JJ is on record as being involved in the Agriculture Commission 1922-24, and in a Prices Tribunal in 1926 (sometimes labelled 'Profiteering Tribunal'). He also served in a background research group related to the Boundary Commission.

James Meenan in his biography of George O'Brien (Gill and Macmillan 1981) refers (p126) to the latter's participating in the 1922-24 Agricultural Commission, along with JJ, Sir John Keane and Tom Johnson, the leader of the Labour Party; it was chaired by Professor Drew. It also included politicians and farmers' representatives. According to O'Brien, the main thrust of the Commission was in support of traditional Department of Agriculture policy, as it had developed prior to the foundation of the State, initially under Horace Plunkett. O'Brien, in his September 1936 article in Studies summarised these policies, in the form of an obituary of Patrick Hogan, the first Free State Minister of Agriculture.

Writing retrospectively in the 1950s O'Brien summarised his 1922-24 work as follows: '.. the final Report recommended the extension of the existing schemes of the Department rather than a radical change of policy... The signatories of the Report were vilified and attacked in certain sections of the press as 'ranchers' and Hogan was entitled in those quarters 'the Minister for Grass'. The course of events has completely vindicated the correctness of our views. The European Recovery Programme assigns to Ireland precisely the role assigned to it in our Report: the intensification of the production of livestock and livestock products based on the maximum possible consumption of home-grown feeding-stuffs supplemented by cheap imports of raw materials.'

(There is here a hint of the type of political class alliance which was subsequently to emerge as the alternative to Fianna Fail. Tom Johnson representing the Labour Party saw the farm labourers as his constituency. JJ then, and subsequently, was promoting large-scale capital-intensive farming, based on employing wage-labour, and producing more added value per acre and per person than would subsistence farming in 30-acre units. RJ August 2000)

JJ made an unsuccessful attempt to get elected to the Seanad in 1926; I have some papers connected with that, and I put them on record here.

He produced a canvassing postcard with his picture, appealing '..for the support of all voters who desire the reconstruction of the Nation's economic life on sound economic principles.' He gave as his qualification his status as a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and Lecturer in the School of Commerce; also Barrington Lecturer in Economics, and Member of the 1922 Agricultural Commission.

This photo of Joe Johnston appeared on his 1926 election publicity material.

The postcard continues, on the obverse side: 'In an effort to avert the serious consequences arising out of the Ulster situation, he published "Civil War in Ulster" in 1913. In "Groundwork of Economics", recently published by the Educational Company of Ireland, Talbot St, Dublin (Price 2/6), he has sought to make the elements of this important science interesting and intelligible to all Irish men and women.'

In a scrap-book which he had commenced in 1916 he had saved a collection of cuttings which related to the 1926 election. The 1916 material is scanty, and I reference this elsewhere. The scrap-book contains a cutting from the Irish Times of September 3 1923 giving details of the general election results. There were three Dublin University seats in the Dail as it was then, and these were occupied by EH Alton, W Thrift and Sir J Craig, who were listed among the 16 Independents, including Captain Redmond DSO for Waterford. This was the Dail in which the Republicans did not take their seats.

There follows a letter to the Times from one JR Fisher relating to the Boundary Commission and the 'alleged secret understanding' under which Collins and Griffith were induced to sign the Treaty. There is a large cutting from the Irish Times of December 4 1925 headed 'Boundary Not To Be Changed'. JJ had worked on local economic analysis in support of the Free State input to the Boundary Commission, along with Ned Stevens and Kevin O'Shiel. The outcome must have come as a disillusioning blow; he had helped to establish that Partition would be crippling to Derry City which would be deprived of its Donegal hinterland.

The scrap-book contains copies of obituaries of Dr AC O'Sullivan SFTCD, who had served in the war in Malta, and ended up as the Registrar of the TCD Medical School; also of RAP Rogers FTCD. For a time it looks as if after the Boundary debacle his interests were becoming collegial or parochial.

This disillusion did not last long; the Seanad election then took over the scrap-book; there are cuttings referencing JJ's contributions to transport economics, making the case for common interest between railway shareholders and ratepayers (the argument is based on the cost to ratepayers of damage to the roads caused by long-distance heavy loads which should go by rail, and which ratepayers were in effect subsidising). The foregoing argument is developed at length in a letter to the Irish Times dated Jun 3 1925. This attracted a rebuttal in the form of an article signed by one 'Artifex' making the case for the road lobby.

There is a copy of a newspaper advertisement, which JJ had put in: 'ELECTORS REMEMBER Economic experts will play an important part in moulding the economic policy of the State. Thoughtful electors will ensure that the Senate contains at least on TRAINED ECONOMIST by voting 1 JOHNSTON'.

There is a cutting which gives the complete panel to go before the electorate for the Seanad; this was made up of 19 outgoing Senators, 19 chosen by the Seanad, and 38 chosen by the Dail. JJ's name appeared among the latter 38; his name was followed by (G.) which suggests that he had got a Cumann na Gael nomination. There were a few (F.)s listed: John Ryan, James Dillon etc which suggests that the F stands for Farmers. Other Gs were Henry Harrison, TP McKenna, Marquis McSweeney; the G's were dominant. JJ had, it seems, joined with Cumann na Gael to get on the panel, which would be voted on as one ballot nationally.

There is further cutting which gives an integrated list of all Seanad candidates, with a few words about each. JJ is given as Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, with an address 9 Trinity College, (DN*) the latter meaning a Dail nominee, with the * implying he was a Government candidate. Other candidates with whom his results may perhaps be compared were Douglas Hyde, Darrell Figgis, Sir Arthur Chance, Patrick McCartan, Marquis McSwiney, Liam O Briain, these being people of some intellectual attainment, associated broadly one way or another with the national movement, and credible 'specialist expert' types of Seanad candidate. Of these the only other DN* was McSwiney.

(It is perhaps significant that Marquis McSwiney had previously interacted with JJ in the Albert Kahn Foundation context; JJ probably was in a position to use his record, as a promoter of the Sinn Fein and subsequently the Free State interest in France via Garnier, as a lever to get the Government nomination.)

There is a cutting giving some details of how the Dail panel was selected; it was quite complex, and JJ got on the panel on the 41st count. Topping the poll was one Denis Houston, a Labour candidate, and JJ it seems benefited by his transfers.

(Could this Houston be related to the David Houston who taught science in St Enda's, and who advised the IAOS about scientific quality control of milk, writing regularly on this theme in the Irish Statesman? If so the IAOS connection would have been the common ground between Houston and JJ. We have here again, perhaps, evidence of an emerging alliance between Labour and Cumann na Gael, with the latter perceived as representing the commercial farming interests who were employers of farm labour. RJ August 2000.)

Next to it is a cutting containing a letter from Oliver St John Gogarty, dated August 21 1925, in which he attacked the imposition of the need to know Irish on the medical profession, and an obituary of Susan Mitchell, who had helped George Russell with the Irish Statesman and the Irish Homestead.

There is a short cutting, undated, from the Mid-Ulster Mail, as follows: "Mr Joseph Johnston, who is connected with the Cookstown district, and was one of the candidates for the Free State Senate, has been 'eliminated' at a very early stage in the count. With characteristic modesty he describes himself as 'the only Economist', whether the Free State democracy did not take his word for it, or do not want an economist in their Upper House, his first preferences were little over 1000, and he has been counted out at a stage which, if he had any sense, should cause him to revise his estimate of his own importance. Another candidate who has been eliminated early is Mr Milroy, who will be remembered as Mr Harbison's Sinn Fein opponent in 1917 and who left the Dail. Evidently the electors do not take either gentleman at his own valuation."

Then finally we get the Seanad election results, analysed by constituency. JJ got a total of 1196 votes, and this compared with 1710 for Douglas Hyde, 601 for Dr McCartan, 1066 for Liam O Briain, 788 for the Marquis McSwiney, 509 for Darrell Figgis and 3722 for Sir Arthur Chance. The large numbers, leading to seats, went to people with high local profiles in certain constituencies, rather than than to people with 'specialist niche' profiles such as the ones listed, none of whom got in. Thus the Seanad electoral procedure showed itself to be flawed, its aspirant role as 'panel of experts' being frustrated by the electoral procedure.

It is interesting to identify the constituencies where JJ picked up votes. Most were of course in Dublin, but after Dublin came in order of size of vote, Laois-Offaly, Donegal, Sligo, Wexford, Carlow-Kilkenny and Cavan. This would suggest that he had gone consciously for, or at least picked up, the Protestant vote. He had subscribed to a press-cutting agency and this had picked up items in the Church of Ireland Gazette advocating that readers should vote for JJ; there had also been a review of 'Groundwork in Economics' in that same paper, linking its publication to his candidature in the Seanad election.

He also served on the Prices ('Profiteering') Tribunal set up in 1926. Most of the cuttings kept in the scrap-book subsequent to the 1926 election relate to this, and to his work on the economics of the distributive process, which he identified as being dominated by 'middlemen' who were instrumental in depressing agricultural prices. About this time he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study this process.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999