I should like to associate myself with the words the Taoiseach has just announced in connection with the resignation of Sir Chester Beatty and to express my complete concurrence in the tribute he has paid to Sir Chester. I had the privilege of being in an official position when Sir Chester made the magnificent contribution he made to our National Gallery of the priceless pictures which now grace the Gallery and which are an effective lure to all art-lovers coming to this country and generally to those people who are interested in art and come here visiting the country as tourists or otherwise.
Sir Chester Beatty's liberality was unbounded. His example to the rest of the country was something we would hope would be equalled if not emulated, by those in a position to give gifts to the nation. I have on many occasions, both in this House and outside it, expressed my disappointment that many of our citizens, who perhaps would be in a financial position to make donations to artistic objects and towards the advancement of our cultural objectives, have not so far done so. There is some little sign at the moment of an opening up in that direction and I hope these few remarks on the subject of Sir Chester Beatty will further encourage people who are able to do it to endow our galleries or our universities with funds for the advancement of the arts and for general cultural objectives.
As far as the general Estimate is concerned, I should like to express my own personal appreciation of the efforts of the Arts Council during the year under review. Under the direction of the present Director, very great progress has been made. The review in their report shows they are active. Although one may criticise some parts of it, on the whole, they are active in the proper ways—certainly in the ways that appeal to me.
On the last occasion I spoke on this Estimate, I asked the Taoiseach why it was that the Government had not opened their purse strings a little more to the Arts Council. He gave me the rather surprising reply that the Arts Council had not asked for any more. I thought that perhaps the question I put to the Taoiseach and the answer I got would have encouraged the Arts Council during the year we are discussing at the moment to make a tentative request for a little more money. I do not know whether they have done so or not, or whether they are still giving the Taoiseach what I believe is the false impression that they are quite satisfied with the amount of money they have, including the addition he gave them since he came into office.
I think it would be money well spent to give them more. They are hampered in their activities. When we find a good Arts Council under very good directors doing an excellent job, it would be good business not merely for the objectives imposed upon them by the statute but for the country as a whole.
I should like to ask the Taoiseach one important question on a matter that it not very vital before I move on to make a few observations on the Arts Council in general. In January, 1963, we have now the report of the Arts Council for 1961-62 in stencil. I do not know what the reason for it is, but there seems to be some unnecessary delay in the production of the Arts Council report, for not only do we get it nearly a year after the end of the period which it covers but the report is merely in stencil and not in the proper format. It is something which I think requires some explanation. What is the cause of the delay? It is not a very important matter but it is of some importance from the point of view of people interested in our activities, particularly in connection with their views as to the scope and duties of the Arts Council.
As I have said, it is a matter minor in its own way but of some importance. It looks sloppy; it looks inefficient; and it is certainly not any great credit that nearly ten months after the end of the year with which the report deals, we get, and I believe not very easily, a stencilled copy of the report. It is a matter I should like the Taoiseach to consider to see what can be done about it.
The Arts Council have done very good work in the past 12 months, but I should like to express my personal regret that they have been hampered and hindered in their statutory objectives and duties. Perhaps I am overstating or exaggerating the position when I say they have been hampered, but one of the statutory duties imposed on the Council by the Arts Act of 1951 was to stimulate an interest in design in industry, the fine arts and applied arts generally. We all know, or perhaps many of us have forgotten, the report of the experts from Scandinavian countries on our industries and our industrial design in this country. It is a very provocative report and a very good one. I should have thought that as part of their statutory objectives and duties, it would have been the aim of the Arts Council to see something was done, following that report.
I have expressed views here on several occasions on the subject of the application of art to industry and particularly to design in industry. It is a matter that has been very close to my heart and one that the late Dr. Bodkin, in his report to the Government, stressed very much. Deputies who have listened to me before on this subject may perhaps tire of it, but they will realise the importance of the application of design to industry and of the practical application of art to industry.
In this matter, I am not dealing with something which is high in the cultural atmosphere. I am dealing with something which is of very practical importance and, in my submission here, of even more vital importance in the conditions in which we find ourselves now. I hope, therefore, Deputies will excuse me if I repeat very shortly what I said on other occasions. I think the Taoiseach will agree with me it is of vital importance to this country that we should expand our export trade to the utmost. There is no doubt that Irish industrialists, Irish manufacturers, will not sell their goods abroad merely because they are Irish. You will get no purchaser, even in our best market from the point of view of sentimentality—the USA—to take goods, unless they are good value.
You will get no foreigner to buy Irish goods, unless they are not merely good value but distinctive in design, and what I have urged here as a matter of purely practical politics was that we should get into this country the best designers available and give them the biggest salaries, not merely as good as we can afford but as good as they demand. We should get these experts to advise our industrialists and insist on our industrialists accepting their advice and acting on it, because I have the impression that many of our industrialists dealing in goods in the categories of crafts and arts, goods where design is of the utmost importance, are quite satisfied and smug about the position in the home market.
As I have said, you will not get Irish goods sold unless they are of distinctive quality and design and of artistic character. It would not be proper for me to concentrate too much on any particular manufacturer. Some of them have succeeded and some of them nearly succeeded. I have already stated my experience, and I am sure the Taoiseach saw the same thing, in New York. In a big store, there is a man in charge who is very favourably disposed to this country. He has Irish goods displayed in that store in Fifth Avenue, but nothing will go on his table unless it is of first-class quality and design.
That is the headline we have to teach to our industrialists. We have a serious situation here at the moment in regard to external markets and if we are to compete, we must have experts and we must have our goods manufactured in such a way that our markets will keep expanding so as to have an expanding economy. We cannot have that if we are to be satisfied with the commonplace. We must not merely get away from the commonplace, we must pass away from the good and go into the realm where we can compete favourably with such things as Belleek glass and china in France and other European countries. We cannot beat those by smugness and self-satisfaction, with the position in Europe as it is at the moment.
I accordingly urge on the Taoiseach to use all resolution to stimulate in our manufacturers and our industrialists an interest not merely in art and the application of art to industry but in the vital necessity to get the best possible advice from anywhere it can be got and at the highest price necessary, because our goods must be not merely good but better than the best in European countries. I have always believed we have great scope in that field. I have preached that for years, even in the time when I was a voice crying in the wilderness, when the only other voice raised in this connection was that of Dr. Bodkin.
When I was in Government, I got the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton, to try to get the officers of his Department to arrange a meeting of industrialists and impress on them the necessity of seeing what had to be done if we were to get an export trade and if we were to beat our competitors in Holland, France, Italy and other countries where manufacturers have artistic training.
That was the position some years ago. I do not know what the position is now. Since that time we have had the report of the Northern European experts. I understand functions in connection with that have been taken away from the Arts Council and given to the Department of Education, but the Taoiseach can correct me if I am wrong. I should like to know what progress has been made. At the risk of repetition, and I am speaking with all sincerity on a topic which I have been preaching for many years, it is absolutely essential for this country to get out of the commonplace, to get away from the best or the excellent, to get into the best of the best, unless we are to waive any hope of meeting serious competition which we have always had to meet and which will be more and more keen in the future, having regard to recent developments. That is really the particular matter I want to mention in connection with this Estimate.
I notice occasionally that the Arts Council appear in print expressing their views. While I am a firm believer in this, I have in no circumstances and no matter what the provocation, written a letter to the newspapers. Nevertheless, I commend most of their activities in that connection. It is one of the ways in which they can stimulate public interest and get public opinion to bear upon something that has been done contrary to the best interests of the country from the point of view of our cultural life.
There is one matter on which I should like assurance from the Taoiseach. Of course, the Arts Council are in a sense a Government institution in that they are set up and developed and, to a large extent, dominated by the Government. The directors are appointed by the President, on the advice of the Government: five members are appointed directly by the Government and then the nomination of the other six is by the Arts Council themselves. It might be said that they are a sort of Government institution and that, therefore, they should not criticise anything in connection with Government activities. I would hope that the Taoiseach, as the Minister responsible for the Arts Council to the Dáil, would see that the Arts Council have the fullest freedom to express their views and their opinions, even if they want to express views or opinions on activities in relation to the duties imposed on the Council by the Government and even though the views are directed towards Government activities or Government Departments' activities.
I will take an example, if I may, and this is merely an example, and not any particular grievance or matter of criticism of the Post Office. Supposing the Arts Council were not, as they ought to be, consulted by the Post Office when a new stamp is being issued. The Arts Council should have the fullest freedom to criticise that stamp, even though it emanates from a Government Department. I should like the Taoiseach to give an assurance on that point, that their liberty of criticism and their liberty of expressing their views will be completely uncontrolled by him or his Department or any other Department, which may be the source from which some of the members hold their appointment. There is also the point that in a sense the Arts Council depend on Government subsidies as a Government Department.
I think the Arts Council have stimulated interest in many ways which in the period under review commend themselves to me and should commend themselves to the House. I notice they have helped in some little way an interest in art by school children. There are some indications that they have given grants to some of these bodies interested in bringing an appreciation of art, the teaching and a proper approach to art, to schoolchildren. They have apparently given grants to buy sets of prints for the purpose of a picture circulating scheme for technical, secondary and primary schools throughout Ireland.
That is only a small item in their report but it does enable me to urge upon them, through the Taoiseach, the necessity for seeing, if possible, that pressure is brought to bear on secondary schools of all kinds and all denominations to see that the children in these schools are taught an appreciation of art, the way to approach art and thereby allow for cultural activities in the visual arts and all other categories of that kind.
It is of great importance that our children should know and appreciate the art treasures we have here in this country. I commend the activities of the Director of the Municipal Gallery in connection with that because he has done good work in recent times in bringing schoolchildren to the Municipal Gallery and in giving them lectures on how to draw, thereby bringing them to a proper approach towards the appreciation of art, particularly the visual arts. I should like to see the Arts Council in their next report give an indication that they have taken more active steps than are shown in the present report to see that schoolchildren, in the secondary schools particularly, and possibly the younger children in the national schools, are brought periodically and systematically to art lectures, if possible, and certainly to see the pictures and get to know the pictures we have. In this country we have a unique collection of art works and we are very fortunate in our National Gallery and in our Municipal Gallery.
That leads me to this passing remark, that the Municipal Gallery appears to be losing its character and that the Arts Council, perhaps, according to one section of the present report, are doing what really the Municipal Gallery should be doing. They are doing good work. They have apparently started on a policy of buying pictures by modern Irish artists and exhibiting them in their own gallery. That is a very good purpose but the Municipal Gallery has got to the stage where it is nearly on a par with the National Gallery and has ceased to be what it originally was—the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art.
I see in the report that the Council co-operated with the College Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin in the purchase of original paintings by Irish artists. Would I be treading on academic corns if I say I hope to see in the next report of the Arts Council that they co-operated with University College, Dublin, or University College, Cork, or University College, Galway, in somewhat similar activities or other artistic efforts. I am not deviating from the strict rules of order in saying I would hope that the Arts Council would impress upon the authorities of these three colleges the necessity of having a lecturer, or a professor, or at least a part-time professor in art and the history of art. It would be a very good thing, not merely for our cultural life but also for the very practical purpose of interesting our students in the universities in art and the application of art to industry and design in industry.
May I conclude with one, perhaps, parochial point? A man from Cork was on the Arts Council. He resigned, or died—I forget which— and no Corkman was appointed in his place. That was a slip-up on the part of the Government which should be rectified at the earliest possible moment.