The Minister for Finance speaking here yesterday and describing the burden that was left to him said that Deputy Costello also left over some items, which the Dáil was not permitted to discuss, that were not provided for in the Budget of last May, and he then enumerated a series of items and when he came to the end of them he said that taken together these items represented £10,387,000 and for all of these Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, provided only £1,500,000.
Reports from Committees. - Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance Bill, 1951—Debate Resumed).
Will the Deputy say from what he is quoting?
The Irish Press, known as the Fianna Fáil Pravda, of Thursday, November 15th. When he had gone on for a full ten minutes there were feverish grunts from his colleagues because they realised he had gone wrong. There was a little treasure of £3,250,000, and he had missed it. He had informed the House quite frankly that this was the measure of his burden. When he added up it came, in fact, to £6,000,000.
Now, if we are dealing with a situation in which the Minister for Finance intervenes in the debate on the economic state of the country and does not know instinctively the difference between our total imports and our adverse trade balance and cannot go within £3,000,000 of the figure which he alleges to be the burden that he has been called upon to bear and delivers here the kind of speech we listened to last night, is it any wonder that it was possible for this pair to purchase victory over the orphan who sits alone, not at the expense of the great or the rich, but at the expense of the best people in this country who played their part when they were asked to play a part and who have been cruelly wronged by what has supervened since.
It is a sad day when an English paper like The Economist has to publish an article on Ireland entitled “The Gap” and to say that—I am paraphrasing this, and the source of my paraphrase is The Economist of 27th October, 1951—after all the gloom and misery, after all the derogation from Irish credit by the Minister and the present Government, we do not take so poor a view and we suggest that if they would pull their socks up they would have a better country and a better future than almost any other country on the Continent of Europe. There is an old saying: “It is a dirty bird that fouls its own nest”. It is a poor fish that so cries down his own country that an English economic review in 1951 is constrained to say to us that it is not such a dunghill as he describes it. If you do what your Minister for Posts and Telegraphs says you stopped doing—Nous Travaillons, Monsieur—you will come through.
I did not expect that I would be called upon to-night. I had expected that the last Deputy would go on to the end. I think he did quite well. When all the fine words and long words, and all the fine phrases are finished, the fact of the matter remains that those who are opposed to the present Government have in this debate concentrated upon two main charges. One is that the gravity of the present economic position has been unduly exaggerated by the present Government, and the second charge is that the Government were about to— mind you, about to—do a wrong by accepting the Central Bank's Report. Both these charges can easily be seen to be fantastic, particularly the first one. It is not always easy to prove that a person was not about to do a wrong. For example, if you see a farmer going into a shop to buy a rope you can accuse him of going to hang himself, and it is hard for him to prove that he was not going to do it. You can always claim that your accusation, or your drawing attention to the matter, prevented him from doing it.
In regard to this first charge, that the Government unduly exaggerated the gravity of the present position, there is no difficulty in proving that there was no undue exaggeration of the gravity of the position. Deputies who were here last week and listened to the speech of the Minister for Industry and Commerce would not say that he made a gloomy speech, and would not say that he was preaching a gospel of despair. Did we not all hear the "hear, hears" from the Opposition Benches, the involuntary cheers, because the statements which the Minister made rang true, and because they gave to fair-minded Deputies—and there are fair-minded Deputies on every side of this House —the feeling that here was a man who was prepared to fight for the interests of this country, and who was prepared to try and bring it safely through any difficulties that might confront it.
In support of what I have said, that there was no exaggeration in regard to the economic position, I propose to produce to this House three witnesses who will corroborate the statements made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that our economic position is grave, particularly in regard to the balance of external payments. The witnesses that I propose to produce in support of my statement are no less than Deputy Patrick McGilligan, the former Minister for Finance, the editor of the Irish Independent, and the executive of the Trade Union Congress. Those witnesses are, I think, of sufficient standing and repute to be accepted. They cannot be charged with being on unduly affectionate terms with the present Administration. I shall first quote from Deputy McGilligan when speaking as Minister for Finance in this House. The quotation is from the speech he made when introducing the Budget in the Dáil a day or two before the last Dáil was dissolved. Having dealt with many other aspects of our economic position, he went on to say, at column 1882:—
"This is an appropriate point to introduce the term ‘inflation'. The classical definition, in popular language, is ‘too much money chasing too few goods' and, therefore, driving up prices. In our circumstances the definition might be reformulated as ‘too much money attracting too much imports', since over-spending by the public and the State is able to find an outlet in purchases from abroad financed not from income but from our past accumulations. In a state of normality, we should be able to live on our income and, indeed, save enough of it for capital purposes not only to maintain but actually to increase our production and, therefore, our standard of living.
It is still proper and eminently reasonable to draw on our external assets if thereby we speed up the process of capital development at home. What is abnormal and, if it persists, can be seriously damaging, is to use up our external resources for consumption purposes."
He goes on to dwell on whether or not we are using our external assets for consumption purposes.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
I think Deputy O'Higgins finds that the prospects of his ever being Minister for Finance are rather too gloomy. I propose to give extracts from the gloomy speech that was made by Deputy McGilligan, Minister for Finance, on the very eve of the dissolution of the last Dáil and of the dissolution of the then Government. He said at column 1883:
"The present position on external account is by no means satisfactory——"
Deputy Dillon says it is glorious.
"——and if it continues to develop unfavourably the application of corrective measures will be called for."
The Minister for Industry and Commerce could not say anything worse than that. In the next column, the then Minister for Finance went on to say:
"Only if the gap in the balance of payments is narrowed so that external disinvestment is balanced by additional home investment— rather than by excessive consumption—can we be satisfied that as a nation we are making ends meet and not wasting out past accumulations. One of the great benefits conferred by the possession of external assets is ability to ride out periods like the present of exceptional difficulty and stress, but this external mass of manoeuvre is the mainstay of our economic independence."
He goes on further:—
"Making all allowance for the exceptional conditions now obtaining it is to be feared that we are not producing and earning enough to pay our way. The implication is obvious. We cannot have both consumption and capital development on the present scale unless we save more and produce more."
I want to ask the House is there any difference between that speech and the speeches made by Deputy Lemass since he took office and those made by the ex-Minister for Finance. Is it not true that the only difference is that the ex-Minister for Finance in making that statement as a member of a Government spoke alone. He had no support from his colleagues. But Mr. Lemass, on the other hand, had the support of his colleagues. Instead of support, the ex-Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, found that his small, weak voice was completely drowned by the loud-voiced boast of his colleagues; the little tin whistle of the then Minister for Finance was drowned by the trombones, the saxophones and the big drums of his colleagues, who boasted that the country was rolling in prosperity while he, the Minister for Finance, was continually warning all who would listen to him that the country was in a grave economic position, and that something serious would have to be done in order to remedy that position.
Since the election, a campaign has been undertaken by the displaced persons of the former Government to discredit the existing Administration. First they told us there was going to be inflation, that the Government was rushing the country forward towards an inflationary spiral because they gave the unfortunate milk producers an additional penny for their milk.
Then they decided that that would not be the most attractive line to adopt in order to pull down the Government. Therefore, taking note of responsible and serious speeches made by certain Ministers, and particularly by the Minister for Ministry and Commerce, they decided to adopt a different line and say that the Government were making unduly gloomy speeches and that they were causing a scare and a panic. The former Taoiseach, Deputy Costello, said that an attempt was being made by the Government to create an atmosphere of panic in the country. There was an atmosphere of panic in a particular part of the country since 13th June last. There has been an atmosphere of panic——
Mr. O'Higgins
Amongst five independent Deputies.
——down in the Law Library. We all know that bewigged gentlemen are going around saying to one another: "We should never have allowed this to happen." The speech delivered by the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the Publicity Club early in October has been described as a gloomy speech. Very few people have quoted extracts from that speech in order to emphasise that it contains an atmosphere of gloom. I have read that speech carefully and I can find nothing in it to merit the description that it is a gloomy or a hopeless speech. I think it was a vigorous and responsible speech. It was the speech of a man who was facing up to his responsibilities and was telling the country exactly the position they were in and what should be done in order to bring the country safely through.
There are two ways of dealing with danger. If a cross-Channel boat were to spring a leak and Captain Costello were in charge of that boat he would say: "Do not mind, boys, the water is pouring in but it does not matter. When the boat is half-full of water it will flow out again of its own accord. A little water will not do any harm." If Captain Lemass were in charge of that boat he would say: "We had better repair the leak, bale out the water and get going again." That is the difference between the approach of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the approach of his opponents. Let me quote one small extract from the speech delivered by the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the Publicity Club.
"The Government recognised its responsibilities and was striving to discharge them, first by trying to get the hard facts about the national position known and generally understood. Secondly, by expediting all plans for developing increased productive capacity which were their special charge. Thirdly, by giving to private enterprise all the support and help that it may need."
In another part of his speech he pointed out:
"External assets constituted not merely a capital reserve but a political safeguard, the significance of which was sometimes overlooked. It would not be an exaggeration to describe them as one of the main bulwarks of our national independence."
That sounds very similar to what Deputy McGilligan said in that responsible speech which he made on the eve of the election. It is a pity that Deputy McGilligan is not in the House to take part in this debate.
Mr. O'Higgins
He will be.
Deputy Lemass's whole speech on that occasion and his speeches before and since then have represented an urgent appeal to the people to remedy something which constitutes a danger to our economic position. No individual citizen can hope to survive if his outlay exceeds his income. No nation can hope to survive if its outlay seriously exceeds its income. The problem that faces the country is to bring about equilibrium in our balance of payments.
I said I would quote some other witnesses to prove also there was nothing exaggerated, nothing gloomy and nothing misleading in the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. The Irish Independent, in an editorial on the 24th October, last, commenting on the Banking Commission Report, said:
"The Report shows... that a continuation of recent trends would be a just cause for alarm."
If the Minister for Industry and Commerce had made such a statement he would be told that he was trying to alarm and to scare the people but, when the Editor of the Irish Independent makes that statement, it is accepted as sane and reasonable. The editorial to which I am referring goes on to say:
"It points out that a large excess of imports has been an outstanding feature of our economy in recent years."
This is another sane and reasonable appeal to the nation to try and rectify its external conditions, so that it can go forward, make progress and maintain its independence.
However, I feel that the most important endorsement of the stand taken by the Minister for Industry and Commerce is the statement issued by the Trade Union Congress. I do not claim, or pretend, to be very enthusiastic about the Trade Union Congress, or the trade union movement. Speaking as a farmer, and from my natural inclinations as an individual, I do not give very much thought to the idea of regimentation and control. I read the Trade Union Congress Report from end to end and was impressed by it. I said to myself: After all, the men who control this Congress have a sense of responsibility; this is a sane and well-reasoned document; I think it is good; since we must have a trade union movement, and it embraces a very large section of our people and is a very important body in the nation, it is a good thing that the men who control that body are men with a sense of responsibility. On page 7 of the Congress's Report we read:
"...The question arises whether our external assets have been utilised to build up our productive capacity or not... An examination of the imports statistics shows that there are many categories of imports which could be drastically reduced without adversely affecting employment or the general standard of living. (For example, imports of ready-made apparel amounted to roughly £5,000,000 last year.) A policy directed towards reducing imports should aim at (a) reducing or eliminating luxury consumption goods, (b) substituting home-produced raw materials for imported, (c) producing here such manufactured goods as at present are imported but which could be made here, and (d) replacing imported foodstuffs, such as wheat and maize, by home production."
It is just as well that the Minister for Agriculture is not listening to me.
"The import problem should be tackled, therefore, along the three lines of instituting a form of import control to eliminate or reduce luxury imports, a vigorous programme of industrial development designed to replace imported materials and manufactured goods and a progressive agricultural policy that will enable imports of foodstuffs to be cut considerably."
It is the considered opinion of the Trade Union Congress, therefore, that the former Minister for Agriculture was not pursuing a progressive agricultural policy, and that he was allowing into this country foodstuffs which could be produced at home. It is an accusation against the inter-Party Government that they allowed, in the last few years, luxury goods to be imported into this country, and that they allowed in here wearing apparel which could easily be manufactured in this country. The Trade Union Congress Report has never been described by any of the spokesmen of the Opposition as a gloomy document—a document designed to create a scare in the country or a recession in trade and in industry. I think that if we consider together the statement made by the former Minister for Finance—a statement which was completely submerged and trampled upon by his colleagues— the statement of the Irish Independent, the statement of the Trade Union Congress, and the statements made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, both outside this House and in this House, we will find general agreement that there is a grave problem to be faced, to be solved, and to be overcome. We will find also that there are means within our disposal to solve that problem and to bring this country safely through any difficulties that may arise. Almost every country in the world has been facing up to this serious problem in the last year, trying to restrict unnecessary imports and to promote home production to the best of their ability. However, when the Minister for Industry and Commerce suggests that this is the line we have to take, we have an uproar from the Opposition to the effect that he is trying to discredit the former Administration. There is nothing that the Minister for Industry and Commerce can say or do that can discredit the former Administration more than their own actions, their own words, and the policy they have pursued. Is it not true, and does not everybody admit it to be true that, during the course of the past couple of years, we have been importing into this country goods which we could easily produce here, and the production of which here would give employment to our people, would provide hope for the future and a strengthening of our economic position? One has only got to look at the trade returns for the past nine months to realise how much unnecessary and unwise spending has gone on as far as this nation is concerned.
During the Vote on Account last March I passed the remark that the then Government's policy could be summed up in a few words—eat, drink and be merry for to-morrow we die. Not being a prophet, I did not realise at that time that those words would prove to be so literally true in regard to the then Administration. However, the then Minister for Finance became quite angry at my remark, and he said that we have no physical control over our imports. That was the sort of defence he was making, but people with a truer responsibility of Government, if they wanted to keep the country on an even keel, would assume physical control of the import-export trade, so as to safeguard the nation's interests. We realise, and we all accept the fact, that this is an agricultural country, but is it not an extraordinary circumstance that for the first nine months of this year we imported into this agricultural country in food, drink and tobacco goods to the value of £33,000,000? How much of that money could have been saved if we had in this country a responsible Minister for Agriculture?
We all remember how in 1948 the farmers were driven away from tillage; farmers who formerly grew tillage crops were refused a fair price for their produce. We were told by the then Minister for Agriculture that we could get unlimited maize imports from abroad at less than £1 per cwt. We found that prophecy was as false as many of the other prophecies he made. We found that our farmers who had been driven away from the production of tillage crops could not get these cheap imports and because we could not get these cheap imports we had to pay more for our wheat, thus adding to the burden of the subsidy on bread. We had to pay over 30/- per cwt. for maize and even found it difficult to get it at that. As a result of having to pay so high a price for maize and other feeding stuffs our stock of poultry and pigs declined with the result that the cost of living has been increased. There is an outcry in the city at present about the high price of eggs. Why is the price of eggs high? Because the Minister for Agriculture told the farmers to go and choke their hens, if they thought that a guaranteed price of 2/- per dozen was not a profitable price. And because the farmers or a substantial number of them choked the hens, and put them into the pot as he advised them, people in Dublin have to pay 6/- or more per dozen for their eggs.
Mr. O'Higgins
The Deputy, of course, is being deliberately dishonest.
The honest man from the Law Library is going to give us lectures on morality.
Mr. O'Higgins
And would prove you to be dishonest after about six questions, if you would answer them. I shall even cut them down to two.
The Deputy who insists on interrupting will get an opportunity to speak, and I venture to forecast that he will prove nothing except that he is an embittered jealous man who does not like to see anybody in power except himself and his immediate friends and relatives.
Mr. O'Higgins
Did somebody say relations?
This is most intriguing.
It was only our lawyer friend interrupting. I was suggesting that the economic position of this country does demand the adoption of drastic corrective measures. We have got to get more out of our land and out of our industries than we have been getting. It is true, of course, that there has been a substantial increase in the volume of industrial output, though that has not been due to any great increase in the number of factories. That increase in the volume of industrial output can be increased still further.
We hear a lot about the wonderful position in which agriculture was left when the present Government took office and the late Administration collapsed, but facts have got to be faced. We imported £33,000,000 worth of foodstuffs in the first nine months of this year. We have to face the fact that the acreage under tillage crops has declined in the last three years from 2,500,000 acres in 1948 to 1,600,000 last year. The number of milch cows has fallen within the last year by 50,000. The number of pigs, on the last figure that has been produced, has shown a decline of 97,000, and the number of poultry in the last year has shown a decline of 2,500,000. All that has happened under the reign, the inglorious reign, of a Minister who said: "Keep one more sow, one more cow and till one extra acre". Yet we have had a decline in tillage of 900,000 acres. The decline of 50,000 in the number of cows does not indicate that the policy of the Minister when he advised our farmers to keep one more cow, one sow——
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
I know it is hard for some Deputies to have to listen to this.
Mr. O'Higgins
Very hard for Fianna Fáil to have to answer it.
These are facts the Deputy knows he cannot dispute. The Deputy, as a man of ordinary intelligence, knows probably as well as anybody, that if a sane policy had been pursued with regard to agriculture we would have saved at least £10,000,000, which was paid out, in the main, to the dollar area for imported foodstuffs. That saving would have helped to keep our country in a sounder economic position and prevented our going so deeply into debt with the United States, if we had a Minister whose policy was not one of bitter hostility towards such things as wheat, beet and peat.
The statistics for the first month of this year afford melancholy reading. I have shown how enormous have been our food imports. We have also the fact that we have had to import nearly £1,000,000 worth of cement in the first nine months of the year simply because the inter-Party Government could not make up their minds to tackle the problem of increasing production in that one industry which, more than any other, had proved a success. We all know that Irish cement was reasonably cheap and of first-class quality, but for three and a half years the men who could talk for hours in this House about initiating a capital development programme could not make up their minds to expand the cement industry. Their talk about initiating a capital development programme was all bunkum. It was all a mighty ramp and fraud. We all know since the State was established a capital development programme has been the policy of successive Governments. Even the first Cumann na nGaedheal Government, which was rather conservative, had initiated a capital development programme. The Fianna Fáil Government, on its accession to office, initiated a capital development programme.
Those Governments did not call it initiating a capital development programme. They called it by its plain simple name—borrowing money for useful development works, which was quite in order. During the past week a tramp called to a country cottage and said to the housewife: "Good evening, madam. I am about to initiate a capital development programme.""Would you mind telling me what that means?" said the housewife. "I want the loan of a couple of bob to buy rabbit snares," he said.
There is nothing new in this idea of capital development but new phrases have been coined and in the main they have been coined to cover up a certain amount of fraud in the management of this country's finances, to cover up the fact that there was borrowing on a large scale, not for capital development, but to run the ordinary services
The net result of all this capital investment programme has been that in the past nine months we have had to import over £900,000 worth of cement, which is a valuable fundamental material in all works of national importance. There have been other large imports under the heading of textiles, which I think excessive. We have had the importation of £3,200,000 worth of wearing apparel. I see no reason why it should be necessary to import £3,200,000 worth of wearing apparel in a country in which there is so much capital investment. Surely the cost of buying a few sewing machines would not seriously embarrass a Government which had been borrowing such enormous sums over the past few years.
Another very substantial item in our import list was £8,500,000 worth of coal. One of the things that disgusted me in the early years of the inter-Party Government's administration was their attitude towards home-produced fuel. I could never understand such an attitude being adopted by an Irish Government. I could not understand the prejudice against home-produced fuel. Surely everybody realises that a nation's most important asset is home-produced fuel. Britain made wonderful progress in the past years because she had a large fuel supply. When an effort was being made to build up and develop a home-produced fuel supply in this country, that effort was attacked in the most venomous way. We heard denunciations by Ministers of the policy of producing fuel for our people. The adverse circumstances in which fuel had to be produced during the war, particularly in the last year of the emergency when weather conditions made it so difficult, were all exploited to ridicule and denounce the whole idea of this country producing its own fuel.
That is not true and the Deputy knows it is not true.
Are not the facts clearly before us? Have we not got the figures in the Statistical Survey for the last year which show that the production of turf greatly declined during the past couple of years? Is it not true that the whole policy of the late Government, perhaps inspired by the gentleman who said that the wheat, the beet and the peat had gone up the spout, was completely to destroy that particular branch of our economy?
Mr. O'Higgins
No, it is not true.
And every decent man knows that it is not true.
That was the first job he did.
Deputy O'Higgins can have the figures given in this Statistical Survey for the year 1949-50——
Mr. O'Higgins
You could not read it.
He could but he might not understand it.
——which show that the reduction in the output of turf for the year 1950 was 35 per cent. lower than in 1949—a 35 per cent. reduction in one year. Deputy O'Higgins boasts that there was no conscious effort on the part of his Government to destroy turf production.
Mr. O'Higgins
You are talking nonsense. There was more turf produced in the spring of this year than ever in the history of the country. The Deputy knows it well and so does the Minister for External Affairs.
You were kicked into doing a little.
On their death-bed, the inter-Party Government woke up to the fact that home-produced fuel was a very important asset, an indispensable asset, and they had to go out in panic to call upon the people to produce more. They had to call on the county councils and call upon them to produce more. They did not do that until they were on their death-bed. Why did they not do it in 1948 or 1949? These were the best turf-producing years as far as weather is concerned. The year 1948 had a fine summer. Plenty of fuel could have been provided in that year. The year 1949 was also exceptionally fine. Nothing was done in those years. It was only when the supply which they thought was inexhaustible was cut off, when they discovered that our good neighbour that we loved and for whom we wish to provide cheap food, was unable to supply us with fuel in exchange for that food, that the Ministers decided to take the barrow and make their way to the bog road. They had to make their way to the bog road in another way very shortly afterwards. It will be acknowledged, and anybody who listened attentively to Deputy Lemass's opening statement in this debate will admit, that there is a future for this country. The blinds are not down.
This country has a future. We have a Minister for Industry and Commerce who realises that this country has potentialities, and that with united effort we can overcome our difficulties, and bring about that spurt in agriculture and industrial production that is essential if we are going to survive as a nation.
The present Minister for Industry and Commerce is back again in office. He is back again because he convinced a very large section of our people— that section of our people who decide the fate of Governments, who occupy a central position in this nation and who are prepared to give a fair chance to any fair policy—that the administration of our economic affairs in the last three years had fallen into flabby and foolish hands, and that there was need of a man in control of our economic destiny who had not only a sense of responsibility but a real interest in our country. In the past 20 years, since he first came into public life, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, has shown that he is prepared to fight for this country against all difficulties, internal or external, that may face him, and that he is prepared to take the national line on every important issue. That is the reason why he is back again in office. If all these lawyer gentlemen on the Opposition Benches assert that Deputy Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, was about to adopt a deflationary policy, was about to adopt the recommendations of the Central Bank, would he not thereby destroy the very industries which he has laboured so hard to build up? Could anything be more ridiculous than for these legal gentlemen to suggest that the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, of all men, was about to commit not only political suicide, but national suicide as well —that he was about to destroy the constructive efforts of the past 20 years, into which he had put so much energy and zeal and enthusiasm?
I suppose it is a very clever thing to accuse a man of being about to commit some crime. If he does not commit the crime, it can always be said that he was frightened off. Does that not sum up the whole policy of the Opposition? They assert that the present Government was about to do something which is absolutely absurd and ridiculous but that as a result of their big words and fine phrases they frightened them off doing it. What evidence can they produce that the Government was going to adopt the recommendations of the Central Bank Report? Is it not true that in 1937 there was a Banking Commission composed, not only of some of the directors of the Central Bank but of leading bankers from all parts of the world? These gentlemen issued a majority report which was absolutely similar to that which has now been issued by the Central Bank. But the Government which was in power then is the same Government which is in power to-day—and they did not adopt the Banking Commission's recommendations. The Banking Commission recommended that there should be a stay on the housing programme which was going ahead at that time, a stay on land division and a stay on practically every progressive effort that was then being made to build up the country. Nobody took any notice of these recommendations. The then Opposition tried to boost that report and welcomed it as a condemnation of the then Government.
I remember telling them in 1938 that in trying themselves to the majority report of the Banking Commission they were hitching their wagon to a dead horse. They probably realised that that was true because they did not pursue that line much further. They now suggest that a group of Ministers who did not adopt the recommendations of the Banking Commission would, at this late hour of the day, accept similar recommendations from similar gentlemen. Surely such an accusation is utterly and completely ridiculous? Perhaps it is good Party practice, when you find that the Government is not doing anything with which you can find fault, to accuse the Government of being about to do something wrong and then, when they do not do anything wrong, to say that you prevented them from doing so. Perhaps the next thing they will say is that the Government is going to introduce conscription and, a year later, that they are going to do something else.
Mr. O'Higgins
Compulsory tillage.
They accuse the Government of being about to do something unpopular and, when the Government does not do it, they say that they frightened the Government out of doing it. They accused this Government of being about to introduce compulsory tillage, but under the guidance, leadership and direction of a so-called Minister for Agriculture, they themselves adopted a policy of compulsory grass which, while it reduced our output of tillage produce, did not add to our output of live stock or live-stock produce. Is it not true to say that we would have far more bacon to export if Deputy Dillon, the then Minister for Agriculture, had not fought against my proposal in 1948 to give the farmer a fair price for oats and feeding barley, and had encouraged the production of those feeding cereals? Is it not true that the pig industry and the poultry industry declined?
It is not true. The Deputy knows well that we had more bacon available during the time of the inter-Party Government than ever we had.
Deputy Flanagan is incapable of reading ordinary print. I have produced figures to show that the number of our dairy cows fell, that the number of sows kept in this country declined, that the acreage of tillage went down by over 900,000 acres——
And the Deputy must not forget that the black pig is going next June.
Deputy Flanagan will have an opportunity of speaking later if he wishes to.
I will indeed, sir.
The Deputy must cease interrupting.
Eist do bhéal anois.
I can only say that if Deputy Flanagan got near the pigs of this country there would be more black pigs with his tar brush.
14,000 people do not agree with you.
There is one from Co. Wicklow who will not be in this House after the next election.
I believe that the leaders of the Opposition have covered themselves with nothing but discredit since they opened the debate on this particular Bill. They know the Bill is designed to enable the country to carry on the affairs of the nation in regard to supply and distribution and to carry out the various other projects. They know this Bill is absolutely essential, yet they have tabled ridiculous amendments and claim they will not accept the Bill because of those amendments. They know perfectly well that all the amendments are utterly absurd. As I have indicated, there is no substance whatever in the arguments they have put forward apart from the stupid accusation relating to the gravity of the present economic position and the accusation that the Government were about to do something silly and stupid but changed their minds. They have submitted no reasoned arguments. An occasional interruption is not a reasoned argument. It carries no weight.
I want to say to the Minister for Industry and Commerce that I believe we can bring forward this country economically by adopting a sound long-term policy designed to build up our potentialities in regard to fuel development, afforestation and hydro-electric development. In regard to the latter, I think a good deal more can be done in spite of the views of the experts.
These are long-term projects but I feel that there is an urgent need—and everybody who studies the economic affairs of this country must acknowledge this—for a short-term production policy. If I were asked to outline briefly what would be a short-term production policy designed to add to our output so as to make our trade balance, I would be inclined to suggest that it would fall under three headings—tillage, turf and tourism. By giving the necessary inducements and encouragement to farmers to increase the acreage under tillage, we can cut out that £3,000,000 worth of sugar which we import from those queer named countries. We can also cut out imports of maize completely. We can reduce very substantially our imports of wheat. By encouraging the production of field grains such as oats and barley, we can increase our output of eggs and bacon. Those are industries which give rather a quick return. In view of the neglect over the past few years, I think the nation demands a speedy return so as to balance our external trade.
There is no need to dwell upon the advantages of increasing our output of turf. There we have an industry which has got to be developed to the fullest extent. Both in regard to tillage and turf there is a certain risk. We must face that risk, the risk in regard to weather conditions. The best Government in the world, with the best intentions in the world, may be frustrated both in regard to tillage and turf by very severe and adverse weather conditions but we have got to take the risk. We are not getting a full output from our agriculture. It is useless for the ex-Minister for Agriculture to come into this House and say there was wonderful progress made in regard to agriculture during his period of office when the fact is that the net output of agriculture was actually 15 per cent. lower in 1951 than it was during one of the years of the emergency as a result of that Minister's activities. The production of turf was down 35 per cent last year as compared with the previous year. In respect of the preceding years—I have not the figures with me at the moment—I would say the reduction was even more substantial.
There is scope for putting our men to work. Deputy Dunne may be interested in the fact that 50,000 people have been driven off the land since the inter-Party Government took office.
I am quite sure that your policy of low wages and long hours drove more workers off the land than any Government could do.
It would be hard to compete with Deputy Dunne and Deputy Dillon when they were both working in harness together.
They got the half-day and holidays for the workers.
They got a permanent holiday for a lot of them.
When is Deputy Cogan going to start on the Bill.
I have a feeling of deep sympathy for Deputy Dunne and the Labour Party.
Keep your sympathy for your own friends.
Both parties have pledged themselves to maintain these utterly irresponsible——
That does not seem to be relevant to the present discussion.
I think it is tragic that for three and a half years the Labour Party has been dragging behind a Party whose policy was designed to destroy in every possible way the opportunities for Labour in this country.
It is time to go now.
I hope I am not driving Deputy Flanagan out of the House but I think he is a good riddance. There is no future, I say, for the workers in this country unless we can raise the standard of output on the land and in the factories, and unless we can raise the standard of industry. It is by so doing that we can provide permanent employment for our entire working population. You will not provide permanent employment by borrowing millions from the United States and spending them on work that is not productive. That is not the way to provide employment for the workers. The way to secure employment is by means of a productive, well-directed agriculture, and by the development of the secondary industries of this country.
Debate adjourned.