Adjournment of the Seanad.

Question proposed: "That the Seanad do now adjourn."

Mr. M. Hayes

I understand that agreement was reached that the Adjournment would be moved at 5.30. I had expected myself that the Adjournment would be formally moved and that we would have had an opportunity of hearing the Taoiseach and of having a debate upon whatever he might think fit to say. However, I understand that he will be available and will intervene later in the debate. We are undoubtedly in a very great emergency, and it is for every member of the Oireachtas to give of his very best to the country and to the Government to see that that emergency is solved in the best way for the Irish people. I think, however, the emergency should not blind us to certain unalterable facts. For example, there has been a good deal of talk about assisting the Government and about the functions of the Opposition in this particular crisis. The Government has been elected by the Dáil. It has a sound majority, but I think the amount of its majority has nothing whatever to do with its title. It has this title because it was elected by the people and it has certain rights and responsibilities. It seems to me that its rights and responsibilities must be recognised by everybody, and that the Government is entitled to ungrudging obedience in its proper sphere, not only during this crisis, but in ordinary times. Those for whom I speak recognise that system and that we must do our best to work it, but many people, who talk a great deal about democracy and about fighting for the democratic system, want to begin fighting for the democratic system by abolishing, for all practical purposes, parliamentary government. That, Sir, is a thing for which I personally do not stand.

It might help us to have a proper appreciation of the position in the country, in the Dáil and in the Seanad, if we remembered that the present Government is in office by a very small majority of votes. In other words, when you meet four voters on the street the mathematical probability is that two of them voted against the Government. At the last general election, even after the settlement had been made of our quarrel with England in the economic sphere, these people did not then trust the Government to do the job that was to be done in normal peace times. Those who do not belong to the Government Party, whether Independents or members of other Parties, represent very close to 50 per cent. of the voters in this State, and they have, therefore, responsibilities, rights and duties which they must perform. It is not possible for them to adopt a policy of shutting their eyes and opening their mouths and seeing what a Fianna Fáil Government will send them. I want to suggest that that would not be the best way to serve the State and might not even be the best way to assist the Government itself in the crisis.

We have adopted, not by formal motion but on the part of the Government and without dissent, a policy of neutrality. We shall, presumably, endeavour to carry out that policy, but I suggest that it is not necessary for Ministers to go around this country now as if they were Ministers in a warracked State. We have had a great many crises of one kind or another, and I think we are bound to survive this one as we survived the others. I think a more hopeful note might be struck generally than has been struck, particularly by Ministers, in their discussions of our present position. The war did not come suddenly. I have, for example, a document called "The Report of a Food Defence Plans Council" in England, published in 1937, so that, as far back as 1937, the British were making plans for feeding the civil population in the event of a major war in which England would be involved. Therefore, as far back as that it must have been quite clear for the Government here in control of the machinery of this State that some such problem was at any rate very likely to arise. There seems to be very little evidence that any forethought was taken for that matter. For example, the Emergency Powers Bill, which was debated in the Dáil at the beginning of last month, had not to be drafted rapidly. It could have been drafted six months ago. I do not mean that it should have been published six or 12 months ago, but it could easily have been drafted six months before the emergency actually arose. As a matter of fact, on the day before the Dáil met it was impossible for any member of the Opposition to get a copy of the Bill until close on the midnight of Friday, so that very little forethought was taken.

A number of things which have happened in the country since have mystified the people, and no condition could be worse for people in a war situation than to be mystified. We have had the changes in the Ministry, for example. I was present in the Dáil on Wednesday last when the Taoiseach gave a reply to the question addressed to him asking for an explanation of that particular matter. Since then I have had the opportunity of reading the explanation which he gave at greater length on Friday when concluding the debate in the Dáil. I must say that there was a distinct difference between his answer on Wednesday and his explanation on Friday. Neither of them carried to me, at any any conviction. Without being offensive to anybody, if at the moment a crisis arises you take a man, who has been in a particular Department for a period of seven years, out of that Department and you put him into another one, it is undoubtedly to be understood, in certain cases at any rate, that the man is deemed not to be competent to deal with the crisis. That may not be so, but certainly that is the impression left.

The explanation that the Taoiseach gave on Friday that he had to make a whole lot of moves, like moving men on a chess board, seemed to me very unconvincing. I do not understand at the moment why the Minister for Justice, who has administered several difficult Acts for seven years, should suddenly be translated to Local Government when a crisis of this kind arises. The ex-Minister for Education, if I may so call him, is present and may I say that it seems to me that the relegation of the Department of Education to the care of a Parliamentary Secretary, who has not yet been appointed, is entirely thoughtless. The Taoiseach is now Minister for Education. He is Prime Minister, Minister for External Affairs in a war situation, and as well as that he is now Minister for Education. He will, we understand, have a Parliamentary Secretary to do the day-to-day work of the Department. The exact meaning of that is that no other work of any kind will be done in the Department of Education except the day-to-day Departmental work. As a friend of mine said to me: "The Department will be left to free wheel along by itself in a war situation."

That seems to be a very shortsighted scheme. As a matter of fact, as was said in the Dáil last week, we are all agreed that when this war is over we may very well be faced with a completely new world. One of the things which we need to do in this country, particularly if we are not to be engaged in the war, is to do some thinking and some deciding as to what steps we are going to take in the postwar situation to meet that new world. One of the things which above all will need revision is surely education. I feel that ever since this Government came into office they have done nothing new, nothing bold in the Department of Education. They simply took the policy of their predecessors and continued it in a very hum-drum and not particularly effective fashion. Quite a number of problems arise for solution. It is nearly 18 years now since an Irish Ministry of Education was established in this country, in January, 1922. We need to know what progress we have made not only in a general way but towards a solution of the particular problems which we set ourselves to solve—for example, the Irish language problem. It seems to me a very foolish thing that in these circumstances we should now leave education entirely to a Parliamentary Secretary, because in the nature of things, the Taoiseach, at once Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs, cannot devote himself to the Department of Education. That is merely a nominal thing. It would be unfair to expect him to do anything more than let the thing go on. We would also need to know what we have accomplished in education. For example, we should need to know whether our so-called technical or vocational education is really filling the bill; whether it actually fulfils the need that we have, and whether it is not more commercial education than technical education. These things have perhaps no immediate relation to the war, but they are things which we would need to consider, and it seems to me that in the years to come we should give them proper consideration. It is clear that we are not going to do that. There has been no new thought, no movement in the Department of Education at all, and now this crisis has been availed of to deprive it of a Minister—not to give it to anybody who would stir it up in any way, but to let it, as my friend said to me, freewheel along Departmentally on its own. That, I think, is very bad policy, taking the long view, for the country.

With regard to other matters, too, there seems to be a lack of clarity of thought and confusion in people's minds. I listened in the Dáil last Wednesday to the answers given with regard to A.R.P. Everybody is mystified about it. Some people have spent quite a lot of money blacking out their houses. Other people are illuminating, particularly Government Buildings. As a matter of fact, Leinster House is one of the most illuminated places in the country. I have had letters from relations in the country, living in a small country town where there is a complete black out. They write up asking if things are bad in Dublin and if it is safe to keep children here. I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of the A.R.P. speaking in the Dáil last Wednesday. It was quite clear from his reply that there was no cohesion of any kind between the Department of Local Government and the Department of Justice, represented by the Guards, and the Parliamentary Secretary himself. That is not a matter that can be excused simply by saying that there was an emergency because, as I have said, all that kind of thing has been going on for a long time in England, and a long preparation is necessary for it. If there is going to be an order made on that subject, I hope that some account will be taken of the difficulties of our poorer citizens, for example, in Dublin, and in the country, but particularly in Dublin, in spending money to carry out the regulations thoroughly. Our poor citizens, who are indeed our best citizens, should be considered when such regulations are made.

The same thing applies to censorship. The Leader of the Labour Party in the Dáil read out what seemed to me a very amusing and very harmless article on the weather, which has been censored out of a weekly Dublin journal. That is entirely ridiculous. I have not got any actual documentary proofs of this, because I had not a pen in my hand at the time, but I listened in on the Paris radio to the French version of the Pope's address to a number of Poles at his castle outside Rome, and I subsequently listened in to the version in English from 2RN. I am quite convinced that the version given from 2RN was a much shorter, a much more restricted version than the version given from Paris, or the version given from London. Surely we are not bound by our policy of neutrality to refrain from telling the people of this country exactly and entirely what is said by the Pope, who, apart from his spiritual affiliations with this country, is himself the head of a neutral State? The first draft of that speech in the newspapers did not correspond at all with the broadcast, particularly with the French broadcast. I wonder whether the suggestion is that we are so enthusiastic about our neutrality, or find ourselves in such difficulty about it, that we cannot go as far as other neutral States? I read, for example, a report of an address by the Minister for Information in Brussels to a number of journalists—his staff seems to be mainly composed of journalists—and he rejected entirely the idea of censorship. Yet, there can be very little doubt that Belgium is in at least as difficult a position as we are.

There are other points which strike one about the present situation. We are not at war at all, and yet the war is going to cost us money. It is not going to bring us the profits which the last war brought us. The last war brought us an immense cash profit. An enormous amount of money was spent in the country during the war. Those things, in the nature of the present situation, cannot now happen here. We are beginning this war—which is going to cost us money, which is going to increase our expenses, and reduce our revenue—with an income tax of 5/6 in the £; in other words, with the same income tax as Great Britain, which has been making war preparations on a huge scale during the past couple of years. The thing is indefensible. There can be no doubt at all that money has been extravagantly spent here, and we are now in the position that it will be very difficult to get more. While we must do the best we can in the new situation, we must also take account of the fact that the reckless and foolish spending for some years past has brought us to a position when we will find it very difficult to get more money by way of taxation from any class of citizen.

We heard here this evening a discussion on tillage. I do not want to go into that at all, but it seems to me to be rather simple-minded to think that by dividing up the land now we can increase our agricultural production. It is obvious that, whatever steps are now taken, those particular steps will not carry us very far within say the next three years. Tillage means a good deal more than a man with a spade digging in the field. It means fertilisers, it means machinery, it means man power and it means seeds, and we lack a great many of these things. Our man power has been flying from the land, and whether the Government can find a scheme for putting back upon the land people who are living away from it, and who could be more usefully employed on the land than drawing the dole or any kind of relief in the cities, is one of the problems we have to face. We cannot help feeling that the policy of the late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Hogan— another cow, another sow, another acre under the plough—is certainly the policy which we ought to adopt now, and which would help us in this war situation, and make us secure in the situation which is to arise after the war.

Our position, therefore, has been worsened, but as I said in the beginning I for one do not want to pursue the policy of crying over spilt milk, and I suggest that Ministers should not go around the country lamenting about their troubles, and painting the dark picture which they have been painting so far. We should like to hear whether there are any plans to deal with the present situation, to give us increased production, for example, to see that the money which is spent is spent to the best advantage, and that we do not pursue a policy—in some matters it seems to me we have been pursuing it —of slavishly imitating other countries. We have a problem of our own to solve here, and we must solve it in our own way. If we do that, it seems to me that we have many advantages. This Government, for example, has an advantage which no other Government in this State had. It has the advantage of a considerate and helpful and experienced Opposition, which is not taking advantage of its difficulties. We have a small country and a small population, and we have a production which presumably can be increased. In those circumstances, if there were no panic, and if, instead of shifting Ministers around from place to place, we could have some thinking as to what must be done to make the country survive this crisis, then I think we could survive this crisis as we have survived so many others. In the meantime, I think the gospel of despair should not be preached by Ministers or anybody else.

Sir John Keane

Although this country is nominally neutral, I feel it has to bear burdens as heavy as if it were at war. I was very much impressed by the remarks made by Senator Hayes with regard to Ministerial changes in the present crisis. The one I am chiefly concerned about is Finance. It is a difficult problem; it is a realistic problem; it is a problem that cannot be dealt with in terms of generalities like some other Ministerial offices. The Minister who had been trained, and learned his job by hard work, in that office, is transferred to another department, and a Minister who had been noted for activities in other spheres of politics, for daring utterances at certain times, but never as far as I know for any special application to finance, is suddenly placed in charge of that very responsible office. I feel that finance is at the root of this whole war problem. Until we square up to that, it is not a bit of good talking in general terms about our difficulties and our problems. Finance is the basic problem we have to face now. As I think I have said before in this House, finance may be technical, and is technical no doubt in its application, but it is capable of a very simple analogy, that is the analogy of the individual. What is the position of the individual now? He is cutting down his expenses in every way he can, because his income is being reduced and his costs are going up. The two are bound together. By analogy, I feel that the same duty— whether we like it or not—is cast upon the Government.

I feel that it is imperative at the present time that the closest examination should be made of all our expenditure and that any expenditure, however idealistic in the long run it may be, or however desirable in the national interests it may be when times are normal, should be now drastically curtailed. I have no hesitation in saying, unpleasant though it may be, that where we can cut down expenditure on, let us say, the furtherance of the Irish language, we must do without it for the time being. The same applies to expenditure on housing. However undesirable and deplorable it may be to have to cut down expenditure on such purposes, that expenditure, perforce, must be curtailed owing to financial stringency, and I do hope that the Government is going to approach the problem in that spirit— not in the spirit of what we should like to have or should like to do, or in the spirit of the promises we have made to our people, but in the spirit of how much we have to spend and in the spirit that we must live within our means.

Now, that whole problem is conditioned by this question of credit. For years past we have been living to a certain extent on borrowed money. I do not say, perhaps, that it was necessarily wrong to borrow where borrowing was possible, but I think we will find that, as time goes on, borrowing will become more and more difficult. It may be said that Great Britain has to face the same problem, but I feel that the spirit is somewhat different there and I do not feel, somehow, that there will be the same sense of duty among our citizens to lend money for overspending in the case of a neutral country that they would have in lending money to a country that was engaged in a life-and-death struggle, and I think the Government should realise the facts and face them accordingly. The Minister for Lands, speaking, I think, generally for the Minister for Agriculture, made an appeal that those who were in a position to do so should be liberal in their lending for agricultural production. I quite agree, but the whole problem has to be related to facts, such as: where is the money going to come from and who are the people who wish to borrow? There is only a certain amount of money to be lent, and you have to lend that according to the volume of demand and the amount available. There are, generally speaking, two big borrowers in the market. As we see, the Government's finance is now based to a large extent on borrowing and, of course, you have borrowing by the farmers and private people generally, and there is only so much money to go around. If the Government say that they must get money for national purposes, over and above what they get out of the current revenues, then somebody has to go short. Of course, in certain circumstances, the Government must come first and private borrowers must come next. Accordingly, we have to get down our expenditure within our resources, and the Government should examine very closely all items of expenditure and make every effort, in view of the difficulties existing, to get their Budget into line and not to go on expecting the resources that were available in peace times—and then available only with difficulty and only on a very high basis of taxation—to be available in time of war.

It is a very serious matter and an unpleasant matter, but I feel that the question of increased taxation in this connection will have to be faced. It is an unpleasant matter which will bring to the test a lot of these woolly generalities which we have been reading everywhere, to the effect that we must carry on as before and that everybody must have things as they want to have them. Let us take the case of the ordinary individual. He cannot have everything that he wants to have in times such as these, and he will have less as time goes on. I am afraid that the same analogy applies to the State as well as to the individual, and that finance will be the real crux of the year we have to face.

Mr. Douglas

I think it is an extremely useful thing, Sir, that the Dáil and Seanad should be called together periodically and given an opportunity of discussing the various problems arising out of a crisis of this kind. I think it is peculiarly so in view of the nature of the powers which have been given to the Executive—powers given almost, if not entirely, unanimously, and in the belief that it was the only course to adopt and that it was the right thing to do. With such powers, I think it is essential that you should have, at least once a month, meetings of Parliament, with an opportunity of discussion. I recognise that such discussions may have some drawbacks. In some cases, they may create what might appear to be difficulties for Ministers, but I am absolutely convinced that such drawbacks and such difficulties are nothing in comparison with the advantages which accrue from discussion. If you are going to maintain any semblance of the democratic idea, and—which is much more important, to my mind, in a crisis—if the Government are to know what certain sections of the people are thinking and feeling—sections of the people with which the Government do not necessarily come in contact—they can only obtain that knowledge through meetings of Parliament or of some other substitute bodies, which, I do not think, anyone suggests at the present moment.

I have been trying to see if I can make up my own mind as to what is the proper attitude to be adopted at a time of this kind by those who are not political supporters of the Government, or who are commonly called the Opposition, or by individuals in opposition. It used to be said that one of the principles of democracy was that the business of an Opposition was to oppose. Now, it seems to me to be perfectly clear that, in a crisis of this kind, the business of an Opposition is not simply to oppose. Now, what other function can they have? They have also the function of criticism. To my mind, it would seem—and I think it was clearly demonstrated when these wide powers were given to the Government with little or no opposition—that the general feeling of those who are opposed to the present Government, or who were opposed politically in the past, was that they should not oppose the giving of the powers that they thought the Government should have: but it seems to me that wise and healthy criticism is absolutely helpful, and although sometimes such criticism may not be as palatable as Ministers might like, I think they will realise shortly that healthy criticism is of great value and that such discussions will go a long way towards keeping all sections of the people together and, as I think Senator Baxter said, towards keeping all sections of the people pulling together at a time like this.

It must be borne in mind that criticism that comes from an Opposition, or I suppose, to some extent, from ordinary members who might be in opposition, cannot be perhaps, as considered a criticism as it would be if you had full knowledge of all the facts which are available, from day to day, to the Government or to a Minister. While that fact must be recognised, I think, however, that such criticism is, none the less, valuable, partly because the ordinary man in the street also is without knowledge of the facts and because a good deal of the criticism one hears daily, and of the uneasiness on these questions, could not come as readily to Ministers as it would come to Senators and Deputies, whether attached to Parties or unattached, who are known not to be in contact with the Government. For that reason, while recognising that you cannot accept responsibility when you have not the full knowledge, and that we can only form really valuable opinions based on such information as is given to us or as is available to the public, nevertheless, even from such information as is available I hold that it is valuable to criticise. I think, however, that we should be content to make those criticisms and ask questions and then leave them there. Whether the Government see fit to answer these criticisms and questions or not is for them to decide, because they have the knowledge of the facts, but I feel that such criticism should not be resented and that its value should be fully and accurately appraised.

I had hoped it would be possible— and I think I would be one of the last here to advocate any kind of imitation of what takes place elsewhere—for the Taoiseach or some other Minister, at the beginning of a discussion such as this, to make some kind of a considered and reassuring speech—or as reassuring a speech as could possibly be made—for the benefit of the country generally. There are many things which must create difficulty, and, as Senator Sir John Keane has said, possibly increasing difficulty, but there are also a very large number of things for which we have every reason to be thankful, and I think that in many ways we are in a better position than certain other small neutral countries. Even though there may be serious grounds for uneasiness as to some types of supplies, there are others in respect of which there is no ground for uneasiness, and I think the Government cannot too often make considered statements reassuring the public in certain respects, as far as they can possibly do so. I believe the nett effect would be good.

Most of my time is spent in what is commonly called business and the vast majority of the people I meet from day to day have very little interest in politics—some have no Party affiliations, and others are for or against the Government, while not being politicians—and the comments and questions which I get are, I think, tolerably representative, at any rate, of many of the people. In addition to that, however, I have found that people come to my office and ask specially to see me, simply to get my opinion about a particular rumour. I have spent more time in the last month trying to assure business and other acquaintances, who thought, in this case, erroneously, that my opinion was worth anything, that I did not believe anything whatever of the particular rumours they brought to me. I was perhaps wrong—I listened to only part of the debate in the Dáil—but I formed the opinion that the Government did not realise fully the harm which a number of these rumours were doing and there certainly is an amount of uneasiness which I am convinced is not warranted. I recognise that it will not be easy to remedy it, but I think that statements such as those I have suggested would, in time, help to a very considerable extent.

I know that the large number of changes in the Government created what I believe was an entirely false impression, but I know that they created the impression on some people of great differences of opinion and, on others, of a want of confidence between members of the Government. It is pretty obvious that a Government could not carry on if these things were true, but, nevertheless, the ordinary man in the street has got the impression that there was something radically wrong, and I have found it extremely difficult to get out of the minds of the people that there is something radically wrong and that there are strong differences of opinion with the Taoiseach. I am not dealing now simply with idle rumour, but with the sort of thing that responsible people are uneasy about. I know that we had an assurance from the Taoiseach and I think that he should keep on repeating that assurance.

The Taoiseach

Why?

Mr. Douglas

Because one statement which appears once in a newspaper, as most of us who have anything to do with advertising know, reaches only a small number, and in order to get that idea over, it has to be repeated in different forms. I am not now suggesting that it is not believed because it is made once.

There are one or two questions I should like to ask with regard to the censorship because they have been put to me personally. I have been asked if I could find out whether, in the event of a letter being censored, the person to whom it is addressed will receive any indication that the letter had not been allowed to reach him. I think it would be well to know whether that is so, whether the practice is that such a person will be notified that a letter did not reach him, or whether he is simply to guess that it was either censored, or went astray in the post. I have received several questions with regard to foreign newspapers, and only this morning I received a letter from a gentleman who is employed in a very large business in this country, and part of whose duty is to read foreign newspapers. I am not referring to journalism. He writes to me to say that he has received no American newspapers, although in the ordinary way he receives a very large number, since the outbreak of war. He says that he sent a cable to the people who usually send him these papers, and they had assured him that they had all been sent out, and he suggests that it is entirely due to censorship. I am not saying that is so, but I think it would be well if we could have a statement with regard to the position.

There are six different people who have told me that they are not receiving foreign newspapers freely since the outbreak of war. It is quite obvious that so far as papers published in another neutral country, such as the United States, are concerned, the news will have been made public before it came here, that there is every possibility of its having been published, and, therefore, I do not see any reason for its being censored. I am not saying that it has been censored, but the impression abroad is that newspapers will not be allowed to come here from the United States, and I have also had complaints with regard to papers from Switzerland. This gentleman writes a P.S. to the effect that, possibly, he was wrong in saying these papers were censored, because, yesterday afternoon, he received six copies of the Canton Daily Sun from China, which had not been censored. I think there is uneasiness with regard to newspapers, and it would be well in the general public interest if it could be cleared up.

There is one other matter on which I feel rather strongly and on which it might be well to give my views, for what they are worth. There is, I think, a consensus of opinion that what is commonly known as war profiteering should be prevented so far as it is possible to do so. There may be a few individuals who do not accept that point of view—everybody gives it lip-service—but I believe the vast majority of people sincerely accept it. With that in view, a certain line has been taken by the Prices Commission which, I think, is now operated under the Department of Supplies. I, for my part, am quite satisfied that with regard to any action the Prices Commission have taken, they have gone to considerable care to consider the steps they should take, and that they are extremely ready to listen to representations from persons concerned, and anything I may say now is not in any sense a complaint against them because I am impressed by the conscientious way in which they endeavour to deal with an extremely difficult problem. I do not think, however, that the system of standstill orders for a period, and then a notice of a substantial advance sanctioned by them, is the best way to keep prices down. I will give my reasons for that, but I should like to explain that I think there would be an exception in the case of industries where there is virtually a monopoly, where there are only one or two firms. In that case, it is probably wise, if there is any danger of profiteering, to fix prices periodically. It might also be necessary in dealing with foodstuffs which would be perishable and which you may have to change from time to time. What I am referring to is manufactured goods, whether they are imported, as still the majority are, or whether they are manufactured here.

You have in many trades a great deal of competition. If you take what is commonly called the drapery trade, I think the former Minister for Industry and Commerce estimated that there were 10,000 in the whole of Ireland. I do not know how many there are in Dublin, but it must certainly run into thousands. It certainly is not a trade in which there is lack of competition. You had a standstill Order as far as certain types of clothing were concerned. After about three weeks an Order was made by the Minister increasing the price by 25 per cent. maximum. I want to suggest that it would have been very much better in that case if you had no standstill Order and no apparent sanction for a 25 per cent. increase. The 25 per cent. increase, which only applies to manufacturers, has to cover the weakest as well as the strongest, if it is to be fair. It gives virtually Government approval to anyone who asks not more than a 25 per cent. increase.

If you had worked under normal circumstances, what would have happened would have been that people would have averaged what they had made or bought, or received, at the old prewar price, with what, perhaps, they had to pay a small advance for in one week and, perhaps, a somewhat higher advance later. The operation of competition would have forced people to keep the average price as low as possible in case somebody else would come in and beat them. In addition to that, the ordinary consumer is extremely unwilling to pay an advance in one month of anything like 25 per cent. I know that from my own experience. But, now you have, in these particular commodities, virtually Government sanction that up to 25 per cent. might be reasonable. I know that for the moment that does not yet apply to the retail trade. I think, where there is competition, you may easily find that a fixed price, then a wait of one month, and then another fixed price may only lead to a quicker increase—because, as I say, we will have to protect everyone, including the weakest—than if you had the ordinary normal working of the trade. That refers particularly to where there is ample competition from imports which may still be coming in, or where there is competition inside the country. If you have trades depending on imports which are suddenly withdrawn, I think the position would be different. But, I would suggest that it is extremely doubtful, to say the least, whether a system of stand-still Orders, and then waiting until there is a substantial increase, is wise.

Another thing is that you have at the moment in relation to quite a number of articles of wearing apparel a standstill Order. That standstill Order, as far as retailers are concerned, but not as far as certain manufacturers are concerned, is still in force. I do not know how far it has been operated strictly in accordance with the law in the country, but I believe it is being carried out in Dublin, at any rate. During that time retailers have been, so far as practically every import is concerned, paying from 4 to 6, or in some cases, 10 per cent. increase, and they felt it extremely wise to get the goods at as small an increase as that. Where the goods were ordered under contract, British firms, to my knowledge, are keeping their contracts subject to an increase only of the war risks and expenses, which varies from 4 to 6 per cent. In other cases, where there is no contract, the advances paid during the last month or so were 8 or 9 per cent. You keep on forcing the retailer to sell at a reduced profit any of the goods he has got in, if he has put the goods into stock, or he may keep them back until some further Order is made. If you adopt the same procedure, you will have to grant an increase in those general commodities. I could pick out a number of general wearing apparel commodities to which any remarks would not apply, because you could not get them under 25 per cent. increase, but the 25 per cent. is not at all necessary in a very large number of those, at any rate, at present.

The real thing I want to suggest is that you will not keep prices lower by price orders where you have ample competition. You always have, of course, the right of the Prices Commission to examine any particular case that looks like profiteering. That, of course, is a right they have had always. At the moment, it is more in the public interest that the old normal practice of what we may call average should operate. If you have a dozen in stock and get in a dozen at an advanced price, you can take half-way between in making the advance, and you have to make that pro rata according to the stocks. When you have other people in a similar position, that will keep prices lower than the method adopted in some cases.

There is one other matter on which I feel rather strongly, and as to which I should like to throw out some suggestions in the hope that they may meet with some response in some quarters, at any rate. It is perfectly clear, I think, that it is accepted by the Government that to a certain extent it will be impossible to avoid increases of prices. There is every danger that with that there will be some advance, at any rate, in the cost of living. If nothing is done but simply to leave that to the ordinary course of events, you will almost certainly have before very long a crop of labour disputes and probably ensuing strikes. It seems to me that if there is one thing perfectly clear it is that, whether we could or could not afford the luxury of strikes in normal circumstances, we cannot afford, taking the country as a whole, to have a series of strikes in the near future which inevitably will mean loss to the community. I may say that, in many cases, the causes of strikes are due to the employers, just as much as in other cases they may be due to the foolish action of certain trades union leaders. But, I think that it might be possible for a number of the leading employers to reach some kind of understanding with leading trade unionists which would call a truce, as far as matters in dispute up to the present, at any rate, are concerned, for a year. To do that, the employers would have to recommend that, so far as lower-paid labour is concerned, at any rate, if the cost of living substantially increased there would have to be certain increases. Labour, on their side, would have to be prepared, I think, to agree that other matters, such as conditions of labour and various other things in dispute, would be practically impossible to settle as far as industry is concerned, if industry is in a peculiar difficulty; and, also, that neither employers nor labour, either singly or combined, had any right to interfere so as to increase prices more than was absolutely necessary. It would be desirable that, in some way or other, a conference of leading employers and of labour leaders should be called together before this occurs, knowing, as I think we must know, that it is almost certain to occur if prices go on increasing and if you have a substantial increase in the cost of living.

I think it was in concluding the debate in the Dáil that the Taoiseach suggested that he would like to see co-operation all over the country and that he would like to see parish committees. I believe you can get cooperation in many ways at present much more readily than 12 months before and possibly even more readily than 12 months later. I think that an effort should be made, but it will not be simply a matter of being done by the Government sitting in Dublin. They will have to take steps to make it clear that they will welcome generally suggestions even from the parish committees, such as the Taoiseach suggested, and that they would like consideration of the local conditions, or, in the case of what I have suggested, that they would like to see whether joint suggestions could not be made by certain leading employers and trade unionists which would find a way, at any rate for 12 months, of putting aside matters which would lead to strikes and a method of adjusting disputes, which may occur, without strikes.

Mr. Counihan

The subject which I want to refer to, agriculture, has been already very effectively dealt with by Senator Johnston and Senator Baxter. With the statements made by those Senators I thoroughly agree. There was one statement made by Senator Johnston to the effect that the Government should see that something was done to prevent British farmers from getting a subsidy on their fat cattle. I think it would be a disastrous thing for the Government to interfere in any way with what the British Government desire to do for their farmers. As regards the subsidy granted for fat cattle in England, we are getting a certain portion of it. I feel it does not matter whether we sell our cattle as fat or stores so long as we can get a good price. I submit that it is a matter of indifference to us what they do on the other side with their own farmers.

Probably Senator Johnston, when putting forward that suggestion, had in mind that we could not produce fat cattle in this country against the British subsidy, that we could not stall-feed, that it would be a great loss to the country and would have an effect on employment. He thought that by having us all-square with the British farmer in the matter of production, we would possibly be able to compete, to stall-feed and give more employment. A motion was passed by the Seanad some months ago requesting the Minister for Agriculture to give a subsidy on stall-fed cattle. I think that would meet what Senator Johnston has in mind; it would mean considerable employment and would give every opportunity for stall-feeding.

I would like to deal with the general aspect of agriculture. Every farmer is anxious to do all he possibly can to assist in the present emergency. I can assure the Taoiseach that the farmers are behind the Government and we will give them every support in our power in their efforts to preserve law and order and to increase production and employment. To do that we require some assistance. If the farmer is to produce to his full capacity he must get some relief in the way of credit or working capital.

Since the war started the banks have become more stringent in regard to advances to farmers. To my mind, this stringency is not attributable to any particular bank and I think it is the policy decided upon by the Banks Standing Committee. They are restricting credits to farmers. I think they are anxious enough to give credit, but they are waiting to see what the Government will do in the way of guaranteeing loans to farmers. I think this matter should be tackled immediately if we are to get into production.

Some months ago I proposed a motion in the Seanad which, if put into operation, would give sufficient credit to farmers without any loss. It was a proposal that the banks would accept. There was an amendment proposed by Senator Johnston to the effect that the Government should call a conference representative of the banks, the Government, and the farmers, to devise some means of giving credit to farmers. I earnestly suggest to the Taoiseach that something along the lines of the amendment should be adopted now, as otherwise the farmers will find themselves in a sorry plight no matter how anxious they are to help the Government and improve their own conditions.

The Minister for Agriculture has promised to set up a consultative committee to discuss the orders that he intends to make with regard to agriculture. I think it was suggested that that consultative committee should be selected from county committees of agriculture. I would prefer if the Minister for Agriculture nominated the consultative committee. If he nominates practical men to serve on that committee they can be relied upon to do useful work, and they will be able to give him very valuable advice; but if you rely on the county committees of agriculture to select men, you will get a very mixed selection, probably persons who will be thinking on political lines. We have no fault to find with the personnel of the commissions which the Governments in this country have set up, and in this case I think the country would be well satisfied to leave the selection of the consultative committee in the hands of the Minister for Agriculture.

Another matter which I would like to mention is the war risk insurance on our exported live stock. There is still in operation a scheme of insurance for cattle damaged in transit or that might be taken on the other side and slaughtered because of the foot and mouth disease. That scheme comes under the Slaughter of Animals (Compensation) Act. I requested the Minister to put into operation some scheme in connection with which there could be a universal charge on cattle exported to England, working on a percentage basis. We would then have war risk insurance at a very small rate. A small levy on cattle under the provisions of the Slaughter of Animals (Compensation) Act amounted in a few years to £40,000. That amount was collected at practically no expense and the fund was very efficiently administered. It has been suspended for two or three years, but yet there is a sum of £40,000 in order to meet any contingency that may arise. Insurance along those lines would save the exporters a lot of money, and instead of paying 5/- per head, which would be the marine and war risk insurance rate, for exported cattle, we could get it at 2/- or 2/6 and we would be able to build up a very considerable reserve which would meet any contingency. I ask the Taoiseach to mention that matter also to the Minister for Agriculture.

Farmers are very dissatisfied with the proposed control of our cattle by the British, but as the matter is under consultation by the Minister and his experts with a view to devising some better scheme I do not want to discuss it further now. I should like to say that the control of prices which has been fixed on those prevailing the week before the war started is very unjust. Farmers will produce all they can, and will help in every way, but they want to get paid for their trouble, and want to get some capital to carry on. If they do that, I do not think the Government or anyone else will have any fault to find with the way they are meeting the situation. With regard to the second motion on the Order Paper, we have listened to many outlandish statements from Senator McGinley.

Mr. McEllin

What is the motion before the House?

Leas-Chathaoirleach

The motion for the adjournment.

Mr. Counihan

I am sure Senator McGinley did not realise what would be the result, if the motion were accepted or put into operation by the Government. It is a pity that the Senator, who claims to represent the Gaelic League in this House, should be such an extreme advocate of such un-Irish un-Christian and Bolshevic proposals. He can never stand up to speak but he advocates compulsion, expulsion and confiscation. An amending Land Act was recently passed, and statements made during the course of the discussion on it, by the then Minister for Lands, were very reassuring to farmers. They gave owners new hope and confidence in the future security of their land, but when we hear the old cry of "divide up the land", as put forward by Senator McGinley to-day, it has a very disquieting effect on farmers, particularly when it is advocated by a Senator sitting on the Front Bench of the Government Party. That causes insecurity amongst owners of land, and causes unrest amongst landless men and people looking for land. As most of the other suggestions that I had in mind have been dealt with, I will not detain the House longer.

Mr. MacDermot

I should like to say a word about the suggestion made by Senator Douglas, that the Government should make periodically speeches of reassurance for the benefit of the country. The first question that occurs to me is, whether the country really needs reassurance more than it needs some other emotions. I do not know whether, in certain respects, there is not still too much complacency in this country about the difficulties we have to face, and whether the people do not need rather to be shocked than to be reassured. In the second place, it does seem to me that the appeals to the Government to get busy with the job of reassurance are necessarily in the nature of spurring a willing horse. All Governments are tremendous hands at reassurance. It is the badge of their tribe. If democratic Governments had not been so reassuring in France and England for the past ten years we might not be in the midst of this horrible war now.

What I do think we need from the Government, and what I plead for, is bursts of periodic candour. We are waging a war of our own. We are neutral in the great war that is devastating Europe, but we are waging an economic war of our own which is more truly an economic war than that which was so described a couple of years ago. We are waging an economic war against catastrophic circumstances, and the country needs to feel that its Government has a grip on the situation. The country needs to feel that the men in the various Ministries struggling with these problems are keeping their minds active to all the circumstances as they arise, that they are thinking at the fullest pace of which they are capable, and that the Government is forming plans and not merely drifting with regard to the great problems to be faced. The chief problems for us for some time to come are three which are closely inter-related—finance, employment, and supply. I think the oftener the Ministers concerned with these Departments, or the Taoiseach for the Government as a whole, give the country a clear statement as to how matters are developing, and how difficulties are being handled, the better it will be for all of us, and the more it will tend to keep the Government itself up to the mark.

While I mention that, I should like also to refer to what Senator Hayes was saying a short time ago about the advantage that the Government derived from having a set of competent and experienced men on the Opposition Front Benches in the Seanad and in the Dáil. No doubt there is a great advantage in that, but there might be an even greater advantage to the country if those competent and experienced men, who are separated from the Government by no distinction of policy that anyone is able to see, were to join forces with the Government and supply them with extra man power to enable the country to make the best fight possible against the tremendous difficulties of the time. In other words, I hope that neither the Government nor the Opposition will turn their minds resolutely away from the possibility of merging, so far as to form a National Government, as the difficulties of our situation increase and demand the greatest amount of experience, brain-power and energy that the Oireachtas can supply.

The only other observation I wish to make is on the subject of the interpretation sometimes put upon our neutrality. I do not think that we ought to regard the policy of neutrality as involving the obliteration, if not from our minds, at least from our speeches and our newspapers, of all sense of moral values. I do not believe we should bring ourselves to believe that strict neutrality obliges us to tolerate cruelty and intolerance.

I was rather startled that the Taoiseach, in his speech in the Dáil, referred to the protests made by certain foreign Powers because the heads of their States had been attacked in the Press here even in peace time, in the tone of one who considered that such protests were not unreasonable. I think that such protests are utterly unreasonable, and that in a country which is democratic and where there is freedom of expression, we are entitled to say what we like within the bounds of good taste, of decency and morals about the heads of foreign States and foreign governments. And Heaven knows that the heads of the totalitarian States themselves have not been slow to say the most violent and insulting things about personalities in other States, and not only about personalities in other States but about whole classes of human beings, so that these people are not entitled to claim any particular exemption. Therefore, I do plead for the censorship being as liberal as the Government can bring themselves to in the matter of allowing freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of thought to continue in this country to enable us to keep alive a proper sense of international morality. We must not for the sake of neutrality throw morality to the winds, and by degrees debase our own minds and our own outlook.

One other thing I have to say about this policy of neutrality, this policy in which we all acquiesce. Some people like it more than others, but in the circumstances it was the only practicable policy for this country. I do urge that we ought not to take a tone of moral superiority on the strength of it. There is nothing in it which should lead us to put ourselves on a plane above other people. It so happens that we conceive ourselves not called upon to fight for the things for which other people are fighting, things which by good luck or good management, or geographical position, we are not forced to defend. But how any Irishman can turn up his nose in a superior manner with regard to Poland when she has been making a fight for her liberty is a thing I cannot understand. Poland was attacked——

Mr. Madden

And we were attacked during 750 years.

Mr. MacDermot

When I see reports of speeches or sermons which talk about this war as a punishment for the godlessness of the world, I must confess that I find such expressions nauseating if not almost blasphemous. When we consider that the first nation to be destroyed by Germany and Russia, and the first victim of this war, is one of the most religious nations on the face of the earth, I must say that I find the suggestion irritating that we have been excused from these things because of our fidelity to religion, whereas others have been punished for their godlessness.

Mr. McEllin

Where was that suggested?

Mr. MacDermot

If it was not suggested, so much the better. At all events, so I read certain allocutions that had been made. Nobody in this room loathes and hates war more than I do. Nobody is more keenly sensible than I am of the horrible evils that flow from war. What I am pleading for is that, if we are neutral here, we should not allow ourselves, on the strength of our neutrality, to look down upon other nations that are not so lucky as we are.

Mr. Crosbie

If I may be permitted to intervene at the heel-end of Senator MacDermot's speech, in which he mentioned the censorship, I would like to say just a few words on it. I would like the Taoiseach to understand at the outset that any remarks, any criticisms that I have to offer are very sincerely meant to be helpful and not to be purely destructive. There is, apparently, no doubt whatever in my mind that the majority of the people in this country, on both sides of this House, on both sides of the other House, have endorsed the policy of neutrality as far as it is possible. But we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that although we are neutral we are within the theatre of war and that, as a result of that, certain rules and regulations have become necessary. One of these has been the censorship of the Press. To my mind, that is quite right and quite just and, speaking primarily as a journalist and, secondly, as one who is responsible for the production of a newspaper, I must accept that situation philosophically.

But, however, I can criticise the method of that censorship. So far, I must admit that while it has made, in my personal opinion, many mistakes it has been fair and it has been just. But to my mind it has fallen down on one thing and on one thing alone. It has been too rigid in the matter of the internal economy of this country. As a result of that there have been the most extraordinary rumours. I think the Taoiseach himself, in the other Chamber referred to these. He referred to them in rather a jocose manner. That is perfectly right. Some of these rumours were so fantastic that they were jocose. On the other hand, I am quite convinced that these rumours, such as the Taoiseach's regrettable decease and the imprisonment of the ex-Minister for Defence, were undoubtedly started by people with whom, to put it mildly, the wish was father to the thought.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Question.

Mr. Crosbie

I think these rumours should have been denied at the time. However, they are of very little importance. But what is of importance is this, that the Government are running what is called an Information Bureau, which is supposed to give out news and publicity to the newspapers as to what is being done and what is not being done. Now, to my mind, the Government are not taking the public sufficiently into their confidence and, as a result of this, much more serious rumours are current than the ridiculous rumours about the imprisonment of the Minister for Defence. They are rumours which affect nearly everybody, and which affect our national economy—rumours that there is a shortage of sugar, that there is a shortage of wheat, and so forth. I think the Taoiseach will agree with me when I say that the people of this country do not easily become panicky. It would be far better Government policy to tell the people the truth, than to mislead them; and I would suggest that the fullest use be made of the Information Bureau to put our economic and political standing before the people, and not to give them half truths.

The Taoiseach

For example? The Deputy is talking generalities and I would like him to give some examples.

Mr. Crosbie

For example, the Minister for Supplies made a statement that there was a two years' supply of wheat in the country. That was an obvious misstatement and an exaggerated misstatement. It would have been far better to tell the public quite frankly that there is an adequate supply of wheat in the country—which there is— and that every reasonable precaution is being taken to secure further supplies. That is just one example. The other example, if I may draw attention to it, is the question of petrol. I speak subject to contradiction by the Taoiseach. My reading between the lines of the petrol rationing scheme is that the Government have very wisely decided that they do not wish people to spend their money outside this country on unnecessary commodities, that there would be no difficulty in securing sufficient supplies of petrol for commercial purposes, but they do not want the people to export money and use the petrol thus purchased for the purpose of joy-riding.

Mr. Quirke

To prevent the spread of further rumours I would ask the Senator to give the time and place where the Minister for Supplies made the statement that he is accused of in connection with a two years' supply of wheat in the country.

Mr. Crosbie

I presume that the Senator has as much opportunity for hearing what the Minister for Supplies says as has anybody else.

Mr. Quirke

The Senator reads the papers as much as Senator Crosbie does and has not read it, nor has he ever heard anybody else mention such a statement.

Mr. Crosbie

I did not say that it was in the papers.

Mr. Quirke

I think that is how rumours are started—through people making ridiculous and irresponsible statements.

Mr. Crosbie

I am sorry I happened to annoy the Senator. I prefaced my remarks by asking that anything I say should be taken in the spirit in which it is meant. It is not intended to embarrass the Government, for in any criticism of the Government I would be the last person, in this hour of crisis, to stand up here or on a public platform or in another assembly and definitely and deliberately try to embarrass the Government. If Senator Quirke misreads my intentions——

Mr. Quirke

It is not a question of misreading: it is a question of a definite statement and I merely ask for a quotation. If the Minister were here he would put the Senator in his place.

Cathaoirleach

We can now pass away from that matter.

Mr. Crosbie

In the profession which I follow, one very often gets information which is always secret and which is not divulged, on fear of imprisonment.

Mr. Quirke

An excellent way out.

Mr. Crosbie

This is obviously just one of those asides to try to divert me from what I consider the rather reasonable lines I am taking in this House.

Mr. Quirke

A retreat in good order.

Mr. Crosbie

As regards petrol supplies, I am not criticising: I am merely making a suggestion. If I have read the situation correctly, the reason for the curtailment of petrol, a very sensible one, is to endeavour to stop the export of money from this country for a commodity that in a crisis we only require for commercial purposes, to stop people wasting money. In my humble opinion the Minister for Supplies ought to make use of the Information Bureau to tell the public that. He should make no quibble about it, but say that he definitely wants to see joy-riding end and the luxury car off the road, that we cannot afford to waste our money in buying dollars to obtain petrol for luxury purposes, but that there will be an adequate supply of petrol for commercial purposes and for keeping in employment men whose livelihood depends on it. Beyond that I have very little to say. The people of Ireland are not going to become panicky and I think it is rather unworthy of the Government to treat them as children. The business of each Minister, of each head of a Department, is, by means of the Information Bureau, to tell the people openly and frankly what the situation is. I do not believe that it is at all as dark as has been painted, but when the facts are cloaked and shrouded rumours start. That, to my mind, is the proper action which the Government ought to take.

Mr. Foran

Up to now we have been listening to discussions in which, to my mind, Senators do not realise or touch upon the issues which confront this country. What I have to say is generally in keeping with the atmosphere in this and the other House: I want to be helpful to the Government; in fact, so far as I can see, everybody here wants to be helpful to the Government. Some of the greatest critics of the Government say: "We do not envy them their job." It is not entirely their job, it is a job for every thinking man and woman in this country, to organise our resources and distribute them fairly amongst the people. At the present time our unemployment figure is in the neighbourhood of 150,000, and that figure is growing, and, so far as anyone can see, it will continue growing. One of the Senators told us earlier about a friend of his who wrought a miracle with a secondhand Ford motor car. Listening to a number of Senators here, I think a miracle would be needed if we started catering for the 150,000 unemployed by talking about them, and that is what he is doing. We have got to realise that our position here is extremely serious. If we are to exist at all, belts will have to be tightened in this country. The working people have been tightening their belts all the time, and there is not much room left in their belts for further tightening. The people at the top will have to do a bit of tightening from now on, or there will be dire consequences so far as the future of this country is concerned. I do not say that in any alarmist manner, but you do not want a lot of imagination to realise that when you have 150,000 workless people they are not going calmly to look on while other people are gorging and living in luxury. That is a matter of which very serious notice must be taken, and I suggest that no Party Government can deal with the matter if it gets any worse than it is now. The Government Party are a very strong Party but, in order to remedy that state of affairs, they will have to take very drastic action with certain groups in this country. It was suggested earlier that the people employed at present on road work might be transferred to agricultural production at the munificent wage of 27/- a week. You can imagine an ordinary town dweller, thrown out of employment in the building trade, or some other industry, trying to keep his family on 27/- a week—with what pleasure he will regard that wage, and what his hopes for the future will be. Everybody must realise that, when this conflagration ends, the present system of economy will be radically altered.

We cannot go back to the old system or to the standards that were, more or less, tottering before the war. Now is the time when we ought to get down and plan the future of the country. No doubt certain interests will resent any changes but, if these changes are not brought about in a peaceful manner, they will be brought about anyhow. We must all realise that and I hope I do not disturb some of the very complacent people in this House and the country generally by saying that. They have got to face up to realities. The position is bad and may easily become worse. We are told by one of the combatants in this war that they are planning a three years' war. We see the reaction of the war on this country after a month. The number of our unemployed is augmented by upwards of 20,000. Consider what our plight will be if the war goes on for three years. As I have said, a number of people have sympathy with the Government in the awkward position in which they are at the present time but they fail to realise that it is a duty on every one of us to co-operate with and do everything we can to assist the Government in this crisis.

It is my own opinion—I am not committing my Party to it—that we are not far off the day when we must have a national Government. The steps which will be required to meet the situation cannot, in my opinion, be undertaken by any Party Government. We have a strong Party Government here at present but I believe that, in order to meet the situation, very drastic action will have to be taken. As other countries have slogans, so, I think, our slogan ought to be aimed at encouraging people to "produce for use, not for profit". Already, we have the profiteers and the scaremongers and the hoarders—enemies of the country. These people ought to be outlawed and treated as criminals to make them realise the position—if there is no other way of doing it. The other day, when the scare got about that there was a scarcity of sugar, we saw how people who have money and who always enjoyed comfort, with plenty to eat and drink, instead of thinking about the other fellow, went about and collected all the sugar they could, filled their cellars and every other place they could, with the result that they created an artificial shortage. There is really no shortage. The same thing happened in the case of petrol and, if there is a rumour to-morrow about the shortage of wheat or flour, the same thing will go on and the common people will be denied their ordinary every-day meal by the hoarders.

I am saying these things advisedly because I believe that the complacency spoken of by Senator MacDermot ought to be shaken up and that the people generally ought to be made realise what the position really is, so that we may face up to it. I do not want to criticise the Government in any way. They may have made mistakes and they may go on making them. Even if we had a national Government, they might still makes mistakes but all these mistakes would be made in the best interests of the country. My main reason in rising to speak was to call the attention of the House to the fact that there is a terrific number of unemployed in the country and that the number is likely to increase as time goes on.

That is an important fact and should be realised. The problem cannot be settled, in my opinion, by the ordinary economy of this country. Other steps will have to be taken. If they are not planned, they will be otherwise. These are my views and I sincerely hope that the Government will take due notice of the suffering and needs of the unemployed and make provision accordingly. If they want help in doing that from the organised Labour movement it is at their disposal, and it will be willingly and gratuitously given.

Mr. Fitzgerald

I think more than one Senator has said how desirable and useful it is that we should have these periodical meetings of the Dáil and the Seanad. I do not like these general statements. A meeting of the Dáil or the Seanad may be good or may be bad. Personally, I do not think that the meeting of the Dáil last week or of the Seanad to-day so far has been of much use. The whole order seems to me to be wrong. The Order Paper runs to five pages, and more than one half of it is devoted to a series of what are called Emergency Powers. That means to say, that we gave special powers to the Government and that here we just have the names of various laws that the Government has passed without putting them before the Dáil or the Seanad. Each one of these really amounts to a legislative Act. The Seanad met to-day and we had this adjournment debate, and individual Senators got up to talk about the situation generally. It might be easily said, at the end, that there has been a carping, petty criticism, because each man can only speak of certain facts, or what he thinks are facts, that have come to his notice. It seems to me that, if this meeting is going to serve any purpose, it should serve the purpose of giving those who are responsible for the control and the ordering of this State and the direction of its course during this period an opportunity of expounding what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how it is necessary and is directed to the good of this country. Instead of that, each Senator talks about various things that have come to his notice and at the end some sort of reply is given.

I do not think that the meeting of the Dáil last week served any useful purpose, because a great number of the replies were completely unsatisfactory and others were completely unconvincing. I am quite conscious of one's duty to the Government in this matter, but it did seem to me that there was an attempt made to make a case for the past policy of the Government, instead of facing up to facts. Last week in the Dáil there were questions about the A.R.P. arrangements here. I myself have a certain amount of experience in censorship, but if anybody asked me to take over the control of censorship at a week's notice and to guarantee that within the first month or two months there would not be certain ineptitudes occurring in it, I would say that that was impossible. I would say the same in the case of the control of A.R.P. Last week there were questions about it, and a Parliamentary Secretary explained that there was no Order about it whatever. It was pointed out, as I knew myself, that in the town of Boyle, if there was a gleam of light out of any window, the police came and interfered with the people. We knew that was happening all over the country. We knew that Orders had gone out, and I think I can say that instructions went to local government bodies or to people acting under the Local Government Department from the A.R.P. Parliamentary Secretary's office. The Parliamentary Secretary, with regard to the police, said that that had nothing whatever to do with him, that it was a matter for the Ministry for Justice. With regard to Local Government, he said that it was a matter for the Ministry of Local Government. Was that a satisfactory statement to make to the people here? One can sympathise— especially if one has had experience— with any little mistake that might be made in a new control like that, but when it is announced at a meeting of the Dáil that there is a Parliamentary Secretary working on his own, a Minister for Justice, who ignores his existence altogether, working on his own, and a Minister for Local Government, who ignores the existence of the other two, that meeting is more likely to do harm in the country than good.

Then, I think, last week, in the Dáil, instead of trying to say something which would convince the people that the people had a duty to the State and to the Government during this special period, one Minister began the old story about the policy of self-sufficiency, about which the Government Party talked more before they came into office than when they did.

I think they believed it was a possible thing before they had experience of government. The Minister talked about that as a great triumph. If that were so, if the Government had put into effect a policy of self-sufficiency, and if it were a fact that the great development of industries in this country made us self-sufficient then, personally, I do not see that the awful situation—I think "awful" was the word Senator Foran used—that the Government has to face would be so very awful.

We are a non-belligerent. The word neutral does not mean anything. You are neutral if the other fellow pretends you are neutral. The real test of your neutrality is whether you are a belligerent or a non-belligerent. We are a non-belligerent because one cannot fight a man when he is not there to fight and, thank God, the enemy is not here. If the statement made in the Dáil last week about this marvellous triumph of the self-sufficiency policy is accurate, what is the position here in the economic sphere? As far as the war situation is concerned, if it means anything, it means that there will be a greater demand for our agricultural products, and it is practically inevitable that the prices paid for agricultural produce will increase during the course of the war. So, strictly speaking, there should be no economic difficulty here whatsoever. On the other hand, there are these marvellous industries which have been built up throughout the country, making us self-sufficient in the industrial sphere, so that we are all right there. The manufacturers here manufacturing only for home requirements, because none of them has been able to manufacture for export, the value of agricultural produce increasing, and the quantity of it, presumably, increasing, that being exported and fetching higher prices, the prospects ought to be quite rosy. What we know to be the case is that whereas before a given industry was created, that particular commodity was imported, and when difficulty of supplies was in question the individual consumer had to go without that commodity or he had difficulty in obtaining it. I do not want to put the thing too much in caricature, although I may stress it in order to bring it out in a higher light, but the present situation, as far as I can see it, is that when there is difficulty in supply now, not only is the immediate consuming public affected but, as Senator Foran said, you are immediately faced with a problem of unemployment. A number of people were employed in this country—not so many working on raw material brought from abroad—most of them were merely putting completing touches on already partly manufactured stuff. I cannot see how our position has been bettered by the change from a situation, in which goods required could only be got by being imported, to the present position, in which the difficulty of getting supplies means that the consumer suffers and an intermediate body of partial manufacturers also suffer. I cannot see the great improvement that that is on the previous system, which made no difference between employment and unemployment.

I do think that we have a very grave problem here arising out of the war situation in Europe. If you like, I am being a partisan, but I do not want to stress it too much, but I do think that that difficulty is likely to be particularly acute because for a great number of years before the present war began this country was living each year not only on its annual production but on the accumulated savings that had been amassed before that. We know it in the case of hundreds of farmers. We know it in the case of hundreds of other people. It was a natural thing. I have to take casual examples, which are not necessarily exact, but take the case of men working on the land in 1928, 1929, or 1931, or any year you like. During the last seven years, taking them on the whole, their earnings decreased. There were enormous tariffs. The farmer was just barely maintaining his farm. Senator Foran has suggested that it would be asking too much of men working on relief works to expect them to accept the conditions of men working on the land although the one body of men are really subsisting on a form of charity and the other are subsisting out of the labour of their hands. You had the position of men who were working and who were living inadequately on their earnings when things cost a certain price, but if a tariff were put on a necessary article, if, for example, they had to pay 8/- for boots which originally cost 5/-, or if they had to pay a higher price for any necessary article when their income remained the same, it meant either that they had certain savings that they used or that in other matters they had to do without or that they got into debt.

Now, we are a predominantly agricultural country and an agricultural country is a country of capitalists, if you like. In an industrial city, such as Birmingham or Manchester, you may go along a little street and note any of these little houses into which each week, between the earnings of father, mother, sons and daughters, there comes anything between £10 and £12 a week. You go and look at their capital assets and you see a table, a bed, a chair and a few other things. Twelve pounds a week is coming into that house and their capital assets are about £5. On a small farm in Ireland, you may find, if you go to cost it out, that the actual income is 30/- a week and the capital assets are about £400. When the income of 30/- stops in that case, the man can go on spending the accumulated savings of himself and his father before him, whereas when the man who was in industrial employment and the income of whose household was £12 per week, is put out of work, all his assets in this world are value only for about £5.

This country during the period of which I speak was eminently in the position in which it lived on its accumulated savings, and the spending of these accumulated savings, the capital of the farmer and a necessary element for production, was injuring his capacity for production later on. We are entering on a condition of war now and, I think, without being unduly severe on the Government, on a situation in which—I am not saying that it is entirely due to Government policy; there were certain conditions due to world prices and other factors but I do not think Government policy tended to alleviate the situation—you have a depleted capital, and capital is a necessary element in production, just at a time when the country is facing difficulties and when our one hope, more than ever now, is the fruits of agriculture.

Any time I have spoken in this House I have been anxious to avoid anything that was likely to make conditions difficult for the country. Senator Foran spoke just now about the necessity for drastic action and suggested that there should be a National Government. I do not agree with him. Whenever I have felt that the Government was proposing something which was likely to meet with adverse criticism from certain people in the country, when I was convinced that such action was directed to and was necessary for, the well-being of the country, knowing that it might be unfair to the Government that they should have that weapon used against them, I have myself got up in this House and very carefully associated myself with the Government's proposals so that if there was going to be any adverse criticism applied to the Government, when the Government was doing what I thought was the right thing, that would equally apply to me and to those associated with me. When you talk about the need for a National Government—every Government should be national—I am reminded of a cheap journalistic ramp. The moment you have a crisis everybody says there should be a National Government. The implication behind it is that each member of the Oireachtas belongs to a Party and that, automatically, he sees, in a jaundiced way, every proposal by reason of his being a member of that Party.

There was reference to the fact that the business of an Opposition is to oppose. It is nothing of the sort. An Opposition would be a disgraceful Opposition if it were to oppose Government measures which it thought were good or necessary for the country. In our opposition, in discussing any particular action, we are always bound to be just, but we can differ in particular matters as to what we think is demanded by justice. It is only human nature that we should differ in our judgments on certain matters, but we should be quite unjustified in differing for the mere sake of differing. Speaking for myself and a good many of my colleagues now present, we are anxious to do nothing whatever that would be in any way harmful to the Government in its works of governing this country. The Government is bound to be a National Government even though all its members happen to belong to the Fianna Fáil Party. We, as the Opposition, are bound to give the Government any assistance that we can give it in its work of providing for the welfare of the people of this country, but it does not follow that we are bound to say "Yes" when we know that the right word would be "No" or that we are bound to say "No" when the right word is "Yes". Therefore the argument about a National Government has no force. There is a National Government in power now, we hope, and in everything that in the Opposition's judgment appears to be right and good for the country, the Opposition is going to support the Government. But the Opposition, just as members of the Fianna Fáil Party, are men of some honour and some integrity, and if we do not agree with the Government on certain matters we reserve the right to say so. We are not going to say something which would have our lips belie out innermost thoughts.

I do think that in special circumstances there should be consultation. There has been some, I think, but not a great deal. I do think, for instance, when the Government is going to take certain action—it may be that there is an explanation for it which it would not be in the public interests to disclose generally—the Government should seek a private way of notifying that to leaders of opinion in this country, particularly to members of the two Houses. I can see certain dangers in the position with which we are confronted. I have not been able to see the reasons for the enormous expansion in the Army and the expenditure on the Army during this period.

It would be asking something which would be degrading to me as a man to ask me to get up and say: "Yes, that is all right". I am not going to say that because I do not believe it, although I assume the Government might be able to make a case that would convince me. On the data available to me, however, I cannot say any such thing. I do think we are faced with a situation in which our great trouble is going to be economic. Senator Sir John Keane called it financial, but that is the wrong word to use in connection with economic trouble. Money is nothing unless it has reality behind it, that is, the fruits of the production of the people of the country.

I do think we have a very grave problem before us because of the glowing promises of self-support that simply were not—I am not blaming the Government—capable of fulfilment in the modern world. We are dependent on outside factors. We are eminently dependent on England. I do think that one of the most important things that would be most eminently necessary to maintain will be, if I may use a word which so many of us detest, free trade between ourselves and England. The freer it is the better, and the one difficulty the Government is facing, the real difficulty, is that there will not be that easy flow of goods from England to us which we need, and that easy flow of goods to England from us which they need and which we want them to pay for.

The Government makes a case for the censorship, but they should see that the machine is run efficiently so that it would cause the least possible inconvenience to the people. I do not think it has done so but one cannot be too critical about it in the first month or two. I think one of the greatest troubles of the Government is going to be the need for economy. When Senator Sir John Keane talks about money and finance, one would think that the only money that came into the matter was the money spent by the Government. What really does matter is the money spent by way of consumption on the part of the whole people of this country, and in that way the consumption of all those millions that the Government ask for.

I do feel that the Government have now got to disregard anything that was said or done in the past, and to face up to the situation exactly as it is. My own judgment is that there is going to be a vital need for tremendous economies. I regret that the cost of the Army has been extended. I have pointed out already that in 1931, when I handed over, the cost of the Army was about £1,100,000. Before this crisis began, before the first premonitory symptoms of it appeared here, the cost of the Army, as compared with the 1931-32 period, had increased already.

Then before the war began, when the English people, like ourselves, began living on their accumulated capital, we increased the Vote for the Army again. Now we have called up the reservists. I frankly cannot see what their function is. I can see that there may be a great need for police work in this country. We have had a new addition to it. I do not see the need for that. I think that we are not getting value out of the police force that we have. We have in this country a very large police force, and I think it is not a competent force. It has not done its job properly. There is one way of improving it, and that is by spending more money by bringing more men into it. Another way would be to insist that the existing body did its job. I think it is time that somebody got up in this country and said that the large police force we have has not done its job properly. I think the proper thing for the Government in the present situation would be to see to it that the police force did its job or else got out, instead of adopting this other method of creating this new body or an additional wing to it.

I am sorry if what I have said has appeared critical of the Government, because I do not think anybody is more conscious than I am of one's duty at this moment: not to say anything that might be harmful at a time when it would be better to keep one's mouth shut. I am ready to accept assurances given by the Government. If their statement is that a certain act is necessary for reasons that they are not able to divulge publicly, then I am quite ready to accept that. I think, as I have said, that the Government have a big problem before them. Speaking on behalf of the Opposition Party to which I belong, I can say that in every case in which the Government make a case which satisfies our minds that certain action is necessary for the welfare of the country, then they can rest assured that they will get the fullest cohesion from us. It is not necessary, as Senator MacDermot and Senator Foran seemed to think, that somehow or other the Government should take us into the Government and make us officers of it, and that suddenly we would say "Yes" when otherwise we would say "No". If we were in the Government it would be equally our duty to say "No" when we were satisfied that "No" was the right answer to give. This talk about a National Government is completely based upon the assumption that any Government in this country is going to be directed towards the Party welfare instead of the national welfare. As everyone knows, I have never held a very high opinion of the present Government, but while that is so, I am only going to condemn them on the facts that have already happened. I do not think you would achieve anything by having a National Government. One of those shibboleths that seems to sound fine is "Why not have a National Government?" Every Government ought to be national, and every Opposition Party ought to be strong enough to do the right and the just thing.

I think the Order that we have followed with regard to this meeting has been quite wrong. We have here on the Order Paper an enormous list of laws that have been passed independent of any meeting of the Oireachtas. In my opinion, if these meetings are to serve any purpose the natural order would be for somebody speaking on behalf of the Government, the body actually responsible for the control of the State and for the laws that are being made at this moment, to give reasons for all this legislation and some indication of what may be necessary in the future: to give such information as may be necessary to the people of the country instead of asking individual Senators to get up and tell of bits of gossip that they have heard. The basic thing to-day should have been a statement on behalf of the Government. Instead, we have had speeches from Senators, some of the querying nature and others casting some doubt on the validity of something said or on the conclusions reached by the Taoiseach. But we are all of us in the dark. We know nothing, and yet we get up and speak out of the depths of that darkness. In the end the Taoiseach will get up and, having the last word, he can get in a little about the defences of Party policy as well as of national policy, and after that our tongues are tied until we meet together again. I would have wished that the Order had been different to-day, because I think in that case the day would have been much better spent.

Professor Tierney

There is no one more sensitive than I to the truth of what Senator Fitzgerald has said about the necessity for keeping your mouth shut sometimes. I often feel that these meetings of the two Houses of the Oireachtas, with the long, rather vague debates that they give rise to, are capable of doing more harm than good. Still, we are members of the Parliament of this country and it is our duty to do anything that is calculated to be for the general good, especially in a dangerous crisis like the present. I had hoped to be in a position to congratulate the Seanad on having reached a certain amount of unanimity on at least one point, and that was the necessity for giving the Government in this crisis a wider basis than it has had. An attempt was made by Senator Foran, Senator MacDermot and others to impress upon the Taoiseach the fact that sooner or later, as this crisis develops, conditions will arise which will make it impossible for Party Government to be carried on in this country as it has been in the past. I was disappointed to find that Senator Fitzgerald took up an attitude of strong opposition to that view. In spite of all that Senator Fitzgerald has said about the artificial nature of this cry for what is called a National Government, about its unreality and so on, I still persist in thinking that, on the contrary, it is the people who believe that we can go through a crisis of this magnitude, the people who believe that we can bring our country safe through all the dangers that are going to face it for the next three or four years, and that while doing that we can keep the luxury of Party Government, that are making the great mistake.

It will be all very well for us to be able to say, if disaster does come, as it may very well come on this country in the next two or three years, or even in a shorter time, that it was all de Valera's fault or somebody else's fault, but that will afford very little satisfaction to our children and their children. If the freedom that was won for this country a few years ago is going to be dissipated owing to the working of Party Government during this crisis, what satisfaction is that going to be to our children or to their children? We have seen terrible events happening during the last fortnight. We have seen a great nation, a nation of far greater physical magnitude than ours, snuffed off the map of Europe. Have we any guarantee that in the changes and chances of war our turn will not come before the next two or three years are over? What guarantee have the people who elected us and sent us here to this House that the national identity even of this country is going to be protected and safeguarded by the system of Government that we persist in keeping up in the face of such dangers as these? It is all very well to say that this is copybook talk. Does anyone believe that the people who got freedom for this country in the period from 1916 to 1921 would have got it if they had been divided up into two parties whose only contribution to each other was to meet now and again and rake up everything they could find in each other's past? Senator Fitzgerald told us he never criticises the Government, except when he is right. Of course everybody only criticises anybody when he is right: I am always right when I criticise, and so is the other fellow always right, and we leave it at that. But is the country going to be able to stand up to all it has to face during the next few years on that basis? I think the time has come when our people can no longer afford this sort of Government. Sooner or later—and the sooner the better— the Taoiseach and those associated with him will have to make up their minds that they must broaden the basis of the Government. If others who may be called upon to take part are not willing to do so, so much the worse for those others, and so much the greater the condemnation the people will pass on them.

Not merely have we the financial problem, the problem of unemployment and the problem of supplies that were referred to here, but we are faced with far bigger and more terrible problems, as anyone can see. This war has brought to a head a condition of affairs which has been preparing for some years past in Europe, and the result of this war is certainly going to be the end, the complete disappearance, of the favourable conditions under which this State has grown up since its inauguration. We were brought to birth, so to speak, in a period of international calm, a period of conferences and Kellog peace pacts and leagues of nations, a period when everybody seemed willing to believe that the earth was bound to perpetual peace. That has all gone; there is not going to be any more of it, probably, in our lifetimes. We are like a child who has grown up, perhaps, in a rowdy family, but in a locality where the neighbours were all peaceable and quiet, and who suddenly gets thrown out into a totally different world, where the neighbours—the people with whom that child has to deal—are far more rough and brutal than he has had any experience of in the past. We are going to be faced with those conditions in the future, and we may as well make up our minds to it. It will take every ounce of ability and energy and patriotism, and every good quality that we can put into it, to enable our people to survive for any length of time under conditions of this sort.

When I saw in the papers the reports of the changes which the Taoiseach made in his Ministry I was a little puzzled, as I think were most citizens of this State. I found it difficult to understand what was the reason for the changes. When I read the effect of some of those changes I felt that the Cabinet which we have had so far—I am going to speak quite plainly, because I think this is a situation in which plain speaking is called for— was rather like a piece of furniture that looked very well when propped up in a corner, with lots of nice cushions and curtains, but unfortunately the housekeeper took it out and put it in the middle of the floor, where one could notice a leg gone here and a piece missing there, and generally almost all the component parts needing to be replaced. I feel a little that way about the Government which the Taoiseach has given to us. When I read the account of his reasons for the change, which he gave in the Dáil a few days ago, I was reminded of nothing so much as the house that Jack built. He began by saying that there had to be a new Minister for Supplies, and the best man for that post was the Minister for Industry and Commerce; that left a vacancy in the Department of Industry and Commerce, and the best man for that was the Minister for Finance, and so on, just like the house that Jack built, and there was just about as much rationality in it when one came to the end as there is in the house that Jack built.

I do not want to be taken at all as making Party criticisms of Ministers. I am talking here as a plain citizen. I am talking as I am quite certain any half-dozen intelligent citizens of this country would talk at the present moment about those changes, and about the whole condition of the Government. In recent times we have often heard the Government accused of copying England. There is one thing in which we seem inclined to copy England most of all, and that is the British tendency to muddle through. We seem to think we should muddle through this crisis; any old fellow at all will do to be Minister for Finance, or Minister for this, that or the other, and the brilliant men of the Opposition will just line up on the other side and throw snowballs at him. In that we will be saved from all trouble; we will survive everything. Personally, I regard that is a lunatic idea, and if kept up and operated for any long time the people of this country are certain to founder. This country cannot survive, under the conditions which are going to face it, under that system of Party Government. There are scores of ways in which you can get co-operation. I have not seen any attempt at all at co-operation up to the present. No attempt has been made to bring the Parties together, forgetting all those quarrels about past policies and past mistakes. Every time we have a meeting, the greater part of the debate is taken up with what the Government did last year, the ill effects of the Government's self-sufficiency policy, and so on. Very little of it is taken up with any kind of intelligent or detailed attempt at finding out what the Government's policy is going to be in a week's time, or in a month's time, or this time next year, what difficulties the Government will have to face in that period, or how they are to be met. We keep on arguing mainly about superficialities, and we leave out all the important matters, all the matters that will have to be decided sooner or later, and upon the decision of which our whole future as a people will depend.

There is no necessity, perhaps, to have an immediate reformation of the Government. That might be left, perhaps, to a later time, but as Senator Foran said here this evening—there was nothing said during the debate with which I agreed more thoroughly —unless there is such a reformation, unless the Government is given a basis which will bring into it all the best intelligence and the best energy that can be got in the country, then we cannot face the unemployment problem or the financial problem, or the supply problem, or the dozens of other problems that we are going to be up against. Let us make no mistake about that. We have been talking here about the agricultural situation, and about the necessity for increased tillage. There was a certain amount of suggestion that compulsory tillage would be objectionable, and that the farmers would prefer to be induced to till their land.

The Taoiseach himself spoke in the Dáil about how valuable it would be if we had parish committees to help in doing that sort of work, and bringing out the best energies of the people. I quite agree with the Taoiseach that there is a good deal to be said for that, except that it is a little late to think about it now. Suppose we had parish committees at this moment, what do you think would happen? The local Fianna Fáil leader would be the chairman and the local Fine Gael members would not be allowed into the parish committee.

Mr. Baxter

They would not go in.

Professor Tierney

You would have the same division in every parish in the country that you have here in the Dáil and Seanad. I am not saying that it is all the fault of one Party, but what I am saying is that it is a state of affairs that somebody or other sooner or later, will have to get over.

Mr. Quirke

Why not have national committees?

Professor Tierney

If we can get national committees, by all means let us have them, but let us not start forming parish committees or any other committees on a Party basis. If we cannot forget all about Party interests, and which Party did what in what year, and so on, there is no hope for us at all. The only thing for us to do is to put Party and Party considerations behind us resolutely and entirely from now on and forget all about Parties and the interests of Parties. As things are at the moment, nobody knows when there will be a chance again for the various Parties in this country to test their strength at elections. It would be very hard to tell, in view of conditions as they are —very hard to be quite certain that there ever will be another election at all. That may sound alarmist, but do not forget what has just happened in Poland or what happened in the case of Czecho-Slovakia a year ago. We hear a lot about the small neutral countries, and we are told that this country of ours is no worse off than they are; but how many of the small neutral countries are going to be in existence at the end of this war? How many of the small neutral countries, even if they are in existence at the end of the war, are going to be so crippled financially and economically that their existence will have no meaning?

Now, all these things are, so to speak, at our very doorstep, and yet we keep on thinking in terms of Party politics, and we keep on thinking that we can settle all our problems in the same way that we have muddled along since 1921. Until we take measures, whatever they may be, to see that that kind of thing is got over, we can stop talking about finance, unemployment, and all the other problems, because we will get nowhere with any of these problems so long as we keep on thinking in terms of Party politics and acting as we have been acting. Before I leave that matter of the necessity for some sort of integration of the National Government, I should like to ask the Seanad whether they think that the Irish people really believe that we can get over the financial troubles that are going to face us with our present Minister for Finance. Now, I do not want to say a word against that estimable gentleman; he is an old friend of mine, and I am under some obligation to him; but I think that, in fairness to him and, above all, in fairness to the country, it is monstrous to ask the people to expect that the problems with which we are going to have to deal can be settled by the present Minister for Finance. It leaves one speechless to imagine——

Mr. McEllin

The Senator is making an attack on an individual, and I think it is disgraceful.

Professor Tierney

I am not making an attack on an individual.

Cathaoirleach

I think the Senator should leave it at that.

Professor Tierney

I am sorry if it appears that I am making an attack upon an individual, Sir, but what I am trying to do is to talk straight sense. In a year or 18 months' time it will matter very little, if we go on as we are now, about any individual. Individuals will have to take their proper place in this country during the next few years, or else the country is going to go to pieces, and the only hope I can see is that some attempt may be made to get national unity, and to secure a Government that will have enough authority and prestige, as well as enough of the belief of intelligent citizens behind it, to make the sacrifices of individuals and personalities that will be required, and there will be a good many such sacrifices required before we are through with this crisis.

Another matter to which I want to refer—and I refer to it with great reluctance, but I have to refer to it because the situation is serious—is that we have mobilised a large Army. We will have to pay a large amount of money for the mobilisation of that Army, but the money would not matter so much if we could only be sure that we would get any value for the millions we are to spend. Is the Taoiseach sure that we have in that Army men who are capable, by reason of their intelligence and training, of defending this country from the dangers that may come upon it? Is he sure that he has the right men in the right posts in that Army? If he is not sure and if you have the wrong men there, or if anything else is wrong with that Army, would it not be far better to keep that money and spend it on the unemployed and have no Army at all, for all the good it will do? We have an example before our eyes in the case of the great Polish Army and how little it, with all its prestige and glory, was able to stand up against an invasion. Of course, I admit that we are not in the same danger as the Poles were and that we are not in the same danger as other small nations in Europe. Nevertheless, the danger is always there and it is a terrifically important and serious question for us. If we deal with it in the wrong way, or if we neglect it until a crisis comes, we might as well give up everything.

This sort of thing is too serious to playact about it or to have too much respect for persons or individuals, or too much respect for anything except the well-being and the future existence of our people. I should like to impress on the Taoiseach the fact that there is a question there to be gone into, and that we are not going to get anywhere by simply having a sort of muddled mobilisation of a few thousand men when, if any crisis arises, we would be much better off not to have them at all. I am not going to say anything more. The only reason I rose to speak was to try to impress on the House the necessity for taking this thing seriously and for seeing that, if we are going to survive at all, we will have to take far different measures from those which we have taken up to the present.

Mr. McEllin

I was sorry to hear Senator Tierney striking such a defeatist vein in the last half hour. It is not usually typical of the Senator, I suppose, but I do not think there is any reason at all for feeling so alarmed about the future as Senator Tierney seems to suggest, and I do not think that the people of the country as a whole are in that vein of suspicion and doubt of one another that Senator Tierney would ask us to believe here. I myself think that the people of this country at the present time, and a big number of their representatives of all sides in this House and in the other House, are in the humour to work together and pull together for the good of our country. I believe also that the time is now ripe, with all that good will on both sides of this House and the other House, to ask the people of the parishes to come together and work for the good of the community as a whole. Working on that basis, I believe, you are on a sounder footing, because you are not working from the top by dictation from a national Government, which seems to be what Senator Tierney is suggesting. I hold that it is much better to have unity at the foundation and to have the people in the parishes working together for the good of the parishes and for the good of the community as a whole. I think that the time is now ripe for that, and if you have a sound foundation there, there will be no doubt that the leadership from the Government at the top will be in keeping with the feelings of the people at the bottom. If, on the other hand, however, a few of you here start to form a national Government of your own, telling the people where to get off, you will be going against the fundamental principles upon which the people of this country always worked in the past and upon which they probably will work in the future.

For that reason I do not believe in the suggestions thrown out to-day for the immediate formation of a national Government, and I believe that that would lead to the doubt and suspicion about which Senator Tierney spoke. I think the Senator is completely out of touch with the feeling of the people of this country as a whole. Naturally, they are all anxious and uneasy about the events in Europe, and it is only natural that they should be looking for information and news, and seeking to find out what they should do. They are very anxious, generally, to help the Government and to help one another and, accordingly, I do feel that the foundation of all good organisations should be the local areas or parish areas or whatever you like to call them.

We have heard a lot here to-day as to there being no necessity for bringing this House and the Dáil together, and we are told that it did no good. If there is one thing for which I feel I should show my appreciation to the Government, and to the Taoiseach, it is for calling this House and the Dáil together on occasions of this sort, because therein we have brought into practice the ideals of true democracy. By doing so, it is helping to create a precedent for the future, a guide for those who follow us in cases, say, of serious differences of opinion amongst the people. The precedents which are being made to-day are precedents which will help this country along in the future. After all, we are only passing through here, and all we can do is to leave things better than we found them, and I believe that the Government is sincerely and honestly working towards that objective. Consequently, I feel that precedents of this sort, the bringing together of Parliament in such circumstances, are definitely productive of good for the country, for the Government and for the preservation of democracy, which is as important as anything else, in the time to come.

There is no use in our getting up here and flippantly suggesting that it has served no purpose. It may not have served any useful purpose in regard to giving the Government, the members of which are working overtime at present, useful suggestions on which to work. I waited all this evening for something constructive, something that would give immediate results in helping to consolidate our position here in respect to the production of food, the preservation of our industries or anything else, and I heard none. We had from Senator Fitzgerald a lengthy general talk on the philosophy of life. The philosophy of life is all right, but not one practical proposal came from him during the three-quarters of an hour he was speaking. He told us about the economics and income of a farmer in this country and an industrial worker in Manchester. He pointed out that the family in Manchester would have an income of from £10 to £12 and only a capital value of £5 or £6 in furniture, and he made a comparison between that and the capital value of the small farmer of £400 capital assets and with an income of 30/- a week here. But in estimating that 30/- a week, he must not have placed any value at all on the consumption by that small farmer's family of their own farm produce, the very healthy farm produce which that family has at its disposal and uses very generously, such as milk, butter and eggs. I am sure that the best part of the Manchester family's £10 would be well used up by the time they had bought all that the farmer and his family would eat. Of course, the Senator's argument in that respect was just as ridiculous as the other arguments he put forward this evening. However, I am not very much concerned with following up the arguments of all the people we have listened to.

To turn to a more important aspect of our life under the extreme difficulties of the present situation, the production of food, and the maintenance of the essential supplies for such production, are of immediate and paramount importance to the people, and it was most reassuring to everybody in the country when the Minister for Supplies, in the Dáil last week, was able to give very accurate and detailed information as to the stocks of wheat, flour, feeding-stuffs and other commodities in the country which will ensure that, for the next year or perhaps two years, we will not be short and there will be no immediate concern as to food supplies. At the same time, it will take us 12 months to produce more food and this is the time when a plan of campaign should be laid down. The way suggested by most people— and it is beginning to be accepted by the people and by the Parliament—is that we should have compulsory tillage.

Mr. Baxter

No, it is not accepted.

Mr. McEllin

It is being accepted by the farming community as such. I do not think there can be any serious objection to it and there is no reason why it should not be applied, but if we can get the voluntary effort of local committees, I believe that a substantial increase in production will be secured. At the same time, however, those responsible cannot take any chances and cannot leave any doubt as to the amount of food that will be got in the future. Consequently, the Government may have to take forcible measures because of the doubt as to voluntary effort.

Dr. Doyle

The inferiority complex again.

Mr. McEllin

The safety of the people is of more concern, and when you are safe on the top of the ladder you can crow down at the other fellow then. You must, however, make sure. I do not mind which method is adopted. I am prepared to accept it loyally and to do whatever I am told. I am not going to question it, and if the Senator who interrupted me will do the same we shall get along nicely together. A sudden large increase in production will possibly not be obtained by the individual efforts of farmers, and perhaps the Government might consider seriously the advisability of putting tractors and ploughs at the disposal of county committees of agriculture. In order to get into a large-scale production of tillage, ploughs and horses will be necessary. Horses at present are commanding a very high price. A pair of horses for ploughing, judging by the prices at the fair in my town yesterday, would cost as much as would buy a tractor.

Perhaps it might be possible to organise the country and make tractors and ploughs available for hire to farmers at such a low cost that it would be cheaper and more economical for them than to go to the expense of buying the machinery themselves. Such a scheme as that I think could be worked very successfully and, in the long run, from a national point of view it would probably be more economic. A tractor will do an enormous amount of work for small farmers. There are tractors now so small and handy that they can be worked in the smallest field. In addition to that the Government should take steps to provide, as I believe they are doing, for the seeds which will be necessary in the coming Spring, and they should also look forward to the harvest. Binders are very useful in large-scale production and are a very important item in getting the work done quickly, particularly if the weather is bad. Provision should also be made for an adequate supply of twine and canvas in the harvest time, as I have heard farmers often complaining about a shortage of twine. All these things should be provided for, as well as the seed wheat, etc.

I feel that the most serious question with which this country will be faced in the next couple of years will be the question of food shortage. The farmers, I believe, are fully aware of that. I believe you will get a substantial increase of tillage in the coming year, and that prices will be sufficiently tempting to make sure that the results which the Government are anxious to obtain will be obtained. I have no doubt that they will be forthcoming. Prices generally are rising all round, but I do not believe that they will rise very much more. The general dislocation of trade is the cause of some of the rises in prices. If the people will only steady themselves, those who are anticipating a serious rise in prices will be disappointed. If the people will only keep calm and jog along in a steady sort of way that will not happen. Some of the business community, and others, have recently been getting into an excited state, rushing in to buy larger stocks than heretofore, and paying abnormal prices for them. All this has a tendency to increase prices and dislocate the distribution of supplies, which would not occur if that excitement did not exist. What is wanted more than anything else is to keep calm and give up spreading rumours, and things will right themselves. There is no reason why there should be any upset in or dislocation of any kind of trade. There is no reason why peace should not continue to prevail if there is loyalty and co-operation with those who are responsible for administration under the difficult circumstances at present prevailing. In that way I believe we will have steady conditions prevailing here, a reasonable standard of living, and that we shall come out of it all a better and a more prosperous country.

Mr. Quirke

I did not propose to enter into this debate until I heard the speech just made by Senator Tierney. It was interesting to hear Senator Tierney deplore the speeches made by other Senators bordering on the political, so to speak. But when Senator Tierney suggests in the strongest possible terms that we should have a National Government, in fact, that that was the only possible salvation for the country, I should like to ask him what is a National Government? So far as I can see, we have got a National Government, and if Senator Tierney has any other method of getting a National Government than the method by which this Government was elected by the people, he, or other people who think like him, should come out into the open and say what their method is. I say definitely that any departure from the system by which that Government was elected would be a step in the wrong direction, a step towards dictatorship, a step towards the various evils which has brought such trouble in the various countries which we have heard mentioned.

I should like to say that I appreciate what Senator Tierney said, because I believe he was talking from his heart. I think he believes what he said, and that is one of the reasons why I listened to him with the greatest attention. But, if Senator Tierney suggests that the Government would be strengthened by the formation of what he calls a National Government, then I must say that I disagree 100 per cent. with him. I believe that the Government would be weakened in proportion to the extent that it was attempted to include representatives of the various other sections, because that is what I understand the suggestion means. I believe that at a time like this, more than at any other time, we need a Government the members of which can pull together, the members of which have pulled together in the past, and the members of which we believe will be able to pull this country, if it can be possibly pulled, out of the present crisis. I have no doubt that we have got such a Government. I believe it is up to every section of the community to fall in behind the Government and give them the support to which they are entitled.

It was very interesting to hear Senator Foran's statement on the tightening of belts. I agree with him thoroughly that there will be great necessity for the tightening of belts in this country. But, if there is a necessity for anything in this country, and particularly in this House, it is for a tightening of tongues. We had speeches made to-day that were really a disgrace to any assembly of the kind. Speaker after speaker spoke about our neutrality, how he approved of that neutrality, and congratulated the Government on their policy of neutrality, and then proceeded immediately to do the best he could to bring about a disruption of that neutrality.

Dr. Doyle

There is a Government in this country with a very big majority and they are neutral.

Cathaoirleach

These interruptions are to be deprecated. The Senator should be given an opportunity to make his speech.

Mr. Quirke

The Senator will no doubt get a chance to make a speech in a few minutes and I shall listen very carefully to him. What I said, in case he misunderstood me, was that I believe we have got a National Government at present and that I know of no other way by which a National Government can be got.

Dr. Doyle

That is right.

Mr. Quirke

We will always have people prepared to put up umbrellas here when it rains in London. Because they do certain things on the other side, because they form what they call a National Government there, we must follow suit and do the same thing. I do not approve of that. What I said was that what we need even more than a tightening of belts is a tightening of tongues.

When Senators come here, and when Deputies come to the Dáil, they should at least have some regard for their responsibilities and not allow their sentiments or their tongues to run away with them to any extent. In my opinion many of their speeches are really detrimental to the cause of neutrality here. It would be interesting to see what would happen if someone equally irresponsible made a pro-German speech. I have no doubt there are some people in this country who are pro-German; that there are some people in this House who are pro-German. There is no necessity for anybody to express himself as being pro-British or pro-German. All anyone need do is merely to get up everywhere he can and say he is pro-Irish—and prove it. This quoting of history, recent or remote, is entirely unnecessary. The more we can get to the actual facts that are facing us and the more we are able to overcome the various obstacles, the better for individuals and the better for the country.

A question has been raised as to whether it is good or bad policy that the Dáil and Seanad should meet. I believe that it was a very good idea to have the Dáil meeting and to have the Seanad meeting, but if we are to have a repetition of the speeches we heard to-day from several Senators, then it would be better to have some modification of the procedure heretofore followed in this House. For example, it might be better to have a system of questions without any speeches from various Senators and have those questions replied to by Ministers. In that way the necessary information would be available for the country through the Press and the people would be protected from following this or that group of Senators in one direction or another.

As regards the debates doing any particular good, I also have my doubts. I thought the debate on the motion tabled by Senator Johnston and Senator Baxter would develop into something useful. What did we find? We had an elaborate statement made by Senator Johnston which could be summed up in a speech of five minutes by any five-acre farmer. Perhaps the small farmer would not refer to the starch content of potatoes and perhaps he would not call oats and wheat cereals, but he would have the very same ideas. What did the Senator tell us? Nothing beyond what any man with common sense in the country knows—that we must have more production. The only difference was that Senator Johnston and Senator Baxter held, contrary to the majority of farmers, that the production of hay and roots is more important than the production of cereals. I disagree entirely with any such theory.

As Senator Johnston had no hesitation in straying off the beaten track in order to tell a story, perhaps I could tell him one that would interest him.

Professor Johnston

Provided it is a funny story.

Mr. Quirke

It is funny enough. A cock and half a dozen hens were released from a fowl house not far from the city a few days ago. If Senator Johnston has ever seen fowl coming from a fowl house—if he has not, perhaps Senator Baxter would be able to tell him all about it— he may know what they do. Anyhow, they trot off in great glee. In this instance the cock stopped and scratched the ground and the hens went on ahead. The cock looked down and then remained still. The hens came back and said "What is that?". The cock very solemnly replied: "That is a pearl." The hens said: "Is it not beautiful?" and the cock agreed with them, but added: "You may think it is beautiful, but I would rather one grain of wheat than a dozen of them." That is what I say; I would rather one grain of wheat than a dozen mangolds any day, and if this war is to develop, as many fear it will, I say that wheat is the most important thing for the people, and the important thing for the Government is to ensure that we will have the necessary supplies of wheat.

Professor Johnston

And plenty of weeds afterwards in the dirty ground it leaves.

Mr. Quirke

Maybe, as Senator Tierney said, many of us will not be here to bother about that. It is the duty of the Government to provide food for the country, and it is the duty of every Senator to help the Government to provide that food and not try to obstruct them or cut across their policy in every possible way whenever they get the chance. I believe the proper thing for the Government to do is to try as far as possible to get the necessary production of various commodities. I am not opposed to the production of mangolds, turnips or even maize if we can produce it, but the first and most important thing is wheat.

I was amazed to hear Senator Counihan taking up the cry about Communism and confiscation. Rather than abandon, as Senator Counihan suggests, the policy of land division, I would suggest to the Taoiseach and the other members of the Government that they should proceed faster than over with that policy, that they should proceed more determinedly and evacuate the people from the agricultural slums, the bogs and the mountainy areas, and put them on land where it is available, and then let them sink or swim, so to speak. If they sink it will be their own fault. If suitable people are put even on subsistence holdings they will be independent of the Government or anybody else for their food supplies. If they are not so, it will be their own fault.

Mr. Counihan

And will you give them 30/- a week?

Mr. Quirke

No, and I would not give Senator Counihan 30/- a week. If things are allowed to go on as they are going, if people are to be kept out of employment or kept on the bad lands, it is quite possible that before the war is over they will have to get 30/- a week, and it will be Senator Counihan and others like him who will have to pay for the maintenance of those people. The best way to manage the situation is to give those people a chance to maintain themselves.

We have had speeches from several Senators loudly condemning the suggestion that any political statements should be made, and at the same time their own contributions were purely of a political character. Perhaps I do not understand what a political speech is, but if I hear a man condemning a particular Minister because he is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, and happens to be a very prominent member, then the only conclusion I can come to is that that man is making a political speech. He is condemning the policy of the other fellow and submits no alternative policy, possibly because he has not one.

Senator Fitzgerald says that this Government should disregard the past and not try to make excuses for the mistakes of the past. That is a silly statement to make. There is no necessity for this Government to make excuses, and I make no excuse if I am making a political speech. If the Fianna Fáil policy was wrong in the past, it is right now. We had sneers from some people when the ports were taken over. If they were not taken over at that time, where would we be now? Senator Baxter and others like him would be wearing khaki to-day. If Fianna Fáil had not been elected by the democratic people of this country, where would we be now? In what position would we be if we had Senator Fitzgerald and various other people of that type in control?

The Government policy in the past was right. Whoever might contradict that statement a month ago cannot contradict it now. Senator Fitzgerald said that the policy of self-sufficiency had not been a success. If it was a success we would not now have to import wheat or anything else. I say that the policy of self-sufficiency was very largely a success, and the only reason it was not a complete success, was that the war came on a little sooner than we expected. Marvellous progress has been made along the lines of self-sufficiency, and if it had not been, we would be faced with a very much more serious situation than the one that we have in reality. In roughly 1,674 acres of wheat were grown in County Tipperary and in 1937 14,330 acres.

Dr. Doyle

North or South.

Mr. Quirke

North and South. We recognise no border in Tipperary. We were told about the enormous production along agricultural lines during the years of the Great War, but the country never produced 135,129 acres of wheat. In 1937 the acreage of wheat was 220,263 acres. Is not that an indication that the policy of self-sufficiency did, in fact, succeed? Are not the various industries which have been started, and other things which we are producing now that were never produced here before, an indication that that policy has been a success? The man who says that that policy has not succeeded, or who says that the Government have any reason to apologise for anything they did, is really just trying to justify his own past. I have always the greatest admiration for a man who stands up and fights against fearful odds, but the only thing I can do, as far as the scattered remnants of Fine Gael are concerned, is to apply to them the words of Longfellow, to hope they—

"Shall fold their tents like the Arabs

And as silently steal away."

Mr. O'Dwyer

During the course of the debate doubt has been expressed as to whether the present Government is capable of carrying the country through the present crisis, but, as Senator Quirke reminded the House, it was the action of the Government last June, that saved it from the present catastrophe. If the Government had not made the Agreement that it made then, and taken over the ports and removed the clause in the Treaty under which one of the belligerent powers claimed certain rights here, we would be in the position of a belligerent.

When the Government is criticised that fact should be remembered. A suggestion was made that we should have a National Government in this crisis. I have no doubt that, if it was absolutely in the interests of the country, everyone would be in favour of such a proposal, but I feel sure that when calmly examined, it would be found that a National Government would not really be the best in this emergency. In the first place, as too many Parties would be represented there would be difficulty about the decisions that the Government would have to take, whereas a single Party could take them immediately. The more that question is examined the more it will be seen that the proposal would not improve the present position. No Government could do any more than the present Government is doing in the national interest. I consider that they should carry on and see what the future will bring.

I should like to support another proposal that was made from different parts of the House. I refer to the question of forming parish committees to carry on a tillage campaign. I believe such a proposal is quite practicable. I agree with Senator Tierney that we should all realise that there is a great task before the Government in providing food for the people during the coming year. We do not know how long this war may last, or whether it will be possible in a short time to import anything from outside countries. There is no reason why the Government should take any risks. The land of this country is capable of supporting the people and providing the necessary foodstuffs. Compulsory tillage may be necessary and, if it is found necessary, I feel sure that everyone will agree with it. I think compulsion may not be necessary. It should be possible by the people cooperating through parish committees to obtain sufficient land tilled without being obliged to resort to compulsion. I suggest to the Minister that there is still time to form these parish committees and to get them working before deciding the other question. There is no reason why these committees should not be set up immediately to plan the acreage, so that the Government would know how much land will be broken up voluntarily.

The question has been asked: What good can parish committees do? They can do a great deal in the way of securing the additional tillage which we require during the coming year, and in the way of securing artificial manures. Richer land that has not been broken for many years may not require manures but it is often much more difficult to till that class of land. At the same time many farmers are not in a position to change their methods. Others may not be able to buy seeds or manures, and there may be a scarcity of labour in some areas. These are matters that could be dealt with by co-operation on parish committees.

As capital will be required the Government will have to provide loans. Those are some of the lines on which parish committees could work in conjunction with the Department. Such committees could arrange to purchase tractors, machinery, manures and seeds, and to bring outside labour from parts of the country where it is available. They could also rent land from farmers who are not in a position to till it and employ labour to work it. These committees, by being representative of farmers and workers, would ensure the co-operation of all concerned. They could ensure that crops would be harvested at the right time for farmers, that workers had permanent employment and that foodstuffs would be produced for the people. They could also deal with profiteering and many other things that are essential to the welfare of the country.

If we could secure in every parish an organised community to carry out local administration it would not matter very much to the people whether they had a national Government, if the country could develop on such lines. I ask the Minister to see if voluntary co-operation could not be tried. From my experience, I believe that the people would rise to this crisis as they rose to the crisis of 1918. I met no man who said he would oppose doing any work that was required to provide food for the people. We are all in the one boat. Everyone knows the dangers we have to provide against in the coming year, and I believe if the Government calls upon the people for voluntary co-operation, by organising local committees in each district, they will respond. I also believe that their efforts will be the means of producing sufficient foodstuffs and maybe the means of uniting our people as they were united in 1918.

Mr. Baxter

If I had risen after Senator Quirke I am afraid I would be tempted to proceed on the same lines which he very in advisedly pursued in the course of his speech this evening. This is the kind of speech that had better be forgotten. If Senator Quirke could only attempt to imitate the line of argument pursued by Senator McEllin or Senator O'Dwyer, the atmosphere here this evening would be very different. Senator Quirke should remember this: his Party are in power and they are charged with great and grave responsibilities. Odium can be put upon them and they have to take the consequences of their policy in all their schemes. It is easy for other people to stand out and do nothing. However, Senator Quirke has attempted to do otherwise than what he should have done. I am glad that a very different spirit is abroad in the land and that there are people in his Party with a very different outlook. The strange thing about it is that that is the spirit the Senator always demonstrates here. But outside he is quite a good fellow.

It is rather unfortunate that at a time like this, when others of his Party and the people on this side are anxious to pursue normal behaviour, that he should rise here in a hysterical fashion —as he has risen this evening—and proceed to lecture all and sundry on what they should do. He talks about the rights of democracy, and he tells us about the doubts he has in his mind as to the wisdom of calling the Seanad together at all. He suggests that if Senators are to meet again, if there is not a modification in the tone of their speeches, that they should not meet. If that is not a threat, I do not know what it is.

Mr. Quirke

I have not threatened anyone.

Mr. Baxter

He introduced my name into his speech on the matter of neutrality. I do not know why. He will have to explain to me outside how the idea got into his head. He could not explain it here. There is nobody in this House so keen on maintaining this country's position of neutrality as I am. I certainly was not as loud in my protestations from the beginning, but I saw the danger as soon as he did, the night we sat here all night to help the Government through. I am quite convinced now, as then, that there are great and grave dangers ahead for the people of this country. I see no one here who can prophesy that we may be able to maintain our neutrality. A certain line of policy is pursued at the moment. There is, for instance, the control of lighting in the State. It has been justified because, apparently, the idea is that we do not want to show anybody too clearly where we live. We want to go on living and keeping our windows shut. Who is going to suggest that later on, in order to preserve our neutrality, it may not be necessary to turn the Shannon power along our Northern territory and light it up so that the people will know where the citizens of Éire are and where other citizens are? That is true. When one sees what the fate of the Northern European States apparently is to be, one can realise the position. These States, with their ships and their rights as neutrals to carry their own goods in their ships are face to face with a certain position to-day. When one sees how they are treated, one realises that speeches like Senator Quirke's do not help in any way. However, I do not want to follow that line of argument. We ought to do our best to live our normal lives, and to have as far as possible normality in our lives as far as our position is concerned. Living our normal lives gives us the right to criticise what the Government is doing. We are acting on behalf of normality when we act like that.

The closer we keep to normality, the farther we go in keeping away hysteria in this country. I do say this, that the shuffling that recently took place in the Ministry does not help to create that mood of stability that the people need. The people's confidence in governments and politicians generally can be destroyed. It is not very hard to bring some of them under suspicion. That could be brought about by the sort of hysteria which Senator Quirke developed here this evening. Or the Government could do it themselves through inertia.

My plea this evening is that the Government would tell us what line they want the people to follow. We have certain assets in this country. We have our people, small in number but virile still, wanting to live and terribly concerned about the preservation of their lives and their rights. We have certain things necessary for the maintenance of life and the preservation of our national spirit. We have our land. We have certain savings, mainly those made by the work of our fathers and those who came before us. Most of our own generation wasted far more than they gathered. Yet we have money and land; we have some industries, but most of these industries are to be closed down. We cannot talk about self-sufficiency. I cannot, neither can Senator Quirke, see how the policy of self-sufficiency is going to work out. Neither he nor I can shoe our own horses. We must get import material which will enable us to do many of the things we want to do. We cannot make our own ploughs or reap our own harvests without imports. The policy of self-sufficiency is wrong, and it was always wrong. God Almighty meant the fruits of the earth for the service of humanity. We ought to try to distribute these in such a way that humanity will have a higher standard of living. If we shut ourselves off from the rest of the world it is obvious there is going to be discomfort and a lower standard of living for our people.

We are mostly concerned, some of us, at any rate, with what is going to happen with regard to the land. So far, a land policy has not been enunciated by the Minister for Agriculture. I suggest that that should be done as quickly as possible. We do not know exactly how the Minister is going to do it, and that is part of the trouble. In a time like this it is a policy which ought to be decided upon after discussion and full information given by all who can possibly make any contribution to the problem of a wise agricultural policy. I do not think that the right way to get such a policy is by the Minister sitting down with the experts in his Department who are to advise him on a policy, how that policy is to be put into operation and as to whether we are going to have compulsory tillage or not. That was what we gathered this evening from the Minister. I am sure the Taoiseach himself has some confidence, anyway, in the policy suggested by Senators McEllin and O'Dwyer. One of these Senators put forward that policy here on that Sunday morning on the 3rd September. He set forth one of the ways in which this country could be pulled through the crisis of this war. That was, through establishment of local committees. I need not go over the whole of that now, nor say that we should adopt the whole of the suggestions made. The best thing the Government could do would be to give a strong and courageous lead to the citizens of the country. That could be done by going down amongst them, organising and galvanising them into action and getting them to say: "This is our job as well as the Government's job." The Government are not going to get that spirit created by adopting the method of telling the people what they are to do, and if they do not do it, saying to them: "We will send you an inspector to compel you to do it; you will be made do it, and if you do not do it we will take the land off you." I think that is the wrong way.

I am convinced that what the Taoiseach gave expression to in the Dáil— whatever other Senators may say about it—is the right thing for us to do. The right step for the Government to take at present, before there is any talk of compulsion of any kind, is to try to put responsibility on the citizens of this country, and particularly on the farming community, to come together, to try to extricate themselves from the difficulties in which they are placed in trying to get greater production from their land. They are going to be faced with all sorts of problems. You tell me that I must till more land and I am faced with all sorts of difficulties. There are any number of people unemployed—on the dole—and side by side with them there are farmers— neighbours—who ought to be able to employ them in a crisis. What will be done to harness the physical energy that is there unemployed, to harness it to the soil just across the fence, to produce the food for humans and animals which this country will require in the days to come?

If you approach people in the proper spirit you can get committees in every parish, headed by the Church, by teachers and by other responsible citizens. They are as conscious of the difficulties as is any Senator here or any member of the other House, and many of them are more competent. They would be willing to act, but they are not prepared to come into the political arena; they will work in other fields, they will put energy and brains into the work and will try to assist the rural population. I believe that co-operation can be got from our citizens for any national effort which would not be got for a Party effort or a political effort. If the proper people are approached to get greater production from the land, we can organise in such a way as to make that production possible.

If you leave out the larger farmers, who generally are very self-contained, and consider the thousands of small farmers, you will realise that greater production cannot be got from their fields except through the co-operation of one with another, one borrowing a plough to-day and a horse to-morrow, arranging the Spring sowing or the bringing in of the hay, the building of stacks, and so on. That is going on to a considerable extent amongst these people to-day, and the wider application there is of a system like that the happier and the better the rural population will be and the more we will get from it.

Senator Foran in his speech urged that we should be thinking about producing for use and not for profit. If you talk to any farmer about producing more, what he is going to ask immediately, and what he is saying now—and I am sure other Senators have been asked—is this: "What am I going to get for my produce when it is ready for market?" The Government must at once indicate, firstly, what they believe would be the volume of imports, for the next 12 months or so, of raw materials which have been essential to agricultural production in the past, and, secondly, estimating to what extent these imports are going to be reduced, indicate what, in their judgment, can fill the place of those imports, and so make it possible for our people to try to supply those needs themselves. They should do more. I am not going to be told by the Government: "You are to produce that." How can I employ the labour and invest capital, unless I am sure that, when the produce is there to be marketed, there will be something left for me, after paying the cost of production. A minimum price must be fixed and it must be calculated in such a way as to satisfy the farmer that he is not going to be at a loss. There are all sorts of considerations like these, and my feeling about it all is that the policy which the Government is going to pursue in this matter ought to be a policy into which people would be able to enter in a spirit of co-operation.

Before the war came, there was a realisation of the fact that there was a grave agricultural problem to be tackled and an Agricultural Commission was set up to make recommendations. At the moment, the work of the commission is suspended, though the problem is more urgent than ever. At least, the commission is not continuing its labours at the moment; it has adjourned. We are not actually continuing to take evidence and so on. Amongst some of us there, there is a difference of opinion. The problem is not only a vast one but an urgent one. There must be an emergency policy, for the present, but there ought to be also a policy for the future which should be under examination now, so that the emergency policy will dove-tail into the future policy in such a way as to create as little upset and upheaval as possible in agricultural life. The emergency policy ought to be produced at once so that the people can feel able to stand behind it just as Senator Quirke feels. There are people like Senator Quirke—though not so noisy as his followers—who would not accept my point of view, but who might be just as convinced that I am right. What we have to do is to create a condition of affairs where people will say: "That is sound national policy which we can fall in behind." I believe that that position can be reached, and that it is essential to reach it.

An agricultural policy should be produced which will not be compulsory, yet, at any rate—leave that for the future—giving voluntary effort a chance. I cannot see the introduction of compulsion to the people on the land without seeing also grave injustice and the creation of other difficulties for the Government. For instance, what is the Government to say when an inspector has visited land and made a demand, and is told by the tenant that he is unable to carry it out? What are they going to do with him? Those problems must be faced. If we had local responsibility, we could find a solution in a more human way than we have attempted so far in tackling this problem. The Government should produce an emergency agricultural policy which will have sanity written all over it, and should administer it in such a way as to obtain the maximum co-operation. As far as I and those who agree with me are concerned, we are prepared to help through a sound scheme to obtain agricultural production here that will give us a greatly increased quantity of the kind of produce we require.

I would like to see voluntary effort given a chance first, but there cannot be voluntary effort unless the people going to make the effort are satisfied that they will be paid for the labour. The people must be told what you want them to do, and they must be told what you are going to pay when they give the service. It will not be enough to advise them to produce for use and not for profit. There will have to be the incentive of profit: men are not going to produce for a loss, and I know that the Minister for Agriculture has indicated that, when he proposes setting up consultative councils. I have some experience of those councils. I do not know how they are going to operate now. There are, I know, other members of this House on such councils; I think Senator O'Dwyer is a member of one. Those consultative councils, while performing certain useful functions, have the disadvantage that you are generally presented with a fait accompli: the Minister will indicate what generally the Department have decided upon and, although they are given the right to discussion, the decisions are practically made.

While these councils have certain value in obtaining the acquiescence of responsible people to the policy the Minister is enunciating, and apart from the point of view of getting advice, I do not think that, on the whole, they are going to prove as valuable as the Minister would have us believe. I do not know how the Minister proposes to have these councils set up, but, no matter what is going to be done, if the idea put forward by Senator McEllin—and to which the Taoiseach addressed himself in the Dáil —were attempted now, I think that our people would make a new national effort, the kind of effort that the country needs. If another crisis has to be faced over the question of our neutrality—as it may very well have to be —we would then have brought our people to an appreciation and an understanding of the various problems, so that they would be ready to work and co-operate in perhaps a bigger national way, when there is needed that other effort we may have to make in defence of the neutrality which we wish above everything else to do our best to preserve.

Cathaoirleach

May I draw the attention of the House at this stage to the fact that there is a minute of the Committee of Procedure which fixes the adjournment of meetings of the Seanad for 9 o'clock unless the House otherwise determines? Do members of the House desire to continue the sitting later than 9 o'clock?

Mr. E. Lynch

A number of Senators may desire to speak and it might be desirable to adjourn now and assemble to-morrow at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

Mr. Douglas

Perhaps you could ascertain how many Senators desire to speak, sit late and allow ample time for the Taoiseach to reply.

Mr. Healy

Not many Senators may desire to speak again. After all, Senators have got a certain amount of freedom and the Taoiseach may not have time to come here day after day. The views of the Taoiseach ought to be obtained on the question as they would carry weight with Senators.

Mr. Byrne

Perhaps we could get some indication of how many Senators desire to speak.

Mr. McEllin

If the House would agree to hear the Taoiseach now, we could carry on the debate afterwards.

Cathaoirleach

Perhaps it would be more satisfactory if we fixed an hour at which the debate would conclude and give the Taoiseach an opportunity of speaking at a certain time.

Mr. E. Lynch

That would depend on the number of Senators who desire to speak.

Mr. McEllin

I think that my suggestion would be generally agreed to.

The Taoiseach

The only difficulty I see about that arrangement is that questions might arise later which it would be just as important for me to deal with as the questions with which I would deal if I spoke now. I was responsible for urging that meetings of the two Houses should be held, and my purpose was that any questions that might be agitating the minds of members of the Seanad or Dáil should be ventilated and the Government view given.

If I were to speak at this stage I could deal only with matters to which reference has been made, so far. If other matters were raised later, I would not have an opportunity of speaking again, nor do I think that it would be advisable to do so, even if the Seanad were to give me leave. It is not a question of having the last word. It is a question of hearing the criticism that is offered and of giving an explanation of certain actions if explanation is required. I think that the usual course should be followed, that the Seanad should continue its debate and that, at the conclusion of the debate, I should be permitted to deal with any matters to which attention had been called.

Cathaoirleach

That will mean sitting late to-night.

Mr. M. Hayes

It would be a very bad course to adjourn until to-morrow. Since we kept the Taoiseach here until now, we ought to give him an opportunity of speaking.

Cathaoirleach

It was suggested that we should continue the debate and that the Taoiseach should be called upon at 9.30 p.m.

Mr. M. Hayes

Is that not agreed?

Cathaoirleach

Some Senators object to that course. We shall, however, proceed until 9.30 and, then, we shall see what the position is.

Mr. Hawkins

There have been many suggestions here to-day as to what is really wanted in the country at the present time. To my mind, what is wanted is unity behind the elected Government. Some people have suggested the formation of a national Government. One question I should like to ask is: "Will the mere fact of dividing the spoils of Government between certain Parties unite the people?" I say no. The place we want unity is in the country, and the only way to unite the people is through the parish committees suggested by the Taoiseach. The formation of a national Government was advocated by Senator Foran of the Labour Party. I think that the time has arrived, more for the Labour Party than any other Party, to come to the assistance of the Government and not wait until such time as they are called to some office in the Government—that is what a rational Government means.

As regards profiteering and hoarding, the Minister for Supplies made a statement in the Dáil, particularly in regard to sugar. On this point I would appeal to the Labour Party, and I think they can do useful work. It is up to every Senator and every elected representative to try to organise local committees, and I think Labour organisations and other organisations should assist the poor people and members of their own organisations by looking after the interests of consumers through these local committees. That is the best and most effective way of keeping down hoarding and profiteering.

The tillage question links up with the question of unemployment. In County Galway the question of tillage has arisen at a number of meetings in farming districts, and those in attendance asked whether the Government's policy was one of compulsion or individual choice. The ordinary man with from 30 to 40 acres needs no compulsion in respect of tillage because he is tilling his quota. It is the man with the large farm, the man with from 150 to 400 acres, who never does any tillage that you want to get after. During the last war, when people with large ranches in County Galway were compelled by the British Government to till a certain amount, they put this amount of their land up for auction and got people to take it on the 11 months' system or as yearly tenants at terribly exorbitant rents. I think that should be prohibited this time. If a man is not prepared to till the land for himself he should not be allowed to extract an exorbitant rent for it from people who are prepared to till it for him.

There is another question, which is linked up with unemployment. A certain amount of the land of the country that is very suitable for tillage cannot be tilled because of the fact that there are no roads leading into the land or that the roads are in a very bad condition. I think that the money to be spent on the main roads for the next few years should be spent on roads of this nature. Employment could be given in that way.

Apart from tillage, there is also the question of supplying our own fuel. I think that a good many of the people who are unemployed at the present time could be put into employment in making bog roads, particularly in places where bogs are suitable and where the turf could be produced at very little expense if there were proper roads leading into them.

There is one thing that I thought would be done when there was a change of Ministry, and even at this stage I would suggest it for consideration, that is, the appointment of a Minister or, at least, a Parliamentary Secretary or somebody to co-ordinate works of national importance, to co-ordinate all works that are being undertaken at the present time. In that way I think we would get more efficiency and would be able to put up more schemes. The Land Commission has certain works, relief schemes, and there are Local Government schemes and I think that if all these schemes were co-ordinated in some way there would be more efficiency.

Referring to the parish committees again, the one reason I have for stressing the importance of such committees is that we want some regional thought or some regional planning. There are areas in this country, particularly in County Galway, where no beet scheme or wheat or tillage scheme is being undertaken. There is a possibility that if committees were set up there some very useful work could be undertaken. The same applies to a number of districts and I think that what the Department of Agriculture requires at the present time is something in the nature of regional planning in their agricultural policy. There is also the question of loans. I think if small parish committees were set up that difficulty could be got over because the Credit Corporation are empowered at the present time to give loans for the purchase of agricultural implements and various things like that.

There is just one other point which I would like to bring to the particular notice of the Taoiseach. A temporary Gárda force has been recently organised. I have only one objection to that, namely, that this force, as I understand, has been recruited from a list of applicants received prior to last December—I am not quite certain as to the date—but the point I want to make is that I do not want the force to be appointed on a political basis or anything like that but I think some consideration should be given to persons who have already offered their services in the Volunteer Force. I think the very least that could be expected is that people who have joined the Volunteer Force should be considered when it comes to a question of selecting people for permanent national service.

Mr. E. Lynch

Listening to the debate here this evening one really wonders why a motion of this character is placed on the Order Paper at all. Listening to the arguments which have been advanced, it is difficult for those who endeavour to bring a clear mind to bear on propositions of this kind to know what is the purpose of the motion. This House has been treated to motions of a similar character, and it seems to me that they have only been put on this Order Paper for the purpose of giving expression to certain pet toibles and economic ideas of certain people. I regret that the House has decided not to adjourn now and carry the debate over to-morrow afternoon, because some of us would then have an opportunity of saying something in regard to these matters which the limited time at our disposal now prevents us from saying.

Senator Johnston in his remarks— and I regret that I have to considerably abbreviate what I intended to say —seems to have given us this evening nothing more than a homily on the economics in relation to agriculture. On two or three previous occasions this House was treated to a similar homily. In the early days of this Seanad we had from Senator Johnston a long statement similar to the statement we have had this evening, and it seems to me, at all events, that this evening he said no more than he said then, and that is that the entire economy of this country as it has developed and evolved in the last six or seven years should be entirely rejected now and that we should go back to a policy which this country enjoyed—if one can employ the word "enjoyed"—prior to six or seven years ago. It seemed to me that the entire burden of Senator Johnston's speech was towards that end and that he considers the present moment a propitious one to revert to economic theories of the past. He says in regard to the present situation that an approach should be made to the British Government in frank collaboration. What has Senator Johnston to tell this House in regard to what the British propose to do with us in frank collaboration? One would think that in making a proposition of that character he would tell this House to what extent the people on the other side were prepared to go in regard to frankness and in regard to collaboration. He does not give us any information along those lines, but I think that when he makes the assertion that there is a necessity for frank collaboration from this side he might at least tell us. if such frank collaboration were put forward by this side, to what extent it would be met by equally frank collaboration, or any collaboration at all, from the opposite side. He goes on to say that there is a lack of a clear lead by the Government. It seems to me that there is no lack of a clear lead by the Government, because the Minister for Supplies, speaking recently in the Dáil, said that the matter of increasing agricultural production is one, of course, to which the Government gave first concern when the war situation developed. Surely Senator Johnston has read that; surely he can trust the Government to see that every part of the situation is attended to, and surely it is entirely too early to say whether or not that situation has been fully, frankly and competently met by the Government.

Motions of this character seem to be put down more or less for the purpose of certain people airing their views in regard to certain economic theories rather than to be helpful in a difficult and delicate situation. That is my opinion of Senator Johnston's contribution this evening. It will look very well and I am sure it will be very interesting to students of agricultural economics to read in the future, but beyond that I do not think it has any value whatsoever and I see no reason why it should be placed on the Order Paper at all. It is merely a considerable waste of the time of public men.

Senator Baxter, his supporter in this matter, treated us on two occasions to a series of vague generalities. As far as I was concerned, it was perfectly impossible to understand what he was driving at. He said that we should not have a compulsory tillage order. He regretted that any such suggestion should be made. He went on to speak of some alternative scheme which sounded something like that we should get together, that the farmers were prepared to do anything that was asked of them, but beyond saying that we should agree to get together we could get no lucid idea at all of what "getting together" would be. He did, so far as he was lucid at all, refer to a suggestion which I made in this House some nine months ago in regard to co-operation. Perhaps he now sees the value of the statement I made on that occasion. I shall not weary the House by quoting it, but I did express the opinion that, apart from any wartime situation, if agriculture were to advance and develop, it could only do so by co-operative effort. If he sees light along those lines, then I congratulate him, but it should not require a war situation to enable Senator Baxter to see the value of such an idea. Perhaps it might be taken into consideration now. If any thing is to be done for agriculture, in my opinion it can only be done along the lines of co-operation.

It is not now possible to deal with the debate generally and all that has been said about a National Government, parish committees and various other suggestions that have been made for bringing this country through the crisis. We do not know sufficient about these matters to be able to speak intelligently on them. In regard to the National Government proposition, I have no knowledge of what it means. The day may come when such a suggestion might have to be considered for adoption, but personally I do not think that day has arrived. The Government which has been elected has been elected in accordance with a democratic franchise. It enjoys the confidence of the people and I am sure that the Government is quite capable of attending to all the circumstances of the crisis as those circumstances present themselves to us at the moment.

I should like to say one thing, in the limited time at my disposal, in relation to unemployment. A serious situation has developed, and presumably will develop further in regard to unemployment if this international crisis becomes more acute. Supplies are getting more and more limited, and we should like the Government to look into that aspect of the matter, because as these supplies grow less, the more we shall have unemployment. This is probably not the place to speak in detail on matters of this character, but I take this opportunity, in the presence of the Taoiseach, to say that probably far more urgent than the position which we have heard in regard to the farming community, will be the position which will arise on the question of unemployment. The economy of this country as it has developed in the last six or seven years is bound, in a set of circumstances such as the present, to bring us graver problems than the country would probably have to face if such development had not taken place. All we can say is that we hope that the Minister for Supplies will look into this matter as carefully as he can, and that efforts will be made to alleviate the situation. I feel sure that the Minister will make these efforts without any urging on our part. It is to his interest, the interest of the Government and the interests of the country that he should do so. I merely refer to this question of supplies because they are so intimately related to unemployment that any adverse development in that regard is bound to bring problems of a more difficult character. I feel sure that he will do his utmost. We have been asked by one Senator who spoke previously to render assistance in this regard. I can assure the House that anything which the trade union movement can do to assist in that matter will be gladly done, and that the Minister will have the full, free and frank co-operation of the trade union and Labour movement to that end. I do not think I need say anything more except that motions of this character only tend to prejudice the Government which is in existence, or any Government in existence, and it would be far better for the country if they were left off the Order Paper altogether during the present crisis.

Mr. Madden

I certainly shall not delay the House unduly, as it is rather late now. In the early part of the day I thought that the convening of the Seanad had served a very useful purpose, but as the debate developed. I was completely disabused of what appears to me now to have been a very erroneous idea. The speeches that have emanated from both sides of the House to-day are simply disgusting in this great crisis. When I think of the meeting here a month ago, of the atmosphere that was then created, of the harmony of ideas behind the Government in their critical task, I went away happy that everything was well. To come back here to-day and to hear some of the speeches, the wrangling and the political acrimony from both sides of the House, so completely at variance with the atmosphere created a month ago, was very discouraging to me, although at times here I might be regarded as the discordant note on this side of the House. I assure you that at several public meetings since, in my capacity as a member of other committees, I enunciated the policy which I am convinced now is the proper policy, in this crisis, for every Irishman, irrespective of party, policy or creed.

We hear a lot of talk about the Border, and the trouble it has created amongst some unthinking people throughout the country, but there is also a border here, and it should, in my opinion, for the time being, when this country is standing on the verge of a human holocaust, when we appear to be threatened with the end of Christian civilisation in Europe, be removed. There should, as I said before, and as I repeat, be unity of effort and a unification of forces so as to have every element in this country behind the Government in the terrible responsibility which they have to bear in this great European crisis. You know the scare that was created throughout the country during the last week. I met people in the train from my own place into Limerick City, and I was asked: "Senator, what is up? What are you being called up for? Is it true that Mr. de Valera was threatened?" In the train, a fortnight ago, when going home there were six or eight responsible citizens, men of opulence in this country, sitting in the carriage with me. I heard one of them say to the others: "Did you hear that the Minister for Justice is gone out of the country? He got eight days to clear out.""I heard that," he said, "on unmistakable authority." This very responsible citizen—mind you, they do make mistakes sometimes—was a Cork man.

Mr. M. Hayes

A man of no weight.

Mr. Madden

Yes, and he spoke with a high sense of responsibility, carrying, like myself, a fair share of avoirdupois. I said to him: "Are you sure that the Minister for Justice is gone. and that he has been hunted out of the country?" He said he was perfectly certain, and when I asked him, "How long is he gone?" his reply was "Five or six days." I then asked: "Do you know has he come back?""No," he said, "there is no coming back there; he would not sign certain things for An Taoiseach.""Well," I said, "I do not know you, but you are a responsible, decent-looking man, and you have spoken with conviction as if you had definitely seen the signature of An Taoiseach. Do you know that I saw the man that you say was hunted out of the country inside, not Government Buildings, but at his office in the Custom House between 11 and 12 o'clock this very day?" That is a very serious thing, and I said so to this man. These things have been broadcast through the country.

I want to say a word or two, with all deference and respect, to both sides of the House. I want to say a word even to Senator Quirke who has accepted responsibility for offering critiques on political speeches made here. I would say to the Senator that he himself ought to be an exemplar of the higher ideal, because the very things that he condemned here he elaborated, I would say, with great bitterness, although personally he is a most genial gentleman.

Mr. Quirke

Force begets force.

Mr. Madden

My last point is this: that in my opinion a lot of the criticism that we heard here this evening— the magnificent, academic and technical review that we had—would be delightful to listen to some time about the Christmas season when you were stretching your feet at a coal fire. My friend, sitting here near me, elaborated certain points this evening that would be all right in their own time. He told us that the Government ought to give us a comprehensive policy, and then he spoke about threatened compulsion. I have not heard that the Government have threatened compulsion except to urge on the agricultural community that they should realise what their duty is to the country in this time of crisis in the production of essential food. The Minister for Lands, who attended the debate this evening, told the House that what the Government would desire above all things is to get the voluntary co-operation of the people. That is the spirit which, I think, should permeate this House. If there is a spirit of unity and harmony behind the Government in this great crisis, the country will respond to it. It is an appeal on those lines that I would like to see broadcast through the country in the newspapers to-morrow instead of some of the stuff that the papers I am afraid will be serving up to us. If such an appeal for unity and harmony went forth to the people to-morrow, they would then realise that both the Dáil and Seanad were solidly behind the Government in asking the agricultural community to realise their grave responsibility to the country in this great crisis: to appeal to them for increased agricultural production, and particularly of two essential foods, one for bread and the other for sugar—sugar for the poor and flour for us all.

I am a townsman myself. This year I grew five acres of wheat. I have it harvested and it is now in the store. I had its germination tested in Government Buildings within the last week so as to ensure that I would have a proper supply of pure seed for the coming season and, I hope, an increased acreage. Let an appeal go forth from this House that we are behind the Government in this grave crisis. If it does I believe that it will create in the country a spirit of unity, harmony and co-operation. The country will be inspired by it, and the Government will be given heart and encouragement to go ahead with the heavy tasks that face them. That is the contribution that I wish to make to this House to-night.

Mr. Campbell

As one who is conscious of the magnitude of the task that confronts the Government, I do not wish to say anything that would tend to make that task more difficult. I think everyone appreciates that the major problem with which this country will be faced in the near future is that of unemployment. When I refer to it, I refer particularly to unemployment amongst skilled workers. Already the number of them is growing. In one small industry that I have special knowledge of, the number unemployed a month ago was one per cent. To-day the figure is 10 per cent., so that in a month the number unemployed in that one industry has jumped from 10 to 100. That is the position in one small industry, but it is indicative of what we may expect. I think we are only pushing the open door when we bring this to the notice of the Taoiseach. I had the advantage of being a member of a deputation that saw him and the Minister for Supplies on Monday last. Some adverse comments were made here to-night on the way the Government have conducted the business of the nation during the past month. I want to say that I have been greatly impressed by the measures already taken, particularly the measures taken by the Minister for Supplies to meet any emergencies that may arise in the near future.

I have one complaint to make. Recently the Department of Posts and Telegraphs decided to introduce a sponsored programme which is directly hitting the industry with which I am concerned. I refer to the broadcasting of an advertising programme. I think the Government would have been well advised not to pursue that programme at the present time. In addition to that, we have, of course, the censorship, which is materially affecting the production of newspapers and magazines in the country. I think that the newspaper Press of the country has a great tradition, a great record for fairness in giving the point of view of every Party in the State. There was just the one notorious example in the last 25 years where the Press transgressed, but I do not propose to refer to that now.

There are three of us here representing the Trade Union Congress. We represent a quarter of a million affiliated workers. If their dependents are included, the number would probably be three-quarters of a million. We feel that serious measures will have to be taken to meet the emergencies that will arise in the course of six months. These people—journalists, printers, carpenters, clerical workers and others —like other sections of the community, undertook certain obligations in recent years which they certainly will not be able to meet as a result of unemployment. Due to the higher standard of living arising out of the last war, they have contracted bank and other debts, especially debts to utility societies arising out of the purchase of houses erected by those societies or of ordinary Corporation houses.

When unemployed they will not be able to meet their obligations, and, therefore, I think the Government will have to introduce some measures giving legal sanction to the suspension of payments during the period that those people are deprived of the means of earning the wherewithal to meet the obligations I have referred to. I understand that the British Government contemplate introducing a measure declaring a moratorium, so that people who purchased furniture and other household supplies will not be sued during the war for payment of those moneys. I think it is a matter to which the Taoiseach should direct his attention. I do not want to sound any alarming note, but I think that a prudent fear is the mother of safety.

The Government itself should set the example in the way of continuing employment as far as possible. At the outbreak of the war certain publications published by An Gúm were suspended. I interested myself in the matter and got an assurance that those publications would be put in hands immediately. I got that assurance from the Minister responsible, but that was a month ago, and they have not yet been put in hand. I understand the reason is that there are no technical men to deal with them, as they have been transferred to other Departments. I think it is necessary that those people should be left in the Departments where they are doing work which provides employment for other people. This refers to about 150 publications. As a result of the suspension of those publications at least 100 people have been suspended from work. We know, of course, that economies will be necessary, but I submit that that is false economy. I think it is unfair that that should have been done. Somebody here to-night referred to the tightening of belts. I only hope that the workers to whom I refer will have something to tighten their belts on 12 or 18 months hence. The position is going to be particularly grave for the skilled workers in towns and cities.

Somebody referred to the likelihood of a shortage of food. I think the Minister for Supplies sufficiently convinced us that there was going to be no shortage of food in the immediate future. I was impressed with the measures which he told us had been taken, in conjunction with the Minister for Agriculture, of course, to ensure that there would be no shortage. The difficulty I foresee is that the people will not have money to buy food, and there again the Government will be confronted with a problem. It will be the duty of the State to see that every citizen has sufficient food, clothing and shelter. It will be the task of the Government to ensure that that will be achieved. What mechanism they will devise to ensure it I do not know, but it is their problem, and in the solving of that problem, as Senator Lynch has said, they will have the whole-hearted co-operation of the trade unions. As I have said, I was much impressed with the steps taken to ensure that this country will not hunger in the near future, at any rate. I hope the Government will introduce some form of compulsory tillage. I understand we produce only one-third of our wheat requirements. I think that is insufficient at the present time, when we do not know what may occur to prevent the importation of foreign wheat to this country to supplement the home production. As far as profiteering is concerned, I think the Government should take every measure to ensure that people will not be overcharged for the food and necessaries they have to purchase. The State does not hesitate to send a hungry man to jail if he steals a loaf, and they should not hesitate to send a profiteer to prison.

At a meeting of the Dublin Trade Unions Council last night a very serious debate took place in regard to A.R.P. Recently a notice appeared in the daily Press that volunteers would be required to assist the Gárda in traffic control in the event of the evacuation of the city, The council was pretty well perturbed about that. They wanted to know where the evacuation areas were, how the people were to be transported from the crowded areas of the city slums and tenements, and what provision generally would be made in that respect. We have not heard anything from the Minister responsible for A.R.P. as to any evacuation areas having been decided upon. It is a very serious position. If we really fear air raids, we should take definite and quick steps to provide shelter for the people who are compelled to work in the cities, and on the other hand definite steps should be immediately taken to ensure that every sick, infirm and old person will be removed to safer quarters, if such quarters have been decided upon. As I say, the Trade Unions Council at a meeting last night were very perturbed as to the whole position in that respect. They envisaged not any gas attacks on this city, but high explosive attacks, if ever air raids take place—attacks which would bring half the tenement slums of Dublin tumbling around our ears. It would solve the slum problem at all events, because they would all be brought down in one air raid.

I do not want to say anything further except once again to emphasise the importance of the Government taking steps now to deal with the grave problem of unemployment which I foresee will arise in the next six or 12 months. A man coming out of employment is entitled to 26 weeks' unemployment insurance, and in the skilled trades they have their own benefits from their trades unions, but at the end of six months everything is finished, and the Government will have to take steps to continue the payment of unemployment insurance benefit outside of what the individual has coming to him. I have great pleasure in testifying once again to the efforts made by the Government to meet the situation which has arisen. Four weeks of neutrality have only tended to impress upon me that everybody in this State stands behind the Government in the great task which confronts them in the days that lie ahead of us.

Mrs. Concannon

For fear the House might forget that there are such people as women in this country who are vitally concerned in the present crisis, I would make a hasty incursion into this debate. Although the tone of the debate has not been such as one would wish, I am glad that the Seanad was called together, because it helps to dispel the rumours which are causing great trouble to women, who are susceptible to those things. It is a good thing that the Seanad and the Dáil should be called together occasionally. Speeches such as Senator Douglas made are very helpful to the Government. The debate showed, perhaps, one thing, how impossible a national Government would be, because we could have had what is called a national Government if the criticism had been more helpful and if Party politics had been left out. However, two or three things that are very useful emerged. One was the idea of parish committees. I think this idea really ought to be examined very closely, as it would solve a great many of our problems. As a woman, I am never interested in great ideas, but in concrete things—all the little matters that came under my notice. I had a visit from a Connemara woman the other day, and she told me about the great trouble which has been caused among the poor there by the egg regulations. Of course, we know that those were necessary, but the people in the parish where she lives use eggs for barter. As she put it, they are waiting for the hen to lay in order to go to the shop with the egg. Now the shops will not take the eggs. That has happened in a great many cases. The people themselves are eating the eggs at the present time, but when the eggs get dear this will interfere very much with the local economy. If there were such a thing as a parish committee in existence, the machinery for testing and stamping those eggs would be available, and from that there would emerge a very useful system of co-operation.

These parish committees could deal with a question that is of paramount interest in Connemara at the present time—unemployment. As I went down on the train from the Seanad on the last day we met, the train was crowded with young people coming home from England. Connemara is overrun with them, and most of these people are not entitled to the dole and I do not know what on earth the situation is going to be. Now, the parish committees could help very largely in the question of work for these people, and I suggest that would be of very great importance and would help the Government to deal with these problems. The setting up of these parish committees would also be the real implementation of democracy because democracy means the people themselves taking an interest in government, and if you had these parish committees to put forward schemes and to see them working out it would contribute largely to their continued interest in government. For that reason I think the idea should be examined carefully, and that was my reason for intervening in the debate at this late moment.

The Taoiseach

The question of the advisability or not of calling Parliament frequently, and of the wisdom or unwisdom of my own action in summoning the Dáil and Seanad before it was necessary to do so in the ordinary way for legislative purposes, naturally, comes to be considered. I must confess that I was disappointed, and that I felt somewhat as Senator Madden says he felt, when I faced the Dáil on the last occasion the Dáil met, because I felt that a great change had taken place, and why that change had taken place was something that I could not understand. The tone and spirit was very different from that in which we had parted previously, and I think that the same could be said reasonably of the debate here in this House this evening. Now, the situation has not, in a month, become easier. The dangers that were there a month ago are still before us, and instead of getting less careful we should, in seeing what is likely to happen, become more careful, and each one of us ought now to realise that we have a part to play in the whole, and that no one of us can afford to take liberties: that we ought even to restrain liberty where that is justified, and that certainly we ought not to indulge in licence at a time like this.

Everybody knows the difference—I mean in the country—between the two major Parties here. These differences have been fought out in public over a long period of time, and it is not likely that we are going to agree with each other as to past history, or as to whether the present Government is a good Government or a bad one, or as to whether its personnel is good or bad. These are things about which it is not in human nature to get agreement, but I think we ought to get this agreement—and those who have read history more widely ought to get it more readily than others—that in a time of crisis like this, democracy can ruin itself and can bring democracy, as an institution, practically to an end. Anybody who has read the discussion at the time the American Constitution was being considered will remember that the old maxim, that in a time of anxiety and a time of war it is necessary to have a form of government very different from that of the ordinary democracy, was realised; and we ought to realise that now, no matter how we may differ, and no matter how each one of us may think or say that we would act if we had the responsibility, there must be some responsible body to decide and, very often, to decide very quickly.

There is only one responsible body possible, and that is the Government, and there is nobody in the country, I think, who can deny that that Government was elected freely by the people. It was not elected, perhaps, just to meet such a crisis as this, but it was elected freely by the people, and every opportunity was given to the people to select the Government which they preferred. That Government was chosen and the responsibilities placed on its shoulders, and although we recognise the full weight of these responsibilities and how much depends on doing our work properly and well, we do not want to shirk our responsibilities in the slightest. We realised what our responsibilities were when we undertook them, and we are quite prepared to carry them out to the best of our ability.

One thing should be understood— and I think it will be admitted by all reasonable people—and that is that no Government can possibly save a community from a catastrophe such as the present world catastrophe is, or from the consequences of such a catastrophe. We are bound to suffer. We cannot have the same standard of living, each one of us, as we had before. Each one of us is going to suffer, and what is important is to try, as far as possible, to even out the suffering and ease it to the greatest extent possible so that that suffering as a whole will be lessened and, in so far as it bears on the community, will not bear more heavily on one part of the community than on the other.

We have been planning ahead as far as it was possible to do so, and planning ahead is difficult in this particular case, because it is only when the conditions settle a little that one can form any proper estimate as to what supplies can come in and what supplies cannot. A year or so ago we set up, in anticipation, a section of Supplies—that section was in the Department of Industry and Commerce—with the intention that, if a crisis like the present one came upon us, that section would be expanded into a complete Department with a Minister in charge. The Minister who had charge of the section, in the anticipatory period, was, naturally, the Minister to put in charge of the new Department. That necessitated some other Minister being put into the Department of Industry and Commerce.

Now, just as in matters of policy, we will not all see alike in this matter either. I have no doubt whatever that if every member of the Seanad here were asked to form the personnel of a new Government or to make changes, you would form that personnel or make these changes in your own way. Well, I had the responsibility in this case and I did it in my own way, in the way that I thought right, and I have taken full responsibility. I know that some people would think we would be better off if we had an expert like Senator Sir John Keane in charge of Finance, and if we had Senator Johnston in charge of, say, Agriculture, but there is something more important than experts in a matter like this. We can get our experts. They will be available for us. There is something much more important than that, and that is a thorough understanding of our own people, of their character and the fundamental things they are aiming at, of the things for which they will make sacrifices and the things that they will not stand for. I had the responsibility of originally nominating a Cabinet, and when I made my nominations I did so with a full understanding of that, which is the fundamental thing, and the Government that is in office now is exactly the Government that has been in office for seven years, and the policy, as a whole, obviously cannot have been changed, because we are jointly responsible for Government policy. These recent changes were necessary as a result of the formation of the new Ministry, unless we were to bring in people from outside, and I believed that the present time was not a time to bring in people from outside.

We have been looking ahead and considering these problems. We know each other's views on a variety of questions and we know perfectly well that we are not going to have internal dissensions as long as we have the present Government, and that is important for the country to know. A Government that is united in itself, with its people and members freely and frankly discussing the problems that occur, without any fear or anxiety that there is going to be misrepresentation or anything like that, is a much safer Government for the people than a Government that would be internally weak, internally suspicious one member of another, a Government that would not be considered in the same way as the personnel of the Government who have been before the country for a long number of years.

I am not going to enter into personal discussions with regard to the members. The country elected them, and every one of them is a man who has served the country and, no matter what anybody may think, from an academical point of view, they are people in whom the country has confidence. I know that the former Minister for Finance and the former Minister for Local Government were criticised by those who did not agree with them, and I am perfectly certain that the new Minister for Finance will not be criticised any more harshly than the old Minister was when he came into office, and I am also perfectly certain that when his period of office is up, how absurd and how silly these criticisms are will be recognised by everybody.

However, it is a time of anxiety for us, because we realise that there are very big problems ahead. The question of how far we are self-sufficient has been raised. Unfortunately, the policy of self-sufficiency has not been carried as far as I should like to see it carried. Had it been possible to carry it to that extent, we would be in a much better position to-day. We are at least beginning with one of the fundamentals, wheat, where others left off, and we have more wheat grown to-day than they were able to get with compulsory powers at the end of the last war. There are a number of other things for which we have not got the fundamental raw materials, and there are a number of others in respect of which we have been able to get down even to the raw materials, and if our policy of trying to get to reasonable self-sufficiency, and we never put it beyond that, had been even more successful than it has, we would be in a better position. Of course, if any people who were not going on the land were allowed to go away, and were given no other opportunity of getting employment, if we had only those whom the land can employ, we would not have the problem such as that about which Senator Campbell spoke; but is that the ideal at which we propose to aim? Are we going back to the idea of the family on 200 acres of land? Is that what our national life is going to be finally?

We, at any rate, believed, and believe still, in the idea that we ought to have as far as possible an all-round life here, producing from our own soil, with our own labour, as much as we possibly can. We think it is the soundest economy in the long run, and we are very pleased with the extent to which it has developed so far, even though at the moment we may have problems such as those which will face us because we have not got more timber. Had some generation before us been sufficiently alive and able to do it, and had supplied the timber the lack of which is the real reason we will have, if we do have, unemployment in the building industry; if that timber were available from our own forests, we would have a different story to tell. In regard to matters of that sort, one can go a certain distance, but there is a certain limit beyond which one cannot go, even in the matter of afforestation, about which Senator Cu Uladh is very fond of talking. There is a limit, but it is a good example of the extent to which we might have been self-sufficient. I hope in future generations we will be, so that a shortage of wood and timber, which may bring about a serious condition of unemployment here in regard to the building industry, will not exist in the future.

The natural thing to start with is to ask yourself how do we stand with regard to the fundamentals, food? Can we get food enough? I think there is not the slightest doubt about it, and I think that if we make a reasonable use at all of our land in times to come, there is no fear of our not having sufficient food for human beings. Can we get more? Is it advisable to get more? It is. It is advisable also, if we are to get in goods from outside, for which we have to sell produce in exchange, that we should be able to produce, therefore, anything else we can produce, for which we can get a market outside and which we can transport to that market. Obviously, the agricultural produce which we have been able to export up to the present is likely to have a market, and an available market in the future, and, therefore, we ought to try to avail of that market to the utmost. To what extent can we do so? The value of our exports did increase during the last war, but their volume did not increase. The question is: To what extent is it possible to increase our production not merely to supply food for ourselves—and the principal item in food is bread—one of the principal, anyhow, if not the chief —but also for export.

We are growing only one-third of our requirements of wheat. If we were growing our full requirements, we would not need to look for flour outside at all. One-third of our wheat is grown, and our aim in the coming year is to bring that up by half, to increase by 50 per cent. the present acreage under wheat. We have about 250,000 acres under wheat and if you add another 125,000 acres, we will have roughly half our requirements. We are anxious to get that done and if the farmers want to co-operate with the Government in its general policy, they will set about increasing the acreage under wheat. I will come back to the question of compulsion and so on later. I want to add to what I have said in this respect, that in regard to food supplies, we want also to send out agricultural produce for which we can get the best market. That will be represented by cattle, to whatever extent we can export them, butter, bacon and so on. In order to produce cattle, bacon, eggs and fowl, we will have to have feeding-stuffs for them. Imports of maize may be cut off at any time. They may not, but we have the Department of Supplies ready to take advantage of any opportunity to get these supplies from abroad. The advantages of this are very immediately available, whereas what you start with now for tillage will not be available until next harvest, and, therefore, if we want to increase supplies of agricultural produce quickly, and if we want to have the feeding stuffs necessary for them, the advantages of having supplies of maize are obvious to everybody. At any rate, we ought to make provision against the possibility of these supplies being cut off, and, therefore, ought to try to produce from our land by tillage, not merely the food required for human beings, but also the food required for cattle, for pigs and for fowl. We have got to do that. The moment you ask that to be done the farmer will naturally say: "I am quite prepared to do that, but I cannot do it at a loss; you are not going to ask me to cultivate and labour at a loss." If possible, he wants to be assured that the prices he will get will be remunerative, that they will at least give him back what he has put into it. You have a big question there.

Take the question of the price you would have to pay the farmer for wheat. You would have to be very careful. If you gave a high price such as would induce a large number of farmers to go into production of wheat, you are going ultimately perhaps to increase the price of bread—in fact it is almost inevitable that you will. Then the Government problem is: how are they going to get the production required in order to assure us of our food supplies without putting a burden on the rest of the community which would be unfair to them by giving the farmer the price he wants? Therefore, you have to try and get what would be a just price. But any price that you may be inclined to give, the farmer would say was not enough. Therefore, if you try to rely, as one would like, on inducement altogether, the difficulty is that the inducement that may be asked will be a price which would be most unfair for the rest of the community to pay. However, it ought to be possible to get a reasonable price for the farmer. Of course, if you give what the farmer will regard as a reasonable price, with the present world price, let us say, of wheat, you will put a cost on bread which will be far above the price at which you would be able to get bread provided you were able to get the wheat at the present world price.

These are the type of problems which the Government will have to consider in all their details. You will have to form a fair picture of the chance you have of getting supplies from outside and what ratio roughly you can get of outside supplies of wheat which with the home supplies will ensure reasonable safety against shortage of bread and not make the price too dear. There will be a good deal of guessing, no matter how carefully you try to look ahead and estimate your chances of getting supplies and all the rest, and you cannot do that straight off. When people tell us: "Already the crisis has been on for a month and you have not told us definitely what you want us to do and what price we will get", they forget that you cannot do these things by a wave of a wand. If there were such a crisis that you could not afford to wait, you might have to go ahead. But, as long as there is a possibility of very careful consideration, time should be given for that. Up to the present, what we have in mind is to get one half of our total requirements in wheat; that is an increase of 50 per cent. on the amount grown at present; and we want the farmers to envisage such cultivation as will give them not merely that, but give them feeding stuffs for their own stock as well.

Professor Johnston

Is the Taoiseach aware that, while the wheat acreage has gone up, the oats acreage has gone down lately?

The Taoiseach

That is so. But does the Senator think that is going to continue?

Professor Johnston

How will you stop the farmers from giving up oats in favour of wheat?

The Taoiseach

If the farmer sees that it is going to be valuable to him, if he wants to feed his stock with oats and barley instead of maize, for instance, if he knows he will not get a supply from outside, and he finds it is profitable for him to do it, as he will get his increased price for oats in the increased price for pigs and cattle——

Dr. Doyle

A technical question like that is not fair.

The Taoiseach

The point is that the farmers at present have to envisage what they are going to sell. Probably the majority would say that they were going to sell cattle or pigs or live stock products and, if they are not going to get maize from outside, the only way for them is to produce the feeding stuffs themselves. They will have to produce not merely wheat, which we are asking them to produce, but other crops which go into the feeding of cattle, pigs, etc. What we are asking them to do is the wisest policy for themselves and for the nation as a whole, because it is a policy which can be depended upon. I do not think the Government will guarantee the price of anything except perhaps wheat and beet.

Dr. Doyle

Why wheat?

The Taoiseach

Because wheat is absolutely essential. The inducement will be there for the oats and barley in the increased prices they are likely to get for pigs and other stock. I spoke of food not only for human beings but also for stock, as on our exports largely depends our power to buy things from outside. As to clothing, I do not think, so far as our supplies are concerned—I will come to the question of distribution later—that there is any difficulty. I do not think we are running any grave risks as regards having the clothing necessary to preserve us from the cold. There may be difficulties in having them in the ordinary way. I do not think we are going to have any real difficulties as regards clothing. As to shelter, we may have to put up with certain inconveniences if our building programme has to stop; but I do not think that from the point of view of shelter we are going to suffer tremendously.

With regard to fuel, it is probable that we will be able to get supplies from outside as before; but I do not think that, even in that case, we ought to depend unnecessarily upon them. To the extent to which we can supply fuel from our own bogs and otherwise we should set about doing it. I think one of the things for which we ought to organise ourselves is supplying from our home resources as much as possible of our fuel supplies. Fuel also is needed for power purposes, and there again, it is obviously good economy, safe economy anyway. Some people who have other views may say that it is not the best economy, but it is the safest, anyhow. In times of crisis, I think, "safety first" is not a bad motto. If we set about organising to do it we can supply that fundamental necessity. These are the fundamental things necessary. If we had these, and had any rational plan of distributing them, then as a community I think we need not be afraid of anything that may happen from the point of view of sustaining or maintaining life.

There is a fundamental problem of modern economics and that is, how are you going to distribute these things? The ordinary mechanism is that a man gives his services, say, as a printer or otherwise, and, in return, that person has a claim on all those who are benefiting by those services which can be cashed in, so to speak, on those fundamental interests in life.

Closely associated with this whole question is the question of finance. One of the things that is going to make the whole situation difficult is what I heard spoken of to-night; that is, that everybody must restrict in some way and that there must be less spending. For instance a man employing three people is going to restrict by putting one of the three out of employment. The example of the Government was mentioned by Senator Campbell. He mentioned that the Government were spending money in producing books and this gave employment to certain people. The point is, is it wise for the Government to stop that and throw those people out of employment, and is it wise for the community to stop and throw others out of employment? Very often that could be described as the penny wise and pound foolish type of economy.

Most of the economists I have been reading in crises in the past have pointed out the fatal consequences of this foolish and false type of economy. There is more danger to be feared from some of the professors of economy than from the practical people. I was not thinking, at the moment, of certain people here; I was thinking in general terms. I have for a number of years been very interested from one point of view in these subjects and I must say they have not, at least so far as I am concerned, carried a great deal of conviction with me. If I were to get a body of men to advise me as to the best way out of the present situation, I would not get a body of expert economists; I would rather get businessmen who would see the immediate consequences, not men who might be miles off the mark. I do not say that they have not got their place; they have a very important place, even if it is only concerned with putting up some opinions with which we might disagree.

It is important that these matters should be considered fundamentally, and we must say this about the economists that they do attempt to get down to these fundamental questions. But there are human factors in this case which count for far more than any abstract theories such as might come from some economists. Even the economists admit that one of the dangers of a period of crisis is that people begin to restrict spending and by that very process they increase the danger of the crisis. I am not saying that it might not be found on occasions that it would be in the interest of the community to restrict that spending, but you cannot say that straight off without a special examination in relation to the particular instances.

The problem of finance is there and sometimes, unfortunately, when it is to the interests of the financial powers, if they would only see it that way, to help the State in a period of crisis, that is the very time that they begin to think of the false economy. That is one of the things in which I hope we will get proper co-operation, so far as the State is concerned, in this crisis. We are looking for co-operation from all sections of the community. We are looking for co-operation to the financial sections, just as much as to the farmers, the labourers and everybody else.

We have to examine, first of all, the problem from the economic side, the problem of seeing that the necessary food is available in our own country for our own community. Next we have to consider the problem of its distribution, which is closely and immediately related to the problem of unemployment. If we had sufficient employment we would have a method of distribution by reason of the wages and salaries that would be obtained. I think these are the questions which are of immediate importance.

The most important matters confronting us have relation to finance and employment, or unemployment. In so far as it is possible for the Government to examine these questions in advance, that is being done, and decisions are made as soon as it is necessary that decisions should be made. The longer we can afford to devote to the examination of various matters, the better, because we will then get a better view of the tendencies and we can form a better idea of what supplies we can get. If we have to come to a decision on a particular matter, we can do that. The Minister for Agriculture has been considering several important matters and if he were asked he could say here and now that he could give a definite decision on a particular subject and he and the Government could arrive at that decision. At the same time we think it is desirable to get the views of a consultative committee, such as the Minister proposes to set up in relation to agricultural matters.

One of the questions that might be asked is this: is it necessary to have compulsion at all? Can you have inducement? If we can get it by goodwill and co-operation, we do not want compulsion, but human beings being what they are, with a certain element of self-consciousness in some of them and a certain want of civic understanding and civic spirit in a number of others, it may be absolutely necessary for us to take the step of saying that a certain proportion of every patch of arable land must be tilled. A number of people would say that that is the fairest way. There is no doubt that those who are tilling already can, with very little extra effort, increase the amount of tillage. They have the equipment and the experience which will enable them to increase their tillage. A large number of them could readily get up to the stage of what would be regarded as a reasonable limit. It is obviously to our advantage to try to induce these people to till more rather than to compel another person to do his part as a member of the community.

I am not going to say that the Government have completely abandoned the hope of getting what they want done in a spirit of goodwill, merely by asking for it. I would like to think that it was not necessary, but this thing I feel certain about, that unless the Minister for Agriculture can see that he is going to get the amount of land cultivated which he deems necessary for national safety from the economic point of view, he will insist on compulsion being applied. One of the difficulties about compulsion is that any compulsory measure means considerable administrative expense. It means expense on inspectors and any Government that has had experience of the cost of administration of such measures is anxious to avoid that particular type of expense if it is at all possible.

With regard to planning, I do not know how I can assure you better that the Government is not neglectful of its duties. I was glad that Senator Campbell could, from his own experience, being a member of the deputation, tell you that he was in touch with the Minister and myself and he knows that these measures are being considered and that appropriate steps are being taken.

There is another side. We generally class our problems as economic and political. I can sum up the economic one by saying that our problems will be unemployment, which means distribution of whatever we have available, and finance to which it is immediately related. These are problems of real difficulty. Someone spoke about petrol, that really we could get all the petrol we wanted, that there was some idea of petrol being wasted, and that buying it from outside was the reason for rationing. Why can you not take the Minister's words on these things? There was one word used several times, the word "frank." It is one of those words that I think ordinarily should not be used, because what purpose could a Government have in deceiving the people? How long could any Government with an Opposition continue to deceive the people, Why should we not be frank?

Therefore, there is no reason why you should not accept the words of the Minister on a vital matter of that sort. The Minister told the reason, because we were very doubtful about our supplies. We had laid in stocks to the peak that our capacity would enable us to lay in, but we have no assurance that we will be able to get supplies. We know very well that it is regarded by all the belligerents as definite contraband. We may not be able to get all our supplies. That is as much as being the actual reason. Why can we not accept that? Why go around with some other idea, that we were doing it because there was some other reason? Could the Minister not have said that it was for another reason if there was such a reason? Could he not have said, "Very well, we have made up our minds about that"?

Mr. Crosbie

The Minister did not say so. The Minister left the public more or less between heaven and hell, so to speak, on the question of petrol. As regards information about supplies, there are, at least, four tankers in Cork Harbour. If it was only a question of getting supplies it would be quite easy.

Cathaoirleach

The Senator is going into a big question now.

The Taoiseach

I was beside the Minister, and I heard him speaking about the tanks in the country being filled to the utmost extent. I also know, from the common sense point of view, that we cannot be sure of our supplies. I know that the Department of Supplies, if it gets a chance to buy a cargo, will do so.

Mr. Crosbie

I agree.

The Taoiseach

We cannot do more, no more than we can get wheat. Is the possibility of getting wheat a reason why we should not go on with our security programme of trying to grow as much as we can here? These are all questions of chance. We cannot take chances with regard to the essentials. With regard to petrol everything should make us go on as we are going if we are to be assured of supplies. One of the reasons is, I think, that in the motor business there are something like 40,000 employed in rendering services in order to get for the people what they will eat and what will clothe them and so on.

There are almost as many employed there as in the building trade, and whether it was a question of getting wood for it or supplies for the motor trade in order to continue the normal life of the community, if we have to change over, we are anxious to change over with a proper plan, and not in the way we would have to change if we were simply cut off from supplies, and closed down suddenly for want of a vital product like petrol. When Ministers give explanations and when these explanations are given honestly why should they be immediately told: "Oh, you have not been frank"?

One Senator went on to talk about a change of Government and, looking at it in his way, gave some absurd example of what it meant. The fact is that fundamentally in the Constitution the Government is a group of individuals who are elected and, as such, have joint responsibility, and divide between them the administrative offices so as to get the best results. That is the foundation of the whole constitutional position. There is hardly a major problem in any Department now which does not come to be solved by the body as a whole, and not by an individual Minister. The individual Minister will be the administrative officer, from whom the major problem will eventually come before the Government as a whole before a decision is reached. Again, if we wanted to bring in people from outside we could have done it, but I believe we could have done it at a considerable loss, a loss from the point of view of support in the country in the main, and a loss from other points of view too. I do not want to go back on that question.

Our problems are economic and political. With regard to the political problem, I do not think I should go into that at any length. Anyone who has had any experience knows what the political problems are as well as I do. Everyone knows what our political problems are. They immediately bring us to the question of the censorship. In the Dáil I think I said that you could classify opinions in this country into three sections from the point of view of what should be our attitude. There is a large body of opinion which believes in supporting the Government at present, and believes that we should do our utmost in this small nation to avoid being involved in this conflict. That reflects the mass of opinion in this country. I am quite prepared to take Senator Fitzgerald's expression of "non-belligerents." We do not want to get involved in the war.

That is the important part. It is not from any adherence to any theoretical standpoint that that will be done. It is a problem for our own consideration, and it cannot be solved by reference to what they are doing in Switzerland or Belgium or somewhere else. We have our own immediate and definite problems which are practical and not theoretical problems. They are serious practical problems. Having that as the basis of our policy, and believing that we have the support of the vast majority of the people in it, we want to try to carry it to a successful conclusion.

Apart from that great big central mass of people, we have, on the other hand, two other sections. I want again to preface any remarks I make in that regard by saying that I do not believe that these are pro-German or pro-British. I believe they hold their opinions because they believe that it will be to the ultimate benefit of this nation that they should be accepted and become the national policy. There is one section that is, what you might call, if you like, on the right of the main body, who think that Irish interests would be best served by our going into this conflict on one side, on the side of Britain. There is another section that believe the national interest would best be served by going in against Britain, and if you just give a chance to either of these sections to start the propaganda they would wish and to express the opinions they would wish to express in regard to this matter, we would have a nice mess here in a short time. That is why we have a censorship. Now, if there is what I dislike very much, a censorship of opinion, it is only because we have Senators like Senator MacDermot and Senator Sir John Keane. I mention these because they have expressed certain views here on occasions. If these Senators were allowed to give expression to their views—which I am sure they honestly hold in the best interests of this country—then we would have people on the other side who would want to give expression to their views as to how matters should be conducted.

I firmly believe that the national interests are best served by following the policy which the best sense of our people want followed. In order to see that it is followed and that the consequences will not flow which I see flowing from unrestricted opinion, censorship is necessary. These are the two reasons why it is necessary. But whereever there is censorship there is suspicion. It cannot be avoided. Of course if we censor something like the poster which was round the city at the earlier stage of the war before the censorship was set up, if we censor something like that which everybody would agree ought to be censored, there would even then be people who would think we were censoring the ordinary happenings and they would say that the people were being kept in the dark. This is a small country and it would be very difficult to keep anything of importance from our people.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Hear, hear!

The Taoiseach

Therefore, it is well that the people may know perfectly well in advance that there is nothing of real serious importance being kept from them. All we want is to prevent this public propaganda, but when we prevent public propaganda we are not preventing the private propaganda which is going on. Much has been said on the question of the rumours which have been going around. Rumour is a very old feature of human life. Somebody drew my attention to the 20th Chapter of the First Book of Caesar a short time ago. He talked of the ancient Gauls and about this matter of rumour and he says how in the well-governed State, particularly when there is any news brought in about happenings outside the State, that everybody who hears it is bound to report the matter at once to the magistrate, the officer of the State. The reason was that the magistrate or the officers of the State were the only people who were able to assess its value but that if it went to the mass of the people as a whole it would lead them perhaps to panic action. It was only the magistrate who could decide matters of State policy of that kind. Rumour and the dangers from rumour are very old. The speed at which rumours travel is proverbial. I never believed when I first heard about rumour that I would appreciate as I do now its dangers.

I never in my time thought there was or could be such a crop of rumours as was produced in the last month I do not know in what factory they were manufactured. I was wondering whether there was a joker at work or whether there was some sinister influence operating, an influence which might be quite evil. There is no doubt that rumours passed around like that can do a great deal of harm by creating a wrong frame of mind and creating uncertainty, or as the Gauls, apparently, thought, creating panic in the minds of the people who believed them, when they are not prepared for them and are perhaps rather excitable under the conditions of the moment. These are things that may lead to people taking actions contrary to their best interests. It is possible that these rumours were originated or manufactured by people for a sinister purpose. It is also possible that they were intended for a joke and they did not originate from people with sinister views. I cannot understand how anybody in a small country like ours— where if anything serious happened it would be known immediately—could pay the least attention to rumours of the kind we have been hearing during the past month. If we deny one rumour next day there is another. If the rumour of to-day says that it is the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence who had been arrested there would be no use in denying that, because next day the rumour would have it that it was the new Minister.

Mr. Baxter

He is quite safe now.

The Taoiseach

The question is, what can the Government do in these circumstances? If we start denying these rumours the originators would want to make it appear the other way. They would say we were protesting too much if we tried to show how absurd the rumours were. If a few people of sense find their way through the country they would be able to dispel these rumours.

Mr. Baxter

I had to bring the story back with me to the country that I had actually seen the people who were rumoured to have been arrested or killed.

The Taoiseach

I thought I understood people fairly well, but this is a new aspect of things that never presented itself to me before now. It is something completely new to me. I admit I do not see any way in which the Government could possibly put an end to it. It is necessary in the national interests to have a censorship, but then as long as there is a censorship anybody can say that such and such a thing happened but that it was not allowed into the papers. I do not know if anybody wishes me to talk further on the question of the censorship in general. All I will say is that censorship is necessary for our internal peace and also in order to avoid our getting at cross-purposes with other countries. We ourselves are rather sensitive in the matter of things said about us. There was a certain broadcast some time ago about things said in the Dáil and the Deputy who called my attention to it was, I think, one of the Deputies who talked about the censorship here at the same time. I do not want to have protests from other countries of the type this Deputy would want me to make about things done and said in other countries. We are not immediately involved in the war. Our passions are not like the passions of people who are being killed and who are killing. If we are sensitive about things said about us how much more sensitive are the people who are actually engaged in the conflict? Is it not obvious, therefore, that it is to our national interest to prevent—I find it difficult to find the exact epithet to apply—dangerous expressions of opinion in such exaggerated form as they are bound to be given expression to in times like these? I cannot say further than that.

Those who are in charge are given general instructions which means that, while having regard to any particular case, they will ask themselves is it really dangerous to the country that expressions of this kind should be published and, if it is not, then there ought to be no censorship of it. I believe that there is comparatively little. I have not been in touch with the newspaper people about it recently, but I believe it will be found that there is very little censorship as, once it was known that that type of thing would not be permitted, it is simply not coming forward. If we could depend on the Press exercising restraint of themselves, there would be no necessity for the Ministry to take action; but everybody knows that we cannot depend on that; others would use the occasion and make use of the freedom to advance their own particular views, no matter what harm may result to the State.

Professor Alton

There is one question I should like to raise about the censorship. How far does it apply to correspondence? Some correspondence came to me from Italy—a bookseller's catalogue—and it was marked "Opened by censor." I have been expecting some journals from America which have not yet come in and I wonder if they have been held up.

The Taoiseach

I am sorry I am not able to give an answer to that. It would depend on the view that may be taken. For instance, we knew that there was a great deal of propaganda coming into this country before the war started, and that type of matter would not be permitted now. I do not know to what extent the censor may feel that these things have to be examined so as to see what is coming in. I was putting the question to myself, saying if I were censor, what would I do with regard to American papers. There is no use in saying to the Government that such and such a publication is coming from the United States: our people must remember that there are 120,000,000 people in America, that it is a powerful nation, well organised—industrially and otherwise— for the protection of national interests. We are not a large nation, nor are we so well equipped. No one would suggest that. In the defence of national interests, America can take liberties which we cannot take and which it would not be advisable for us to take.

Do not think, because we take reasonable care in these matters, that we are more afraid than the ordinary people. Most of us in the Government have passed through times of crisis: we are not new to such times, though I admit that this is a crisis of a different type. However, we are not going to lose our heads and become frightened either for ourselves or for the nation in a time of crisis. On the contrary, we are trying to exercise due prudence and reasonable restraint and we ask other people to do likewise. Senator Tierney need not think that the thoughts to which he gave expression are shared by other people in the country. I am perfectly certain that other people would be aware of the possibility of these things. If he were a member of the Government he would not guide his actions in that way.

We know we are in a dangerous situation—economically and politically— but we are not afraid, we are perfectly ready to face up to it and to its consequences, we are not panic stricken; and, when we ask people not to be complacent, we wish them to realise the gravity of the situation without being afraid of it. It is a grave situation and needs careful attention: we must recognise that we are not living in ordinary times, but the last thing in the world that we feel ourselves, or that other people feel, is that there is any question of being afraid. We are taking ordinary precautions. We do not wish to injure anybody and, being quite conscious that our intentions are right, we are absolutely ready to face whatever may follow as a result of our pursuing what we regard as the right path. Now, whatever does come, we are prepared to do our part and we are certain that our people are prepared to do the same.

There is a further question which I did not deal with in the Dáil and which I should now like to mention here. It is the question of the extra expenditure on the police force. Both in the police force and in the Army we have been economising in past years, probably more than was wise. We had less police than we had some years ago. There is a problem created here by the expansion of this city. It means that there are large suburbs which are almost indistinguishable from the centre of the city in so far as police activities and traffic supervision are concerned. This expansion of our city has necessitated an extended police force. We were hoping that we might be able to withdraw certain police from the country, but we have not been able to do that. We have pressed the various heads of the police force—the commissioners—to try to get us from the country some members of the force to meet this extension of needs in the city, but that was not possible.

One of the difficulties about bringing police from the countryside to meet city problems is the fact that we are giving those in the country a number of extra duties over and above the duties which they ordinarily have to undertake. A great deal of statistical work on State schemes comes into their duties: there are schemes in which they are the agents of the Government, and through them much information is obtained, and supervision, to a certain extent, is exercised. That means that we cannot withdraw them to any great extent; a considerable number is required even in small areas to carry out those functions.

Therefore, the expansion which was provided for—I think the number was 222—could not take place. The intention was mainly to use these here because we have both this problem of the expansion of the suburbs and that of traffic control. We have traffic problems here which are fairly serious, and the result was the Commissioner was satisfied that he wanted this as a minimum number. In fact he wanted a larger number, but the minimum was 222. Provision was made for these but then, on account of some further duties which would ensue as a result of the A.R.P. scheme and so on, he put up a proposal to the Government to get a larger number.

We compromised on the basis that we would recruit 400 police temporarily, for a year, at the end of which time we would see how we stood and then, if necessary, get those 222 from the best of the 400, or make some arrangement of that nature. Therefore, these 400 temporary police constituted a compromise between the number 222 which we had agreed he could get and the larger number which he said he wanted in the present circumstances. It was a measure of economy and was not one approached from the point of view of carelessness about expenditure, or anything of that sort. That is one of the things that has been criticised, from the point of view of Government expenditure.

There is the Army, of course; it is an old question about the size of the Army. I remember, when I was Acting-Minister for Defence about a year ago and was discussing certain staff problems with the Chief of Staff and other officers, I made certain remarks; and one of them gave me, the next day, a piece from Demosthenes in which he showed that, with regard to the defence of Athens against Philip, the very same considerations entered at that time which we have here now. These questions are always the same fundamentally. With modern people, when there is such an overwhelming force as will assure success, anybody can say: "If you are having only a small force in opposition you may as well have none at all." That is fundamentally false, yet it is the argument which we have had to deal with. The view is taken that, if you have not force which will assure victory, there is no use in having force at all. On the contrary, in the degree to which you have force you are able to assure, at any rate, that the person who is going to attack you will not do so unless he has good reason for it.

If you have no force, he will attack you because he can take anything on which he lays his eye. If you have force, to the extent that you have that force he has to consider if what he is looking for is worth the loss he may have to face. We have had here only a small, skeleton army. It was the minimum which could be kept in peace time. It was never felt by anybody that it could give you anything like reasonable security in time of crisis. Since we came into office and for years before, there has not been maintained anything like a force that would give even a small measure of security. It was desirable at the present time to bring those available together as a unit, to give them a certain amount of training together and to have others trained so that some use could be made of our man-power as a protection if our vital interests were affected.

It is open to anybody to say that there is no use in that. We know the cost. We are sorry we could not get protection without cost. We regard it as a necessary insurance and the force has been built up from that point of view. You can be sure that this has not been done either for the purpose of playing with an army or because other countries have mobilised or anything of that sort. No such considerations have affected the Government in mobilising the Army. The greatest force we could put forward would be only a small part of the forces at present embodied in neutral countries on the Continent. But our circumstances are not theirs. We are alive to that. All we say is that we should consider our own circumstances, not theirs. If we were in their circumstances, we should have a very much bigger Army and the people would take it as a matter of course, as they would take a number of things to which they are objecting now. One of the reasons they are objecting is that they forget that the immunity which an island had in the past exists no longer and that it is good policy to try to diminish our vulnerability. We must have a balance between our means and the protection we can give ourselves. It is a nice balance. It raises the same sort of question as that of the price which we should like to give the farmer to induce him to grow wheat if it were not that that price would affect the price of bread even for those who are not given the opportunity of earning the price.

The Government has to balance all these questions and its action is taken as a result of deliberate judgment, after due consideration of the various factors. Another Government might, in certain circumstances, decide differently but, if it did decide differently, it would, in my opinion, have quite a different fundamental policy. If the Government were a Government of the extreme right of the three sections to which I have alluded, they would have a different policy, but they would have to pay a different price. They might not have to pay the immediate price our taxpayer will have to pay but they would be paying otherwise. Similarly, there are people on the left who would not come to the decisions we have come to in regard to these matters but they, too, would have a fundamentally different policy and they would be paying a price of another type than the price we have got to pay. Neither the Government nor the people can have it every way. If we want economic security, we have got to pay for it and, if we want political security, we have got to pay for it. It is ridiculous for people to want the end and to refuse to take the ordinary means by which the end can be achieved. We are quite aware—I think this was referred to in a humorous paper—that if we take precautions and nothing happens, we shall be blamed for incurring unnecessary cost, whereas, if we do not take precautions and something happens we shall be blamed for not taking precautions which, it will be said, were obvious to everybody.

Mr. Douglas

That is what a Government is for.

The Taoiseach

We are quite willing to take anything coming to us in that way. We cannot, and neither can anybody else, see fully the future of this war or what it is going to mean for any people. We cannot say what its outcome will be and we do not know what its course will be. Commonsense dictates that we should take measures which will be safe measures even though the rate of insurance and the premium may be pretty high. That is my attitude and that is the attitude of the Government. We ask the people to help us in that.

I should not like to sit down without referring to what was, I think, the most valuable part of the debate here. The debate will be useful in as much as it will furnish an answer to people in the country who say: "The Government is sitting up there but what, in the name of heaven, are they doing?" A certain amount of advantage will be gained by the information that we are not forgetting the problems of the time, that we are thinking about them, even though some people may not be satisfied with our actions. The debate may help in dispelling foolish rumours, but the most important purpose it would serve would be the getting of an organisation in the country such as that which has been referred to two or three times already. Most of us in public life have been thinking of economic and social organisations at one time or another. That is a matter of prime importance. There has been a tendency in recent years—it is not confined to our own people but obtains all over the world —for people to look too much to Governments for the solution of their difficulties. If you do that, you are inevitably going to lead to a position in which the Government can do its work only by regimentation. If you are going to centralise and make the Government responsible for the life of the people generally, then the Government can carry out its responsibilities only by regimenting the people, by taking the man who is a skilled worker of his employment, say, in a printing works, and telling him that, as he is a fairly hefty fellow and as there is a demand for unskilled labour, he must go and do that work. If the Government has power to tell an idle man that he must take up a particular class of work, it may be able to do some of the things which people who want this centralised power expect. But, if you deny the Government that power, it cannot do the job and, at any rate, I do not think that the Irish people care for that particular form of social organisation.

What is the alternative? The alternative is voluntary co-operation. It can be carried out in various ways. There is one form of co-operation which would be tremendously valuable to this country. Mind you, in the difficulties of the present moment and in the difficulties ahead, we might very well, if we are wise enough, take advantage of them and at a time like this get done quickly things which we could not do at another time at all. In that way we can really make a virtue of necessity. For instance, I think it would be of tremendous value to the country if we could get parish organisations. I said in the Dáil that there is not one of the political Parties who have sought the support of the people, who have not based their organisation on the parish. That is the natural unit, next above the family. It is the next natural unit of our community. Can we get such an organisation going and have the people responsible to it? It was suggested here that if it was set going at present, in one parish where there might be a majority of Fianna Fáil supporters, there would be a certain amount of manoeuvring to secure that the man at the head of the committee would be a Fianna Fáil nominee and that in another parish, where the other Party was stronger, he would be a Fine Gael supporter. It seems to me, however, that in every parish there are a number of natural leaders, some ex officio, some because of their own natural ability and because of the position they have been able to win for themselves in the community. The leader in a particular parish may be a successful farmer or a successful businessman. Then you would have others who would be ex officio leaders, such as the clergy and the teachers.

I think it should be possible for such parishes to form for themselves organising committees, temporary or provisional committees. There is not a single parish in the country where there is not sufficient initiative to get that done. If you get a dozen or even half a dozen men—preferably about a dozen—in each parish who will constitute themselves for the moment into a parish committee, to try to take stock in accordance with orders that may be issued from time to time or in accordance with their own conceptions of what the needs of the moment are, if you get such committees started, you get the best type of organisation possible in this country for that particular purpose. I wonder can we get that done?

Mr. O'Dwyer

You could have vocational organisations.

The Taoiseach

I could speak on this subject until morning. That is a somewhat different type of organisation. These committees would be of the greatest possible assistance, as Senator O'Dwyer pointed out, in getting things done by goodwill, which otherwise would have to be done by compulsion and in getting the co-operation of the people. For instance, take the case of a man who has not sufficient implements on his farm. Most of us know— country life cannot have changed very much since I left it—that it was a very common thing at harvest time for neighbouring farmers to come together to bring in the hay and to do work of that kind. If a farmer wanted implements, by co-operation of that kind his needs could be supplied. It is not as if you wanted to have this system year in, year out. This is a case of emergency which may not last for more than two or three years. It is not the same problem as if you were looking for continued co-operation. Continued co-operation, without a break, may be difficult but you can get for a period of crisis, such as we are passing through at present, co-operation of that type established ad hoc for that particular emergency.

Once it is started, on account of the work which can be done by it and the advantage it will afford to the whole community, you may be able to build a system of local government on it. I believe it is the natural unit for such a system. It is, however, such a small unit that if you had administrative expenses—I think there are about a thousand odd parishes in this part of Ireland—it would be a very expensive organisation. If you had to pay salaries it would be rather too expensive. You will have to avoid that and the work will have to be of a voluntary character. The local teacher or the local clergyman could carry out the secretarial work. If some particular catastrophe happened, for instance if it was a case requiring credit, you could get small credits arranged for in in that way.

Where there are creameries, you could get a good deal of self-help, and self-help is the best type of help. If the farmers and the people generally would remember that when they are looking to the Government for help, they are looking to the Government to compel them to do things which they themselves could do much more expeditiously and at much less expense to themselves—because remember when the Government helps it helps generally at the expense of somebody, generally at the expense of everybody—it would be of tremendous advantage. If you can get your voluntary organisation set up you are going to get a cheap form of co-operation, which can be, I believe, dove-tailed later on into a general system of local government.

I should like to say one word in regard to this Adjournment debate. The intention of the Adjournment debate was to permit members of the two Houses to make any comments on the various orders which have been made. The attention of the House was drawn to the orders that had been made and the idea was to give an opportunity to members of the House who wished, to speak on these orders. I agree with Senators that this idea has not worked out very well. The debate has been a rambling debate. However, the trouble is that when you have a large number of orders, it is very hard to keep to one specific order unless we adopt the system of getting each order debated and passed separately. If you did that, you might as well have a Bill and have all the stages of the Bill examined. The procedure would then become so complex that we might as well revert to the old form of legislation.

I should like to say that members of the Government are very heavily handicapped. They have far more work to do and each Department has far more work to do, than ever before. We have in addition more frequent meetings of the Government to deal with particular problems as they arise and, therefore, it is not easy for Ministers to attend the House and to give the explanation that one would like to give as to their work. For instance, the question about education was raised. I can assure Senators that I never took over that Department with the idea of neglecting it or with the idea simply of going on in a humdrum way. I had been in close touch always with the subject of education, and if I am in charge of the Department of Education I should like people to think that I am not going to neglect it.

There is a very heavy expenditure on that Department, an expenditure of about £5,000,000 per annum or about one-sixth of the total voted money. When we are spending so much on education, we should see that the nation gets the best possible value for that expenditure. That is partly an administrative problem. It is our duty to see that these large sums are properly expended. There is the larger problem as to what is the purpose of our whole educational system. Are we fulfilling the purpose intended? There is the question, for example, of the Irish language. All these are problems which the previous Minister naturally considered. I can assure anybody that is interested that I am not going to take over that Department without paying adequate attention to the major problems of education to which I referred.

Mr. M. Hayes

Is it not humanly impossible for the Taoiseach to do that under present circumstances?

The Taoiseach

It depends on what is humanly impossible. If I were to go into every detail, if I were to go into the full details of the case of some teacher down in some parish school who wants to have her time extended, it would be humanly impossible. I may have to enquire into difficult cases but there are general rules to be followed which would solve most of these cases. In one sense, if there is to be any doubling-up, it is the easiest Department for me to take, because I have some knowledge of the problems of education and I have some views on the question too. One of the reasons why I took it was that it was the easiest to take. I think that I have enough sense of public responsibility and of public duty not to take an office of that importance and neglect it.

Mr. Campbell

The Taoiseach did not refer to the matter of the A.R.P.

The Taoiseach

With regard to A.R.P., the position, as I explained it in the Dáil, is that there are two main things to be aimed at. There is, first of all, the preventing of what I may call the sky glare. I am told that our largest centres are capable of being seen great distances away, and that, in fact, they could become a means of guiding aeroplanes to any particular point, not merely here, but elsewhere. Well, I do not think that we ought to allow ourselves to be used, if we can avoid it, by either set of belligerents. Consequently, we want to reduce the sky glare which will also be a protection for ourselves, because it will be rather more than I can hope for to go through all this without pressure of various kinds being put upon us, pressure which we mean to resist to the utmost of our power. We will be in a better position to resist any attempt that may be made upon us, no matter from what side, to follow a line of action which we deem not to be in the national interest if we reduce our vulnerability. Our vital points will be less noticeable, and as well we will be preventing our own lights being used by one set of belligerents as a guide to attack another set. Suppose, there were threats of one kind or another made against us, naturally this big city would be a cause of anxiety to the Government, because from the point of view of attack from the air, it would be a vulnerable point. Therefore, any Government in coming to a decision as to what it should do in any set of circumstances will be conscious of any weak points that it has, and in that sense this city would be a weakness. We have got to think of this city with its population of some 500,000. It would be our most serious problem from a defence point of view.

Other nations have been for years preparing for a situation like this, whether it be the neutral countries or the others. I was in Switzerland some years ago and was present when extensive black outs were tried at Geneva and in other cities in Switzerland. Whether they were countries that were likely to be belligerents or neutrals, they were working out measures of protection. For instance, they had before them this question of the control of lighting—this dimming or cowling. We have not got it yet, but they had at that time a method of complete black out prepared which was to be used in case there was an actual air-raid signal.

In order to have that complete black out you want switches, because although you can turn off the light from a centre switch you will want to turn off the lights in private houses as well. Therefore, you want a system by which public lighting can be turned off, and a system for private houses by which, on notice, they can quickly blacken out their lights as far as the outside world is concerned. Perhaps I should not speak on this at all. It is really a matter for the Minister whose business it is to co-ordinate control in these matters. But my view at any rate is that we should first of all get this dimming; that then we should put in the switches and train our people so that at a given signal, if you wanted a complete black out, you could have it in the streets and in private houses. The windows in the private houses would already have been prepared.

Dr. Doyle

All for neutrality?

The Taoiseach

Yes, for neutrality, and as a protection lest your neutrality at some time might be interfered with. What has happened, as far as I know in regard to this is, that at the very beginning of the emergency people were asked to co-operate. The people went and did things which they saw had been done in some other countries. That is my explanation of it. It has been suggested that there were some directions. I am not able to speak of the extent to which directions went out from one department or another, but the fact is that three or four departments were involved. We then decided to put all this under the direction of one Minister, with the responsibility of co-ordinating the activities of the departments concerned. The Local Government Department is involved. In a sense the Department of Justice is involved because, obviously, the work of seeing that the instructions are carried out will be a matter for the Guards. Then you have the Army. Where you have three or four departments concerned, unless there was some co-ordinating authority you might have some divergence in the orders issued.

We are quite prepared to say that things did not go under A.R.P. as we would have liked at the beginning, but that is going to be put right. As a matter of fact one of the things that we had before us yesterday for consideration was the order which is about to be made. When that order is made the black out will be obligatory. The trouble was to have such an order sufficiently comprehensive to meet all the cases that you want to meet, and at the same time would not be of such a type that it would cause confusion —I mean that you would have people running off themselves and adding a lot more to the order than was ever intended.

The question of motor lights, of city lights and of domestic lights will have to be considered. We think that it might be better to proceed first and get the dimming and, later, get the switches. We have given a certain amount of consideration to this. As I have said, there will be an order. I am not going to say that the order will please everybody. In the Dáil, for instance, two Deputies said: "Oh! it is all a cod—the whole thing." One of them was a farmer and the other a lawyer. Well, I think if I wanted some information with regard to the points of a shorthorn I would have gone to the farmer and listened very carefully to his opinion about it. If the matter was a legal one, the construing, for instance, of some legal document, I would have gone to the lawyer. If I felt that he was giving me his opinion as a lawyer and not as a politician—sometimes the trouble in the Dáil is that the views you get from the lawyers are not always a lawyer's views at all—I would have paid great attention to it. But neither one nor the other was going to impress me when it was a question of military defences. I felt I had expert advisers who knew much better than they did, or than I did, what were likely to be the needs of the situation, and all I had to do was to use my commonsense and whatever knowledge I had.

Again, in regard to this, our people are not accustomed to this training. It takes a long time to train people to prepare for emergencies of the kind that we have to prepare for as a possibility—I hope not as a probability, but as a possibility. If we have to prepare for things like evacuation, that cannot be done overnight. An evacuation scheme would be a frightfully costly and difficult scheme to carry out, but, if it is necessary for the safety of our people that such a plan should be worked out in detail, we will have to do it, but I do not think there has been any plan worked out in detail up to the present. I do not think so. This may be a case, too, of moving a little bit ahead in one direction before you were ready to move in other directions, but I do not think that at the moment a full evacuation scheme has as a matter of fact been worked out. If we want to have a complete protection system, undoubtedly we will have to come to the working out of such a scheme. The trouble about it all is that it is so costly. Anything like an effective scheme is costly in a variety of ways. Naturally, being a small country, we cannot face those costs with equanimity, or anything like satisfaction or complacency. I can only say that we are not acting as foolish people; we have our feet firmly on the earth. We are not thinking of the problems of any other country but our own, and goodness knows at the moment those are enough to occupy our attention.

Mr. Douglas

Might I ask the Taoiseach if he would consider whether a statement can be made with regard to foreign newspapers—I understand he is not in a position to do it now— because it has been stated freely that foreign newspapers are not allowed in. I do not feel that that is correct, and should be glad if it could be contradicted.

The Taoiseach

I will make enquiries, but the Senator can easily see at once that there might be such cases. I can see a type of paper, for instance, carrying news of various kinds, which it might not be advisable to allow in, if we are to avoid getting into complications of various kinds. I am just imagining a possible case.

Mr. Douglas

I am not really being critical, but the position is that many people have stated that since the outbreak of war none of the ordinary American newspapers has reached them, and they suggest that it was due to censorship.

The Taoiseach

I do not believe it.

Mr. Douglas

When the matter has been looked into, it might be considered whether some little newspaper message might refer to it.

Mr. Quirke

As far as American newspapers are concerned, they are coming in as usual. They are marked in pencil on the outside of the newspapers.

Mr. M. Hayes

I am getting a weekly paper regularly, and it is not marked in that way.

The Taoiseach

I would say at first sight that I think it is unlikely, but I can imagine circumstances in which a particular paper might possibly be censored.

Mr. Douglas

I can think of them, too.

The Taoiseach

I can imagine a thing appearing in a paper of such a sort that, from the censorship point of view, the time element would have to be taken into account. Even apart from the time element, I can imagine a case in which a foreign newspaper coming in might be censored. I do not say it is, but I can imagine a case in which it might be.

The Seanad adjourned at 11.35 p.m. sine die.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 4 Oct 1939

Adjournment of the Seanad.

Leas-Chathaoirleach

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 4 Oct 1939