Having listened to part of the debate a few weeks ago, and read it with a good deal of interest I cannot but think that we are hampered in coming to a decision by taking together two motions which are really not very closely connected. It seems to me that by taking them together the logical order was reversed. The main one was discussed in very interesting and able speeches while the other motion was only formally introduced. It was not until I heard Senator Sir John Keane to-day that I realised what the query in his motion meant. He announced to-day that he was thinking of the emergency councils which have been established in the past few weeks, and he made very proper inquiry as to what their powers, functions, and method of election would be. When I read his motion before, I thought he intended to inquire what the Government had in mind with regard to local councils, a question which is at present awaiting consideration by the Oireachtas. Taking the motions as they stand, it seems to me that it would be logical first to ask for information, and then, having got it, consider it. Having the information and taken the trouble to consider it, the House might then proceed to make a positive demand, such as it made in the other motion. Senator Sir John Keane simply asked for information on some points.
It seems to me that it would be more logical to get information first, and then consider what positive proposals we would make to the Government. There are several points in the motion of Senator O'Dwyer, some of them are associated, while others might stand by themselves. The demand is to have these councils on a permanent basis, so that they might form an integral part of the local government system. There is also a demand for a special and rather peculiar form of election. I think the House was entitled to a little more specific information than it got in the debate a few weeks ago. The debate has done good in some respect. It has clarified the minds of the people against a confusion which was very general, a confusion about the different forms of parish bodies that have been talked and written of in recent months. Parish guilds, as proposed by Muintir na Tíre, we have learned a good deal about in recent weeks from the very interesting meetings that have been held. There are then the local councils which are adumbrated in a Bill before the Oireachtas, and the emergency councils which the Government has already established.
The distinction between them has now been made clear. Certainly, the distinction between the first two which I have mentioned should be clearer now than it was before. We have had a very definite statement from Fr. Hayes, that he wishes to have nothing to do with the sort of council which Senator O'Dwyer and his colleagues demand. The one thing he wants to be saved from is any statutory basis. We have had from Senator O'Dwyer and his colleagues a declaration that voluntary bodies are, if not no good, at least next to no good. I will come back to that in a few minutes. The distinction between these two, therefore, should be clear in the minds of those who have listened to the recent debate or who have read Fr. Hayes' statement in the press.
The statement made by the Minister on the last evening as to the functions and powers of the emergency councils has cleared up the matter as to their possible status. We have to keep our minds fixed on those distinctions. I am not criticising the bodies which the Minister has thought fit to establish, or the purpose for which they have been established; but few things could be worse for such bodies than that they should have any claim to continue as statutory bodies when the emergency has passed. It is quite clear that the machinery which has been designed—and, perhaps, very ably designed—to deal with certain matters during the emergency has not necessarily, and is unlikely to have, any particular suitability for carrying on work in more normal times. Therefore, while I am not criticising them in any way, I hope that when these emergency councils have done their work they will pass into a grateful oblivion.
When we come to consider the case that was put so persuasively before us a few weeks ago by Senator O'Dwyer, I think we are entitled to ask some questions which have not yet been answered and draw attention to some doubts which have been raised in our minds by some of the speeches made in support of his resolution. He made a very persuasive speech and evidently took great care in its preparation; and I am entitled to accept it as the best case that could have been put before the Seanad at present in favour of his resolution and the sort of councils it seeks to establish. He has stated to some extent the objects he has in mind for such councils, but he has stated very vaguely the powers which he thinks the councils should have. We must make a distinction between objects and powers, as an object may be very desirable, but the body designated may not be the best to entrust wise powers to work towards it. With a great deal that Senator O'Dwyer said I am in full sympathy, and I draw particular attention to his statement of the general purpose he has in mind in proposing these councils. In these matters it is important to quote the actual words he used. He said:—
"The main object of the formation of these parish councils would be to engender a spirit of independence and a sense of cohesion and of co-operation amongst the people of the rural communities."
We all agree with that, and whether we think his councils are the best means of promoting that or not, I think we are in full sympathy with it; and with some of what the last speaker has said on the same lines. Senator O'Dwyer goes further, a little lower down in his speech, and points out that the mere establishment of such an organisation is more important than the functions that the organisation would carry out. He says:—
"The organisation of the rural community on the lines I have indicated would itself be more important than any function that the organisation could carry out."
It is not easy to understand that the establishment of an organisation could be more important than the function it is designed to carry out. If an organisation is designed to carry out certain functions and the functions are not important, it would be a waste of time. However, that may be rather hasty criticism. I believe that Senator O'Dwyer has in mind there that the establishment of some organisation engaged in useful work would show in itself a spirit of co-operation. Whether such organisations could not be established by other means he does not discuss. He comes to the question of powers, and the suggestions he makes are comprehensive but vague. He says:—
"As regards the powers, naturally the parish council would carry out the ordinary local government functions which are performed by all local bodies, such as relieving the poor and dealing with other matters of that kind."
That is given in column 2134 of the Official Debates. That statement may be as comprehensive as you like, but it certainly is vague. In his reply here the Minister dealt with that in a very definite way. He pointed out that certain functions at present carried out by county councils for the whole county covered such matters as roads, public health, and some other main services, and he asked—and the question is worth repeating—whether it was suggested by the supporters of this resolution that these powers should be removed from the county councils to these small local bodies. The Minister said that at present £7,000,000 is being spent by county councils on the four essential services—roads, county services, health and public assistance. These cover the whole county. Is it suggested that they should come back to the parish councils? If not, what are the powers to which Senator O'Dwyer refers? The last speaker did not suggest that the control of such services should be referred back to the parish councils and that the county council should get rid of them but, so far as I could understand him, he did think that any taxation or expenditure on such purposes should receive the veto, not of each parish but of each townland. One of the supporters of this motion feared he might be regarded as reactionary and even mediæval, but it seems to me that the Senator was going back, as far as national economy is concerned, to a state of primeval chaos. Except in some small points, those who followed Senator O'Dwyer were no more precise.
The next point I ask about is this: Why is there such determined and unanimous condemnation amongst several speakers of voluntary bodies— not of the spirit behind them, but of the possibility of their success and of their utility? Senator O'Dwyer was very definite on that point. In column 2130 he remarks:
"I should like to show that it would be impossible to found a system of parish councils that would be of any permanent value on a voluntary basis. It would be contrary to universal experience to expect such a system to work efficiently."
A few minutes further on, when he threw his mind back to his own experience, he spoke differently. In column 2134 he went on to say:
"It may not be realised how powerful an instrument such an organisation could be, but if one looks at many parts of Ireland, particularly in the South, where co-operative societies have been functioning, it can be seen what a material revolution these societies have made in their districts and what great industries, some of them running into hundreds of thousands of pounds, are being and have been built up by the very people who would be called upon to form these parish councils."
Apparently, they have succeeded already, though a few minutes before the Senator had declared it impossible that they should do such permanent work. But although universal experience would seem to indicate, in one part of the Senator's speech, that voluntary bodies were capable of doing very good work, in another part of his speech he seemed to hold the contrary view. At any rate, the Senator did draw the attention of the Seanad to the amount of valuable work that could be done by voluntary societies. There was a good deal of insistence on the question of permanency. The last speaker insisted that these bodies must be permanent and said that voluntary bodies could not be. Senator Johnston was very insistent that unless they were permanent they were likely to be very useless. Speaking at column 2149 on the 28th August, 1940, the Senator said:
"I do think that while enthusiastic propaganda and voluntary associations are admirable things in their way, organisations of that kind are liable to become somewhat flabby and invertebrate if the intial enthusiasm should disappear, or if the leadership which they have enjoyed in the first instance should, in the course of nature, not be replaced by equally effective leadership."
It occurs to me to ask him, could not the same thing happen the statutory bodies which he is anxious to have? Even if they have a legal ground to stand on, could not the same thing happen there? If these bodies have lost their vitality, what is the use in trying to keep them alive? If that has happened to the voluntary bodies might it not also happen to the statutory bodies? The unfortunate corpse remains. Instead of burying it, what is the use of trying to put life into a dead body? That is beyond anybody's skill. If interest in these bodies is gone, and if they are not likely to serve any useful purpose again, then the sooner they are out of the way the better.
I am rather puzzled by the peculiar franchise which is being demanded for these parish councils. We have had a lot of—I hope I may refer to it without offence—loose talk about the link of the family. It has been suggested to take the head of the family, where there is a family, and to make him an elector of the parish council. It seems to me that it is almost impossible to decide who is the head of the family. Certainly, I know some families in which a discussion on that point might lead to very unfortunate family friction. Even the neighbours may not be able to decide in some cases whether the grey mare is not a better horse. This talk of family franchise seems to me to be very vague. There is no indication given as to what is meant by it. I notice that some supporters of the resolution were not as fond of it as others. Senator Counihan, in fact, frankly ran away from it, and suggested that he did not care what sort of franchise there was provided it was a restricted franchise. He said that he was convinced "that the parish council should have statutory powers, that it should be elected on a vocational basis by the heads of families, by householders, or by ratepayers". Of course, that is running away from the resolution. He went on to say that it should, at all events, be a restricted franchise. It, therefore, appears from what Senator Counihan said that he has not any strong convictions in favour of a family franchise. If he has, he did not give the Seanad the benefit of any clear ideas on that, or as to what it means. But, so long as it is not a general franchise, he, at any rate, will be satisfied with it. I do not want to tie the Senator to the actual words he used. He made it clear, however, that he wanted a restricted franchise.
The first comment I would make on this question of representation for the heads of families is this: that apart from the almost certain family friction that it would give rise to it has this distinctly unhealthy aspect about it. The activities of Muintir na Tíre, and of many other good, thoughtful people in the country, have been in the direction of trying to make life interesting for the young men: to interest them in what is going on in their parish, in their neighbourhood and in their county. Here it is suggested, so far as this new organisation is concerned, that the young men, unless they happen to be the heads of families in rural Ireland—and, mind you, a young man is not very young when he becomes the head of a household in rural Ireland— should be debarred from taking part in these elections.
They may, no doubt, give advice to their fathers or mothers who are the heads of families, but advice is not always taken in the best spirit by elderly parents from their youthful and less experienced sons. I think the suggestion is distinctly retrograde inasmuch as we should all like to see the young men of the country take a responsible and intelligent interest in the country's affairs. It surely would be a retrograde step to debar them from doing that in their own neighbourhood and to persist in this demand for a family franchise.
In the speeches delivered by some Senators on this resolution I detected what seemed to me to be a certain hostility to democratic methods. We are all disappointed with democracy. It has not brought the millennium or even what our more modest hopes might have expected. But has anything better been introduced into government in the history of mankind? When I say "better" I am thinking particularly of the effect on individuals, and I am not regarding man in the mass or man in the group or man in the State. I do not join in State worship. But I think the most that one can hope for in any system of government is that it will give an opportunity to the individual for the expression of his free will and of responsibility in the society of which he is a part. I suggest that our democratic methods, faulty and all as they are, and open to criticism as they are, and they are certainly open to criticism, to judge by the results that have been got from them, have proved more effective than any other methods that have been tried. I think there is a real danger that in our disappointment with the results, a disappointment very often due to our own faults and to our exaggerated hopes, we may be led to say that we had better get rid of the whole thing and try something else. Words, almost synonymous with these, were in fact used in the debate. We had a certain disrespect shown for manhood suffrage and for woman suffrage. I do not mind people having views on these matters. All that I do say is that until we see clearly what is going to be substituted for them, we should be slow to make any demand on the Government to introduce a different system of suffrage.
One of the signatories to the motion, Senator Tierney, has a particularly interesting theory as to what should constitute the institutions of the State —an intriguing theory. He said that the present institutions do not represent the natural organic grouping which the people might adopt for themselves if they were allowed, and he added:—
"When I say that, of course, I know I am in danger of being accused of wanting to go back to the Middle Ages, and of being reactionary. A great many people have the idea that the best thing we can do is to take what we have got and to make the most of it. I do not at all share that view."
As an alternative, he suggests that we should get as close as possible to the system that would have grown up naturally if we had not now to be reconstructing, as a result of historic circumstances. I do not know to what era Senator Tierney wants to go back in order to lay the foundations of his building. Is it 300, 400 or 800 years? We should want to know fairly accurately what the conditions of civilisation in this country were before these institutions were interfered with to any considerable extent by what I may call hostile external influences, as I do not think that anybody wishes to exclude the natural influences due to civilisations other than the native civilisation. To go back to the period before any hostile influence was brought to bear on our institutions of government, we would want to know what the conditions then were. Having done that, I cannot imagine how any mind could be wise enough or comprehensive enough to tell us how the institutions would have developed during the past three, four, seven, eight or ten centuries. Perhaps I may give a parallel example. Look at the fine house in which we are sitting or at any similar house. We may say that these are due to some external influence and that we ourselves would have developed differently. Are we to say: "Let us pull down this house and see what sort of house we would have if native influence had been allowed to develop?" I do not say that that is an exact parallel, but I do express the opinion that what has been suggested to us is not more practical than the idiotic suggestion I have just made. We are to discover the living foundations from which the State has developed, whether under external influence or not, go back to that as the starting point and try to see how these living institutions would have developed. If I may say so, that seems to me too great a reaction, due to disappointment with democracy.
I have complained that those who brought forward this motion were not precise enough regarding the functions and powers of the sort of council they recommended. We had some hints of further activities which I confess did not attract me. Rather they made me feel a bit uneasy. It was suggested that the administration of old age pensions should be handed over to these bodies. I should like to be living in a country parish in a few years if the parish councils are to have charge of old age pensions, because I am quite sure that I should have no difficulty in persuading my neighbours to vote me a pension, knowing that the moneys were not going to be levied on the parish. We had another suggestion which made me feel even more uneasy —that the parish council should control the amusements of the neighbourhood. I was rather startled at this suggestion, because a great deal of Senator Tierney's speech had been devoted to demanding greater freedom for the people of the countryside. Anything more irritating to the people of the countryside than having any parish body controlling their amusements, I cannot imagine. I should be very uneasy about the measures those councils would take. Another suggestion interested me even more—and not unnaturally. There was a certain feeling in the minds of Senator Johnston and Senator Tierney that these bodies might curb the undue activity of the medical profession in public health matters. Senator Johnston told us of the terrible disaster brought to certain parishes in his neighbourhood by the desire, presumably of the health authority, to prevent the sale of, possibly or probably, contaminated shellfish, It turned out, the Minister told us, that this did not happen at all. It was due to the carefulness of some English medical officer of health that the export of possibly contaminated shellfish from Louth was stopped. I am sorry to hear that, because I should like to give the local authority credit for having stopped that pernicious trade. Senator Tierney includes public health in a regular litany of evils that need cure. He said:
"I do suggest, although it may sound extravagant, that you can have too much public health, too many tourist resorts, too much cleaning up of beaches, and too much interfering with the people because they have buckets lying about."
Senator Tierney and Senator Johnston were in agreement in a great part of the argument, but they have fallen out about the buckets. Senator Johnston was very annoyed because, at a certain seaside resort which he visited, he found the same bucket on the beach that he had seen there four or five years before. He thought that the parish council, if it had been in existence, would have removed that bucket.
This is what the Senator said:
"I am aware of one of these resorts in which a tin bucket was rotting and decaying on the sand, with many broken bottles, years ago. I recently visited the same seaside resort and the same tin bucket was to be seen in a more advanced state of decay than before."
If Senator Tierney and Senator Johnston were colleagues on a parish council, we may be sure that the parish would be divided for years over the fate of that tin bucket.
I have made a quite honest and serious attempt to understand the case put up for the motion. I have every sympathy with voluntary activity and with the voluntary associations which Senator O'Dwyer told us about in his opening speech. I should like to see them active in every rural area and I should like to see all the people of the locality working together for the common good, but I think you will destroy that chance when you give them legal status.
I think they will be useful and that they would continue to work as long as they would be useful, but if they are given a legal status they may be encouraged to meddlesomeness, and certainly would continue in action whether they were fulfilling useful functions or not. I do not think that a case in favour of parish councils, whether with such powers as have been suggested or not, has been made, and I do not think the Seanad should be pressing such a demand on the Government as is proposed in the motion, and I cannot imagine anything more undesirable than that the Government, at the present moment, should commit itself to a revolution of this sort, or to any revolution. During a time of national and international emergency we must carry on with such machinery as we have, except where it is necessary that certain machinery must be designed to meet the emergency. To decide, however, on what the proposers of the motion have rightly described as a revolution, in the middle of the present emergency, when our minds are fully occupied with other matters, would be, I think, a rash act and I do not think the Seanad should invite the Government to take such action.