The matter before the House is the Estimate for the Department of External Affairs to which a "reference back" motion has been moved. I should, perhaps, make it clear that in asking the Dáil to refer back this Estimate, we are asking it to express general disapproval of the administration of the Department of External Affairs and if we can persuade the Dáil to pass the motion, then, in our view, it should have some greater significance than was attached to a similar motion passed last week relative to the Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The outstanding fact about the Estimate for the Department of External Affairs, to which I think Deputies' attention should be drawn, is the unprecedented increase in the cost of that Department which the Minister proposes to effect in this year.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 65—External Affairs (Resumed).
For the amount of work that is done by it.
The increase amounts to practically 40 per cent. over the expenditure on the Department in last year, and to almost 60 per cent. over the expenditure on the Department in the previous year. Now, as Deputy de Valera said last night, the various items making up the total bill for the Department, with one exception-the proposal to provide £25,000 for a fake news agency-are not in themselves objectionable, and in fact, in present circumstances, it would be quite reasonable for an increased Estimate for this Department to be presented to the House by a Fianna Fáil Government. I want to submit for the consideration of Deputies opposite, however, that it is very unreasonable to have such an Estimate presented to the House by a Government that proclaimed, when it came into office, that retrenchment was going to be the keyword of its policy. I want to ask Deputies opposite whether they think it desirable that we should provide more than £100,000 for increased staffs in the Department of External Affairs as compared with 1947 when we are asked to do so by a Government which, in the alleged interests of retrenchment and economy, closed down various activities which might reasonably be regarded as of a more useful character.
Last week we were told in the Dáil that a number of miners in the Avoca district had been dismissed from their employment because the plans for mineral exploration had not been proceeded with.
Because the machinery was not there.
Is the Deputy not aware that mineral exploration was one of the economies that the Government announced its intention of achieving last year? Were we not told last year that the whole programme for mineral exploration had been abandoned in the interests of retrenchment? It is true that the Government has changed its mind and that the programme is to be proceeded with on a limited scale, but because of the delay there are a number of these miners in the Avoca district now idle. I am looking forward to the spectacle of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs explaining to these miners why it is desirable that they should be left unemployed while the Dáil cheerfully votes £100,000 to increase the number of civil servants in the Department of External Affairs and the number of officials serving in that Department in Ministries overseas.
Is it undesirable to remind Deputies of many of the other retrenchments with which the Government inaugurated its career? How are they going to explain to the hundreds of skilled workers, the aircraft mechanics who are scattered around the world because their employment here was ended in the interests of economy, through the decision to abandon the Atlantic air development? Is it necessary to repeat all the measures of economy and retrenchment in which the Government gloried last year, which they spoke about at every public meeting as indicative of the line they were going to follow? Did they tell the people then that they were going to come to the House in 1949 with a proposal to increase by £100,000 the amount to be spent upon officials in the diplomatic service? I am not objecting to the increase, except to the one nonsensical item relating to a news agency, but I want it to be understood that in proposing it to the Dáil the Government has hereby formally abandoned the policy upon which it declared it was elected, the policy which it announced its intention to follow when it was first constituted and when it outlined its aims and objects to the Dáil.
Is it any harm to remind Deputies what the present Minister for Finance would have said about the proposals in the Estimate if it was produced by a Fianna Fáil Minister and if the Minister for Finance were sitting on these benches? It would be described as further evidence of Fianna Fáil megalomania. Does any Deputy think that is unreasonable-that it is unreasonable to suggest that if the Minister for Finance were on these benches he would have said that?
What would the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance say?
What I am saying now -that many items of increased expenditure are quite reasonable. I am trying to get Deputies opposite into line with their own past. Every proposal with reference to diplomatic representation abroad was always opposed by many of the Deputies who are now going to sit silently and vote silently for the most spectacular increase ever known in that Department.
I want to repeat that I am not asserting, and I do not believe, that it is undesirable that an extension in the Department should take place. I do not know what precise case the Minister for External Affairs produced to the Minister for Finance to get his consent to the establishment of two new sections in the Department and the addition to the staffs of Ministeries overseas of press officers, counsellors and public relations experts, but there must have been arguments that we could not think of during the 16 years when we were trying to build up this service gradually in the teeth of Fine Gael opposition, and particularly opposition from the Minister for Finance who, apparently, raised no question when these proposals came to him from his present Coalition colleague.
Let that stand as a preliminary. Let us take it that the whole retrenchment policy of the Coalition Government was, like everything else about it, a fake, but in this case they could not keep up the pretence of adhering to that policy for long and so they have to admit themselves that it was a fake.
Was the increase in the old age pensions a fake?
I do not know if I am right in assuming that there has been some redistribution of functions amongst Ministers and that the Minister for External Affairs has now got responsibilities in regard to negotiations of trade agreements which were previously the function of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and also responsibilities for wider aspects of financial policy which were previously regarded as the special concern of the Minister for Finance. Certainly, judging by declarations made by the Minister for External Affairs, as such, it is reasonable to conclude that such a redistribution of functions has taken place.
That may not be correct. It may be that the Minister for External Affairs is still merely the channel by which other Governments are informed of decisions taken by the Government here for which other Ministers are responsible to this House. I think, however, it is desirable that the position should be clarified, and clarified speedily, because it is inevitable there will be confusion in the public mind when the Minister for External Affairs appears to be taking a line upon matters of trade and finance, which are of particular importance and significance at the present time, and which is contrary to the line previously indicated by the Taoiseach and other Ministers as the considered policy of the Government.
If the recent declarations of the Minister for External Affairs are to be taken as indicative of Government policy, then some change has occurred of which the public are unaware. If they are not so indicative, then they suggest there is a divergence between the policy which he is following and that which the public previously understood to be Government policy. I assume, however, this is the correct occasion upon which to discuss actions and statements of the Minister for External Affairs, acting as such, in relation to matters bearing upon trade and finance, which have or may have in the future very serious repercussions on the interests of this country. Recently the Minister attended, as representative of this State, at a conference in Paris held under the auspices of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The matter which arose for consideration at that conference is of only indirect concern here now, but the implications of the attitude adopted by the Minister at the conference in relation to that matter could be very serious indeed and I am referring to it now for the purpose of getting some clarification of the policy which the Minister appears to have followed there and some elucidation of the aims which he hoped to achieve by following that policy.
The conference in Paris was of a technical character. It was apparently necessitated by the termination of an arrangement which operated during the first year of the Marshall Plan for the financing of inter-European trade and was called specially to consider proposals for an alteration in these arrangements during the present year. We are not concerned with the details, and I do not propose to bore the Dáil by any reference to the details. It may be worthy of notice, however, that the arrangements made last year for the financing of inter-European trade amongst Marshall Plan countries was in accordance with British policy and, as Deputies are no doubt aware, British policy in those matters is very largely directed towards the preservation of the gold and dollar reserves, which have been so much in the news lately and which are not merely the gold or dollar reserves of Great Britain, but of the whole of the sterling area, in which this country is included. British policy arising out of the circumstances existing last year has been largely based upon the idea of conducting European trade upon a series of tightly drawn bilateral agreements, all of which were expressly designed to ensure that sterling resulting from British purchases in European countries could be used only to effect purchases in Great Britain or other parts of the sterling area.
I have said that British policy was primarily designed to protect the gold and dollar reserves of the sterling area and, while it is possibly not in order to discuss now all the implications of the position which is developing in relation to these reserves, it is important, to understand the criticism I have to make of the policy of the Minister for External Affairs, that the Dáil should appreciate the importance of the protection of these reserves to the trade of this country and, in fact, how difficult it would be for the sterling area system to function at all if these reserves should be further depleted. At this Paris conference which the Minister for External Affairs attended, called for the purpose of considering the arrangements to be made for the financing of inter-European trade in the coming year, there was a proposal which originated with the American authorities which was formulated through the Economic Co-operative Administration and which was supported at Paris by a number of European countries, a proposal which was expressed as designed to facilitate the development of multilateral trade in contrast with the system of bilateral trading which Britain had been maintaining—to develop multilateral trade and get away from the bilateral basis— a proposal which was strongly and vigorously opposed by the Chancellor of the British Exchequer, who attended the conference as the principal British delegate, on the grounds that the adoption of the proposal would inevitably mean a further depletion of these dwindling reserves.
As a result of the vigorous opposition to the proposal put forward by the British Government through their Chancellor of the Exchequer the proposal was in fact abandoned or, at any rate, a compromise was effected which the British Chancellor described as quite satisfactory from his point of view. In case any Deputy of the Coalition Parties has any doubt as to what heretofore was the policy of the Government in regard to the maintenance of these sterling area gold and dollar reserves, it may be no harm to remind them that just about this time last year they voted enthusiastically to give approval to an agreement made by their Government with the British authorities which dealt, amongst other matters, with the measures we would take here to ensure that we would not be responsible for any net drain upon these reserves, and voted also for the initiation and maintenance of restriction upon our trade for that purpose.
In the course of the debate upon that agreement, of which the Dáil approved, the Taoiseach stated at column 2165, Volume 112, No. 12 of Dáil debates of 5th August, 1948:—
"The British Government was very gravely concerned at the drain on the sterling area reserve of gold and dollars and this anxiety was shared-naturally shared-by all members of the sterling area."
He explained that the British Chancellor of the Exchequer had informed them that the level of these reserves had fallen this time last year to approximately £500,000,000, that that was regarded as the irreducible minimum, that any further diminution of these reserves would produce something akin to a crisis and that there had been an appeal to the Government here and to all Governments in the sterling area to make whatever sacrifices were necessary in order to prevent any further diminution. Last week the British Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons that they have since fallen to £400,000,000 and it is obvious that they will be down to about £300,000,000 at the end of the next quarter.
Did you not vote for the same thing as we did at that time?
That is an irrelevant observation, as I shall explain later. Later, in the same debate, quoting from the same column, the Taoiseach went on as follows:—
"Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, informed us that in the view of his Government the level of the reserves should not be further reduced during the period of Marshall Aid"—
the period of Marshall Aid is the four-year period from 1948 to 1952.
"and that the reserves must be maintained at their present level in the interests of the sterling area as a whole so that, at the end of the period of aid, sterling would be sufficiently strong to meet any difficulties and readjustments that may arise."
Then the Taoiseach added the following:—
"Having regard to our interest in the financial strength of the sterling system we cannot quarrel with that policy."
The level of these gold and dollar reserves of the sterling area has, as I have mentioned, fallen considerably below what it was this time last year when the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Cripps, was conveying that message to the Taoiseach and when the Taoiseach was declaring to this House that we could not quarrel with the policy which had been proposed.
That diminution in the gold and dollar reserves of the sterling area, the prospect of the still further diminution and the ultimate picture that offers of the breaking up of the whole sterling area system is a very serious one for us; I mean serious for the people of this country, serious in relation to the prospect of keeping our workers in employment and maintaining our present standard of living. We have, therefore, a clear interest in the success of whatever measures may be taken by the British authorities to protect these reserves, to prevent their further diminution and, if possible, to restore them.
The trade of Britain, like the trade of this and every other country in the sterling area, is dependent upon the success of these measures. Even the trade agreement which the Minister for External Affairs signed with France last week is presumably only of interest to France if the sterling surplus which she secures for trade from this country is useful in the financing of purchases elsewhere. It may be that the Government here is entitled to question whether the diminution of these sterling area reserves is due to any defects of British policy. Certainly, the obligation to maintain them does not rest merely upon the junior partners in the sterling area system and, if there is any reason to believe that the British Government have been less careful in their protection than they expected us to be, then presumably representations on these lines will be made by the Government here to the British authorities. That, however, is a matter primarily between the Governments of the countries constituting the sterling area.
We know from the statements made here by the Minister for Finance when introducing his Budget that this country has not been responsible for any net drain upon the sterling area reserves. It is true that there was an overdraft allowed for the purpose of financing dollar trade during the period in which the dollar loans under the Marshall Plan are being negotiated. But, as the Minister for Finance quite definitely pointed out, we are obliged to refund to the sterling area pool the whole of the accommodation allowed out of dollars that we borrow from America under the present arrangement with that country. I do not know if the Government here have been at all concerned about the enormous increase in our dollar imports. There has been an expansion during the first five months of this year compared with the first five months of last year amounting to several million pounds. It is true that we can purchase goods for dollars without encroaching upon the sterling area reserves because we borrow the dollars and we borrow them under an obligation to repay them. We are not, like Britain, receiving Marshall Aid grants and, consequently, the extent to which we import goods from the United States and pay for them in dollars is of concern to us only in so far as we are naturally perturbed by the expansion of any external debt that we may have difficulty in repaying in the future.
Could the Deputy relate that to External Affairs?
I admit that in dealing with these general questions of financial policy I may be going outside the strict limits of the External Affairs Vote. I mention these matters merely for the purpose of giving the House the background in which I shall ask it to consider the line of policy taken by the Minister for External Affairs who has been dealing with these matters at the international conferences this year.
I realise the Deputy made an introductory remark in that respect, but he would now appear to be dealing with matters other than that.
The sole purpose of these remarks is to criticise the line of action taken by the Minister for External Affairs at these various conferences to which I have referred. Let me say that, in criticising that line of policy, there is no question in my mind of either an anti-British or a pro-British bias. We must consider our policy in relation to these matters primarily in regard to our own interests. Whether we like it or whether we do not, we have here a vital interest in the protection of these gold and dollar reserves to which I have referred; we have a vital interest bearing upon the level of economic activity here and the well-being of our own people. I think it is fair to mention that we also have an interest in the efforts of the British Government to maintain the present standard of living of the British people and the development of British trade because the bulk of our exportable surplus goes to Great Britain; and the way of life and the conditions of trade there determine very largely the market that exists for our exportable surplus. If Government Deputies are critical of that situation I can only remind them that under the trade agreement which they themselves made the aim of the Government appears to be to consolidate rather than to alter that position. It is clear, therefore, on the face of it that we have a vital interest and all the facts suggest that we should support the measures which have been taken and are being taken by the British authorities to resist any proposal emerging elsewhere, which, in their view, would have the effect of further depleting these reserves or affecting adversely the efforts of the British Government to preserve them.
I make that statement on the basis of information that is available to me. It may be that there is information available to the Government which members of the Dáil or public have not got, and one of the purposes of these observations of mine is to endeavour to extract that information from the Government if it exists and if they are willing to supply it. I know that in this matter there are other considerations and I am referring now particularly to political considerations. But while I may deal with that matter further, I want to say here and now that, if the line of policy taken by the Minister for External Affairs at the Paris Conference is based on other considerations and particularly based on political considerations——
May I ask the Deputy to state the line of policy he is referring to?
——it should only be after the fullest possible consideration of all the consequences and the fullest public discussion of the issues here. In so far as the public are aware from the considered statements made last year by the Taoiseach and other Ministers, the line of policy followed by them up to the present has been in accordance with the facts. The Minister has asked me to refer to statements made by him which seem to indicate that he has been following a somewhat different line. I propose to do so. Let me say this, that in connection with that Paris Conference I think it is true to say that the Minister issued a Press interview every day. In fact, he did not even stop after his return.
No.
Well, almost every day.
From recollection, I do not think I gave any Press interviews at all in Paris last time.
A number of statements were published in the Press which purported to be interviews with the Minister and were not repudiated by him.
And some were completely inaccurate. They misrepresented me.
That is what I am trying to find out now, to what extent they are accurate. I mention that fact to emphasise that we are not complaining that the Minister failed to make known, through the Press, to the public here and to his colleagues in the Government, the line he was proposing to follow and did, in fact, follow at the conference. Therefore, it is on the face of it reasonable to assume that in following that line he was acting in accordance with the general view of the Government as a whole.
On June 29th, which I think was the day the Minister arrived in Paris for the purpose of attending the conference, there was an interview with him published in the Press.
What paper?
I am quoting this interview from the Irish Press—it was, I think, a news agency circulation—in which he indicated that Ireland would support the United States in urging the development of multilateral trade in Europe instead of the strictly bilateral agreements supported by Britain. “Ireland,” he said, “believes in multilateral trade and we believe trade restrictions should be relaxed.” That was June 29th. There was another interview on June 30th which is not quite relevant to this matter and then on July 2nd in another interview——
Are these given as interviews?
Yes, given as interviews. The first report which I read was published as an interview with the Minister in the Irish Press on June 29th. The second interview was a Reuter report of an interview published in the Irish Independent. The third was also published in the Irish Independent. There was, I think, a special representative of the Irish Independent with the Minister in Paris.
No.
Well, the Irish Independent said they had a special representative with the Minister in Paris. On July 2nd, as I said, the Minister was reported as follows:—
"An ambitious investment programme in which the American Government and private American capital would participate is the only way of bridging the dollar gap, in the Irish view.
The British idea that the gap must be closed by expanding exports to the United States and at the same time reducing imports is unrealistic the Irish say."
On July 4th, the Minister is reported as having said the following: He attacked what he termed:—
"the outworn and unrealistic policy adopted by some of the member countries towards the Marshall Plan."
In particular, he instanced the British policy that consisted in recommending to the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation the limiting of certain purchases from the United States and the expansion of exports to the dollar zones.
These interviews and others which I will quote suggest that at that Paris Conference the Minister followed a line which the British believed to be detrimental to the interests of the sterling area as a whole and likely, if successful, to make it impossible to protect the gold and dollar reserves of the sterling area. I am not asking the Dáil to consider now—it would not be in order—whether that was a sound line or a wrong line. What I want from the Minister or from some member of the Government is an assurance that the Government considered the matter in advance. I want an assurance that, having considered the matter in advance, the Government authorised the Minister for External Affairs to take that line and that they are satisfied that, as a result of their considerations, that line is in our national interest. If they did consider it, if they are satisfied it is in the national interest, if they authorised the Minister to follow it at Paris, then I think that all the facts and all the considerations which led them to that conclusion should be made known to the Dáil and to the Irish public.
In the course of the interviews issued in connection with that conference, the Minister criticised the representatives of other countries attending the conference on the ground that they were unduly concerned with their own local problems. I think it is reasonable that this Dáil, now that the Minister is standing before it to account for his administration during the year, should ask him in what capacity he thinks he went there. If he regards it as a criticism of the representatives of the countries to say that they were unduly concerned with their own local problems, for what purpose does he consider that the Irish people should send him as their representative and to defray all the expenses in connection with his visit? The general conclusion which one must draw from the Minister's statement is that he did not regard himself as primarily concerned to protect our own local interests. In a statement issued by the Department of External Affairs last week, after the Minister's return to Dublin, he complained about "the tendency displayed at the Paris Conference to rebuild selfish nationalistic economic systems instead of establishing effective international economic co-operation". That particular phrase struck my eye because it reminded me of similar phrases used in the early days of the Fianna Fáil Government when we were embarking on our own industrial development programme by the representatives of highly developed industrial States who were then very anxious to prevent backward nations like ourselves developing our industry through the method of restrictions on imports.
In the early days of Fianna Fáil there was a world-wide slump and every country was trying to maintain whatever residue of industrial activity was left to it by pumping out exports very freely and even subsidising exports to get them out. Naturally, that practice made it much more difficult for new industries to get established here. We tried to remedy that position by imposing trade restrictions of one kind or another and were, with other States pursuing the same policy, not infrequently denounced at international conferences by the representatives of great States who accused us of pursuing selfish nationalistic economic policies instead of collaborating in international economic co-operation. I was quite perturbed to see a similar phrase used by the present Minister for External Affairs because it seems to indicate that he has been caught out and absorbed in the atmosphere of these international conferences and, in that atmosphere, he is beginning to lose sight of the particular interest of the country which he was sent there to represent.
Now all this comes down in a most specific way to the policy of the Government when one considers the speech made by the Taoiseach at the meeting in O'Connell Street which was addressed by representatives of all Parties following the introduction of the Ireland Bill in the British House of Commons. At that meeting, the Taoiseach indicated that in his view it should be the national policy to hit the British in their pocket. It would be a quite understandable line for the Minister for External Affairs to oppose British proposals designed to protect British interests and, incidentally perhaps to protect our own, but primarily to protect British interests at the Paris Conference, if the reason for his opposition were a desire to hit Britain in her pocket irrespective of the consequences to ourselves. That would be understandable but what I do not and cannot understand, what nobody can understand, is why the Minister followed that line, recognising that in following it it might involve hardships for our people, without explaining to the people why he is doing that.
If the reason the Minister took that questionable line at the Paris Conference was for the purpose of hitting Britain, in whatever manner he could, irrespective of any other consideration, we are prepared to discuss that policy but it seems to me a futile policy unless it is widely publicised and particularly publicised at home so that our people may understand the reason why it is followed. What I want to know is whether the reasons he adopted that particular line of policy are to be found in the speech delivered by the Taoiseach at the meeting to which I referred. I do not myself think that action upon that policy will be effective against Partition if it hits us more than it hits the British. If it has the effect of lowering our level of employment or our standard of living more than it can effect the level of employment or the standard of living in Britain, if the effect of any policy adopted here is to produce unemployment, emigration and generally to disimprove economic conditions, we may well be taking a course which would weaken rather than strengthen the campaign against Partition.
The facts of the matter are that we have in this country a very substantial stake in the value of sterling, first of all, because of our sterling assets which are important for the financing of our current trade as well as holding out a prospect of enabling us to build our capital resources and to engage in future economic development. We have a substantial stake in the value of sterling because of our interests in the level of property in Britain itself, which level very largely determines the size of the market which is available for expanding Irish agricultural production. We have also a stake in the value of sterling because, as Deputies know, its acceptability in international trade is the sole assurance that we have, when Marshall Aid is ended, that we shall be able to effect the purchase of commodities which we require and which are not available to us except from outside the sterling area.
As I say, we may not like the fact; we may wish to change the fact; we may feel that Government policy should be directed towards escaping from that position, but it would be the height of folly to ignore the fact or to follow a course of action which would be intelligible only upon the basis of ignoring the facts. If the Government is ignoring them, then we want a reconsideration of its policy. If they have fully considered it and are fully conscious of the effects of it, and still approve of the line taken by the Minister at Paris, a line which, in the view of the British authorities, would have a serious effect upon the future of sterling and upon the level of the assets of the sterling area, then we want to know why. I am not asking the Dáil to consider that policy now; it would be, probably, inappropriate to consider it on the Vote of the Minister for External Affairs, but we are entitled to ask the Minister why he followed that line and if, in following it, he had the concurrence of his colleagues in the Government, particularly the concurrence of the Taoiseach and other Ministers who spoke in a different strain during the past 12 months.
There is perhaps a supicion in some quarters that the Minister for External Affairs acts in these matters independently of his colleagues or even in conflict with them, and if other Ministers are remaining silent on the matter— and, as I have said, the Minister's Press interviews make it impossible for them to say that they did not know the line he was following in Paris— then it must be because Party considerations appear to make it more important to remain silent despite their disagreement than to express that disagreement in public or to check the line taken by the Minister. If any consideration other than Party considerations justifies the silence of the Taoiseach and other Ministers, assuming they disagree with that line—and we must assume that they disagree because of their previous declarations —we want them to state that publicly.
By far the biggest of the economic problems which this Dáil and the country will have to face in the next couple of years was described by the Taoiseach in a recent public speech. This is a quotation from the speech:—
"World economic dislocations which are creating serious problems from the effect of which, if they develop, this country cannot hope to escape."
There is, in our view, no evidence that the Government is attempting realistically to appraise these problems, much less is contemplating taking effective action to protect this State against them should they develop. At best the attitude of the Minister for External Affairs at the Paris Conference suggested that our immediate local and national interests are being sacrificed to some vague international concept which has not been elucidated, or at worst that our national interests have been ignored, either because the Minister has not fully grasped them or has been play-acting or has a dislike, arising out of bias, from appearing to take the British side on any issue at any international conference. I think this is a serious matter to which the House should give its attention and I suggest that it should not be dismissed by the Government with a few wisecracks or quips, that there should be a serious and considered statement of Government policy and an assurance from the Minister, if he makes a statement that he speaks with the authority of his colleagues in the Government.
After listening to Deputy Lemass it is possibly necessary to remind the House that the letters O.E.E.C. stand for Organisation of European Economic Co-operation. I think if Deputy Lemass dwells on the title of the organisation he might possibly find some clue as to what is the work that that organisation is endeavouring to do and if he ponders a little bit more fully on it I think he will find that the attitude which he has ascribed to the Minister for External Affairs certainly calls for no apology from him. In adopting an attitude suggesting general international co-operation on economic lines he was merely doing the work for which the conference was set up and properly representing the people who sent him to that conference.
I think that for many reasons it is a pity that Deputy Lemass did not deal more fully with a certain document which was submitted as Ireland's long-term programme regarding European recovery. I would like to remind the House that on 6th March last Deputy Lemass went down to Fermoy and made a speech there and that in the course of that speech he stated publicly that the document submitted by the Minister for External Affairs to that organisation as Ireland's long-term programme was dishonest and was calculated to mislead. I raised that question by means of Parliamentary Question in this House immediately afterwards and some discussion, not all of which was tame, ensued. Deputy Lemass gave an undertaking on that occasion that he would see to it that he would raise this matter on the Minister's Estimate and that he would prove that he was right and the Minister was wrong. In Volume 114, column 1163, Deputy Lemass put himself on record as saying:
"There was not a statement in that speech which was false or untrue or inaccurate and I shall raise the matter on the Minister's Estimate and prove that."
I have already raised it. I do not want the Deputy to think that I did not raise it to-day because I have any reluetance to do so. I have already dealt with it on the Finance Bill.
The Deputy's undertaking was to raise it on the Minister's Estimate.
I did not think that was going to be postponed until the end of July.
Later on in the course of the same day to which I am referring, that is 10th March last, a Supplementary Estimate in respect of this particular organisation was before the House and Deputy Lemass put on a very good performance then and he fenced with the Chair with regard to his rights to raise this matter of the speech at Fermoy on the Supplementary Estimate, knowing, of course, that he was going to be ruled out on that and that he would not get an opportunity of raising it and he decided, to use his own expression, that he would have to bow to the Chair's ruling but he did it with very great regret and again he uttered the threat that he would be able to deal with this on the main Estimate when the Minister came into the House with the Estimate for External Affairs. He did not do it.
I did.
He did not do it on the Estimate.
Oh, no. I have done it. It has been fully debated.
And he never did it because he would then have been in the position, not of addressing a Fianna Fáil meeting in Fermoy, but addressing the Minister who knows something about this matter. I am introducing this question of Deputy Lemass's speech at Fermoy very deliberately because I want it dealt with by the Minister on this Estimate and I want the Minister to get an opportunity of dealing with it in a way which the Deputies opposite might possibly remember in future. I believe that the speech made by Deputy Lemass at Fermoy was a particularly vicious effort to undo some of the work the Minister is trying to do. I believe it was done in order to give the hint to the American authorities that as long as this Government was in office, as long as Fianna Fáil were out of office, Fianna Fáil did not want to see any Marshall Aid coming to this country.
When the Minister replied to the question I raised here on 10th March, which was the first opportunity I got of raising it after the Deputy's speech. I think the House will recollect the very deliberate effort made by Deputies opposite to prevent the Minister from speaking. I think they will remember particularly the scandalous and audacious conduct of Deputy Lemass when he turned to the Ceann Comhairle and told the Ceann Comhairle, when he rang the bell for order, "You need not ring that bell. We are not going to listen," and I think they will remember similar remarks made by Deputy Boland on the same occasion.
I am raising the matter now so that the Minister may get an opportunity of dealing with it and of dealing with it at whatever length he likes. The gist of the complaint made by Deputies opposite at that time was that the Minister's reply was too long and I think I am correct in saying that the Ceann Comhairle ruled that long replies were not in order. Nevertheless, quite apart from that, there was a deliberate attempt made, particularly by Deputy Lemass, supported by Deputy Boland and the lesser lights of Fianna Fáil, to prevent the Minister from speaking, to refuse to listen when the Chair endeavoured to preserve order. However, I hope sincerely that the Minister will take this opportunity of dealing with that speech and also with some other speeches made by Deputy Lemass in the course of the year.
The Department for which the Minister is responsible is in many respects now a very difficult one and it covers a very wide field of operations. By reason of the trend of world affairs, and the particular stage which the world had reached when the Minister took office, this Department was rendered all the more difficult. It is a Department which, in my opinion, deserves not only sympathy but active assistance from all political Parties in this State. I believe that the Department of External Affairs, by reason of the work which it does and which it must do in the name of the people of this country, should have that active assistance from all Parties.
They always got it in the past, from your side!
Whatever may have happened in the past, I intend allowing my mind to travel back over a 12 month period. I think if Deputy Allen will stop hopping about like a flea he may be a little bit interested in what I have to say.
If there is a flea on you, take it off.
Whatever may be said of State Departments which deal mainly or wholly with matters of domestic day to day policy inside the State, a State Department which deals with other countries, which is charged with the responsibility of representing Ireland's attitude abroad and guiding Ireland's relations with foreign States is a Department which should get active support or at least the charity of silence from all Parties in this House on those matters which very often are of vital consequences not only to the present generation but to future generations. I am sorry that Deputy Lemass in the course of the year did not render that assistance to the Department and did not even render the assistance of keeping silent. I referred to one speech made by the Deputy and I shall come back to it later.
I also want to remind the House of the speech made by the same Deputy in September, 1948, in Bray, at a time when Ministers of this Government were about to become engaged in discussions with Great Britain covering, in the main, trade relations, but, for all Deputy Lemass knew, possibly covering also other questions referring to the future status of this country. That was the time chosen by Deputy Lemass to go to Bray and make a speech there which was reported in the Irish Press on Monday, September 20th, 1948. In that speech Deputy Lemass did not give any assistance to the Government. He did not endeavour to uphold the authority of the Government or the team of Ministers who were going to negotiate for this country abroad. Instead of that, he went down to Bray in order to warn the people of Great Britain that this Government had no authority to speak for the people of this country and that the less they had to do with them the better, as Fianna Fáil was the only Party in the State which was entitled to speak for the people. Will Deputy Lemass accept that as a fair summary of his speech?
I do not accept it as a fair summary. Quote the speech.
This is the quotation:
"There were matters on which understanding with Britain was desirable and even necessary. If it was to be achieved it would have to be attempted by a Government which represented the Irish people and had a clear mandate from them for its policy. The present Government represented nobody."
Will Deputy Lemass accept that?
Read on.
I am reading from "Truth in the News". Prior to that particular passage, Deputy Lemass had conditioned his audience by this particularly enlightening phrase:
"The manoeuvres of Coalition leaders in regard to matters of external affairs, and particularly relations with the British Commonwealth, were not, as some might have thought, a device to distract public attention from their inability to fulfil election promises or the cost of living and unemployment."
Will you finish the quotation you started to read?
I have finished precisely what I want to read. I will give you plenty of it later. I intend giving also—I forewarn you of it— the utterances at Bantry of the keeper of the Russian jewels.
We know where the jeweller lives.
That was the method in which Deputy Lemass chose to deal with the question of external affairs in Bray on September 19th, 1948, at a time when Ministers of this State were going abroad to negotiate on behalf of the people of this country with the British Government. Deputy Lemass did not do it by accident, in my opinion at any rate. I will say this for him, that he did go down the country again within a week of that and he retracted to a very large extent what he said in Bray.
I did not—not a word.
He spent a considerable time in Tullamore endeavouring to convince his audience there that he did not really say in Bray what the Irish Press had reported him as saying. He said that, after all, whether he liked it or not or whether Fianna Fáil liked it or not, this Government was the Government elected by the people.
I certainly never said it in Tullamore or anywhere else and I do not say it now. You represent nothing except a post-election interval.
He said that this Government, whatever he thought about it, whatever his feelings were about it, was entitled to speak for the people and, I think the phrase he used was, "however they got there".
I did not say that. I repudiate it.
I have not got that particular quotation and I must accept the Deputy's word. Let me warn the Deputy—and I think I will be able to wipe the brassy smile off his face before I have finished—that I will see that quotation is in the House before this debate concludes, if I can put my hand on it.
You will not be able to get it, because it does not exist.
I remember reading it very well.
I certainly never said that this Government has a right to speak for the people. It is a complete repudiation of everything I stand for.
One of the main items which I think we are entitled to discuss on this Vote is the legislation passed in this House and in other Parliaments during the course of the year and the effects of those Acts. As the Minister mentioned when introducing his Estimate, one of the important things that occurred in the field of external relations this year was the repeal of the External Relations Act. In view of some of the speeches Deputies opposite made during the by-election campaign in West Cork, it might possibly be necessary to remind their supporters that the repeal of the External Relations Act had the support of Fianna Fáil; that, irrespective of the speeches made by Deputy MacEntee in this House during the discussion on the repeal, in fact Fianna Fáil did not oppose the repeal of the External Relations Act in this House; and that Deputy Lemass, prior to introduction of the repeal, went on record in a speech in Rathfarnham as stating that he regretted that Fianna Fáil were not in office to repeal the Act themselves and left no doubt at all in the minds of his readers that Fianna Fáil were in fact supporting the repeal of the External Relations Act.
Legislation should not be discussed except from the point of view of administration. I do not think this is the time to answer speeches made at an election in regard to legislation which is now enacted.
It is, of course, no secret that there are certain views regarding the action of the Government in repealing that Act. There were different viewpoints expressed both inside and outside this House and the matter was referred to at some length by the Minister in introducing the Estimate.
Not controversially—the effect of it.
It was referred to in a semi-controversial manner by the Leader of the Opposition last night, in so far as the Leader of the Opposition appeared to be somewhat regretful of remarks which have been made by some of his own followers. It occurred to me when listening to Deputy de Valera last night that it was a great pity the public repudiation of Deputy Boland's speech which was made by Deputy de Valera last night was not made when Deputy de Valera was speaking in Dunmanway during the West Cork election. However, as I say there was no doubt to my mind——
No.
Perhaps the Deputy would let me finish.
Quote what Deputy de Valera said.
There was no doubt, to my mind, that Fianna Fáil supported the repeal of the External Relations Act.
Tell us what Deputy de Valera said.
"It might be a good thing or it might be a bad thing."
A by-election occurred in West Cork. Deputy Boland went down to open the Fianna Fáil campaign there. Deputy Boland is not a novice at this game. I might be. He is a man who was for a great number of years a Minister in a responsible position. He is a man who has always been used as the spearhead of the Fianna Fáil organisation when crucial elections have cropped up. He was a man who, rightly or wrongly, had a position of authority and responsibility in the last Government. Because of that position of responsibility and authority, he is a man whose views are listened to at times. Deputy Boland went down to Bantry to hoist the Fianna Fáil flag in the West Cork election.
Are we going to have the speeches that were made in the West Cork election all over again?
You will have two, anyhow.
I hope not.
And have the King in the Park, too.
If the Deputy gives us two, it is not going to stop at that.
The West Cork election is not in order on this Estimate.
I asked Deputies to forget that there was an election in West Cork but, for some reason or another, Deputy Boland went down to West Cork and said: "The deterioration in our relations with Great Britain was due either to short-sighted, incompetent leadership or to deliberate mischief-making."
There is nothing wrong about that.
That is true.
It is true to form.
Deputy Boland, when making that remark, was referring to the repeal of the External Relations Act.
No.
There is no doubt at all that his reason for referring to the repeal of the External Relations Act was that he wanted to make a pawn and a plaything out of the minority vote in West Cork. That is the reason why, instead of repudiating the speech of Deputy Boland when he later went down to speak there, Deputy de Valera could not make up his mind, and said to the people of West Cork: "I cannot say whether it is a good thing or whether it is a bad thing."
What do you think of it?
Deputy O'Higgins ought to leave West Cork and come to the Estimate.
Very well we will leave West Cork and come back to the Estimate.
I am going to reply to all this.
Was it a good thing or a bad thing?
I will let the Minister know who is making the mischief, I hope, before I have finished.
Last night Deputy de Valera opened the discussion for the Opposition on this Estimate. He adopted what I thought was a very reasonable attitude throughout. It is a pity that he was not here to-day to conclude rather than allow Deputy Lemass to nip in. In the course of his statement last night, Deputy de Valera did say that the Minister was not to blame for the deterioration in our relations with Great Britain. He did not quite put it like that. I think his exact words were: "The Minister is not at fault although he regretted that relations with Britain had not improved but the reverse in the last year or so."
What I think the Leader of the Opposition said was: "I am not saying whether it is his fault or not."
Deputy de Valera was quoting the Minister who last year boasted about the fact that he had improved our relations with Great Britain.
Do not be talking nonsense.
I know it was nonsense, but read it.
We can clear it up through Deputy Lemass's mouth, because Deputy Lemass was not content with making speeches at Bray, Rathfarnham and Fermoy, but he also visited the unfortunate people of Rathluire, and there he said: "It was ridiculous to suggest that the revival of British interest in maintaining Partition was due solely to the repeal of the External Relations Act."
Read the rest of it.
The Deputy must be very fond of hearing himself. There is nothing of very great interest in the rest of it. I am prepared to accept the words of the Leader of the Opposition and of the deputy-leader of the Opposition that, whatever may be said about the question of our relations with Great Britain having improved or deteriorated, the Minister is not at fault, and that that is not due to the repeal of the External Relations Act.
He never said anything of the kind.
Deputy Briscoe will have some other point of view on this later. I want to assure him that I am just as interested in his view as I am in the views of Deputy Boland, Deputy de Valera or Deputy Lemass.
You will get them.
Or the views expressed by your father in the House during the emergency.
Deputies in this House should be referred to by their names.
Whenever Deputy Killilea contributes to discussions here I can see why it was necessary that a very eminent counsel in this State should go on record, briefed on behalf of a very eminent newspaper in this State as saying that most people view the proceedings in Dáil Éireann with a kind of cynical amusement. "This kind of thing is small when compared with the kind of abuse they have, say, in Dáil Éireann. Most people have come to regard Deputies in Dáil Éireann as drones in our particular hive and a very expensive luxury boxed within the four walls of that Assembly."
What has that to do with the Estimates?
I was merely dealing with Deputy Killilea.
It has nothing to do with the Estimate for the Department of External Affairs.
I was merely giving Deputy Lemass's opinion of Deputy Killilea, and I hope that Deputy Killilea has read that with as much interest as I did. I do think, quite seriously, that the conduct of proceedings in this House, and the esteem or otherwise in which Deputies are held by the ordinary people, may have a very great effect on our external relations as a method of measuring up what people think of another country: whether they are worth dealing with and whether they are serious, or otherwise, in propositions they put forward in the Parliament of the country in question. I think it is quite safe to say that what we think of ourselves here, what we think of our own conduct in this House, may have a very great bearing on what others think of us. There is no doubt that one of the responsibilities the Minister for External Affairs is charged with is to see that others think of us in the light in which we want to have ourselves shown. It is rather disgusting when you have the Leader of the Opposition and the deputy-leader of the Opposition paying a legal mouthpiece to say that kind of nonsense about Deputies in this House.
Is it in order for a Deputy to say that the Leader of the Opposition and the deputy-leader paid counsel to make statements in court when it is not a fact at all?
If Deputy Lemass wants to repudiate that he has the right to do it.
The whole thing is irrelevant.
Do you repudiate the views held by your people?
I should like to make it clear that any statements made by counsel on behalf of the Irish Press do not necessarily represent my views. If it is going to be argued that they do, then I suppose we can quote the statement made by counsel appearing on behalf of the present Minister for Finance in a recent case relating to Article X of the Treaty.
Are you repudiating counsel's statement?
Certainly.
You briefed counsel to say it.
That is not true.
I am prepared to leave it at that as Deputy Lemass wants to repudiate it.
In the views he was expressing he was speaking on his own behalf and on behalf of nobody else.
I think the Minister deserves to be congratulated for the energy and drive which he has put into the Department of External Affairs since his election and appointment to that office. No matter how bitterly opposed politically individuals may be to the Minister, to this Government or to the Party which the Minister represents, I think it will be agreed that he has put the necessary drive and force into his Department to ensure that the views of this country and the grievances of this nation are heard outside the confines of this island. I think that the Minister is worthy of the congratulation and commendation of the House for the work he has been doing. I am sorry that Deputy Lemass did not feel himself able to say that from the Opposition Benches, because I have heard expressions of opinion, similar to those which I have expressed, by very many supporters of Fianna Fáil. They have not all put it in the same way. Some of them were very surprised that the Minister had made such a good job of his Department; a number of them said they never thought he could do it; but there is no doubt, at any rate, that he has done it and I believe we should be generous enough to say that to him and, in particular, that Deputies opposite should be generous enough to say it.
The work which the Minister has done has been difficult work. It was work that was complicated for various reasons. Some of the circumstances were such that he could not control, and that the Minister before him could not control, but, taken by and large, the work of the Department of External Affairs last year was difficult and it was well done. I think it is true to say that never since the early days of this State has such intensive work been done in this Department as was done by the Minister last year.
I think, in respect of the Department—I wanted to say this earlier, but I was interrupted—it is work which should not be hampered by Party political considerations. It is work that requires the assistance of all Parties in the House and all Parties outside the House. It would be very dangerous if Deputies opposite were to continue to travel on the lines which Deputy Boland wanted to lay down for them in Bantry and Deputy Vivion de Valera wanted to lay down for them in Dublin. I think the whole explanation of that outrageous utterance by Deputy Boland was the particular political circumstance in which it was made and I believe the Deputy probably now regrets——
Not one bit.
——having made that statement and that he is just too obstinate to say so.
Not at all.
However whether I am being too charitable to the Deputy or not, I appeal to him that if he feels the urge to make this type of speech again he will control himself and that he will first ask the advice of someone who is able to keep him in his place.
I want no advice from any one of your family in national matters.
I think when the Deputy who has just spoken spends a little more time in the House and gets more accustomed to political warfare, he will not feel so disposed to take upon himself the task of acting as political mentor to Deputies who have served a very much longer apprenticeship than he has done at this particular type of strife.
We are providing in the Estimate a sum for the Irish news agency which the Minister spoke of yesterday. In my view, the Minister made no case to the House to justify this expenditure. No explanation was given as to whether consultations had been held with representatives of the Press, or whether the object which the Minister has in mind could be accomplished by a body which would not be subject to State or Departmental control. I do not think an effective answer was made to the suggestions put forward from this side of the House that, with agencies like the Government Information Bureau and the Irish missions abroad at the Department's disposal, as well as the Press generally in the ordinary way in which the Press is utilised by the existing agencies, the paraphernalia of this costly new organisation seems to be entirely unjustified.
In the long run what we have to offer the world as a small nation is more in the spiritual and cultural sphere. We cannot hope to compete with large industrial nations in the matter of news or in the struggle to secure publicity for ourselves any more than we can in the normal industrial or economic sphere. I think that if money is to be spent in trying to secure for our nation a certain position in the world, it might be spent—more usefully spent—in some such directions as the Minister himself had indicated in connection with his committee for cultural affairs. Although we may not all agree with the particular line upon which money is being spent even in that connection, nevertheless I think it is by paying attention to such matters as our spiritual heritage and the particular gospel and tradition for which we stand in the world and the circulation of that outside wherever we have influence, that we shall achieve the best results. In the long run these are, perhaps, more potent in dealing with fellow-human beings than is this mass publicity or this attempt to enter into competition with highly technical organisations already carrying out work of a very complex character.
I think it is quite evident to anybody who gives the least attention to this matter that on readers, even in those countries which do not claim the same standard of education as we claim to have reached in Western Europe or to have the same standards and values that we have, news of this particular character will not have much effect, I think news that is anonymous in its character and is issued from a Government agency, however it may be described, cannot have the same effect or the same influence and cannot achieve its purpose in the same way as does the signed article containing the opinion of the responsible journalist giving his views for what they may be worth. We may agree with him or we may disagree with him. It is quite clear that in the United States of America, for example, it is the publicity of the expert journalist and the man of affairs which is so important in the moulding of public opinion. These expert journalists are almost as well informed in the diplomatic world as are the representatives of the different States. I was reading recently that, while the British Foreign Office in the early years of the present century was unaware of the policy that Germany was pursuing in foreign affairs, it was the representative of the English Times who conveyed to the British Government what exactly Germany's aims were and what she was seeking to achieve. It has been through responsible newspaper men from the time of de Blowitz down to our own time that quite valuable work has been accomplished in the international sphere.
If the Minister were making some arrangements to employ journalists or experts in public affairs for campaigns of publicity, lecture work or propaganda dealing with different aspects of our policy in order to make it more widely known and appreciated elsewhere, I think it would be preferable to this system of adding yet another organisation to the numerous organisations we already have and about which the Minister himself was so vocal only a short time ago. Personally, I am strongly opposed to the idea of a Government company having to do with what may be described as the "control and dissemination of news". I think the Opposition are bound to try to safeguard the position in order to ensure that Government interference in matters connected with the dissemination and propagation of news will be kept to a minimum. Unless there is definite agreement on both sides of the House that such a step is necessary, I think the correct attitude for the Minister would be to withdraw the present proposals until he has examined them further and has secured more general support than he would seem to have at present. The whole problem bristles with difficulties. The Minister, for example, says that this news agency will not be the mouthpiece of the Government. What will it be? The Minister must take responsibility.
I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy. I know that the Supplementary Estimate includes a Vote for the news agency. But there is a Bill going through the House at the present time dealing with the news agency. It has not yet passed through the House. Without wishing to unduly curtail references to the news agency, might I suggest that possibly a detailed discussion on the news agency would be better reserved for the Bill itself? Otherwise, we shall have two debates.
I see the Minister's point. It is quite reasonable but there is money in the Estimate for the news agency.
I appreciate that the Deputy is entitled to discuss it if he wishes.
I take it to be the duty of the Opposition to safeguard the rights of the people in relation to the free circulation of news without any purported Government tutelage or supervision of any kind. But we are also interested in the question of expenditure. I think we could, if we wished, make a case for a second debate. I am merely making a few preliminary comments now since I did not wish to hold the Minister up yesterday on the Second Reading of the Bill.
I was about to deal with the point that the Minister will either be responsible for the statements issued by this agency or he will not be responsible. If he is not responsible and if he wishes to divest himself of all semblance of responsibility, then the agency will be entirely independent. It should not, therefore, be set up directly by the Government. It should not be controlled by the Government. Assuming that some such organisation is necessary, there may be some liaison between it and the Government.
Reference has been made to the amount of the expenditure upon this Vote. Like other speakers on this side of the House, I appreciate that this small nation is very much dependent upon showing to the world that we have something to offer of a special character in the spiritual sphere. In so far as our political connections with other countries are concerned through the Department of External Affairs, my knowledge of the Department is that excellent work has been done there. The officials are a highly expert body and a hard-working body. I think we should bear in mind, however, as Deputy de Valera pointed out, that expenditure on this service could go on until it reached an extent where we might be compelled to ask ourselves: "Is there any limit"? Obviously in the new situation in which we find ourselves now, there is no reason why we could not start missions in a great many new countries, with consequent additions to staffs. It is quite clear that the operation of the European co-operation plan has cast an immense burden upon the Department of External Affairs and I think everybody must be grateful to that Department for the splendid work that has been done. As the Minister has said, we have got a picture which we might not otherwise have got. We have got some information as to how we stand in regard to our economic connection with other countries and as to how other countries impinge on us and what the reactions of international changes are likely to be here.
I would like to emphasise again that in 1945/46 this Vote only passed the £100,000 figure.
In 1947-49 it increased to £154,000; in 1948-49 to £188,000 and this year, between the Supplementary Estimate and the additions in the ordinary Estimate which have been presented to us, there is an increase of over £74,000 over last year, or £261,000 in all. It is no doubt legitimate for the Minister to argue that we are getting value for this money, that it is necessary and he has given us examples from China to Peru of where the Department is called in to exercise certain functions and to look after the interests of our people abroad.
In his statement he referred to the necessity for making political headway abroad and told us flatly that no apology was necessary for the additional expenditure. I should have thought that even with the short experience the Minister has, he would realise that, since this is likely to be a very big spending Department, reasons must be given and some account must be given of the value of the work that has been achieved and the results that have been secured. If that could have been done in the form of an annual report, all the better. But I do not think it is sufficient that the Minister should tell us that he has no apology to offer. I think the Dáil, which has control of expenditure, is entitled to have reasons given for the additions. What has to be borne in mind in this connection is that——
May I ask the Deputy a qestion. I thought I had made a fuller statement of the work of the Department than had ever been made before to the House, but if there is any additional information the Deputy wants I am only too willing to supply it now or later. I thought I had made a statement which covered every sphere of the activity of the Department. I quite agree with the Deputy it might be a good plan to provide for an annual report to be made to the House but, unfortunately, that practice has not been pursued hitherto and I do not know whether we will be entitled to do it. I think it would be a useful thing to make an annual report from the Department to the House. I certainly thought that in the Estimate I covered, more fully than ever before, every sphere of activity of the Department.
The Minister did give us an ample statement and furnished the House with a good deal of information, information which I, like other Deputies, was very glad to have; but the assurance to which Deputy de Valera referred in his address, the assurance of the Minister's own satisfaction that the particular projects which he has in mind are worth the cost and an indication from him as to the result which he expects to achieve or has secured would, I think, have been a valuable addition. However, as far as the statement went, it was quite all right. It did not, in my opinion, deal sufficiently with matters of general interest such as that to which, by the way, Deputy Lemass referred.
The Minister is representing us at international conferences and an international conference is now to be called —apparently he has had something to do with the suggestion that there should be such a conference—and the House has no information, so far —perhaps on the Vote for European Economic Co-operation it will get that information—as to what is the line of policy which the Minister proposes to put forward then. If it is merely that he is acting as the honest broker in trying to bring conflicting opinions and interests together and to evolve a settlement between them, that is one thing. If, on the other hand, there is any question of our seeming to take sides publicly in issues that are of the greatest and most serious importance to our neighbours, that must be a matter, I think, for serious consideration by the House. I do not want to delay the House on this matter at the moment but it may be no harm to support Deputy Lemass's remarks to the extent of quoting an extract from the Irish Independent, page 5, of June 30th:—
"STERLING POSITION NOT DISCUSSED.
(Irish Independent Special Correspondent.)
According to a Reuter message from Paris, Mr. Seán MacBride, in an interview, said: ‘The fact that America is facing a depression calls for a very prudent policy on our part. We must not be killing the goose that lays the golden egg.'"
I do not quite follow that. I must say.
"Of the problems facing the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation on the eve of its second year, he declared: ‘The difficulties arising over the intra-European payments scheme for the coming 12 months are highly symbolic of a much larger problem. The real problem is to find outlets for Europe's increased production. Another vital problem is to co-ordinate European and American trade.
The difficulties with which we are faced to-day should have been foreseen a year ago, not kept to the last minute.'"
Whose difficulties? According to the Irish Independent of July 4th:
"USE FOR AMERICAN SURPLUS.
Mr. MacBride attacked what he termed the ‘outworn and unrealist policy' adopted by some of the member countries towards the Marshall Plan, in the course of an interview which he gave to the Paris Le Monde.
In particular, he instanced the British policy that consisted in recommending before the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation the limiting of certain purchases from the United States and the expansion of exports towards the dollar zones. ‘America,' he said, ‘has a surplus of merchandise on hand that rises daily. This is a great fact we must face up to if we wish to avoid the depression that threatens us. We must make use of this surplus or else perish by it.'"
That may be one side of the question, whereas Deputy Lemass pointed out there is another very important and very grave side of the question also and that is the position of sterling. It is quite true that the British Government has accepted, as on a previous occasion, the general principle of multi-lateral trade but they have not stated that the principles which they adhere to can be put into operation. There is always the question between what is undesirable, what is desirable and what is practical in existing circumstances. Whether we agree with the British Chancellor or not I think we must all admire the gallant effort and the splendid fight he is making to save the position. Apart from our personal feelings, as Deputy Lemass said, we have a keen interest in this matter. The Minister's past references to the question of currency and the link with sterling are not sufficiently reassuring that even now he is going to approach these questions in a realistic and responsible manner. Having in mind that it is the interests of the community he represents in this country, that should be the first claim upon him rather than the adherence to some general principles which, however excellent they might be, may only be theoretic. Whether we like it or not, out interests are bound to a very great extent economically with those of our neighbour. That is a position that has arisen for historical reasons. I think we must be very careful not to give rise to any suspicion—I hope it is not the position and I am sure it is only necessary to mention it to have the Minister disclaim the idea—that we have any feelings or any antagonisms in this matter apart from the interests of our own people.
The Minister referred to certain trade agreements which we made during this year. He referred to the fact that there was an expansion in industrial and agricultural exports. I think he stated that the value of our exports had gone up to certain countries, which he enumerated, to the extent of £1,000,000, which was good news. On the other hand, when he says that the expansion is on a mutually satisfactory basis, I think it is necessary to look at the other side of the balance sheet. In this troubled era, when the balance of payments is of such tremendous importance, when, if countries do not pay special attention to this aspect of their affairs they might find themselves in Queer Street, we have to try to approach parity as far as possible in our trade relations. Allowing for the fact that we are at the present time securing imports from the United States on very favourable terms, it is not very satisfactory to find that as against £7,000,000 worth of goods which we imported from that country during the first five months of the present year, we exported only £112,000 worth. According to that, for every £1 worth of goods we export to the United States we buy from them £62 10s. Od. worth. In the case of Canada, I calculate that for every £1 worth we sell her, we buy £67 worth. In the case of Sweden, the position is not quite so lopsided, but nevertheless the position is that for every £1 worth we are selling to the Swedes we are buying £14 worth from them.
In the case of Belgium and the Netherlands the position is somewhat more satisfactory. I think that that is possibly due to a considerable extent to the fact that we happen to be one of the few food-producing countries and that at the present time and for some years to come, there will be an intense demand for food and for such things as cattle. I have no doubt that the exports of cattle and foodstuffs, which have gone from this country to Belgium and the Netherlands are largely responsible for the more satisfactory state of the figures in regard to these countries than to the other countries to which I have referred but in the case of Belgium we seem to be buying a great deal more from her than we are selling to her. In the case of the Netherlands, in spite of the considerable expansion in exports to which the Minister has referred, I make out the figures to show a very heavy balance in favour of the Netherlands. In the case of France, the balance is very much more favourable to the French. We imported £733,000 worth of goods and we sold only £85,000 to her.
When we consider that our adverse balance of trade runs into over £70,000,000, it is obviously a matter of the most pressing importance that we should try to bridge the gap in the case of these countries and other countries with which we have trade dealings. In the case of the British, although our purchases from them were over £6,000,000 worth, we sold them only £3.8 million worth, so that the pattern in respect of our trade with our nearest neighbour is that we are paying to the extent of two-thirds only of what we buy from her whereas we are very much below that ratio with the other countries I mentioned.
Last year, as has been stated, the Minister informed the House that he had to report an improvement in the mutual feelings between Great Britain and this country. If I say that I wonder whether we are getting value for the money that is being spent under the heading of External Affairs, it is not that I have to find fault with the many admirable activities of the Department, the good work of the officials or even the efforts of the Minister himself in a great many respects. It is in regard, not to issues ranging from China to Peru but issues bearing on the relationship between our immediate neighbours and ourselves, that I think external policy must be very largely judged and the value of the Minister's work during the year assessed. He told us last year that the feeling of traditional ill-will towards Britain and the British people, which certain persons believed to be a dominant factor in the relationship between the two countries, did not exist, that it was even the reverse of the truth. He went on to tell us that there was a great fund of potential good-will towards Britain.
Is that not quite true to-day also?
Let us see. "We want to be friendly," he said, "with our big neighbour.""Furthermore," he went on to say, "I believe that the British Government and people are approaching a realisation that a statesmanlike policy lies in the direction of securing the complete friendship and co-operation of this island, a realisation that a ‘united and free Ireland is as essential to Britain's welfare as it is to Irelands.'" These were the sentiments expressed by the Minister last year. There is a noticeable absence from the Minister's statement on this Vote of any reference worth speaking of to the potential fund of good-will or the statesmanlike policy which the Minister believes the British Government and people were approaching last year. I think that it is the duty of all of us not to do anything in connection with the issues arising between this country and Great Britain or this part of the country and the portion that is cut off temporarily from the rest of it, which would add fresh enmities to the situation. I think that it is our duty not to say or do anything that we can avoid which would make the situation worse. But I am afraid that the Minister has not been quite so meticulous in this matter in the past and I am afraid I cannot avoid referring to certain statements he made when he announced his policy to the Irish people in what might be described as a political testament in the form of a letter to the Irish Times. On that occasion he informed us that the British people were logicians.
What date is that?
January 27, 1948.
Would the Deputy read the whole letter so that we will get its context?
The whole letter is very long. I am proposing to read the portions that in my opinion throw light on the Minister's attitude to this problem of Partition and our relations with Great Britain immediately before he became Minister:—
"The present hybrid form of ‘dictionary republic' commends itself to no one. To our brothers and sisters in the North it appears but as a subterfuge; to the British people, who are logicians, it is an aggravating anomaly; it in no way satisfies the traditional aspiration of the republican section of our own people. It has the further drawback of preventing our Government from entering into close co-operation with Britain, lest they be accused of reinforcing the existing connection with Britain."
So what?
So what? Well, I often heard of cases, even in the famous Reno, Nevada, where people rushed so quickly to get a divorce and then to reunite themselves in even closer bonds within a short time afterwards, as the Minister apparently prognosticates in this letter he will do with the country with whom a short while ago they had severed the last link.
Fan go bhfeice tú.
It seems to me that you severed the last link with a mighty fanfare of trumpets and booming of guns only to come into closer relationship and, in fact, if necessary, to enter into treaty commitments and into a regular alliance with those with whom you considered it necessary to break the slender legal relationship which already existed between themselves and you.
Does the Deputy suggest that we should have remained in the Commonwealth?
Will you stop interrupting?
I am trying to make my speech and I intend to make it.
I think you should tell the Dáil whether you approve of the repeal of the External Relations Act or not.
He could not commit himself.
I am not being cross-examined at the moment by the Minister. The Minister at the present moment is standing his trial.
In the dock.
I am only suggesting that the Dáil would like to know.
I am taking this opportunity to remind the Dáil and the country of some of the things that have not been brought as much under their notice as I think they should have been.
You should get a clap on the back from the Irish Times for that.
As a matter of fact, at this time the Minister was the white-headed boy of the Irish Times and if anything made me feel sad it was the fact that the Irish Times was so badly let down because, when they had got the Minister to announce that in respect of the breaking of the link with sterling, he really did not mean it, they assumed that in regard to the other question of the repeal of the External Relations Act it was quite safe.
Surely, in fairness to me, the Deputy will quote what I did say to the Irish Times about sterling, now.
I am replying to an interruption. If I had not to reply to an interruption I could have pursued my speech.
You will still get a clap on the back from the Irish Times.
"It has the further drawback"
—that was the External Relations Act—
"of preventing our Government from entering into close co-operation with Britain, lest they be accused of reinforcing the existing connection with Britain."
Therefore one of the primary, perhaps, if not the primary purpose, of the repeal of that Act was to enable the Minister and the Government—the Taoiseach and the Minister for External Affairs in particular—to bring about closer relations with Britain.
"The world has moved rapidly in the last quarter of a century—and with it the British people. In this post-war world the cutting of the slender link now existing between the British Crown and ourselves would create no difficulty, I think, with Britain. On the contrary, the British people would understand and respect us more for doing so than for maintaining the present anomalous position. Having once cut the painter, we could then get down in earnest to the job of arranging the maximum co-operation possible on all matters of mutual interest. Because of the present position any close co-operation is always looked upon with suspicion. Having got this ‘out of our system,' we could then freely enter by treaty into much closer and more genuine co-operation on matters of mutual interest."
We severed the slender link in order that we can enter into closer and more genuine co-operation on matters of mutual interest.
"Cultural and economic bonds, coupled with mutual interests, would inevitably drive a free, united Ireland into a close alliance with Britain."
In these prognostications of the Minister, that we could enter freely into treaty arrangements with Britain once the External Relations Act was repealed and even go to the extent of having a close alliance with that country, there is no reference to the question of Partition, as the House will notice, as qualifying in any way the sentiments the Minister expressed about his desire to have freer treaty arrangements and close alliance with our neighbours. Why did the Minister omit the question of Partition when he looked forward to the position that once the External Relations Act was repealed the way then lay open, the road lay straight before him, to enter into proper and free treaty relationships and, if necessary, into this close alliance?
There is no reference to the question of a treaty with regard to Partition or with regard to a close alliance in the making of which our attitude and our demand in regard to the Six Counties should first be met. On the contrary, the Minister's attitude in regard to Partition at that time was very revealing indeed. I do not know whether he has forgotten it. Events seem to have moved very quickly indeed in regard to the Minister's point of view—
"We look upon Partition as being now largely an economic problem."
That was the attitude of the Minister speaking as leader of his Party:
"One of the realities we have to face is that, unless and until we establish economic conditions and social services here that will be at least as attractive as those that prevail in the Six Counties, we cannot hope to arouse real enthusiasm for the ending of Partition even among the nationalist population of the Six Counties. We have no intention of utilising Partition as a catch-cry. We must face up to hard facts."
What is the Deputy quoting from?
From a letter to the Editor of the Irish Times published on January 27th, 1948. It is a letter from the Minister as Leader of Clann na Poblachta, and was written by him on 24th January, 1948. We have not seen the White Paper yet. I do not know whether the Minister is one of those who are endeavouring to see that, when the comprehensive social security plan is produced, it will at least be equal to that in operation in the Six Counties and in Great Britain, if not overtopping it, because money, as we know, has never been the slightest obstacle in the programmes of some of the Parties which now form the inter-Party Government.
The teachers will never forget the Deputy for the seven months' strike.
The Minister disclaims any intention of using Partition as a catch-cry or the idea of using the circumstances which the Partition question has given rise to since he took up his present office for political stunting. Perhaps he will explain what exactly is the position in regard to the following prognostication:—
"Apart from our proposals in relation to nominating representatives from the Six Counties to the Seanad and of giving right of audience in the Dáil to the Six County M.Ps., we believe that considerable progress can be made by developing a close cultural and economic relationship between the Six Counties and the rest of the country. This aspect so far has been completely neglected."
Ireland, apparently, did not appear on the map of the world until the Minister in 1949 proceeded to put it there; neither had there been cultural connections with the Six Counties. The Minister forgets that important Gaelic, social and religious organisations, as well as sporting organisations, have maintained relationship between the people down here and the people in the Six Counties. This perspicacity of the Minister in announcing his policy that he would utilise the opportunity, should it be given to him, to develop a close cultural and economic relationship between the Six Counties and the rest of the country is coupled with a rather inconsistent statement, in my view, if the Minister was sincere in that desire.
On a point of order. The Deputy has been quoting for some 20 minutes from a certain letter written by the Minister before the change of Government. Is it in order to read such quotations in dealing with a matter of this kind? We are supposed to be discussing the Estimate of the Department of External Affairs.
The Chair is of opinion that there should be a curtailment of many things in this Chamber, but unfortunately he cannot enforce it.
"As to our brothers and sisters in the Six Counties, their attachment to the Crown is more apparent, I think, than real. It is but the outward expression of the prejudice of some, coupled with the very real fear by others that we would not respect their civil liberties."
If the Northern nationalists, some of whom may have espoused the Minister's policy, some of whom may have followed him, had been expecting that that policy and those pronouncements which I have referred to were likely to lead them into the promised land, they must feel greatly disappointed. It would be an extraordinary thing if they did not feel more than disappointed, if they did not feel humiliated. If they banked their hopes on the Minister for External Affairs and on the possibility that this Party, which proclaimed that it had a solution for Partition and could bring about a united Ireland, presumably in a very short time once Deputy de Valera's Administration was got out of the way, they must find that these visions that the Minister held out before them were as illusory as the mirages that meet the traveller in the desert. As has been well said, the hopes that were cherished, if they were cherished, may well have proved, unfortunately for those who held them, as hollow as the booming of the guns that ushered in the inauguration of the Irish Republic last Easter Monday.
Perhaps, however, when the replies have come in from the 50 States, with which we are on terms of friendship or in diplomatic connection, to whom the Ceann Comhairle forwarded copies of the resolution of protest passed by this House on May 10th in connection with the Ireland Bill passed by the British Parliament, the Minister will send them at an early date, through the news agency, the copies of the official replies, which will I have no doubt be received from some or all of these States, and those perhaps will provide these unfortunate people who believe in the Minister and his promises with some small shred of consolation that, whatever else may happen, the present holder of the office of Minister for External Affairs is seeing to it that, however the people of the Six Counties may be situated, national publicity and, incidentally, publicity for his administration of his Department, will certainly not be neglected, whether they are or not. That is the position that has been reached by these wonderful warriors who came along with their two-handed swords to break this slender link which the Taoiseach told us was of no importance: that it did not make the slightest difference whether it was there or not.
Do you believe that it should not be broken?
As a result of their handling of that situation and of their blundering they have now landed us in a position in which even those who never believed they were competent to deal with such a situation could scarcely conceive that their incompetence would reach to. It is only geniuses in political incapacity that could have reached the stage that the Minister and his colleagues have brought us to in regard to this most serious national issue which still confronts us.
The Taoiseach, speaking in O'Connell Street on the inauguration of the Twenty-Six Counties Irish Republic, said: "We believe that what has been done to-day will ensure more cordial and closer co-operation between Ireland and Great Britain and the other members of the Commonwealth of Nations that would ever have existed under any conditions before." What are we to think of the Leader of the Government who would voice these sentiments in public to the citizens of the capital of the country, and who, a few weeks afterwards, told us that the whole resources and influence of our people in North America must be marshalled, and that their energies must be marshalled? Why must they be marshalled? "So that the British may be hit in their pride, their prestige and their pocket."
The Minister talks of the necessity of moving with the times in regard to diplomacy. He tells us that a Press agency is now necessary. Apparently, the old methods of diplomatic intercourse are not sufficient. We have to move with the times. It is not sufficient that we should move with the times in regard to the setting up of a large new organisation to disseminate information to the Press of the United States and every other country, but it is also necessary that, in the field of diplomatic relationship, with our nearest neighbour, we should eschew completely the ordinary procedure of the council chamber, and try to secure our ends by means of loudspeakers in O'Connell Street; we should try to secure our objectives, not by give and take, or by friendly intercourse, or by drawing on that fund of goodwill that the Minister spoke of last year in our relationship with Great Britain, but that we should accept the position apparently that ranting of this type from public platforms, on an important and serious occasion, is to be taken as a genuine contribution to national progress, that it is a sign of national leadership, and is likely to get us somewhere, that it is likely to get us further on the road than the older methods would have done.
The Minister, last year, asked that we should recognise the necessity for continuity in foreign policy and he emphasised that, if possible, we should approach this problem with a certain unity of feeling, and with support for whoever was, for the time being charged with the conduct of our foreign affairs. He said that we ought to have unanimity if possible. I thoroughly agree with him, but how are we to have unanimity, or even substantial unity; how are we going to have any measure of progress in this very serious matter if we are going to be treated to the kind of thing that the Taoiseach treated the Irish people to in O'Connell Street; if we are going to be treated to a slipping back and a reneging of election promises and election pronouncements such as the Minister and his colleagues have been guilty of?
The Minister complains of the epithet—"stunts"—which has been applied to some of his activities. Probably like the kangaroo we have to proceed by fits and starts and not according to any reasonable plan, not in regard to conception that is worked out in advance, but by some personal feeling, some personal urge of vanity, disappointment or something of that kind. If we are going to proceed on that line in regard to very important issues, such as the reunification of this country, we will find ourselves in the position of the character immortalised by Jimmy O'Dea who, when he took one step forward on the way to school, found that he had taken two steps backward and never succeeded in arriving there.
Is it any wonder that the people do not know where they stand in regard to the conduct of our external affairs so far as it applies to our relationship with the neighbouring country? Does the Minister deny that if there is to be a semblance of unity in this matter of our external relations and if he is to have any justification for asking for the support and co-operation of the Opposition in this House in his efforts, that he must give us some guarantee that he is sincere in his approach and that his conduct of our affairs is worthy of securing our confidence?
It is not merely the Minister's past that is in question in this matter. There is the past record and declarations of those prominently associated with him in the Government. When one looks back over the history of the past 18 months——
On a point of order, may I ask the Chair whether it is in order to discuss on this Estimate the past utterances and actions of every member of this House?
It is not. Ministers are responsible to this House only from the time they take up office as Ministers. Apart from that, this is an Estimate for the Department of External Affairs.
The Minister, perhaps, would not like me to remind the House that, in the general election campaign, the leader of another Party, now a Minister in the Government, told us that there were more pressing issues than the republic, the same gentleman who told the Irish people, as leader of his Party, that he stood unequivocally for membership of the British Commonwealth.
That is not the Minister for External Affairs.
Surely the Government at least give lip service to the principle of collective responsibility. Am I not entitled to ask them upon which leg they are standing, or upon which horse they are riding at the present time, or if they have completely given up the imperial steed, and what particular mount have they at the present time? Another Minister told us that if we were to attempt to declare an isolated republic we would, within five years of having done so, find ourselves under the heel of a foreign tyrant—slaves of foreign domination. His attitude on that occasion was that he wanted to see this country working its way in the Commonwealth with the help of the United States of America.
The Chair has already ruled that it is not proper to discuss the merits of legislation. The Deputy is now discussing the merits of legislation—the Republic of Ireland Act, which came into operation on Easter Monday of this year.
I am not discussing the merits of the Republic of Ireland Act. I am trying to point out to the Dáil inconsistencies in the attitude of Ministers of a Government which is supposed to bear a collective responsibility in regard to this matter, and I want the Minister, if he is able, or his colleagues, if they will be good enough to assist him, to explain the attitude in regard to these issues upon which they pronounced as I have indicated. I propose now to pass away from that.
The Deputy and other Deputies must acknowledge all the legislation passed by the Oireachtas.
Am I not entitled to discuss the attitude of Ministers as indicated by their statements?
The Deputy apparently wants to discuss the attitude of certain members of the House to certain legislation before that legislation got through the House. It is now the law of the land and a Deputy's attitude towards it has nothing to do with this Estimate.
Is it not a moot point whether these Ministers are men of principle and conviction——
——and whether they are worthy of the confidence of the people after having told them one thing and acted in another way?
It is not a question of whether members of the Government are men of principle, but what relates to the administration of the Minister for External Affairs.
The administration of the Department of External Affairs, or any other Department, must be based upon certain principles. Those principles must be laid down in Government policy. I am trying to find out what exactly is Government policy in regard to this important issue of our relations with Great Britain.
West Cork gave you the answer.
What about Donegal?
We will keep on asking, all the same. I maintain that issues of fundamental importance to the Irish people should be treated sincerely, should be approached with a sense of responsibility, and if they are not so approached the judgment which is likely to be given in regard to them is not alone going to be defective, but may be disastrous to the hopes of those who cherish the ideal of the reunification of our country. I think it has been trifling with the convictions of citizens that Ministers departed from the pledges they have given. It is necessary in a democracy, above all things, that the people should have confidence in their public representatives. There is only one way in which they can estimate whether or not their representatives are worthy of their confidence, and that is the understandings that are given between the elected representatives and the people who elect them when they seek the suffrages of the people and when they are returned to office. If people feel that the pledged word and public pronouncements of public men are not to be relied on, the serious aspect of the situation is not merely that the credence of these public men is shaken, but that the confidence of the public in the system of Parliament and democratic Government is severely shaken.
In the long run, we have to approach the questions that come up for discussion in our Legislature from the point of view of common honesty and trustfulness, and if there is not honesty and trust, and if the people cannot have that trust in those who for the time being have taken up the responsibilities of office, then all I can say is that it is a very bad advertisement for the democracy which the Government prates so much about. If it could have been shown that the Government approached this issue on legitimate grounds of national well-being and the welfare of the community, and explained their attitude to the public, or their change of attitude, that might have been understandable, but everybody knows, as the favourite organ of the Minister, or that one which described him as a white-headed boy, that it was simply a question——
I have already risen to a point of order. The Deputy is still discussing the merits or demerits of legislation introduced here. I understood the Chair to rule him out of order and he is now continuing his disobedience of the ruling of the Chair.
The Deputy was not, in my opinion, discussing the merits of the Act, but the attitude of certain people towards it which, I maintain, has nothing to do with it, because he is discussing what is now the law of the land.
In the history of the English Parliament it happened on a certain famous occasion that the Whigs were out bathing and it was said that the Tories stole their clothes. The Irish Times very aptly referred to this incident in dealing with the Government's treatment of international affairs. They simply put it as an attempt to queer the pitch of a political opponent by stealing his political clothes in order to secure an advantage. I think it will be found that the shortcut in this matter is very often, and in this case will prove to be, the longest home. The Minister has now told us, with reference to the mobilisation of opinion in the United States of America in connection with his visit over there, that he urged that this question of Partition should be discussed between Ireland and the nations participating in the Atlantic Pact. The Government, I presume, felt that if the concept of co-operation and democracy was to be given reality, one of the first essentials was to remove from the midst of Western Europe this dangerous anomaly—dangerous and damaging the Minister described it—to the unity of the democratic world. Then he goes on to tell us that the United States of America has officially proclaimed its attitude which, in the Minister's view, is nothing less than one of indifference, such indifference that it has even been suggested that the United States have, under the Atlantic Pact, undertaken to defend Britain's occupation of Northern Ireland.
We have reached the happy position with reference to dealing with the Partition issue, about which such rosy hopes were raised by the Minister for External Affairs and others, that not alone have we succeeded in securing the united vote of the two Parties in the British Parliament—the Government and the Opposition—in regard to the particular attitude they have taken up on the Ireland Bill, but we have in the United States of America reached the position that the United States is described by the Minister for External Affairs as displaying indifference to this whole question and even, in his view, leaving itself open to the suggestion that, under the Atlantic Pact, they are prepared to undertake to defend Britain's occupation of Northern Ireland. Comments on the results that have been achieved during the past 12 months in Britain and in the United States of America——
Are you blaming the Government for that?
——so far as the Governments of these two countries and public opinion, as expressed by the administration, are concerned, would simply be gilding the lily if I were to attempt to dilate further upon them. It was a famous French commentator who said that lawyers did not make good statesmen. He observed during the course of a long career that they very rarely made good statesmen.
What does he say about teachers?
I think during all our acquaintance with statesmen, there is scarcely any less worthy of the name than the lawyers who compose the present Coalition Government.
Are we now going to have the professions of Deputies discussed?
Not individually.
Either individually or collectively, I think that is a most undesirable remark.
The trouble with lawyers is——
There is nothing disorderly in the remark. It is not unparliamentary.
The trouble with lawyers is that they think these international questions can be decided on the basis of the written law which they are called upon to interpret and explain, to defend or to attack in the courts of justice. They are not trained in the art of diplomacy. They are not able to look facts in the face. They are not able to face public opinion. They are not able to explain to the public the reasons for unpalatable decisions. They are not able to face a situation that real statesmen may have to face at a particular time.
The Deputy might remember that he is dealing with one Minister now and not with the whole Cabinet.
I am dealing with one Minister who happens to be a lawyer and I think my remarks are not, therefore, irrelevant.
I was merely going on the assumption that the word "they" meant more than one.
Unfortunately, I shall have to change it then, though I am afraid that it is not the Minister who is entirely responsible, but his colleagues.
The responsibility for this Vote rests on the Minister.
Real statesmen would bear in mind the necessity for acquainting the public with the reason why it might be better to bide one's time, to wait to take advantage of opportunity rather than spoil existing opportunity by taking ill-advised action for the sake of political advantage and thereby perhaps ruining the prospect which might obtain of securing a favourable result by not dealing with the situation as the circumstances of the time demand.
Would the Deputy be good enough to specify the action in question so that I may be able to deal with it in replying?
You are interrupting still. It is a habit for Ministers in this Government continually to interrupt.
Will the Deputy be good enough to specify the particular action he is criticising so that I may be able to deal with it when I come to reply?
I am referring in general terms to the mishandling and the gross mismanagement of our affairs so far as dealing with the Partition situation and our relationship with Great Britain are concerned.
Any particular action?
I am asserting my right, and I shall do so even if no other person in this House is of the same opinion. We have heard a great deal about democracy. Do you people who try to shout down those who are expressing their opinions believe in democracy? Why, you do not know what democracy is.
Surely, it would be making a charge of mishandling, to state the particular matters which he democratic for the Deputy if he is accuses me of mishandling?
Deputies
Chair, Chair.
I am glad to see the desire which is obtaining to obey the Chair. That is not on one side only. This running commentary on a speech must cease.
He will never finish if it does not.
If we take up the attitude that the Taoiseach has taken up in his public pronouncements in regard to our dealings with Great Britain of reducing ourselves to the level of showing our resentment in the way a rejected suitor, who had been turned down by an heiress, would show his resentment, I wonder what the dignity of the country will come to or how we shall handle our public affairs in future.
The Minister informed us during the course of his remarks that we were not faced with any danger in respect of Communism in this country. I hope that is so. I do not know whether the Minister is prepared to assure the House that there is no ground for anxiety in regard to that matter.
I do not think I adverted to that matter at all on this Estimate. I would not have considered it relevant.
I understood the Minister to say—I have not his exact words before me—that we were free from this.
I made no reference whatsoever to the question of Communism in Ireland.
I accept that. When the Minister is providing money for the Council of Europe and when he and his officials are attending there, together with representatives of this House, I would remind him that it is well for us to bear in mind the setting in which that Council of Europe is taking place. In Eastern Europe we have one mighty power with a population of 190,000,000 people. In the remainder of Eastern Europe, under the direct or indirect control of that mighty power, we have a further 90,000,000 people approximately. That is a total of 280,000,000. That is what western civilisation and Christianity in Europe—and Christianity in Europe means Christianity in the world—has to face. It is not so very long ago since the Archbishop of Cashel in an address at the Thurles Sugar Beet Factory stated that it was a well-known fact that there are Communists here in Ireland and that some of them hold prominent positions in the Labour movement.
Would the Deputy relate that to External Affairs?
I relate it to the statement of the Minister that we have no reason to fear. We have not the same reasons to fear the dangers of this disease of Communism spreading in our country as they have in other countries. I maintain that the whole situation should be altered, that there is only one way in which the spread of this menace can be averted and that is the way we would all like to avoid, if it can be avoided. Since this disease thrives on bad social conditions, on depressions, unemployment and all the other social maladies of the present system——
That is not external affairs, surely. It is internal.
We have a particular point of view in regard to Communism; we have a particular heritage to defend, more than other countries have. I entirely agree that, so far as it is possible in the opportunity of utilising the Council of Europe as a forum for putting forward, in the name of Ireland, the basic principles of Christianity to which it is necessary that the world, even Western Europe, should return if we are to be saved from the danger of the tide of Communism overwhelming the whole of us, undoubtedly we have a part to play there. However, I think we would be fooling ourselves if we did not make it clear in our own minds that, as well as having a forum in which to exercise our opinions by sending the best equipped and the best trained representative that we have at our disposal to see that the traditional principles of Western Christianity that we all believe in are accepted as basic and fundamental, this menace is very much nearer to us than it appears. It is very much nearer than the people of our country, isolated as they have been from European conditions, cut away from the Continent of Europe and having very little intercourse with it, can possibly appreciate. The danger that Europe was faced with a few years ago when some of the nations which were bulwarks of Christianity were almost overwhelmed by this tide, has not been removed and it cannot completely be removed for a very long time. It is only by earnest effort on the part of all of us who believe in these principles and by constant attention to the carrying out of the right principles in our ordinary affairs that a good example will be given and the proper philosophy will be adopted, which will mean the defeat and the destruction of the evil.
There are two matters that I would like to say, particularly with reference to the speech we have just heard. I do not think that for many years in this Parliament——
If I might just interrupt to mention this fact; that after Deputy Lemass had spoken I stood up with Deputy M.J. O'Higgins. Deputy M.J. O'Higgins was called. Now, Deputy T.F. O'Higgins, from the same Party, is called. I am sure that is a misunderstanding.
There is no misunderstanding. The Deputy is a one-man Party, as far as I know, and the main Parties are entitled to be called before him.
I take it then that I will wait until everybody else has finished?
The Deputy knows that is not true, because he has not had to wait until everybody was called on many occasions. He will admit that.
As I was saying, in my view, seldom in any Parliament has political expediency stooped as low as was demonstrated this evening by the speech we have just heard from Deputy Derrig. If he ever had political principles, he has apparently abandoned them in one despairing effort to attack the Minister and the present Government, irrespective of the cost or damage to this country or to the national aspirations. Partition was referred to at length and he has endeavoured to make Partition a peg to which he can attach all sorts of insinuations and allegations against the Minister here.
I should like to ask all Deputies this question. Do they follow the lines uttered and spoken to here by Deputy Derrig? Do they suggest that the deterioration of the relations between this country and England that has taken place in the last 12 months is in any way due to mishandling by the present Minister or by the present Government? If they do, let them specify in what way those relations have been mishandled. Let them have the common courage that is expected of any Party to put their views clearly before the Irish people and say that they think that these relations have been mishandled because of A, B and C. Why are they so careful to hide their particular charges behind a web of words and say nothing that can be clearly recognised? Why are they so willing to wound and yet afraid to strike by stating in what way these relations have deteriorated and what caused them to deteriorate? They know very well that they could not, with any prospect of a political future in this country, specify with any clarity the charges they have made. They want the people, particularly the minority that Deputy Childers spoke to last night, to think that our relations have become less friendly because of the repeal of the External Relations Act. They want to tie on to the repeal of the Act the unilateral action of the British Government some weeks after the declaration of our Republic. They want the people to believe that, but they do not want to say it because they know very well that if they say it, or if any Deputy of their Party is forced to say it, they would be asked here in this House and before the bar of the Irish people why they voted for that measure and why, before that measure was introduced, they promised to the Government full and unequivocal support in the measure. I am willing and every other Deputy in this House is willing to discuss things in a decent honourable manner.
I have the greatest respect for Deputy Derrig or any other member of the Fianna Fáil Party if they hold that view, but state it like courageous men here in this House. If they do not hold that view, let them at least have the decency to be silent. I can only refer Deputies opposite to the very honourable views expressed, before this measure was taken by the Oireachtas, by a front-bench member of the Opposition, Deputy Dr. Ryan, who spoke in the town of Enniscorthy on the 31st July, 1948. In relation to that particular measure he said:—
"If the Government should now desire to dispense with the King of England they can do so, because the Constitution makes that possible. If the Government take action now they will have our full support against any diehard opposition here or abroad."
Noble sentiments expressed by Deputy Dr. Ryan, sentiments which, I have no doubt, won acclamation and applause for him in his constituency. How changed the times are now, some 12 months later, when Deputy Derrig, Deputy Lemass and the rest of them, are like a pack of wolves in full cry uttering howls of joy because the English have passed an Act in their Parliament and they think they can gather some kudos from it.
That is ridiculous.
I am prepared to discuss these particular matters with any Deputy but I shall not hear any interjections from Fianna Fáil Deputies who have not the courage to state what they think. The Irish people, mind you, are watching the conduct of the Opposition with considerable interest. They have been watching the change that has taken place in many of their political views and in many of the principles for which they were supposed to stand, both before they became a Government and while they were a Government. It is a regrettable thing to note that in the ranks of Fianna Fáil there are the only representatives in this State of the friends of the Brooke clique in the North and the new Churchill clique in England.
That is very good for a Commonwealther.
I have said that the people can watch the change that has taken place. I have no intention to chase with Deputy Derrig through the speeches even of the last 18 months. It would be an interesting search but I have merely to mention the name of Deputy MacEntee to recall to Deputies the type of speeches I have in mind. I have merely to remind the House that at a critical stage in our relations with England in the last 12 months, at a critical stage in reference to the problem of Partition, when the Government in the North found or felt that they were isolated and perhaps would have to depend upon their own resources if they were to maintain their position there, they found that down here in the South Deputy MacEntee was one who exulted in the sentiments expressed by Sir Basil Brooke and Mr. Warnock. I would refer Deputies to a report of a speech by Deputy MacEntee in the Irish Times of the 19th November, 1948, at that particularly critical period, in which he said that the objective and the purpose behind the Government's measure to define our international relations was to placate the Communist elements in the Coalition. He followed that by lauding the references made by Mr. Warnock in relation to the proposal of the Government.
Is the Deputy quoting from a newspaper report?
I have referred Deputy Briscoe to the particular newspaper in which that speech was reported, the Irish Times of the 19th November, 1948, and if he wishes he can look it up.
On a point of order, is there not a practice in this House that if a Deputy is quoted his exact words should be quoted?
If a Deputy purports to quote he must do so accurately.
That is what I am questioning.
The Deputy did not say he was quoting.
He said he was quoting from a newspaper.
I have referred to the newspaper in which the report of that speech is contained. If the Deputy has any doubt as to the accuracy of my quotation, and if he is anxious to do some private research, he will find that my statement is correct. The fact remains that by reason of the speeches made by Deputy MacEntee and by other Fianna Fáil leaders at that particular time, it must have been gratifying to the Northern Government to know that they had still friends south of the Border. My complaint in reference to this particular matter, if Deputy Derrig's speech is to be taken as representing the view of the Opposition, is this: A Bill was introduced into this Parliament and was discussed here. It was welcomed by the Leader of the Opposition and was spoken to by some six members of the Front Bench of the Opposition. They joined with the Government in ensuring that that Bill was passed through this House and subsequently through the Seanad without a dissentient voice. They made the case—it was open to them to make it—that there was no necessity for the Bill but that, if it was going to clarify our international position, by all means that it should be passed. That was some time in December of last year and silent they remained as to any consequences that might ensue through that Act until, by unilateral action, the British Parliament passed the Ireland Act. Now we have them suggesting, but afraid to say it, that the repeal of the External Relations Act was a blunder, a mistake.
I challenge them, or any individual Deputy of the Party opposite, to go before the people of this country and to state in so many words that it is the view of the Opposition, the Fianna Fáil Party, that the repeal of the External Relations Act was a blunder. If they do that, I am willing to make the prophecy that when they next return to this House they will return with something less than half their number. I know I am safe in making that prophecy because I know well that even Deputy MacEntee—I do not know about Deputy Childers who has constituents of his own—or any Deputy of the Party opposite will not take up that challenge. They have not the courage to do it.
In opening the debate on the motion to refer back, we had a speech by the Leader of the Opposition last night. It was an unctuous speech. It was a speech made by a man who was anxious to put himself on a pinnacle, to be quite away from the difficulties of any situation but reserving full liberty to criticise. Deputy de Valera deprecated the fact that the relations between the two countries, England and Ireland, were not harmonious. He referred to other matters and he specifically dealt with the suggestion, apparently made, that while he occupied the post of the present Minister, sufficient attention had not been given to the problem of Partition. I do not think it is helpful either for Deputy de Valera or speakers from this side of the House to compare records of achievements in relation to Partition but apparently it is being done. I should have hoped that in relation to this matter the unity established by the Taoiseach in the last 12 months would have been acted upon and honoured by the Opposition, but apparently, again, that is not to be so.
I would like to say for the record of this Assembly that we are discussing the Estimate for the Department of External Affairs in July, 1949. The last Estimate for the same Department introduced by the Leader of the Opposition was introduced here in the month of June, 1947. I was interested in reading his speech in introducing that Estimate, which is reported in Volume 105, column 2289. He ends up his speech, two years ago, by these words:—
"I think I have covered at this stage most of the points on the Estimate calling for attention."
I read that speech from beginning to end. At no stage in that speech did he refer in any way to the problem of Partition. That was the last Estimate introduced by the Fianna Fáil Minister for External Affairs, introduced two years ago. The position was that at the end of Fianna Fáil's term of office Partition was not a subject that need be even mentioned by the Minister introducing his Estimate in Dáil Éireann.
He had referred to it in 70 speeches before.
Of course, we all know, particularly Deputies like myself who were not in the House at that particular time and other Deputies who at that time were ordinary members of the public, that at the end of the period of office of the last Government Partition was something away back in the background——
Not a bit of it.
——one of the insoluble problems that had better not be mentioned when it could not be dealt with.
Not a bit of it.
If it was something that was in the forefront of the last Government's programme, something demanding all their attention, something to which their efforts were being turned, one would expect that it would at least be referred to by the Minister in charge of this Department introducing his Estimate to the House.
It is extraordinary that even in replying to the debate on that particular Estimate in the month of June, 1947, although Deputy McGilligan, as he then was, dealt with Partition at length, the Minister had nothing to say about that particular matter. I think that the ordinary people, that Fianna Fáil may think they are fooling, also recognised that the very moment Deputy de Valera ceased to be Minister for External Affairs, the very moment his Government left office, they started an anti-Partition campaign throughout the world. The enthusiasm which they showed when they were no longer in a position to implement or assist in the aim they were driving at was commendable, if somewhat late.
It is a long time since 1923.
But the ordinary man outside, the ordinary citizen, including the citizens of the Six Counties, could not help wondering what was the reason for the new enthusiasm by Fianna Fáil in relation to Partition, could not help wondering why it was so necessary the moment Fianna Fáil left office to carry Partition from Dublin to New Delhi, and right around the world to Australia, New Zealand and then to the cities of England, why, in the words of Deputy de Valera last night, Partition had suddenly become ripe. I want to suggest this as an explanation and I have suggested it outside this House on many occasions. The reason for that campaign, the reason Partition had become ripe, was merely that it was going to be used by the Opposition as a platform to crawl back into power.
That is fantastic.
"Fantastic" I heard Deputy Killilea say.
I said it.
Deputy Killilea is only wondering at your new enthusiasm about it.
If what I have suggested is fanastic, can Deputy Little or any other member of the Party opposite explain why Partition was shoved into the background in the last years of Fianna Fáil.
Will you explain who was responsible for it the first time?
Or why it was not referred to in an Estimate and why a campaign was started within a few weeks of Fianna Fáil leaving office, why the peregrinations of Deputy de Valera and Deputy Aiken carrying the message in relation to Partition throughout the cities of England?
Do you object to propaganda being made?
He will not answer that.
I cannot help wondering whether there was malice behind the remarks of Deputy de Valera, Leader of the Opposition, here last night when he pondered as to why relations between England and Ireland should have been worsened. I do not know what views other Deputies on this side of the House may have as to the advisability of a displaced politican in this country causing disturbances in certain cities in England but I know what my views are, that it is discreditable and likely to harm the particular aim that it is supposed to serve.
If there is anything responsible for stampeding labour branches and portions of the trade union movement in England into the pro-Partition camp, it is the peregrinations of those two gentlemen I have mentioned. I should make it quite clear that that particular campaign stampeded the trade union movement in England into the pro-Partition camp and made them suddenly realise that they were the new exponents of the same aims as the Unionist clique in the North stand for. When Deputy de Valera or any other Deputy in this House wonders about matters like these, let him at least examine his own conscience. I do not blame Deputy de Valera or Deputy Aiken for being, if a little late, enthusiastic about ending Partition. But, when the British show fight, let them at least stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government and stop exulting out in the wilderness as they are exulting now.
Is not that what your people did in connection with the land annuities?
The Deputy will have an opportunity of speaking. I suggest that he should look after his sugar in the West. It is extremely regrettable that this debate, from the moment the Minister sat down, should have become a controversial debate. Speaking on this Estimate last year, I and other Deputies advocated a common programme amongst all Parties in this House, a common committee to deal with the question of Partition. I did so, not because I believed that any super-Government committee should be established, but because I thought that the lip-service paid to Partition by certain sections in this country could be co-operated into a united drive towards the ending of that problem. I certainly hoped, if that drive were to come up against temporary difficulties such as we met with when the British introduced their Ireland Bill, that by reason of the unity here, there would not be one section or one political Party exulting in the difficulties of the Government and trying to get kudos from them.
Because I held these views on this Estimate last year, I welcomed the step taken by the Taoiseach in inviting the Leader of the Opposition and the Leaders of the other Parties on this side of the House to join with him in a conference, since known as the Mansion House Conference. I know, because I was in the North for a considerable time then, how the action taken by the Government at that time brought joy and confidence to many of the people in the North who had come to regard themselves as the forgotten portions of the Irish race. They felt renewed strength in the fight because they saw Deputy de Valera and the Taoiseach joining together to do something for them. I also know that the confidence which our Six-County brethren felt was shared by the rest of our people in the Twenty-Six Counties and abroad. I expected that the unity and co-operation which that Mansion House Conference symbolised would be carried on throughout all the activities of the political life of our country and that we would never have two voices in relation to Partition—one man doing the work and the other sitting on the fence and criticising.
If Deputy Derrig's speech to-day means anything, I think that that unity and co-operation are now a thing of the past and that that conference is smashed to smithereens. I sincerely hope that I am wrong about that because, if that is so, it will not be for us to apportion the blame, it will not be for us to prophesy the result. The political fortunes of any Deputy or any Party in this Parliament count for nothing. It does not matter in the long run who was to blame or who was right some 20 or 30 years ago. What does matter is the consequences to the movement and to the Irish people of the failure perhaps of our national aspirations.
There is a motion to refer this Estimate back. Might I suggest that Deputy Derrig's speech should be referred back to the Fianna Fáil Party and that they should consider it very carefully? If that speech is to represent their official attitude, then, irrespective of their own fortunes which do not count, the Irish people are going to suffer considerably. I think that this is a serious matter and one which should get serious consideration by all political Parties. It is very easy for any of us to score political points just because a country like England, over which we have no control, may adopt a particular course, but, in doing so, we are not honest and we are not honourable. That is the criticism I have to make in relation to Deputy Derrig.
Having said that, may I just refer to one or two matters in relation to the Estimate? As I understood Deputy Lemass to-day, he disagreed slightly with, or rather varied—I suppose he dare not disagree with the views expressed by Deputy de Valera. Deputy de Valera congratulated the Minister on the fact that his Estimate showed an increase. He went on to say that the room for further expansion in relation to the moneys which should be spent on External Affairs was considerable. But Deputy Lemass criticised the Minister very much for that. Deputy Lemass is entitled to his own views, but he actually posed the question as to what the present Minister for Finance would have said about this Estimate if he were still Deputy McGilligan and was dealing with an Estimate which provided for this substantial increase in the salaries of civil servants in the Department of External Affairs. I took care to find out, not any imaginary speech that might be made by the Minister for Finance or anybody else, but what the Minister for Finance did say on the last Estimate introduced by the Party opposite in relation to External Affairs when dealing with the question of what money should be provided for that service. I find that, in Volume 106, column 2301, of the Official Reports, Deputy McGilligan is reported as follows:—
"In looking through the Estimate I glanced at one thing at which I always glance in these days. The Taoiseach told us that the greater part of the increase in the External Affairs Vote this year is under the heading of salaries, wages, and allowances. It is a remarkable thing that the increase in the salaries for the home staff amounts to £4,000. The old salaries used to be on the basis of £27,000 and we are adding £4,000, bringing it up to £31,000. The ordinary calculation we accept here is that the old £27,000 has now a purchasing power of less than £16,000 as far as the home people are concerned. We are giving them £4 to every £27 and that is supposed to be our best effort in regard to this important Department to equate the present-day value of money with present cost-of-living conditions."
I do suggest that, if Deputy Lemass is wondering what the present Minister for Finance might have said when he was in opposition, he might well consider what the present Minister for Finance did say when in opposition.
Has he carried out that principle since he went into office?
I cannot say. This seems to have been a day of challenges. I am glad that the challenges did not lead to fisticuffs. Deputy Lemass issued a challenge here in reference to a speech that he was alleged to have made in the town of Tullamore in which it was suggested by a Deputy that it contained a retraction of a previous speech made by him. Deputy Michael O'Higgins has referred me to a copy of the Irish Press for Saturday, 2nd of October, 1948, which contains a report of the speech in question. Before reading the extract, I should remind the House that the matter refers to a speech made by Deputy Lemass in Bray at the time negotiations were going on between this Government and the Government of England in the course of which he suggested to the British people that this Government was in no way representative of the Irish people, and that in fact it had no right to rule. The speech delivered in Tullamore by Deputy Lemass was printed in the Irish Press in black type so as to make sure that the retraction would be read by everyone. He said:—
"They were the legitimate Government of this country, however they got there. The laws which they made would be respected, and all their legitimate orders would be obeyed. The British, or other foreign Government, would have to deal with them because they were for a limited time the Irish Government, and it was their responsibility to see that no one would seek to challenge its legitimate authority as the Government."
That seems to corroborate what Deputy Lemass challenged here. I only hope that the Government will adopt the last sentence in Deputy Lemass's speech, and that they will ensure—it is their responsibility to see to it—that nobody inside or outside this Dáil will challenge the right of this Government to govern.
Apparently this is a debate of challenges. There is one challenge which I accept because I can speak on the matter from personal experience. I would wish that Deputies on the Government Benches would stop making false statements about what Deputy de Valera and Fianna Fáil did during the years previous to the change of Government. In 1938, the whole programme of Fianna Fáil had been clearly set out. Before that we had been dealing with the Constitution and after with the economic war, its settlement and with getting back the ports. The next matter to be settled in 1938 was that of Partition. Some of us were sent to different parts of Britain to help in that work. I happen to have been sent to London. We had a fine organisation going there, on good constitutional lines. I came back before Christmas. Early in 1939, at a time when Mr. Chamberlain was anxious to get the Irish question settled and to get the whole thing swept out of the way because everybody knew that war was coming—the cloud of war was over London at that time—the bomb-throwing started, and the whole thing was blown sky high for the period of the war. That was the position in 1939, so that nothing could be done.
There is no getting away from that fact. Members of this Government had friends over there who took part in that sort of thing, and it is nothing to their credit. Therefore, the sooner they drop saying that nothing had been done previously about Partition the better. Apart from that, I have references to Partition which were made in between 70 or 80 speeches by Deputy de Valera. Whenever he or any of his colleagues were in London they missed no occasion of dealing with that question. In fact, British Ministers were almost sick of having the anti-Partition case put before them by Deputy de Valera. He did it time after time. He never missed an opportunity of doing so. Therefore, I suggest to those on the Government Benches that they should drop that line. It does no good to anybody. It is not true.
Will you drop it over there?
Drop what?
Your particular line.
Efforts were made immediately after the war to recommence the holding of meetings everywhere. I cannot understand why any member of the Government should object to the propaganda which has been carried on all over the world, whether they agree with Deputy de Valera or not. They must know that he carries certain weight, respect and effectiveness all over the world. As a matter of fact, they ought to be ready to take the fullest advantage of his efforts all over the world by means of propaganda to get rid of Partition. I do not see for a moment how they can blame him for doing what he did. Their attitude seems to me to be quite anti-national.
Deputy O'Higgins has suggested that the propaganda carried on in Britain in the last 12 or 15 months has had a bad effect. Members of the Party opposite have been very active in carrying on propaganda over there Therefore, their attitude on this seems to be very inconsistent. It is clear that Parties must keep their independence. There must be an understanding to disagree on each side of the House. Each Party must be able to do its own work on its own legs. There is no use trying to pretend that there is unity on these matters. There is unity, if you like, in objective, but apart from that it only tends to create an entirely false position if one side tries to use unity as a means of beating down the other side. There is unity in objective, but we differ as regards method. There is a fundamental difference there.
The Leader of the Deputy's Party said last night that there had been no fundamental departure in the policy that is being pursued by the Department, to-day, and the policy that had been pursued by him.
When I was speaking last night——
I am not referring to what the Deputy himself said, but to what his Leader said last night.
I agree that there is no difference on the objective, which is to get rid of Partition. At any rate, I would have to read over carefully what Deputy de Valera said. I am perfectly certain that he would agree with me in this, that the Government's methods have, unfortunately, led to a position which makes it much more difficult to get rid of Partition now than it was before. That is an objective fact that we cannot get away from.
We know now where we are.
There is a difference of approach but a similarity as regards the objective.
We never have the same approach.
It is a new approach for you.
I had not intended to intervene in this debate and I do not propose to hold up the House any longer. All I wanted to do was to contradict one thing, and that was as to what was done or what was not done to get rid of Partition before we went out of office.
I do not propose to obtrude on the debate for very long. I think we could serve a useful purpose if we started here and now to give credit to anybody who is entitled to it for efforts that have been made in the drive to end Partition, and to coalesce in order to make a more determined and a more united effort to reach the ultimate solution of the Partition problem. I do not think it is worthy of any of us with any kind of national outlook and any belief in the unity and ultimate destiny of this nation, to be bickering as to who did what or when it was done. All I want the Dáil to endeavour to do—and so far as I can get it to endeavour to do so I will raise my voice—is to get on to a common platform on this question of Partition.
If there is one major political problem awaiting a solution, it is the problem of the reunification of the country. That problem should be faced by Irishmen who must realise that the country is bigger than any individual or any Party. To introduce personalities into a debate centring mainly around the problem of getting rid of Partition is a discredit to us all. I can be as bitter and as partisan as anybody and I can thrust and parry in debate, but, if that is going to affect the onward march of this nation to ultimate unity, then it is time for it to stop.
We are sent here to do a job. Deputies should not come here to criticise an Estimate merely because a certain individual who is Minister must, in their minds, merit criticism. I say without fear, favour or affection that a worthy job has been done by the Minister for External Affairs. I will not detract from what Deputy de Valera may have done when he was Minister. As I said last night on the News Agency Bill, I believe he did his best and that he took every opportunity to present Partition to the world. But I do not believe that it got across as well as it might have. I think we have reached a more favourable era. We must all get together and approach this problem, leaving personal and Party bickerings aside.
I am merely intervening in this debate for the purpose of trying to make the Dáil realise that the people are looking to us in a natural way to direct their upsurging impetus to get rid of disunity. Any debate that permits personalities and expressions of personal bias is no encouragement to people looking for leadership. There is a revived impetus in order to make sure that the wrong perpetrated on this country will be removed as quickly as possible. I honestly believe that personalities and Party differences must fade into absolute insignificance if we are to get to grips with this problem.
When speaking on the Republic of Ireland Bill I said there were many past bitternesses that reflect credit on none of us, and they should be left behind. I pointed out that this year we arrived at a certain stage in having an independent Republic for 26 counties, and from that united common plane we were in a position, irrespective of Party affiliations, to make a definite forward move to reunite the country.
I think the Minister for External Affairs is making an honest contribution to try to get that united effort going and it ill becomes anybody to offer petty criticism. If we were men enough and honest enough we would be aware of the really national, self-sacrificing effort that is being made by the Minister for External Affairs. We all have our personal feelings at various stages of our lives, but here in the Dáil on an issue so vital and so mighty compared with our smallness as individuals, we should adopt a more manly course. We should be able to coalesce and find agreement, not alone in an objective way, as suggested by Deputy Little, but in a solid, united forward plan to achieve something which will redound, not to the credit of one Party, but to the credit of the Dáil as a whole doing the nation's work.
The people of the country are earnestly watching this debate. They are interested in the efforts the Minister is making to put Partition before the world, to put the case for Ireland fairly, squarely and manfully before the nations. They will not think anything the better of us for cheap sneers or gibes. This is an Estimate in connection with which there may be petty differences or bitternesses in regard to administration, but in the consideration of it, all of us should make ourselves worthy of the trust reposed in us by the people. They look to us to give them a lead that will give them hope for the future and not bring back the sourness of the past. They look for a lead that will give this nation some prospect of realising its full and free nationhood. We should be big enough and fair enough to give credit to everybody who does his best in a national way to get a national job done. It does not matter whose son he is, whose nephew he is, or what his relations are, if he does his little for the good of Ireland.
An intriguing plank in the platform of Clann na Poblachta at the last election was concerned with the solution of Partition. The introduction of the Six-County members of Parliament into Dáil Éireann was contemplated. The people were led to believe that, once this was accomplished, the solution of the remaining difficulties in relation to Partition was only a matter of time. I believe there were some people in the country who thought that Deputy de Valera, Taoiseach though he was in the past, had never even thought of this. I might remind the House that this plank, like so many other of the election planks, has been cast aside and I rather think it has been ridiculed by the master Party with which Clann na Poblachta, despite their one-time lofty ideals, have mis-allied themselves.
During the elections in Northern Ireland great hopes were raised amongst the people that out of the concerted effort of all the Parties here one clear and definite policy would emerge to guide the people towards the achievement of our prime national objective. We are still waiting for that policy to show itself. As far as the people in Northern Ireland are concerned, they are sick and tired waiting for a lead from here, just as their elected representatives are sick and tired waiting for a lead from here. We all know that they are dependent upon us for such a lead.
I appeal to the Minister to state clearly and unequivocally what he proposes to do. In what way will he direct the national effort towards the achievement of a united Ireland in view of the fact that the one solution which he hitherto proffered, prior to his coming into office, has now been cast aside? We wonder if he has any alternatives. I think of the promises we made to these people during the northern elections; we were in; we were going to stay in; our motto was "No surrender". I think the people there must now believe that all our effort was just a fraud and a delusion. We are still doing a good deal of talking about Partition, conjuring up visions of the strength of the Irish vote in America and what it would do for us in Canada and New Zealand and Australia. We know now the great help America will be to us if ever the fight for complete freedom becomes a fight indeed. We know now that they are committed to fight against us. I was not disappointed when I saw that announcement because I never expected anything else.
The Minister has stated that our relations with England have deteriorated in the past year. That does not surprise me. If that deterioration is not due to the repeal of the External Relations Act, to what is it due? I shall not indulge in recrimination. I voted for it.
Why?
I shall come to that later. I hoped at the time that my fears regarding possible repercussions were groundless and that that aspect had been probed up to the hilt. I feel now that the probing was not very skilfully carried out and that the difficulties which have since arisen were not then visualised by those who decided to repeal the Act.
Would the Deputy be specific? Would he state the particular things which he thinks were mishandled?
It must have been realised that the repeal of this Act could not possibly be unattended by certain dangers. I think the Minister will agree with that. No one can deny that the deterioration in our relations with England is due to that. Let us face up to that fact and try to find a solution for it.
What about the threat of invasion in the North? Had that anything to do with it? I think you advocated it, did you not?
I shall come to that in time. It was regarded as a precipitous step by some. It was regarded as a retrograde step by others.
And as a progressive step by many.
A progressive step by some. Only time will show which exactly it was. At the time of the passage of the Republic Bill I expressed fears as to what history would record of us if, by repealing the Act, we retarded the ultimate realisation of the unity of our country. I hoped I was wrong in those fears. Somebody asked why did I support its repeal. I asked myself the same question on, I think it was, the 4th of May when the first news of the Ireland Act appeared in the public Press. I asked myself why I did support it. Then it occured to me that, if I did not support it and if we in the Opposition did not support it, the Government would take the first opportunity of allocating the major portion, if not all the blame, for the Ireland Act to the Fianna Fáil Party. The passing of this Ireland Act has created a serious position for us; we cannot get away from that. It is an attempt to perpetuate Partition. It should have been regarded as a hostile act to the Irish Republic.
So it is.
If it is, are we prepared to meet this addition to our struggle for freedom by the action it deserves?
Did the Deputy not hear his colleagues and the Leader of his Party advocate that we should get closer to the Empire and help to support the Empire?
Who suggested that?
The least I expected as a result of this hostile act by England was the breaking of diplomatic relations and the rescinding of all trade agreements until such time as England withdrew her entire military personnel from the Six Counties and ceased all financial obligations towards the Six Counties. I admit we made a protest. The time has arrived when words should be translated into action; yes, irrespective of what happens to our eggs or cattle. This Bill is Britain's answer to the declaration of the Republic. There is no doubt about that and it is up to the new republicans to answer in kind.
Is the Deputy referring to the Minister?
I say it is up to the new republicans to answer England in kind. What was won by blood, sweat and tears had to be completed by an economic war which, together with the Treaty, is the foundation on which this 26-county Republic is based. I ask you, is a 32-county Republic not deserving of equal, if not greater, sacrifices?
The Minister referred to the deterioration of our relations with England. I cannot recall his referring to or commenting on our relations with the Dominions; he may have done so. I would be more anxious about them than about our relations with England because I recall that the Taoiseach, in introducing the Republic Bill, paid tribute to the friendly attitude shown towards us by the various Dominion Premiers with whom he had contacts. I have always hoped that the friendly attitude shown by these reasonable men and the people whom they represent, towards this country would eventually force England to do justice to us as she has had to do to other countries of late, and in the words of Prime Minister Attlee to one of those countries, permit her or compel her to abandon the sovereignty she has exercised over our country. I believe that they eventually would, for their own and for England's sake, endeavour to solve this problem. I submit that were they so inclined they would have been glad to avail of this slender External Relations Act—slender and all as it was—as a lever in any negotiations with England on the subject of Partition. Although I do not imagine for a moment that that friendship towards us is in any way lessened, the wind has been taken out of their sails by the declaration of a Republic of 26 counties and the passage of the Ireland Act.
I gather from statements made by the Taoiseach and, I think, the Minister, that despite many conversations, aides-memoire, consultations and communications between our representatives and the British representatives extending over a long period, the introduction of the Ireland Act came as a complete surprise. During the Northern Ireland election campaign towards the end of January and early February, I was informed that legislation on the lines of the Ireland Act would be introduced into the British House of Commons very shortly after. This did not surprise me, in view of the statement made by the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland a short time previously on his return from an interview with Mr. Attlee—I think the interview was on the 6th January—when Sir Basil Brooke jubilantly announced Mr. Attlee's assurance to him that the constitutional position of the Six Counties would be reaffirmed. I thereupon put down the following question to the Taoiseach on the 16th February, Volume 114, column 2:—
"Dr. Maguire asked the Taoiseach what action the Government proposes to take in view of the declaration by the British Prime Minister in regard to the reaffirming of the Partition of our country.
The Taoiseach: I am not sure to what particular declaration of the British Prime Minister the Deputy is referring, but I can tell the Deputy that the most effective action we can take in view of any effort to reaffirm or continue Partition is to redouble our efforts to mobilise all the moral energies of the Irish people, at home and abroad, towards bringing Partition to an end. That is precisely what the Government are doing.
Dr. Maguire: Is the Taoiseach aware that legislation will be before the House of Commons early in March in connection with the reaffirming of Partition?
The Taoiseach: I am not aware of any such thing."
What is the date of the question?
16th of February. I admit that my information was a few months out in the suggested date of the passing of that Bill in the House of Commons but I think the delay was due to the Easter recess. I accept the Taoiseach's statement that he was not aware of such contemplated legislation on the 16th February but, as he now admits that he was still uninformed of it until the 3rd May when the Ireland Bill was introduced, all I can say is that the Government has been out-generalled in this whole matter.
The Minister has referred to our application for membership of the United Nations Organisation and stated that he was glad that we had so far failed, owing to the difficulties which would attend the staffing of such a project. I am glad that we failed for another reason. I fail to see what useful purpose can be served by acquiring membership of such an organisation, the outstanding characteristic of which, since its inception and indeed its only achievement, has been a complete absence of unanimity at the meetings.
It was the Deputy's Leader who applied for membership.
I will not deny that.
It is true.
Does the Deputy approve of the action of his Leader?
A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. The world did not stop still when Fianna Fáil left office.
Dr. Maguire, on the Estimate.
I would rather we did not succeed in obtaining membership. International conferences have not played a great part in the evolution of the freedom of this country in so far as it has been achieved. I have little hopes of Ireland's claim receiving justice before such conferences composed of people who, though fully cognisant of our centuries-old struggle, are nevertheless mute observers of England's latest act of tyranny towards this country—not that it matters whether we are elected there or not. The views of small nations, if they are consulted at all, on matters of peace or war, continue to fall on the deaf ears of the world's bullies. As far as this little country of ours is concerned, we can never hope to gain anything from the crumbs that fall from the tables of international conferences presided over, as they invariably are, by one or other of the high priests of hypocrisy.
I trust my remarks will not be misconstrued into hostility towards the English people. Indeed, I have always contended that geographically, and because of common view on various matters, there are no two countries in the world so suited to the dovetailing of their resources in agriculture and industry and, if necessary, in man power. I have lived with them, and worked with them, and, as is generally well known now, I have served with them. I maintain that there are no two peoples so compatible, one with the other, so that none of my statements can be misconstrued into hostility towards England. Even the most stupid of English politicians must realise that the dovetailing of our resources, should the necessity ever arise, must be on a basis of absolute equality as between the two nations and the prerequisite of the complete unity of the country.
That is what the Minister said.
The Minister has again mentioned the question of our preparedness to give guarantees to the Six-County people should they decide to join up with us. He made that suggestion before and I resented it, for the same reason I shall give now. I think it was a mistake. The offer of guarantees, political and religious guarantees, implies that there is a possibility at least, that they may be required but there is nobody knows better than the Protestant people of the Six Counties that no such guarantees are necessary. The religious aspect of Partition, as everybody knows, is only a red herring drawn across the question. The only people who have fear in their hearts are the despicable junta who rule in the north and who fear the loss of power and office.
Quite a lot has been said, and rightly so, in connection with Partition, regarding the majority in certain areas of the Six Counties who favour union with the rest of the country, but in my opinion that is beside the point. Quite recently I noticed that the Taoiseach appealed—to whom I forget; I presume it was to England—for the return of Tyrone and Fermanagh. I consider that is a dangerous line to take, one that may quickly be seized upon by the enemies of our country as an indication of a lack of confidence on our part in the achievement, in the near future, of the unity of the country. I say "the near future" because if there are any Deputies here who are marking time in connection with Partition they have no right to be here.
You have been.
Unless we make up our minds to achieve the unity of the country in our time, by every means at our disposal, then we are merely wasting our time and fooling the unfortunate Nationalists of the Six Counties who rely so much on our efforts down here. Irrespective of whether they are inhabited by Protestants or Catholics or by neither, it is the territory, the soil and the territorial waters of the Six Counties which we are after and which we mean to get. The Six Counties have ever been an integral part of this country. We can, and we must, with the determination that has characterised our struggle in the past, restore them to the parent body and with that determination to have them by every means at our disposal, we should make an unequivocal demand on the British Government to clear the Six Counties of their occupation forces by a certain date.
An incident which, I consider, created a misconception in the minds of other peoples regarding our declaration of a Republic here was the holding of celebrations in connection with the day on which it came into force. When the suggestion of celebrations was first mooted, I protested for the reason that I think any celebrations held in connection with that——
On a point of order, I do not want to limit the Deputy. I know his views are absolutely sincere and I do not want to limit the discussion more than is necessary but I suggest that that hardly comes within the scope of this Estimate.
All right, but I shall say this before I conclude. We are sick of anniversaries, celebrations, commemorations and centenaries.
Hear, hear.
Let us for Heaven's sake stop them until we have achieved the object for which the people for whom we are holding these anniversaries and celebrations, sacrificed their lives. Then when we have achieved it, let us have one celebration. I would suggest that we then close down for 25 or 50 years on all such functions so that by that time another generation will have arisen whose refreshing ignorance of political and religious bigotry will enable this country to progress and achieve the prosperity which at present it so sorely needs.
Last month I asked the Minister to state his policy in regard to the request which has been made for the protection of our holy places in Palestine. The Minister informed the House that everything possible was being done. I think he convinced me at any rate, and convinced the House, that everything possible is being done by our Government to ensure that places that are sacred to the Christian population of the world will be protected and made accessible to people of all countries. I think that this attitude and this action is only what one would expect from a Minister representing our country. I think his approach to the question has been wise and prudent and I trust that in conjunction with other nations his effort will be successful and that those small, struggling and somewhat aggressive nations that control these Holy Places will at least have respect for the things that are sacred to the whole Christian population. I do not think that the small nations concerned can afford to trample upon the sentiments of Christianity throughout the world and I hope they will not attempt to do so. I am sure that the pressure of public opinion, in which the Irish nation will co-operate, will succeed in achieving its laudable purpose.
It may be a matter of interest to the House to know that since I asked that question I received a packet of propaganda from one of the States concerned. I mention this because I intend to pass the leaflets on to the Minister as an example to him of how inept, incompetent and stupid some nationalist propaganda can be. The people who wrote to me call themselves the World Truth League and they omitted to state to what race or nation they belong, what they were striving for, what they wanted or what purpose they hope to achieve. They content themselves with reams of abuse of practically every nation and every race on the earth.
One of the great functions of the Department will be publicity and propaganda on behalf of our country addressed to people who do not, perhaps, understand our rights and our national position. I sincerely trust that the propaganda that will be issued by the Department will differ fundamentally from the propaganda of this Palestine organisation.
As the Minister's Department is concerned with external affairs, it is right to say that fair-minded people generally must admire the tremendous ability and energy which the Minister has put into his work during the short period in which he has been Minister. There is no doubt that the duties of his Department have been very strenuous. The work that he has been called upon to do has been enough to wear out any man. He has had to travel to all parts of the earth attending conferences and meetings of all kinds and getting the Irish viewpoint on a very large variety of questions prominent before all sections of people in the world. That has been a tremendous task and I think it has been carried out by the Minister with great ability.
Fundamentally, the two big problems that face our nation in regard to world affairs are, first, the menace of international Communism, and secondly, the achievement of national unity. The Minister will be surprised, perhaps, or alarmed that I have put the menace of world Communism first but I feel that there is in this country a tendency, because we are concerned mainly with our own national problems, to overlook the tremendous menace to western civilisation, to the free nations of Western Europe, which is constituted by the growing strength and ever-increasing stretch of the Communist controlled bloc of nations. It may be that we in this country and perhaps the people in other western countries have been since the end of the European war living in a fool's paradise. We may have been enjoying a certain measure of peace and prosperity that is only a prelude to a more terrible conflict that will envelop and involve all the nations of the earth. There is no reason why we should ignore that menace. There is no reason why we should ignore the very solemn warnings which have been issued by His Holiness the Pope, by those who direct the affairs of the Catholic Church on earth. There is no reason why we should ignore the ruthless persecution of the Catholic Church in those nations which have fallen under the control of the Communist monster and there is no reason why we should not in every possible way co-operate with other free nations in seeking to preserve the world, first, from a third world war and, secondly, from complete overthrow and control by these Communist forces.
The Minister and Deputies may ask, what can small nations such as ours do in present circumstances to try to preserve the peace of Western Europe, what can we do to strengthen the forces that are resisting Communism? There would seem on the face of it two lines which a nation such as ours can adopt. First, there is the economic line of defence. There is the building up, in co-operation with all the western nations, of a certain measure of economic strength that will sustain the peoples not only of this country but of the other European countries. As far as that is concerned, the Minister has, I think, worked strenuously and I think worked well. He has co-operated in the organisation of European co-operation. He has co-operated very ably with the formation of the Council of Europe. Behind those efforts we must depend upon the ordinary plain people, in co-operation with their Government, to build up the prosperity of our country, and then to co-operate in restoring the prosperity of those other nations whose economy was so badly damaged by the war. As far as that is concerned, I think no Deputy can criticise the Minister.
It must, however, be remembered that the forces of Communism will not rely entirely or alone upon the breaking down of civilisation in the peace-loving countries through the failure of their economic system. They will, if it suits them, also resort to force. Most realistic people are prepared to acknowledge that a resort to force by Communistcontrolled nations is something which may happen within the next few years and something which will happen unless the people who control those countries are satisfied that the organised forces against them are too strong to be tackled. There is nothing which can stop the Red Army except a stronger army.
The question arises then: What can a small nation do in such an eventuality? What can a small nation do at present to present to any aggressors the organised strength that will stop them from initiating a third world war? The only thing a small nation can do is to co-operate with other nations in some type of defensive organisation. The Minister announced in this House, and I think also in the other House, that this Government had definitely decided not to have anything to do with the Atlantic Pact or the Atlantic alliance. I am one of those who hold the view that, when the Government state their policy clearly and definitely upon a really important national issue, it is undesirable that there should be any division of opinion presented in the country in regard to that issue. Once we have declared that our policy is not to join the Atlantic Pact, I do not think that we should alter our policy with regard to that. But, if this small country wants to co-operate in the defence of Western Europe, and if we are not prepared to enter into a defensive agreement with Great Britain in present circumstances, there is nothing to prevent us from entering into a defensive agreement with the United States.
We have repeatedly called upon the United States to help our country in achieving national unity. If the United States should call upon us to help them in defending their continent from attack through the defence of Western Europe, I do not think there is any reason why we should turn down that appeal. I do not think there is any reason why we should not at least enter into discussions with them as to what would be the nature of that agreement and what they would be prepared to do for us in return. It may be that such a suggestion might not be very welcome to the British or to other signatories to the Atlantic Pact, but we are not so much concerned about that. As a small nation, we are concerned to co-operate to the fullest extent in preventing, if possible, a third world war, and the only way that is possible is by the unification, as far as possible, of the nations that stand for peace. It has been said so often that it has become a hackneyed phrase, that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Let us hope and pray that it will not be said that Eire fiddled not only while Rome but all Christianity trembled on the brink of a Red inferno; that at least our small nation showed a willingness to co-operate with the bigger and stronger nations in the defence of Christianity and in the preservation of the freedom of the world.
I also asked a question about our attitude towards the United Nations Organisation. This House unanimously agreed to make application for membership of that organisation a couple of years ago and our application was turned down by the veto of Russia. I think that the wise course to have adopted would have been to withdraw our application. I may be wrong, but I think it would be a more dignified course. I do not think we gained anything by having our application waiting pending some change of view on the part of the Russian dictator, because any change of attitude towards us might be interpreted by freedom-loving nations as a change of our policy towards Russia, which is a thing we would not like to have happen. On the other hand, I do not think we would like to have our admission ticket into the United Nations Organisation peddled about in exchange for the admission of some countries under Communist rule. I think the more dignified course would be to withdraw our application and wait until either the United Nations Organisation disappears, as it is likely to do, or until it is reformed.
The other big issue which has been debated fairly fully but perhaps not fully enough during this discussion is the question of national unity. I prefer to use the words "national unity" rather than the word "Partition". I think our whole psychological approach to this question should be changed. Our policy should be, not so much war upon Partition, but a great effort to restore national unity. If we bring the matter down to a homely analogy, a partition may exist in a very small but very compact detached house, but there is still a sense of unity there. There could also be some sort of a State boundary within a very united nation without impairing the unity of that nation. Switzerland, a small country, is divided into a number of States. America, which is a large country, is also divided into a large number of States. We ought to make it clear at this stage that we are not so much against this country being divided into one or two States, but that we are seeking to have this country unified, so that whether it is one State or two or three States, they would all recognise the essential unity of the nation as a whole under one central Government. If that were made clear, it might be helpful to our efforts for the unification of our country.
On the broad issue of national unity, we have to make up our minds quickly as to how we are going to achieve that objective. We have had 25 years or more of independence here in the Twenty-Six Counties, but there has not been so far a successful effort made to achieve national unity. I do not think that the whole nation has ever definitely decided what line to adopt upon this question. I do not think that we have ever been able to convince those nationalists who are in the North of Ireland that we have a policy on the question, that we know what it is, and that we can see our way clear to the realisation of that policy.
There are two ways of achieving national unity, either by converting the majority in the Six County area to our way of thinking or to get them in by force. I have great respect for the views expressed by Deputy Dr. Maguire, views which are expressed with absolute sincerity, but yet I think that not only the Government but the Leader of the Opposition would have to consider those views very earnestly and very long before they would adopt them. The policy which he suggested was one of war in the very near future. The Government and the leaders of our Parties here would have to be satisfied that that policy was the only one that could achieve this desired object, and they would also have to be satisfied that it had a reasonable prospect of success. No Christain nation is justified in going to war unless, first of all, the conflict cannot be avoided, and, secondly, that it offers a reasonable prospect of success. I believe that resort to force, in order to re-unify our country, would not be justified.
I believe there is an alternative, and that if we pursue it with steadiness, patience and perseverence, it will eventually succeed. The alternative which I suggest to every member of the House, and to every person in the State, is the policy of friendship, in spite of everything that has been done by the people who control the Six County area as well as those who support them on the other side of the water. I believe that, by establishing closer contact with those people and maintaining such contacts with them, in spite of everything they may say or do, we will eventually break down their prejudice against this nation to which they belong. Deputy Dr. Maguire suggested that there was very little use in being reasonable with the people who control the Six Counties. That may be true, but those people would have no power whatever unless they had behind them the very substantial number of ordinary citizens who, by their votes, elect them to office and have done so again and again consistently over the last 25 years.
Another suggestion which I put forward with absolute sincerity—it has been made in the last six months and may seem somewhat rather novel—is that an effort should be made to set up an all-Ireland council, representative of the Six-County Government and of the Irish Republic, a council or conference which would meet regularly to discuss matters of common concern to both areas. There are quite a number of such questions which require consideration and which are capable of being discussed in a friendly way by the Governments of the two areas, questions relating to trade and finance, and particularly, questions relating to transport, drainage, electrical development, agriculture and the fight against disease not only amongst live stock but also of those diseases which afflict the human population. These are questions on which there could be a certain amount of co-operation, no matter how fundamentally we may differ on political issues. Both Governments could come together in a friendly way and discuss these matters. I believe that, if we were to do so, eventually we would break down the prejudice that is seperating those people from the rest of the nation at the moment.
In addition, we would need to have, and always must have, a steady campaign not so much of propaganda but of the truth. There is always the tendency to regard propaganda as being something apart from the truth. I think that by telling the whole truth about our position, and to keep that objectively before the people of other nations, to tell it in a moderate and a restrained way to the people of the United States, of Canada and of other free nations, we would achieve the object we have in mind. That, I believe, would be the result if we were to continue that policy consistently and steadily. On the question of national unity there is no division whatever amongst the people of the Twenty-Six Counties. We are all anxious to have that ideal achieved—the ideal of Ireland as one nation. While we are all agreed on that, I think nobody would seriously disagree with the proposition that any area that is around Belfast, or any portion of the Six Counties which desires a separate Parliament, should be allowed to have it, but beyond that we are all in complete agreement that the whole nation should be unified.
Reference was made to the question of an instalment plan. I have very grave doubts on that. I do not know what the attitude of Deputies generally is towards it. I have very grave doubts as to whether it would be helpful; whether, if we were demanding the restoration to the nation of portion of the Six Counties, the result of such an attempt would be beneficial or otherwise. I have the feeling that it might not, and that it might only aggravate the problem. I think that if we were to consider an instalment plan at all we should consider another type of instalment plan for the Six Counties, that is if we are to reconcile ourselves to the making of a demand for less than the complete restoration of the Six Counties to the Irish nation. We might perhaps demand some change in the attitude of the majority in the Six Counties to the minority, some reform in their electoral system that would make the way easier for the restoration of this area. If we are going to ask for an instalment, let us consider that also, because it is possible that, if strong pressure were brought to bear, with the co-operation perhaps of the United States or other friendly Powers, we might be able to secure that instalment of justice. It was suggested that a fairer electoral system should be introduced there, and perhaps also we might be able to secure that the British would not be permitted to subsidise or otherwise offer inducements to the Six Counties to remain with the United Kingdom. They would be instalments of justice, but not complete justice, which might be demanded. However, I will not express any dogmatic opinion on that.
I think the Minister has carried out the tasks allotted to him with great ability and I do not think there is any justification for asking the House to refer this Estimate back for reconsideration.
In this debate a great deal has been said from the Government Benches to Deputies on this side of the House. Listening to the speeches made by Government Deputies, and particularly Deputy O'Higgins, one would imagine that we were introducing the Estimate and the Government spokesmen were opposing it and wanting to have it referred back. Deputy O'Higgins, when he was speaking to-day, started to abuse Deputies on this side of the House on the grounds that our attitude towards Partition was something new and he wanted to know to what he could ascribe this new attitude on our part.
I do not know whether Deputy O'Higgins has followed the history of this country for the past 30 years. I do not know that he ever heard of Fianna Fáil in opposition from 1927 to 1932. I do not know if he ever took the trouble to see the posters issued by Fianna Fáil, even in non-election times, or whether he took the trouble to find out what this Party stands for. If he did, he would discover that this Party is definitely committed to using any and every method possible to end Partition.
He also suggested that the Leader of this Party never spoke about Partition. I think if he took the trouble to look up the records of this House he would find that on every occasion possible Partition was obviously very close to the mind of the Leader of this Party. I do not know whether Deputy O'Higgins ever took the trouble to study the debate on the introduction of the Constitution or if he even read the Constitution, because it is quite clear that in that Constitution, which was put before the people by Fianna Fáil and which was opposed by all the other Parties in the House, provision is made for the time when Partition will be ended.
When will that be?
Does Deputy O'Higgins not realise that there were many other constitutional issues and that the Fianna Fáil Government, as such, inherited a legacy which had to be dealt with? It was not Fianna Fáil who endorsed Partition. Fianna Fáil had to remove the Governor-General, the Oath of Allegiance, which was imposed on the members of this House, and appeals to the Privy Council.
They swallowed the Oath.
The Oath was removed by the Fianna Fáil Government.
That has nothing to do with this Estimate and the Deputy should not answer these irrelevant, disorderly interruptions.
The attitude of this Party in relation to the position which has now developed as a result of the removal of the External Relations Act has been questioned from the point of view of a patriotic approach. I recommend Deputies to read the speeches made here during the years when Fianna Fáil were involved in an economic war with England for the removal of the land annuities.
That has nothing to do with the Estimate.
Our patriotism has been challenged.
And I challenge anything not related to the Vote before the House.
References to the by-election in West Cork were not considered irrelevant. A lot of references were made to speeches during that election and also in Bray, and there were quotations from papers which were not produced, although the dates of issue were stated.
If the Deputy is finished in his criticism of the Chair, he may proceed with his statement on the Estimate.
A great deal of latitude was allowed by the Chair. I am merely asking for a direction from the Chair. Am I entitled to reply to criticism of the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party in journeying to foreign countries, including England, and trying to educate people about Partition? It was suggested that he has no right to go to England and that he was driving friendly members of the trade union movement against us by raising the question of Partition there. It was mentioned that it is only now, since we went into opposition after our period of office as a Government, that we suddenly realise the importance of Partition.
Do Deputies not realise that there has been a conversion brought about in regard to Partition? There has been a conversion in the minds of Deputies on the far side of the House. It is not so long ago since we were surprised to find those who had advocated closer ties with the Commonwealth suddenly emerging as even more extreme Republicans than the Clann na Poblachta Party. Every Party in the House has a certain history and has emerged as a result of certain developments in their own associations and in relation to the country as a whole. There have been criticisms of the manner in which the Government handled this matter. It is quite true that when the Bill was presented this side of the House indicated that if the Government believed it would do some good they were not going to be prevented from doing that good.
Pull down the sails instead of only trimming them.
It has been suggested that because we did not oppose it we have no right to criticise now what has resulted from that particular line of approach. Some people have said to me—and I have heard criticisms in the House—that the Government's approach in this matter was undiplomatic and opportunist. It was undiplomatic because it was done in such a way that it led to statesmen in Britain making the charge that no proper official and diplomatic approach was made to them. I am not saying whether there is or is not any truth in those charges. I am merely saying that those charges have been made——
Really, the Deputy should tie himself to some charge.
——that opportunists, it is stated, who stood for the Commonwealth relations suddenly reversed their policy. Now that has been widely canvassed outside this House. Every citizen of voting age who is asked to read election literature and vote for a Party standing for a particular policy tries to understand the particular policy of the Party for which he or she casts a vote. These are the things that should either be clarified or left alone. If they are left alone, I think the spokesmen of the Government ought not to endeavour to blame this side of the House for what has happened.
There was no opposition to the Bill when it was introduced. The Opposition were not consulted about its introduction. The announcement was made abroad. Even Government supporters were not consulted and were just as surprised as we were. When the interests of the country were paramount there was wholehearted and unanimous support. When a certain reaction took place——
You trimmed your sails.
When the interests of the country are challenged, or when the legitimate authority is challenged, it is the duty of every citizen to stand for his country irrespective of whether the position has been brought about as a result of a good manoeuvre or as a result of a bad manoeuvre. To the extent that it was necessary and for as long as it was necessary, this Party played its part. Since then everybody has been disappointed. Even the spokesmen of the Coalition Government spoke with different voices on this matter. I remember hearing the Taoiseach indicate more or less that because he was a lawyer and because the Prime Minister of England was a lawyer they would be able to settle this matter more easily; I think he said in the course of 24 hours. On the platform in O'Connell Street at a meeting of all Parties combined I heard the Minister for External Affairs say he did not know how long it would be before Partition was ended; it could be a long time or a short time, but it would have to end some time. Everybody had a different view. Then we had a statement that it would end in a matter of months.
The Opposition had a realistic approach to this matter. We want to see Partition ended. We have on the Opposition Benches men who have given evidence of good service as far as their country is concerned. They are not prepared to take second place. On the Government side of the House there are men who have taken risks in the past in order to bring about the freedom of this country. A situation arose in which there was a cleavage because some people felt that commitments were being entered into which could never be honoured. The rope that hung around the neck of the nation has at last been cut away, except for this one outstanding problem of Partition. As Deputy Little said, while we can agree in absolute unity as to the objective, there is room for disagreement as to the best method of approach to bring about the end of Partition in the shortest possible time.
The two Deputies to whom I have already referred brought in all manner of suggestions, raised all kinds of matters and made all kinds of unfair and unreasonable attacks. Dealing with the news agency service, I want to ask the Minister has he ever examined in detail the possibility of having Press attachés—properly trained experts——
Has the Deputy not read the Supplementary Estimate?
I am speaking of Press attachés as distinct from a news agency service in order to obviate the necessity of having this news agency service.
That is why I asked the Deputy if he has not read the Estimate. Part of the Supplementary Estimate which the Deputy is now discussing is for the provision of Press attachés in Washington, New York and London and an information section here.
I know that this news agency service has already been discussed on the Second Stage of the Bill, but I think it is legitimate to make a short reference to it here. Has the Minister given detailed thought to the possibility of having Press attachés? Could not these experts do what the Minister has in mind? I cannot see what useful purpose this agency will serve which could not be served equally well by a Press attaché. If he is an expert and knows his job and the people in whose country he is working, he will know the type of bulletins to issue and the kind of information to give. I would ask the Minister to reconsider this news agency proposal in view of the criticism expressed by the Opposition.
The countries in which we have Ministers or consuls are limited in number. The business of a Press agency will also be limited because of the fact that we have not representatives in certain countries. I would ask the Minister to postpone this proposal until such time as he has received reports as to what his Press attaché in each country thinks will result from the setting up of this news agency. In my travels abroad I have gathered that our representatives stand very high in the opinion of the other diplomatic services and in the opinion of the citizens of the country in which they serve. As far as Ireland is concerned, we can be very proud of the reputation we have gained because of the services rendered by our representatives abroad. I have never heard a complaint of lack of courtesy or lack of consideration. We have a very large number of our people leaving for abroad, say, America. Every one of us probably knows some recent emigrant and probably occasionally gets back a letter. I want to put this on record and I think the Minister ought to commend his staff for it.
Whenever any of our people abroad happen to run into a jam or are in trouble they can always find a human reaction, they can always feel they are almost at home, the moment they put their feet inside the Irish office wherever it may be. I want to say that, because of the high reputation which our consular service and our Ministerial service abroad enjoys, I think that if the dissemination of news such as the Minister has in mind were to emanate from these offices it would be accepted with a much higher standing than if it were just rolled out, as will be the case, by what one calls an ordinary news agency. I would appeal to the Minister to take the opportunity of reconsidering it, to compare the standing of the consular service and our legations abroad with any other country and he will find there may be something in what has been said from this side of the House.
I do not want to delay the House any longer except to say again that as far as the Department is concerned I certainly feel a little bit of a grievance, as many of us do, when I find people grumbling about the recent increase that was put on the passports. Outside of that I do not think there is any complaint with regard to the Department of External Affairs.
I rise on this Vote to say a word or two and to express my appreciation of the manner in which the Minister and the officers of his Department have discharged their duties during the past year. In approaching an Estimate of this kind I think it would be well for Deputies to realise the fact that, whoever may happen to occupy the position of Minister for External Affairs, he is not the Minister of the Government or of a Party but that he is really a Minister who is representing the Irish people at home and abroad. Listening to this debate and hearing the mean, low criticisms that have been passed on the Minister, I think that the Deputies opposite have done a great disservice in so far as the interests of this country are concerned. Deputies must recognise the fact that when our Minister for External Affairs attends a conference outside the shores of this country the success which will attend his efforts depends to a very large extent on the unanimity and co-operation that he receives in the Parliament of which he is a member. Do not forget that.
When did you discover that?
I have always said that and I am 22 years a member of this House. I always gave credit to whatever Government was in power. Coming of an old constitutional and nationalist family who were Irish before Deputy Lemass was ever heard of in this country, I can realise what my responsibilities should be to the people who sent me here. Understanding the very high position which the Minister occupies, I think we should show that, if not to the Minister in person, at least to the position which he occupies.
Coming to the many activities with which the Minister has to deal, I think that Deputies should be glad of the work that he has accomplished. He has told us here that he has made agreements with Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain and many other countries which have reacted very favourably in so far as the trade and economic interests of this country are concerned. I think in 1939 our exports to some of those countries were only in the region of £10,000. To-day, in 1949, they are somewhere in the region of £50,000. In particular, our exports —I think it is to the Netherlands—are almost £300,000 as compared with £60,000 or £70,000 a few years ago. That is a direct result of the activities of the Minister and his officials during the past 12 months.
He has also taken a very live interest in seeing to it that, as far as it is humanly possible and with the resources at his disposal, our Irish missionaries in the Far East, whose very lives are threatened by the forces of atheism whose one object is to sabotage and undermine the very foundations upon which Christianity itself rests, are given all the help possible wherever they may be. No mention has been made of that part of his activities from any member opposite.
Again, in the matter of passports or in the matter of facilitating our Irish citizens here in recovering property, the services of the officials are ever ready to be placed at the disposal of any of our people, however humble they may be, who may have occasion to call at the office in Stephen's Green or at the office of the representative in the various countries to which they are attached. I join with Deputy Briscoe in paying a tribute to the officials of the Department of External Affairs in the way in which they have carried out their work in regard to the issue of these passports and visas.
The question of Partition has been discussed here and I am not going to say very much about it except to quote the words of the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party when he himself was Taoiseach. He said that the only people who can deal with that problem of Partition are the Government for the time being, whatever Government is in Power. I would say to all and sundry, even to our fellow countrymen in the Six Counties, leave this question of the solution of Partition in the hands of the present Government. That is why I was so silent in the past on this question of Partition. I never mentioned it here during the 16 years when Fianna Fáil was the Government of this country because I think their Leader, the then Taoiseach, was right when he said that if any suggestions from the opposite benches—which were the benches of Cumann na nGaedheal and Labour at that time—were sent over he would give them all the attention they deserved. I say the same to-day. There is no use in saying that this question can be easily solved. There is no use in men like Deputy Maguire getting up here and stating that we should break diplomatic relations with England because of the passing of the Ireland Bill. There is no reason for that.
I have been as long as anybody in this House and longer, fighting the question of Partition so far as the national unity of this country is concerned and that goes back well over 50 years. No one in this House can tell me anything in so far as this question of Partition is concerned. Although I am one of those who are quite prepared to fight for the national unity of this country I am going to take good care, although I do not mind what happens to myself, that I do not put anybody else in danger.
We have a lot of loose talk about taking certain action because the British have passed the Ireland Bill, and it is suggested that the Government is not doing its duty. All this talk about bad relations with the British Government is not true. The relations between this Government and that of Great Britain never were better than they are to-day. It is true that a certain amount of distrust was created when the Ireland Bill was introduced. It is only natural that, following an event of that kind, there should be a certain amount of coldness between the two countries, but the greatest friends, even in the same household, often have differences of that kind. So far, however, as trade relations are concerned, they are the very same as they were before the introduction of the Ireland Bill or before our own Government repealed the External Relations Act. The proofs are there. Never in the history of the country for the past 15 or 20 years have our exports to Britain been greater than in the last year or two. That is the country with which Deputies on the opposite side have said our relations have deteriorated. What is the use of trying to establish that a state of affairs exists here which in reality does not exist?
I say, no matter what may be said to the contrary—I may be up in the Six Counties shortly and I shall make the same statement there—that the question of the solution of Partition is a matter for the Government of this State at the moment. We do not want 101 Taoiseachs all over the Twenty-Six Counties telling us what we should do. The Government is not going to be stampeded into taking any action that would be inimical to the best interests of the country. The Government must be guided by prudence and must feel assured that any action taken is one that is likely to produce the best results. This Government, rightly or wrongly, has been elected by the majority vote of the Irish people. The Opposition are here as representatives of a very strong and powerful section and it is their duty to work in harmony and co-operation with the Government, so that by their united action the unity of the country may be restored.
I should like to address a few questions to the Minister in regard to the news agency which he intends to establish. In what way is that going to assist in the solution of the Partition problem? He made the statement that there are 700 newspapers in the United States. Can the Minister tell us at this stage how many of these newspapers will be willing to carry any news of this country to the people whom they serve? At the present time it is not possible to get even one line in the English papers in regard to anything that would be likely to favour this country. They are ready enough to publish news that is likely to be detrimental to this country but there is never mention of anything that is likely to further the campaign against Partition, for instance. When the proposed news agency is established will these papers publish anything concerning this country, anything that is likely to assist in the solution of Partition?
From what Deputy Coburn has just said, one would think that our relations with Britain were never so rosy. I wonder has he read the speeches made at Orange celebrations in Northern Ireland on the 12th of July and the reaction which the passage of the Ireland Bill has had in relation to the Six Counties? I am one of those who was deported from Northern Ireland 25 years ago and I have a personal interest in seeing that that part of the country is restored to the nation. I had the privilege and honour of being deported because my late husband would not take the Oath of Allegiance. After being interned for three years in a prison ship, he was deported and for that reason I have a personal interest in seeing that this problem of Partition is solved. I was there when the Stormont Parliament was inaugurated and when the King of England came over to open that Parliament. We looked in vain at that time to the people of the South for some protest against the injustice that had been perpetrated on our country. We got no protest. That is all past history now but so far as I can see the situation is more serious now than ever it was before. What has brought about that deterioration in the situation I am not going to suggest, but I will say that there was a little too much pretence about the establishment of the Republic of Ireland. People of other countries were misled. They were told that we had got a Republic and that the aspirations of Irishmen all down the years were now satisfied and their hopes fulfilled. It was left to these people themselves to find out that we had a Republic only for 26 counties.
Of course, when the Constitution was passed in 1937 it embraced the whole 32 counties. I think the present Minister acknowledged that, that a 32-county Republic was established by the Constitution of 1938. Now we find ourselves in the position that Partition has become stereotyped and the introduction of the Ireland Bill has made the situation far more difficult from our point of view. That is shown by the speeches made at the Orange celebrations in the North on the 12th July, one of which I shall quote briefly. Speaking at the Ballymoney demonstration, Mr. W. McCleery, Minister of Labour, said that—
"with the new Ireland Act which had just been passed at Westminster, they had reason to hope and expect and earnestly pray that the Partition question had been so manifestly settled as to leave no doubt in the mind of anyone."
It is clear that they are perfectly satisfied but we down here are further away from the solution of the problem than ever.
It is a pity that people are misled by Ministerial pronouncements in regard to this matter. I read in the newspapers a short time ago a statement by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in Geneva in which he assured the members of an assembly there that when next he visited that assembly he would be speaking as Minister of a 32-county Republic. I noticed also that the Minister for Lands, speaking in Ballina some time ago, assured his audience that when he would be back within two years he would be speaking as Minister of a 32-county republic. Do these Ministers really believe that? Have they any plans to show that Partition will be solved in one year, two years, or 20 years? If they have, they should tell the people about them. It is not fair to say that Partition can be solved in two years if no such plans are in existence. I think it is ridiculous to be trying to mislead the people in that way. We are only making a laughing stock of ourselves here for the people of the Six Counties. They know that as long as they have Britain to back them and America to back Britain, Partition will remain. The Minister has said that the efforts of our AntiPartition friends in New York have not been helped in any way by America; that, as a matter of fact, their representations are treated with indifference and that they are not going to help us in any way; that, as far as they are concerned, they will back Britain in any effort she makes to maintain Partition. Where are we to look for help? If America does not back us up or use her influence with Britain, where are we going to seek help? Our own people all over the world are helpless. Their sentiments are with us and they hope that they will see a united Ireland, but if the American Parliament, which is mainly a Freemason Parliament, backs up a Freemason Parliament in Britain, there is no hope that Partition will be solved in our time.
Many things have been said about the Leader of the Opposition, that he never did anything to remove Partition. When he came into office he removed a lot of obstacles that made it very easy for others to follow without any trouble whatever. The last and remaining obstacle was the External Relations Act. There is one thing: Whatever he did—to use a slang phrase—the British never put anything across on Deputy de Valera. Anything he did, he knew what the consequences were going to be and there were never any repercussions for any association he had with them. He got back the ports and they could then have tried something on him but they did not do it. He put a Constitution before the people. That was a time there could have been repercussions, had the British so desired. Whether it was as a result of the removal of the External Relations Act or the passing of the Northern Ireland Act, the position as regards Partition is more difficult now, to my mind, than ever it was.
The people who talk here so glibly about the removal of Partition do not seem to realise the mentality of the people of the North. I wonder if they have ever lived amongst them? I lived in Northern Ireland for 10 years, amongst a Protestant people, and although they were the nicest people in the world, on the 12th July they could not say a civil word to you or pass the time of day. They are first and last anti-Catholic, I am sorry to say. Their loyalty to the Crown is really overrated. It is a matter of religion, pure and simple. How we are to break down that bigotry I do not know. In one of the speeches reported in The Telegraph on the 12th July it was said that the greatest menace in this world was the Catholic religion and Communism. That is an extraordinary statement to have made in a Christian country. We never tried to convert them to our way of thinking.
Everybody here is free to practise his religion no matter what it is. If they think we want to coerce them to become Catholics, they are wrong. They can never have that to say of us. As a matter of fact, the boot is on the other foot. We have only to remember history. They were the people who tried to proselytise our people, when they were dying of starvation. We never tried any such measures on them. They should remember what they are talking about. We have no bitterness towards them. As regards religion, they can practise any religion they like. As proof of that, the Protestants in this part of the country cannot say to any Government in this State that they have ever been coerced in any way. Why should they hold such bitterness to the Catholic religion as displayed in the burning of effigies of the Pope or crying "To Hell with the Pope" and all the rest of it? That is old fashined now. Until that old mentality and that old Freemasonry dies a natural death, I am afraid this trouble will exist.
I am afraid the Minister's news agency, no matter how he tries to put the case of Ireland across, will not help in any way. I cannot conceive how any papers in America will give prominence to the cause of Ireland if it does not please Britain. They certainly will not do it. I wish the Minister every success in any effort to end this problem but he certainly has a pretty hard task. It is only those who have lived amongst these people, who know the mentality of them, their bitterness and their bigotry, can understand the situation as I know it.
The speech which has just been made by Deputy Mrs. Rice conflicts to a very large extent with some of the speeches that have been made from the Fianna Fáil Benches this evening and that have been made from Fianna Fáil platforms since the External Relations Act was removed from the Statute Book. Clearly, Fianna Fáil policy would appear to be directed towards gaining the votes of what I might call the Protestant minority in this part of the country. Deputy Mrs. Rice has indicated a different point of view and I am perfectly certain that that point of view will not be welcomed by the Leaders of her Party. I feel that this attempt to play up to the Protestant minority here as if they were imperialists is wrong. It is quite true that their grandfathers, or maybe the fathers of some of them, may have been British imperialists, but in the last 25 years there have grown up the sons and daughters of that Protestant minority and they are as good and as sincere Irish men and women as there are to be found in the country. This effort to single them out as British imperialists whose votes can be got by suggesting that Fianna Fáil are better imperialists than the present Government is, I think, a very distasteful and obnoxious piece of propaganda.
If we were trying to get their votes, we failed signally. You got them all.
Deputy Childers made a good attempt.
The Irish Times leader made an attempt in the Cork election.
So long as we are clear that the effort was made by Fianna Fáil to get the votes and that they failed to get them, well and good, but I am quite sure it must have nauseated Deputy Boland when he was preparing his speech for Bantry and it must have nauseated his Leader when he was preparing the speeches that he delivered in a somewhat similar vein in the West Cork constituency. I feel that this debate on External Affairs should be lifted very high above some of the petty considerations that have influenced Deputies on all sides of this House this evening.
Carry on.
I listened last night to Deputy de Valera. I listened to-day to Deputy Lemass. I must say that I thought both of these Deputies put forward in a critical way a point of view that ought to be expressed in this debate. I do not or could not support some of the criticism that was directed against Deputy Lemass for his contribution. I thought it was a sound contribution from his point of view. I thought it was constructive. I thought that he had held up the mirror to the Department, that he had examined it very carefully and with quite a number of the points that he made I personally was in agreement. But the debate has deteriorated considerably since then.
We had, or at least we thought we had, an extraordinary set up in this House when we had a Government formed from a number of Parties and a number of Independents and an Opposition consisting of a single Party. I felt when we had reached that position in the House that probably the more critical side of the House in regard to Estimates and Government policy generally, the more critical from a constructive point of view, would be the inter-Party side. I am disappointed in this way, that immediately an Estimate such as this is introduced it is criticised from the Fianna Fáil side and then every Deputy and Party on the Government side spring up immediately to the defence of the Minister concerned. I think that that is wrong; it is regrettable that that should be so. I think that we can discuss, that we can examine, that we can criticise in a constructive way and still, when all that is done, we can say: "We have criticised, but we are quite prepared to give the Minister his Vote." That is what I am going to do this evening.
Up to recently the Department of External Affairs was a Department which dealt with diplomatic relations, in the main. But, in recent years, and certainly since the formation of the inter-Party Government, the Department of External Affairs seems to include more than the ordinary diplomatic matters that we considered part of the Department of External Affairs. Economics and financial matters seem to play a greater part than diplomatic matters in the working of the Department. I wonder if our Department is properly built for the consideration of these matters. Deputy Lemass mentioned matters of trade. I was surprised when I saw that the Minister for External Affairs was representing this country at conferences in Europe on matters that were purely trade matters which hitherto had been dealt with by the Department of Industry and Commerce. Only recently, the Minister was at a conference in Paris at which Great Britain was represented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We were represented by our Minister for External Affairs and not by our Minister for Finance. Is our Department constructed and are our officials in the Department trained to deal with economic matters and financial matters? I do not think that the Department has been constructed for that purpose.
Maybe our Minister is competent to deal with them.
I hope the Minister will not consider that it is criticism if I say that it is well known that the Minister for External Affairs has a very slight knowledge of economics and a slighter knowledge of finance. Nobody can expect him to be an authority on economics, because to be an authority on economics requires study over a long period. Obviously, the Minister had no opportunity of becoming a specialist in economics. To be an authority on finance requires study over a long period, and it would be very unfair for any person to expect the Minister for External Affairs to be an authority on finance. The peculiar way in which the machine is running now, however, means that these matters of finance and economics seem to be the main concern of the Department of External Affairs, and in my view, the Department is not constructed for the carrying out of that function.
I read a statement in the Irish Times of the 29th June last in which it was stated:—
"Mr. MacBride, who is in Paris to attend to-day's meeting of the 19 Marshall Plan nations—called to try to break an Anglo-American deadlock on trade and monetary policy— criticised the policy of Marshall Plan countries of cutting down imports from the United States. This, he said, merely makes the slump worse."
That was the statement of the Minister for External Affairs in Paris. He criticised the Marshall Plan countries. We are one of these countries, and I presume that the criticism was directed against this country as well as the others. The criticism was that we were cutting down imports from the United States. I suggest that no economist with a knowledge of what has been attempted to be done in this country over a quarter of a century would have made such a statement in Paris or any place else. I do not think that the Minister for External Affairs ought to set himself up as a sort of super-salesman for the United States of America. I do not think that that is his function. I think the Government are wrong in placing on the shoulders of the Minister matters which are proper to the Department of Industry and Commerce or to the Department of Finance. I do not want these observations of mine to be taken as a criticism of the Minister, because it would be unfair to criticise him if the Government gave him responsibilities that ought not to be thrown on his shoulders.
Partition has been mentioned in this debate. I agree with Deputy Mrs. Rice that the problem of Partition is probably more serious now than it has been for a long period. If the efforts to end Partition are to be constitutional methods, then I say it is almost impossible to remove the obstacles that have been placed there over a period; not only the obstacle of the latest British Act, but the other obstacles that are created by virtue of the fact that we have become members of certain international organisations. I am afraid that there has been no proper or realistic approach to this problem of Partition.
Not many months ago, they had an election in Northern Ireland and we here decided to participate in that election. We took the decision to participate too late. The actions we took were ill-considered, and I think everybody would agree that the results were bad. We set up a Mansion House Conference, or rather a Mansion House Conference established itself. There was a collection and there was a magnificent response to the collection; approximately £54,000 was collected. What was that £54,000 collected for? The people wanted enthusiasm and they wanted leadership.
On a point of order, I am quite prepared to take on the burden, if the Chair so rules, of accounting for the funds held in trust by the Mansion House committee. I would like the Chair to rule whether I am supposed to account for these funds or not.
The Minister certainly is not. I understood the Deputy to claim that the methods taken to end Partition were wrong and quoted that as an instance without there being any responsibility on the part of the Minister for the expenditure of these funds. The Minister has no control over them.
That is correct. It is just exactly what I was doing, and I think the Minister knew very well what I was doing.
The Minister is entitled to raise a point of order.
He is, and he knows when to raise it if he can throw a speaker off.
The Deputy knows something about that, too.
I do.
Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile.
I may be put off if this continues. However, the people wanted leadership. That was clear. They showed their enthusiasm in collecting this £54,000. It is perfectly safe, I hope. I sincerely trust that it never will be the subject of an action in the High Court. I cannot grumble on that score, but I doubt if I would be available when the legal issue in regard to that came to be tried. The response showed the enthusiasm of the people for leadership in regard to that. The enormous demonstrations that we had in Dublin and elsewhere again showed the enthusiasm of the people.
The Minister and myself came into this House on a programme of endeavouring to bring about an end to Partition by making the necessary changes in the law that would enable representatives from the Six Counties to take their seats in this House. Now, that was an important aspect of our policy at the time, but the Taoiseach has stated that the Government do not propose to follow that up. They do not propose to suggest any constitutional changes that might make it possible for representatives of the Six Counties to take their places here. As I said last night, I am afraid that this News Agency Bill will have the effect of damping down enthusiasm on our failure to do the right thing in regard to the Northern Ireland elections and our collection of the £54,000: that we do not seem to have made any use of these things.
The Minister has no responsibility for that.
I know, but these things, taking them by and large, may have the effect of browning people off, if I may use the expression, in regard to this Partition problem. Then, on top of that, when I read in some newspapers—I have not the reference with me and I am at the mercy of the Minister—the statement made in the United States by the Minister suggesting that this problem of Partition might be solved on a federal basis, I felt that we have no fixed policy at all in regard to this. The Minister for External Affairs says "deal with it on a federal basis"; the Taoiseach says "let us look for instalments". That is the problem, and I do not want Deputy McGrath to be amused at this, because the unfortunate thing is that these very same points of view were put forward by his own leaders. The federal idea and the instalment idea were put forward by them.
Now, this is one problem on which there should be a substantial unity of view. Our Ministers and our former Ministers, our Government and our former Government should be able to sit down and work out what are the practical steps that we can take to end the Border and to end Partition. I was asked by the Minister for some reason as to what my methods were. I explained what they were. If I had the responsibility of putting these methods into operation I have no doubt whatever that I would make a success of the job, but, unfortunately, I have not that responsibility, and all that I can do in a debate on this Estimate is to draw attention to this. But, in the meantime, while the Government are making up their minds, while the Minister for External Affairs is making up his mind as to whether we are going to have the federal idea or whether we are going to have the instalment idea, whether we are going to try and solve it by force or whether we are going to do anything at all, whether we are going just to use the news agency service when the Bill becomes law to talk about this, whether we may get this £54,000 that is available and use it for propaganda purposes; while minds are being made up in regard to those matters, I would suggest to the Minister that there is one step that he can take, and that is to create conditions down here that will at least be equal to, and in my view, ought to be better than the conditions that exist in the Six Counties. I do not think it would be relevant if I were to develop that point.
The Deputy anticipated me.
However, I can only put it in its broad setting, and having campaigned with the Minister over a period, he will understand and appreciate what I mean. I think that the criticism levelled at the Minister in regard to our relations with Britain was unfair—a lot of it—and for this reason, that what did happen in Britain and what was responsible for the introduction of the Ireland Bill was something that is very difficult to understand. I am satisfied that what really happened over there was that this Ireland Bill was to be introduced for the purpose of clearing up certain matters that arose from our declaration, or rather from the Act we passed, which declared the name of this country to be the Republic of Ireland. I am satisfied that when that Bill was drafted there were introduced into it the clauses to which we took exception. I am satisfied that those clauses were in the Bill when the British Minister received it and that the British Minister had to stand over a Bill which he did not understand, which he did not read in advance, and which was prepared by people much cleverer than he was.
I am prepared to go that far in extenuation of the action of the British Minister concerned, and to that extent I think that some of the criticism directed at the Minister was unfair. But I will add this little bit of criticism myself, that the Minister went on a visit to the United States of America. I asked him a Parliamentary Question as to the period of time he spent with the Secretary of State, and the answer was that he spent a quarter of an hour —that was in the period of some weeks when he was over there. I should have imagined that the main value of the visit to the United States would have been to get the ear of the American Secretary of State in regard to these problems of ours. A discussion between two Ministers lasting for a quarter of an hour can permit of nothing beyond an exchange of courtesies.
I think, speaking from memory, I spent some 40 minutes with the Secretary of State—that is purely from recollection.
I accept that and I will make it threequarters of an hour. We will not quarrel on that point and still we will endeavour to keep on the line. I felt that the Minister made certain statements in America which, if the British Ministers were bothering about them, would have been somewhat provocative. The impression I gathered was this: "Here are we in Ireland, a small country divided by an artificial border. Ireland is vital to the defence of Western Europe. We want to come in with you to defend Western Europe, but we cannot do it while Britain keeps us divided." In other words, there was the suggestion to Uncle Sam that he should pull John Bull's tail. "Britain is treating us unfairly. We want to go in with you, so put the pressure on Great Britain." My views in regard to Great Britain are pretty well known, but at least there is this to be said, that Britain is a proud country, they have weathered many storms, they have fought many wars and, being a proud country——
And an unjust one.
An unjust one, if the Deputy wants it that way. But they are a proud people, and if they paid any attention to what the Minister said the effect could well be: "Well, we will show these people where they get off." I am not saying that that was the attitude of the British Government at all, but it could have had that effect.
Does the Deputy want the Minister to go with his cap in his hand?
No, this is the propagandist, now.
No, I was merely asking a question.
We will let the Minister deal with it first hand, if he should wish. Now, I would talk to Britain, and I am quite sure a lot of other people would talk to them, directly rather than try to put the screw on them through a third power, and particularly when that third power was and is as unreliable as the United States was and is. President Truman has told us his interest in the ending of Partition. Of course, it is easy to be wise after the event——
What did President Truman say about Partition?
Unfortunately, he said he would not have anything to do with the ending of it.
That is complete news to me, and I read most of the papers.
He said he was not going to have anything to do with it.
I am afraid the Deputy is mistaken.
I cannot quote him.
The State Department said it could not advise President Truman to take any action regarding Partition.
I accept that— that is perfectly correct.
It is somewhat different from what the Deputy said.
I do not want to deal with the political organisation in America or the responsibilities of the President or who advises him or who does not, but so far as President Truman is concerned, he has not done anything towards the ending of Partition. What I am endeavouring to suggest is this, that if, during that period when the Minister was in America, he had been across in London, and if he had been speaking to each of the Ministers, explaining to them the problems, and if he had been able to secure from them that they would let him see a preliminary draft of the Ireland Bill before it was introduced in the House of Commons, it is quite possible that the very objectionable sections of that measure which have caused controversy between the British Government and ourselves might never have appeared in the draft as finally presented.
As I have said, it is easy to be wise after the event, and it is easy to criticise the Minister when the thing is done. I do not want that to be used in the form of criticism that has been directed against the Minister from the other side of the House to-night. I say that, in accordance with the measure of freedom we have here on this side of the House, for a Deputy like myself, who has not seen the Minister's speech before he made it and who is not consulted about the things the Minister does, it is a good thing if I can put forward constructive criticism of the Minister, as I am endeavouring to do.
I shall conclude on this note. I agree with those Deputies who say that the Minister has applied himself to the work of his Department during the past year, that he has worked very hard, and that he has spared no effort in carrying out the responsibilities of his office. I may disagree, as I say, with some of the things he has done, but I do agree with the observations that have been made by Deputies.
May I conclude by saying that criticism is a good thing; that we must all take criticism now and again and that when a Deputy criticises a Minister, as I did last night, it would be much better if the Minister did not impute unworthy motives to that Deputy?
In the course of this debate Deputy Tom O'Higgins had occasion to challenge the members of Fianna Fáil who seemed to him to take the attitude that they were not in favour of the repeal of the External Relations Act. He suggested that for us to criticise the handling of the Department of External Affairs, or to bewail or regret the events that have taken place was pure hypocrisy. I think Deputy O'Higgins's challenge should be taken up. We did have to face a new situation. We can be thankful that at the present time, and for the first time since 1921, all Parties have agreed here on one issue; we wished to defend our Constitution and we wish that Constitution to apply to the whole of Ireland. We are all agreed upon that.
We were not agreed upon it in 1921. We were not agreed upon it during the whole period of the economic war in which we faced every sort of obstruction and criticism from the then Opposition. At least to-day we have that very great measure of unity that we want the Constitution to apply to the 32 counties and, in so far as the British Government take any action to delay the day when it will apply to the 32 counties, we object to that action and we support the Government in their stand against it. In any action which the Government may take to make the Constitution apply to the 32 counties, which we are agreed is a good action, we shall give our approval to it and we shall give our consent and all our support to the Minister and the members of the Government.
Having said that, there is no point in our being hypocritical in the sense that we refuse to talk about things in connection with external policy which are known to the whole world, which are known to the British, to the Northern Irish and to ourselves. If, by talking about them, we can get back to fundamentals and start again, take a new view, recollect all we have done since February, 1948; and, if by so doing, we can advance in a better way and take wider steps, it will be to the advantage of the country as a whole. I think it is up to any member of Fianna Fáil, who desires to do so, to state why we did back the Government in their policy of repealing the External Relations Act and the assumption we made when the Government took that action.
I daresay a number of us had different views about it. As I have said, the only real common factor between the Parties in this House is a belief in the Constitution. That is a fundamental belief with all of us, together with its application ultimately to the 32 counties. Some members of the Fianna Fáil Party, just as some members of the other Parties, may have slightly different reasons amongst themselves individually as to why they approved or did not oppose the repeal of the External Relations Act. I think it is just as well for some Deputies, who feel inclined to do so, to accept Deputy Tom O'Higgins's challenge and give those reasons in the light of the present situation.
I propose to give mine. They may not be those that other members of the Opposition hold. But I think that many members of Fianna Fáil would agree with my views. I did not oppose the repeal of the External Relations Act for varying reasons. I did so assuming certain things would happen. I assumed, in the first instance, that the Minister would ensure that the repeal of the External Relations Act would not considerably worsen our relations with Northern Ireland immediately and in a very definite way. That is a perfectly reasonable assumption. One is not being a traitor to one's country or impeding the cause of unity in saying that. I cannot be challenged on the ground of not backing the Government in their present campaign by saying that.
Secondly, I assumed that every step had been taken in advance to ensure that Partition would in no way be further sanctified or embuttressed by the British Government as a result of the repeal of the Act. When I speak of the repeal of the Act, that could take place at any time now or in the next ten years. There are a great many Deputies in Fianna Fáil and in other Parties who were quite prepared to have an open mind on the date on which that Act should be repealed, if repealed at all. Therefore, my second assumption was that it would not sanctify Partition in the eyes of the British and that they would take no step to make the situation even one degree worse so far as getting rid of Partition was concerned.
My third assumption was that it might be something to satisfy the feelings of those people who call themselves extreme republicans to remove the doubts that had been cast upon our independent status here. I might say in that connection what is purely a personal observation, that with the actual status of our country under the Constitution and with the External Relations Act in operation, I did not wish to define it particularly as a Republic. I was quite content with the fact that we had our Constitution, that we had two Houses and a President. I was quite prepared to wait for a number of years after the war had ended without wishing to further define it, any more than the American Government or the American character of democracy is defined.
My next assumption was that what happened to us after the Act was repealed was a matter that had received the attention of the Minister for External Affairs and that he was taking into account the reactions of the other members of the British Commonwealth. In particular, I had assumed he had consulted with the Government of India, or would consult them, and that he would have regard to the whole question of the future character of the Commonwealth and any change in status that might take place in the Commonwealth; and that he would do all of these things before he would finally take the decision to repeal the Act.
The Deputy does not overlook the fact that there were several conferences with Commonwealth Prime Ministers before any measure was introduced here.
I am not overlooking anything. If the Minister would kindly let me make my speech, he will have all the opportunity he wants for replying. I also assumed that the way of concession lying open to the North, as long as the External Relations Act remained in operation, would not be rejected unless the Minister was aware of some way whereby we would not be placed in a less favourable position in regard to any concession we might make to the North; that we would not be on a less favourable basis and our bargaining power would not be less satisfactory after the repeal of the Act than it was before; and that he himself had taken the necessary steps to deal with that matter. That was also quite a reasonable assumption to make.
Then, at the time of the repeal of the Act, a great many of us began to feel that the Minister and the Government had something very special in mind in connection with Partition. The Taoiseach, no doubt, under the guidance of the Minister for External Affairs, spoke six times before he came back from America and in each of the six speeches he quite clearly seemed to indicate that the situation was now much more hopeful than when he landed in the United States. In each of the speeches he quite clearly seemed to indicate that the situation was much more hopeful. When he landed in Cobh he gave an interview to the Press in which he said: "I believe that this additional independence"—and he was not referring to the repeal of the Act, he was referring to the ending of Partition—"might come to the Irish people within a very few months". A great many of us began to feel at that time that we should be very careful because something might have been brewing. The Minister might have had consultations with representatives of the Dominions and maybe there was some justification for the Taoiseach speaking in that optimistic way. He was in contact with the American Government and with the Canadian Government and presumably he had been in contact with the Minister for External Affairs. Maybe there was some justification for his extreme optimism and, therefore, this new approach to the solution of Partition might be a good thing. At least, it would be very unwise of us to turn it down.
Of course, I also assumed that the Minister would see to it in advance that those people in the British Dominions, the Governments, the individual Leaders of Governments, the non-Irish and the Irish there, when we had taken this action, would continue to be at least as friendly to us as they were before and that our kith and kin would be in a position to give us the same assistance and moral support. I assumed that if the Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Australia and India had ever thought at all of assisting us in solving this problem, the fact of our repealing the Act would not in any way induce them to forget us and that they would, perhaps, take advantage of the occasion to say to the British Government: "Now, a very serious action has been taken by the Twenty-Six County Government of Ireland, which is fraught with importance for the whole of the British-speaking world", and that they would at that time come forward with some proposals to bring pressure to bear on the British Government. Perhaps the Minister for External Affairs was against all these things.
Are you against the repeal now?
The facts of the situation we know well. They are that it has been made more difficult for a small group of people both in England and Northern Ireland who were anxious to help us. I agree that that help had not been very evident. That may pass away in time and people may once more be willing to help us. Another result has been the fact that people who did not know much about Ireland before, now knew a great deal about the declaration of the Republic but unfortunately too little about the problem of Partition. It will be a man-sized task for the Minister, using any kind of Government Press agency or any kind of wireless installation he has in mind to tell all the people, who up to now have taken very little interest in Ireland, all about the problem that still remains unsolved. So far as we know, the British Dominions have not shown any special sign of being more friendly to us than before and the groups I have mentioned have not demonstrated their willingness to help us. We have to rely, so far as I can gather from the Taoiseach and the Minister, on the moral pressure made by ourselves and our friends largely in the English-speaking world, to persuade the British Government to undertake a settlement of Partition. I do not see any evidence that they are going to take any greater interest in us now than they took before.
I need hardly say anything about our relations with Northern Ireland. Deputy Cowan has dealt fully with the unfortunate results of the Mansion House committee which was started too late. I can only say what everybody knows, that the result, so far, has been the hardening of the attitude towards us and that was already hard enough. Another result has been a certain muddling in people's minds about the kind of propaganda we should use. I referred to that in connection with the Government's Press agency. I do not see that there is very much use in saying that you are going to rob the English people of their pride, prestige and their pockets unless you know very clearly what you are about. I gather that the present Government have eschewed the idea of any physical force or any economic retaliation. It leaves, therefore, the weapon of propaganda. If the weapon of propaganda is going to be employed, it is no use gratuitously insulting the Unionists of Northern Ireland. I am not saying it is going to be confined to any one Party. I merely mention that we have got to have 800,000 dyed-in-the-wool Unionists amongst us. It is no use being gratuitously insulting if our only means is the moral influence and moral support of other people. It is not going to be a solution to the problem.
I would like to repeat what Deputy Cowan said and to ask the Minister, so to speak, to start again so long as he controls the destiny of the Department of External Affairs. Blunders have been made before in our external relations. We shall not know in 50 years' time whether even the former Government made blunders. Blunders have definitely been made in the past and the thing to do is to try and repair those that have been made in the conduct of our external affairs. I think that one of the difficulties we have to face is that far too few leaders of the people remember that there are three groups of people in the 32 Counties to consider; three groups of people who will always be amongst us.
There are the Unionists and the strong supporters of the Commonwealth, the people who believe in the Commonwealth and some relationship to the King. They number a very considerable proportion of the total. They are a minority of the whole 32 Counties but they are a part of our people. Then there is the group of republicans who are perfectly willing to have some association with the Commonwealth provided unity is assured and provided that there are no humiliating conditions attaching to that association. There are other republicans who are willing to have that association grudgingly, not accepting it fully but believing that perhaps it is an inevitable conclusion. There are republicans who want no kind of association whatever but an absolutely pure republic, a politically, isolated republic.
As I have said, the thing that counts is our belief in the Constitution. If a policy is to be devised, it must be one that satisfies the interests of the majority of the whole of Ireland, who do believe in the Constitution and secondly, one that will do something to recognise the feelings of the minorities. That is the thing we have always worked for. We have had bitter conflicts on what the reconciliation should be. But there has always been at least a suggestion that there must be some positive reconciliation. We have the Constitution on which we all agree. Within that Constitution there can be formed a reconciliation, as the Minister well knows. I hope that he will start thinking more about a definite attitude and approach towards the North and the British Government. We have heard a great deal of suggestions for a federal basis of settlement. We have heard suggestions of having our unity in instalments. We have heard suggestions made by persons from all Parties in this House, more of one Party than of another, that we should attack the North in spite of the Taoiseach's declaration that that is not to be the policy. I think that the Minister should start to consider what the policy is to be in the future, what the Northern Government is to expect might be our future relationship with them.
The position now is that the ground work is prepared. We have now the great advantage that the second world war is over and we have a common interest in maintaining a Christian civilisation. The Minister starts with certain advantages. He is not going to be accused of stabbing England in the back if he asks for a measure of unity for the whole of Ireland on a Christian basis. He has the possibility of installing a great short-wave wireless station. He has himself declared that by means of the news agency we could do much more propaganda, although he should see that such propaganda will not consist of the repetition of unwise speeches made in heat. As I say, he has opportunities for reviewing the whole position. I want to make it quite clear that it is possible to be a republican, to advocate the application of the Constitution to the 32 Counties, to support the repeal of the External Relations Act and at the same time to disagree vehemently with the manner in which it was done because of the lack of forethought which was evidenced. Having said that, we can still say that we support the Minister in his stand against Partition and that we support him in any constructive act he undertakes about the unity of the country, that these things are not inconsistent and that there are moments when it is wise to be prudent in regard to constitutional relations. It interested me to hear Deputy O'Higgins talking about our attitude in this matter, remembering that if there had been silence, even for six short months in 1933, the economic war would have been settled in about two years and the Partition campaign would have begun in 1936 instead of in 1939.
A great many Deputies on the opposite side of the House have spoken in the course of this debate. That is good and as it should be. I am glad that Deputies have been taking a more active interest in the work of the Department of External Affairs. From another point of view, I have seldom listened to a debate that made me feel more despondent about this Parliament than the debate to which I have listened for the last two days.
Very few of the Deputies who have spoken from the Opposition Benches have spoken either with sincerity or honesty. Possibly Deputy Childers was one of the few who did speak with honesty and sincerity. Possibly, too, Deputy Mrs. Rice and Deputy Dr. Maguire also spoke with sincerity and honesty, but it was quite obvious that if they were sincere, there is not room for them in the same Party. Most of the other Deputies who spoke on the Opposition Benches—and I think also Deputy Cowan—were not interested in the external affairs of this country, were not interested in making any constructive suggestion for improving our foreign policy or for the abolition of Partition. Their one and only interest was to try to damage either the Government on the one hand or myself personally on the other.
It is perfectly obvious that either the Fianna Fáil Party is split, irretrievably split, on a fundamental issue or that it is a two-faced Party. On the one hand you have some of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party advocating in this House, and putting it forward presumably in the name of their Party, that armed force is the only solution, that we should break off diplomatic relations with Britain and repudiate all existing trade agreements. On the one hand that is the advice from one wing of the Fianna Fáil Party. The advice from another wing of the Fianna Fáil Party, represented in this debate by Deputy Derrig and probably Deputy Lemass to a certain extent, is that we should, if necessary, tie ourselves around the neck of Britain and the sterling area and sink with it. I have really felt, in listening to the criticism that we received from the Opposition Benches, that the administration of my Department under my direction must have been perfect. I was criticised from two completely opposite directions. Having regard to the very wide and deep split which obviously exists in the ranks of the Fianna Fáil Party, I can begin to appreciate the attitude adopted by the Leader of the Party both in this House and elsewhere. I can begin to understand why, repeatedly, after having voted for the repeal of the External Relations Act he made speeches, repeating several times in the course of the same speech: "I won't say whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to repeal the External Relations Act." Of course he could not because he had a split Party behind him.
Now, I do not think it is a bad thing that there should be a divergence of views in the ranks of the Fianna Fáil Party or in the ranks of any other Party in this House. I have often said that we had had no normal political development. That was largely due, first of all, to the fact that we had not control of our own affairs until about a quarter of a century ago. Secondly, we had the civil war and its aftermath, which has persisted right up to now. But from now on it should be possible to get away from the civil war, to get away from the bitterness and hatred which occasionally shows itself on the Opposition Benches.
You are not showing it now?
If I may say a word of reprimand, of condemnation, now to Deputy Briscoe, who is not by any means one of the most bitter Deputies on the other side, I think he should stop criticising and talking in sneering tones about Deputy Tom O'Higgins Junior and Deputy Michael O'Higgins. I am glad that we have young men in this House. I am glad that we have young men who are able to examine issues and decide issues on their own merits irrespective of the past, irrespective of past affiliations. I should also like to say a word of condemnation of those Deputies on the other side of the House who frequently make references to the fathers or the families of T.D.s on this side of the House. We could all do that. We could ask many questions about the relatives, the antecedents, of Deputies on the other side of the House, too. Would that serve any useful purpose for the conduct of the affairs of the nation? Is it on that basis that we are to run our Parliament —on bitterness, on hatred, on personal prejudices? Are we going to continue that for ever? Or, are we going to begin to have a normal political development? Are we going to begin to behave normally and to consider issues on their merits?
That is why I said that I was glad, quite apart from any question of Party advantage, to see that there was such wide and fundamental divergence of views in the Fianna Fáil Party. I think it was inevitable. I think that we have not had normal political alignment because of all the past differences and that the time has come when Deputies of all Parties should consider issues on their own merits and decide accordingly.
The whole purport of the speeches made by the Opposition Deputies and by Deputy Cowan who, of course, can never resist the temptation to have a side kick at me, if he can, was to suggest and to say—some said it directly; others who were more clever, said it indirectly and inferentially—that the Government, or myself in particular, had committed a blunder. Most of them refused, even when asked by me, to specify the blunder that was committed. Some have suggested that the repeal of the External Relations Act was the blunder. Deputy Childers, if I may take him first as he was the last speaker and his remarks are fresh in my mind still, gave a number of reasons as to why he voted for the repeal of the External Relations Act. He voted for it, he said, because he assumed that I had certain particular precautions taken that would ensure (1) that our relations with the Six Counties had not worsened. I addressed the House when the repeal of the External Relations Act came before it. I do not remember Deputy Childers asking for any such assurance. I do not remember my adverting to that.
The next reason he gave was that we would have no difficulties with Britain. Is, then, the right of the Irish people, of the Irish nation, to determine its own form of government and its own status to be governed by the wishes of the British Government or are we an independent nation? He then said— and this illustrates, if you like the type of irresponsible statements that are made just for the sake of opposing, just for the sake of throwing some form of criticism at these benches—that he assumed—and he gave that as one of his most cogent reasons—that the Minister had had discussions with the Commonwealth Ministers before the Act was repealed.
I just want the House to bear with me a few minutes on this because it is a good illustration of the irresponsible nature of charges that are made. The House will remember that before the Bill was introduced, long before it was discussed in this House, there had been numerous conferences in relation to the Bill, in relation to the repeal of the External Relations Act, with representatives of the British Government, of the Australian Government, of the New Zealand Government and of the Canadian Government and that the House was given a full account of these discussions when the Bill was introduced in this House and that while the Bill was in process of discussion in this House, while I was actually addressing the House, messages came from the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa, sending their best wishes and setting forth the future relationship which they hoped would subsist between this country and their country. What assumption then was Deputy Childers voting on? All that information was before him at the time but, of course, Deputy Childers, had forgotten his text, he had not prepared his proofs in detail or thought out his justifications now for voting for the Act. I notice also that apparently Deputy Childers does not approve of the all-Party committee which is known as the Mansion House Committee because I noticed that he referred to the unfortunate result—"unfortunate result" are his words— of the Mansion House Committee. But, as I have said, I believe that Deputy Childers is absolutely sincere in the attitude he has put forward to the House and that it does represent a viewpoint, but that it represents a viewpoint which is miles apart from the viewpoint held by most of the members of his Party. There is far more in common, might I say, between a Communist and a Conservative than there can be between the viewpoint held by Deputy Childers, and the viewpoint held by Deputy Dr. Maguire and some other members of the Fianna Fáil Party. I am quite certain that Deputy Childers would have the honesty to get up and say publicly that he disowns, disapproves of and condemns any suggestion that we should repudiate all our trade agreements with Great Britain, that we should break off diplomatic relations with Great Britain, or that we should march on the North immediately.
The Leader of the Opposition spoke last night in this House and I thought we might have the benefit of his views to-day again, because I am afraid that I failed in the course of his remarks to get any indication of his views. He just barely avoided saying: "I do not know whether you have done a good job or a bad job", but, short of saying that, that is the effect of his remarks. He agreed with me that it was extremely unwise economy to maintain a Department without providing it with adequate staff and funds to do its work, but he said it was essential that the Minister should be satisfied that the expenditure proposed was necessary. Surely Deputy de Valera did not believe that I introduced an Estimate to this House not having satisfied myself and, what is far more difficult, the watchdogs of the public purse, the Department of Finance, that the expenditure involved was necessary.
From beginning to end of this debate, there has not been one single, solitary word uttered from the Opposition Benches in criticism of any of the items in this Estimate—not one word. It has not been suggested that the additions to the staff in Washington were unnecessary or should not be made. It has not been suggested that the Press officer in New York was not necessary. It has not been suggested that there should not be an additional Vice-Consul in Chicago. It has not been suggested that there should not be a Vice-Consul in Boston. It has not been suggested that there should not be a Vice-Consul in San Francisco. It has not been suggested that there should not be a Press officer in London. Not one item has been questioned from beginning to end of this debate on the Estimate.
We asked what happened the policy of retrenchment. We did not believe in it; you did.
I will tell you what happened the policy of retrenchment. The policy of retrenchment was used for the purpose of providing money for services that were likely to benefit the nation, for the purpose of giving old age pensioners a pension on which they could live, for the purpose of building hospitals and providing a proper hospitalisation system.
And putting the Wicklow miners out of work.
And for the purpose of enabling me in this Department to do more than to avail of Partition as a war-cry when I felt it was necessary to have a war-cry during an election campaign here. There was no retrenchment on the part of this Government for the sake of retrenchment. Any retrenchment was to put an end to the squandermania of Deputy Lemass principally, to put an end to the spending of millions on Constellation aeroplanes, to the building of things like the new bus depot, to the building of a Parliament House that was to cost £11,500,000, to the paying of vast salaries and allowances to certain persons, to the building of luxury hotels that could not pay, to the buying of Argentine wheat at an excessive price the day before the change of Government.
I was accused yesterday in the course of the debate of having been weak in introducing the Bill for the Irish news agency, of having to introduce it weakly. It seems an extraordinary and regrettable thing that in this House, unless you hit out and attack your opponents, they think you are weak. If you make a reasoned statement, as I tried to make in introducing this Estimate, immediately you are attacked right, left and centre. This debate has hinged largely on the question of Partition. That is as it should be, because that is the main national objective that remains to be achieved by this nation. I wish it had been discussed in a more constructive way than it has been. I wish, too, that the Deputies on the opposite side of the House, no matter what the temptation may be from the Party point of view, and no matter how resentful they may be or how they may dislike me personally, had not availed of a discussion on Partition to try and make political capital out of it. Deputy de Valera, and a number of other Deputies, criticised me for saying that Partition was going to end very soon. I have no recollection of making that statement, and I ask the Deputy to produce it.
You made it in O'Connell Street.
I did not.
I heard you make it.
I did not make that statement in O'Connell Street. I can produce the typescript of the statement which I made in O'Connell Street.
It was not in the typescript.
I did not make any statement that was not in the typescript.
You did.
All I did say was broadcast on a record. Of course, Deputy Lemass's tactics are these— and there is a good deal in them—if you are sufficiently unscrupulous say that a thing is black if it is white: it does not matter but keep on saying that it is black, then publish it in headlines the following day and in the following week he writes some article himself saying it is black.
The Minister says there is a record.
Deputies
Order! order! Sit down.
On a point of information, the Minister says there is a record of that speech. Deputy Lemass's recollection and the Minister's recollection can be put to the test. Let the record be produced.
That is not a point of order.
It is a point of information when there is so much bandying around that it is on record.
The Minister is entitled to proceed without interruption and every Deputy should know that.
I might have said that, given the necessary unity in support of the Irish people, it would be possible to end Partition much sooner than might be thought. Let me say this, that I would much prefer to see members of the Government or Deputies in this House say that Partition was going to be ended next week than remain silent as the Party opposite have remained silent about Partition for the last ten years or more.
That is slander by innuendo.
That is a statement of fact.
It is slander by innuendo, and it is quite false.
There is no question of innuendo. Deputy Dr. Maguire was not in the House then.
I was in this very much longer than you.
I am talking about the last Government.
I do not care about the last Government.
I am dealing with the last Government. I say this that there was not one single officer in the Department of External Affairs whose sole responsibility it was to deal with Partition until I came into it.
It was the responsibility of all who were there to deal with it.
I would like Deputies to throw their minds back to what the position was 18 months ago or more. How often did they hear any references to Partition from any members of the Government? Go to the files in the National Library or go to the files of the Irish Press and count the number of references to Partition made by Deputy de Valera in the previous 12 months, and compare them with those that have been made since they went out of office. The best proof of all is that Deputy de Valera was Minister for External Affairs and, until I took over, he had to do what I had to do this year and to do last year. He had to introduce his Estimates in this House. In the course of the introduction of his Estimates, he had to deal with the foreign policy of the State and with the various matters that have to be attended to by this Department. Let Deputies read the speeches made by Deputy de Valera in introducing his Estimate to this House, in 1947, the year before I took over, and they will find that the word “Partition” is not mentioned from beginning to end of that speech. Get the Dáil debates for 1947 and read them for yourselves.
We were quite satisfied with his efforts.
Quite satisfied with doing nothing.
Deputies on any side of the House should not interrupt while the Minister is making his statement. They had time enough to make their speeches and, surely, the Minister is entitled to conclude.
Deputy Dr. Maguire, possibly, is not long enough in the House to realise——
I was in this for years outside the House.
——the depth of the split that exists in that Party.
Is it in order for Deputy Maguire to call the Minister "a pup"?
I did not do anything of the kind.
I did not hear any such observation.
I did.
If the observation was made it should not have been made.
I know that, and if I applied it to any other Deputy I desire to withdraw it.
The references to facts that were made in the course of their speeches by the Leader of the Opposition and by his deputy, Deputy Lemass, were not even accurate. References were made to the expenditure of the Department. Deputy de Valera, as a former Minister for External Affairs, is quite familiar with the working of the Department. He knows perfectly well that the Department earns fairly considerable sums of money which should be set off against expenditure. That was not done. Deputy Lemass to-day suggested that expenditure on dollar imports in the first five months of the year had mounted up by several million pounds. The average dollar expenditure in the first five months of 1947 was £1,688,736 per month. The average dollar expenditure on imports in the first five months of 1948 was £1,047,542. In the first five months of this year the average monthly expenditure on dollar imports was £1,624,927 —less than in 1947. Again you see facts do not matter.
My facts were quite accurate. It is a lawyer's quibble. What I said was true.
Your figures are not true.
You did not quote the figures.
When does a fact become a quibble?
When MacBride says it.
Then MacBride must be a very clever lawyer.
Cute.
Cute—we will make it cute, if you like. Deputy Lemass to-day constituted himself the champion of the sterling areas, with a certain amount of reservation so as to be able to back out, if necessary. It is all right to be the champion of the sterling area so long as sterling remains all right, but in case sterling does not remain all right he wants to leave himself a way out, and he adopted his leader's phrase: "I am not saying whether it is a good thing or a bad thing."
You have no use for sterling, have you?
I think the Deputy knows my views on sterling. I have never changed them.
You changed a bit.
I think the difficult position in which we find ourselves is due largely to the disastrous policy pursued by the last Government.
Keep stories like that for your grandchildren.
We have some £400,000,000 invested in Britain to-day. In terms of 1938 figures, each one of those £400,000,000 is worth only 11/5 to-day. If you take the purchasing power of £1 in 1914 and compare it with the purchasing power of £1 to-day, it is worth only 36 per cent. of its 1914 value.
Do not imagine that I agree with the link with sterling.
I am glad Deputy Maguire finds another point on which there is a divergence of views in the Opposition.
Provided there is a way out.
I am glad to find that Deputy Maguire has an independent viewpoint on these matters. I think Deputy Maguire should come over to this side of the House.
Always provided we can do it.
If the Deputy likes to come over to this side of the House, I will welcome him with open arms. We will even take him into the Clann, if necessary. I do not think you should air your internal differences more than necessary. What you should do is to examine your internal differences and either form two different Parties or else have a general re-shuffle of cards in political life.
We are members of a free Party.
Fianna Fáil started off in its young days calling itself Fianna Fáil. Then it was Fianna Fáil, the Republican Party, and that was written underneath it without brackets. Then again it was the Fianna Fáil Party with "Republican Party" in brackets. Where are we now? Has it the brackets or has it not? Is it still the Republican Party or is it not?
We are supposed to be on the Estimate for External Affairs.
Review the history of Fine Gael now.
I would like to know whether there is any possibility that the Fianna Fáil Party, the Opposition, could reach an agreed policy on the question of Partition. I think they should discuss it seriously amongst themselves so that there could be some form of constructive policy put forward from the Opposition side.
Deputy Mrs. Rice, in the course of her remarks, asked me whether I had any guarantee, or whether there was even any likelihood, that any news sent out by the Irish news agency would be published by American papers. When I was in the United States last I met a great many newspaper proprietors and editors. In particular, I was invited to attend a conference of newspaper editors and proprietors in Massachusetts, representing the whole newspaper world of the area. I discussed this proposal with them. They suggested and emphasised the urgent necessity of having such a news agency. I likewise discussed this very question with newspaper proprietors in Chicago, San Francisco and New York. I had this in mind at the time and I discussed it very fully with people in the newspaper world throughout the United States and also with the Irish-American societies that have been doing so much work unselfishly and untiringly on behalf of Ireland, and it is largely as a result of these discussions that this proposal comes before the House.
References have been made to the possibility that the coming into operation of the Republic of Ireland Act should have deluded the people of different countries into the belief that Ireland was now united and had achieved her national objective. There was that possibility and I took measures to anticipate that possibility and I think those measures were effective. I think, on the contrary, instead of that being the case, that we received far more publicity on the coming into operation of the Republic of Ireland Act——
On a point of order. May I remind you that when Deputies from this side of the House were referring to this very matter, the Minister protested and got a ruling from the Chair that it was out of order in this debate?
Deputy Derrig spoke for a considerable time on that particular subject.
In my presence the Minister objected.
For at least 20 minutes it was referred to by one Deputy on that side of the House.
There was a point raised by Deputy Mrs. Rice on that which I took down at the time and I am merely giving a reply. The fact that Ireland was partitioned and still had to bring about unity was one of the points emphasised in most of the American Press. On the 18th April I happened to be in Chicago and all the Chicago newspapers published maps illustrating the partition of our country.
On a point of order. May I ask the Minister how he reconciles this statement with the message sent by the Taoiseach to Canada on the occasion of the repeal of the External Relations Act?
That is not a point of order.
On a point of order. When a Deputy raises something he calls a point of order which is not a point of order, surely it should be regarded as obstruction.
That was a point of order.
Many of the Deputies, some generally and others with their tongues in their cheeks, sought to suggest that the repeal of the External Relations Act was directly responsible for the deterioration in trade and in our relationship with Great Britain. That, of course, is not in accordance with the facts as we know them. Firstly, there has been no deterioration in trade. On the contrary, our trade has been improving. Dr. Maguire wanted us to repudiate the trade agreements we have and to stop selling anything to Britain.
I did not suggest anything of the kind.
You proposed the repudiation of trade agreements with Britain. It was suggested by some Deputies directly, and by others inferentially, that we should not have repealed the External Relations Act because of these possible consequences. Certainly, I think that was the general purpose of Deputy Derrig's remarks. Yet, in the Irish Press on the 21st October, 1948, Deputy Lemass said that the consequences of the repeal of the External Relations Act on British-Irish relations, whether in regard to trade or other matters, were of less importance than would be the consequences of a reversal or of a postponement of a decision to repeal the Act because of British pressure.
Is it suggested then that we should have yielded to British pressure of any kind? If Deputies will throw their minds back to that period they will remember that the next line was to suggest that the repeal of the External Relations Act was a blind to cover a new treaty, to cover a new attempt to sell out the country, and that the country should be watchful of the dangerous things that were being pleaded in order to tie this country more firmly into the Commonwealth than it has ever been before.
I do not think that was referred to in this debate.
The repeal of the External Relations Act was referred to at length.
And ruled out of order by the Chair.
Deputy Childers——
Deputies on both sides of the House were ruled out of order.
Deputy Childers, and most of the other Deputies who spoke, dealt with what they referred to as the blunder that was made and the deterioration in our relationship with Britain; and they ascribed that to the repeal of the External Relations Act. We were told by Deputy Major de Valera in the Irish Press of the 25th October last, in referring to the External Relations Act: “It is now going to go and would probably have gone in any event.” But then, of course, a note of warning had to be sounded. We are told: “The appearance of a Fine Gael Minister alongside the Minister for External Affairs at a crucial stage is somewhat disturbing.”
Then Deputy Boland comes along in the Irish Press of the 28th October, 1948, under the heading as to what would take place if the Act were repealed and says: “They should tell what was to take the place of the External Relations Act which would bind us more closely to the Commonwealth. That question was causing great concern and it should be answered clearly and at once.” Deputy Boland said that. But in this House, when the External Relations Act was going, he was the Deputy who shed crocodile tears about our being a member of the Commonwealth. Then Deputy Derrig, who to-day spent so much of his time and eloquence in suggesting that something had gone wrong in our relationship with Britain, said in Castlecomer as reported in the Irish Press on 1st November, 1948: “Apparently the severance of the last link, as Mr. Churchill had expressed it, was to be regarded as merely the prelude to some form of treaty or alliance between this country and the other states.”
We had a completely different line from Deputy MacEntee because he went off on his own. The first objective according to him, was to play into the hands of the communistic elements in the Coalition. Unfortunately that particular speech was reprinted on the American Continent and it was suggested that the repeal of the External Relations Act and the enactment of the Ireland Bill was a Communist measure.
That was not very intelligent.
They do not know Deputy MacEntee on the other side of the world. He may be famous in Dublin.
I do not think Deputy MacEntee spoke on this debate at all.
I am only dealing in general with the attitude of the Opposition to the whole question, which has been the main topic of the debate. The next thing we were told by Deputy MacEntee on the 20th November, 1948, was:
"This Bill will not repeal the External Relations Act because it contains a very peculiar clause, that it will not come into operation until the Government by Order so decrees. When Fianna Fáil put such a provision in a Bill it was clearly stated that the Order would be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas."
However, time went on and on the 22nd November, the Leader of the Opposition in Manchester, as reported in the Irish Press, said that it appeared now that the majority of the people did not want that Act—the External Relations Act. I would ask the House to listen to the next words carefully:
"The Unionists in the Six Counties now said the repeal of the Act would destroy all hopes of unity, but though the same Act had existed for a long number of years it had made no difference to these people.
They had refused Dominion status when offered it, and what was the use now in pretending that the repeal of the Act made any difference?"
Is that not destructive of the argument in the speech made by the Deputy?
That was before the by-elections.
Oh, that was before the by-elections. Then in the Dáil, of course, Deputy de Valera told us that he had come to the conclusion some time ago that the External Relations Act should be repealed. In the Donegal by-election at Lifford on the 29th November Deputy de Valera said:—
"Do you not think it was a great joy to us to see some of those who opposed us coming out for a republic? Thank God, it is established as far as the Twenty-Six Counties are concerned."
Of course, we must not forget the West Cork by-election a little later on: "I did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad one." But in Donegal it was: "Thank God we have a Twenty-Six County Republic at last." I think it is unfortunate——
It is a complete misrepresentation.
——that responsible members of the Opposition should not make an attempt to be more honest and sincere with the House and with themselves than they are.
The Minister fully appreciates, I hope, the consequences of the line he is now taking.
It is about time the Minister started to be honest in the matter.
What does the Deputy mean by that?
The Minister is in possession.
I take it, it is meant to be some form of intimidation. Questions have been asked by Deputy Lemass and by Deputy Cowan in relation to the meetings of the Ministerial Council of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. Deputy Cowan quite rightly said that it was good for Ministers to be criticised. I accept that and Deputy Cowan, therefore, will not mind if I criticise him a little bit now.
He is not a member of your Party any more.
You had better clean up your own Party and settle your own little troubles. Some of them might do worse than join Deputy Cowan. I always supect a Deputy, or anybody indeed, who starts off his remarks by saying: "Well now, I do not want this to be interpreted as a personal attack." The minute I hear that I know it is going to be a personal attack.
Perhaps the Minister is going to start off the same way now.
I am not making any promises. I am telling the Deputy——
You are going to make a personal attack.
All right, a personal attack. Before I make a personal attack or criticise the Deputy let me explain a little. The Deputy asked, and I think Deputy Lemass took the same line, why I attended the meetings of the Council of Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in Paris. They took the opportunity at the same time to say that I had no knowledge of economics or finance at all. I have no doubt that Deputy Cowan is an expert in the matter.
I am glad you appreciate that.
May I draw the Deputy's attention to the fact that I think, with the exception of two of the 19 Ministers present, they were all Ministers for Foreign Affairs and not Ministers for Finance? That had been the practice, as a matter of fact, until the second last meeting. Each country was represented by its Minister for Foreign Affairs and not by its Chancellor of the Exchequer or Minister for Finance. We, little Ireland, followed suit with the other countries.
If the Minister will allow me——
I am giving you the answer.
I do not believe a Minister for Finance knows everything about finance.
You cannot have it both ways. You questioned my being there and now you say the Minister for Finance does not know everything about finance.
I acknowledge that the present Minister for Finance does.
Very good. The position of Parliament generally in relation to the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation and to economic co-operation is this. The work involved brings in four Departments. It brings in the Department of Agriculture primarily, because they are very directly concerned in every respect. It brings in the Department of Industry and Commerce whose concern is on the industrial side and in commerce generally. It brings in the Department of Finance only so far as currency matters are involved. The work is done in Paris and in Washington through our missions there. All the work is centralised and co-ordinated in the Department of External Affairs by Government decision and it is carried out in that way. The Deputy next accused me of being a salesman.
A super-salesman.
A super-salesman for the United States of America. I was almost forgetting the accusation of being photographed with Mrs. Attlee's dog, but let us deal with this debate seriously. On the question of the foreign policy of this country, there is no country with which we have closer affiliations, either historically or by population relationship, than the United States of America, and in so far as I can influence the foreign policy of this State, it will be one of the utmost friendliness to the United States of America. I make no apology for that to Deputy Cowan or to Deputy Lemass.
A Deputy
What does it mean?
The Deputy has frequently criticised America here and criticised my policy in relation to America. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the American people for the help they have given us in the past. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the American people for the financial and material assistance they are making available to us every day. I do not think it wise of Deputies to indulge in indiscriminate criticisms of Parliaments or of heads of States of other countries, as was done by one or two Deputies in the course of this debate. I think it would be better if criticism of that kind could be avoided.
Deputy Cowan told us that, instead of having visited America the last time, I should have gone over to London, have a talk with British Ministers and spend my time there talking with British Ministers instead of visiting our own American societies throughout the United States. I wonder how many questions I would have got from Deputy Cowan afterwards if I had done that? We got questions yesterday about my being photographed with Mrs. Attlee and her dog. If I had spent a fortnight talking to British Ministers, as he suggested, I should like to hear the comments which would be made by Deputy Cowan in the course of the debate to-night. I think that Deputy Cowan, who is really quite intelligent, should have a little more sense of proportion in dealing with me. He should remember that he has actually a bit of a prejudice against me and he should make allowance for that.
Coming back to deal with the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, Deputy Lemass criticised a number of Press reports which he described as interviews. In point of fact, I have no recollection at the moment of any interviews save, possibly, one given to a French newspaper. I am not suggesting that somebody's reports did not represent the viewpoint held by me or expressed by me at the conference. Some of them, not all of them, definitely did not represent the viewpoint expressed by me, but I think Deputy Lemass is entitled to know the position in relation to the Ministerial Council Meeting in Paris that was held a few weeks ago. The only concrete proposal made there was made by your humble servant. The proposal made was that Monsieur Spaak, who was President of the Council, should nominate himself a very small committee, adjourn, try to settle the differences that existed between Belgium and Britain and report back to the council meeting. That proposal, strangely enough, was supported both by Belgium and by Britain. That is the only proposal that was actually made there.
I did express a criticism, not exactly a criticism but a viewpoint, when the conference was over. The House may recollect that the issues were connected with the intra-European payments scheme. Certain differences of views existed between Britain and Belgium and also to a lesser degree with the Economic Co-operation Administration representatives. I did express the viewpoint that that crisis was merely one of the symptoms of a much wider problem which should be examined and I circulated a summary of the points that I considered should be examined. I do not know if the House would like to have these now. There is nothing particularly secret about them and possibly it would be as well if I made them available to the House. The summary was as follows:—
The subject matters of the crisis on intra-European payments and on liberalisation of trade, were in my submission but symptoms of a far greater problem which should now be considered before another crisis arises.
The features of the situation which created the problem with which we had to deal, can be summarised as follows:
(a) Increased production in Europe without increased multilateral trading—or proper distribution.
(b) The tendency to rebuild autarchic economic systems, rather than the making of a determined effort to put into effective practice the concept of economic co-operation.
(c) Failure to examine our economic problems jointly with those of America.
It would be highly dangerous in this situation not to face these facts frankly. Unless we do, the whole concept, on which the Organisation of European Economic Co-operation is based, will be endangered. This would be disastrous and would weaken confidence in the ability of the democracies to achieve economic stability. Realities must be faced and a definite attempt made to secure a far closer degree of economic co-operation than we have yet achieved, not merely between the nations of Europe but also with the Western Hemisphere.
Paradoxically enough, it is the success of European recovery in the field of production which is now beginning to cause us difficulties. This merely emphasises a factor which was obvious at the beginning, namely, that increased production by itself, unless accompanied by an integration of the European economy, proper distribution and the creation of fresh trade outlets, would lead to the likelihood of renewed economic conflicts within Europe itself as well as with the U.S.A.
It was this danger that made some of us here so repeatedly urge on the council the need for closer planning and co-operation. We felt that this was urgent and should be done while the economy of Europe was rebuilding rather than await a situation when an internally conflicting economy had been rebuilt. Likewise, we were anxious that there should be a greater measure of co-operation between Europe and the big producing nations—the United States, Canada and Australia. The tendency instead was to concentrate on the division of the aid generously provided by the United States rather than to face the broader problems. I mention these matters, not by way of complaint, but rather in the hope that from now on, we may adopt a new approach.
In examining the present situation we must not minimise its seriousness. The factors which have caused the present crisis are not extraordinary. The rebuilding of German production, which is both desirable and inevitable, can only intensify the problem. The threatened depression in the United States cannot be ignored. It may reduce the earning capacity of European exports to the United States and increase the existing dollar deficit.
In a situation where the United States are themselves entering into a difficult period of economic adjustment it is questionable whether the pursuit of a policy which advocates that Europe should restrict her purchases from America still further or that the United States should continue—in effect—to subsidise the export of European goods to America is wise or practicable. The British proposition that "a solution to the problem can only be found in an expansion of earnings in the dollar area and in a reduction of imports from the dollar area" in the light of existing circumstances would appear to need review.
To pursue a policy of reduced consumption in the present situation would be merely to adopt the out-dated philosophy of a slump. With increasing production and falling prices in both Europe and America, the aim should be to expand consumption. The only alternative would be to reduce production, which would result in unemployment, higher prices and a fall in the standard of living.
Surplus production should never be considered a problem as long as people in any part of the world are underfed and living in subnormal conditions. Instead of advocating a policy of tightening of belts when surpluses are being produced, we should plan for the utilisation of the surplus production, for full employment and a higher standard of living.
We have succeeded in stepping up production. That is a good thing and an achievement in itself, for which we can congratulate the Economic Co-operation Administration and the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The problem now is to distribute the goods produced. The only obstacle is the mechanism of exchange and distribution. Is it not time that we adopted a wider approach to this problem? Unless we do so, we will again reach a stage where essential goods will be destroyed, instead of being made available to those who need them and to areas of want.
In the final analysis, the purpose of money is merely to facilitate the production and distribution of goods. Money in itself has no intrinsic value, save as a medium of exchange. One of our present problems is that money is failing in its purpose as an international medium of exchange.
In the light of rapidly changing circumstances, it is essential that we should review our policy and place more emphasis on the creation of a mechanism for the utilisation and distribution of "surplus" production.
The problem is one that cannot be dealt with on a purely regional basis. It is one that affects both America and Europe. If we try to deal with it on a purely regional basis (the European area, or the dollar area, or the sterling area), we will merely run the risk of economic conflict, and ultimately of failure.
In addition to an examination of these questions by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, therefore, I would suggest that there should be a joint conference between the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation and America on the widest policy basis possible. Such a conference might be able to give birth to an "American-European New Deal" and could examine the following questions:—
(a) The utilisation of "surplus" European and American production.
(b) The development of the underdeveloped areas of the world by means of these surpluses.
(c) The creation of an investment mechanism for the foregoing purposes which will assure the expansion of trade on a multilateral basis.
Indeed, I think that, in addition, the possibility of providing an international exchange medium aimed at assisting distribution should at least be considered.
Such a conference might enable the development of underdeveloped areas in accordance with President Truman's "Fourth Point" by availing of European productive capacity. In this manner an outlet could be found for increased production without contracting American-European trade.
If such a proposal finds favour with the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation and with the American authorities I would suggest that a conference be summoned as soon as possible. It should be fully representative of the different points of view of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The possibility of including at such a conference representatives of great producing nations such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada should also be envisaged.
Recent events have fundamentally altered the assumptions on which we have been working. We must, therefore, be prepared to devise measures to cope with the new situation in conjunction with the United States. For this purpose some such conference appears to be essential.
That is a copy of the actual proposals which we circulated and I think that on reflection Deputies on the opposite side of the House will appreciate the seriousness of the problem that confronts not merely us, not merely the sterling area, but the world and Europe in particular. Basically the difficulty is that Europe has never balanced her trade with the United States. She was in a position before the war to pay the deficit by various means such as investments, shipping, insurance and so on. She is no longer in possession of this income wherewith to pay the deficit. American production has increased considerably; European production is now reaching or surpassing even its pre-war level; the problem now is the question of devising a means of exchange and distribution of goods which are produced both in America and Europe. Otherwise, unless this is done and unless this is faced up to, you are going to have a slump both in the United States and in Europe and we will suffer because we cannot hope to avoid the effect of any major world depression. We may be possibly better insulated against it than highly industrialised countries, but we are bound to suffer and suffer fairly acutely. Of course we are interested in sterling; of course it is our interest to maintain sterling and maintain it in sound condition. We have some £400,000,000 invested there. It may be said that the investing of £400,000,000 in the one bank was an unwise and disastrous policy pursued by the last Government.
Was there any alternative? Do you know anything at all about it? What else could have been done?
I know considerably more than the Deputy who signed an agreement the day before the change of Government to buy Argentine wheat at a time when everybody knew the price of wheat was going to go down.
And fed our people, when you wanted to cut the ration. I am glad I did it and I did not do it before the change of Government. I was perfectly justified.
Justified in what?
I did it three months before.
It has nothing to do with the Estimate.
The night before the change of Government, he did it, but again he says it is black in spite of the fact that it is proved to be white.
Why did the Minister for Finance invest another £4,000,000 in sterling since he came in?
Why did he not cut the link, as we understood Clann na Poblachta policy to be?
We will get them to do that yet, as we got them to do other things.
We have a few converts in Deputy Moran's Party.
The thing would have been done long ago, if it could have been done.
It would have been done long ago, if it could have been done. Can I take that as an authoritative statement of Fianna Fáil policy on the matter—that it is their policy to cut the link with sterling?
Peadar O'Loghlen thought it could be done.
The Minister should read a penny tract about it.
The Minister has read more about economics than Deputy Lemass ever read.
It is one thing to read them and another to understand them.
After Deputy Kennedy, there was never a greater expert on finance that Deputy Killilea.
There is not much between the Minister and myself.
You poor old clodhopper.
I think the Deputy should withdraw that interruption.
I withdraw, Sir.
Most ungraciously.
You should learn some manners, too.
Deputies should learn something about order. There will possibly, I understand, be a vote.
Deputy Derrig quoted at some length extracts from a letter published in the Press on 27th January, 1948, and written by me. He quoted various pieces of it. I should like to read the whole letter, but I am afraid it might be tedious for the House at this hour, so I will limit myself to reading one or two portions which the Deputy omitted to read and which I think have some relevance. The Deputy said that in that letter there was no reference to Partition. The second paragraph of the letter states:
"The ultimate aim of Clann na Poblachta is to reintegrate the 32 Counties as one national entity. Everyone, I think, agrees that this is desirable. The only problem is how it is to be achieved.
In passing, however, I should like to take this opportunity of dealing with whispered suggestions that Clann na Poblachta contemplates ‘marching on the Border' or pursuing some such means in an attempt to end Partition."
All ten of them?
That letter continues:—
"Such suggestions are completely devoid of any foundation; on the contrary, we look upon Partition as being now largely an economic problem. One of the realities we have to face is that, unless and until we establish economic conditions and social services here that will be at least as attractive as those that prevail in the Six Counties, we cannot hope to arouse real enthusiasm for the ending of Partition, even amongst the Nationalist population of the Six Counties. We have no intention of utilising Partition as a catch-cry—we must face the hard facts."
That is a letter written before the general election. Deputy Cowan, I think, suggested that I and some other Deputies has been elected on a policy of marching on the Border. We were elected on the policy set out in that letter, or at least there was no concealing what our policy was, and I merely quote that to repudiate the suggestion by Deputy Derrig that there was no mention then of Partition, or of what our policy was. I think I have dealt with most of the questions raised in the course of the debate. I would again like to make an appeal——
Spare us this.
——to the Opposition Deputies. I know that it is quite useless to appeal to Deputy Lemass because I am afraid he is too hardened and too unscrupulous in his methods to be capable of reform at this stage.
The Minister being a paragon of integrity and honesty.
I know, however, that there are other Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party who are honest and sincere. We may disagree with their views and we may disagree on various matters of detail and of application, but at least I would appeal to them to realise that the strength of this nation can only lie in unity, that the policy of Britain, of those who have conquered this nation, of those who have divided this nation in two, has always been to divide and conquer. On that, as relating to Partition, on that, as relating to external policy, where there is no difference between the Parties, we should work together and co-operate.
Go back and read the speech you have just made.
I know that the Deputy wants to inject the greatest amount of bitterness he can into public life——
What have you been doing?
——and he has given ample evidence of wanting to do that. I know that it is useless to appeal to him, but I am entitled to appeal to the other members of his Party who are not as maliciously minded as he is, and, if I cannot appeal to the members of his Party, I can at least appeal to the people who have hitherto genuinely supported them in the belief that they were a national Party.
Spare us the hypocrisy.
I know that the Deputy does not like to hear that. I know that he realises that the Party he is in is split and that he considers that his only chance is to launch personal attacks on me and that he intends to pursue that policy.
What about Deputy Cowan's speech?
Nevertheless, I will continue to appeal to the more honest and sincere members of Fianna Fáil to try sometimes to place the country and national unity above their own Party interests, their own personal interests or their own personal hatreds or dislikes.
More slander.
It took the Minister a long time to learn that.
Might I ask a question with the Minister's permission? As one of those on whom the Minister commented as referring possibly in disparaging terms to United States assistance to this country, may I ask if he considers I was justified in my remarks, in view of the statement recently issued by the State Department of a country which is the supposed champion of freedom and democracy?
That is an argument.
I dealt with that in opening my statement on the Estimate.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Carter, Thomas.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Friel, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- McCann, John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ormonde, John.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Níl
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Davin, William.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keane, Seán.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, William J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.