Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 15 Mar 1939

Vol. 22 No. 14

Central Fund Bill, 1939—(Certified Money Bill)—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be read a Second Time."

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

The Central Fund Bill is a routine feature of our financial system and is required to implement the Ways and Means Resolutions passed by Dáil Eireann. Accordingly, it is designed to authorise the issue from the Central Fund of, first, the total amount of those supplementary and additional grants for the present financial year which were not covered by the Appropriation Act of the year, and, secondly, the amount of the Vote on Account for the coming financial year. It also makes provision for borrowing by the Minister for Finance and for the issue by him of such securities as he thinks fit.

The Central Fund Bill, accordingly, is based mainly upon the Estimates for the coming year, or, I should say, based upon the Vote on Account, which has already been passed by Dáil Eireann. That Vote was for £10,855,000. It represents a fraction of the total net provision made for the Supply Services for the year 1939-40. The total amount of this is £30,248,897 as compared with £29,861,881 for last year. This latter figure takes account of the revised Estimate for export bounties and subsidies, the new Estimate for industrial alcohol, and sundry miscellaneous Supplementary Estimates to date.

According to the Volume of Estimates which has already been circulated to the Oireachtas the increase in the cost of the Supply Services is £387,016, to which will be added in due course, an additional sum of £370,000 for that portion of the Supplementary Agricultural Grant which is not charged upon the Central Fund and for which the Dáil will be asked to provide in due course upon a Supplementary Estimate. The increase in the Supply Services for the coming year, as compared with the current year, is, therefore, £757,016. This increase is due in the largest measure to the increase of £1,256,515 in the Estimate for Defence.

There are also other increases, however, which are perhaps noteworthy. For instance, on Vote 11, for Public Works and Buildings, there is an increase of £181,479. The principal increase in this Estimate occurs under sub-head B, for new works, alterations and additions, amounting to £168,000 odd. This is mainly due to an increase of £50,000 in the grant for the building of national schools, an increase of £12,000 for a heating installation at the Central Model Schools, and several increases for new military barracks and ordnance stores. Among these latter items are £16,000 for accommodation for the Air Corps cadets and £114,900 for the reconstruction of Kildare barracks, a work which has been long overdue and which the Minister for Finance has at last agreed should be undertaken. There is also a sum of £55,000 for the erection of magazines and £20,000 for general storage. We have, in addition, a provision of £194,000 for the completion of the Rhynana aerodrome, and £170,000 for the completion of the aerodrome at Collinstown, and a further provision of £60,000 for an additional aerodrome to be provided elsewhere.

On Vote 41, for Local Government and Public Health, there are increases of £1,500 for medical treatment of school children, £3,300 for grants for the provision of meals for school children, £6,500 for the treatment of tuberculosis, and £26,890 in respect of a contribution towards the annual loan charges to local authorities for housing purposes. There are a number of notable increases in the Education Votes. In Vote 46—Primary Education —there is an increase of £15,000 under sub-head C in respect of grants towards the cost of heating and cleaning schools. A new sub-head—C 10—provides £16,500 towards the cost of free school books for necessitous children.

Under sub-head D—Superannuation, etc., of teachers—there is an increase of £8,400. On the Vote for Secondary Education there is an increase of £28,120, and on Vote 48—Technical Instruction—there is an increase of £26,000, towards which sub-head B, in respect of annual grants to Vocational Education Committees, accounts for £23,349. On the Vote for Lands— Vote 54—there is an increase of £59,000 under sub-head N, which relates to advances to meet payments under sections of the Land Act of 1931; and there is an increase of £1,300 under sub-head Q—Payments under Section 27 of the Land Act, 1933, to meet deficiencies in the Land Bond Fund arising out of the revision of the annuities. There is also an increase of £1,250 in respect of improvement of estates. On Vote 55—Forestry—there is an increase of £25,000 for acquisition of land, and there is an extra £11,557 in respect of cultural operations, maintenance, etc., of existing forests. In the Vote for Agriculture, there is a decrease of £238,599, due mainly to the disappearance, except for a token provision of £5, of the current year's figure of £220,000 under sub-head M for expenses in connection with the provision of butter for winter requirements. Under sub-head O, there is only a token provision of £5 to meet other expenses in connection with the purchase, storage and export of butter, eggs and some other products. The net decrease under this sub-head, after allowing for Appropriations-in-Aid, is £37,260. The cessation of the scheme for the distribution of cattle export licences accounts for a further decrease of £6,261. There is a decrease of £192,715 in respect of the production of industrial alcohol under the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce. There are additional decreases under that Vote as follows:— £12,000 under sub-head I in respect of the provision which was made last year for the Exhibition at the New York World Fair; £23,452 under the group of sub-heads relating to the Turf Development Board, Ltd., and £10,000 under sub-head I of the current year's Vote in relation to the Glasgow Exhibition, which item disappears. On the Vote for Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance there is a decrease of £94,000. On the Vote for Army Pensions, there is a decrease of £117,000. Lastly, on Vote 70, there is a decrease of £219,000, accounted for by the disappearance of certain export bounties on the termination of the land annuities dispute with Great Britain.

I may therefore sum up the position in regard to the proposed expenditure of supply services as follows: the abnormal increase in the Estimate for Defence which the uncertain international situation has forced upon us is responsible for an increase of £1,256,000, to which we may add £265,900 for new defence buildings, charged to the Vote for Public Works and Buildings. In addition to this, however, increases have been provided in respect of the following important public works and social services—for new schools and education generally, an additional sum of £128,853; for housing and other social services administered by the Department of Local Government and Public Health, £28,300 approximately; for land purchase and the other purposes of the Land Commission £51,648; for afforestation £37,321; for postal and telephonic services £42,880. Against these increases we may set decreases on other Votes amounting, in the aggregate, to so much that, notwithstanding the increases I have just enumerated, there would have been a net decrease in the Estimates for this year of over £1,120,000, approximately, if it had not been for the wholly unavoidable additional expenditure which has had to be undertaken for the defence of our country and our people. That briefly explains the basis upon which the Central Fund Bill has been presented to the Oireachtas.

Mr. McLoughlin

My curiosity in respect of this Bill is confined to a few items. I notice that £175,000 additional was voted this year for unemployment assistance, and I notice, likewise, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce stated in the Dáil that there had been an increase of 10,000 in the number of persons receiving unemployment assistance in the early weeks of the present financial year. I recall the Taoiseach stating seven or eight years ago that there was no country in the world in which it would be easier to solve the unemployment problem than this country. I should like to know from the Minister why this outstandingly simple problem has remained unsolved during the past seven years. I should also be interested to hear when he hopes to be able to recall the emigrants to fill the vacant posts in industry for which the Fianna Fáil Party were arranging in 1931.

The other Estimate in which I am interested is that of the Army. The supplementary sum for the year 1938-39 was £323,370. Next year's Estimate shows an increase of about £1,000,000 —the Minister mentioned a figure of £1,200,000—while £4,000,000 is to be spent by way of capital outlay. To me this comes as startling news because I recall the time when the Fianna Fáil Party believed that all expenditure on the Army—it was then contemptuously referred to as the "Free State Army"—was sinful extravagance. When the Central Fund Bill was being discussed during the last year of the Cosgrave Administration, Deputy MacEntee as he was then, maintained that the money voted for the Army was spent on "green uniforms and yellow braid—without any hope of return, either immediate or prospective to the people of this country." The annual expenditure on the Army at the time was more than £1,000,000 less than it is to-day but the then champion of economy, Deputy MacEntee—who must have been taken away by the fairies and the present Minister for Finance left in his place— maintained that the country could not afford it as "the taxpayer in this country was speedily approaching the condition of a sucked orange." Is the orange any more juicy to-day? It is also interesting to recall Deputy de Valera's view of the Army on the same occasion when he said:

"Now, for international purposes and, from the point of view of national defence against outside attack, I think there is a general feeling that the Army here, in its present condition, cannot put up very much defence, particularly when the direction from which we would naturally expect attack is the direction from which, in the past, attack came upon this country. As a safe-guard against that position, we find that our Army is equipped in such a way that it would have to get its military supplies from the power which might be expected to attack us. Is there any defence, then, for spending money on that Army from the international point of view?"

He considered further that:

"any purpose for which the Army could be justified could be achieved at not more than £1,000,000 a year."

But, after £36,000,000 worth of additional juice has been extracted from the "sucked orange," it is being further squeezed to provide for the Army £1,000,000 per annum more than was required under the "extravagant" Cosgrave régime and to provide, in addition, a capital sum of no less than £4,000,000 for armaments to be purchased mainly from "the power which might be expected to attack us." Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to let us into the secret of the change in Ministerial outlook whereby we now find ourselves participating in an armaments race. From reading the speeches of some of the Minister's colleagues, I got the impression that we were going to emphasise our neutrality by calling out Herr Hitler or Signor Mussolini and that we were going to do that in order to ensure that John Bull was not taken unexpectedly in the rere. We now find the Minister for Defence stating in the Dáil that the only power we had to fear was an enemy of Great Britain who would seek to levy war on her from this country. Let me quote the Ministerial words:—

"It is assumed that it is most unlikely that we should be attacked by a power not at war with Great Britain. In all probability, such an attack would come only from a power seeking to make our territory the cockpit of its war with Great Britain or as a base from which to attack her."

It is clear from these words that our £7,000,000 is to be spent largely in the interest of Great Britain. Now, I do not know how often I have been denounced by the Minister's supporters as "an ould Imperialist." I was being roundly condemned as an Imperialist long before the Minister blossomed out as the polite and authoritative exponent of modern Imperialism in County Dublin, the gentleman to whom all the loyal old ladies of the fashionable suburbs give sympathetic ear, and whom the Irish Times regards as an oracle. But my Imperialism differed from the Minister's Imperialism in being less altruistic. I believed in getting something for this country out of our relations with Great Britain. The Minister and his friends believe in offering free sacrifice to the cause of Imperialism. I do not believe in spending £7,000,000 or £5,000,000 of our money for the defence of Britain without a quid pro quo in the shape of trade advantage, political advantage, or £ s. d. If the combined forces are to operate to Britain's advantage, then Britain should make a contribution in cash or kind to the cost. I do not know whether the Minister made representations to Britain on this subject. If he did not, I suggest he should get busy. He can if he likes make the case that the suggestion came from an “ould Imperialist.”

I pass from the big question to the smaller items. I notice that this year the forts, in which I take a neighbour's interest, cost us in maintenance £33,070, that we paid £30,109 for odds and ends taken over at the forts, and that military occupation cost us £49,634. That is a total of £112,000. Next year the Minister estimates that the cost will be about £100,000. When the Minister returned from London with the Trade Agreement, he was almost lyrical about the capture of the forts. I wonder if he is now convinced that he captured a white elephant and that the British were laughing up their sleeves when they persuaded our simple-minded negotiators, gleefully to accept a present of a liability of £100,000 a year. For gentlemen who denounced the ultimate financial settlement, that was an act of incredible childishness. A gift which costs £100,000 a year would be accepted only by people who should be under the care of the court—as minors, I mean. No children could be guilty of greater folly than to spend £100,000 a year on the maintenance and equipment of old forts to protect harbours which have no fleet to shelter, unless it is intended as an act of sheer jingoistic Imperialism to shelter the fleet of our "hereditary enemy." But that would hardly be consistent with neutrality or with the statement that we are uncommitted by any agreements with Britain in regard to defence. Of course, Britain, having handed over the forts, is selling us new guns to man them, and is training our soldiers to use them merely to enable us to defend our neutrality. And to further strengthen our neutrality, we have undertaken to supply Britain with foodstuffs during a war and to guarantee her against enemy attack from our shores.

Now, in this connection I think it is time that we knew what exactly neutrality means. I have been diligently reading up the speeches of the Taoiseach with a view to enlightenment but I confess that his speeches have made my confusion worse con-founded. For instance I find that the Taoiseach made this speech in the Dáil in 1927:—

"The one power against which we have to defend ourselves is that across the water. Are we going to be dragged into any war that the British may regard as a war of aggression? We should insist on having a policy of general neutrality. We ought not to commit ourselves to engaging with the British Army in anything they may call a general defence of these islands."

That is one interpretation of neutrality. But I find the Taoiseach making the following speech again in the Dáil in the April of last year:—

"Any attack on us by a foreign power could not be ignored by Britain. Therefore, in planning our defences to meet such an occasion and in order that, in such a situation, the greatest possible strength should be behind this nation to defend its rights, the planning should take place on the basis that we wanted to have the combined forces as effective as possible.... In modern warfare there is not any neutrality."

Which of these speeches are we to accept as an exposition of neutrality? My own impression is that our millions will be spent to render the "combined forces" as effective as possible but I should like to have a clear statement from the Minister as to what "neutrality" means in the Government dictionary of war-time terms.

It would be rather a pity if, having armed for neutrality, we were to find ourselves in the front seats in a world conflict on the special invitation of the power which the Taoiseach used to think was the only power we had to fear and with which, we have been recently told, there can be no cooperation as long as Partition lasts.

To me the whole business is very bewildering. While I see elaborate preparations being made to protect Lough Swilly, nothing whatever is being done to protect Lough Foyle which is quite as important an anchorage and which we claim is ours. During the British regime, the old fort on Lough Foyle was sold to a private company for a hotel. Under the tourist development scheme, I understand our Government will have power to build hotels for tourists. Might I suggest that it would be sounder economy and a more convincing gesture of neutrality to convert the forts on Lough Swilly into first-class hotels? It would also give the Government a better opportunity of relieving unemployment amongst members of the Fianna Fáil Cumainn. When the forts were first taken over members of the cumainn from all over Donegal were rushed into civilian jobs from which they had subsequently to be dismissed. If the forts are converted into hotels, all these dismissed and disappointed members could be re-employed as waiters, porters, boots and pantry boys. From the point of view of national defence, a good hotel would be as useful as an ancient fort and one could run it at less than £100,000 a year. Perhaps I had better say no more now lest I should transgress the provisions of the new Safety Bill.

Mr. Hayes

The Minister, in speaking to the motion for the Second Reading, said that the Bill was a routine feature. A routine feature of the Minister's administration since he took up office has been an increase in the bill presented to the taxpayer to foot. The Bill shows an increase in the amount of money which it is intended to spend in the coming financial year but, according to the Minister, if we were to take out of it the special money provided for national defence, that would not be so. Before I go into that matter, perhaps I could be of assistance to our old friend, Senator McLoughlin. He wonders what it was that wrought such a change in the Minister's outlook with regard to national defence, and with regard to the direction in which he looks for the enemies of the Irish nation. I suggest to him that the change did not take place at all through the intervention of an Irish agency like the fairies. I suggest that the change took place in England and was effected by English Ministers and civil servants and not by native Irish fairies at all; but, whoever made the change, it is certainly going to be a very costly change for the Irish taxpayers.

I do not want to go into the question of the Minister's promises or the Minister's speeches. I heard more of them than most people, but, in former days, in every case he explained that every Estimate, practically speaking, could be reduced. Not only did he say it could be reduced but he explained how it could be reduced. Unfortunately, since he took up office, he has not found it possible to put into operation any of the schemes, about which, if he was to be believed, he was then very clear. I should like to suggest that this Bill, which indicates that this year we are going to spend, merely on Supply Services, more than £30,000,000, does not give us a complete picture. When you do get a complete picture, it is possible to demonstrate that the Minister's policy, combined with other policies being pursued by the Government, is bound to have very serious results. What the Minister is doing is bound to react unfavourably both on agriculture and industry.

The Bill with which we are now presented shows a very big increase upon the Bill which was voted in 1931-32. To that has to be added—because the consumer, the taxpayer and the ratepayer, are in effect the same person— the increasing burden of rates about which I shall say no more than this, that since the Minister came into office a considerable amount of legislation has been passed, placing certain burdens, which should be the burdens of the central authority, upon the local authority. For that and other reasons the rates in 1938 were 25 per cent. more than in 1931. That is to say, that where a man paid, in 1931, £1 in rates, he paid, in 1938, 25/- and, in 1939, he will be probably paying more in the region of 27/-. If the Minister gets going on his Valuation Bill, which he says is going to help the poor, the rates will be even more considerably increased. As well, therefore, as a very much increased burden for Central Services and a very much increased burden for local services, it is now admitted all round that the ordinary consumer, that is to say, the ordinary taxpayer and ratepayer— because taxes and rates get down to every class in the community—has also to pay the cost of our present tariff policy.

At one time it was stated freely—too freely sometimes—that tariffs could be imposed without increasing the cost of articles to the consumer. That has been proved to be entirely untrue. I am not one of those who object to a reasonable increase in the cost of any article for the purpose of establishing on a firm basis Irish industry, but whether one objects to it or not, one has to remember that the effect of the policy and the effect of the indiscriminate manner in which the Government has imposed tariffs, has been to increase the cost of many articles of necessity. There is also not included in the Bill a good deal of indirect taxation which the Government must find to finance various schemes. It is true that this Government, or no other Government, has any magic wand whereby they can conjure up money, but it is also true, and it does seem well worth while considering, that in this country now there is not available a rich class, whom we can tax, leaving the poor to go scot free. That is a very important matter to remember in our national economy. Since the operation of the Land Acts over a considerable period of years, brought almost to finality in 1923 and continued still further by amending Acts since, I think we have seen the disappearance for ordinary purposes of a rich class. The Minister himself will agree, I think. I think I heard him say that the great bulk of our income-tax, for example, is gathered from people who have incomes very far below £1,000. So that if the Government are going to spend a great deal more money, the people who will have to bear the brunt of that increase are the ordinary workers—the farmers and labourers in the country and the workers in the towns, whether they be paid by the week or by the month. There is no other way of getting money except from these people. The taxation necessary to pay these bills leans upon these people. It leans also to some extent—to a great extent indeed—on persons in receipt of various social benefits, whether by way of pensions or other grants.

The increase in the cost of living has hit them, and the increase in taxation has hit them, too. The Bill, therefore, it seems to me, is a danger signal, if it marks a process that is going to continue, or not going to be reversed, for our secondary industries in our towns, as well as for our agriculture. It is reasonable that the State should take from its citizens a certain amount in taxation, and it is also reasonable, in my judgment, that those who have more should be made to pay more. That is quite a sound principle, but, after a certain point, you come to a situation in which the State, at considerable expense, collects money and, again at considerable expense, spends it, because all State spending is expensive spending. The administration of moneys spent by the State is greater than the administration of moneys spent by private citizens, or even by private companies, and, therefore, when the State, as it is doing here now, combined with the local authorities, takes so great sums as these from the ordinary taxpayer and ratepayer, not sufficient is left to the ordinary person for the purchase of goods and services.

I want to give a simple illustration of a person whom some people would think rich, but whom, when his responsibilities are taken into account, the Minister himself would scarcely regard as one of the rich. Take a person in the City of Dublin with a house valued at £40. That person in 1929—I am speaking in round figures—paid £28 in rates and he paid income-tax at 3/6 in the £ on five-sixths of £40, that is, £5, so that, in rates and income-tax on that house alone, he paid £33. This year, he pays £40 in rates, and income-tax, thanks to the benevolence of the Minister, at 4/6 in the £ on £50, equivalent to roughly £12, so that where he paid £33 in 1929, he now pays £52, an increase of over 50 per cent. As well as that, the Minister's policy has increased the cost of almost everything that type of person has to buy. It has increased the cost of repairs and decoration in that house. I think it is correct to say that where a room would have cost £6 to decorate in 1929, it costs £8 and, possibly, £9 to-day owing to increased cost of materials and increased wages—not really increased wages, but increased nominal wages to follow up the cost of living and not really an increase in the purchasing power of wages at all. From the point of view of the person who wants to get work done, it means that he has to pay more money for it.

I want to suggest that from the point of view of employment, if it is insisted that both the local body and the State are to get more and more out of the citizens, less and less is left for the ordinary worker and, therefore, this policy is a danger to the employment situation. The Minister has learned many things—whether he learned them from the fairies or not, I do not know —and recently he told us that agriculture was the basis of our national economy and that we must have agricultural exports. I think it would be a fair inference from the speeches of Ministers in the Defence debate in the Dáil that the cattle trade, which was once something to be decried and destroyed, is now something of such great importance that we must go to war to defend it and to see that it is continued. That is a very considerable change, and, if that is so, we must do something which will reduce the overhead costs and enable that trade to be-carried on with more profit, with more money in the home market for the consumption of industrial goods.

Take the tariffs and the effect of high spending on them. Money has been invested, employment created and, in many cases, substantial progress has been made towards producing a good article. I suggest that it is not possible for factories to survive, if you have high spending on the part of the Government and the local authority— high spending, high taxes, high rates, a high cost of living and very high costs of production—and if at the same time, the ordinary citizen must bear the cost of subsidising our main agricultural industry which must sell at the world price in an open market, although the market is very convenient. It seems to me clear, therefore, that when you combine the political policy the Government has pursued, in its economic war, settled very uneconomically indeed, and the policy of high taxation, high spending by the central government and compelling the local bodies, practically speaking, to increase rates, while, at the same time, pursuing a helter-skelter tariff policy, it is not possible for all these policies to succeed at the same time.

We know, and the Minister himself has admitted it in so many words, that he was radically wrong in the past and it seems to me that he is radically wrong now in the figures he brings before us and in his suggestion that these can be borne successfully. Everything can be borne for a time, but, in my view, these figures constitute a danger signal for our tariff industry and our agriculture. We know, for example, that in spite of all this spending, in spite of the tariff policy and subsidies, there has been a considerable decrease in agricultural employment. The Minister will scarcely go as far as the Minister for Industry and Commerce who thinks that when a Senator quotes statistics, the result should be that statistics should be withheld from Senators, although I think the Minister did express a view something like that about members of the Dáil lately. One is allowed to quote figures only in such a way as to please Ministers. If you exercise any individual aptitude or capacity of your own for drawing a different conclusion, perhaps, like the Banking Commission, one will be accused of stupidity or of having a damned cheek.

Mr. MacEntee

The doctrine of private interpretation is a dangerous one.

Mr. Hayes

The doctrine of private interpretation is dangerous in respect of some things, but the doctrine of taking figures and of seeing what they plainly mean is not by any means a dangerous one. It is not private interpretation at all. If vehement mis-statement of simple facts and very skilful propaganda could rescue our agriculture and our industries, Fianna Fáil would have done it long ago. The Minister's efforts would have been crowned with success many years ago, but whatever he may take from figures, it is true that while emigration had ceased in 1931, it has started again and is going strong, and it is true that the number of males employed in agriculture has decreased substantially since 1934. It decreased in 1938 against 1937 by 19,000 male persons, most of them over 18 years of age. It is true that we have unemployment and it is true that we have a declining population, and also that that declining population is asked to bear rising costs. The Minister learned slowly, but, since we were successful before and since facts did convince him of certain things before, we might hope that he will learn again. Of course, the process of learning does not cost him anything. His conditions of employment have been rather improved while he was learning, but those of the public have been reversed. This, I suggest, is not a political question. It is really a question of whether you can survive with a tariff policy which increases your costs, whether the edifice that has been constructed can be kept up, if we are to have expenditure on this particular scale. I suggest that we cannot and that the Minister should re-read some of his own speeches. He might find, perhaps, that there was something in them, after all.

Mr. Counihan

I rise not to discuss the Central Fund Bill but to make a few requests to the Minister. On the last occasion on which I spoke on a Central Fund Bill in the old Seanad, I requested the Minister to recommend to the Minister for Education that there should be occasional lectures given in the schools on the principles of "Safety First". I do not know whether the Minister conveyed that request to the Minister for Education, but it was a few years ago and nothing has been done since. I think it very important that these lectures should be given periodically in the schools. We are living in an age when every highway and by-way in the country carries traffic, motor-cars and motor-lorries, passing at very great speeds, and there are a number of accidents, both fatal and otherwise, which could be avoided if the children were educated and advised as to the necessity of being careful.

I think lectures should also be given on good citizenship, and children should be told the immorality of breaking down and destroying trees, injuring or disfiguring public property of that kind and other acts of vandalism. Together with that, there should be an occasional word said on the subject of cruelty to animals. Children are very impressionable, and if these lectures were given periodically they would tend to improving the future citizens of the country. On the last occasion on which I spoke, I also recommended the Minister to recommend to the Minister for Education the teaching of agriculture in the schools. That practice existed in my time, at all events, and, I suppose, for many years previously. The boys learned the rudiments of agriculture and they could tell you what a balanced ration for feeding pigs should consist of. They were taught all the theory of agriculture, and if that practice were re-introduced, it would be more to the material advantage of boys in rural schools than very many of the subjects which they are taught at present.

I should like the Minister to recommend to the Minister for Agriculture the necessity for the issuing of an interim report by the Agricultural Commission on the one subject of the provision of working capital for farmers. If they are going to recommend anything on those lines, it is very important that it should be done immediately, because farmers are in a desperate plight for working capital. They have no money to stock their lands, no money to buy seeds and manures, no money to pay their agricultural labourers, and no money to pay any of their bills. We all know what is wrong with agriculture, but if they are going to consider this question, I suggest that it should be considered and a report made on it quickly. Agriculture is suffering from want of cash, want of working capital. Many of the farmers have had a very lean time since 1921. The world depression told fairly heavily on them and, on top of that, came the economic war, which bled white every farmer in the country.

I am not going into a discussion on the economic war now, but the Minister should get this Agricultural Commission, which has been set up, to make a recommendation for the relief of farmers and for increased production as the first essential. The other things can wait. If the Agricultural Commission is not intended to throw dust in the eyes of farmers, and if the Government is sincere in its proposals, the Minister for Agriculture should request that commission to issue an interim report, and to issue it immediately.

Mr. Cummins

In giving figures with regard to the Central Fund the Minister stated that a certain amount of money had been alloted for the provision of free books in schools. The country has long agitated for a grant of that kind, and it acknowledges with some gratitude, I am sure, the fact that the principle has been recognised by the Government. We find, however, that the proposal is not going far enough, and is not likely to remedy the existing evil to any great extent. In the case of a poor man earning from 30/- to 35/- a week, who may have eight children attending school, the cost of books on the average, from the lowest class would be from 2/- to 3/- each for the year, and might range up to 12/-No working man, and very few small farmers, can afford to invest that amount in books at the beginning of the school year, and the result is that, in the majority of country schools, the pupils start with a 50 per cent. supply of books. There is no question about that. Sometimes, through the aid of benevolent agencies, the amount is made up to some slight extent, but it is never commensurate with requirements. It is clear to anyone who gives the matter any consideration that if they start the school year with a deficiency of 50 per cent. of the books and equipment required, the results, so far as the education of the pupils is concerned, cannot amount to any more than 50 per cent. of what they should be, and very often they are much less, by reason of the discouragement that pupils feel at not being fully equipped with the necessary materials for their studies. I recognise that in the present system of control it is very difficult for the Department to manage, but I think some arrangement should be made with regard to the two bodies concerned, largely the churches, by means of the managerial system, and the Government, with a view to overcoming the very great loss that poor children suffer in the matter of education.

Those who are better placed, and who attend secondary schools and colleges, and to some extent vocational schools, have provision made for them, as books are available. Consequently the progress of the pupils is greater. This matter has special reference to poor country districts. If we are to have an educated rural population, poor children and the children of small farmers must be helped in some way. I agree with Senator Counihan that in the old days much better work was done in the way of giving education a rural bias, as agriculture was taught in the schools.

It is true that, in most cases, it was theoretical teaching, but even the theory under the care of an instructor brought home to the pupils at their studies the rural environment. That instruction was better than none, and was availed of in later years when they were called upon to practise what they had learned in theory. I do not say that the primary schools can, with any hope of good results, carry out such instruction, but they are doing something in that way where schools are provided with demonstration plots. Unfortunately, in the great majority of cases, such plots are not available. It is incomprehensible to anyone who considers the matter that, in a country that is two-thirds rural, schools are often built on poor patches of ground and on commons, while the surrounding land affords ample opportunity for the provision of land for the teaching of rural economy. A very small plot of ground would be sufficient for that purpose, even the eighth of an acre would be sufficient for the study of plant life, or for horticulture. In that way the schools could have a direct effect on agricultural teaching. That is not done now.

I say that more money should be allotted for the provision of books, and that the Estimate should be reconsidered. I notice that a large sum of money is provided in the Estimate for the Board of Works, which has to deal with the provision of schools. Everyone knows that each locality provides one-third of the cost of a new school, and that the other two-thirds is given as a grant. Owing to the depopulation of the rural districts, and the disimprovement in the conditions of the people many parishes cannot now provide one-third of the cost. The work was generally done by voluntary labour and by supplying materials. It may be done in that way still, but I suggest that that was a pettifogging way to deal with a great national question like education. It is like what happened in former times, when boys and girls brought a few sods of turf to school in order to help to make a fire. The practice is the same in connection with the building of new schools, as the parishioners have to supply cart-loads of gravel and sand. In an enlightened country education should have a first claim. Money spent on education is well spent, if the education course is properly laid out. There are still hundreds of schools that are eyesores. We have only to read the reports of the medical officers of health to know that in some counties 50 per cent. of the buildings are unfit for human habitation. The walls in many cases are damp. If a dwelling house is damp the medical officer of health condemns that house, and rightly so, but somehow the schools, although they have been condemned as unhealthy, and in which the children have to spend one-third of their time, are still standing. I should say that in the poor, or what is known as the congested areas along the western, north-western and south-western seaboards, there are wretched schools, the windows being stuffed with bags of hay and straw, or cardboard. The roofs are leaking, and as the floors are broken, they are very often the refuge of rats and mice. The picture is a pitiable and a deplorable one. I say that where a reasonable case is put up by managers of schools that their parishes cannot afford one-third of the money necessary to build, a grant of the full amount should be given, if necessary, on the advice of the medical authorities and the county engineer.

I know that it is hard to get money for all these things, but education is fundamental, and should not be neglected. The lack of suitable schools is not confined to rural areas. There are in this city, I understand, large numbers of pupils housed in wooden sheds with iron roofs, and heated with stoves that are unhealthy. The air in these places is so depressing that the pupils are not capable of availing of the instruction that the teachers give them. I say that much more should be done with regard to these schools. I am afraid the whole policy of the educational authorities is very much misdirected. If large sums of money are spent without sufficient return, sometimes for patriotic motives and with the best intentions, that is not enough. At the very time that pupils should benefit by the instruction they got earlier they are blocked at the age of 13 or 14 years, and the labour of these years in the national schools is lost. That applies particularly to the teaching of the Irish language. When children leave the national schools there is practically no provision made for continuing their studies. If they go into factories or perhaps go on the dole, the work they did in the national schools is lost. Some effort should be made where vocational technical schools are available, to provide suitable classes for these children. I know that suggestions have been put up by some vocational bodies with that end in view, so as to make the course in these schools less academic than it is at present.

In former years, when there was enthusiasm for the Irish language, provision of that kind was made by the Gaelic League, and as a result, in the course of ten or 12 years, a revolution was created in the attitude of the people towards the language. I regret very much that that enthusiasm does not exist now. I believe it could be recreated by the provision, when boys and girls are leaving national schools, of opportunities to study Irish, and that within a few years, with dramatic performances, music, and dancing, which is the most excellent form of physical exercise that could be devised, these schools would become factors in their lives. I believe that Irish step-dancing fulfils all the requirements necessary for physical training. Recommendations have been put up by vocational bodies to the Department that classes of a social character should be started, where the young people could meet for song, story, dramatic performances and practice of terpsichorean art in the Irish style. It is to be regretted that the spirit of enthusiasm for the language which would make for its preservation and bring some results for the vast sums of money that are being at present uselessly spent in the early stages of the youths' education is not being better maintained.

There is another matter to which I would wish to refer—the problem of the unemployed teacher. The policy of the Government in relation to that question has been of an extraordinary character. They established large institutions at very great cost throughout the country to train teachers from the Gaeltacht, to the exclusion, I should say, of people who did not have the blessed advantage of being born in the Gaeltacht. Those buildings which have been put up throughout the country at great expense are now what used to be said of other buildings, "white elephants", because the training of teachers has been over-done and youths who were put into the colleges found that after six or seven years they had no vocation for the teaching profession.

After the Church, I believe that teaching is the next best vocation, and that the vocation must exist before one can become a successful teacher. Many of these youths found, on leaving the colleges and taking up their jobs, that they were working in an unfamiliar environment, an environment alien to the vocation they imagined they had in the early stages of training, with the result that we have numbers of half-trained teachers idle to-day—a problem that should never have existed. The demand for teachers was known to the Government who had plenty of experience of the proportion of retirements each year, but they found themselves with 200 or 300—I believe the real figure is 700—unemployed teachers trained at the expense of the State and a potential danger to the peace of the country——

Several Senators

Oh, oh!

Mr. Baxter

Quite right.

Mr. Cummins

We have enough danger coming from educated quarters like universities and public schools. In these places, we often hear politics and other questions of political life discussed in a way which you do not find among the ordinary populace, and, as you know, the leaders of all of the political movements in this country did come from the schools and colleges. I should say they are a danger. Some of them have crossed to England looking for employment, and their intercourse with English extremists, in such a despairing position as they have been brought into, is likely to have its effect on some of those people, I very much regret to say.

What are the Government doing with them? The good old teachers who had worn their lives away in the service of the State were forced out before they became eligible for their full pensions. They entered into a contract with the State that they could teach on until they reached an age entitling them to full pensions—half their salaries or 40/80ths. That agreement existed and was maintained by the British Government. Unfortunately, it remained for our own Government to violate it. However, I believe that the case will be sub judice soon and I will say no more about it. My own opinion is that they are doing an illegal thing.

They are feeding the farmer with pieces of his own tail gathered from him in taxation but they are feeding the young teachers with what they are taking off the teachers who are being forced to retire at 60. I think that is a bad policy and should be dropped immediately because those who have served the State for so long have a moral right to get their full pensions. A woman may be 60 years of age and might be eligible for a full pension in three years time. Instead of taking those three years away and forcing her to retire on a small pension, the least the Government might do is to give her the full pension. Remember that those were most estimable teachers. Their work is there behind them. They have contributed much to the State by teaching in their locality and through members of their own families who occupy prominent positions in the State and have helped to build it up. It did largely grow through their efforts because many of those people were the precursors of men in high clerical offices and in high positions in the public administration and in teaching in the colleges and schools. It is very bad treatment to mete out to these people at the end of their days and it has sent them away very much depressed.

In most other countries you find that the old teacher or the old soldier is left in a position free from worry. This has not happened here in the case of the teachers, I am sorry to say. I believe that the money spent on the training of young teachers should not be lost to the State. In some cases it has happened that schools are said to have no accommodation for more teachers. It is a strange thing that they have accommodation for pupils and that the pupils are being admitted very often to the extent of 60 or 70 in a class, yet, at the same time, we are told that the class cannot be divided up and that additional teachers cannot be appointed, although the numbers are there, unless the manager puts up additional accommodation. I would say that some temporary provision should be made, at least in the summer time, when work could be done in the open air, and that some of those young teachers should be allocated to schools in town and country.

A policy of that kind would absorb some of those who are standing around the streets and suffering from feelings of resentment against those who have brought them into their present positions. They are not fitted for any business and they are at present supporting the walls of the streets. There are several hundreds of them in that plight and I would ask the Minister to place them in positions in schools, especially in those schools where there are teachers not fully qualified to teach the Irish language. If we are sincere about the language we can find ample scope for our activities among those unemployed teachers.

Those are the principal points that I wish to raise. There were some other matters but I would simply ask now that those policies should be abandoned, that the question of better schools should be taken up and that provision should be made for the teachers who are unemployed through no fault of their own.

Mr. Baxter

When it comes to the Minister's turn to reply, I am sure the House will be very glad to have from him statistics as to the relative position to-day and during the time of his predecessors with regard to the number of "white elephants" in the country. He talked a great deal of them in his time in Opposition, and it would be a good thing now for all of us to get those returns which would show the Minister's record of achievement after his six or seven years in office. We recognise, of course, that a great change has come over the Minister, but in addition, a great change has come over the face of the country and a great many people, including a great many in the ranks of the Minister's own Party, just as in the ranks of those who do not agree, are satisfied that the change is not for the better. We have higher taxation and a lower taxable capacity while there are fewer people than ever before to bear the burden of taxation. Now, about the "white elephants", the Minister has down there a very considerable sum for his alcohol factories——

Mr. MacEntee

I have not.

Mr. Baxter

Whose conception these were originally I do not know. If the idea was to help the farmers, I know no group of farmers who are satisfied that they have been of any help whatever. This harvest has been a pretty disastrous one for the farmers generally, in the potato crop in particular, and in certain areas you have these alcohol factories built at a tremendous expense and operating for a month or two in the year to manufacture alcohol from potatoes. Some of them are closed down now for some weeks, and where they did work they were operated by foreigners. They used up the potato crop that to-day is wanted in these same counties to seed the ground and is not available. That crop was used up after spending half a million of money in capital to build the factories to produce spirit at about 2/-a gallon when you can import crude petrol at about threepence a gallon. Let the Minister not tell us that these factories have been of any benefit to the farmers. They have not, but very considerable additions have been made to our total expenditure to set up that sort of thing. The Minister is pressed by other groups of farmers and told that that money could be spent much better and much more fruitfully in other directions. He rejects all that point of view. It may not be the Minister who is entirely responsible, but the Minister's colleagues are, and he is a party to the policy as well. It is bad enough indeed to have the very considerable addition to the total taxation that we have which we can see, but it is the invisible taxation that is the most damaging, unjust and most harmful of all—the invisible taxation like what the Prices Commission revealed the other day with regard to the position of the bacon trade of the country, the position which could be revealed, I have no doubt, with regard to the milling industry and the flour trade of the country where, I am quite satisfied, about £2,000,000 extra in the year is being borne by the consumers of flour in this country to their very great detriment. It is that sort of taxation in addition to what is paid directly that is impoverishing the people of the country generally and leaving them deeply depressed.

I have said already that we have fewer people to bear the burden of taxation. In the country as a whole our population has decreased, but, in rural Ireland particularly, it has dropped at an alarming rate. I realise, of course, that this problem of the depopulation of the countryside is a problem in other countries as well as here. England has it—so have France and Germany. Indeed, serious alarm has been caused in Germany—so serious that a couple of weeks ago a tremendous demonstration was held in Berlin, addressed by Herr Hitler's Deputy, Herr Hess, and three or four other Nazi leaders, and the gist of their call to the people was that the people of Germany should stay on the land of Germany, and they appealed to the parents to keep them there. What is the German problem? In about four years they have lost approximately 800,000 of the young people from the land, but they have lost these people to their own towns and cities. Now, 800,000 people would be a very small percentage of the total population of 80,000,000 Germans. In the same period we have lost 100,000 of our young people, not principally to our towns and cities but to the towns and cities across the water, and I do not see any sign of a demonstration being held in this country to appeal to the young people to stay on the land, nor do I see any effort being made to try to keep them on the land. When you come up against making proposals or suggestions or making a plea like Senator Cummins or like what Deputies have attempted to do in the Dáil, the Minister rejects all your appeals and pleas. Perhaps, like some of his colleagues, he will get you on to a false premise and on that he will build up his case; but the truth about the matter is, as Senator Hayes put it that the Minister and his colleagues can only carry out their schemes of increasing the burden of taxation if the people are able to carry that burden, and the limit has been reached. The thousands who have gone out of the country have been fleeing as much from the burden of taxation as from the lack of employment. If we had remunerative employment here for our people, high taxation would not be the burden it is to-day, but there is depression because of this unwise demand and very unwise spending.

The Ministers cannot produce the goods by their present policy. The Roscrea factory cannot do it and neither will too many beet factories or the alcohol factories do it; but there are other industries that would do it if the Minister would only put into them the capital he is putting into these other enterprises. No reconstruction is possible in this country unless you reconstruct agriculture first. The Minister has resolutely refused to listen to the people who tell him that agriculture to-day is under-capitalised. He said that some people were asking him to provide £7,000,000, that others were asking him to provide £10,000,000, and others £30,000,000, and he wound up his speech—and this is of great interest because I am certain that all the Senators are not as diligent as Senator McLoughlin was with regard to the Taoiseach's speeches, and I am quite certain a great many of them did not read what the Minister said on the question of agricultural credit— by saying:

"The past year, as we have heard, has been one of the worst for a generation from a climatic point of view. In so far as helping the farmer with seeds and manures and that sort of thing to enable him to get his land back to good heart, everything possible should be done in order to remedy the position which the bad weather of last year has created."

Now, nothing has been done in that respect. Nothing has been done about seeds and manures. Pleas have been made, but nothing has been done. The Minister then went on to say:—

"But so far as encouraging any small farmer with limited capital, or with no capital, to launch out now into live stock, or anything like that, is concerned, I certainly, looking at the world as a whole and the position which at the moment is developing, do not think that such a thing should be encouraged by providing him with cheap money at this moment. It would be much better for the farmer to work away within his limited resources until there is a definite change for the better and world prices for agriculture tend to rise. At the present moment, as I have said, there is a slump in certain commodities which is bound to react here. It would be better for us that the farmers should work prudently and cautiously within the means which they have at their disposal for the time being, and, if the present international situation clears up and if employment conditions elsewhere improve, then there might be something to be said for encouraging our farmers to go further; but I would not force the pace now, particularly on those who have no resources to stand losses if losses should occur."

That is in columns 1890 and 1891, volume 74, of the Official Debates.

Now, this is not a question on which anybody to-day is anxious to make political capital, but it is a practical and concrete question about which there must be courage and decision, and, in addition, a proper understanding of the whole problem in its true perspective. I find it impossible to understand the Minister at all in the line of reasoning he has adopted here. He gives one the impression that because things are very disturbed to-day, and apparently, you would think, because he is anticipating something like a war, it is inadvisable to provide capital for farmers to enable them to go in for developing their farms further or stocking them and so on, and that it is better to wait until the horizon clears up. I take it that that is the Minister's point of view. He can correct me if I am wrong, and I wish he would correct me now if I am wrong. Let me say first that there are thousands and thousands—I have no idea how many thousands—of people here in this country who have big farms and small farms and medium-sized farms, whose farms to-day are not half stocked or even a third stocked, and some of these people have no stock at all. You have lands carrying rents and rates and the burden of high taxation which they cannot carry and are not carrying, and all that has to be borne unjustly by their neighbours. Those farms are there derelict and semi-derelict. There are others wit just a ray of hope, but there is not much to justify the hope at the moment.

Senator Cummins referred to the 700 unemployed school teachers. Well, 50,000 unemployed farmers, or unemployed farmers' sons and daughters, is a much greater problem for this country than 700 unemployed teachers. The whole stability of the State is threatened by that, and if there is trouble in this country it will come to a great extent from those who are idle and have time to run about, because they have nothing to do on their own farms, and it will come because the Minister's policy, in part, has made the farms more derelict than they were, and has left them derelict, with nothing for the boys and girls to do but to run to the road and make trouble, when they could be very well occupied at home producing goods which could be sold, both in this country and outside the country, and could even be sold at a profit if things were right. Men with farms like that, however, cannot produce goods without the machines. You cannot produce a calf without a cow. You cannot have an acre of oats without a plough to till the field, and so on, and so on. What are you going to do also when the rate collector comes for his rates, and when the six-day notice comes for the land annuities? If these are not paid, the neighbours pay it, and the neighbour is bearing an unjust proportion, accordingly, and has double taxation to carry.

The Minister's argument is that, because things are disturbed in Europe, this is not the time to take any risks about giving cheap credit to farmers. Now, in the first place, the farmer has had such a bad time and has incurred so many debts that no credit except cheap credit will be any good to him, but if trouble is coming to Europe, what sort of condition will we be in with a third of our lands unstocked? If anybody thought that we were really going to have a war, we should be striving with might and main to get every sod turned that we could get turned, and every possible beast put on the land that we could get put on the land —yes, we would even buy them at an inflated price and prevent them going over to England, put them on our own land and keep them there until they would reproduce themselves. That is the sort of policy a Minister would have if he understood the land, but what is wrong in this country is that there are not enough members of the Government who understand the land. They know about the problems of the towns and cities, but they do not know about the land.

The great problem with all our people is that they all want to know more about the towns and cities than about the country. They are all attracted, I suppose, by the people on top and by the outlook of the people on top. Last week, here, we had the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Let us make a comparison between the way the policy of the Ministers runs when the industrialist is to be aided and when you put up a proposition for the farmer. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce fathering a Bill which, I presume, is the Minister's Bill really, making it possible for a would-be industrialist, if he has an idea or a scheme which he can get accepted by a committee set up by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to come along to the Minister and get authority from him with which he could go into a bank, and, on the security of the Government, borrow money for his industry. Yes, of course, the industrialist is lauded to the skies, and the poor, broken-down farmer, because he is away at the back of the hill, is to be kept at the back of the hill, and the longer he stays there, and the more silent he is about his woes, the better the Ministry will be pleased; and let no one dare raise a voice on his behalf up here. Why have we all this consideration for the man with the idea or scheme which might give employment to ten, or 15 or 20, or even 100, people in an industry, and no consideration at all for the hundreds of thousands of acres on which thousands of people could be employed, and much more fruitfully employed? I cannot understand it. It is not consistent; it is just as inconsistent, indeed, as the Minister has been in a great many other things he has done in the past and is doing to-day.

I am not finding fault with the change that has come over the Minister, but I am thinking about all the people to whom he said different things in the past, and how disillusioned many of them are. If a great many of these people are disillusioned and as sore with the Minister now as many of his opponents are, because he is not helping them, let him take notice of that. I see it in my own county. I read the report of a Fianna Fáil Dáil Ceanntair meeting a few weeks ago in my county. The Minister for Agriculture was down there, and if any Fine Gael meeting were half as critical of the Ministry as that meeting was, you would nearly have the Guards called out, or else a group of other people to break up the meeting. Now, I welcome that. It means that people are coming back to normal, and that they realise that all this loose talk—blatherskite, you might call it—and nonsense, that was put across because of the political support obtained, does not give you bread, and these people are crying out for bread or for the means to provide it. When it was put up to the Minister —and the Minister can put it up much better than I, because the Ministers know the plight of the people well—the Minister goes on and says that because there is a disturbed Europe to-day and a danger of war, this is not the time to put the farmer into production or to permit him to incur debts which, possibly, he may not be able to pay back. I put it to the Minister that no plan of his can possibly succeed until the farmers, big, small and middling, are put into production and producing goods that they can sell, and there are goods they can sell profitably to-day. If you do that, even though you raise your taxation, we will be all able to carry it, but while you go on piling up your taxation at the present rate you are leaving more farms derelict and a greater number of people depressed, and, whether the Minister likes it or not, whether it be to-morrow or in 12 months' time, he will have to face that problem.

We are not talking here merely for the pleasure of talking. We are talking in order to help on a constructive scheme. Now, I want to say a word or two about a matter that is rather far removed, in a way, from those with which I have been dealing. I see that the Ministry have made an addition of £26,000 for technical education. I presume that this is for additional buildings. I am not very clear how exactly the money is going to be spent, but I have had some experience of this. We have spent a great deal of money in the country in recent years on technical education. I believe myself that, as with every other department of education, there is a great need for stock-taking. I am concerned as to whether we are not going altogether too fast and, indeed, whether we are not going too far. I am wondering whether we are attempting to provide a type of education in our new technical schools that is going to serve the interests of the country best. It seems to me that our system, operated as it is at present, is entirely making provision for a kind of commercial training that is not suiting the children for any particular line of life at all.

If you inquire as to how far it is providing an education for the children and equipping them to fit into a new life, you cannot see the fruits. I wonder whether or not all this centralisation is best. You see boys and girls on bicycles travelling into towns from six to ten miles away in order to attend these schools. You wonder whether, having got on the bicycles, they will ever be got off. One thing is certain, they will never work on the land. When Jane and Mary come home in the evening, I wonder if they help their mother to feed the poultry. I wonder if the boys go out to the fields to help their father or an older brother. My feeling is that there is no clear aim regarding this type of education. We do not know what we want to do or where we are leading. We have had no examination of the position as to what sort of openings are available and, therefore, we cannot bring the thoughts and minds of the pupils to fit into those channels by affording the type of education required. In an aimless, almost hopeless, sort of way, we are spending thousands of pounds in every county on technical education. I do not suggest that that education is not beneficial from the point of view of training the pupils' minds but, from the point of view of being beneficial to the nation and the nation's future, I believe there is great necessity for a stock-taking. Better to do that now than seven years or ten years hence when expenditure will have been increased by 100 per cent. and when we shall have wasted the years of boys and girls who would have been better citizens if they had never gone to these schools. That matter deserves consideration and attention and that consideration and attention it should receive now.

I made reference to the other matters in the hope that the Minister would open his mind and let it remain open for some time so that something might get in. Let him not adopt the attitude he adopted in this House on previous occasions and in the Dáil the other day, giving the impression that people who come up here and talk sense do not know what they are talking about. There is no use in the Minister or anybody else accustomed to the gaiety of the city telling us that we do not understand the country. We do. We know what the people of the country want and what we would like to give them. If they cannot get it, we know that this country will not be shaped as we would like to see it shaped.

Mr. Goulding

To me, the speeches to which I have just listened have been rather depressing because, looking back over the years, I remember on what we founded our policy in the old days. Now I am asked to believe that we were entirely wrong. Long ago, the late Arthur Griffith told us that a country that depended entirely on agriculture was like a man with only one arm. He constantly and consistently advocated an industrial policy for this country. Have we been wrong in adopting that policy? Was it wrong to endeavour to make in this country the things we were accustomed to buy abroad? Was it wrong to endeavour to afford employment in our towns and cities to men who had no training on the land and who would never have been employed on the land? I do not believe it was. Despite the pessimistic talk to which we have to listen, now and again, I think that policy has justified itself and will justify itself still more in the future.

We hear a lot about the flight from the land, and one would imagine that this was the only country where that is taking place, and that the Government here was responsible for it. It is many years since the French people had to invent a term to describe the flight from the land. Many years ago, a French statesman said that the flight from the land in France was due to the "attraction of the pavement". To some extent, the "attraction of the pavement" holds here in Ireland also. It affects the young people of France, Germany, America and other countries, and it must affect the young person in Ireland. Work on the land is, undoubtedly, harder and very often it is unpleasant. Unless one has a genuine peasant tradition, it is very hard to remain on the land when one can get alternative employment. It is a long time since Goldsmith said that a peasantry once destroyed can never be supplied. He meant, by that, that people born on the land and people who understood the land were the only people who could make a success of agriculture. It is so to-day in Ireland. We regret as much as Deputy Baxter or anybody else the flight of the young people from the land. The Government are only too anxious to keep these young people on the land, but the question is how they are to be kept on the land. Judging from the speeches made, one would think that no effort was made to keep the people on the land. We were reminded of the economic war and told it was due to the economic war that this depression in agriculture in Ireland had set in. Is that so? Have people forgotten that the depression of 1929, which started in America, spread all over the world and affected not only industry but agriculture in every country. Have they forgotten what happened to agriculture in America during those years? Have they forgotten what happened in Holland and other countries in Europe? Was not the position of the agriculturists there worse than it is in Ireland? It is all right to blame the action of the Government in connection with the economic war for bringing about the depression. Unfortunately, the economic war synchronised with the world depression in agriculture and the blame for the whole depression was laid at the door of the Government. That is unfair. When we speak of the depression in agriculture, we should try to realise that it was not entirely due to the economic war which, in my opinion, was a good investment for the Irish farmers. The Minister told us that, were it not for the defence measures, there would have been a decrease of £1,120,000 in the Estimates. That was due, I take it, to the settlement made with the British last year as a result of the economic war. That settlement has saved this nation a considerable sum—probably about £5,000,000 a year. Taking the long view, I think the economic war, severe though it was on the Irish farmers, will, in the end, prove a good long-term investment.

Another thing that appears to have been forgotten is the growth of social services during the past few years. These services were essential, and these are also a good investment. We cannot have matters both ways. If we must have social services, we must make up our minds to foot the bills. I believe that these services will prove to have been a very good investment for the nation. Surely, we are not asked to go back to the old days when poor people were left destitute and no effort made to cater for them or for those who lost employment through no fault of their own. All these things have to be taken into consideration when one speaks of the increased cost of living.

We are told that the tariff policy is a mistake. You cannot have a revival of industry in any country without a protection policy. If you threw open your markets to world competition to-morrow, where would your farmers be? You would have no chance whatever of maintaining any industry here against Japanese competition. What chance would there be for the home product against cheap corn from Southern Europe, bacon from Canada or eggs from China? Throw your market open to these products and where would you be? A tariff policy is essential and, though it may be modified or revised, there is no other way of meeting the position.

There are many things in these Estimates which I myself would like to criticise. I should like to see, if possible, housing grants provided for farmers whose valuation is over £25. I know many farmers whose valuations are over £25 and whose houses are badly in need of repair. I should like to see the scheme of housing grants extended so that these men could avail of it. I should like to see many other reforms but we have to cut our coat according to our cloth and these reforms will have to wait their turn. On the whole, I think the criticism levied here and in the other House in connection with this Vote has been, to a great extent, distinctly unfair.

Professor Tierney

Senator Goulding spoke of having been depressed by the course this debate had taken. I am afraid I must confess that I share, to some extent, the depression felt by Senator Goulding. I am also afraid that Senator Goulding himself is, to some extent, an element in the depression I feel. There is no necessity for me to try either to hide or to proclaim that I was for a number of years a fairly strong opponent of the present Government. When I heard Senator Goulding get up in this House and tell us that Arthur Griffith was in favour of the policy of the present Government, it almost induced me to go home for my war paint and tomahawk. It would take Arthur Griffith himself to do justice to that claim and I only wish he were here so that we might hear what he thought of the policy of the men who were largely responsible for shortening his life. I am not going to say any more on that point but I cannot hear the name of Arthur Griffith being bandied about in Party politics at the present time without running the risk of losing my temper. I was an opponent of the present Government. I cannot say that I am an opponent of the present Government at present because I do not believe that any good purpose is served at the present stage of our national affairs by indulging any more than one can help in Party politics. I have to apologise for my own indulgence in a certain amount of reminiscent Party politics; I was drawn into it. What we have suffered from all along in this country since we were led off the rails in 1922 and since the process of bringing us round in circles was begun, is the fact that no problem of any kind—economic, cultural or social—can be discussed fairly and squarely without the introduction of some absurd, irrelevant and useless element of Party politics—Party politics which have been created almost deliberately to keep the Irish people going astray and to delude them. Until we can get away from looking upon ourselves as inevitably doomed to continue in these Party politics, there is no hope for us in any sphere of our national life. We must try to stand back and look at these problems fairly and not use them as weapons with which one Party can beat another while the poor, unfortunate people down the country, who are paying for the whole thing, merely look on in bewilderment.

I was, as I have said, an opponent of the Fianna Fáil Party; but there were items in the Fianna Fáil policy which I cannot deny had a certain amount of attraction for me. I always thought that the previous Government went a bit too slowly in the matter of tariffs and I thought that more could be done to speed up the development of native industry than was done. I am not going to go into the question of the distance which the Fianna Fáil Government have travelled in that respect. I think they have done a great deal that was worth doing, that will have a permanent and a beneficial effect but they have gone very near to destroying—I am trying to be quite impartial in this matter; I am looking at it from the point of view of the person who has no particular interest in lambasting the Government—all the good they have done, by being too extreme about it and by persisting in the attempt to turn this country into an industrial country in a few years. There is no one in this House who has not had some experience, or who could not give some examples, of what has happened, because of this hurried attempt at industrial development. I can give one example myself, of a minor kind perhaps, of what happens in the country. There was a factory in a certain town, the name of which I shall not mention. I was told by a friend of mine that he was going to attend a meeting of the directors of the factory. He said that it was going into liquidation. It was one of those factories which was a bit premature. I expressed my sympathy with him and asked if it gave much employment. He said that it employed 80 people but that they were all Englishmen. Is that the kind of industrial policy, a policy which provides employment for 80 Englishmen in a small Irish town, that it is worth the while of this country to pursue?

Mr. Quirke

I should like Senator Tierney to give the name of the town in which there was a factory which employed 80 Englishmen.

Professor Tierney

I shall not mention any names. It is a fact that I was told that such a thing did happen and there is no need for any ill-feeling about it. I did not intend to go into this matter at all if it were not for the line taken by Senator Goulding— this attitude that the depression in agriculture had no relation to the economic war. We may be very innocent but surely we cannot be expected to swallow that? Everybody will admit that there was depression in agriculture before the economic war began. Senator Goulding was quite accurate in that statement. Prices were very low before the economic war began but to pretend that in that state of affairs, the economic war did no harm or perhaps that by some extraordinary magic it conferred a benefit on agriculture, is really something that you cannot expect anybody except the blindest partisan to swallow.

As I say, there were certain items in the Fianna Fáil policy that I must confess I liked. Unfortunately, they have not by any means lived up to their promises in a great many of these respects. I do not know that I ever liked their attitude that expenditure was too high in the days before they came into office. We are all familiar with the attitude of the Minister for Finance when he was in opposition, with the attitude of the Prime Minister and other members of the Fianna Fáil Party. They were continually telling us that the country was ruined, that it was going into a bog of bankruptey, that it was populated with "white elephants," and so on.

I do not know that I ever could approve of that kind of talk, because what was wrong with the previous Government, to my mind, was that it was too parsimonious, if anything, that it did cut down expenditure in such a way that expansion in various directions that might have been beneficial was prevented. It would have been a sounder policy for Fianna Fáil, when they were in Opposition, if they concentrated entirely on the arm of their policy which called for expenditure. What happened was that they were continually advocating schemes, which called for more expenditure and, at the same time, they were condemning the Government for an extravagant policy. If they had concentrated on calling for more expenditure, they would at least have been much more consistent.

Mr. Baxter

They would not get the votes then.

Professor Tierney

There was one aspect of their policy that I particularly liked, and that was their protest against the growth in the Civil Service. I hardly remember a debate after Fianna Fáil came into the Dáil in which they did not make a plea for some attempt to stop the extravagant growth in the size of the Civil Service, and I had the greatest sympathy with them. I have still the greatest sympathy with that plea, but unfortunately I cannot find that the Government have done very much to implement their declared policy in that direction, because the Civil Service has gone on steadily increasing in numbers every year since they came into power. It has gone up by about 3,000 since 1932. When I say that, I am not trying to make Party capital, because I have no Party to make capital for. I am merely trying to point out certain things, which I believe it is in the public interest should be pointed out. So far from having checked this growth, the activities of the Government have only resulted in a phenomenal increase in the numbers in the Civil Service.

I think that the Fianna Fáil Government in this matter were simply the slaves of the machine. I do not accuse them of any deliberate malignity in this respect; what I do accuse them of is, of having made facile promises which they were not able to carry out when they got into office, because they never made any attempt to get down to the root of the matter, which is a very difficult matter, to find out the cause for this steady increase and to ascertain whether the country could afford it. Personally, I regard that growth in the Civil Service as one of the two greatest dangers with which the country has to contend; the other is the growth of the City of Dublin. If the two go on as they are going on, inevitably, with cumulative force, in another generation the whole population of Ireland will be living in Dublin or will be in the Civil Service. If we assume that it is necessary, because of some industrial policy or some great new development, to employ additional civil servants, if every Government has a new policy and a new development, something that needs greater staffing, then we shall go on to an end that is unescapable, within the next 50 or 60 years. Either the whole thing will collapse and come down in ruins, which is much more likely, or we shall have reached the ideal State, when we shall all be in the Civil Service. So far from making any attempt to examine that condition, the Fianna Fáil Government has intensified that development. I would appeal to the Minister that now, when the economic war is over, when the political atmosphere is better and more pacific than it has been for years, is the time to take up that item in the old Fianna Fáil policy, go into it again and see whether something cannot be done about it.

There is another point that I should like to raise in this connection. It is a point on which one could speak for days. I am sure that everyone who has had experience of the way the Government works will bear me out in what I say. In spite of that growth of which I have spoken the fact remains that nothing can be done by the Civil Service without the consent of the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Local Government. You can abolish, in theory at all events, every other Department because, according to the way the machine works, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government can carry on everything. No matter how many experts you may have in a Department, nothing can be done by that Department on its own, without the very same process being gone through by either the Department of Finance or the Department of Local Government. They are the bottle-necks into which every item of public administration in this country has to go. The result is that the most trifling activities—the hiring of a hall porter, the transfer of an engineer across the floor in the Dublin Corporation, for example, from one side of the Department to another—have to be sanctioned by either of these Departments. I have heard of a case of that kind. I have heard of a case where an official could not be allowed to walk across the floor until several months had passed in correspondence with the Ministry of Local Government. As far as Finance is concerned, I think everybody could tell some hair raising stories about its activities.

Mr. MacEntee

Tell us about them.

Professor Tierney

I shall tell you of one case.

Cathaoirleach

The Senator had better not be irrelevant.

Professor Tierney

I submit that this is not irrelevant. We are entitled to discuss these important aspects of the administration. Everything in the country is being held up, delayed and crippled by the activities, the curious inactive activities, of the Minister for Finance. I shall give you a case in point. The Government set up a few years ago a Historical Manuscripts Commission. They appointed all the best experts on manuscript materials for Irish history they could find on that commission, which has done magnificent work. That commission in its wisdom decided to publish certain texts. Their decision got to the ears of the Department of Finance and a minor official in the Department of Finance wrote back asking them why they were going to publish that text and succeeded in holding up their activities for months. Everybody knows that things like that happen. The Department of Finance, in theory, has an expert on everything and no matter where you get your commission, anything they suggest has to be digested and cleared up by other experts in the Department of Finance before anything can be done. That may sound a very academic matter but it goes into every department of public life in Ireland. If I knew anyone, who was more closely familiar than I am with the Department of Finance, if I could produce an indiscreet civil servant in the Seanad, who could tell the full story of the relations between the Ministries of Finance and Education, Senators would not be able to sleep at nights for weeks after hearing of it.

Mr. MacEntee

I think they would be able to sleep all right.

Professor Tierney

The absurdities that go on in that Department are hardly credible. I suggest to the Minister that the time has come when some inquiry should be held into these matters. It should be inquired whether it is really necessary to have these other Departments at all if the Ministry of Finance is as full of experts as it claims to be, whether it is necessary to go on increasing the numbers in other Departments until the whole of Ireland is enrolled in the Civil Service.

I spoke a moment ago about education. The principal object I had in getting up was to say a few words about the general question of education, about which I am perhaps a little less ignorant than I am about other matters. It seems to me, from what I can gather about both the primary and the secondary departments of education, that we have come to a stage at which that process of everything turning into a machine has reached its maximum, at which we are just going around in circles, getting nowhere, and at which, above all things, as Senator Baxter said, there is the gravest necessity for a stocktaking very soon. Otherwise, I think we will not merely be losing money, and nearly every penny being spent on education is being wasted, to my mind, but the education of a whole generation of our people is being destroyed by the fact that, under the operation of that system to which I have referred, under the joint operation of the Department of Education which does nothing and the Department of Finance which tries to do all sorts of things which it is not capable of doing, education in this country has practically come to a standstill, so far, at any rate, as primary and secondary education are concerned.

The most extraordinary things are happening. Particulars were published about a year ago as to the efforts of the Department of Education to overcome the difficulty which has arisen in connection with the fall in the school population. I do not know whether Senators saw a letter by Mr. O'Connell, the Secretary of the National Teachers' Organisation, which was published in the papers. The antics of the Department of Education with regard to averages in schools would scarcely be believed. They have a fixed law about averages, and they find that that law compels them to get rid of a certain number of teachers who have been trained at the public expense and employed for a long time by the State, or to throw young teachers, just out of the training colleges, almost on the dole. Instead of considering whether that law of averages cannot be amended, or whether something cannot be done in that direction, they work up an enormously cumbrous and elaborate machinery, first of all, to keep teachers from getting schools, and, secondly, to prevent the most natural things from happening. There is a law now, I understand, from this publication, preventing a child changing from one school to another without the consent of the Minister for Education, and, probably, the consent of the Minister for Finance, at the same time. A baby of five down in County Mayo cannot change from one school to another, without the whole thing forming the subject of an elaborate file here in the Department of Education, which file, of course, has to go to Finance every now and again to be pored over by the pundits there. That is only one example of the sort of thing that goes on.

The whole inspection system in primary schools is a tissue of absurdity from any commonsense point of view. Surely, after all these years, it is time we got down to considering whether something better cannot be done with the material we have? I see in the Estimates that one of the things proposed to be done this current year is to reduce the grant to the training colleges under private management. The grants to those colleges are to be reduced by a very considerable sum. The reason, of course, is that the Department has decided to train fewer teachers. As was pointed out by somebody, one of the reasons for the superfluity of teachers is that a whole series of very costly training colleges was established all over the country a few years ago and it is now being found that they are excessive, according to the scheme which lays down as an iron law that you can have only one teacher for a certain number of pupils. The last thing that can be done is the simple thing, to decide that, if you have extra teachers, you will use them in order to make the classes in the schools smaller. That could be done to a very great extent and you could go a long way with it, far further than your present supply of teachers, with all the superfluity, would enable you. There are rumours that one of the training colleges is likely to be closed down during the current year. The result of that will be disaster to the men who have been on the staff of that college for a number of years and to the entire neighbourhood in which it is situated, and all again because there is this iron law of averages in the Department.

This situation has arisen while the Department had its eyes wide open. It has been perfectly plain for years back that a fall of this kind was likely, and because there is nobody in the primary branch of the Department of Education who can add up, the situation is allowed to go on. They think there is no remedy for it except to throw people out. The whole thing is fantastic. Surely it is time the public were called into the confidence of the Department, or some body, some educated people from outside, were asked to advise as to what could be done about it all? There was talk here about free school books. There is a sum of money set out here for the giving of free books in the primary schools.

Mr. Baxter

£10,000.

Mr. MacEntee

£16,000.

Professor Tierney

Like a lot of other things on which it is proposed to spend money, it all depends on how the money is spent. One of the extraordinary developments in primary education in recent times has been the extravagance about books which has characterised the schools. I do not know whether it has come to other people's attention, but it has certainly come to mine, and I know that it takes place not merely in schools in Dublin, but in schools all over the country. When I was a small boy, I went to school at the age of six, with a penny in my hand. I asked for a book, and I got it, and that book did me while I was a year in school.

Mr. Baxter

And they were not bad books.

Professor Tierney

I got another book the next year and that book did me for that year. Four or five well-planned primary school books were sufficient at that time to give a boy a reasonably good education. Nowadays, apparently—I have seen it happen myself—children get through six books in six months and, by the end of the six months, they are just as well able to read, or unable to read, as they were at the beginning. I do not know what the cause of all this is. I do not know that it is to be blamed on the Department, or on the Government, but it is some sort of disaster that seems to have spread right through the schools of the country in the last 20 or 30 years. Surely it is something that should be looked into before you start providing school books? Does this scheme mean that children in primary schools are going to get a book a week, or a book a month, as children have to get in present circumstances, because, if it does, I say that it is the greatest waste of money ever devised. Until there is some plan for the provision of a uniform series of textbooks in the schools that waste is likely to go on.

I made that proposal years ago in the Dáil, and I was denounced afterwards as wanting to introduce State control into education and all sorts of horrors of that kind. There is no reason why it should imply State control. It is merely a matter of organisation, a matter of leaving certain things to be done that could be done by the primary teachers, or by some sort of advisory committee which was not bound to the State in any way at all. What it would imply is a certain amount of efficiency and a great deal of economy in the expenditure of the money. If something like that is not done, there is a grave danger that most of the money will be wasted. The same thing applies to the Secondary Education Department. I have had a good deal of experience, and so has everybody in the universities, of examining and teaching the products of our secondary education in recent years. I cannot quite make out what has happened to the secondary school examination, but, as an examiner of fair experience—I have been at it for well over 20 years now—I can say that the secondary school examinations have no relation at all to reality. We get pupils entering University College —and this has happened again and again—who come to us with 90 per cent., 100 per cent., and sometimes 110 per cent. in Greek, Latin, English, Irish, and so on from the schools.

Mr. M. Hayes

Only 105 per cent., I think.

Professor Tierney

One of our Irish peculiarities is that we are able to give marks nowadays of 105 per cent. and 110 per cent. in examinations. They come with these marks and, on examining them—and we are not babies or beginners, because we have done this kind of thing for a long time—we find in practically all cases that these people get 40 per cent. from us. We may be at fault——

Mr. MacEntee

Do not let such a thought be entertained.

Professor Tierney

I am prepared to be perfectly humble about the thing, but any outside person, experienced in education, whether or not he would be prepared to take the word of a university professor, would at least pay some attention to it. I have examined for the Civil Service, and I caused a great shock a couple of years ago, because it turned out that over 80 per cent. of the candidates at a particular examination got less than 40 per cent. in the subjects I examined. I was called up by the Civil Service Commission and interrogated, and I had interviews with the Department of Education. In due humility I said: "Do not take my word for it. Show them to somebody else." They did so, and he agreed with my marks. I was told in the Department that some of the men who got 40 per cent. had got 85 per cent. and 90 per cent. in the leaving certificate examination. You have an examination system like that and, mind you, as things stand, the examination system is practically the life of the whole inter-mediate system here. It is a bad idea that it should be so, but, as things are, it is so. The Department of Secondary Education exists almost for these examinations, and when they have got to a state that the marks obtained at them have ceased to bear any relation to reality, surely there is something that needs to be inquired into?

Then again, there is the question about which I have often been out-spoken, and on which I do not intend to delay the Seanad to-day. My views on it are fairly well known. I refer to this whole question of encouraging the teaching of other subjects through the medium of Irish by teachers who do not know Irish, to pupils who do not know Irish. The Minister for Education has time and again said that that policy is not being encouraged, and that the Department is very careful not to allow people who are not qualified to teach through the medium of Irish to do so. Well, it is being encouraged in spite of what the Minister says, and anybody who knows anything about school matters knows that there are all kinds of pressure being brought on the schools, financial, moral and every other sort of pressure, to convert them into Class A schools, and it is being successful. The one thing the Department of Secondary Education seems to be succeeding in by means of this crazy policy of teaching subjects through the medium of Irish is in completely rotting secondary education. It is turning more and more convent and secondary schools all over the country into monuments of absurdity, because that is all they are.

People may say that I am a crank on this subject, but I challenge anyone, whether the Minister or an expert of the Department of Education, to prove to any reasonable person that you can teach any subject in a language which neither you nor your pupil understand, no matter who you are. That is what is being attempted all over the country, and there is no use in pretending that that is not the deliberate and active policy of the Department, because it is. I have repeatedly heard of schools upon which that policy has been forced by the Department, and, if it is persisted in, we will have produced, in another 25 or 30 years, a generation which will be practically entirely uneducated, as uneducated as our ancestors were at the worst times of the penal laws, and even more so, as a result of that policy. I find it very difficult to talk about that policy, because I regard it as the greatest imposition being put on the Irish people at present. I am not saying that as an opponent of the Irish language. I do not want to be accused of being a West Briton.

Mr. Baxter

You will.

Professor Tierney

I believe whole-heartedly in the policy of compulsory Irish. I believe that no one should be allowed to leave a secondary or a primary school without being made to learn the Irish language. I would even go so far as to prefer a system under which half of the other subjects were scrapped, so long as those left were taught in a language which the pupils and the teachers understood, rather than that the present policy should continue. I would sooner see the pupils in secondary schools taught nothing but Irish and Latin, as long as they were taught properly rather than to have the present policy going on. All these considerations lead me to ask the Minister whether it would not be possible to make some effort to have the question of education reconsidered; whether it would not be possible to have some sort of commission of experts set up to go into it. I notice that in England recently a report of the Consultative Committee on Education was issued. That volume made most elaborate recommendations about future policy regarding secondary schools in England. It proposed all sorts of revolutionary changes. That committee was sitting and heard evidence for ten years. It consisted of the ablest experts the Government could get. Before it began another committee had been sitting for ten years, dealing also with the position of secondary education.

Our system of education was built up by heroic efforts in the face of most terrible difficulties. It would be too much to ask or to expect that it would be anything like as advanced or as perfect as English education, which is far from being perfect, but if it was necessary for England to have a committee of experts almost in permanent session, why should we not have something like it for primary and secondary education? I am often inclined to think that one of the worst things we did at the beginning was the hasty abolition of the boards of primary and secondary education that were working under the British when they were here. They were regarded as enemies of the country, and the people on them were looked on as not being favourable to Ireland. There was no necessity to kill the boards along with ejecting the members, throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. We could have kept the boards and altered their composition and their terms of reference. I believe they were a very valuable check on the Board of Education, and would have saved us, if we had them, a great many of the worst evils of bureaucracy of the most unfortunate kind. I feel that I have gone very far in this discussion, and have been somewhat irrelevant, but this whole subject of education, and its present position, is next in importance perhaps to the condition of agriculture, and for that reason I thought it worth while dealing with it.

Mrs. Concannon

It is pleasant to come here, into this pleasant place of refreshment, rest and peace, after having our breakfast spoiled by the news in the morning's papers, and the spring sunshine darkened by news items pointing to the imminence of a European war, and to find Senators debating problems which have no relation to it, and apparently oblivious to its threat. Unfortunately the Government cannot take that detached view, and the startling increase in the Defence Estimate is a proof of this. But while it is startling, I must confess that they and I enjoyed the witty speech of Senator McLoughlin, and enjoyed the pleasant prospect he painted, of the Lough Swilly and other forts being turned into first class hotels run by Fianna Fáil clubs. I felt reassured when I remembered that we had a realist like the Minister for Defence in charge of military affairs in this country rather than the witty Senator from Buncrana.

If any war breaks out I think the Government's policy of self-sufficiency will be proved the proper one, and that by it we would not be defenceless. We have been provided with a good supply of essential food. We shall have sugar from the beet factories, wheat for our bread and peat for our own fuel supplies. I think Senator Baxter was quite right when he stressed the importance of helping small farmers, so that this country would have plenty of food in case of war. It is an essential part of our defence policy. I should like to refer to matters that were not dealt with in the debate. One is the terrible problem of unemployment. That is our major problem. I think Senators should try to get together to see if we could not devise some means to face up to this appalling menace to our people. I do not know what can be done about it. I feel rather helpless about it. Senators should forget Party divisions and come together to try if we could not mitigate unemployment, and particularly its ill-effects on youth. When many of our young people leave school they cannot find employment. Everyone knows the dangers that arise from the unemployed youth. It is terrific. Senators in the Labour Party and all other Senators should try to get together to see if something could not be done about that problem.

I agree with what Senator Cummins said about the danger of having a large number of unemployed teachers. These young people are well educated, but, left with nothing to do, they have a frightful sense of grievance. It is in that way revolutions are bred. One way of dealing with the question might be by remodelling the governing rules. There are very large classes in some schools, which could be sub-divided and more teachers employed. We all feel that it is necessary to have a new orientation of Irish education. It must be more practical, and our girls must be taught cooking and household science. That should be part of the curriculum. Teachers in training should be given the necessary instruction to fit them for that duty. It occurred to me that, perhaps, it would be a good idea to give an extra year in the training of preparatory colleges, during which the students would be trained exclusively in the domestic and technical arts. A parallel course for boys would be to have carpentry, gardening and elementary farming. To do that the schools would have to be remodelled. We have to take stock of the education position. If a commission was set up, the whole system of education, from the primary schools to the universities, should be examined with a view to training boys and girls who will be really good, useful citizens, to ensure what is necessary to develop the practical side of education. I agree with what Senator Cummins said about women teachers who have been removed from their employment on reaching 60 years, and thus deprived of their implicit right to full pensions. I think they should be given the added years, and that the work they did in difficult times should be taken into consideration.

Peadar Mac Fhionnlaoich

Tá mé ar aon intinn le n-a lán den chainnt adubhairt an Seanadoir O Tighearnaigh. Ach ní hionann sgéal na Gaedhilge sna sgoileanna anois agus nuair a tosnuigheadh ar an Ghaedhilg do mhúnadh ionntu i dtosach. An t-am úd ní raibh an Ghaedhilg ag na múin-teóirí ná ag na páistí. Anois, tá sí ag na múinteóirí agus ag na páistí agus, dá múintí í gceart í, ba chóir go mbeadh sí ag gach uile pháiste a chaith-feadh trí bliana ag sgoil.

Maidir leis an riaghal chun na múin-teóirí do chur amach nuair a shroiseas siad 60 bliana d'aois, ba choir an pinsean iomlán do thabhairt dóibh mar chúiteamh ar an gcruadhcás a deantar ortha nuair a hiarrtar ortha dul amach roimh an am ceart. Má cuirtear in áit na sean-mhúinteóirí nach bhfuil Gaedhilg acu agus nach bhfuil in ann í a fhoghluim anois, na buachaillí agus na cailíní óga a bhfuil an Ghaedhilg ar a dtoil acu, ní bheidh locht le fagháil ar mhúnadh tré Gaedhilg sna bunscoileanna.

Is mó an gá, do réir mo thuairime, an ghléas oideachais a atharú sna hOllsgoileanna ná sna meadhon-scoileanna. Níl caighdeán ceart acu san Ollscoil Náisiúnta ná i gColáiste na Trionóide. An gléas oideachais atá acu cuireadh ar bun é ag na Gaill chun an tír do Ghailliú agus tá cuid de fágtha ann fós. Ba cheart oideachas níos fearr do thabhairt do na míc léighinn sna hOillscoileanna. Táthar ag tabhairt oideachas ar cheirde do na buachaillí agus do na cailíní agus tá siad ag déanamh sin maith go leor, is dócha, ach, taobh amuigh de sin, maidir le litríocht, saoidheacht agus cultúr, tá rian an Ghalltachais ar an oideachas. Ba chóir an obair sin a leasú. Is mó gá an gléas oideachais atá acu sna hOillscoileanna d'atharú ná an gléas oideachais atá acu sna meadhon-scoileanna ná sna bun-scoileanna.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

Ba mhaith liom a cupla focal a rá ar an meid atá ráidhte ag na Seanadóirí eile-Ní choimeádfaidh mé an Tigh ach tamaillín.

On an item like this we can discuss matters from all angles and stand-points, but on the criticisms we have heard, there are a few points I would like to reply to. Surely there is no sensible Senator in this House who would object to some of the items, at all events, for which the increases are taking place? For instance, there is provision for the building of school houses for our people. Is there anybody who would object for a moment to that?

There is a further item for school books for necessitous children. Now, year in and year out, that has been brought before us on the Dublin Municipal Council by Labour representatives. I see the justice of making some provision in that direction. There are a number of poor people in this city, the same as in all cities the world over, and there are poor people in country towns and villages, and from what we have heard from Senator Baxter, there must be poor people in rural areas as well. There is nothing wrong in providing school books to assist in the education of these children in the schools.

We have also a provision for the supply of meals to necessitous school children. I have some experience in going through the schools of the poor areas of the city in connection with committee inspections under the school meals scheme, and I am fully conversant with the conditions of the children in those schools. We hear a lot of criticism about the uselessness of Irish, and all that sort of thing, but anyone who is vigilant or attentive can study the faces of those poor little children when they are spoken to in the national language of the country. When I used to attend lectures in the old Celtic Literary Society there used to be a recitation called "Poor Little Jen." I think that Senator Mrs. Concannon and some of the older members of the national movement remember the recitation to which I am referring. I can assure you that when I see these poor little children, they always remind me of the recitation "Poor Little Jen." When I speak in the national language their features brighten up and they smile and answer me in the national language in return. I hear a lot of talk about the uselessness of the language. I was in Galway, where Senator Mrs. Concannon comes from, attending a conference of the municipal authorities and thinking of the Galway University, which I was told was doing national work for the language. I expected everywhere I went that the language would meet me and greet me, but I found the opposite to be the case. I went into a shop and asked for a paper in the national language, and was answered in English. I spoke to children in the streets, and instead of looking up and smiling like the children in the back streets of the city, they held down their heads. I am not exaggerating what I found—I am explaining the position in Galway as I met it. If we are doing something for those poor children in the back streets of the city, I think it is the just thing to do, and I do not see why any member of the Seanad, conversant with the situation, should object.

To turn to another matter, the Minister made some references to expenses in connection with cold storage of butter and other foodstuffs for winter use. We hear a lot here about the agricultural community but it is nearly time that some one would raise his voice in the interests of the poor people of the cities. At the present time, the poor of this city are paying 1/6 a lb. for butter in the winter and 1/5 in the summer. If there was open competition, would any Senator tell me that they would have to pay as much as that? In my young days, butter could be bought here for 7d. and 8d. a Ib. When we hear a continuous growl about the position of the farmers, is it not time-that people should open their mouths on behalf of some of the poor people we are referring to?

There was some reference made also to increased expenditure on reafforestation. When I reached that item it brought me back to my young days in the Gaelic League when we were taught to sing: "Coill Cáis,"—"cad a dheanamid feasta gan adhmaid? Tá deire na gcaoilte ar láir...." The translation of that is: "what would we do in the future for timber?" As we know, the country has been denuded of trees. Senator the McGillycuddy remembers, I am sure, that in the early days when the Ashbourne Land Act was passed, the people sold out the woods and stripped the country bare. Do we not know that during the Great War the country was again denuded of trees and do we not know the necessity there is for wood? Any sensible Senator who knows anything about the situation can go to the quays of Dublin and see the amount of wood that is being brought in for housing schemes and consider the amount of wealth that goes out of the country to pay for timber which could be provided at home and give employment at home.

Reference has been made to some expenditure in connection with the New York Exhibition. Surely nobody will grumble at that? Are not the majority of our people across the seas in America and surely we ought to be at the Fair? We will go further.

Coming to Senator Counihan's remarks, I must say that I do not always see eye to eye with him, but I agree with every word he said this evening. He referred to our educational position and to the unthoughtful, possibly, cruelty of the children of the city. I very much regret to say that I have to sympathise with Senator Counihan. I sometimes go up to the cattle market. I do not like to go up there because of what I see, but sometimes I go, and I can never understand the cruelty that is meted out to dumb animals in that market. It is a great source of discredit, and I cannot understand why sensible people stand by and permit it. If you look at a sale ring—and all those sales masters are responsible men—you will find a man going round with a big stick all the time prodding the poor beasts about the ring.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Is this relevant? I cannot see the relevance.

Cathaoirleach

I would ask the Senator not to widen unduly the scope of the debate.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

I will first deal with Senator Fitzgerald. If he does not see the relevance of my remarks to the debate, I am not responsible for his intelligence.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Perhaps you might help to enlighten us?

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

And furthermore, Sir, with reference to your remarks, any time I stand up to speak I do not use up as much time, I submit, as other people.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I cannot see the relevance of what you are saying, but I have no doubt that you can explain it.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

Well, I am afraid I cannot help it.

Mr. Fitzgerald

But surely you could illuminate us a bit.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

Furthermore, Senator Fitzgerald referred to the teaching of agriculture in the schools.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I deny that absolutely.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

Would that be relevant?

Mr. Fitzgerald

I have not spoken at all, and therefore I could not have referred to the matter.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

In my school days, at all events—I am not a product of a university, I am a product of a national school—in my school days, as Senator Counihan stated, Sullivan's Agriculture was taught to me as well as to the other pupils there. Surely, this is relevant, since we are dealing with expenditure on education.

Mr. Fitzgerald

That is all right.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

Very good. As long as I have the Senator's permission.

Cathaoirleach

It is for the Chair to say whether it is relevant or not.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

With due respect to the Chair and the Senator who interrupted me——

Cathaoirleach

The Chair is the custodian of order here.

Donnchadh Ua hÉaluighthe

For the life of me, I cannot understand why teaching of agriculture was dispensed with in this country, because this is largely an agricultural country. I can not understand why it was dispensed with. Possibly, Sir, you would permit me, or the Senator would permit me, to give my experience of Sullivan's Agriculture. There was a lesson in it which dealt with the feeding of pigs— Senator Cummins may remember it— which stated that a person who spent money on tobacco and intoxicating drinks spent as much on these things as would feed a pig, and it referred to the pig as the poor man's savings bank. The school teacher who taught me was an uncle of Mr. Felix Cronin, one of the Generals of the Free State Army. He impressed on us the effects of tobacco and alcohol on the human frame and he impressed it on me so much that I never smoked or drank. That was one of the results of Sullivan's Agriculture on me. Now, the young mind is receptive and I believe the teaching of agriculture should be reintroduced to the schools and carried on again as it was in my school days.

With reference to the school book question, for the life of me I do not see what necessity there is for changing school books every year. In my school days, when a boy went from one standard to another he gave the book that he had in one standard to a boy succeeding him. For instance, to make the point clear, when I was in third standard and went into fourth standard the books that I had in the third standard did for the boy who succeeded me in third standard. Senator Tierney referred to this matter also and to the practice of changing these books every year. I do not know what the reason is unless it is to create a market for publishers and so on. Now, I am not exactly given to pessimism, but even optimists sometimes have a just ground for complaint, and there is one complaint I am going to make here in the presence of the Minister— two complaints, as a matter of fact. One is as regards the Ministry of Education and the other as regards the Ministry of Local Government. This is the capital city of the Twenty-Six Counties—the City of Dublin. There is an area in the city, No. 4 area, in which there is no technical school. That area reaches from Christ Church Cathedral to Chapelizod. The City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee decided on building a technical school in the centre of that area. We have been debarred by the Ministry of Education from so doing. I do not think it is the Minister himself who is responsible but I believe that it is an official in the Ministry of Education, and the Minister says "ditto" to the official. I say that is a thing that should not continue. I was at the opening of a technical school in Drogheda some years ago, and last year I was at the opening of a technical school in the City of Galway, but I can say here that we have a larger area in Dublin where there is no technical school whatever, although the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee decided on building a technical school there, and it has been held up because of an official in the Department of Education. That should not continue and should not be allowed.

With regard to the Ministry of Local Government, we have a system here in the city of giving prizes under the auspices of the garden guilds. These garden guilds are organised for the purpose of creating an interest in their homes in the residents of the different localities. There is keen competition, and prizes are awarded, but so far these prizes have to be subscribed for voluntarily. At a conference in Tralee some time ago, I brought that matter before the conference, and the then Secretary of the Local Government Department, Mr. McCarron, was there. I reasoned that there should be some scheme whereby it might be possible to contribute some small amount from the rates towards the provision of prizes. Mr. McCarron promised that he would look into the matter, but very soon afterwards he left the Department of Local Government, and there has been nothing about it ever since. In my opinion, if we got permission from the Ministry of Local Government to contribute some portion from the rates to assist in the provision of these prizes, it would help materially in beautifying the city and the homes of these poor people.

With reference to the points raised by Senator Cummins as regards vocational education, I believe, at all events, that any money spent in that direction would be money well spent. At the recent Dublin Feis, the pupils of the vocational schools ran away with a great number of prizes. I think Cú Uladh will admit that. Technical education ought to be encouraged, in my opinion, and money spent on it is well spent. If our people go abroad to foreign lands, is it not better that their minds and their hands should be trained to some occupation rather than that they should be untrained? Whether they have to go abroad or not, by all means it should be our ambition to train them for home use and home advantage.

I am sorry Senator Baxter is not here, but I should like to say, with reference to his continuous moaning here in this Seanad, and not alone in this Seanad but in the old Seanad, that one gets tired of it in the finish up. I happen to have been reared on a farm, and I do not think the farmers of this country want to be classified as mendicants. I do not think they want to be classed as mendicants at all. Here, in this County of Dublin, in pre-war days, and before there was any economic war or any other war, there was a certain farmer who was continually growling and complaining, and amongst his own neighbours he earned for himself the name of "Crying Paddy." He is alive yet. I can assure Senators that when I listen here to the growling and complaining at meeting after meeting from a certain Senator, I cannot help comparing him to "Crying Paddy".

I had intended to speak on the points made by Senator Tierney with reference to the national language, but of course Cu Uladh has dealt with that matter and that relieves me of doing so. I have nothing further to say, and I do not wish to delay the House very long except to point out that expenses in every direction are going up. It is not now like the old days when a man worked from 6 o'clock in the morning to 6 o'clock in the night for very small wages. Expenses must go up. Hours of work are shorter, wages are higher, and the conditions of life are altogether different, and the people who have to do with these matters must face the fact that the situation cannot be helped without expenses going up.

The McGillycuddy of the Reeks

I should like to make one or two remarks in reference to some of the important things to which Senator Tierney made reference in connection with education and so on. As regards education, I think that some of the suggestions put forward cut both ways. You have got a position at the present moment in the national schools where education is such that, whether it is good or bad, the effect of industrialisation which is developing in these countries at the present time, is to make our young people go away from the country and into the cities. That is happening all over the world to-day. It is happening in India and elsewhere, and it is most important that whatever is to be taught in schools in the future here should be so devised to encourage as far as possible our boys and girls to stay on the land in this country for the reason that, however useful industrialisation may be in certain directions, the real wealth of this country is going to continue to come from our large acreage of agricultural land.

Senator Tierney made a reference to the law of averages. I do not think he should scrap that law of averages as quickly and completely as he did in his speech. I have just come back from a visit to India where I found that a very brilliant Irishman who had just arrived had given £2,000,000 to organise education there. There is a great deal of primary education there, and in Lahore one of the first things he found was a senior teacher teaching a class of about 40 pupils and a junior teacher teaching some 89 pupils of about seven years of age. The law of averages is all right until you have something else to put in its place. Apart from these points, the first thing I want to do is to reinforce the plea made by Senators Baxter and Counihan for the helping of agriculture. Senator Counihan proposed loans. Now, loans are all very well, but they can go to a certain point only. They can help to replace the wastage in a herd of say 20 cows which, as a result of the economic war and other difficulties of one kind or another, has been reduced to 13 or 14. They can build them up, but within a year any loans you give to a farmer, unless he is extra-ordinarily lucky—I am referring to the mixed farmer—must go down the drain so long as you have got these very heavy charges in the cost of living and the cost of feeding stuffs, such as flour, bacon, meal, bran and pollard. Until you can reduce these so that the farmer finally can show as big a profit for his undertaking as the industrialist does in the town, you will not be able to keep the boys on the farm or put the farm itself on a sound basis.

I do not quarrel with the policy of industrialisation introduced by the Government, but the result has been to create these monopolies, and I suggest to the Minister that, when you give a man a monopoly, you are responsible for seeing that he does not make more than a reasonable profit out of the public. I think everybody will agree that, at present, that is not the case.

There are two other points to which I desire to advert. One concerns the Report of the Banking Commission. I know that, on the whole, the Government cannot be expected to implement the various recommendations of the Banking Commission because, although the report is couched in very conservative terms, nearly every one of these recommendations is more or less an indictment of certain phases of the Government's policy. One thing I think the Government should do in that connection has been referred to by Senator Johnston. Other people are of the same mind. One recommendation of the Commission—I think it is No. 360—advises that an economic research department should be set up with a view to following economic developments in other countries and recommending the Government, owing to world conditions, to switch from one type of policy to another at the earliest possible moment. I, with others, urge the Minister to consider whether a committee of experts of that kind should not be set up. My other point is this: The Report of the Commission is a very big one; it has so interested the leading members of the sterling bloc that it has already gone into a second edition. I suggest that somebody like Professor Duncan should be asked to make a summary of the report which the ordinary person, who has not got the time or the enthusiasm to work through the whole volume, could peruse.

There is one other point with which I should like to deal. It affects the last Estimate dealing with the armed forces of the country. There are two ways of looking at the matter. One is from the political point of view as to whether this money should be spent and, going back into the history of this country and Great Britain, as to who is to defend whom. I take the definite view that, as a sovereign State, we are responsible for protecting ourselves to the limit of our resources and that we should not, so far as we can possibly help, depend on anybody else for our defence. We cannot defend ourselves at sea. That is obvious. But we can do a great deal on land. I do not know whether the money to be provided is adequate or inadequate to do what is required to defend our major centres of population. I suggest that the country would be better informed if we had a short résumé in which, without disclosing secrets as to what the Minister proposes to do, the people would be given some idea of the form which their defence will take. Take the case of Dublin itself. Already, there have been articles in German military papers as far back as September discussing the vulnerability of Dublin and of the Shannon scheme. What proposals are there for the defence of Dublin in case German psychology should consider that this was a life-line for food for England, and that they must alarm the Irish in such a way that they would not send any food to England? The German is perfectly capable of that and more than likely to do it if there is a war between Germany and neighbouring powers. I should like to have some general idea as to whether defence by means of anti-aircraft guns is contemplated. That would obviously be the right thing to do if you want to prevent low-flying bombers from hitting the point at which they aim. If that be so, what type of guns is to be used? Are we going to have the old British gun, and when they have rearmed will that be replaced free of charge? What type of fighting machines are we to have and what type of other precautions are to be taken in places other than Dublin, such as Cork, Limerick and other vulnerable ports? The country would like to have some general idea as to what form of defence is to be. If that were done, I think the people would more readily realise the necessity for doing our part in our own interests as a sovereign State.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I almost hesitate to speak on this matter because we may assume that, when all the Estimates were brought forward, the function of the Minister for Finance was to argue that they were too high, just as we are doing here. He is the unfortunate victim sent in here to stand over the very points which he, probably, argued against in the Government. I should be inclined to suggest that the discussion be adjourned so that the Minissters whose Estimates, are mostly being dealt with should be here to answer for themselves instead of putting the responsibility on the unfortunate Minister for Finance. He has a sort of negative responsibility. We can blame him because, possibly, he did not throw his weight about in the Government with a view to having these Estimates made less, but he has no absolute veto. The Minister stated that the Estimates this year were £750,000 higher than last year. Actually, the amount is more than that because certain borrowing is taking place in relation to Supply Services. If you are, for example, borrowing £2,000,000 for the Department of Defence, it would be quite unjust to add that £2,000,000 to the expenditure for that year and say that the yearly Estimate is so much, because that is not a recurring figure. But if you borrow £2,000,000, you have immediately to begin paying interest and sinking fund, so that, in so far as borrowing for Supply Services is concerned, it is not only an increase for that year but it actually commits us to an increase over a long period of years. I am not pretending to calculate what the figure would be but, suppose £2,000,000 were borrowed, that might mean interest and sinking fund for ten or 20 years amounting to £100,000 a year. It is clear that a proper calculation of the cost of that Supply Service would be what is down in the Estimate, plus £100,000. You must remember that the services that are paid for out of borrowed money are paid for because, in exactly that form, they are non-recurrent—that is to say, they are abnormal. But the peculiar thing is that what you might call a spirit of abnormality never obtains. One year you have additional borrowing for something which is non-recurrent in one relationship and another year in another relationship, so that actually the normal cost of government must really be estimated as something above the ordinary voted moneys in relation to Supply Services.

I should think that the cost of Supply Services this year is not less than £800,000 more than last year. If you throw your mind back to 1931, you will find that the cost of running this State has mounted enormously and that the movement is always in the one line— in the line of greater expenditure. Senator Tierney, referring to the criticisms made by Deputy MacEntee, as he then was, about the great burden of taxation put upon the country by the predecessors of the present Government, said he thought that the criticism by Deputy MacEntee was quite wrong, that actually that Government erred by being too parsimonious. I am more inclined to agree with the present Minister for Finance—Deputy MacEntee, as he then was—than with the present Senator Tierney. You must remember that this State came into existence in very abnormal circumstances. We were taking over a country for the first time, after the Great War, after what is commonly known as the Black and Tan war, and after a disastrous and enormously destructive civil war. Actually, in 1927 and 1928, a certain element of abnormality subsisted, flowing on from the peculiar circumstances that went before. With regard to the period 1922-1931, although in relation to annual production in this country taxation was higher than it should normally be, we must recognise (1) that the abnormality of that previous period still overflowed into that period, and (2) that the movement during those years was in the line of reduction of taxation.

For the past seven years, the tendency has been consistently towards higher taxation. Notice what lay behind it. I do not want to go into the Party programme for the election, but, before that, the present Government had already declared that the annuities were not legally due and had promised the abolition of the annuities. They had also said that unemployment could be abolished and that an enormous industrial movement could be launched. When action was taken with regard to the annuities which precipitated the economic war, the argument was, if I remember rightly, that this economic war made it all the more necessary to go ahead with tariff-induced industrial development. Personally, I think that that was quite wrong. If the Party in question had been right and they had only got to stop paying the land annuities, then you could say that, with the extra moneys left to agriculture, it would probably be a favourable time to try the tariff experiment for promoting industries, because, although that would mean a greater burden upon the farmer, still, in relation to his peculiarly favourable position at that time, it would be opportune to try the experiment. The argument used, that owing to the economic war it was all the more necessary to go ahead with the tariff development of industry, was fundamentally wrong. What happened? The economic war reduced our agricultural production. It reduced it actually and relatively in value.

A beast became overnight worth, perhaps, £6 less than before, due to Government action. That had the effect of reducing production. What did we do? We said to the farmer, who is practically the only economic factor in this country worth talking about: "Because you have to sell your beast, the price of which is governed by the price in the British market, at the British market price minus £x, the amount of the tariff, which means that instead of making a profit you are probably making a loss, we are going to assist you by providing that everything you have to buy for the production of the finished beast will cost you more." These two things, running concomitantly, had, undoubtedly, a disastrous effect, and the Government sought to meet it by extending itself and developing in a hundred other directions. Each additional cost put on each year not only commits you for that year but for years to come. I agree that, in 1931, taxation was, if anything, unduly high.

Can I say that if our Party came into power to-morrow we would immediately reduce the present taxation to the figure at which it was in 1931? Not at all, because it could not be done. For instance, during these years—I am not going to be too exact about my figures—a disastrous tariff policy has been indulged in, in this country—a ruinous policy to my mind, employing a few extra men in the towns and throwing an enormous amount of men out of work in the country. That meant that you had to employ additional customs men. What was their function? They were, really, as you might say, acting as servants of the tariff industrialists because their purpose was to take steps to see that the Irish purchaser would be forced to pay 70 per cent., or whatever the amount of the tariff might be, extra into the hands of the tariff industrialists and into the wages of those working on the tariffed industries. It was not exclusively so, because it has frequently happened that, notwithstanding the high tariffs, the ordinary economical buyer found it paid him better to pay that tariff into the Exchequer rather than into the pockets of the workers and the employers in the tariffed industries. I do not want to stress the Government side of it too much but, in the abnormal position, all sorts of expedients were adopted, all tending to increase the cost of living, to increase the number of civil servants or Government employees, and to increase Government activity and interference with the ordinary human person.

I want to see taxation reduced for a number of reasons. Firstly, because in relation to the actual value of what is annually produced in this country the present taxation is so high that it is drawing not only upon what is the annual produce but it is, and has been, drawing upon the accumulated savings of our people amassed during the more favourable times which went before. I have another reason, and that is that all this additional cost of government means the growth of bureaucracy, the growth of a movement towards totali-tarianism. You may be sure that when you have additional taxation, that means further development of Government activity, further Government control, imposing conditions on the people, robbing the people not only of their money but robbing them of their natural rights and liberty to manage their own affairs.

I think one can say that by far the largest part of the additional cost of government arises from what is called emergency legislation. You had in 1932, I think it was, an Emergency Bill brought in, voting to the Government an extra £2,000,000 to meet certain new conditions arising out of emergency. There was an emergency calculated to require £2,000,000 extra of Government expenditure during that period. I am not going to say that I am exactly right in my figures or dates. Whereas the emergency of 1932 represented an additional cost of £2,000,000, we have now an additional cost of, I think, about £9,000,000 in the present Vote. It appears that the emergency has grown enormously. We shall be told that the increased cost this year, as against last year, is comparatively unimportant, but the actual comparison that should be made is with the cost of 1931 and, I would like to say, with some figure less than the cost of government in 1931, because 1931 came at the end of a period in which there was a continual drop in the cost of government and the movement graph at that time indicated a further decline in the cost of government.

Mr. McEllin

At whose expense?

Mr. Fitzgerald

Largely at the expense of the unfortunate agriculturist in this country; I might say eminently at the expense of the agriculturist. I know that some people during that period have made money. I know that other people's wages have increased nominally, though if the increased cost of living is taken into account, their wages have not necessarily increased in value. Senator Mrs. Concannon assured us that all the additional expenditure was required, because she read this morning's papers, and on the strength of what she read in them, she presupposed that a European war was pretty well in operation. With regard to this additional expenditure on armament and defence, I do not want to be misunderstood. There are some people who say: "I have read this morning's paper; there is going to be a war; therefore, it does not matter what we spend; we must pour out money so as to make sure that nothing will happen to anybody in this country." I do not think that anything we could spend would actually give us that absolute guarantee of safety. Personally, I do not undertake to prophesy as to what is going to happen, but if I were compelled to bet upon it—I would resist as long as I could, because I do not want to lose money—I would bet against a war. I admit that I cannot prophesy that there is not going to be a war. In the event of war, you may say that we might range ourselves with one group, and that though we might be a comparatively small unit in that group, we might so extend its effectiveness as to be able to turn the scale so as to bring victory instead of defeat. Is it suggested that the purpose of this additional expenditure is to make all the difference between victory or defeat for one side or the other? I do not think that can be so.

Senator The McGillycuddy mentioned that German papers had discussed the possibility of an invasion of this country. Personally I cannot see why we should anticipate such an invasion in the event of a European war. Now, I admit that I am probably a minority in that point of view and I admit that I could not argue it very strongly, because both my opponents and I would be debating a hypothetical question.

Let us say that if there is an element of danger, how much roughly should we spend? I am sure that the people in Barcelona and in Madrid were told when bombs were raining down that they must be very careful, but when these people went short of tea, sugar or coffee, they immediately went out for them, notwithstanding this danger. In the same way I think that we should wait and take into account the possibilities. Any expenditure you incur inflicts a certain injury. The invasion that may come is a potential injury, though the potential injury if it came would be possibly much more serious than the certain injury inflicted by an expenditure which cannot be afforded. It does seem that a certain amount of extra expenditure might be incurred for the Army, but we should consider the way in which the Army Vote might be directed into activities more immediately related to the possibility of what might happen here. You cannot assume a real invasion of this country, which would presumably mean that the British fleet had been overcome, because if any major power was in a position to invade us, then I do not think that anything we could spend now would make any great difference.

I think that we might direct more of the Army Vote towards the air service, by developing the anti-aircraft arm of that service, but there are certain things upon which we should not spend 1d. There has been a lot of humbug talked in this country, for propaganda purposes, about the taking over of the forts. Senator Mrs. Concannon said that, although she would like the port at Lough Swilly to be handed over to the Fianna Fáil club for entertainment purposes, in view of what she read in to-day's papers, she thought it better to keep it for defence purposes. What is the point of handing over the port of Lough Swilly or Berehaven to the Minister for Defence? It is perfectly certain that they have nothing whatever to do with the possibility of an attack on this country. Any possible attack on these forts will not prevent the export of food from here, in the case of war between Germany and England. We do not, when we want to send food to England, send it down to Castletown-Berehaven to ship it from there. On the contrary, any food which they want to ship from Castletown-Berehaven is sent to Dublin to be shipped from Dublin. These forts have nothing whatever to do with the defence of this country. Anybody who is going to attack this country will attack it in a place where a landing is feasible, where there is no prearranged fortification or defence, a place which will give easy access either to the country as a whole or specifically to Dublin. Therefore, the taking over of these forts had nothing whatever to do with the defence of this country and the £100,000 which appears to be spent upon them is to my mind —I am not going to say it is wasted— but if it is to be directed to the defence of the country against some Power trying to invade it, as part of the operations of a European war, then I say you might as well throw that £100,000 into the sea and be done with it.

These forts had only one function. In the event of a European war, the people of Great Britain considered that the most vital thing for them was their sea-borne food. If they were blockaded they would be in a desperate condition, but that sea-borne food could be convoyed across the Atlantic, either the North or South Atlantic, and it was desirable that the convoys should be able if necessary to go into near ports under the protection of land batteries. That is why these places were fortified. Does anyone suggest that the fleet of an enemy who wanted to invade Ireland would come there obligingly, to be smashed to pieces?

The taking over of these forts was a propagandist development. It had no significance whatever. If you cast your mind back to the Treaty of 1921, you will remember that consideration was given at that time to the possibility of Ireland taking over responsibility for portion of the defence of Ireland five years later—in 1926. Prior to that time arriving, if I remember rightly, we had a sort of committee to go into what would be involved in taking over those forts. I think I was chairman of it, and what we wanted to know was would the equipment there be of the most modern variety, so that, after taking over, we would not be committed to capital cost in putting in modern defences, and what would be the annual cost of up-keep, if the British made it a condition of handing over, or if we felt we were in duty bound on taking over to maintain those places. In 1925, as Senators will remember, or will not remember, as the case may be, we had just the most formal meeting. It was a mere formality and the consideration was postponed to an un-named date. Again, as I have mentioned in the Seanad, in 1928, with British officials, I argued against our taking over when they sought to say that, as we were bound to take them over ultimately, we should take certain action. There was no harm done in taking over these forts. It might possibly jeopardise us a little with regard to neutrality because, when those fortified ports were rather in the position of Gibraltar to Spain, you might have put up an argument—not that I believe in this neutrality stuff myself—that we were not responsible for what happens in those places; but when you take them over and when you are responsible, if there is anything in this neutrality business, it becomes rather attenuated.

I do object, however, to spending £100,000 on things which have nothing to do with us and which have no relation to our national defences. If we are going to put up fortifications to repel possible invaders, we will put them up in other places. We might put them up in the middle of the west coast where people could land three hours away from Dublin, instead of six or seven, and that by fast motor driving. I do not want to go into details on this subject. I do think that we have a certain sentimental view and are rather carried away. For instance, when education comes up in the Dáil, everybody gets up and says that nobody grudges our spending the money, and that if there were more money available, they would love to spend more. They then proceed to suggest minor detail items on which they would like more money spent. The result, with regard to education, has been that nobody has gone into the matter and said: "Here we are spending £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 of hard-earned money on education every year. Is it being spent in the most effective way and are we getting what we might call value for the money?" Everybody hastens to say that nobody grudges the money, and that they would love to make it £6,000,000 instead of £5,000,000.

In the same way, with people's minds clouded by newspaper reports and by happenings in Middle Europe, everybody is ready to say that nobody grudges spending extra money on our defences. I begrudge spending one penny unnecessarily, and I would want to know that there was a sufficient possibility to justify spending the money; and, secondly, that, granted some money should be spent, every penny is being directed to be effective, and that we actually advert to and have good advice as to the conceivable things that might happen, the degree of possibility attaching to them and the most effective way of protecting our people in the unlikely event of any of these possibles becoming actual. So far, it has not been demonstrated to me that the large sum of money proposed to be spent on defence is called for, or is necessarily going to be used in the most effective way in view of possibilities.

I never have been able to see that we are getting good value for the money that is spent annually on education, and one of the most alarming things I heard here came, if I understood him aright, from Senator Cummins. He talked about teachers who are not getting employment. Just in general, and not in relation to this matter, I want to state, as a principle, that a man has not the right to demand exactly one type of work. It is laid down by old scholastics, in relation to a man who belongs to one estate, say, the aristocratic state, that if he comes to poverty, if he is not able to earn money in his own estate, it is incumbent on him to use his hands for work I give that as a general principle. I should not like to misrepresent Senator Cummins, but it seemed to me that what he implied, although I do not say he said it, was that we are turning out teachers from these State institutions, some of whom, if they do not get employment, tend to go over to England and automatically—perhaps I should leave that word out—and tend to gravitate towards the subversive elements in England. If he meant that, I would say: "For Heaven's sake, encourage them to get over to England because we do not want young men, nominally educated, to take control of our children when they are the type of young men who naturally tend to subversive activities unless they are paid out of Government funds." I am only taking exactly what I understood from Senator Cummins. Personally, I do not believe it is the case.

I thing this Vote before us is disastrous, indicating that we intend to tax the people on a figure which means that it cannot possibly be paid for out of the productive value produced in this country during the next 12 months, that we must carry on the record of the last seven years of eating further into the people's accumulated savings and, by doing so, make less capital, which is necessary, available for the increased production which this country so urgently needs. At the same time, I feel that it is no good our arguing with the unfortunate Minister for Finance because, no doubt, in his function as Minister for Finance, he has done his best to restrain the ardour of the Ministers in the various other Departments. We must recognise that there is a natural tendency to bureaucracy in Government service. There is no Department of Government that does not imitate nature in its detestation of a vacuum, and every Government Department would extend of its own sheer zeal. They see how much can be done in the country and how much improvement can be made, and they feel they want to butt in to carry out that improvement. This is not only bad in taking more money from us but it indicates the continual increase, the continual growth of a bureaucracy in this country, which means the continual growth of an instrument for the sub-ordination of the natural liberties of the people of the country.

Sir John Keane

After what we have just heard of high finance and strategy, the few remarks I have to make might seem rather trivial. I want to draw the Minister's attention to the matter of safety and motor regulations. I do feel that the time has come when young people about to drive motor-cars should be tested, and that, roughly, the British methods of testing before a licence is granted should be adopted, I feel also that the motorist is under a very considerable restriction and has a great grievance in respect of parking facilities in Dublin, and I think the Government might easily improve them by providing facilities for parking around St. Stephen's Green. It is only a matter of removing the iron posts and motorists can then back in. An enormous number of cars can be accommodated there. I do not think the argument put up by the Government against it, that St. Stephen's Green is held under some charter or legal enactment, is of any value whatever. Parliament is supreme and, if there is a legal difficulty, it can be quickly got over by a short Act.

With regard to the bigger question of finance, I listened with great interest to Senator Hayes, and I must say that I agree with him. I feel that the Government are proceeding in a reckless way in regard to expenditure. I do not know where it is going to end. It is like a snowball. It goes on and on, and with the mass of people behind them who want more and more, it can only end in disaster. There is no good telling the Government to economise. They might at least say that they would not spend any more, but they are even spending more. I think something might be done by setting up this economic advisory council recommended by the Banking Commission, but I do not at all like this rather casual and flippant attitude towards the Banking Commission which I heard the Minister for Industry and Commerce adopting the other day, as much as to say: "All this is jolly fine, but how did they know that we did not inquire into all these schemes before we started them?" I am afraid the Banking Commission was composed of men of very considerable experience and weight, and I should like to see the Government paying much more regard to their recommendations.

All I can say is that I feel that the whole of Parliamentary government and democracy is going to be put under a great strain by the reckless way in which expenditure is increasing and, moreover, the primary industries are bearing nearly all the burden. People rather throw their hands up in horror when Senator Baxter gets up and makes the same speech, but if a thing is sound there is no harm in its being repeated. Again, the Minister for Industry and Commerce said the other day that there is no connection between this industrial policy and agriculture. Why, there is every connection. The whole of agriculture is suffering from the increased cost of production put on it by this economic policy, and not only is there increase in taxation and in rates, but there is always hidden taxation. There is hidden taxation in respect of flour, and I see from a question on the Order Paper of the Dáil by Deputy Dillon that the price is 21/- in England as against 40/- here. Then there is sugar. All that has to be borne by the primary producers and it goes on and on. The Government are committed to this policy, and I must say that I view the future with very considerable apprehension. We cannot put back the clock, and I do not see how the country is going to bear the burden. These things resolve themselves in rather an unpleasant way sometimes. If Parliamentary democracy cannot prove efficient other people have to come in to bring reality and efficiency into government.

I do not feel competent to follow Senator Fitzgerald in his criticism of our defensive policy. There is, however, one thing I do not understand in our present defensive arrangements. It is what we want with bombers. I understand that we are now buying bombers. I cannot see whom we are going to bomb. If we were buying fighters or anti-aircraft guns, I could understand it, but bombers I do not understand. I am credibly informed that we are buying bombers, but I do not know for what purpose. I listened with great interest to what Senator Tierney said about compulsory Irish, because it was, to a certain extent, a personal satisfaction to me because I have often said it myself. Why cannot there be an independent, non-political, expert inquiry into the whole of this language policy? Nobody can object to that. Take it out of the region of Party politics altogether and get people who look at education dispassionately to inquire into it.

Mr. M. Hayes

I think Senator Tierney made it quite clear that he was strongly in favour of compulsory Irish.

Sir John Keane

Yes, and nothing I have said could be construed as an argument against compulsory Irish. He objected to the system of teaching subjects through the medium of Irish. Let that be inquired into. It has been advocated on many occasions and it is only Party antagonism that prevents it being done. I was glad to notice some sign of compromise on the part of the Taoiseach. I have not got the reference here, but he said that there might with advantage be an inquiry into secondary education. I feel that you want to cover the whole field, especially in regard to the question of the teaching of general subjects through the medium of Irish.

Mr. McGee

I do not intend to deal with the different questions that were raised, or with the arguments advanced concerning them, with some of which I agree, and with others I disagree. I have not heard anything said about the alcohol factories, one of which, as the Minister for Defence is aware, is in my neighbourhood and has been found of great assistance. I wish to refer to a statement made in the Dáil by the Minister for Finance, when replying to the debate on the Vote on Account on March the 9th. He said:

"... to my mind, the fact that that money (£35,000,000) is there is a clear indication that the general mass of the farmers, the general body of the farmers, do not want to be spoonfed in the way in which Deputy Bennett would ask the House to believe. The money is there. It is theirs, and they can use it if they are in want of capital, and any of them who feel they can profitably employ capital will take it out and put it into their land, and into their industry."

I only wish that was true. I only wish it was possible for any farmer to go to any bank to obtain a loan. Up to ten or 15 years ago they were accustomed to go to banks and obtain loans. That policy has been departed from. In the absence of the security of their land, I suggest that the result has been unemployment in rural Ireland. I belive if it were possible for the Government to concentrate on the value of the land, and on what the Land Commission should give, and if they implemented the decision in law, that would give absolute security to farmers and, at the same time, give the Land Commission what they want. Much of the present distress would also be removed. At an earlier stage in the debate the Minister for Finance, on that occasion, quoted a letter he received from an investor in the Irish Sugar Company, in which he stated that from what he heard it seemed that his shares were not of the value he thought they were when investing. I wonder what interest the average farmer receives on the capital value of his land, or if any inquiries in that respect were made. I do not think it is to the credit of any of the Parties that ruled here to find agriculture in its present condition. While these statements might be all right for bankers they are bound to be injurious to the interests of poorer people. Since faith has been lost, and hope has been lost, I think the Minister, out of charity, might examine the position to see if anything could be done to relive those who are in distress. It is impossible for anybody, even the Banking Commission, to estimate the number of people who are in want of capital. I think any inquiry the Minister could make as to the credit that might be made available should be radical and drastic, because the situation requires radical and drastic treatment. The Minister, when replying to Senator Sir John Keane's suggestion, said that no examination was necessary into the security of land. If that is the view of the Government, I wonder if they will inform us who their advisers are. Land security goes back further than the present Government, and I beseech the Minister to have the question considered by experts.

Mr. Quirke

I should like to sympathise with Senator Sir John Keane in having to listen to the same speech from Senator Baxter time after time. However, I do not think that is a sufficient reason why we should find fault with Senator Baxter's speech. The fault I find with Senator Baxter is that he does not seem to learn anything from the various debates that take place in this House. He lectures the various Ministers and suggests that they know absolutely nothing about agricultural conditions. Surely he realises that a fair share of the people in the present Government were actually brought up on the land, and that others have connections with the land over a long period. In my estimation, it would be hard to find anybody whose sympathies were not with the people on the land. The members of the present Government are, at least, as sincere in their efforts to help the people on the land and in rural areas as Senator Baxter with all his talk. He also suggests that there should be a drive by the Government to put the people to work, and to produce different classes of goods. I put it to Senator Baxter that any time an attempt was made to put people to work, and to produce goods, he was in opposition to any such effort. When it was a question of producing wheat, food, or anything else he was out in opposition. He constantly speaks of the flight from the land. We all deplore that, but we are aware that that did not begin this year, or with the advent of Fianna Fáil to power. The flight from the land has been going on for a considerable time, and I belive that a good deal of the reason for the drift to the towns is due to the fact that a considerable amount of employment is to be found in the towns.

Senator Baxter also finds fault with the building of technical schools. He finds fault with anything and with everything for one reason only, because it was done by the present Government. I say that is a ridiculous attitude to take up. Because young people cycle to these schools in towns, the Senator said they would not go back to work on the land. Surely that is an insane outlook on life. If these pupils do not go back to work on the land what will become of Senator Baxter and other people like myself, who are now driving motor cars, if ever we have to get back to the land? I have no doubt that if I had to give up driving a motor car I could get back to work on the land, and I am sure Senator Baxter could do the same. He should keep a little nearer to facts. The Senator lectured the various Ministers, and would be prepared to lecture them individually if they were in the House. While the Senator found fault with everything, in the course of his speech, he did not suggest any remedy whereby the situation could be improved. As far as I could learn, his one remedy was more credit for agriculture. He suggested that if men in industry went to the Government to look for a trade loan or went to a bank they could get the money, but there was nothing for the farmers. Has the Senator any experience of looking for money for trade loans, or from banks for the development of industry, or for the extension of industries? If he has, I suggest he knows that anyone looking for money would meet with a considerable amount of trouble, unless the proposition was a sound one.

Perhaps the Senator has some scheme up his sleeve about which he has not told us whereby farmers who are not creditworthy can be helped. The underlying suggestion was that money was being thrown about to everybody but to farmers. I do not belive Senator Baxter belives his own words when he makes such a statement. He was connected with the Agricultural Credit Corporation from its beginning until a short time ago, and he should know that during the ten years of its existence the corporation has made 19,348 loans totalling £1,729,789. During the last two years alone it has made 2,629 loans, totalling £359,162. These figures speak for themselves. I suggest that Senator Baxter should remember them when he is making further speeches, and he should change them a little, if for no other reason than meeting the taste of Senator Sir John Keane, who is getting a little weary listening to him.

Mr. Baxter

A good many of your own Party are making the same speeches, but they have not the courage to make them here.

Mr. Quirke

I think it is a great thing for the Fianna Fáil organisation, and one of its greatest advantages, that some Cumainn in rural areas can criticise policy. The Fianna Fáil Cumainn all over the country can criticise the Government. They have always done so. A special meeting is called every year for the benefit of those who may want to criticise. As far as I could gather, Senator Baxter complained that the rate of interest charged on loans is too high, and that if it could be lowered to 3 per cent. everything would be well. I do not know how he has figured that out as a remedy for the ills of agriculture. The average amount of loan made by the corporation is £89, and, of course, the number of loans which are for less than that amount, is a great deal higher than the number of loans exceeding £89. At the present rate of interest, 5 per cent., the half-yearly annuity on £89 is £7 12s. 4d., repayable over seven years. At the suggested rate, say 3 per cent., the half-yearly annuity would be £7 1s. 11d. Is it therefore suggested that £1 0s. 10d. a year, or the price of a lamb, means all the difference between prosperity and poverty to the average farmer? I do not belive that that is the one way it could be done. I do not believe this or any other Government can provide a scheme to grant loans to people who are not creditworthy. If the Senator was honest about it, he would say, in his experience as a director and as an inspector for the Agricultural Credit Corporation, which he is at present, how any man who was not creditworthy could get loans through the corporation. It is necessary that some one should finally cry "halt" to the gallop of Senator Baxter.

Another speaker when dealing with this subject made what I think was a mistake. I will be honest enough to grant that it was a mistake. When referring to the matter he said the Government would not give grants to farmers. I suggest that that is what was at the back of Senator Baxter's mind, that some grant should be handed out holus bolus to farmers. Everybody would like if some money could be made available for farmers, but I should like to know where Senators would draw the line. Some people talked as if they were non-political. Senator Fitzgerald referred to what he termed the disastrous policy of the present Government. The Senator was honest enough to get up and wear his political badge. I should like to know this, if his Party came into power, are they prepared to scrap what he referred to as the disastrous tariff policy of the present Government, and therefore do away with industries which have been set up during the present Administration?

Mr. Baxter

The London Agreement will have knocked out a good many of them by that time.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

This debate, Sir, has been very like a Rugby match on a wet day——

Mr. Baxter

In Belfast.

Mr. MacEntee

——because Senators here seem to lose sight of the central subject, and prefer going for an opponent who may be wearing a jersey the colour of which is not to their liking. I had intended to deal first with Senator McLoughlin, but perhaps I ought to deal with the Senator who proclaimed himself as independent but who, to my mind, was not impartial. He played the part of a Greek chorus in this debate. He tried to point the moral and generally to impress on the House that the Government, at the present moment, was bearing the full burden of its own peculiar sins, in so far as the position in which the teachers of this country and particularly the younger members of the teaching community find themselves. It was implied here that, due to some mistake in farming our estimate of what the future requirements of the training system or the teaching profession would be, a very considerable number of young men had been trained for that profession and were unable to find appointments at the present moment. Now, the training colleges which were referred to in this debate, and of which these young men were the products, were established long before the present Administration came into power and if too many teachers were trained during the past nine or ten years and if, in consequence of that, there is a very large supply of teachers here in Ireland the present Administration, at any rate, cannot be held responsible.

Mr. M. Hayes

Is it not the under-supply of children rather than the over-supply of teachers for which the Minister's policy is responsible?

Mr. MacEntee

I do not think that Senator Hayes can make the Government responsible for the under-supply of children.

Mr. Hayes

Oh, yes, the decrease in the population is the Government's responsibility.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy was referring to the under-supply of children. I think that, at any rate, so far as I know, most of the people who left this country were young, unmarried boys who, even if they remained in the country, would not have been married by now.

Mr. Baxter

But should have been if the Government was doing its job.

Mr. MacEntee

Should have been if we had been able to wipe out the history of the past 100 years and the consequences of all the famine and emigration of the past——

Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think the ball is nearly lost now.

Mr. MacEntee

One cannot regard fertility trends in this country as something which has been the creation of to-day or yesterday. The history of that problem goes far back, for many generations. We are only dealing with the ill-consequences of it to-day and we can no more blame that on the Administration of the last six or seven years than I think we can blame it on the Administration of the preceding ten. But I was referring to the fact that apparently there is an over-supply of teachers in the country at the present moment and that, because of that fact, there is a possibility that one of the training colleges may close down. I do not know what point the Senator who told us that wished to make by recording that fact. He said that if the training college closed down there would follow disaster to the men who have been on the teaching staff, but if the training college keeps open, what is going to happen? Are we going to have the present surplus of teachers increased until the position becomes even more grave than it is at the present moment? Are we going to have this college maintained at the expense of the taxpayer, for whom merely useless and unfruitful expenditure is as big a disaster, for, from the point of view of people who find it hard to make ends meet one year with another, unnecessary expenditure would be just as big a disaster as for those members who are on the staff of the training college and who may possibly lose their positions if it closes. What can anybody do in a situation like that? You have either to keep the training college open and put teachers on an over-stocked market or to close it so that the position may adjust itself and allow the surplus of teachers to find appointments in due course. In any event, if there are training facilities in excess of the requirements, that is due to the fact that the preceding Administration over-estimated the requirements of the teaching profession.

The Department of Finance came in for a good deal of serious criticism also. We are told that nothing can be done unless it goes through the bottle neck of the Department of Finance. The Bill which has been before the Seanad this evening has been criticised very keenly by Senator Hayes and by Senator Baxter because of the fact that it proposes to sanction an expenditure which represents an increase over and above what was asked for the Supply Estimates for last year. That increase, and I do not want to disguise it, is a very serious one. It will amount all told in round figures to £750,000 more than was required for last year. I wonder what the Senator who criticised the action of the Department of Finance with regard to public expenditure would say if there had been no Department of Finance, and if every Department of State had a free hand to spend the taxpayers' money, and what would be the position then of those for whom Senator Baxter speaks and for whom Senator McLoughlin speaks, who feel that upon one service or another expenditure ought to be drastically reduced. I must say that while I have been told that expenditure is too high and while I have been reminded of what my views in regard to public expenditure were when I was in opposition I did not hear from any of the Senators who are in opposition to-day any suggestion for reducing that expenditure, except possibly the suggestion that emanated from Senator McLoughlin that we might convert the defences of this country into tourist hotels and invite, I assume, one of the totalitarian powers of the Continent to come here on a sort of Cook's tour——

Mr. McLoughlin

It was the forts I said—not the defences.

Mr. MacEntee

Every competent authority, with the possible exception of the Napoleons of Buncrana, does regard these ports as essential features, as essential parts of our national defences. And I must say that I am content and I prefer to accept the opinion of competent military men in regard to them rather than the opinion even of Senator McLoughlin. Sir, I was saying that, although I was criticised because this Bill represented an increase in the amount required for the Public Services this year, as compared with last year, I did not hear from any Senator who spoke in this debate while I was in the House any suggestion as to how that expenditure could be reduced.

Mr. Baxter

I told you about your alcohol factories.

Mr. MacEntee

I must say that I did not make a note of it because I did not consider it a noteworthy suggestion.

Mr. Baxter

You did not want to hear it.

Mr. MacEntee

I was told, on the contrary, that nothing was being done in regard to seeds and manures. I was told I ought to provide more money for the farmers but I do not see how that is going to cut down expenditure. As far as I understand, the provision of the money almost naturally involves the imposition of additional taxation and represents an increase in expenditure. I heard the Senator say that nothing was being done in regard to seeds and manures. Again, I assume that that might be taken as a demand that we should provide something in the way of money to enable seeds and manures to be given to farmers who are unable to purchase these things for themselves. I also heard, as I say, a request that money might be provided for the farmers to enable the farmers to go in for increased production, and I was very severely criticised by the Senator because I suggested in that regard that it might be advisable to go a little cautiously. As I see it at the moment —it may not be the view of everybody —the economic position in Great Britain, in our principal market, is a little uncertain. Unemployment has been growing there since, I think, the middle of last year. The figures for the registered unemployed in Great Britain have been mounting very rapidly and, until, I think, about a fortnight ago, they were on the 2,000,000 mark. Naturally, if Britain is our principal market and if unemployment is growing there, then the scope of that market must be gradually narrowed and unless something were to happen which would enlarge the market I certainly would not, either as a businessman or as a Minister, feel justified in providing easy credit for anybody who would have to dispose ultimately of all his goods in that market.

It is all very well to say: "Give the farmer money and let him produce the things that he can produce." After all, he does not produce these goods for himself alone. He produces them for sale and if there is no ready market for these goods, then his increased production represents a dead loss to himself and, accordingly, in those circumstances, production may be foolish and may be harmful. So far as I can see, the situation at the moment can only be resolved in one of three ways. There is either going to be financial collapse of one or other of those Powers which are, to some extent, perhaps, responsible for the situation or there is going to be a European settlement or, war. If there is going to be a financial collapse or a settlement which would lead to the cessation of expenditure on armaments, then it undoubtedly means that there is going to be a restriction on the British market and, a contraction in purchasing power and, accordingly, on one or other of these hypotheses, the man who goes too rashly into production would be bound to lose.

The only event in which he might win would be in the event of a European war, and what the Senator is asking the Government to do is to induce the Irish farmer to gamble on the prospect that there will be a European war. I do not think any Government is justified in taking that sort of speculative attitude towards a serious international situation. I think that in the present circumstances the best thing for our people is to try to work ahead here as best they can. If they have capital at their disposal and they think that with their own money they can exploit the present situation, by all means let them go ahead and do it. They do it at their own risk, and if their speculation happens to turn out right, well for them— they will get the whole gain. But it is quite a different thing to ask the Government to take the money out of the pockets of people who do not own a sod of soil, to take it from the agricultural labourer, to take it out of artisans' pockets in the towns or cities to give it to the man who has property. If he has his farm and if, at least, he has not as much capital as he wants let him work with what he has and be grateful to the Irish people that he has the land——

A Senator

Oh!

Mr. MacEntee

——and to this Government who, at any rate, made a struggle——

Mr. Baxter

And lost it.

Mr. MacEntee

——and who, by winning it, reduced the overhead charges of the farmer by 50 per cent. so that to-day he is paying only one half of the purchase money that he was paying in 1931.

Mr. Baxter

He was better able to pay then.

Mr. MacEntee

Whether he was or not, it would be far better if those who represent the farming community in this Oireachtas would face up to the facts as other people in this country are seeing them and, instead of coming here making a poor mouth continuously about the position of the farmers, take up the manly attitude and see that whatever else may be the case or whatever unfortunate position the farmers may be in, at any rate, every one of them who owns land in this country is buying that land out for less than half of its worth by any fair valuation that may be put upon it. We cannot go around spoon-feeding every section in this community. Why would not the brewers or the distillers——

Mr. Hayes

Or the millers.

Mr. MacEntee

——or the millers or the shoemakers or the different other trades——

Mr. Hayes

Or the bacon curers.

Mr. MacEntee

Or the bacon curers —none of these people have come to us asking for money.

Mr. Hayes

They did not need to ask for it. You handed it to them.

Mr. Baxter

You handed it to them on a plate.

Mr. MacEntee

That may be. But the fact remains that we are dealing now with individuals, and there is no individual tailor or individual shoemaker or individual bookbinder or carpenter or joiner who will come along here and say: "I have a trade and I must get capital out of the pockets of the rest of the community in order that I may be able to provide better for myself."

Mr. Baxter

What is the Trade Loans Act for?

Mr. MacEntee

It is for quite a different purpose.

Mr. Baxter

It is to provide capital for the industrialists. It is in favour of a few.

Mr. MacEntee

As I said before, there are £35,000,000 of farmers' deposits in the Irish banks, and my contention is that if there was such an opportunity of putting a couple of these millions into agriculture, as Senators and Deputies tell us about, it would be better employed in agriculture than in lying in any bank in this country earning 1 or 1½ per cent. This thing of money for farmers and money for agriculture has become a political ramp, and it is a dishonest ramp and is sapping the morale of the Irish farmers.

Mr. Foran

Which Party is responsible for the ramp?

Mr. Baxter

That is too intimate a question to ask the Minister.

Mr. MacEntee

So far as I am concerned, we have been here for the last seven years and we have not given way to this clamour yet, but we have been listening to it at general election after general election. We were told here to-day by Senator Hayes of the way in which expenditure has increased in this country, and we have the same sort of speech from Senator McLoughlin, a sort of political Egyptologist who belives in digging up the mummified remains of a dead era. He comes here and, at session after session in this House, whenever I happen to be in charge of a Bill, he religiously digs up an old speech of mine in which I pleaded that expenditure might be cut down. When I was pleading that, I specified the services upon which expenditure could be cut down. Of course, at that time I was in opposition and perhaps I was not fully aware of the difficulties at the time. But when I was in opposition in the years from 1927 to 1932, we had at any rate comparative peace in Europe, and it was not necessary before 1932 or 1933 for us to consider seriously the problem of defence. As I say, then, at any rate the west of Europe was not in peril from anybody and we could have reduced or economised on the Army at that time, and I did belive that we could have brought down the expenditure on the Civic Guards. Certainly, we could have cut down that expenditure on the Civic Guards, even during the period we have been in office, if it had not been for the campaign which was waged in 1934 and 1935 to dislocate——

Mr. McLoughlin

You were five years in power before there was any question of trouble in Europe.

Mr. MacEntee

And we reduced the expenditure on the Army.

Mr. McLoughlin

You reduced it?

Mr. Baxter

No.

Mr. Hayes

How much was the expenditure on the Army before the European crisis of last year?

Mr. MacEntee

The Senator can credit even us with a little foresight.

Mr. Hayes

Oh. The Minister saw the European war coming?

Mr. MacEntee

At any rate, we saw enough to know that in 1937 the problem of our national defences was going to be a serious one and, as the Taoiseach has told you time and time again, the negotiations which were started in February, 1938, were started upon a note from him in November of the previous year, and that one of the reasons which moved him to send that note was the urgency of this problem of national defence. However, I am not going to be put off my argument by this sort of thing.

Mr. Foran

At that time, in the words of an English statesman, the Minister had greater freedom and less responsibility.

Mr. MacEntee

Now we have greater freedom and, naturally, having greater freedom, we have more responsibility That is our thesis. That is one of the reasons why we have to come here to the Oireachtas to ask it to sanction this additional expenditure of £1,250,000 upon our national defences. I was saying, Sir, that during the course of this debate I did not hear any proposal to reduce expenditure. I heard many proposals to increase it. Some of the purposes for which increased money was sought may be very desirable in themselves, but, undoubtedly, the amount which will be required for the Supply Services this year is going to represent a fairly heavy burden upon our people, and it is a burden which will not be made any easier to bear either this year or in the future if we were to yield to, as I say, the sort of demand which we hear from Senators like Senator Baxter—who certainly ought to feel greater responsibility in this matter than he manifests —that we should provide cheap loans for farmers who are, prima facie, uncreditworthy. If we have to provide money for uncreditworthy persons, that means in fact that we are going to give money to people who cannot repay it, and, accordingly, it would mean that in order to raise these moneys we would have to put an increased burden on the people. I cannot see any justification for that in the present circumstances. We are providing increased moneys for defence, increased moneys for education, increased moneys for land purchase, increased moneys for housing and increased moneys for afforestation, as well as a number of minor increases upon other services, and I cannot see how, in our present circumstances, we could possibly provide for a scheme which would enable uncreditworthy persons to secure additional capital for use in their own business at the expenses of the public purse.

I was going to say something about some of the remarks which were made by Senator Hayes in regard to the cattle trade. He has ascribed to me a conversion which has never taken place. All during the economic war when we were being attacked by the Senator's colleagues in the Dáil and here on the ground that in fighting for the annuities we were destroying the cattle trade of this country, I took up the attitude that our cattle trade was not in any jeopardy, that Irish cattle were an essential element in English agriculture and that the moment the European situation became such as to make it essential from the point of view of Great Britain that that cattle supply should be maintained, we were going to have a settlement of the land annuities dispute. I said that time after time, and of course, then, what I said used to be set up against statements which, it was alleged, other members of my Party made, and it was said that the Minister for Finance was not in agreement with some of his colleagues. I have said that all along, and the facts have justified me and justified this Government——

Mr. Baxter

Why did you kill the calves?

Mr. MacEntee

——that the moment the international situation made it necessary for Great Britain to think of her cattle and her food supplies, that moment this dispute with Great Britain would be brought to a head, and, I belived, would be settled in our favour.

Mr. Baxter

Why did you slaughter 400,000 calves if you belived that?

Mr. MacEntee

Did the Senator take any census of the number slaughtered?

Mr. Baxter

We know the bounty that was paid on the skins.

Mr. MacEntee

We know the bounty was paid on the skins, and perhaps there was a slight amount of abuse in the way that bounty was secured. There always is a considerable mortality among calves and, in any event, with regard to these 400,000, their expectation of life was not 100 per cent. What, in fact, happened was that the weaklings of a herd were taken out and slaughtered, brought to us, and we paid the bounty on them, and, in fact, the cattle stocks of the country have been improved through the operation of the calf-skin bounty. The Senator knows that as well as I do.

Mr. Baxter

He knows it is not true.

Mr. MacEntee

Every intelligent farmer who took advantage of that bounty knows it anyhow. The farmers in this country are not just the sort of simpletons Senator Baxter would want me to belive they are. I have a fairly shrewed idea of what human nature is when it comes down to dealing with these questions. I am perfectly certain that there was not a calf slaughtered that was worth the calf-skin bounty.

Mr. Baxter

The Minister cannot tell that to any group of farmers in Ireland.

Mr. MacEntee

I do not think it is necessary, Sir, for me to keep the House any longer. As I said, this debate reminded me of a Rugby match in dirty weather, and one sometimes loses sight of one's objective when a debate is so rambling as this has been. Whatever points are worth consideration in relation to Departments for which other Ministers are responsible I propose to bring to the notice of the Ministers concerned.

Question—"That the Bill be now read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.

Mr. MacEntee

Would there be any objection to taking the remaining stages of the Bill to-night?

Mr. Baxter

In view of the Minister's attitude and that of his chief lieutenant. Sir, we would prefer to have time to look into what he has said, because there are question to which he will have no answer and we can take that on another day.

Mr. MacEntee

Very well.

Committee Stage ordered for next Wednesday, 22nd March.