Conditions in the Free State

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21243, 15 August 1934, Page 10

Conditions in the Free State

By a curious irony one man has been killed and more than 30 wounded in a riot in Cork, caused by the inability, or perhaps the unwillingness, of Free State farmers to pay land annuities. To the extent that the incident will weaken the Republican party in the rural areas, the incident is a most appropriate retribution for an act of injustice. There was a flimsy legal argument for the complete cancellation of land, annuities; but there was no case at all for the Free State Government's retaining the annuities. Moreover, if Mr de Valera had looked further ahead at the time of the annuities dispute, he would either have cancelled the annuities or compounded with the British Government. The Irish farmer is an expert and confirmed tax-evader; and the knowledge that the annuities were going to his own and not the British Government would not make him pay any the more willingly. On other grounds, also, Mr de Valera must be unhappy over the annuities. In | a statement to the House of Commons last June Mr Chamberlain declared that the penal duties imposed on Import* Iroxn. the Free

State had been successful in collecting the sums due to the British Treasury. In 1932-33 the annuities due amounted to £4,773,850, and £3,438,700 was collected in duties. In 1933-34 the amount due was £4,900,000, and £3,623,000 was collected in duties. To ease the pressure of the tariff on exporters the Free State Government has been paying a heavy subsidy on farm products from the time the penal duties became operative. Great Britain's victory in the trade war is, however, a barren one. Her loss of exports to the Free State has been about the same as the reduction in Free State imports; I and in the first five months of this year export!' of coal from South Wales to the Free State have been half their normal value. Moreover, those who had hoped and believed that the economic distress resulting from the penal duties would drive Mr de Valera from office have been disappointed. Though there is acute distress among cattle raisers, secondary industries and other branches of farming have prospered surprisingly in difficult circumstances. According to the latest budget, there was a surplus for 1933-34 of £1,355,000, calculated, says the "Economist," with a commendable regard for "the strictest "canons of financial orthodoxy." In consequence Mr de Valera has been able to take sixpence off the income tax and to reduce the duty on tea. Not many governments have beer, able to do as much in the last few vcars.