Under the Order for the special sittings on Friday, private business comes on at 2 o'clock. We will, therefore, take Deputy Johnson's motion.
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY—REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT.
We have been dealing with a matter of supreme importance touching one side of the public life. It is my duty to bring before the Dáil another matter of supreme importance touching another side of the public life. It is, perhaps, even more urgent than the previous matter. The motion which I have to move, and of which I have given notice, is as follows:—
"That it is an essential condition precedent to the peaceful development of industry and commerce in the Saorstát that the workers should be guaranteed regularity and permanence of employment, and payment for their work at rates sufficient to maintain them and their families in decency and comfort; also, that it is the opinion of the Dáil that the Government should call into conference representatives of employers' and workers' organisations for the purpose of devising the best means and methods of providing such regularity and permanence of employment, with satisfactory payment for work done."
took the Chair at this stage.
Naturally the country is disturbed by the present dispute in connection with the traffic at the quays. From time to time the country has been disturbed over disputes between employers and employed. Very frequently we are treated to lectures, appeals and pleadings for something to be done to avoid the interminable disputes, interminable strikes, and frequent locks-out. We are told that the future prosperity of the country is menaced, that it is impossible to build up a community, healthy and economically prosperous, while the danger exists of workmen ceasing work, and workmen refusing to bend in any way in regard to their trade customs and regulations. We are told frequently that the hope of peaceful development of industry in this country is baseless unless some change can take place, which would ensure that workmen would no longer be undependable, that strikes would, as a matter of fact, cease, and there would be no longer any labour disputes. I ask the Dáil to consider this matter very seriously, and to come to the conclusion that the chances of peaceful development are very small unless some assurance or guarantee can be given to workmen that their lives will be safeguarded, because, after all, you take my life when you take the means whereby I live. I want the Dáil to recognise this very important fact in this connection as in so many other connections. The question of education has been under discussion, and I think I remember that, in an earlier debate on that question, the Minister for Education laid it down that education as well as political institutions were means to a definite human end—the developing of a healthy, happy, human life.
I want the Dáil, and I think it is important for the public also, to recognise that even industry and commerce are not entities of themselves, and ends to which human activities should be directed. On the contrary, industry and commerce, prosperity in those walks of life, are only sought for because we want them to serve human ends. While that may seem axiomatic, and not necessary at all to refer to here, I am very much afraid that people have got into the habit of thinking of trade and commerce and industry as an end to which all energies should be directed, and that human prosperity, human happiness and human effort must be subordinated to something called trade or to something called commerce. Now, the end of all and every industry is, as we must all admit, to feed, clothe, house and provide amenities for the people. I think that if that axiom is borne in mind it will not be difficult to persuade Deputies that the workmen who are engaged in trade, workmen whose occupation is to further industry and commerce, must incidentally to the commerce, but inevitably and with that definite forethought, be the first item for consideration and the first charge upon any industry or commerce. That leads one to this consideration, which is the kernel of what I have to say, that unemployment and the fear of unemployment is the greatest fear that the workmen have. The fear of unemployment, the need to promote the chances of employment, to protect their interests when in employment, and the defence against what they deem to be an attack upon those conditions, and their chance of employment in the future are the primary purposes of Trade Unions. Trade Unions were established and have grown up, and have always considered as their primary purpose and reason for existence to protect the interests of the workmen. When regulations concerning trades are made, when opposition is, as has so often been the case, offered to machine developments, it is always on the ground that the effect of the introduction of new methods is going to deprive the workmen of their chances of a livelihood, as in fact it does, at least for a period. Otherwise those labour-saving machines would not be introduced. It is this fear of unemployment that is the underlying explanation of three-fourths of the labour disputes, not all, but a great majority of the labour disputes. An important consideration that must be taken into account by the workmen, whether as individuals or as organised bodies, is the necessity of looking ahead and trying to conserve their chances of employment three months, six months, or twelve months in advance. When we bear in mind, then. that this fear, this sense of insecurity, is the great underlying cause of the great majority of labour disputes, I think it is clear that our efforts should be directed straight to the solution of the problem. and if it is humanly possible to remove that insecurity from the workmen's minds, then you are going very far to make possible a peaceful development of industry in the country. I believe it is possible so to organise the human resources of this country as to ensure that every man capable of working and willing to work shall have opportunities for work. Now, this problem affects probably not more than a half a million men. The security that I seek is provided for the man who has land. He may have to work very hard for a very little return. He may be compelled to make his own soil, as he has done in the past. But, having made it, he can at any rate, by the application of his labour to that soil, provide sustenance for himself and his family. It may be mean, it may be poor, as it is in these congested areas of which we have been speaking so much, but there is that ultimate security to the landholder against starvation. But this problem is the problem of the landless men, whether the country landless men or the town landless man, the proletariat, the propertyless man who is dependent for the livelihood of himself and his family upon the chances of the labour market. Now, those chances are very variable. Some men are fortunate. Some men are lucky enough to be placed in a position where they are insured permanence of employment, and where the amount of security is so great that the risks of starvation and the risks of hunger are small. There is a vast mass in this country, as in other countries, who cannot see two weeks ahead, and who do not know where next week's food is to come from. The very much greater number of them have not the slightest security for a livelihood three months ahead.
Because of that insecurity, they have been forced into a defensive position, and are obliged to say: "We must conserve our narrower interests, and we dare not, because of the insecurity, enlarge our vision until we find ourselves in a position to say there are no risks; we are assured of employment in the future, and with that security we can let our imagination and our impulses and our feelings have full play." I believe if you would understand the position of the workmen en masse, you would have to consider the position of the undeveloped societies, the hungry societies who cannot and do not give rein to enterprise because the margin of sustenance at their disposal is so limited. It is only when, by virtue of good fortune and good harvests, luck in the hunt, that ample provision is made for the future, that they can allow rein to their energies and their enterprises. I want to bring about the same position for the workman. I want the workmen to be able to say: “We are secure against unemployment; we are guaranteed that if we do work that is put to us we shall not want, and our families will run no risk of hunger; insecurity, so far as it is humanly possible of achievement, has passed.” Then men would be justified in demanding a full measure of social service from all, and demanding a removal of many restrictions that impeded the progress of industry and commerce. I believe until you give that assurance it will not be possible to call for that output, for that removal of restrictions, and for that increased effort in time of emergency that in a community of citizens of good will ought to be possible. I am putting it to the Dáil that we ought to accept this proposition as a responsible National Assembly, so that the workers of the country should be guaranteed regularity of employment, or, failing that, maintenance for the work which they are willing to do, but which the organisers of industry have not been able to provide. This is not a revolutionary doctrine. In essence, if looked at from a slightly different angle, it is already in being through the Poor Law Institutions, but unfortunately wrongly, Poor Law administration was conceived and carried through as though poverty and destitution were offences which ought to be punished. We do provide some kind of State guarantee against starvation by hunger, and we impose upon citizens an obligation to accept of that substenance which the law places at their disposal.
We want to get away from the atmosphere of the Poor Law, and we want to say to workmen that our energies, our organising ability, and the resources of the State will, if necessary, be called in so as to ensure that every workman will be guaranteed useful employment, employment for the common good, productive work, useful service, and will be paid adequately for that service. I believe this proposition, if it were tackled as the problems of defence and problems of a similar kind have been tackled in this and in other countries, could be successfully dealt with; but it cannot be successfully dealt with if we are going to look upon it merely in the light of an extension of existing systems. It may mean that we shall have to face certain consequences, but I am not asking the Dáil, in this proposition, to commit itself in the slightest to any conception of future social order. I am not asking the Dáil to alter its view of what kind of a State this should be. I am asking the Dáil to accept this as a fundamental proposition, that men willing to work, who have not the means of work, and have no land on which to work, must be guaranteed the opportunities to do useful work at reasonable pay. The two great industries which have been most seriously affected by labour disputes in recent years have been the building trades and the transport trades. The numbers of men affected in those trades are not unmanageable if organisation was looked at seriously. Probably 30,000 men in the building trades, apart from odds and ends, and probably 40,000 or 50,000, taking all the transport trades, including the railways, cover those two big industries. I put it to the Dáil that the problem of the organisation of all the men engaged in those two branches of industry is not insuperable.
The men engaged in manual work, the men engaged in the direct work, could, if they put their minds to it, contrive to assess the amount of human energy that is required for the annual output in those trades. The labour is there; the men are there; the capacity and experience are there; and society has, by one means or another, so directed itself that 30,000 men have set themselves to the occupation, say, of building. I say it is our duty, as a State organisation, to induce, if possible, those to whose care has been committed the organisation of the building trades, to ensure to all these men in the building trades that their work would be well directed and would not be wasted. This is the problem of the elimination of waste, and I want to say that the organisers of industry who claimed that title, which ought to be a proud one, have to justify their claim and have to organise, or assist in the organisation, of all that energy and experience, and direct it to the building of houses primarily, and other buildings at the same time. But they have no right to expect to have at their disposal thousands of men just when they require them. It is not impossible to estimate the requirements of building for five years ahead It should be comparatively simple in this country. We know what the housing needs are. The Minister for Local Government and the President know that. We know, within moderate limits, what the needs are in respect to public works. We know what the capacity of the country is, and I say that there ought to be some means of fitting the needs with the capacity to supply these needs, and that means the organisation of the men in the trades. So it is with transport. What is the procedure? We have frequently come across a position something like this. A ship comes into a harbour. It is required to be discharged, and some hundreds of men are wanted on the spot. They are required to work night and day, and to be available to work night and day until she is discharged, because it is too expensive to keep that ship lying in dock. I ask you to bear in mind what that means. It means that it is of much greater importance to have 500 men available, waiting on the rota, unemployed, to be ready to discharge a ship that may come in on any day, because a ship cannot be kept waiting. That is topsy-turvydom. Surely it is more important to have men employed, to have men regularly organised, whose life would be comparatively regular, even though that ship has to wait for two or three days longer for discharge. But with organisation there is no necessity, I would contend, even to delay in the discharge of a ship of that kind.
I submit that the problem of casual labour and the method of decasualisation of labour ought to be taken in hand both at the docks and in every other occupation, and I believe that, notwithstanding that many men are opposed to any attempt to decasualise labour, thinking that it is chancy, no doubt, and sporting, and gives them an opportunity to have a flutter occasionally, I believe that for the social good decausalisation should proceed, but it can only proceed if it is accompanied by a guarantee of employment. I am asking that the Dáil should accept this view, and, having accepted it, that then the representatives of employers' organisations and workers' organisations should be called into conference and be told that this being the view of Dáil Eireann, it is their duty to find the best means of achieving this end— this end of the organisation of the industry of the country, the regularisation of the labour of the country, and the adequate payment for that labour. We shall be told, no doubt, that industry cannot stand the present charges. Wages must come down, conditions must be altered, labour must be more malleable and elastic in its demands. Well, I answer, for my part, that when these essential conditions are secured I am prepared to do everything that one man can to achieve the rest, but until these essential conditions are assured I say it would be disloyal to workmen, it would be suicidal for workmen, to give up their only protective measures and forces. We are all hoping and believing that it is possible of attainment, that there is no necessity for workmen in this country to have to follow the market of labour in other countries, and we think that this country is living in a fool's paradise if it expects that there will be an accommodation of that kind; that all that is to be done is to say, "Somebody else in another country is working cheaper than you are working, and therefore you must adjust your prices to theirs." High wages for three weeks and no wages for two means low wages for five, and that is about the condition that so many men find themselves in. I would like the Dáil to agree with me in this, that there can be a reorganisation of industry, that labour can be well protected, that improvements can be made in the conduct and administration of the industrial machine, that employers can learn how to direct their industries very much more efficiently than they have yet shown any signs of; that these things can be done when the foundation is laid, that a workman is not running the risk of unemployment in a week, two weeks, or six months. Give us this guarantee, and then we can see what are the best means of arriving at that end. I ask the Dáil to accept this motion.
I formally second this motion.
With the larger part of this exceptionally weighty utterance of Deputy Johnson I find myself in complete agreement; I mean by the larger part the larger in the bulk of matter that it presents for thought rather than merely the larger part of it as it would appear to the reader of the speech. Deputy Johnson has gone back for his first principles to that mediaeval Christianity which it has been so long the fashion to deride.
Who derides it?
Modern civilisation, which is so boastful of its own alleged achievements, derides it, but modern civilisation has found its complete refutation in the Great War and the consequent upheavals in Europe. There the great test was applied to a materialistic so-called civilisation, a civilisation based on the egotism and egoism. As regards the relation between labourer and employer Deputy Johnson goes back to what is taught in the Catholic catechism, which is not ashamed to preserve the doctrine of an earlier age, "Masters, do to your servants that which is just and equal." That is our theory now, though I prefer to say nothing for the moment about our practice——
Hear, hear.
When, notwithstanding our catechetical lectures and instruction, we find ourselves later in life investors of capital and employers of labour. But it is with the doctrines as enunciated by Deputy Johnson that I prefer to deal. I think it is time for this Dáil, on behalf of the Irish nation, to express itself here and now in favour of a type of civilisation wholly different from the Teutonic semblance or simula-crum of civilisation which has been operative in Great Britain and Ireland and through the German Empire since the 17th century. Deputy Johnson spoke of waste. Unless we are willing to take the attitude of Cain and ask "Am I my brother's keeper?" how can we look on at the social shambles that this competitive system creates, this horrible waste of humanity, and look on and feel that we have no share in participation of guilt? We are all guilty, as the phrase runs, of brother's blood so long as we raise no voice of protestation. The waste is incalculable, and, what is still worse, the waste is irreparable. There is a very fine poem written by a Labour laureate to replace "God Save the King."
"When wilt Thou save the people, oh God of Mercy, when?
Not thrones and crowns but nations, not kings and lords but men.
Flowers of Thy heart, oh God, are they,
Let them not waste like weeds away,
We are their heritage of sunless day.
God save the people."
Now, that expresses my conception of the prayer that should go from all of us who feel the social unrest that we lament around us everywhere to-day. The awful phrase was used again of "the labour market." We did away with the slave market in name. What is the labour market as we know it to-day, as described by Deputy Johnson, as regards its by-product, if not its intentional product, of casual labour? "The world is out of joint," says Hamlet, "oh cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right." That "cursed spite" has come to the Parliament of Ireland, for we must do something to set right the social dislocation of the country. It is one of the great problems that concerns the Parliament. Deputy Johnson asked us to guarantee regularity and permanence of employment. I wish we could guarantee it. I took a note that he said it must be guaranteed, and I substituted that it ought to be guaranteed. At a time when there is so much talk around us of a General Election, one's memory naturally harks back to one's election address and the pledges made in it. May I egotistically recall a passage of mine? I undertook to support—it was regarded as an eccentric thing on the part of a University representative—all legislation that would tend to humanise labour. I received a letter from an unknown correspondent, dated from Cork.
"I see that you intend to humanise labour," ran the letter. "If you can persuade labour to work you would go down to history as an immortal statesman." I undertook to support—and I am carrying out my undertaking—everything brought forward here that tends to humanise labour. That is our Christian profession, that we regard humanity as God-like, and that everything in the system under which a human being lives his life that tends to degrade him from the high level of personality is evil, and is to be stamped out. The human being is entitled to live his life under conditions that are consonant with his status of personality. These are sometimes ridiculed as the doctrines of the visionary. They are part of the Gospel that Christ came here to preach, and I am quite satisfied to be ridiculed as a visionary so long as my doctrine or my profession is in accord with that Gospel. We forget too often, because we see a mechanism gone astray, what was its original purpose. Society, as I spoke of it the other day, is intended to provide that environment, that set of surroundings, opportunities and safeguards which will enable the individual to develop himself in the highest measure to realise all that it is in him to become. Society exists for the meanest individual for that purpose, as well as for the most exalted. It does not follow that because a child is born under conditions of poverty or of destitution that he is to be kept, when he grows to adult manhood, as a mere slave or instrument for the creation of another man's wealth. We have the spectacle of one portion of the community, describable as the idle rich, rolling in luxury, and the majority of the people worse housed than the cattle, and living with that dreadful insecurity which only a miracle, it seems to me, can save from producing either insanity on the one hand, or crime on the other.
I remember on one occasion, during a holiday, having the pleasure of visiting one of the most beautiful places in the world—Isabela and Lago Maggiore. Where I landed was one of the most squalid fishing villages imaginable, and through that I found my way into the gardens of the Count Borroméo. It was an earthly paradise overlooking the lake to Stresa. In those gardens was every type of beautiful vegetation. When I looked at the castle of the Count and these superb grounds, and looked down at the little dark, noisome narrow lanes in which the population of Isabela was confined, I could not help—I make this confession frankly—thinking that if I were one of these men some night I would make my protest. A few years ago —I remember I mentioned this to the Archbishop of the place when I had the honour of meeting him—in San Francisco, an anarchist went into a Catholic Church and shot the priest on the altar rails while he was giving Holy Communion. I pointed out to the Archbishop, and some American Bishops who were with him, that all that was wrong with that man was that in his action he was too logical. This man felt that, were it not for the preaching of our priests of the doctrine that in another world they would be compensated for the harsh and cruel treatment they undergo here, that they would rise up and pull down, some day of mad destruction, the whole fabric that victimises them.
I hold, and I hold it strongly, that it is the duty of everyone who is interested in the preservation of society, who is an opponent of anarchism, to profess those doctrines not merely by lip service, but by actual conduct. It is the only way to save society. The doctrine that Deputy Johnson has expounded, in the larger portion of his speech, is utterly opposed to the doctrine of class warfare. which is the weed that flourishes when the materialistic conception of life is allowed to replace the proper conception of human values. It is useless for men to write books exposing the fallacies of Carl Marx. It is useless for lecturers to make us shudder with horror at the accounts of what revolutionaries have done in mad protest against the system that wrongs them, unless we are prepared to show by constructive work that the doctrines we hold by and stand for can be worked out into institutions, the operation of which would be to provide the attainment of those ideals and the realisation of those advantages for which the anarchist is so anxious.
While I agree with Deputy Johnson, that conferences should be called, that, in fact, a permanent system for conferring should be set up, to avoid the destructive methods of labour warfare, I think that when he asks us to guarantee regularity and permanence of employment, he is asking us to do what, in the circumstances that exist, we cannot do. It would not be honest if we were to pass a resolution with the words " we guarantee," because we have to renew " a clean heart and a new spirit" in society before the Government would be in a position to give such a guarantee as an effective thing. That is the trouble. If he asked us to proclaim our faith in such a system, or to assert the right of the Government to make a reformation, I would be with them. I have spoken on another occasion on an aspect of this problem which I would like—only I am detaining you quite too long—hurridedly to bring before you. To reform one defect in the system of investment and the responsibilities that it brought with it, of which Sir Walter Scott was a notable victim, the laws were altered under the control of which Joint Stock Companies are floated and run. That has brought about impersonal relationship between employer and employed. If A.B. invests his money in Mexican Oils, or in some far away company, he has no opportunity of knowing or of assuring himself what the conditions are under which the dividends he is glad to receive are earned. The ideal demand would be that he should not take those dividends unless he were satisfied that they had been honestly distributed. But in the nature of the case, from the circumstances that prevail, it is impossible to make those investigations, or to discover whether one is really reaping the fruits of villainies perpetrated without his knowledge, or whether he is receiving results honestly achieved. The whole world would have to be reorganised. The whole system of investment and employment would have to be changed from top to bottom. As I put it in Biblical language, "A clean heart and a new spirit would have to be created" before it could be done. As we cannot build a great wall of China round our country, and as we cannot keep ourselves out of international relations, the utmost we can hope to achieve is to secure within our own dominions, within our own realm of operation, a better scheme. But we could not guarantee.
At the same time, I think that Deputy Johnson has rendered an enormous public service in coming forward with a resolution so worded and so expounded by him to-day. As the leader of the Labour Party, I, as one humble member of the Dáil, would applaud him to the echo. He has dissociated himself clearly and unmistakably from those who espouse the class war doctrines. He has taken sides with the sane reformer who seeks to remedy appalling abuses by the application of correct thought. That is a great national service, and it is because I sincerely believe he has done that service that I have taken the trouble to add to my increasing volume of unpopularity in this Chamber by making another long speech.
Deputy Magennis has agreed with the greater part of the argument put forward by Deputy Johnson, but he sticks at the conclusion. However welcome it may be to us to find Deputy Magennis again returning to the paths of virtue and justice, not to say of good sense, it would be still more welcome if we found him agreeing to the only practical conclusion that is to be drawn from the very premises with which he has expressed such hearty agreement. In this country, as in other countries, there has always been too much expression of sympathy and agreement with principles without a corresponding effort to put those principles and that sympathy into practical form. Deputy Johnson's motion calls for a conference for the purpose of devising the best means and methods of providing regularity and permanence of employment and satisfactory payment for work done. Deputy Magennis says it is not possible in all the circumstances to guarantee such permanence and regularity of employment. On the contrary, I maintain that on the very basis of the philosophy which he has been expounding here—which I, for one, have no hesitation in admiring, even though it comes from a much earlier age—every individual according to his needs and according to his wants has a right to a livelihood unless by the conventions of States he is deprived of life or of livelihood for some crime. If that be so, it must follow that society must provide him with the means of livelihood, and, unfortunate though it may be, or fortunate in the view of other people, the only avenue to a living or to a livelihood that the great majority of people have is through some sort or kind of employment. I maintain then—and I think Deputy Magennis, if he comes back to his sources, and not only to his sources but to the modern interpretation of them —will find that there is an obligation on the State itself to take such means and such measures as will provide for the common well-being of the citizens. For that reason I hold that there is an obligation on this State to find the ways and means of guaranteeing what is asked for in this motion.
It is not sufficient to say that we cannot guarantee. We can guarantee if the proper methods are taken, and if the proper spirit is shown by those in whose hands largely the power of guarantee lies. But here, as elsewhere, you have a large section of the people in whose hands that power lies neglecting their first duties, I am not going to say merely as Christians, but their first duty as citizens, because their one aim, their one object, their whole desire in life, is to do nothing but to build up something for themselves at the expense of other people. There are riches in the Saorstát, there is wealth in the Saorstat, there is intelligence and there is ability in the Saorstát, there is recuperative power in the Saorstát, but there is a minority in the Saorstát that controls the means of life to a very great extent, and they are not willing, up to the present, to surrender their control in the larger interest of the citizens, unless and except they can gain out of it something which the general body of the citizens cannot gain. Deputy Magennis knows perfectly well why there is distress and conflict between the different classes here as elsewhere. And he knows as well as any of us, that now, above all times, there is a moral obligation on every citizen of the State to make such sacrifices as are necessary for the common interest and the common well being of all citizens of the State. No one in this Dáil will deny that the general body of workers, whatever their faults may be, and they may have faults as individuals, and faults, perhaps, as a collective body, they have not hesitated to give more than what is their right, and they will not hesitate to make such arrangements, and to make such sacrifices and to bear such suffering as may be necessary. On the other hand they see those who control their very lives not getting appreciably poorer, not divesting themselves of any of the better things of life, but on the contrary, making use of much of the wealth that the workers themselves have helped to create and to contribute to, giving themselves a better time and an easier mode of locomotion, and a finer and an easier living and livelihood. Further, we find them if threatened with sufferings or with sacrifices a little bit out of the common with something that they and their fathers were not faced with, until within the last few years, threatening, and in many cases carrying out their threats, to clear out of the country from which they have drawn all their sustenance, threatening and carrying out, the threats that if the workmen will not choose to accept just what they give, then they will close down their establishments and throw the workmen on the mercy of the State. Against this there is no practicable proposition, there is no practicable conclusion to be drawn except the conclusion that Deputy Johnson has drawn, and that is that it is the duty not only of the body of the citizens, not only of every section of the citizens, but of the State, as the expression in a certain form of the whole body of the citizens to find a way and a means to guarantee what Deputy Johnson's motion has asked.
I have been interested in listening to the debate. Some of the debate was on a very learned plane. Some of the Deputies went to lengths that I am unable to reach. When I speak on this matter I will content myself with very plain words. I will come down to facts as close as I can to what is actually in existence. We are told that the cause of this discontent is the fear of unemployment. I do not believe that for a moment. There is no evidence of that. None whatever. Is it the fear of unemployment that has caused the present strike, the present holding up of traffic in the city of Dublin and at the ports in the Saorstát? There is a huge strike on in the County Waterford. Is it the fear of unemployment that has been the cause of that? In what form has it led to it? Is it the fear of unemployment that was the cause of several strikes and several dislocations of trade all over the country, that has put an end to the little industries that were creeping up or were extending at the time? These little industrial concerns were started up and down the country, some of them in my own county, and what has put an end to them? Demands were made that the people who put up the strike knew could not be met out of the business. Still the strike was put up. The industries were closed. They are closed yet, and will never be opened. Was it the fear of unemployment did all this? Was it the fear of unemployment brought about all this dislocation of trade? Is there any such case that has really happened in which anybody can put his finger down and really say it was the fear of unemployment that caused such and such a strike? Can anybody point to a single strike that was caused by unemployment? Now, is it permanence of employment for which the demand is made? Or is it a demand for a permanence of wage for adequate work or a fair return? I have heard a good deal of this permanence of work. I believe it is not permanence of work at all that is required. I believe it is a permanence of wage, a permanence of a certain amount of money each week——
Hear, hear.
Without any regard whatsoever for any return in work for the money.
What you want for the farmers, sometimes.
I will not come to the farmers at all. I will confine myself to the city. Is the amount of work done at the Trinity College Corner below in Nassau Street a return for the wage that has been expended on it? Is that an example there in one of the principal streets and throughfares of our city of what would be given for a wage? I would like to know the figure of the amount of money that has been expended on that job down there. I would like to know the number of square feet that are in the whole job. I would like to know how much it has grown from day to day.
There is no use talking about work if it only means shamming at work. I mean work as understood by a certain section of the people in this country. I have great sympathy with Deputy Johnson if he means a wage for work, and I am prepared to go a long way to meet him; but I have no sympathy with him if he means a wage for little or no work at all for, practically speaking, shamming work. I have no objection to a guarantee of a wage if we get a guarantee of work or an adequate return for that wage. There will be no necessity for the State to take up this matter any more than the Government of any country, if there is a fair guarantee that work will be done. There would be no necessity for State interference if work is given for the wage that is paid. Any man knows, no matter what he says here in the Dáil, or outside, that if we could get a guarantee of self-reliance, and a guarantee of effort, it would be very easy to guarantee a wage, for the wage would come automatically. What do we find all this demand for a guarantee of work amounts to, as we see it in practice? I mentioned Trinity College corner as one instance. I could take you to several other corners, but I cannot take you to very many corners in Dublin where building is being carried on. Why?
Pay the men.
The man who wants work and who is willing to work can always get work. A great deal has been said about the men engaged in the building trades. Why is this question raised about the building trades? Why were we not given the causes of the trouble in those trades when this particular strike was mentioned? Why were we not told about the transport trade? We are told about permanency of work in the building trade. We have as much raw material in this country as in any other country in the world, and it is as near to our doors and nearer, in fact, than in any other country. Yet, we cannot carry on the building trade. We have rock, brick, lime, sand, mortar, cement and timber; we have everything in the matter of raw material. Why then can we not carry on the building trade as well as any other country is carrying it on? Why have our cities not grown? Why have the slums not been replaced by good houses, and why are our suburbs neglected? In any other country in which one travels one can see houses being erected around every city and town. Where will you see one around Dublin? All you can see are three or four houses at Blackrock, and whether they were built by State aid or by private enterprise I cannot say, but I am surprised that even those houses were erected. What is wrong? We have all the raw material we require. There is something lacking, some big essential lacking. Building trades cannot go ahead here, but they can elsewhere. The answer is— it is not a paying proposition, and it is absolutely impossible. Our business men and our contractors are ready to go ahead and invest money at a small profit, or on the chance of even getting back their own money. Why are they not engaged in these enterprises? It is because they know that not even their money will come back, and they know that it is a dead loss to engage in the building trade. In another discussion on the building trades, assertions were made from these benches, and they were not denied even by professional men—men engaged in the very trades referred to. It cannot be said we have not a market for houses in Dublin, and that houses are not needed in the city. Houses cost more in Dublin than in any other city that I am acquainted with. In any town or city in England house building will not be so costly as in Dublin. Here you are asked £1,000 or £2,000 more for a house than anywhere else. The market for houses in Dublin is the finest in the world, and yet houses cannot be erected here.
Labour will be doing us a very good turn if they would help us to find out the disease in the building trade, and they would be doing us a much better turn still if they helped us to cure it, or if they help to apply the medicine for that disease, medicine which would help the State to cure it or help the State to apply the medicine. Something is wrong in the building trade. Most of us know what is wrong, and I am sure the Labour leaders know what is wrong too.
They do.
It is very well to say that the State should step in and guarantee comfort and decency to every member of the human family, to every cog in the human machine, but are all these cogs of the human wheel ready to fall into their places and to do their share? If they were prepared to do that, and say that, then we would be on the right road, and we would not be talking this clap-trap.
If employment is guaranteed Deputy Johnson tells us he will do his best to do the rest. Is he able to do the rest? I am sure that Deputy Johnson is sincere in the promise that he has made that he will do his best, but is he able to deliver the goods? Has his end of the machine been brought up to that pitch that they recognise that self-reliance and effort should be contributed on their part, and does he think that he can guide all his cogs into their places, and make them do their part? I give him credit for being sincere in this and wishing to do it if he could, but the question is, can he? There is another aspect of this case. If everything is right in the building trade; if, as I submit, and as everybody must admit, we have all the raw materials and still no buildings can be carried on; something must be wrong. Is it at the source of production of the raw materials? Are these raw materials too dear? Do they come to the building trade too dear? Are the men who are engaged in the production of the raw materials paid too much, or must they produce the raw materials at a less cost so as to enable the building trade of Dublin to carry on? Is it the position that the people engaged in the production of raw materials, quarried stone, bricks, cement and so on, must work for less and produce more? That is, perhaps, a way of answering the question. I do not think that the answer would be found there, but it is one way of answering the question. Are we to be asked for a guarantee of employment that will not pay for itself? Is that the proposition; that will not give a sufficient return to pay for itself? Who is going to pay for it if it does not pay for itself? The people of this country, the people who produce, the people who work, and when we talk about the wealth of this country we mean only the wealth that comes from production.
Hear, hear.
That is all the wealth we have. If some of the people who produce have to subsidise other people who produce them, I do not think we would be acting quite fairly; we are not giving a better return to the man who produced more than to the man who produced less. We are not giving a man a return for his efforts or for his work. The reason that so many men can go slow in this country and need not do their full share is because a certain section is doing more than its share, and is carrying the rest on its back, and because people in the agricultural districts have not been getting a fair return for their work, men who can afford to be idle at the expense of the small farmers who have put in an intensive effort and who have never had a return for it; not the man who is paid a wage and is only paid on chances, who, with his family work hard from day's end to day's end. Other people are living on this toil for which he never got a return, but I think he going to get a return for it, and the sooner people make up their minds to that the better. If you are looking for a man who worked to subsidise another man who will not work I warn you that you are not likely to find him and you are less likely to find him in the future, and we, who represent the people, will try to educate them to that, and try to guarantee that they get a full return for every effort they put up.
Hear, hear.
If you have found such a man in the past, you are not likely to find him in the future. I hope in the near future that facts will educate him as to his position. I hope that these men will wake up and see that they get a return for their work. I ask Deputy Johnson and the other Deputies who have talked about this big human wheel——
Weal.
Well, wheel will do me.
You are one of the cogs.
I mean the human machine, this particular big wheel of the machine. If all those cogs are ready to fall into their places and do their duty automatically, then, I think, we shall have arrived at a very happy stage. Have we arrived at that stage? Before we ask for guarantees we ought to try to arrive at that stage. We ought to give some guarantee that we are on the road, at least, even if we had not started. We ought to see some indications that people are prepared to give an effort and are prepared to work. We ought to have some real indications of that, and that they mean to work. If they do not mean to work there is no use talking about guarantees. The time is not ripe for guarantees. Deputy O'Shannon says that a section of the community neglects to do its duty. I agree, but I say that, perhaps, more than one section neglects to do so. It may be that a few other sections that he has not mentioned, have neglected their duty also. Until all sections in this country are prepared to do their duty, fit into their places, and pull their weight we have no use talking about guarantees.
I desire to support this motion, and I may say that I was very pleased to hear the remarks that Deputy Magennis has made on the matter. Deputy Gorey also, I may say, interested me. He usually does when he starts talking about things of which, I beg to suggest, he has very little knowledge indeed. There is one thing that he said with which I agree, and I am very glad that he admitted it; that was when he stated that a number of us have been talking clap-trap, and, I presume, he has included himself in the lot.
Oh, no No, no.
He made a statement to the effect that it should be no more necessary for the State to interfere in a matter of this kind in this country than in any other country. I submit that the fact that he made this statement proves that he knows very little about conditions in other countries; that the fact, if it is a fact, that other countries do not interfere in a matter of this kind, is no proof at all that their interference is not necessary. As a matter of fact, anybody who has studied the conditions of the workers, and social conditions generally, through out the world, must recognise that it is necessary for somebody, if not the State, to interfere in other countries to do what Deputy Johnson is asking that we should do here. Deputy Gorey also wants to know if it were permanence of work or permanence of wage that the workers wanted, and he implied that it was permanence of wage. I submit that Deputy Gorey is judging wage-earners by his own class. He is trying to imagine that they want to get what he has been wanting to get and perhaps give as little return as he has been wanting to give.
Again, to show his lack of knowledge on the subject he instanced the corner at Trinity College, and he questioned if good value has been given for the wages earned on it, and then he says he would like to know what is the cost of the job. I think it is altogether unfair to start denouncing these men. I do not know them, and I have no personal interest in them. He denounced these men for being slackers, and in the same breath he admits that he does not know what the job costs. He shows just as much ignorance in this matter as he did on other matters.
On a point of personal explanation, if I do not know anything about the money spent on the job I know about the number of days it occupied, and I try to make a calculation from the number of men employed and the number of days occupied.
He asked then was it right that the people who work in this country and do useful work should subsidise people who do not want to do useful work, and he said if there were people in the past willing to do such things, and to subsidise loafers they would not get them in the future. I think as regards the Land Bill that there were some people willing to subsidise other people. As a matter of fact, I was under the impression that there is a certain percentage, 10 per cent., I think, of the total cost of the land that would be bought from the landlords, that will be paid by the people of Ireland generally, and not only by the farming section which will benefit by this. I submit it is not consistent for Deputy Gorey to be willing to accept a subsidy in order to enable unpurchased tenants to purchase their lands.
They have not asked for it.
Nor are we. And at the same time he denounces the provision of a subsidy for another section of the community to enable them to earn a bare subsistence in this world. Deputy Gorey mentioned unemployment, and he mentioned disputes in Dublin and Waterford. He questioned if it was the fear of unemployment that caused these disputes. It may not be directly the cause of the disputes in Waterford and Dublin, but in Dublin, at any rate, it is a fact that the dockers who are involved in the dispute, as well as the dockers in other ports, are always subject to long periods of unemployment. This has made them desirous of retaining the daily wage they already possess. If these men were granted a wage which would give them a decent existence, and if they got that wage week after week the fifty-two weeks of the year I do not think they would be unwilling to give a decent return for that, and I think there would be very few disputes in the docks in Dublin or elsewhere. He also mentioned that many little industries had been attempted to be started throughout the country that were destroyed by industrial disputes If my memory is correct, I think, on a previous occasion when a similar matter was being discussed, Deputy Gorey made a similar statement, and Deputy Johnson asked him to name the particular industries in Ireland that had been destroyed by trade disputes. On that occasion Deputy Gorey did not name these industries. Before he makes a statement like that I would like if he would give us these facts. I hope the Dáil will pass this resolution. I was an employee at one time in the building trade for twelve or thirteen years. I know the men in the building trade are not half as bad as Deputy Gorey would lead us to believe I have often heard it said when comment was made on the bent shape of men in the building trades that they had worked themselves into S hooks to keep sufficiently in the good graces of their employers, and to keep their jobs. I can assure the Dáil that up to four and a half years ago, when I was employed in the building trade, that there was no employee of a building contractor in Dublin, or in any part of Ireland, who had an easy time. Deputy Gorey's references on a few other occasions, as well as to-day, was trying to give the impression that the reason why houses were not built was because labour in the building trade was so dear. I happened to be a member of the Departmental Committee on the Rent Restriction Act. Some of the evidence given to that Committee showed that everyone was not agreed that it was the high cost of building that was responsible for the present shortage of houses. In fact, two or three witnesses stated very definitely that building had ceased in a sense long before the European war. Some of them stated, and I also saw it stated in some trade papers recently, that it was the Finance Act of 1908, that was responsible for the lack of building, or for preventing the building of houses by those who prior to 1908 had been building and selling houses at a profit. I do not claim to know much about that Act, but I understand that it was because of the number of forms that had to be filled up to show the value of houses erected and the rest of the red tapeism that was in the Act, that put a check upon building, and that was six years or so before the beginning of the European war, a long time before there were any disputes of an extensive kind in the building trades. There had not been a dispute in the building trade except once twelve years previous to that. I have pleasure in supporting the motion.
I take it that Deputy Johnson, in putting this resolution to the Dáil, does so in the best interests of the State, and I take it his intentions are of the best, and the one helpful thing, I think, about his whole speech was that he spoken of the future, trying to leave the past to forgetfulness. I think that if we are to have that mutual co-operation which is essential to the peaceful development of industry and commerce, undoubtedly, we must forget a good deal of what has passed, and direct our attention to the future. As late as yesterday we had in a certain town in the South of Ireland what might be termed an industrial conference. There were present at the conference representatives of Labour in the particular industry and representatives of the Board of Directors. In going down to preside at that conference, and knowing the position which each side had taken up, two of us had very little hope of ultimate success. For ten hours we tried to hammer out some form of agreement, and during the whole conference I found that whenever the tendency manifested itself on either side to get back to the past, things were getting pretty hopeless. I appealed to both sides to forget the past, and to look to the future. The result was that after ten and a half hours, we arrived at a conclusion which I think the future will prove to be satisfactory and to make for the peaceful development of at any rate one Irish industry on a very large scale. The management of the Industry felt quite certain that though in the past they had been able to employ only from 60 to 70 men all told the result of yesterday's conference would enable them to employ within a couple of years from 600 to 800 men. It was an industrial conference, with the past as far as possible obliterated, and with mutual goodwill. I must bear testimony to that—mutual goodwill on the side of both parties and a successful conclusion arrived at. I would point out that the conferences which Deputy Johnson refers to in this resolution, if they are to be of any use, must depend upon the mutual goodwill of both parties entering into them. Goodwill and co-operation are necessary for capital and labour if we are to have a peaceful development of industry within the State. That is essential. Deputy Johnson has assured us that he has no intention that this Dáil should commit itself to a policy which would be a revolution of the present social order. I think that is putting exactly what Deputy Johnson said in moving the resolution that he did not wish to commit the Dáil to a revolution of the present social order.
I think I said I did not want to ask the Dáil to commit itself to any new form of social order or new state of society. That may grow.
resumed the Chair at this stage.
I take exactly the Deputy's words as the words which I wish to put myself as representing what he did say. I have hope that with mutual goodwill on the side of both capital and labour schemes of organisation can be hammered out which will put industry in this country in such a position as to enable it to so develop that it will ultimately absorb all those of the State who are at the present moment find it hard to eke out an existence. I have hope of that and as far as these conferences of representatives of employers and workers' organisations are concerned, if we have any reasonable hope given us that the parties will enter them with goodwill, I think that the Government would be justified in calling such conferences together. But there must be reasonable ground for believing that the parties enter them with goodwill. I regret, however, that the resolution in its entirety is not acceptable, because of the very social order which Deputy Johnson admits exists at present. The resolution simply proposes an ideal state of things. It would be ideal to have every man guaranteed a means of living, but there is no use in passing resolutions which we cannot carry out. I would ask Deputy Johnson to accept an amendment of his resolution which I would then very cordially support. I would ask him to delete "be" in line 2 and "guaranteed" in line 3 and to substitute for these words the word "have." If the Deputy will accept the amendment I shall very cordially support the resolution.
The resolution would then read "that the workers should have regularity."
The Minister suggests that we should be willing to take the shadow and forfeit the substance, that you may have the hair even without the hide or without the body or the flesh of the beast. If I had thought of accepting any such resolution as satisfactory I would not have opened the discussion. The proposition is that we should say that the workers should have regularity and permanence of employment. Nobody will dissent from that, not one single soul in this country or in any other country. The proposition that I put is that if you want to lay the foundations for peaceful development, for development without the interruption that strikes so often cause then you have to remove the cause of three quarters of those interruptions which, despite Deputy Gorey, has its roots in this fear of hunger and unemployment.
I put it to the Dáil that inasmuch as this country is capable of maintaining out of its produce a much larger population than it at present contains, the first task of the organisers of the industries of this country is to utilise the labour available to increase that production, if necessary, but to distribute that production in return for services rendered.
This is the proposition I am putting to the Dáil. It meets Deputy Gorey in the essential point that he made. If Deputy Gorey had read the motion he would not have made half his speech. The other half was made simply to show that he desires to create or develop an antagonism between the town workman and the country workman. The proposition in the motion is that having agreed upon this fundamental requirement then—it is not that the State should do it unless other people fail to do it—the State should call into conference the human elements that go to the creation of wealth in order to devise the best means of putting into operation and giving practical effect to this fundamental proposition. If you say that that is impossible, then, as Deputy Magennis has pointed out, you are denying certain essentials of your faith. Surely, you are not going to preach that certain things are desirable but certain things are impossible. You are not going to preach the doctrine that certain things are ideal and can only be reached by angels and that therefore they are of no use to humanity. I maintain, on the contrary, that this is a practical proposition for human society and for human society in this country.
It is now 4 o'clock and the Deputy will have to move the adjournment of the debate until the next day for Private Members' Business
I move the adjournment of the debate until next Wednesday.
Motion agreed to.