It has often been observed that when a person changes his religion and beliefs he once adhered to and adopts others of a different faith, he becomes, more than those who believed all the time, a great upholder of the new tenets and a great man to criticise what he has left. I suppose what can be said of religion can be said also of political or economic beliefs. I read with astonishment that in his speech of 8th March, 1962, the Taoiseach, as reported at column 1195 of the Official Debate, spoke in favour of the benefits given by way of new emoluments to State personnel, civil servants, the Garda, Army and teachers. He announced he was prepared to defend here, if necessary, the decision of the Government to permit State employees of all grades, both wage and salary earners, from the highest to the lowest, to obtain income increases in line with those secured in private employment. You will not get many takers of this challenge, of course, unless, in a moment of abstraction, members of the Government or people who sit behind them may forget the change that has occurred in the Taoiseach.
In 1954, the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Sweetman, brought in a Supplementary Estimate to pay certain remuneration in respect of the year 1952-53 and at column 1683 of the Official Report of 15th December, 1954, Deputy Sweetman put the matter in this line of principle:
But the House and the Deputies in it will, I think, readily accept the view that public servants should be on the same basis in regard to increases in the cost of living as are persons in other walks of life.
He then continues:
It is common knowledge to us all that the cost of living rose substantially during 1952, that in fact the figure — the cost-of-living index figure—rose from a figure of 115 points in May of that year to 123 points in the following November.
There was the proposal to increase the moneys sanctioned by this House for the payment of extra remuneration to State personnel. The present Minister for External Affairs, then Deputy Aiken, retorted to that at column 1687. His remarks were these:
It is ridiculous for the Government and civil servants to be equated in their relationship to that of a private employer and his workers. The Government is not in the position of an employer paying out his own money, in the course of his own business to his own workers. If an ordinary individual in the course of business goes to arbitration over a wage dispute with his employees and if the arbitrator gives what he thinks is an excessive award, he can go out of business.
But the Government cannot go out of business and the Government is not paying out of its own pocket. It is going to pay out of the pockets of the general public, so that it is absolute nonsense to equate the Government's position to the position of the normal employer. The Government does not find the money out of its own pocket; it finds it out of the pockets of the taxpayer. In fact, in the last analysis, the Government and the Dáil became the arbitrator between the servants and the taxpayers.
Later, in the same column, he speaks of other matters which should be brought into consideration, the state of the country's finances, what people could afford to pay in a particular year and so on.
The predecessor of the Taoiseach, speaking at column 1704, a few columns further on poured scorn on this idea that the Government were in the same position as ordinary employers or that employees of the State should get increases in accord with the extra remuneration of the type got by people employed elsewhere. He brought himself to the very difficult matter of arbitration. For years the civil servants in this country and those in similar positions, teachers, men in the Army and Gardaí had been seeking arbitration but as long as Fianna Fáil had the majority they had prior to 1947 arbitration was consistently refused.
At column 1707 of Volume 147 the predecessor of the Taoiseach brings himself to that point and says:
Why did we not earlier apply it——
—arbitration—
to the Civil Service?
He then gave, with approval, a statement of what Deputy Aiken had said previously:
The reason has already been referred to here, that in one sense the Government is itself an arbitrator. It is not private moneys that it is dealing with. It is money it had to get by way of taxation.
Later, he says it is easy to be beneficial to other people at the other chap's expense and, of course, the Government would have liked to be popular by paying the civil servants equal remuneration in the way of what was being got in outside employment, but he felt it was the wrong thing to do. They would not accept the easy road to popularity by paying the increases. They preferred to do the Civil Service and State personnel out of what other people thought was due to them.
The promise that had been made that something just short of £1,000,000 which had been wrongfully withheld following an arbitration award would be paid was honoured to a certain extent but was not made retrospective to the point the arbitrator had suggested. It was pointed out that there was plenty of money in the revenue for the year to pay the amount of almost £1,000,000 and that was steadily refused until there was an election in 1954 and the Government who came back as a result decided, having spoken in the constituencies of the unfairness of keeping this money from State personnel, to implement the promise and to pay the moneys. That particular payment reverberated for many months through debates in this House. We were told it was the payment of that money that sparked off a certain type of inflation that occurred here. We were told it gave a bad lead to employers outside. We were told it was the root of all evil in so far as there was any evil associated with membership of the Government in those days.
It is a welcome thing to find that the Taoiseach now challenges people and says he is prepared to defend here the decision of the Government to pay salaries in line with the increases secured in private employment. The conversion is a good one but I am wondering is it lasting. I know where it comes from. That statement would not have been made a year ago. We have only to look back at what happened last year in regard to C.I.E. employees, in regard to E.S.B. employees and, towards the end of last year, to what happened in regard to members of the Garda. Instead of money being found to pay these increases there would have been the same hobnailed boot treatment as was suggested for the C.I.E. people and brought into the public light here by the legislation introduced, a wages standstill order, in connection with those employed by the E.S.B. The fact that the Government have not a majority of 14 but depend on the precarious support of some Independent Deputies has made a great change in their attitude and I presume the conversion will last as long as that political state of affairs lasts.
We remember, when previous increases were given, the wail that came from the ranks of Fianna Fáil. I have here the facsimile of the phrases that were used by the present Senator Boland, who was then Deputy Boland and a member of the Fianna Fáil Government reported in the Irish Press of 1949. The heading which had been put on it in the political advertisement is: “What Fianna Fáil Want to Prevent”. The text of the remarks of Senator Boland read:
The increase in Civil Service salaries would cost about £700,000 in a full year, according to the Minister. The Army, Gardaí and teachers are also entitled to increases but the total cost is not yet disclosed. Local government officials will naturally expect increases also, as will workers all over the country. This was the situation which Fianna Fáil was determined to prevent and would have prevented if three of the six lost Dublin seats had been held, for that would have given Mr. de Valera a majority on February 18th last.
There was the old mood. What Fianna Fáil wanted to prevent and would have prevented if only they had got their majority was the type of increases that are now being voted, that the Taoiseach tells us he will defend against anybody who dares to contest them. As I said, it was an easy challenge becauses the only people who were likely to contest them were those who remembered what the then Deputy Boland had said.
There was their refusal in regard to arbitration over the years and when eventually arbitration arrangements were made, Fianna Fáil honoured the arbitration awards very reluctantly and stopped nearly £1 million that was due to State personnel by not dating the increase from the time the arbitration board had suggested.
I referred to the situation last year in connection with those who were employed in C.I.E. and those who were employed by the E.S.B. I suggested there was no doubt about the reality of the situation that was then disclosed, that the Fianna Fáil Government were hankering after their old standstill order on wages. The legislation they presented here tentatively and from which they ran away after this House had got discussing it was clearly an effort to put a standstill order on certain employees in the E.S.B. as they had tried earlier in regard to C.I.E. employees. We had the dismal spectacle of the Minister for Transport and Power complaining that he knew nothing about any dispute in regard to employment conditions or wages amongst the employees of C.I.E. although he is Minister for Transport and Power. The conciliation that was attempted with the E.S.B. people, which also should be one for the Minister for Transport and Power, was handled by the Minister for Industry and Commerce but not with any great success.
In September, 1961, during the election the Taoiseach said in Clonmel:
According to newspaper reports a Labour Party speaker had suggested the Government was contemplating a wage freeze or a wage stall. This was absurd and was only an election stunt the same as that Party had used at other elections.
In December of last year the Minister for Industry and Commerce set out to kill a rumour which I had never heard. He spoke in these terms:
I want to say emphatically that any belief which is abroad that wages will be pegged when the Common Market materialises is unfounded and erroneous.
I never heard the statement being made. Nobody ever suggested in my hearing that there was any belief that the Common Market would lead to any pegging of wages but people did often say in my hearing that it was quite clear from the E.S.B. legislation produced here before the election that if the Government had a majority it would not be a matter of waiting for the Common Market to determine wages here. There would be a recrudescence of the old policy of a standstill upon wages. It was quite clearly shown in the legislation and I should imagine that the only reason why the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that was that he himself knew there was that belief through the community and there was that fear. There was the possibility that by gaining a little support from certain Independents they could get back to the old situation in which wages and salaries would be kept at a fixed level no matter what the cost of living went to.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce was the worst possible person to choose as a mouthpiece for that statement. People will remember that he came into this House first on an election sheet which he broadcast through Cork City and in which he promised bigger and better subsidies for everybody, and then voted out subsidies. A little later it was in his constituency that the most specific promises were given in regard to 100,000 new jobs inside five years and he came back to this House to vote out the remnant of the subsidies and tried to explain to the people there never was any promise about 100,000 new jobs. It was merely a statement of plans, a blueprint or something like that. The same Minister told the people in the previous elections there was no question of cutting out subsidies and there was no question of new taxes, the expression being: "We do not believe in that sort of thing. It is not part of our policy." Immediately on his coming back into the House and being elevated to a ministerial post what he denied previously was implemented. All that was required of this Minister was to say in regard to wages, if he remembered the phrase: "It is no part of our policy to peg wages. We have never believed in that sort of thing."
We have presented to us here a fierce bill completely contrary to all the promises that were made during the election. We were told the Government would exercise direct and strict control on expenditure, that the number of State personnel would be cut down, that the cost of living would be kept in check. State personnel have not decreased in numbers except in so far as Army recruiting has failed to bring the Army up to the strength which is supposed to be a safe one. As regards the civil personnel of the State, the number if anything has increased. The cost of living has gone up by 15 points, the greatest single increase over a short period of years that has ever been experienced in this State.
It is because the cost of living rose, hit by the Government attitude towards the butter subsidy, that, under arbitration conditions, State personnel had to get the increases we are now paying. I have no objection to those increases. I look upon it as one of the fortunate circumstances of my life that it was in my time the arbitration machinery was established and we got the State personnel out of the position they had been walked into by Fianna Fáil Government agencies in the old days that, whatever went on in the outside world, State personnel were under the thumb of the Government and would not get the wages people could get in outside employment. However, this bill is really all mad expenditure and fancy produce. The necessity for doing justice to State personnel is that the Government by their own positive activities, on the one hand, and negligence on the other hand, have allowed the cost of living index to rise to an outrageous point. Therefore, in a weakened community we are asked to bear the heaviest charges that there ever have been.
I do not know what there is in the country that people are satisfied about. I look at the various matters referred to here: the new airports, new radar equipment, television costing £2 million. We cannot have a helicopter service to rescue people who are in danger of being lost at sea because it is too expensive. It is possible that there will be a new police body to represent that organisation which may produce better representation for the civic guards. Aer Lingus has been asked to put certain extra items on charge. In any event it has been shown, with all the boasting about our transport on land, sea and in the air, that it is all being subsidised no matter what gloss may be put on it by speaking here of operational profits.
We are now told that many State concerns are not so solid as they would seem to be. I am not speaking of semi-State bodies; I am speaking of bodies which have got grants through the Industrial Credit Corporation or sometimes through the Agricultural Credit Corporation and in respect of which we have had disclosures now and again that things are not at all as happy as they were made out to be. We are told that we are to gear ourselves for a new era. So far as speeches and exhortations can do any good, people may be well prepared but so far as preparation goes otherwise, nothing has been done.
Grave doubt has been cast upon the way in which the accounts of State bodies are presented. I listened to several speakers today: some wanted more State control and some wanted less but all agree that the accounts of these bodies should be presented on the basis on which commercial accounts are presented. It has become recognised that the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor General are very limited. He does not make the same examination as commercial accountants would make. The things he is mainly responsible for are to see that the money is properly voted and that it gets into the hands of those for whom it is intended. What happens in between, whether it is a good concern or whether it is losing money, is none of his business.
I would suggest that the procedure adopted in regard to the Electricity Supply Board should be applied to all State companies and that the Board itself, or whatever the institution may be, should have its own auditor. But over and above that, there should be an auditor and an accountant of the ordinary business type who would ask the questions that would be asked of an ordinary business and would show whether, in fact, the concerns were making money or not. The Minister for Transport and Power boasted last year that a concern like Irish Shipping was making money. The profit was put somewhere in the region of £300,000, when, in fact, it was losing money to the extent of over £500,000. I suggest that the country will not be able to form a proper line of policy until the correct figures are put before the public in the form of properly audited accounts.
We come to the position in which we have the highest emigration ever— it is still continuing—the highest taxes ever—they are likely to be increased— the highest prices ever, with no question of their being reduced, the lowest population ever and 51,000 people fewer in employment than there were in 1955. In that weakened state, the Minister for Finance proposes to throw fresh burdens upon the people.
I heard comments with regard to emigration. All I know about emigration is this: The census return promulgated last year showed that this country had dropped in its population to 2,814,000. The natural increase in the population is some 27,000. The population had been driven down to 2,814,000 by April of 1961. I think it is a safe bet that, when the returns of the Registrar General come out in April, 1962, we shall have got below the figure of 2,800,000. We shall have lost the 14,000 and will hit a new low as far as population is concerned.
I hear vague talk here of 6,000 extra people being put into employment. During the election, the Minister for Transport and Power said that emigration was halved. The Minister for Finance at an Institute of Bankers function said he was optimistic about the trend of emigration, but he did not go any further than that.
Some comment was made today that it was rather a scandal to have the clergy of this country concerning themselves about the conditions of living which our emigrants have to meet in Birmingham, instead of bending their efforts to see that emigration would cease or be lessened. I say that our clergy have done as much as can be expected by calling attention to the situation; it is not for them to suggest economic measures. That is the Government's job. The clergy have given every help they can by way of drawing attention to the picture as it presents itself to them.
I have about five quotations which I could give from various bishops and people holding high rank in the clergy who attend some of these meetings of Muintir na Tíre and other associations and who are forever speaking about emigration as it appears to them. I take one comment made at a Dublin symposium. It was a symposium on urban-rural relations, sponsored by Catholic technologists and held in the Gresham Hotel. It was reported in the papers of 24th February last year. A professor from Maynooth expressed his view this way:
The possibility is a real one. The future may see Ireland a prosperous nation with a favourable balance of trade and no emigration, with its people packed into a few huge cities and its countryside a prairie very sparsely populated by wealthy farmers and haunted by the ghosts of dead towns and villages.
As far as I can make out, that seems to be the ideal of some members of the Government who tell us that this movement away from the rural areas into the towns is a world movement. They tell us, indeed, that the pattern of wages paid to people occupying the towns is greater than the pattern in the country. They tell us that that is a worldwide pattern and not to be put down to any failures on the part of the Government. There is a complacency about accepting all this which, as a Labour leader said, is frightening.
We are faced with an advance towards an association bigger than we ever had before. We have made application for membership of the European Economic Community. There have been many expressions of opinion on that to which I will not refer. It will be a national rebuff to this country if it is not accorded full membership, having applied for it in the way the application was made. It will certainly be a day of dreadful humiliation if this country is told, either for political or sociological reasons, on the one hand, or economic reasons, on the other, that it is not regarded as fit for membership of the European Economic Community.
It may be that an association would work out all right for this country but with certain defects, of course, in the new situation. If the possibility still exists that this country might be offered associateship, after seven or eight years' preparation to get ourselves even up to that point, we certainly will be exposed in a way one could not believe possible if one attended only to Ministerial speeches at functions and dinners. If there is as much prosperity in this country as there is in the after dinner speeches of Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, no doubt we shall be welcomed with open arms into any community, economic, political or otherwise.
It is this complacency that is the frightening thing. I find, as I read what has been said, that the only realism in connection with forecasting the future comes from those who are close to labour and the employees.
If I put to one side the speeches made by Ministers, telling us that everything is lovely, that the Government are making every endeavour to see that we will fit into the Common Market, and the speeches of business men welcoming the challenge offered to them and the new stimulus that is being afforded to them—and I often wonder when I hear enthusiastic industrialists telling of the challenge and the stimulus why they did not accept that challenge earlier, why they did not make themselves ready for the challenge of free competition and not hide behind highly protected tariff walls—when I put all these things aside, I see several Labour representatives who have spoken recently and who are not quite so complacent.
One of them, who was formerly a member of this House, referred to the fact that there was luxury and extravagant living for a few in this country, while thousands of people had not enough to live on. The Chairman of the Dublin Regional Council of the Labour Party on 11th of this month expressed misgivings about the ability of the industrial sector of our economy to meet the fierce competition that we would face, if we were admitted to the European Economic Community and added that large numbers of firms would not survive without drastic reorganisation of their methods.
Another lecturer said that whatever difficulties we would find inside the Common Market, the alternative of a small country living on the fringe of that market and not in it was a barren one. Another union leader forecast a sell-out by many firms if Ireland secured admission to the E.E.C. He said that the directors of old Irish firms which had not been well managed in the past would be ready to sell out and there might be a rush of Americans and others trying to take whatever advantage they could get from being in business in this country. The research officer of the Irish Trade Union Congress in July last year said that, in theory, everybody was equal in the Common Market but the brutal fact was that some were more equal than others.
These statements are a clearer expression of the views of people who are facing the realities of the situation than the statements of Ministers speaking at dinners and other functions on the great prosperity of the country. It is a better approach than that of the industrialists who have been sheltered behind high protection walls and who now tell us that they are ready to face anything that is to come. I often wonder what that complacency is founded on. Years ago, when I was in the Department of Industry and Commerce, two grounds were always put up when a case was being made for the imposition of a tariff. One was that the industry would be able to face normal competition but that it could not meet dumping by firms in Britain who wanted to sell their goods over here. To my mind, these claims about dumping were never solidly established.
Apart from the allegation about dumping there were generally two other grounds for the application of the tariff: that we had not the raw materials for the industry here or that they would have to be brought in at high transport cost and that both of these would set back the proposed manufacture of the goods. As far as the question of dumping was concerned, I have read the Treaty of Rome and I do not think it provides any great safeguards against that. However, that does not matter so much because I never believed that there was any great foundation for the allegations of dumping. As far as the transport of raw materials is concerned, if that was the objection up to this, it will not be removed by the fact that we are going into different markets. If we have to manufacture from imported raw materials, that will still be the situation and we shall be competing with people who have these raw materials close to hand. We shall still have to pay the transport charges and they will only have to pay their internal transport charges.
I cannot see where there is any basis for the hope that we are going to have a better life, if we achieve the Community. What our situation will be and the various answers that will be given to our application, only the future will disclose. It may be membership, or associateship, or either with a time period attached to it, but our real trouble only starts when we get in. It has been said that practically all our products were able to enter the British market free. There was no preference against us. We had the advantage that our competitors, except those from the old-time Commonwealth, were definitely prejudiced. Edward Nevin, who is nothing to the research officer of the Irish Trade Union Congress but who is a member of one of the Committees set up by the Department of Industry and Commerce that affect our membership of E.E.C., in Studies in 1961 pointed out that at the present moment, although Ireland enjoys unrestricted access to the United Kingdom market, it accounts for less than two and a half per cent. of the total value of imports there and less than five per cent. of the food imports.
Those who speak of the new Community with a consuming population of 100,000,000 should remember that it is not the millions that count but the price levels inside the new area. We have a community of 50,000,000 people beside us. With all kinds of preferences for our products, with a very fine situation which we are never likely to meet again, of all their imports, we supply only two and a half per cent. and of their food imports, we supply only five per cent. Where are we likely to get a bigger export on any side, industrial or agricultural? We have had a preferred market beside us and open to us for so many years, with competition against us heavily tariffed, so what is to lead us to believe that we are walking into a new paradise if we are admitted to the Community?
I am not against going into the Community—we have no alternative. If we stay out and Britain goes in, we are in isolation and we are in for a lengthy period of desperate poverty. We must go in if Britain goes in, and there should be no qualms about saying that. If Britain stays out, I do not think there is any reason why we should go into the Community, but there may be some argument on that.
However, we are so situated geographically and economically so inextricably mixed that this country has no future, save in a Common Market Britain decides to go into. If we have got only to the point of having 2½ per cent. or five per cent. of British imports accorded to us in a preferred market, what chance have we if that market is to be tariffed against us? Instead of having an easy run into the British market, we will find ourselves with our competitors at a distinct advantage over us.
The Minister put on the face of his Book of Estimates a sum of £24 million as being the Capital Services. I await his explanation, which I hope to get through questions, whether there is any sum for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis in that and how far that compares with the figure of almost £21 million that appeared on the face of the Book of Estimates for last year. I want to have a glance at these capital moneys, because I must confess great disappointment over the result.
Speaking at a meeting in Arklow in January, 1960, the Minister for Finance made certain statements. I welcomed those statements when they were made. As far as my memory goes, they were made in answer to certain comments made either by the bankers' association or chambers of commerce—some group who had complained that the State was borrowing too much and, so to speak, entering too much into the investment field. I believe what the Minister said was in answer to those comments. In so far as it was in answer to those comments, what he said was perfectly sound. His phrase was this:
If one were to visualise the situation in which the Government decided to desist from capital expenditure and consequent borrowing, there is no doubt that the adverse effect on employment, social conditions and national economic development would be little short of disastrous.
Commenting on that afterwards, I agreed it was a good point of view to have and that it was very well expressed, but I pointed out that that was the very situation of disaster which the group to which the present Minister belonged, the Fianna Fáil Party, had accepted from 1932 to 1947, when they had not accepted the idea of capital expenditure on these services.
That really started in 1950. There were some small matters—what we used to call below-the-line services and the odd £300,000 or £400,000 given for harbours and such matters —but no real scheme of capital expenditure developed until 1950. The Minister asked us to see what would be the disastrous situation if capital development were stopped. I want to look at the not too satisfactory situation in regard to long-term capital development. I have tried to take out as well as I can the figures for Capital Services since 1950.
The first appearance of the segregation of Capital from other Services was in the front of the Estimates for 1951, that is, for the year ending 31st March, 1951. On the return of Fianna Fáil in 1952, they abandoned the practice of segregating the Capital Services from the other services on the front of the Volume. The excuse was given that, first of all, the phrase "Capital Services" was not a very accurate phrase. Some people might consider certain services were capital services and others might not. In addition, there was a question about moneys being voted and not being spent.
As one way to get a particular calculation, I take the figures on the front of the Book where they are and I go then to the Budget speeches and to the Estimates and make my own calculation as to what capital services would be in the years in which they are not segregated on the front page of the Book. I find the situation to be that, between 1951 and 1955, there were £61 million described as what was to be spent on capital services. I know that is not the full tale. When the change was made about not breaking them up, there was a note put in that there were also direct issues from the Central Fund for advances to the Local Loans Fund, the E.S.B. and so on, estimates of which would be found in the White Paper of receipts and expenditure published prior to the Budget. I take these, in any event, as giving some way of discovering what was spent over the years.
Again, I take time to point out that these are the moneys put on the front of the Book; how much was spent is another matter. The amount purported to have been spent on capital services in the five years between 1951 and 1955 was £61,000,831. That is an average of £12 million a year. In the second period, the five years between 1956 and 1960, the figure is almost £61 million. In any event, between these two five-year periods practically the same amount was devoted to capital services—£60 million in each five-year period. The whole tot over the ten years is practically £122 million, pratically the same as the £12 million a year average. The Minister in his speech at Arklow said supposing all that was stopped, what he described as "little short of disastrous" would be the result on employment, social conditions and national economic development.
I turn, as an aside to that, to the publication compiled by the Central Statistics Office and issued by the Government, Economic Statistics, which is issued prior to the Budget. I am waiting for the one for this year and I have to confine myself to the one issued prior to the Budget in 1961. In 1951, the employment as between industry and agriculture was 1,209,000 and in 1960, as between industry and agriculture, it was 1,112,000. In other words, employment as between industry and agriculture had declined by 90,000 people. So we had a loss of 90,000, even though we had capital expenditure at less than £12 million a year.
I consider that very unsatisfactory. I do not know whether any attention has been given to it or any investigation made to find out what happened. Is it possible that we are faced with a prospect of finding £12 million a year expenditure on capital services with a declining population and, worse than that, even with a declining population having a decline in those employed as between agriculture and industry? It may be put to me that that is not such an important amount at all. I understand from all the speakers that the great objective nowadays is to get back to industry based on the land, that that will give employment to those at present forced to take the emigrant ship out of this country.
In his speech on March 8th, the Taoiseach spoke about the help being given to agriculture. At column 1203, Volume 8, of the Official Debates, he says that his calculations refute "any suggestion that the Government have not contributed very substantially to the growth of farm incomes." He tells us then that he does not like subsidies for agriculture. At column 1204. he says that "it would not appear to be wise for us to provoke further action against our exports by extending our system of price supports in a way that might have that result. The repercussions could be very quick as well as very serious." He goes on to say:
In the European Economic Community, for which we have applied for membership, aids to farming or any other forms of production which are decided to be of a character that distorts competition will be ruled out. But, of course, they will be ruled out in circumstances in which open market prices will be higher and in which they will be secured by support measures of a different kind.
Later, he says:
It would be foolish to arrange new subsidies which in the circumstances of our membership of the Common Market would have to be withdrawn again.
This beats me. I asked a question in connection with certain Votes produced by the Minister for Industry and Commerce as to whether the type of aid we were giving to industrial exports by remission of taxes, by the provision of plant, by the provision of sites and by a number of other matters, were of such a type of support or subsidy as would be regarded as distorting competition and therefore would not be allowed under the European Economic Community conditions.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce told me that this type of support was all right. Apparently it is for industrial exports, but when it comes to agricultural exports, the Taoiseach is very firm that these would be distorting competition and if they did distort competition, they would be ruled out. I read my version of the Rome Treaty without discovering any such distinction in the terms of the Treaty. The whole idea of the Rome Treaty is the possible free trade amongst those who join it, but we are told that is good enough, that we have to be very strict with our farming community and not give them support, but as far as industry is concerned, it is different.
We have on hands for discussion tomorrow or next week a piece of legislation entitled the Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Orders) Bill, 1952. We received an explanatory paper with that Bill which tells us of 17 types of duties referred to in the Bill. Some of these are relaxations but most are increases in the way of tariffs on industrial products. We are in the position that while awaiting a decision on our application for membership, we cannot give subsidies or price supports to farmers but we can bring in legislation to confirm the imposition of duties of an industrial type.
I see no logic in this. I can see no basis for it in the Rome Treaty and we can only believe it was elevated into an argument by the Taoiseach because he had nothing else to put up against the farmers in their present plight. The farmers are marching at the moment. That is regarded almost as disorderly conduct on their part. The Garda have been sent around to take farmers' names. The Garda have been told that they are to find out by questioning these farmers whether they are proposing anything illegal. I hope they give them the usual warning, that they need not answer such questions.
In any event, the Garda are looking now after the organiser of the N.F.A. and other farming associations and taking their names. In County Mayo, they took the names of several members of the N.F.A., a public meeting was told in Castlebar. Why are the names being taken? People in this House away back in 1939 will remember the first victims of the Offences Against the State Act were the farmers of County Dublin and County Kildare who had the temerity to stage a strike because they felt they were not getting sufficient value for their produce. The Offences Against the State Act was launched against these people and special courts were set up to try them. The proclamation that was made in August, 1939, to the effect that the courts were inadequate to do justice and to preserve peace and order has never been withdrawn.
Since 1939, this Parliament, through the lines of successive Governments, has maintained that the courts, since 1939, have been inadequate for justice and to preserve public peace and order. Now we get a new outbreak. The farmers are actually marching and calling attention to what they think are their worsening conditions.
