On sub-section (1) of Section 2 we are proposing to deal with the proposal that Dáil Éireann shall be composed of members who represent constituencies and one member only shall be returned for each constituency. Various representatives on the Government Benches have asked us to discuss this matter in a realistic way, so that the people will understand what it is all about and will be able to make a clear decision. Before we get to a clear understanding of what this section, this sub-section means, I should like to clear away some of the irrelevancies which have been thrown on top of this discussion.
If we turn to the speech of the Minister for Social Welfare on the 16th December last, we find that he ended up his discussion near column 2254, Volume 171. I want to mention the kind of material, unrelated to this country and to our experiences, which has been thrown on top of this discussion. We have been referred to a book called The Free State by D.W. Brogan, Professor of Political Science in the University of Cambridge; to Modern Democracies by James Bryce, a Belfastman of great learning and political experience; to Between Democracy and Anarchy; to The New Democratic Constitutions of Europe by Miss Headlam-Morley; to Modern Political Constitutions by C.F. Strong; to Representative Government in Ireland by Professor McCracken; to The Government of Switzerland by Dr. William Rappard; and to Germany: From Defeat to Defeat by Karl Spiecker; to Hitler and Beyond by Erich Koch-Weser; to the Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu; and to The Federalist by Hamilton.
All this has been piled down, with elaborate quotations, on top of our discussion and with the exception of one book—an important reference in which has been conveniently ignored—it has no bearing on our experiences here. Saint Thomas Aquinas has also been mentioned here. In yesterday's Irish Press an article in Irish by Mairtin Ó Direain on reading, memory and thought reminds us that Saint Thomas Aquinas says that we ought not be “leabharlanna beo nó foclóirí siúil”—that is, that we should not be libraries, even though they be living ones, nor dictionaries, even though they may be able to walk. When we are asked to discuss the realities of the proposal before us we have enough appreciation in our own marrows from our own experiences and in the great, calm clarity of our own minds of what constitutional actions and constitutional set-ups are possible within a very plausible looking Constitution and the effect they are able to have on the ordinary people and on the lives and interests of the ordinary people.
Here we are talking about a Constitution that has set up parliamentary institutions to serve us as a nation. We set them up in difficulties and against odds and we have placed as the two foundation stones on which these institutions are raised, that every adult citizen of 21 years of age and upwards is qualified to be a member of Dáil Éireann, that every adult over 21 years of age is entitled to a vote and that people are entitled to one vote and only one vote. That is, that every citizen who is entitled to vote will have equality of franchise. It is on these foundations that the institutions are raised and it is because these are being tampered with that we have had occasion to enter into discussion here. It is because that situation is confused and because an attempt is being made to misrepresent it that we have had to have so much talk.
I should like to clear away some of the talk. In order to do so, I want to get back to some of the realities of the present situation. When Deputy Costello was speaking he drew attention to the book The Indivisible Island and read out the first sentence of chapter 15, headed “Gerrymandering.” He read the following:—
"One of the greatest wrongs that can be done to a minority in a democratic State is to deprive it of its political rights, particularly of its electoral rights: for these are so often a shield for the rest."
When the Minister for External Affairs was speaking he appeared to charge Deputy Costello with endeavouring to mislead the House with regard to his quotation and insisted that Deputy Costello dealt only with gerrymandering of constituencies. The book that he spoke of was referred to in the Irish Press of the 2nd June, 1957, shortly after its appearance. Referring to it, it said:—
"His fully documented account of how the Six-County minority is deprived of its rights, of how, for the benefit of the Stormont junta, democracy has been extinguished, must be read by every Irishman. And, having been read, it must be broadcast to the outer world."
I will just scamp these references because what I want is that in the discussion on this matter, we will discuss what arises from the experiences that are beaten into the marrow of our bones since every Party, creed and class were asked, in November, 1913, to come and define the rights and interests of the people of Ireland. I vamp from pages 261 and 262 of that book.
The story begun by that quotation which Deputy Costello gave continues to say in the end that no sooner had the Six-County Government settled into office than it set about depriving the Nationalist voters of as much of their electoral strength as could be shorn from them. The method of election was changed, with the result that when the Bill making these changes was going through the Belfast Parliament in March and April, 1929, many M.P.s gave other examples of how unjust it was to the minority. William McMullan (Labour) said that P.R. was abolished to deprive Labour of seats in Belfast T. Henderson (Independent Unionist) said the Government had called for an Opposition and "when they got it they gerrymandered and abolished P.R. to drive them out." S. Kyle, Leader of the Labour Party and J. Beattie (Labour) instanced the unfairness of the Bill to working class candidates, who would no longer have even the meagre representation they had secured under P.R.; P. McAllister (Nationalist) predicted that the eventual effect of the Bill must be to bring the Nationalist representation which should be at least 17 down to nine. George Henderson, the only Liberal in the House, pleaded with the Government not to pass the Bill and J.W. Gyle (Independent Unionist) protested against the Bill, which, he said, destroyed the only real safeguard for minorities.
It goes on to say that the constituencies had been all arranged so that one Party was made secure by the Bill and could not be disturbed. That happened not only immediately after the Bill was passed but it has happened ever since because to-day it is a normal thing for nearly half the parliamentary seats to be filled without a contest. In the first election under P.R., every seat had been fought for. In the first election under this gerrymandering Act, there were 21 unopposed returns, or over 40 per cent.
At the end of the chapter, the first sentence of which Deputy Costello read out, it is stated:—
"The purpose of the measure indicated by Mr. T. Henderson (Independent Unionist) ‘to drive out the Opposition' was completely filled. In 1953 one Socialist Reoublican and two Independent Labour M.P.s were returned for Nationalist constituencies. Eight Labour Party candidates stood. They were all defeated, and to-day in the most highly industrialised area in Ireland there is not one official Labour representative and outside the Nationalist areas not one Labour representative of any kind survived the polls."
Why is it that when we are asked here to discuss an important constitutional measure affecting the very foundations upon which representation is based and institutions built, affecting the lives and labours and well-being of our people, the two Ministers who are so closely associated with the Northern Counties, the Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Social Welfare, should ignore the implications of a book that examines the whole situation and which was published or assisted in publication by the pence collected in every corner of Ireland?
Why, if we go through all the countries in the world that have been mentioned here and if the contents of all the books which have been brought to our notice here are considered, is it that the crystallised experience of our people in the North of Ireland where P.R. has been wiped out should be ignored? And why, for simply reading the opening sentence in a chapter, the end of which I have read out here, should Deputy Costello be criticised and more or less charged by the Minister for External Affairs with misrepresenting the content of that book?
Why is it that the Minister for Social Welfare should travel all the libraries of Europe to pick up bits and scraps of things dealing with experiences of other countries—which, I am sure, he cannot understand—to throw them out, or shovel them in, here like mud from the torn fields of Europe to distort a discussion here, paying no attention to what, under the Taoiseach's management, we are being told to read and promulgate? I ask that first for the purpose of clearing away some of the muck and mud that has been poured on this issue.
The Minister for Lands also went to the books and he tells us at column 1647 that:—
"Sir Herbert Morrison speaking in the British Parliament in 1924 ... said this: ‘P.R. is a philosophy which is not unnatural to small new Parties struggling to get a footing on the electoral field, and not having much staying power or programme to fight. It is also perfectly natural to decaying political Parties, who are doomed to extinction in the course of time, and who can only retain their position by elevating the power of the minority and subjecting the power of the majority. It is perfectly natural to them but it is not natural to strong men and women who want their country to be governed wisely and firmly, and I hope, therefore, that the House'"—
that is the House of Commons
"‘—will not accept that type of Government.?'"
We are asked to go back to Mr. Herbert Morrison in the British Parliament in 1924. I would not expect the Minister for Lands to be sufficiently up to date to know what was in The Economist last Saturday, but I would expect him to know something of what happened in Britain between 1924 and to-day. Again, for the purpose of clearing away some of the muck under which we are smothered in our discussion here and getting down to realities, I quote The Economist of last Saturday in which there is an article, “Set the People Free”, which begins with a rather appreciative comment on the fact that in a coming by-election in Great Britain, an Independent will be in the field with a programme, and they suggest the kind of programme they would like an Independent in Great Britain to-day to put before the electorate over the heads of all Parties.
After considering the things the prospective candidate had in his programme, it winds up by suggesting the other things that ought to go in. It says:—
"In a rather different category are two reforms, previously advocated by The Economist which would fortify the civic freedom of voter and worker. These are (a) the electoral system of the ‘alternative vote', which would give the voter a better chance though admittedly not as good a chance as under full P.R. to see that his vote counts in keeping out the candidates he most dislikes."
The second reform deals with a Companies Act for trade union special legal exemptions, and it winds up by saying:—
"Let the list lengthen. Britons are not as free as they think."
As I say, I would not expect the Minister for Lands to be right up to the half-minute before 12 when he was speaking on whatever day it was, but I would expect him to understand something of what had happened in between, when speaking of "strong men and women who want their country to be governed wisely and firmly". I ask him did he ever hear of Sir Winston Churchill? Did he ever realise that Sir Winston Churchill was able to say in the House of Commons—admittedly, seven years after Mr. Morrison had spoken— that:—
"Parliament is all we have, and the House of Commons is the main part of it.... Surely care of this central instrument ought to be a sacred trust? Surely the building up of practical, trustworthy, living organs of government ought to be one of our chief cares?"
He was discussing the advisability of introducing P.R. He said:—
"Having to choose, as we shall have to choose, if we are to redress the constitutional injustice, between the alternative vote, the second ballot and P.R. in the cities, I have no doubt whatever that the last is incomparably the fairest, the most scientific and, on the whole, the best in the public interest.... Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, what effective expression have they now of their collective intellectual force?"
Later, he indicated:—
"Under the P.R. system, those cities would regain their collective personality and their members, of every hue, Liberal, Conservative, or Socialist would speak for the opinions of very large numbers of people forming an integral society."
He returned to that point again, in an article in the Daily Mail:—
"Why should Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Glasgow and Edinburgh not bring a collective weight to bear? Instead of this, they are all carved up into meaningless blocks of houses, none of which embodies the authority, the dignity, or the weight of these great communities. The House of Commons would be far richer and our national life more securely founded if these cities with traditions and character of their own returned men who had the right to speak as Conservatives, Liberals or Socialists for the whole city. Men would become stronger in relation to political machinery. Both, therefore, on the grounds of securing truer representation of the people and of strengthening the House of Commons, I am in favour of electoral reform—first, the application of P.R., in the first instance, to the great cities."
Later on, in 1950, speaking in the House of Commons on the 7th March, he said:—
"We have certainly reached a parliamentary deadlock or stalemate differing in its character from any in living experience."
In answer to what the Minister for External Affairs suggested, with regard to the way in which County Louth could be dealt with under the new single member constituency, he said:—
"Nor can we, to whatever Party we belong, overlook the constitutional injustice done to 2,600,000 voters who, voting upon a strong tradition, have been able to return only nine Members of Parliament. I do not think this is a matter which we can brush aside or allow to lie unheeded.... It is not true that the Liberal Party here or, what is of far more importance, the Liberal Party in the country, can, by simply throwing its weight on to one side or the other, determine the issue. Any step that was taken as a mere bargain or deal might not only be difficult to implement, but might well produce unfavourable reactions for those concerned. The nation might deeply reseat the feeling that its fortunes had been bartered about without regard to principle by a handful of politicians no matter what Party they come from, and that its vital interests were but a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. In such a situation, candour, sincerity, simplicity, firm adherence to well-known and publicly asserted principles, combined with a dominating regard for national rather than Party interests, will be found to be the surest guides."
Why does the Minister for Lands bring us back to one quotation in 1924 by a British politician in the House of Commons, to show what a disaster P.R. would be? I think it was Deputy Bartley, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, who tried to lay the foundations of fear here, by pointing out that if Great Britain had P.R. at the time the Tories were campaigning against Home Rule in Ireland, Ireland might have got Home Rule and British patriotism might have been endangered and insulted. Does anybody know, or has anybody given any thought to, what it has cost Britain and Britain's people and Britain's interests, that Ireland was not treated fairly, not even by a P.R. Government in Great Britain at that time?
An announcement was made the other day that Volumes 1, 2 and 3 of the Dáil Debates from January, 1919, had been published. I would ask those who will now turn with interest to the opening sessions of Dáil Éireann in January, 1919—and in April, 1919, when Mr. de Valera had returned from Lincoln and the full Parliament was there—to read what was said there. Deputies will find there a speech in Irish by Cathal Brugha, in which he praised what the workers of this country had done and praised the organised Labour organisations in this country—for what? For not making difficulties, for those who were taking the advance move in protecting national interests at that time, by contesting the election of December, 1918, on the straight vote. The straight vote was in operation there, but Cathal Brugha realised that if the Labour Party had put up candidates, as they were entitled to do, in December, 1918, there would not have been the substantial success which there was of the Sinn Féin Party. Cathal Brugha, speaking of that with gratitude, told those who represented Labour in the country that they would not be forgotten. They are being forgotten now by a proposal to introduce legislation here which would prevent the organised workers through the country, if they wish, putting into Parliament representatives directly representing them and preventing them from appearing here—or otherwise they would "distort the majority vote of the people".
The Taoiseach smiles. The Taoiseach himself can read his own speech, following Cathal Brugha's speech on that occasion. He said that he never promised anything to Labour but that he did realise what organised Labour meant and that the work of an Irish Government would be carried out in close co-operation with Labour and after consulting in the most effective way the interests and the wishes and the experience of organised Labour. While the Minister for Industry and Commerce pats political Labour on the back and says: "Yours is the day of the future," what kind of hypocrisy is mixed up in that?
I ask the Taoiseach, and I ask those who remember the circumstances in which the Dáil Éireann of January, 1919, was established—the hope, the courage and the determination that filled men's minds, supported as they were in mobilising for that movement, by support moving from every party, creed and class in the country—what did they mean by the principles expressed in statements they made at that particular time. What did they mean by the principles they expounded in their subsequent discussions?
That, as I have shown—quoting from the other book, the paragraph which has been ignored here—made the present Taoiseach, as President then of the Republic, declare—I think it was in May, 1921—that he was making a declaration that Sinn Féin stood by their traditions and they stood for the proportional and fair representation of every section of the people in an Irish Parliament that would be established.
Let us get back in our discussions here to our own experiences and let us ask, in regard to the wiping out of the multi-member constituency, have Irish counties not as much character, necessary diversity of tradition and capacity and ample and generous power of linking together all the various sections of the people as any other city, such as Belfast, Leeds, or Manchester? What is the intention of taking our counties, with their particular characteristics, traditions and the qualities they can give to public life and public thought in every aspect, and dividing them up now when our people in every walk of life have been in the habit of associating men of every Party, creed and class in every kind of activity, thought and discussion dealing with every aspect of our life?
Why is it that, under this section, Cork and Dublin and Waterford and Limerick are to be divided up into little squares on a draught board to be occupied by pawns, instead of letting the community as a whole or fairly large sections of it—even though there are three member constituencies—reflect the full of their strength, of their different powers and different experiences here in Parliament in two massed groups? It was nicely put by whoever said it—two masses in an Irish Parliament, ranged against one another in opposition and based, on the one hand, upon what the Fianna Fáil Party think they are, with all their traditions and experiences, and, on the other, the kind of thing that will be brought into being by some representatives of a Fine Gael caucus, a Labour caucus, a Sinn Féin caucus and a Clann na Poblachta caucus going into a back room somewhere in the country and saying: "We will let you put up your man in such and such a square or section of this county or city, if you will let us put up our man here."
As I say, there will be, on the one hand, the kind of Party Fianna Fáil think they are and, on the other hand, this kind of thing—I would not call it a synthetic Party and I do not know how you could describe it— brought together behind the backs of the people and certainly with none of the public display of "what are you doing?" that the Minister for External Affairs feels his political opponents should have.
Is that what the Taoiseach is planning for an Irish Parliament and are those the foundations upon which an Irish Parliament is built? Let us come back to our own experience and thought here and let us leave the libraries of Europe alone for a while. But if we are to dip into their libraries, let us dip into them honestly. I make these remarks not for the purpose of prolonging the debate but for the purpose of saying that we have here experience as ripe, as stimulating and as informing as any country in the world. I particularly want to say that this great unity and capacity of our people to work together was enacted, stabilised and fructified in the face of a violent attack on their liberties and rights from outside. I would ask those who, from the inside, would try and disturb, destroy and weaken the foundations of what must always be the liberties of our people, to think. And when they think in terms of Parliament guiding the people and taking over from the people, as Parliament must necessarily do to-day, work the people themselves cannot do in areas and arenas of a particular kind, do they think that the efficient kind of Parliament they want is two massed Parties, ranged against one another in opposition in this House, waiting to dig the ground from under each other's feet, so that there shall be the kind of change from side to side characterised very effectively by Sir Winston Churchill when he saw what was coming in Great Britain?
