Dáil Éireann is a very great institution. It is also a very queer one. I do not know how to describe the Government's attitude but the manner in which this Bill has been put before us and moved marks this as a unique moment in the history of this House. The Bill which comes before us for the last time, when it leaves this House with the majority the Government have been able to command for it will have proposed that the foundation upon which this Parliament rests will be radically changed and substantially weakened.
The measure is of such a kind that I want to suggest to the members of the Government, to the Government Party and every Deputy in this House, that the proposals contained in the Bill are quite unconstitutional, that they are contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution itself, and that they are an outrage on the Preamble.
The Government and Government Deputies have committed themselves to pushing through this House a proposal that in future Deputies can come into this House only by election in single member constituencies and by means of a vote that, in our state of society here, means that the people elected under that system will not represent the majority of the people, either in their own constituencies or in the country, and they can get out of that only by outraging another provision in the Constitution which provides the right of free association. These are such radical changes in the Constitution that I submit they are unconstitutional in reference to the letter of the Constitution, its spirit and, as I say, all that is in the Preamble.
The senior people associated with the work of this House came into Irish political life in reaction, by the people as a whole, to a substantial threat to Irish liberty, Irish freedom, and the life of the Irish nation, and the proposal that is made here to-day, coming from inside, is a threat and an attack as insidious as the attack that brought every Party, creed and class together in the 1912, 1913, 1914 and 1919 eras. Part of the greatness of this House and part of the result of its tradition, and of the solid roots from which it comes, is that it is possible to discuss such a measure in the manner in which it has been discussed here. There have been clashes and there have been expressions of passion and all that, but that a proposal of such a kind could be discussed here in so unexplosive a manner is a tribute to this House.
We are discussing the very foundations of our liberties when we discuss a law intended to deprive a substantial number of people of the power of their votes, which in fact is intended to deprive the majority of the electorate of the power of their vote, and is intended to deprive the citizens of this country who desire to go forward as candidates and become members of the Dáil, of the open door that the Constitution, which has been described as a Christian and democratic Constitution, offers. I do not see how a Constitution establishing a Dáil on these principles, denying minorities of any particular class in the country of their rights—rights which in the modern world are so important to the individual and to society, rights of representation in an orderly and effective way in the Parliament that controls so much of the social, economic and other destinies of the people—can be called a Christian Constitution. The manner in which the proposal has been presented here, as well as its matter, is a reflection on that situation, too. I say that it is contrary to the whole spirit of the written Constitution itself, and to its Preamble.
Forty-five years ago or so when we came, from various callings and various interests unassociated in any way with political intent, into political life we did so because the whole life of this nation was threatened. It was threatened by a movement in Britain intent on destroying Irish liberty and nipping in the bud the growth of the strength of our Irish people at that time when they had a possibility of getting their hands, to some extent, on their own affairs. That movement resulted in a rebellion against their own Constitution, and it is a fact that the attack which called men of every Party, creed and class, in 1913, into the political situation to defend Irish liberty, brought a reaction against the movement of the Conservative Party in Britain, which movement has been described by British historians as a rebellion against the British Constitution in order to prevent Ireland having its freedom.
British historians have written that the guns of Sarajevo only broke out in time to save British parliamentary institutions. Such was the intention against the ordinary liberties of this country, based on the rank and file of its people, that we had to withstand an attack that was so great that it could be described by English historians as an attack which would have destroyed English parliamentary institutions.
To-day we are concerned with an attack upon the fundamentals of our representation here that is possibly destructive of our Constitution, but, at that time, we were called into political life to take the torch of Irish tradition out of the hands of those who had carried that torch through difficult days. Through difficulties we held that torch. We got the tradition generally accepted in the Dáil that was set up in 1919 and we hoped here, under this roof, to give it asylum. The fact that these liberties have passed successfully through difficult and dangerous days shows of itself that this House was firmly established in its foundations, and to-day we are able to discuss, without the kind of explosions that would be warranted if this threat came from outside, the pros and cons of this proposal, but what it means to express in terms is very difficult to arrive at.
We have had the case for this proposal put to us smothered under the political literature of Europe and some of the literature of the United States. Can we face the consideration of this case from the point of view of our experience of our lives, our faith, beliefs and experience, or are we to look into the literature of other countries for that? The Taoiseach says, or at least his Party imply, that this measure is his will and testament to their Party. Now that he is, as it were, departing from active public life, or feels he is prepared to do that, he wants to leave this as his will and testament to his Party.
I stood before another leader face to face as, in critical times, I have stood face to face with the present Taoiseach. I stood with Pearse in his cell in Arbour Hill. He was departing from active political public life. Had he a will and testament to give those who had an opportunity of having a last word with him? He had issued an order to surrender which had fallen into our hands and, in the presence of British army representatives there, I had to ask him was that his order. He said it was. When asked did it refer to the whole of Ireland or only to Dublin, he said it referred to the whole of Ireland. When asked if there was any good in the County Dublin people, who had given a good account of themselves during the week, continuing to hold out, he said "no." We could get a "yes" and a "no"; but there was no advice as to how a Parliament should be established. There certainly was no advice from the man who came from the side of Connolly in the G.P.O., that minorities were to be kept in their place in this country. There certainly was no feeling in his mind, I am sure, that the Irish people were to be one massed Party. He had plenty of experience to show that it would not be just. His will and his testament showed his faith in the people and he asked no guarantee there. That was the example that he gave. From that example and that spirit, men of every Party, creed and class, having confidence in one another, sharing one another's burdens and helping those on the right and the left, have built up this State here and kept this Parliament going.
There have been moments of tragedy and moments of glory in this House. If there was any moment of glory or of triumph here, for those of us who mixed with the rank and file, who shared their troubles and tried to guide them and keep our own faith and keep up their spirits, it was in 1948 when the National Labour Party, the Labour Party, Clann na Talmhan, Clann na Poblachta and Fine Gael came in and sat on the Government Benches to form a Government of all Parties apart from the Party that would never touch anybody or co-operate with anybody. That was a moment of great triumph in this House, because it was a moment that restored to the work of this House the spirit that emerged when a reaction was called for against an attack on this country that would have burst the British Constitution and British parliamentary institutions.
We have had the sorrow of hearing a Leader of a Party, who call themselves a national Party, with a national record of a particular kind, a man who is held up as the Leader of all the Irish nation at home and abroad, saying that he hated that Government, that he hated the grouping of men in an Irish Parliament which brought every aspect of Irish life and every experience of Irish life together to do, at Government level, what every Party, creed and class worked and slaved and sacrificed to get done, so that the rank and file of the people, having their own burdens and their own work to do throughout the country, could do their work satisfied that they had put representatives into an Irish Parliament who could represent them in their varied outlooks and in their mutual generosity and confidence.
In the freedom that we have had and in the experience that we have, with various groups coming together in the natural order of things, in the economic, in the social and in the cultural, as well as in the political spheres, we have seen what a great richness and differentiation there is in Irish life and how, under the inspiration of their Christian faith and their belief and their personal responsibility, they feel that as they are doing their national work in the fields and factories they want to do it here in Parliament.
In this House, which knows so much of that history, through the actions and the experience of its individual people and through the work of the House here as a whole, we are being told that that must stop. We are told there is to be an end to the great and rich differentiation on the part of the rest of the people, who agreed to co-operate and mingle with one another, who have so much confidence in one another that they can concentrate on their own job for 24 hours of the day and, when it comes to communal and co-operative action, can co-operate. As citizens of a State and as members of a nation, with a tradition, holding together, even in the rough and tragic days of the world, in a free Irish State, we should be able to discuss these matters, even in the comparatively calm way in which we discuss them.
I have to bring my imagination back almost to a pre-1798 point to be able to put into a phrase what is happening to-day. What is happening to-day is that something like this is being said by the Government Party: "Without the ruin of the Fianna Fáil Party, other Parties in this country must not be allowed the smallest influence on the State; Fianna Fáil will not be compelled by any authority whatever to abandon that political situation, which their forefathers won with the sword and which is therefore their birthright; sinne Fianna Fáil."
We have to go back to an ascendancy of more than 150 years ago to catch the mentality. Thanks be to God, that ascendancy has gone, but now we have here this as an amendment to a Constitution which invokes the Holy Trinity, which refers all its actions and our actions to the Holy Trinity, which invokes our fathers and their struggle throughout the centuries, which invokes the national independence of our nation, which invokes the common good and the dignity and freedom of the individual and true social order. I believe in the unity and Trinity of God, by faith. I do not know what the Most Holy Trinity has to do to-day with a proposal of this particular kind. We know from our faith what man is and what his destiny is and what his duty is, when we dare to pray and breathe every day that we in our individual selves may be made partakers of the Divinity of Him who partook of our humanity and when we realise what Irish democracy has meant and where it has come from and where we want to go in the days that are there to-day.
I do not know what we mean by our professions of man and his destiny and his divine conception and his divine and natural attributes, I do not know what they can be, that we cannot hear, as it should be heard, the case that is being made here. We have seen this House thrown into difficulty and turmoil in this discussion, even as between the House and the Chair. I ask the Deputies of all parts of the House to think what they are doing and what the results of these actions may be. I ask them to think in terms of life rather than literature, and if I do refer to one book, I refer to a book that is the compilation of minds of many Irish people sitting on a commission, set up by the Fianna Fáil Government, under the chairmanship of Most Reverend Dr. Browne, Bishop of Galway. I refer to just two pages, with a glance in between to see the multiplicity of callings and of organisations we have in this country dealing with Irish life and to realise what it means to them to have a Parliament which is a reflection of them and in which they can have confidence and over which they can have control.
In one phrase in his foreword, Dr. Browne says that the report is a serious effort to show how abstract principles can be applied to the concrete realities of our complex social and economic life and he goes into what may be regarded, perhaps, as a principle: "It has in more than one place made it clear that vocational organisations should develop from existing institutions and follow the laws of organic, vital growth, without violent breach of continuity."
The Government in dealing with their proposal have used the word "integration". They want integration in Irish political life. They stand as the people whose forefathers won by the sword what they believe is their birthright, and they are "the national Party". All the rest of the nonde-scripts, they say, can come together and integrate. How? By going into the back rooms in the various constituencies and seeing which of them will let the other go up, and while that process of integration, which I suppose they might like to think was something of an organic movement, was going on, while, through the long age that that process would take, every bit of differentiation making a differentiated contribution to the political life of the country is going to be a strength to the people who want to get into the Dáil on the basis of "first past the post".
The type of integration the Dáil has carried out ought to have some kind of meaning and some kind of message for our people as it has had. Individuals have been merged into Parties; Parties have been merged together to meet difficulties such as the economic war when Fine Gael was formed. Integration will go on, but we hope it will do so, not because of dangers arising for the people, forcing them to depart from their ordinary work and thoughts and come together as if to defend themselves from a military danger. We hope it will be the integration that comes when men sit down at one table with their various experiences and different interests and bring their minds to bear on things. It is in relation to that that Deputies have thrown their eyes over what Irish life is, as shown in the Vocational Organisation Commission Report and that they could come to the No. 1 reservation. The No. 1 reservation coming from Miss Bennett and Senator Campbell reveals what I accept as a typical comment on things that have to be minded. It says in the beginning of the reservation:—
"We agree with the principle of vocational organisation, because the general trend of economic and social development impels us inevitably towards a system based upon it."
Later on, they say:—
"Organisation is limited to the sphere of occupation—that is, vocational organisation—and final control of national welfare remains in the hands of a democratically elected Parliament."
Again, they say:—
"...we feel it necessary to emphasise our conviction that the one reliable safeguard will be the conservation of freely elected parliamentary institutions and of the subordination of the Executive Government to Parliament."
Finally, they say:—
"But we cannot subscribe to any proposals which would infringe upon the right of the workers to choose their own forms of organisation."
We cannot subscribe to anything that would deprive the ordinary citizens who are guaranteed a right to vote and that one vote should be as good as another, of the right of entry to the Dáil and the right of association. We cannot accept any denial of that and we repudiate this Bill because it attempts to deny that.
In the light of what we know of our life, our experience and our known capacity, we are asked—facing people who have very definitely declared before that they knew they were wrong when they took certain actions in the past under their present leadership; that they would not follow him to-morrow if they knew where to go —to turn our backs on our own experience and turn to Britain for its experience. Quotations from all kinds of people and all kinds of documents are given to us.
I do not want to refer again to the challenge I issued to the Minister for Health and the Minister for External Affairs as to why they quoted the literature of Europe and shut their eyes to what was printed with Irish money in a national publication dealing with the condition of things in Northern Ireland and the effect the wiping out of P.R. had there. I do not refer to that again, but I do refer to the fact that they have told us that the British system is the thing for security.
Belloc and Chesterton have commented on that in fairly recent years. The presentation of the British system given by the Ministers in this debate has been a deception of the most astonishing kind. They have been offering to the people something great, freedom and liberty. They are making sacrifices in offering the people a great machinery for their betterment. They are really misrepresenting what they are doing. That is why the picture of Ananias comes before my mind.
Hilaire Belloc describes the British Government as the only aristocratic State in white civilisation. There is ample evidence in the writings of Belloc to show there is not a representative Government in Britain in terms of democracy. At a time when Belloc was writing before the war, I have reminded the House that Winston Churchill, as a rather monumental figure in British action and British politics, was complaining that they, by their type of representatives, destroyed the personalities of the great cities and that they were in the position that they were unable to resist what he called the danger of dictatorship. In 1934 he complained of:—
"These enormous political landslides which occur now one way and now the other after some stunt election campaign are harmful both to our trade and livelihood and to the House of Commons."
He complained that in many ways at that time the House of Commons was most unhealthy and that all types of views should be represented there and that if they went on lurching about every few years from one side of the road to the other they would soon find themselves in the ditch.
He was writing that at a time when Belloc and Chesterton were describing the British system of government as the only aristocratic Government in white civilisation. Afterwards, when they had gone through the disaster of the war he was saying, in 1950:—
"We have certainly reached a parliamentary deadlock or stalemate differing in its character from any in living experience."
We are asked to trample on our tradition and our experience and in one blind move to jump into a situation in which, with eyes on the future, Ireland is going to have its parliamentary affairs in the hands of two massed Parties in opposition to each other. Never was such a trick played on any people and, as I say, it is partly to the credit of this House that the people have been awakened a little to what is happening.
I want to make it clear that this is contrary to everything that we know of the roots of Ireland's strength, that it is contrary to everything we know of the classes, Parties and groups that have made sacrifices to give us an Irish Parliament, to help and be a guiding and subsidiary body to our people in carrying on their own work.
The Taoiseach must know that this is building up a situation that can lead to nothing but dictatorship and autocracy. This move is being made in this House, and in this way, at a time when we are celebrating what is called the 21st anniversary of the Constitution. In 1925 I stood in the House of Congress with the Leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Tom Johnson, and Senator Michael Hayes, who was then Chairman of this House. I remember well that in front of every nation in the world Tom Johnson, the Leader of the Labour Party, got up and commenting on a speech made by Churchill, that when the King was at war all the Dominions were at war, made Sir Robert Horne come back into the House and in front of every nation made him declare that he was right. Sir Robert Horne said:—
"It is all very well, however, to twirl your fingers and say I am not playing in a game of tig, but if war is being made by a powerful enemy of Great Britain, Ireland cannot hope to escape."
But in 1925—34 years ago—the Leader of the Labour Party, with the Chairman of Dáil Éireann and myself—then just a Deputy of the House—were able to wring from the representative of the British group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union that what we said about Irish sovereignty and what we said about command over our own affairs was true then. There is not a man or woman in this House but must admit that all that has gone in between was a contribution made from the very soil of Ireland by men, women and children and by every Party, creed and class.
We tell those responsible for the present trick that their position is to-day what the position of the Conservative Government was in 1912, 1913 and 1914 and in all that led to the disastrous trampling on this country in the years following by Lloyd George's and other British Governments continued denial of the full integrity of our country and the full rights of our people. They have learned enough since to know that their country's strength is as much dependent on the strength and neighbourliness of the countries alongside, as it is on their own strength and the internal neighbourly spirit, that will avoid frustration and enable the qualities, the energies and the capacities of the people to be exercised to the full.
To-day countries of the world are exercising to the full their power to take from the ordinary material elements from which the Creator made the earth. The minds and character of the people are more constructive and more powerful in achieving even material happiness than all the Creator put into the material earth. This Bill leads people along pure materialism and pure dictatorship and I resist—and I can speak for every man in the Fine Gael Party—the invitation to sit down in a back room with members of the Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, and decide who shall represent the Irish people, for any spot of Ireland, in this Parliament. We do that openly by the display of our personalities and political and social characters and the organisations that we put together, and we shall continue to do that.
The Taoiseach will find—haloed and all as he may be by the past—that he is welcome to all the haloes and all the glory he can get from the past. We do not put our haloes and our glory into the scales against him; but we will put our work and the generosity of our minds towards him and towards his colleagues. We realise the difficulty that leadership on his side has brought to so many of the people and so many of his declared supporters, just as we sympathise with the people of Britain and with the traditional element even of the Conservative Party in Great Britain, whose actions in 1913 and all along against this country have played a substantial part in ripping Europe to pieces and bringing down around their own heads the problems that exist, not only at their doors, but at nearly every end of the world to-day.
In this matter we offer the Fianna Fáil Party our fiercest antagonism and our most energetic fight against what they are proposing to blind the people. We do so as honestly, as faithfully and as dedicated to God's glory and the honour of Ireland, as we did in the struggle we put up against the British invasion of our country at that time. We do it in the fullest spirit of people who think that our Constitution should be worthily dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity and that we should be able worthily to say that it follows in the traditional history of our fathers and is dedicated to a true social order here. We guarantee them all that—no malice, no bitterness and no aggression; but we do ask them to consider whether, in regard to their proposals here, they cannot find examples in the Old Testament and in the New Testament and in the modern history even of England and of Europe, on which they might very well meditate.
This, I say, is a great institution. It has gone through great days. It has been great in its small moments and in its big moments. It is being demeaned to-day by the fact that a Government and a Government Party, who have had an opportunity of seeing so much in the country, who have been treated with so much tolerance and generosity, should come in here and make, under a deceitful guise, a proposition to this country that is as big and as fierce a bit of aggression on the liberties of our people and of Parliament as was the case when the Conservative Party, even at the risk of bursting parliamentary institutions in Great Britain, began the attack on this country that developed in 1913 and that, in so many queer ways and in spite of much that they might have learned or had an opportunity of learning, has continued even in some parts of Ireland to-day. We oppose this measure.
