise free to operate to the best of its ability in open competition between all business enterprises that are prepared to put lorries on the road and operate them for the benefit of the public.
That eliminates one branch of transport from consideration. It has taken care of itself in the past and has done that fairly well. Much has been said about rail transport. There is no doubt that much of the industrial and other development which has taken place in recent years, in regard to housing and so on, has been made possible mainly through the operation of an efficient system of road transport provided by private enterprise. I would further point out that private enterprise, in supplying road transport for goods, has been, in many cases, more beneficial to those concerned than the transport provided by the railway company. I might instance the transport of beet to the sugar factories. It was the experience of farmers in my district—I am taking this as an example because I have intimate knowledge of it—that the lorry owner working for hire gave a better service than that provided by the railway company. Not only did he give, on the average, a cheaper service when there were competitive rates in force, but he gave a more efficient service. Take the case of the farmer living one or two miles from the roadside. If the railway company were taking his beet he was compelled to convey it to the side of the public road, whereas in the case of the licensed haulier he took it from the farmyard. That should convince Deputies that private enterprise did give a more efficient service than the railway company. For that reason I hold that no monopoly can give as good a service in regard to the road transport of goods as private enterprise can and did give in the past. I hold it can continue to provide it in the future with the increasing efficiency which we hope to see in the lorries that are employed as goods vehicles.
We then have road passenger traffic. As far as that is concerned, it will be recognised that, to some extent, there must be a monopoly service because we cannot have one bus company competing against another for passenger traffic on the public roads. For one thing it would be impossible for them to provide an efficient service, that regular day-to-day service which passengers are entitled to. Therefore, we must contemplate the establishment of a monopoly for road passenger transport. Has any case been made for having a road passenger service and the railways operated by the same company? They are two entirely different services, requiring a different technique and calling for a different training and experience. Consequently, this Bill which contemplates permanently merging road transport and rail transport in the hands of one company is bad. In this I am supported by the view of Deputy Dwyer who said that, even if we were to have control in the hands of a dictator, two dictators would be better than one. It would be better to have a road dictator competing with the railway dictator to see which could give the public the best and most efficient service.
I do not think it is desirable to have either road or rail transport in the hands of a dictator. As far as the railways are concerned, I think that, perhaps, with some reorganisation the present railway company should be allowed to continue, at least for a trial period after the war to find out what advances will be made in the development of improved methods of transport. I think that the course recommended by the Transport Tribunal of 1939 should commend itself to any person with any degree of caution or prudence. We must be convinced that, for the present, at any rate, the railways are essential and should be preserved. Therefore, if they are not making a profit or paying their way, it would be far better to assist them by direct subsidy than by an indirect or invisible subsidy, such as is contemplated in this Bill.
The main feature of this Bill is that road and rail transport are to be put into the hands of one company and the losses which are contemplated on rail transport are expected to be made good out of the profits which may be obtained from other branches of transport. That is a kind of invisible subsidy—it is not visible to the general public. It would be better if the general public knew exactly, from year to year, how far the railway company fell short of making a profit and the amount of assistance necessary to keep the railway system in operation. Then, if we wish to develop road transport, and particularly passenger road transport, it may be good policy to establish a new company, to take over the Dublin United Transport Company and the road transport branches of the existing Great Southern Railways, and give to that company the function of operating the most efficient road passenger service that could be provided for the entire State.
I have listened to the arguments put forward from various parts of the House, regarding the formation of a public company and the manner in which it should be controlled. I believe that the system of control and management provided under this Bill is the worst that could be conceived. Here we have a new company, owned by private individuals but under the absolute control and direction of the State. If the State is to take over complete control, it would be far better for the State to take over ownership also. Of the two evils, I would think that nationalisation would be the lesser; but I am not convinced yet that the establishment of a nation-wide company such as this, controlled by the State, is necessary at present. I believe that private enterprise is capable of doing a very large amount of the work which it is contemplated to put into the hands of the new company, and I am sufficiently old-fashioned to recommend that private enterprise be given a further trial.
Our railway system, owing to the rigid manner in which it operates, has not been able to pay its way, but that fact should not be allowed to influence us into considering that private enterprise is incapable of operating transport. I believe that private enterprise can operate transport, provided that the various branches of transport which I have outlined are segregated and placed in the hands of different companies, each of which will specialise in one particular branch. Then, if we consider the public interest demands that the railway be maintained, whether they make a profit or not, it would be better to subsidise them directly.
The most objectionable feature of this new scheme is that it eliminates competition which, we all know, enters largely into the economic life of our people. For example, if the ordinary plain citizen finds that the pint which he gets in a public house is given in a glass that has not been washed for a week, he will immediately change his custom to some other public house. The same thing occurs in every branch of business: competition enables the consumer, the citizen, to get a better service than under a complete monopoly. I have given the case of the farmer trying to get his beet to the sugar factory, which is typical of thousands of cases that will arise throughout the country. Of course, the Minister pointed out in his opening statement that there will be an element of competition provided by the fact that private individuals can own either cars or lorries. But, here again, there is a danger that this company, having regard to the amount of capital invested in it and the huge vested interests built up around it, will not be able to allow private enterprise, as represented by the privately-owned car or lorry, to eat into the volume of its business. For that reason, we must have reason to fear that Dáil Eireann, having provided the necessary finances and having set up an organisation in which a large number of people will be employed and a large number of people will have money invested and in the success of which the State will be directly involved, the company may use its powers and influence to crush out the private lorry owner and the owner of any private means of transport which may interfere with the profit-earning capacity of this new monopoly.
For that reason it constitutes a grave danger. That is another reason why I suggest that it would be better if we had transport divided between a number of companies each specialising in a particular branch. I do not entirely agree with Deputy Dwyer's enthusiasm for national control of all branches of transport. Deputy Dwyer may feel enthusiastic about such far-reaching powers being vested in the hands of the State, but if the State were to enter into the business of manufacturing, and if a proposal was introduced here providing for the nationalisation of the textile business the Deputy might have other views. Knowing how farmers depend upon transport, and the dangers that individuals scattered throughout the country will have to face if we are confronted with a tyrannical and unjust monopoly, I feel that this Bill should be strongly opposed. It may be suggested that we cannot have decent transport unless we have centralisation. The craze for centralisation has gone too far. In a previous Dáil, in which the Government had a complete majority, we got another form of centralisation in the County Management Act.
It was badly wanted.
The County Management Act has proved to be tyrannical and to be an unjust Act.
Nonsense.
We are not discussing that Act now.
I only mentioned it as an instance, as we may wake up, when this Bill becomes law, to find that we have another tyrannical Bill, and have advanced still further in the direction of having the entire economic, social and industrial life of this country placed in the hands of a dictator. The worst features of dictatorship are that dictators acquire their powers, not as was formerly the case when big industrialists fought their way up to the top after long years of industry, but as in the County Management Act, and as is proposed in this Bill, we are to have dictators appointed simply because they are approved of by the Government that happens to be in power. That system of management is bad. Even if we are to have national control over transport, it would be better, as Deputy Dwyer suggested, to have other members on the board, with fairly considerable powers, and not to vest all powers in the hands of one dictator. A small committee, consisting of four or five with fairly equal powers, giving perhaps special rights to the chairman, would give better management and a system of control which would be more equitable to all concerned. There is always an element of safety in numbers.
Deputy Keyes called attention to the alarming fact that the manager of the existing company intends to promote a new trade union or to divert employees of existing trade unions into one, of which he approves. That has alarmed those who, so to speak, favour dictatorship. People have to make a fight for their rights. We do not want the liberties which our people have enjoyed in regard to transport to be wrenched from them under the powers contemplated here. By this Bill we are making the position of transport, which is bad enough at present, much worse. I believe it would be far better, at least for a number of years—say five years—to avoid putting transport under direct action because that is what this Bill amounts to. An organisation is to be set up which proposes to control every means by which people or goods can go from place to place. Control is narrowed down to an individual. We cannot hope at all times to produce super men to control every aspect of our national life to the extent to which the chairman of the proposed company is expected to control it. The alternative to the passing of a Bill of this kind is to assist the railways to carry on for a few years and if necessary to have a road passenger company with monopoly rights leaving the transport of goods by road to open competition. If it is found that there is overlapping in the services provision could be made for co-ordinating them. I believe co-ordination is much better than the compulsion and rigid control contemplated in the Bill, and that it is by co-ordinating and not the subjugation of all forms of transport to rigid dictatorship, progress could be made.
This Bill embodies the considered opinion of the Government and its expert advisers, as to the most advisable and equitable way of carrying on the transport industry. Consequently, I shall confine myself to criticism of some principles underlying the various sections. In Section 28 there is a reference to ordinary meetings and in Section 30 to general meetings. I fail to see any difference in principle between the two meetings. As Deputies are aware, the general meeting is one to which the annual report is referred, but Section 28 states that not later than three months after January 1st the ordinary meeting is to be held, at which financial provisions will be considered. I wonder if there is any distinction, in terms or otherwise, between "ordinary meeting" and "general meeting". It might be no harm to look into that point.
On this question of control, under Section 35 (3), we find that the chairman shall constitute a quorum at the meeting of the board. That seems to me to be rather arbitrary. He will, probably, find himself, as members of this House occasionally do, virtually talking to himself. I think that a quorum should consist of at least three, inclusive of the chairman, so that there might be a majority, so to speak, of personnel against him. I do not care how wise or impartial a chairman may be, he will always find somebody expressing a view which has not occurred to him. Though he has a veto, the exercise of that veto might be influenced by the presence of additional members. I presume that the procedure governing the calling of meetings will be defined in by-laws or rules and that the chairman will not simply be in a position to invite himself to a meeting—that would seem to be open to him under the section —and to transact business without notifying the others.
The question of monopoly has been referred to. The last speaker would permit anomalies in some cases and disallow them in others. I think that a general principle governs both passenger and goods traffic. If a monopoly is given in one direction, I do not see any adequate reason for urging that it should not be permitted in another direction. There will be fairly rigid control in the operations of this organisation. We shall not have buses and trains running at the same time along parallel roads and railways in competition with one another. We shall not have, I presume, as was the case when the railway company had a monopoly, employees of firms taking along goods to the railway and standing in queues for hours; when a certain hour came, rather than pay a few shillings in overtime, these goods had to be brought back to the places from which they came and brought along again the following morning. That is what induced some of the firms concerned to buy lorries for the transport of their own goods. I am satisfied that things like that will not be permitted to recur.
I am sure that the system now being introduced by the Government will provide much more security for the staff than was previously the case, while provision will be made for their old age. I welcome the retention of the provision whereby the sons or daughters of employees may obtain employment in the company. The railway company will have a certain number of positions set apart for them in the competitive examinations. If a man has a business, there is always a guarantee of security and continuity in that business for himself and his family. It is only right that the ordinary worker who devotes his life to the service of an industry should have some similar guarantee and if he has a son or daughter fitted for employment in that industry special provision should be made for taking him or her into the service. I welcome the retention of such a provision in the present Bill.
The Leader of the Opposition said last evening that 3 per cent. was a high dividend to guarantee on the shares to be converted into debentures. He argued that wars could at present be run on money obtained at 2 per cent. I read of a statement made in a certain place during the past week that, of 9,164 holders of railway stock, 8,800 had retained their shares. Therefore, only a very small proportion buy and sell.
That was in a period of nine months.
Whatever the period was, it is a comparatively small number. Consequently, those people, whose holdings were considerably reduced under a previous amalgamation, should have a reasonable guarantee for their money. With all due respect, I do not think that 3 per cent. under those circumstances, is too much to award under this Bill. I should like to refer, incidentally, to the provision governing the appointment of directors. A qualification of £1,000 in stock is required for appointment as a director. Many of the people who owned stocks in the railway company were ordinary working people in the Civil Service or some other employment who had not a great deal of the world's goods and looked upon the railway as a fairly safe security for their savings. Therefore, they invested in railway stock, in trust for their children. In due course, these stocks were cut down. Their holdings are as important to them or their successors as are holdings of thousands of pounds in the case of others. In the appointment of directors, one man who bought £30,000 worth of stock before the amalgamation can outvote 30 holders with £1,000 stock or 60 holders with £500 stock. Is that a fair and democratic way to appoint directors of a company? The man or woman with a small holding should have a voice in the direction of the company because the men with £20,000 or £30,000 holdings will have their motor cars in which to travel around. They will have very little concern with the ordinary, workings of the railway, while people with smaller holdings will be dependent on the railway and will be in contact with the ordinary people of the country.
I suggest to the Minister that he should adopt a system—I do not think it would be more difficult to administer it than to administer proportional representation—whereby persons with holdings under £2,500 would appoint two directors, those between £2,500 and £10,000 would appoint two directors, and those with above £10,000 would also appoint two. In that way, you would have a system whereby people with small holdings would have a voice in the direction and control of the railway company just as those with bigger holdings have. The thousands of shareholders who are always outvoted by a few hundred at present in choosing directors should get consideration. There is an old maxim which says: "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves." In the same way I would say: "Take care of the hundreds and the thousands will take care of themselves." But the principle of the appointment of directors seems to be: "Take care of the hundreds of thousands and it does not matter about those who are down the scale."
There is a reference in a certain portion of Schedule 5 to the effect that people who took part in the civil strife in certain years will get credit for that period. Now, civil strife can be put down as riot and commotion, if you like, and no matter how you look at that period of civil strife it was a continuation of the national struggle. It is by reason of their participation in that struggle, on one side or the other, that these people working on the railways would be entitled to the inclusion of that period in their service. I think the words "civil strife" should be removed and the words "national struggle" or some such suitable words substituted.
I feel certain that, with the cooperation of all concerned and the wise vigilance of the Minister, this legislation will co-ordinate the various systems of transport and give to the people of the country, at a cheap rate, a satisfactory method of getting about their business.
I was somewhat hesitant about getting up on the second occasion to criticise the Minister and the Transport Bill, but after listening to Deputy McCarthy I feel quite assured because, if he can find so much to criticise in the Bill after stating that it is the outcome of the considered opinion of the Government and the railway experts, surely those of us who have not a great opinion of the Government or the railway experts can find a good deal to criticise in it. Indeed, there does not seem to be very much left to criticise in the Bill after what we have heard from Deputy McCarthy, especially when he dealt with the main principles, the principles that strike at the very basis on which the Government formulated this measure.
In the course of the elections we got rid of a good deal of the colourful atmosphere which surrounded the first Bill and we are down to the bare bones now. The more one looks at this Bill, the more niggers one can find in the wood-pile, and they all seem to be niggers with a peculiar character. The Government seem to adopt the attitude that they are the only people who desire to reorganise transport. I think that is a somewhat fanciful claim for them to make, because not only from these benches, but from all sections of the community, for years there has been an insistent demand for a transport system on a properly organised basis.
I do not think that even those of us who have wide differences with the Government quarrel in principle with the desire to lay down a basis, in so far as organisation is concerned, on which a new system of transport can be established in this country in postwar years. The only reservation is that there should not be too deep a commitment from the technical viewpoint until we know what will be the technical advance in the way of improvement that will come into being in connection with road and rail transport after the war. There are many technical developments that we hear of that have been the outcome of military operations, and undoubtedly they will be made available for ordinary civilian use when the war ends. I think everyone will agree that whatever provisions we may make in the way of organisation, at least there should be a policy of going slowly until we see what type of technical equipment will be available, after the war, in the field of transport.
So far as the Bill is concerned, it seems to me that there are three main points on which we can find divergence with the Government. The first is as regards ownership and control; the second has relation to financial provisions, and the third, which is of particular interest to Deputies on these benches, concerns the attitude of the workers to the new transport company. On the last occasion when I spoke on this matter I remarked that I had seldom listened to a more illogical speech than that delivered by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, not because he is in the habit of making illogical speeches, but because I felt he was not happy about the Bill and the basis on which it was proposed to introduce the new transport system. Illogical as was his speech, I was almost flabbergasted when I listened to the speech of Deputy Cogan. His speech seemed to be a combination of all the illogical principles and arguments that one might expect to hear at a street corner and not delivered in an Assembly such as this. He wanted private enterprise, competition, and this, that and the other, and he did not relate the country's needs with what can be economically provided.
Has he ever stopped to think that one of the reasons why farmers have to come here and ask support from the national Exchequer in the way of higher prices, various forms of subsidies and assistance for the farming community—with which none of us disagrees—is because agriculture has been the football of private enterprise right down the years? Private enterprise has not only destroyed the whole basis of agriculture, but it has condemned the farmers to a life of slavery, and has sucked the blood of the agricultural industry to such an extent that it has made agriculture an occupation that few want to go back to if they can avoid it, and a great many want to get out of. Yet the Deputy's solution of probably the biggest problem in our country—transport—is to saddle on the backs of the people the same type of private enterprise that has been the destruction of agriculture, not only here but in many other countries, and which condemns the farmer, in the words of the members of the Farmers' Party, to a life of toil, to long hours of hardship, in return for a wage which is very often less than what is given to the agricultural labourer.
I do not think there is any section of the community that has a greater interest in being provided with cheap and efficient transport than the farmers. If we were to follow the lines laid down by Deputy Cogan, then the price that would be paid by the agricultural community for transport would be more than the citizens of Dublin have to pay at the present time—and that is high enough. The Government have sidestepped the issue on one fundamental question. That is, what is to be the measure of our transport system and on what basis are we to determine its economic value? The Minister says that one fundamental factor that must be enforced in regard to the new company is that it will be an economic organisation, charging economic prices for its services. Does he measure that principle of economy in relation to the shareholders or in relation to the country and its transport needs? It is quite conceivable that a charge for freight may not be economic for the shareholders from the point of view of the actual running cost over a particular stretch of line. From the point of view of the country, especially in times like these, that freight charge not only may be economic, but may be of tremendous value.
One example is the carrying of coal from Castlecomer to Dublin. In prewar days the cost was 15/- a ton. That was completely uneconomic from the point of view of the utilisation of the coal in Dublin, if you made a comparison with the cost of imported coal, which could be brought in for 4/- or 5/- a ton. But if we had the good sense at that time to develop the Castlecomer collieries along the lines of giving them facilities to develop their market in the country by having lower railway charges, these charges possibly would not then be economic to the railways, but would have proved economic to-day if we had an increased output from the collieries. The same outlook may be found in many other walks of life. In approaching the problem of what is to be the basic principle of operation of this company, we have to determine whether it is going to be economic from the point of view of private investors or in relation to the needs of the community and industry as a whole. If we believe that our economic needs as a community require that certain charges on the railway will be below the actual cost of providing these services and if we are prepared to meet the additional burden in the way of taxes or subsidies, surely that is a matter for us to decide and a step which we can feel satisfied will be justified in relation to the development of the industrial and agricultural life of the community. But, if we are going to measure the services of this company on the rigid selfish basis of what return is going to be given to the private investor and the shareholder, then we are going to set out a future for this company that I do not think is going to be happy either for the company, its employees or the community it is supposed to serve.
Approaching the problem from that angle, recognising that transport is a public service and should be treated as such, in the same way as we deal with the supply of water, sewerage or any other essential service the community requires and which, it has been proven time after time, private enterprise is unable to provide, it should be a reasonable proposition that if we are going to treat it as a public service the first essential is that the control of that public service shall be exercised by those with power to speak on behalf of the citizens of this country. It is from that point of view and from the point of view of efficiency that I speak in favour again of a nationalised railway system directed under an acceptable form of control through the Dáil with due allowance for managerial responsibility and the operation of the system from day to day.
I do not want to go back on the Minister's speeches. I have already admitted that he is entitled to change his mind, but he has changed his mind not on fundamentals but on minor matters. He says that nationalised transport implies subsidised transport. Is there anything wrong in itself in subsidised transport, if we agree that subsidies are justified from the point of view of national economy? Surely it is better for us to subsidise a system of national transport in the interest of the national economy as a whole than to do what we are asked to do in this Bill, which is to subsidise a private monopoly in the interest of those who invested their money in that monopoly. Because, it does not matter how you play with words, a guarantee of the payment of interest under certain cirsumstances is a subsidy if those circumstances arise; and, while the Minister is very certain that such conditions will not arise, involving the enforcement of the guarantee, I have still to be convinced, after listening very carefully to him, that he is able to indicate any basis on which in normal times this guarantee will not have to be forthcoming from the Exchequer.
The Minister also made the point that nationalised transport involves certain difficulties in regard to the composition of the board of directors, the question of control and the enforcement of efficiency, and he has evolved a peculiar combination of a chairman and six other directors representing the holders of common stock. I think that if we had agreement on the fact that we need a national transport system and that that system should be under public control, there would be very little difficulty in getting agreement as to the actual ways and means by which that control would operate. Nobody desires to interfere in the ordinary day-to-day working of any concern so long as on matters of principle and from time to time there is the ordinary overriding right of the people's representatives to ask for an account and to indicate certain matters of principle which they think should be considered. Outside of that, the ordinary running of the system is a matter that should be left to those who are competent to deal with it.
But look at the combination we are given as an argument not merely in favour of the efficient running of the railways but as a counter-blast to the system the Minister formerly believed in, namely, nationalisation. First of all, he takes one gentleman. It is no use covering up the fact that names have been mentioned, because the Taoiseach, during the course of the election, officially stated that one gentleman was going to be the chairman. I am not mentioning this man because of any personal reasons, but because of the emphasis that has been placed by the Minister on his record and his capabilities in undertaking the task that is being given to him. This one man is brought in and made chairman of this concern. He is made chairman on the basis of his record in a local transport system in Dublin and on a year's record in the Great Southern Railways Company. He is to be the individual acting as chairman through whom public policy is to be carried into that board of directors and, because the Minister has not got faith in public policy and, therefore, must have a lack of faith in the particular individual who is to represent public policy on the board, and in order to secure that with the historical ability of private investors to run their concerns in an efficient manner, the private shareholders, the holders of common stock, will be able to exercise their right to enforce their principles, he counteracts the chairman's position on the board by putting on six other directors who are the individuals to see that the principles on which private enterprises operate will be enforced in this new transport company.
Therefore, on the one hand we have a gentleman brought in as chairman to represent the Government and, therefore, the Legislature, in the enforcement of public policy in the board of directors—he is the man who, on the basis of his record and his ability, is completely to reorganise the system, put it on a paying basis and give us an efficient transport system—and on the other hand, we have so little faith in him that we are going to put six other men on the board to keep a check on him. Is it not quite plain that somewhere in the Minister's mind is a feeling of doubt about the whole position, when he suggests that on the one hand the gentleman who was brought in to reorganise the Dublin United Transport Company, and was subsequently transferred to the Great Southern Railways Company and is now put into the new transport company, is to be assisted by six representatives of the very same people who ran the Great Southern Railways system into the ground over the last 20 or 30 years? That is a combination that would astound anybody. That is all because we must insist upon refusing to commit ourselves to nationalisation, and because we must retain this miraculous system of private enterprise which Deputy Cogan and the Minister seem to be convinced is the only safeguard and hope for this country.
I do not know how the Minister comes to believe that, especially as in his capacity as Minister for Supplies for four years, he has had to work day and night trying to rectify the mistakes and gross inefficiency of private enterprise during this crisis. Every time there is a crisis in the affairs of any country or of the world as a whole, private enterprise breaks down. In economic crises, political crises and military crises, private enterprise showed itself incapable of meeting crises. Always the step-maiden has to come in—the public has to come in; the powers of the Government, the broad backs of the common people, have to be used to carry this crippled system that is now out of date. We have had that experience during the last four years in practically every walk of life. We have had to go to the trouble of appointing special Departments of Government to put crutches under private enterprise so that private enterprise, which has had the running of this country in its hands for generations, would not cause the country to starve or industries to come to a standstill and to create a worse crisis than we have at the present time.
I have quarrelled with the Minister as Minister for Supplies on many occasions but one thing that I think is quite clear is that, bad as our position is at the moment, if he as representative of the public and of the legislative bodies of this country had not been there to help many units of this system of private enterprise, we would be in a very parlous condition to-day. Yet, with his experience, he now wants us to go back again to a system of transport that not only during the years of the emergency has been driven to destruction by private enterprise but which has proved to be incompetent even in normal conditions and operating under monopolistic conditions for a great many years. He wants us to hand back the system to the same type of control that has proven to be so incompetent not only in regard to the railways but, as I say, in every crisis that has faced this or any other country. It seems to me to require a better explanation than the Minister has given and I feel that the explanation is to be found, not in the realms of transport, but in the realms of the industrial policy of the Fianna Fáil Party which, over a period, has committed itself, in the words not only of the present Minister but of the Leader of the Party, An Taoiseach, to the system of private enterprise, to the system of competition and, in its final stages, to the commencement of the system of monopolies of which we have already seen the beginnings in many industries in this country. From that point of view I think that the future, in so far as the new transport industry is concerned, is not going to be a happy one if we are to rely, first of all, upon a chairman appointed on the basis of his record, whose record consists of a set of fortuitous circumstances created by the emergency, transport conditions in Dublin with which the people would not normally put up and also emergency conditions on the railway which have enabled him to show a certain improvement and, in addition to this individual, the association with him of six other gentlemen whose past incompetence, as representative of this group of owners in the railway, is clearly proved. If that is to be the basis on which we are to rely for the new transport company to be a financial and economic success, then I am afraid we are due to get a very rude awakening.
The other point made against nationalisation was that, while there were nationalised systems of railways in many countries, that system of national control arose out of conditions peculiar to each of these countries. The Minister mentioned one or two, such as the refusal of private investors to build the necessary railway lines that the country requires, the question of the strategical control of lines, etc., and indicated that, in general, nationalised systems of railways were inefficient, had to be subsidised, and did not give a satisfactory service. I have not been able to go very deeply into the matter, but I have looked up some figures and the position is not as the Minister stated. There are such railway systems in other countries, efficient systems. Possibly I will agree with the Minister that they are subsidised to a certain extent. But if the people of these countries feel that in return for subsidies they are getting a satisfactory system of transport at reasonable charges, then they are entitled, as we are, to pay these subsidies and to feel that they have got good value. One of these systems of nationalised transport is in Switzerland where, during the years of crisis, there have been an expansion and improvement of the system. That is an example on which we could rely and, if you like, a headline at which we might aim in future in this country when the emergency is over.
Nationalised transport therefore in itself is not something to be condemned because of the principle involved. We have to look at the background; the price paid by the nationalised system when these lines were taken over from the original private owners; and we have to keep in mind the burden that very often was placed on the backs of these nationalised systems before they were given an opportunity of operating on a rational basis. While we here are being asked to refuse to commit ourselves to a nationalised system of transport, we are, at the same time, being asked to do the other thing that has been done in other countries, namely, to tie round our necks a load of financial indebtedness that will deny to the new transport system any reasonable prospects of being successful, either from the point of view of economy or of service to the country.
So far as these two principles are concerned, namely, whether the transport system should be run on the basis of private enterprise, or of public ownership and control, surely we do not require any better example than the two companies we are considering at present—the Great Southern Railways Company and the Dublin United Transport Company. Both of them started as systems of private enterprise, both of them came to the point of almost complete failure, and the public had to step in and give them the protection and the support they were unable to afford themselves under the system of private enterprise. The Dublin United Tramways Company, working under this system of free enterprise, was almost driven off the streets of Dublin and, as the Minister himself stated, a change did not take place until powers were given to the company to buy up their competitors and, even then, it took another year or two years before they got on their feet. The improvement which has taken place since then is not due to good financial management or good managerial administration, but to the fact, whether the Minister likes it or not, of the fares being increased in the sense of return to the company. The Minister says that there has been no increase in fares. But, if you carry eight passengers standing in a 32 seater bus, you will increase the takings by 25 per cent. There is no corresponding increase in running costs. If you cut down the fare stages and still retain the fares, you get an increase in fares. If you do away with monthly tickets and preferential tickets, which have been a feature of the normal transport undertaking, you get a continuous improvement. The same has happened on the railways.
When the Minister says that the Dublin United Transport Company has increased wages by 24 per cent., he seems to forget that the company started at a level below the trade union conditions and that many of the other companies that were bought up, compulsorily by the company, by virtue of legislation passed in this House, provided better conditions and paid higher wages than even the Dublin United Transport Company pay to-day, despite their abnormal profits.
I feel that we are committed to monopoly in regard to transport, monopoly both in rail and road, and I personally would not be inclined to set any limits on that monopoly so long as the monopoly is under public control and is in the interests of the citizens. I am prepared to agree that there should be a limitation even on private hauliers, or even that there should be a limitation on private cars, if that is essential to the provision of the necessary system of transport for the citizens of the country. I agree at all times that the needs of the citizens or of the majority of the citizens should be paramount. But I object to the legislative powers of this Dáil being utilised to give a monopoly to one section of private individuals to the harm or injury of another section. If we are going to use our powers to enforce monopoly, that monopoly should be under our control and for the benefit of the citizens and not, as Deputy Mulcahy pointed out, to set up an organisation, finance it, give it wide powers and, at the end of 16 years, hand over that organisation worth £16,000,000 to a group of gentlemen who, at the present moment, only hold shares in the company amounting to some £3,000,000 or £4,000,000. If the latter is to be the purpose of the monopoly then, I think, we are entitled to stand against it. I think we are entitled to say that there should be a monopoly of rail and road transport and, even to go beyond that and widen the scope, so long as the monopoly is in the interests of the people as a whole.
Monopoly in itself is an evil thing, if the end, and the purpose of it, is the purely profit motive. Public men in this country have, time after time, spoken to us of a new system of social justice, of new theories of morals and ethics, and they have particularly applied themselves to the evils that flow from monopoly or monopoly capital. Those who sit on the Government Benches and who go out at election times to tell us of the great high ideals that influence them and on which they base their policy, are now setting in motion the kind of machinery which has been condemned by every leader of public thought in this country. They want to establish a private monopoly for the benefit of a group of private individuals. If they want to stand over that principle, they are welcome to it, but they cannot have it both ways.
I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned.