Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 5 Mar 1925

Vol. 10 No. 8

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - SUPPLEMENTARY AND ADDITIONAL ESTIMATES. VOTE No. 49: INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION.

Mr. BLYTHE

I move:

Go ndeontar Suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £30,800 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch 31adh Márta, 1925, i gcóir Oideacheais Idirmheánaigh ar a n-áirítear an Deontas i gcóir tuarastal Múinteóirí agus Méaduithe Tuarastail do Mhúinteoirí Meán-Scoile.

That a Supplementary Sum not ex ceeding £30,800 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st March, 1925, for Interme diate Education, including the Teachers' Salaries Grant and Incre ments of Salary to Secondary School Teachers.

This estimate is rendered necessary by the fact that since the beginning of the financial year a decision has been come to on the question of the scale of increments for Secondary Teachers. It was only in recent years that the Exchequer resumed responsibility for the payment of salaries to Secondary Teachers. A great deal of pressure has been applied for the increase of that provision, and the putting of it on a more satisfactory basis. It has been realised that the most satisfactory basis on which it could be put at present would be one providing for the payment of annual increments to teachers by the Government, and for the payment of a basic salary by the schools. The payment of the basic salary will, of course, include a share of the public money, because there are payments made to the schools. Those payments will also be increased. The estimates for the coming year will provide for an increase in the amount actually payable to the schools.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

I think the Dáil generally will agree that in discussing this very important estimate they will be at a great disadvantage by not having present the Minister charged by the Dáil and the country with the control and administration of education. I quite understand that other duties have been entrusted to him which may necessitate his absence; but, at the same time, I think it is only right to say that such a very important service as the education of the country should not be dealt with in the more or less haphazard fashion that seems to have been adopted recently. The special matter now before the Committee was raised on very many occasions during the last two or three years, and on every occasion on which it was before the House there was general agreement that the position of Secondary Teachers was disgraceful. There was general agreement, too, that immediate steps should be taken to remedy the condition of affairs, and there was a promise given that that would be done. It has taken the greater part of three years to bring forward, or extract from the Government, this measure. I am sorry to say I cannot congratulate the Government on what has come forth from this long period of incubation.

It seems to me the scheme which we are asked to pass this estimate for is incomplete, and is niggardly in outlook. It is one more example of the economy which seems to be fashionable nowadays, and which seems to assume that it is by cutting down expenditure of all kinds, irrespective of the direction in which it is applied, that money may be saved. That is the view taken in preference to the broader and longer outlook of spending wisely. If there is one service in the State which would benefit by a wise expenditure of money, it is education, and if there is one department of that service on which money should be spent, it is in the procuring of good teachers. The teacher is the hub of a good educational system, and if you do not get good teachers all the other money expended on education cannot count for very much. If you want good teachers you must pay well for them, just the same as if you want a good commercial commodity you must pay well for it. This scheme seems to me to be incomplete. The demand of the Secondary Teachers, and of the country on their behalf, has been for a scale of salaries. This is not a scale of salaries.

I remember a young lad once writing a composition about a cat. He described the cat as something with a head, a tail and a middle. This scheme has neither a head nor a tail; it has only a middle. We have a scale of increments; but a scale of increments should have a basic or minimum figure, and it should have a maximum figure. The basic minimum figure here seems to be missing, as also does the maximum figure; we have only got a scale of increments. It is like a cross-word puzzle; you have the clues across but not down. There seem also, just as in the cross-word puzzle, to be a good deal of black marks and blank spaces in the scheme. Until it is known what the minimum figure is to be, the Dáil cannot express any definite opinion as to the scale which is introduced here. In any of the rules that have been circulated, or in the Supplementary Estimate itself, there is nothing to indicate what the minimum figure is to be or what is to be the possible maximum figure. We do not know the nature of the provision made for the secondary teachers. All we do know is that there will be certain increments awarded by the State and we can, at least, infer that the schools will be expected to pay a certain minimum rate of salary.

I think it was on the occasion of the last debate that the Minister for Education made a reference to the fact that we might take it that the minimum rate of salary which would eventually be fixed would be in or about £200 for men. We have nothing definite with regard to that. We know from experience that promises of this kind do not always materialise. I might refer to the actual increments. In the rules that have been circulated in connection with this Supplementary Estimate we are told, on page 4, that for men there are to be ten annual increments of £12 and subsequently six increments of £15. That would be a total of £210 in ordinary normal increments. If we assume that £200 is fixed as a minimum salary, that would give the ordinary normal maximum, payable to a teacher, £410. I respectfully submit that you are not going to get a good secondary teacher for £410.

Recently there was introduced a scale of salaries—not a scale of increments—in Northern Ireland. They have done much better than what is now proposed here. I think it is not anything to be proud of that in the matter of paying for education we in the Free State should lag behind those in the six county area. This is not the only instance in which we lag behind them. There is no reason why we should, in setting out to adopt a scale of salaries for secondary teachers, put ourselves in the position that our best men and women will be continually going over the border to better their financial position. That is not a satisfactory state of things to contemplate. The maximum salary in the North will be higher than ours, unless it happens that the basic figure will be increased over and above what seems to be in contemplation, and the scale of increments generally is much better in the North than here. In England and Scotland the scale of salary obtainable by men with the same qualifications is very much higher than in the Free State. That is another cause of the emigration of our best teachers. They can get higher remuneration for their services in England and Scotland, and even in the six county area.

What seems to me to be one of the worst features of the scheme, from the point of view of men and women in the service, is the method adopted for placing them on the scale. It is what is familiarly known as the carry-over. When they introduced a new scheme of salaries in Scotland and England under the Burnham scheme, the method adopted—and what would naturally seem to be the correct method—was that of placing the men where they would have been placed if the scheme had been in operation from the time they entered the service. For instance, if there were sixteen increments on the scale and the man had given sixteen or more years' service, he was placed automatically at the maximum. That was the system adopted in England. In the North of Ireland when they introduced their scale they were not able to do quite so well and they adopted a plan of allowing only one increment for each two years' service. They had a system of seventeen increments, and everybody with 34 years' service went automatically to the top of the scale.

In the twenty-six counties we cannot even do so well as they did in the North. We have found it necessary to go one worse than the North. We adopted the plan of allowing only one year's incremental service for each two years of actual service, and we went to a certain limit, allowing only ten increments. It is set out that in no case shall a teacher be credited under this rule with more than ten increments in respect of approved teaching service. No matter what service a man has given, he can only get ten increments. No one is then placed on the maximum, because before he can reach the maximum he must serve six further years, irrespective of whether he may have, as some have, 35, 36 or 40 years' service. That is the very worst feature of the whole scheme. Surely there is nothing to justify this limitation, even if we have to go to the extent of adopting the plan adopted in the North of Ireland, allowing one year for incremental purposes for each two years served. We should not put any limitation of ten years in the scheme.

We should allow anyone who has the necessary number of years' service to go right to the top of the scale. There is one feature of this to which I would like to call attention. We have been trying to deal with the question of secondary teachers for the last two or three years by a system of interim grants. A lump sum was voted and divided, according to certain regulations, among the teachers. This was passed from year to year until such time as a permanent scale could be set up, such as seems to be attempted here. This money is being substituted for the interim grant. As it happens, very many teachers were getting more from the interim grant than they will get for many years under this permanent scale. The net result is that every teacher who has given up to twelve years' service stands to lose in the matter of the carry-over. Women teachers will not do as well under this as they did under the temporary grants, which everyone admitted were insufficient.

There are some other features of this scheme deserving of attention. For the first time, so far as I have been informed, a distinction is to be made between grants payable to men and those payable to women. I think that is a very bad principle to adopt, and I do not see why we should feel ourselves bound to continue what is, in my opinion, eminently a bad and mischievous principle, and that is drawing a distinction between the remuneration paid to men and that paid to women for exactly the same type of work. There is no distinction made between men and women in the matter of voting or in the matter of income tax. They have to pay the same price for a stamp at the post office. They have to pay the same taxes. The rates on a house are not reduced because a woman happens to live in it. I do not see why it should be thought necessary to make a distinction between the remuneration paid to men and women when the same work is done by each. I enter a protest against the introduction for the first time into the scale of salaries of that distinction which should not appear there and of which the Dáil should not approve.

That is rather a small matter in comparison with the other things to which I have drawn attention, but I think it is nevertheless worthy of note. I see from the first page that a headmaster may be recognised in a school of sixty pupils and over, in addition to four teachers, and in such a school it is not necessary that the headmaster should be normally engaged in actual teaching work. With all respect, I would say in a school of sixty to eighty pupils that to recognise four teachers and a headmaster is not essential. I cannot imagine what a headmaster would do if such a school in addition to a number of teachers, or that he should be recognised and receive increments if he is not engaged in actual teaching work. I make that comment from a casual reading of the rules. There may be a very good reason for it, but I must confess that I do not see it. I wish to say that I consider that, in addition to what I might regard as the general niggardliness of the scheme, there is the point of carry-over which I press on the Minister responsible. The Minister for Education is not here, but I am quite sure we would not be justified in throwing all the blame for this on him, as I think I can trace the hand of another Minister all over the scheme. If that Minister has anything to do with this part of it I put it to him that this particular part, especially regarding the carry-over, badly requires to be remedied. It is a small point. We must, I suppose, only wait for the time when we will get the general scale revised. The Minister ought to give way on this point, namely, that the older people with thirty and forty years' service should be allowed to go direct and at once to the maximum scale.

Professor THRIFT

I rise to support the point of view taken by Deputy O'Connell, and I join with him in regretting the absence of the Minister for Education, which, as we know, is on account of important matters affecting this country. It makes it a little more difficult, however, to speak about this question, because one has to refer back to many things that have been said here before when the matter was under discussion, and one is loath to make such references in the absence of one who is largely responsible for those utterances. I think it, is necessary for us to be clear about the position which the Government has taken up in this matter up to the present, and for that purpose, and with the leave of the Dáil, I propose to make short quotations from three public utterances of Ministers on this matter. I go back in the first place to December, 1922, when Professor MacNeill showed that he, at any rate, completely recognised the case put up for the unsatisfactory position of secondary teachers. He said:—"I say that it would be not only a calamity but a very gross injustice if funds that may be forthcoming in any shape or form were not provided for continuing the provision of the late interim grant. There are three points—salary, tenure of office, and pensions, on which I do not think there is a single person alive who, speaking conscientiously, would deny that in these respects the position of secondary teachers is gravely unsatisfactory. I do not say it with regard to justice, with regard to the men and women concerned, but in regard to the public interested and the right education of their children." That puts the case of the teachers and the recognition of it by the Government very well and very concisely. In July, 1923, Professor MacNeill followed that up by saying that he was quite certain that if the Dáil could make a substantial increase on this Vote over the heads of the Ministry it would do so. It would not, however, be necessary. "I have the authority of the Ministry and the authority of the Minister for Finance in particular, to state to you that it will be the duty and the pleasure of the Minister for Finance himself to propose a very substantial increase in the amount already set out in the Vote as available for the improvement of the salaries of secondary teachers." Later on in the year the President, at the close of the Session, said that it had been found, because of pressure of business, it was not possible to introduce the necessary resolution to provide for a larger distribution of funds in respect of this service. He further said:—"I do give this guarantee that we will recognise and hand on to the people who come after us, that we will regard this as an obligation on the part of the succeeding Ministry to discharge. The sum involved is something like £30,000 or £40,000." I sum up the position from these utterances to be this, that the Ministry recognise that the State grant for secondary education is at present insufficient to the extent of at least something like £30,000. My special reason for putting that matter in that way will be given in a moment. Last July we were told by the Minister for Education, when discussing the Vote on Secondary Education, that, although he was not able to give exact details, there were two points on which he was able to give definite assurances —that the Minister for Finance had agreed to two proposals put before him as vital. "The first was that the salaries of secondary teachers should be put on a professional basis by the institution of a fixed minimum basic salary to be paid to the teachers by the schools. I take as a representative figure in that case £200 for a man. Secondly, a system of yearly increments is to be paid to the teachers by the State, these increments to be based on the length of service and merit of teaching, and so calculated as to bring the teachers' salary up to a good maximum in, say, ten or twelve years."

The Minister very properly did not go into details because the Minister for Finance was absent. We were assured that practically a scheme was completed except for minor details, and we were assured that on the two main points agreement had been reached between the two Departments. I suppose all of us have heard of the great mountain, after being in labour, bringing forth a mouse. After nine months I propose to show that the Minister for Education on this occasion, with the collaboration or assistance of the Minister for Finance, has brought forth a negative quantity. Instead of there being a proposal to increase the grant allotted to secondary teachers it seems to me to be quite clear that, for this year at any rate, there will be actually a diminution in the amount allotted to secondary education. If I am making a mistake I am sure the Minister will correct me. I do not think it is possible that he is under a misapprehension, and it may be that I am making a mistake, but I propose to show how I regard the matter. It is true that in the total estimates for the year ending April, 1925, there would be a sum of £100,000 as an interim grant and the supplementary sum of £30,000 now being put forward by the Minister. That does not mean that in any school year the secondary teachers are going to get more money, but it arises from the fact that the £100,000 interim grant was a belated grant and was applied to the teachers for the year of service that they were then giving, that it was a grant which dated back into the previous year of our finances and that the effect of that grant came to an end in July, 1924. If we carry on in the same way, we must, I think, regard this matter which we are considering, as to what is being done for the good of secondary education, in terms of how much the teachers are going to get in any particular year of school service. If this corresponding interim grant had been continued, there would have been available the sum of £100,000. It is quite true—and I regret it—that in the period ended July, 1924, the sum of £100,000 was not distributed. £100,000 was voted by the Dáil as being required for the service of secondary education but, owing to the rules, only £89,000 of that was actually distributed. If a corresponding vote were to come up in the next year, it would mean that there would be a sum of £100,000 available for the encouragement and help of secondary education. Owing to the attempt to get more up-to-date, it is quite true that into this year's vote we are going to bring the £100,000 voted, and half of what will be required for secondary education under the incremental system which is being inaugurated by the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance. But the fact that more money falls upon the Dáil in this year's vote does not imply at all that more money will be available for secondary teachers. It seems to me to be perfectly clear that in the school year ending last June or July, the sum of £89,000 was distributed as interim grant, but for the year ending July, 1925, there is only going to be available £42,000 for the first half year under the incremental scale, and a certain sum, owing to increases and increments, for the remaining half year. The total sum is very unlikely to reach £89,000, which, as I have stated, was the amount given under the interim grant for the year ending July, 1924.

At the start, the actual effect of this incremental system will be that less money rather than more money will be coming to the teachers as a body in any school year. I would like the Minister to show me where I am wrong in that calculation, if I am wrong. I say that that is a complete failure on the part of the Ministry to keep up to their recognised duty to do something more substantial for secondary education than had been done in the past. I quite recognise the Minister's position. I sympathise with him. In this, I am sure, I shall have the full support of the Business Deputies. I fully realise the urgency to the Government of cutting down expenses as much as possible. But on this question of secondary education we cannot afford to be cheeseparing or economical. That does not mean that we cannot afford the money, but rather that we cannot afford not to encourage secondary education. That is one of the most vital things required, if there is to be any real progress in the country.

As Deputy O'Connell said, it is exceedingly difficult to criticise this scheme, coming before us piecemeal, as it does. We know nothing as to what is proposed regarding the basic salary, or how it is to be secured. I do not assume that the Minister has dropped the principle of the basic salary altogether. I assume the reason that he has not put it forward is that he has not been able to see how he is going to enable the schools to pay that basic salary. But until we know the basic salary, we are in the difficulty which Deputy O'Connell explained, in criticising this scheme. In so far as new teachers are concerned, we recognise the scheme is a distinct improvement and that the Ministers have done something substantial to enable those who will become teachers in the future or who are starting to teach at the present moment, to look forward to better conditions than their predecessors had. So far, I am prepared to say that the Ministry have done well. But that, I think, is only a very small part of their duty in this matter. They have a very important duty indeed to those who have been serving as teachers, if not for a considerable number of years, for so long that they are coming to the stage when they are too old for their work. Deputy O'Connell referred to this point and, therefore, I do not dwell upon it. But I would urge upon the Minister for Finance that in this matter he should do something substantial to recognise the claims of those teachers who have been serving so long. The effect of these proposals will be that the older teachers will have to keep on teaching long after they have ceased to be efficient if they are to get anywhere near the suggested maximum. The very least that might be done would be to allow them their years' service without the proviso which has been referred to. If they were treated in the manner suggested by Deputy O'Connell they would be treated with some approximation to justice. It would not place a great burden on the Exchequer, and would not necessitate expending anything more in the initial stages than the sum the Government has recognised they ought to spend on this matter.

There are two or three other points I would like to refer to. One of these points refers to pensions. When we were assured last year that the Government had agreed upon the basic salary and an incremental scale, we agreed more or less that we would let the question of pensions lie over for a time. But here we are faced with a piecemeal scheme, not with a full scheme. Therefore, I contend that the whole question is reopened and that we are justified in putting forward, as an argument at this stage, that it would be really wiser action on the part of the Government to face the whole question at once and try and get a real decision on it. It is the first stage in these things that counts. Once we have got a step taken in the right direction, time will bring about such improvement as we should hope to see secured. I think it would be quite possible for the Government to take a step in this direction without any cost to themselves. I might remind the Minister—I am sure he knows of it—that under the old system there was £1,000,000 which came from Irish Church Funds which was assigned to Intermediate Education. I think it would be a proper use of that money to earmark it for this purpose. No doubt, the Minister for Finance will tell me that he is using it for something else. But the question arises whether, in utilising it for other purposes, he is going back on the original purpose for which the money was allotted.

Another point I would like to make is that the effect of the rules proposed by the Minister will be that a very considerable number of registered teachers will not benefit by this incremental scale at all. To that extent, the scheme will not only be deficient but harmful. Lastly, I desire to stress as strongly as I can a point made by Deputy O'Connell. It is surely a regrettable thing that a large number of secondary teachers in this current school year will get a lesser grant under the proposed system than they would have got if the old interim grant had been continued. I think that in the case of women teachers there is not one who will not get less this year under this proposed scheme than she would have got if the old interim grant had been continued. There are many men who will get less this year than they would have got under the old system.

There is one point to which Deputy O'Connell did not refer and which I was nearly forgetting. It may be arguable that inasmuch as the men teachers will have a household to keep up—they may be married and have a wife and children to maintain—they ought to get a higher maximum salary than women. I am prepared to admit that, but I think you are pressing that difference entirely too far if you say that the "extras" which are allowed specially qualified teachers should be different in the case of men and women. You give certain additional increments to men and women who have taken an Honours Degree. Exactly the same preparation is required in one case that is required in the other. There is exactly the same expense on one as there is on the other. It seems to me that in justice, when additional efficiency is secured by a teacher in taking out an Honours Degree, the reward from the State ought to be the same for both sexes. I can see no justification for allowing these two additional increments to be based on different scales.

Professor MAGENNIS

Deputy Thrift illustrates what is a very common attitude—"taxation must be reduced; the charge upon the public is too high; it must come down; but spare the particular interest which I represent." The slogan that used to resound from the Liberal platforms in England was "Peace, Retrenchment and Reform." Peace, stabilisation of Government, security of life, retrenchment, diminution of the burden of taxes, whether national taxes or local rates and reform, as a great measure of social betterment, is the policy of the Party which, in the usual language, is said to give "habitual support to the Executive Government." My reason for giving the measure of support I give to the Government is precisely that that is its policy. It has, it is true, become identified in the very recent past with one of those three great elements of policy more than, perhaps, was necessary. Retrenchment, reduction of expenditure in every direction: that is the insistent cry not merely from our benches, and from the benches of those who are styled, somewhat facetiously, the Business Party, but from the citizens almost unanimously. There is no doubt that a Government that claims to function for the best interests of the people could not, even if it wished, be deaf to those cries. What is a law for the citizen as an individual is a law for the State.

The citizen must, if he is an honest and an honourable man, live within his income. He must balance his budget, and if he cannot earn more then he must spend less. That is the only remedy—if he cannot earn more than he must spend less. And that holds good for the State. I say that by way of prelude to a further remark on the necessity of long vision in the pursuit of a policy of economy, for there is a true economy and a false economy. There are some who think that by cutting down expenses indiscriminately you economise. That might very well take the form, if blindly operated, of destroying sources of national income and national strength. Where is the "Freeman's Journal" to-day? What put it out of existence? It is not difficult to trace it back to the economies that were practised by an eminent financier who believed that by cutting down the salaries of journalists, by dismissing men and reducing the staffs, he could make a great daily newspaper, which would have a great influence upon public opinion, and at the same time be a source of dividend to the shareholders.

It is very necessary, I insist, to discriminate between expenditure that is fruitful and expenditure that is waste I am dreadfully afraid that in this new zeal for economy we are likely to cut down expenditure that would, not merely in the immediate future but in generations to come, be highly profitable as a national investment. I do not agree with Deputy Thrift in attacking the Minister for Education for this. I took a note of what he said: "The Minister responsible is not here." The statement on the front page of these rules for the payment of increments of salary to secondary teachers, I think, is an example of what the theologian calls suppressio veri et suggestio falsi. It says “the rules are made by the Minister for Education”—suggestio falsi—“with the consent of the Minister for Finance”—suppressio veri. These rules bear the impress upon them, in every line, of being the work of the Ministry of Finance. I do not blame the Education Ministry at all. The responsible officials of that Ministry have a long acquaintance with the work of secondary schools, and of their necessities. They are sympathetic to these claims of secondary teachers. That this came from their hands I refuse to believe. I think the secret is disclosed in part and we may from our own conclusion when it is stated, in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, that it is with the consent of the Minister for Finance. In the pursuance of our great policy—I say “our” because, after all, I regard myself as one of the Government party—of retrenchment and reform we have not been niggardly as regards road making, as regards housing, as regards provision for public health.

Mr. JOHNSON

And pensions for Dáil judges.

Professor MAGENNIS

Those are only details. I am looking at the broad policy that we are pursuing. Why, the Minister for Local Government is pilotting through the Seanad a great Bill, one important item of which is provision for public health! When it comes to something that goes down to the foundations of national prosperity and greatness why do we draw back? Why do we suddenly tighten our purse-strings and feel that we are too extravagant? A million pounds for roads! Oh, that is a bagatelle! After all, the roads are the great highways of commerce. They are the arteries of the commercial life! Education, as I have said on a former occasion here, seems to be regarded as the setting up of a number of schools to which children of one age are sent to get them out of the way of home—a system of creche. Another is a place or state of punishment—I described it as a purgatory—where some souls suffer for a time before they can go to work and earn wages. And what are the secondary schools for? Really it would be very hard to say. But there is a lot of clamour made from time to time in the Dáil and in the newspapers, and to appease that clamour we will arrange for public expenditure upon it. Surely that is not the attitude of a Government that has open-eyed vision of the needs of the country and has a clear conception of what the prosperity of the country, both now and hereafter, is based upon. We are confronted with this grand dilemma. If we are going to have a policy of social betterment it must include a better system of education, and we cannot have that without paying. That is the great law of life. Democratic government, it has been repeatedly said, is a very expensive form of government. Any legislation or administration democratically carried out involves an enormous amount of expenditure, and you have got to pick and choose as to these things that are paramount necessities if your budget is limited. But surely no one in his senses would make education the Department in which the principal savings were to be effected.

There is portion of these rules which I think much more objectionable than any other. It has been dealt with by Deputy O'Connell already, and by Deputy Thrift. That is the discrimination between men and women—"The increments of salaries to be paid to recognised teachers in respect of any school year shall, subject to the condition of these rules, be," etc. "Men— Ten annual increments of £12 each, and subsequently six annual increments of £15 each. Women—Twelve annual increments of £10 each"—not ten of twelve, but twelve of ten. The total amount at the end of the appointed period is £120, but the women are longer in reaching it. Then two increments of £20 each in the case of men, and two increments of £10 each in the case of women holding an honours degree. Why should the position of honours degree mean £40 more at the end of the time to a man and £20 more at the end of the appointed time to a woman if, as Deputy Thrift has told you, and told you correctly, it costs the same in fees and it costs the same in time of attendance at lectures. The ordeal of the examination is the same. The course is different in no way. The standards applied are equal. Yet the attainment of this status in a University on the part of a woman is regarded by the State as half the value of the status if attained by a man when they proceed to do precisely the same work under precisely the same departmental supervision. If women are so inferior as teachers, why employ them at all? Why not have the courage of our convictions and declare that we shall not tolerate them in the schools? We are going to set an example to the world, the Minister told us yesterday. We are creating our own precedents. Let us be precedent-makers now and give a lead to the world that women could not give value in the educational sphere. That is an intelligible position to take up. But to take up the position that they are excellent teachers, that they are capable of receiving University education and profiting by it, and that they can attain to the same academic status as men and then to proceed illogically and to declare that the reward for them shall be half in the case of women is utterly indefensible.

I asked a few days ago a number of very able witnesses who were experienced in life, and in business, which did they prefer, a pound's worth of value to a pound's rates, or 13/6 worth of value with a rate of 15/-. I think that would appeal to a business man even though he were a member of the Dáil— a pound's value for rates paid to the amount of a pound or fifteen shillings paid for what is actually worth 13/4. Everyone of them, without hesitation and without exception, said he would rather pay a pound and get a pound's value. The alternative here is to get rid of women teachers altogether, if you do not pay them on the equitable basis of a fair return for a fair day's work. Of course, you are not applying that at all to the men, and I dare say that is the reason why it is not to be applied to the women, but that only makes the inequity in the case of the women greater, because the men are not being paid what they ought to be paid and the women are being paid considerably less than the men. As was already pointed out, I need not try to emphasise it, because repetition would only weaken it. Women are equal with men under the Constitution; their civil and political position is the same. I doubt the political wisdom, to put it on no higher plane, of declaring officially in the name of two Ministries that the women whose votes we will ask for in a few days are so inferior that when it becomes a question of disbursing public funds in payment for their services it must be at the rate of something like half what has to be accredited to a man. Even in the case of men, what are those increments? After forty years' service a man has £120. I figured it out that at the age of 70, when, in fact, he should not be in school, he would be arriving at his maximum. It is a grim jest to say to the teacher: You shall have to arrive at your maximum when you have attained an age at which you are past your work and when a properly worked Department of Education would not tolerate you to continue your supposed services any longer as a teacher in the school.

There is another injustice:—

"In determining a recognised teacher's place on the incremental scale, in the first instance, one increment may be allowed for every two years' approved teaching service up to and including July 31st, 1924."

That is, we take an arbitrary date— 1924—and we divide the years of service of a teacher up to that date by two in order to arrive at the number of years' service that he shall be deemed to have for the purpose of this increment. One would imagine after that has been done that the corollary to it would be that he would then get the carry-over that is provided for in England under the Burnham scheme, but he does not. Under the Burnham scheme, to begin with, the service is not cut, and the correct position of a teacher on scale is the position which the teacher would have reached on the date of introduction of the scheme, if that had been in force throughout the term of service.

There is another respect in which this is defective. I am glad to be able to say something, even a little, in defence, or apparent defence, of one of these provisions. It is obvious that if the State is to provide moneys in aid of the teachers in secondary schools that it shall keep a watchful eye to see that the schools are not overstaffed. That is a view that the taxpayer is entitled to take: that you shall not have too much of a good thing. A school to be efficient must be properly staffed. How many is too many is a very difficult problem of educational policy to determine. But, at any rate, assuming that the Department of Finance as the supreme educational authority has a right in deciding—I am not speaking of the Minister for Finance; I extend to him my heartiest sympathy; I do not hold him personally responsible for any of these things of which I have been speaking when I referred to the Department of Finance——

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The Minister is responsible.

Professor MAGENNIS

He is constitutionally responsible, but I am speaking in the Pickwickian sense. We are quite familiar with this in other countries. There is no Government in the world that has a Treasury in which the permanent official of the Treasury does not take command. That that is one of the unfortunate blots in a democratic system of government, even one like me, who is an enthusiast for democracy, must admit.

According to the Constitution of Saorstát Eireann, as enacted here, the Department of Finance is the paramount authority and has the last word to say in regard to all the spending departments. That is perfectly true. I foretold—I am very sorry to discover I was a true prophet—that what would happen in regard to many departments was that the Ministry of Finance would take command and have control. One of the great difficulties, if a department has to decide what expenditure it will not allow, is: how are we to concede it that privilege and at the same time withhold from it control of public policy? In determining that expenditure shall not be permitted, that expenditure must be cut down, it might happen that, in effect, the whole trend of public policy is being determined, so that in the last analysis the country is governed by the decisions of the departmental officer in one department. That is what I have before my mind in all these criticisms that I make to-day.

The number of recognised teachers in a secondary school who may be paid increments of salary shall normally not exceed the authorised quota as determined in accordance with the table set out in the first schedule to these rules.

I turn to the first schedule of the rules, and I find that the authorised quota of recognised teachers depends upon the number of recognised pupils. Less than 15, not more than one teacher; more than 30, but not more than 45, then no more than three recognised teachers. One does not require to have educational experience to see how arbitrary this scheme is—that the provision of staffing in a school is to depend upon such a variable thing as the number of pupils and the attendance at a given period. Things beyond the teachers' control, things that are set and fashioned by the hand of Heaven, are to be the final determinants.

Suppose I were a secondary teacher and the attendance in my school fell below this prescribed level, I go out of employment. I try to find employment in another school, but they have no room for me, because that would bring the quota to a plus. Who is to decide in these matters as to the teacher who is to be let go? You touch upon a very delicate matter, for many schools are private property and the extraneous teacher will be the first to be let go. That is a very serious consideration— a very, very serious consideration. I would need to go into educational policy to pursue that further, and I do not think that I am entitled on an Estimate to discuss educational policy. I might just dismiss it in one remark. In these definitions on page 1 we are told that a recongised teacher, amongst other things, is one "who is normally engaged in teaching in one or more secondary schools for not less than eighteen hours a week in the aggregate a subject or subjects on the Department's programme." I should have thought that the first thing to be determined was what subjects ought to be taught; and, in the next stage, how many hours would be sufficient, how many hours would be adequate for the proper teaching of a subject; then to insist that in the staff of a school there should be someone competent to do that work at all costs, irrespective of the variable number. In other words, to approach the problem from this avenue: what does educational efficiency demand? What are the conditions of staffing an Intermediate School in view of our conception of Intermediate Education? and then follow on. But here is the mark—I have almost said the hoof-print—of the man who deals in figures, figures, figures! to whom living realities are never present even imaginatively, but who is balancing budgets, considering calculations—the arithmetical soul. His idea of a proper secondary school, and of the conditions to determine remuneration within it, is figures.

That is what we have come to now. Now that we are masters in our own house, now that the alien is gone and has left us to set up the scheme of education that is dear to our hearts, this is how we begin. We begin by counting figures and doing sums in arithmetic, and the life of the teacher, his career, and his heart in his work, count for nothing. When we go outside these walls we say that the greatest dowry a parent can give his daughter is an education that will put her beyond the reach of want, as she can earn her own living anywhere. That is what we say outside. When we come in here we are asked to vote for something that would doom the teacher that could give that education to an inferior status educationally and to an inferior income. We talk about the whole of the world being open to the boy of ambition who has got energy and who has got his brain and his mind well-trained, and then, when we face what the State is going to do for the man who will give him that training, that will turn his ambition into the right course, direct his mind to right ends, make him the good citizen—the least we can spare; less than that if we could contrive it.

It is very hard to speak with patience on the dealings of the Government in education when one looks to other countries. England went through all this and England paid for it. England bitterly regretted the way in which she starve education when she had to face on the battlefields the forces of a country that had spent freely and gave of its best for education. Now Mr. Winston Churchill, as one of the first enterprises of his position as Chancellor of the Exchequer, adds upwards of a quarter of a million to the grants payable to the universities. Simultaneously with that, our Department of Finance issues these niggardly rules and calls them rules made by the Minister for Education. I think that we will have to give up talking about our race as a race that loves education. That will be one of the many bubbles the existence of this Dáil has contributed to burst. I marvel at Deputy Thrift's patience when he read out from the official reports of the Dáil the statements made by the Minister for Education at different dates: "Right education is the proper claim of the people for their children; not to deal justly and equitably with the secondary teachers would be a calamity and an injustice." And the quotation from July, which reminded me of the verse:

Hope told the flattering tale

That joy would soon return.

Neither the Minister nor the joy is present with us to-day. I regret the absence of both.

Mr. JOHNSON

Before the Minister replies I would like to speak as the only constitutionalist in the House—as I have been alluded to—perhaps, one might also say, the only conservative in the House. Deputy Magennis had to assure the House that he was still a supporter of the Government and a member of the Government Party. It is well we had that assurance. The criticism of his speech, and I think of the speech of Deputy Thrift, lies in the attempt—presumably in the case of Deputy Magennis for the purpose of proving his contention that he was still in the Government Party—to shield Ministers by using the permanent officials as the object of attack.

Professor THRIFT

I made no reference, either overtly or covertly, to any permanent officials.

Mr. JOHNSON

Deputy Thrift did not do that, but he did almost a worse thing. Deputy Thrift suggested the blame was not the blame of the Minister for Education, but the blame of the Minister for Finance.

Professor THRIFT

Again I rise to protest. I did not do any such thing. I did not intend, at any rate, to do any such thing. I regard the Minister for Education as solely responsible for this proposition. It is a proposition put forward by the Minister for Education with the consent of the Minister for Finance.

Mr. JOHNSON

I must have made a mistake. I thought Deputy Thrift had given the cue to Deputy Magennis. I had the impression that he suggested the evil genius in this matter was the Minister for Finance. However, I want to throw responsibility upon the Minister for Education and make him assume responsibility, not only for the educational scheme that is presumed to be behind this scheme of increments, but also for the scheme of increments. He, at least, is as much responsible to the Dáil for the finance scheme as is the Minister for Finance. If he had disagreed with it in any way he was entitled to come here and tell us.

Professor THRIFT

Hear, hear.

Mr. JOHNSON

It is quite unwise. I think, to suggest that the Minister for Education may be excused for non-attendance to his duties, whether in the House or elsewhere, by reason of his being engaged in other work of great national importance. I think the fact that he is engaged in that work of great national importance should not be allowed to interfere with his duties as a Minister for Education. Deputy Magennis is quite right in insisting, as other Deputies have done, that the educational problem is sufficiently grave and important to require the continuous service of a Minister. Long absence from the duties appertaining to his office will, I suggest, allow the work that ought to be in course of preparation to get into arrear. I think we ought to have been presented to-day with a statement on the educational policy of the Department; what they are working at in respect of secondary education; and whether they have any scheme of co-ordinating secondary with ordinary primary, University and technical education. We had hints, on two separate occasions when we were discussing estimates before, that the Minister was quite in accord with the idea that our educational schemes should be co-ordinated. This is the time when we should have had that scheme propounded to us in so far as it deals with secondary education. We have not that; we have only a scheme in respect to the partial financing of the prevailing system.

That is entirely unsatisfactory. The Minister for Education is primarily responsible, and the whole Executive Council has to bear the burden of that responsibility. They are all equally blameworthy, but the Minister for Education has to bear an added portion of the blame. I am afraid the propaganda of the "Daily Mail" is having its effect here, if it is not in England. Perhaps that is the reason for the wide circulation of that newspaper in Ireland. Certainly it appears to be more effective than some of the propaganda of Irish newspapers. The attack upon educational expenditure has undoubtedly affected the Ministry. I support the contentions of Deputies that the method of economising in this matter is not going to result in economy ultimately. I cannot pretend to deal with the details of this scheme in anything approaching the way in which they have been dealt with by Deputies who have spoken. My complaint is that the proposals here are not related to a general educational scheme, and we have to assume that in the future, as in the past, we are going to continue the secondary school system, although perhaps a slight improvement has taken place, in a manner divorced, to a great degree, from the primary system, and with the teaching profession not related in any direct way as regards primary and secondary tuition. Particularly in respect to financing these proposals, the point has been raised that they are incomplete. Speaking as one not conversant with the technicalities embodied in these rules, I am quite in the dark as to what the effects of the increments will be. I do not mind very much how the Minister arrives at the figure, but I do mind a great deal what the figure is. I refer to the figure which represents the amount of salary the teacher will have to spend. We may speak of increments, but these are increments upon a basis unknown. I think Deputy Thrift quoted the sum of £200 as a possible basis, but that was mentioned in a speech a year ago. Many things have happened since then; many promises have been made, but not fulfilled; many reconsiderations have been given to proposals, but those proposals have been dropped. What is the position regarding this basic salary? If we knew the basic salary we might, by close examination, find out what the teacher having a particular period of service and particular qualifications would likely receive, say, next year; but conceivably, so far as this scheme is concerned, as soon as it is passed by the Dáil, schoolmasters, with the consent of the Minister for Education, may reduce their basis. They may become the beneficiaries of any scheme of this kind and teachers may be worse off and even lose more than the amount suggested by Deputy Thrift. I would urge on the Minister that he should give us a definite statement as to the intentions regarding the basic salary. I think the term basic salary is used here somewhere. It is at least implied that the increment is upon something of a definite character. Until we know what the basis is we are not able to calculate what the meaning of this new scale is to the teacher. I do not know whether we will hear from the Minister any statement regarding what the educational policy is to be. Perhaps, being a wise tactician, and knowing he will have the last word, he prefers to make his statement regarding educational policy in respect to secondary schools after the debate. I trust we shall have that statement and that he will be able to give us some satisfaction regarding the intentions in respect to the basic salary upon which these increments are to be paid.

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not think it can be justly said that the Government and the Oireachtas have not made reasonable provision for expenditure on education, having regard to the resources of the country. We have a tax revenue of £22,000,000 or £23,000,000. We expend on education over £4,400,000 in one form or another— something like one-fifth of our total revenue. In Great Britain the proportion of the total revenue that they spend on education would be nearer one-fifteenth. When Deputy O'Connell spoke in regard to this scheme, he talked about our policy of cutting down expenditure. The proposals that have been brought forward have certainly nothing to do with cutting down expenditure; they are proposals for increasing expenditure. They may not increase it as much or as rapidly as some Deputies would desire, but that is no reason for representing them as something they are not. In the financial year 1921-22, the British Government provided, as an Interim Grant for Secondary Teachers, a sum of £50,000; in the financial year 1922-23 a sum of £63,000 was provided; in 1923-24 a sum of £63,000 was provided; this year, under the head of Interim Grant, a sum of £88,300 has been spent. Next year under this scheme, apart altogether from assistance that will be given to the schools in order to enable them to pay higher basic salaries than before, there will be £92,500 spent. Now that £92,500 will, in a very few years, with the coming of additional increments on the Vote, amount, at least, to £150,000. I do not think that £150,000 will be the ultimate maximum by any means; but, in any case, within a very few years, the sums spent by way of teachers' salaries, or part of the teachers' salaries paid by the Government, will be increased to £150,000; and that means that the Government expenditure will be trebled. I do not think that that can really be regarded as niggardly. It may be that £410 will not keep a good teacher from going over the Border. That is one of the difficulties in our situation. The best men in many walks of life will go out of the country, and I do not see how we can help it. The same thing can be said of the Civil Service. It is said that for the higher ranks of the Civil Service we will not get the best men, as they will go to the British Civil Service, where they will have better prospects. I do not think that would justify us in putting up the higher salaries to the British level. We have to hope that there will be a development of culture and nationality in the country that will make people prefer to serve in their own land, even if they do not get just all the advantages they would get abroad, rather than go abroad. I see no prospects in many walks of life that opportunities for people can be provided here which can be provided in a rich neighbouring country. It may be that certain people will do a little worse under the new scale than they did last year under the interim grant. I do not think that they will do worse than they did in the years before last year under the interim grant. That is an accident. They have, at any rate, definite prospects now of going to a maximum which they would not reach before. It is a common thing in the Government service, when a temporary clerk is established as permanent, that he gets an immediate drop in his salary. I have known many men recently who were very glad to come off temporary work and to go on permanent work at a lower salary but with definite prospects.

With regard to the principle of differentiation between men and women, I have already indicated in the Dáil that that is a matter which requires revision and consideration. My own view is that, whatever a private employer may do, a Government cannot make a permanent practice of paying less to a woman as a woman, than what a man gets as a man. My own opinion is that this particular problem must be met by differential scales for married men with dependants, and for single women and single men who will get the same rates. I think that men with families and dependants should get special scales, and that widows with children should also get suitable allowances. That, however, is a personal opinion. The whole question involved in that point is being investigated. Figures are being prepared with a view to getting information—especially with regard to the cost of any change that may take place, or that may be suggested. Meantime, while the problem has not been dealt with, and while we have simply a rough rule to carry on with, we must have regard to what you might call market rates. If you pay every secondary teacher—man and woman—the same scale, you will have your men teachers not at all as capable as women teachers. You will not get the same type of man to go in for the same salary, because men, equal to women in ability and willing to take that salary, will not remain in the profession of secondary teachers, or, if they do remain, they will remain in a state of perpetual irritation and discontent, because they could not find any other opening. The principle of differentiation is a very rough principle. It is not perfectly equitable, and it is liable to grave misrepresentation and misunderstanding, but the principle of differentiation which exists in this scale is all through Government employment. It is in the Civil Service up and down, and, to some extent, it is in the national teachers' scales. I believe that that principle and practice can only be regarded as a temporary expedient which will serve until some better principle can be worked out. If you were to take any particular service and give a scale for men that would bring you a suitable type of man into that service and keep him there in some moderate state of contentment, and if you paid the same salaries to women as to men, you would be paying considerably more for women than the price at which you could get the most capable women to do the work. That arises from the fact that under the present arrangement you have to make your scale for men suitable for men who are married and have dependants, although many of them may not have dependants and may not require such a scale to live in a reasonable way.

With regard to the placing of teachers with considerable service on the scale, we have to look at the question of the good of the service. We are not doing too badly by any of the teachers in giving them this scale and these increments. If we look at their conditions a few years ago, and if we do not have regard only to what I may call ideal conditions, I think it will be admitted that even teachers who come worst out of these arrangements are in a much better condition than they were in previously. People who are in this particular profession are not going to leave it, especially people with long service, because they get a couple or three or four increments less than they might have got if the rules had been arranged in another way. On the other hand, the arrangement in the rules to limit the number of increments teachers may get at the beginning, will not deter suitable candidates from entering the profession. So far as that limitation is concerned, it will not operate against service. I think, on the other hand, especially considering the financial state of the country, that it is not unfair to the individual. They will be better off than there was any prospect of their being some little time ago, with certainly a better prospect than they had when they entered the profession. They did not enter the profession with the idea or prospect that they would be put on a permanent scale. Some of them entered it as a stopgap employment, and for various reasons their position was most unsatisfactory in the past, and several of them drifted into it because nothing better offered, and while they did not intend to stay in that profession, they did so. At all events, no prospect was held out to them that they would have such a scale of salaries and increments as it is suggested we should give to them on service. If they have not got all they would like—and it would be hard to give them that—I think they certainly have got what are reasonably substantial advantages. With regard to the basic salary, the amount that will be regarded as basic has not been definitely fixed, but there is no reason to vary the indication already given by the Minister for Education in the discussion in which he spoke about the matter. I think that that may be regarded as the true statement of the position. It has not been definitely stated, because discussion is still proceeding upon it, what the amount of money will be that ought to be provided for the schools as distinct from the sum that will go actually to the teachers themselves.

As regards the question of pensions, I think Deputy Thrift admitted that it was a big question, but I certainly was not blind to the fact that the question of pensions was sure to be pressed on us once the question of the provision of increments was settled. I think we have gone as far as we can be expected to go at present. As I said before, these people entered the profession at a time when their prospects were poor, and they cannot complain if that profession is not converted at one step into one with excellent prospects, and into a profession in every way equal to others where pension schemes and scales of salaries have been in operation for a very long time. Deputy Thrift argued, I think, that though the Dáil was voting more money, the teachers would get less. The teachers will not get less.

Professor MAGENNIS

The women will.

Mr. BLYTHE

Individual teachers may get less, but, generally, they will not, because there will be more money spent in the coming year than there has been this year.

Professor THRIFT

In any school year?

Mr. BLYTHE

The same thing applies. We vote things by the financial year, and the votes are increased. There may be a lapse of a month between the period of payment. I can only, at the moment, deal with the financial year, and we are voting more money for the next financial year than is to be spent this year.

Professor THRIFT

Surely the Minister recognises that a large part of that Vote is making up for the fact that in the previous Votes the grants were not paid up-to-date, and that this Vote is larger because it brings it more up-to-date?

Mr. BLYTHE

I am not taking into account the overlap. The money that is being provided now is provided for the year of which the first quarter ends on 31st October. The interim grant was paid for some period prior to that. For this period we will provide a sum of about £92,500. The sum that was actually spent in the previous period was £88,700.

I want to refer now to the £100,000 that was mentioned. The £100,000 was a rough figure, put down before the effect of the rules had been worked out. That was suggested to the Dáil as the sum that would be required for the grants provided for by the rules, but the matter had not been sufficiently worked out and there was a margin. The fair sum for the Deputy to work upon is not that rough figure, which would not have been provided again if we had not had the increments, but the sum that the rules require to be expended. Suppose we had not brought in this particular scheme, the figure in the coming estimates would not be £100,000, but £88,700—the sum actually required.

Professor THRIFT

Surely the Minister knows that the rules under which that sum was granted were made retrospective and therefore, when the money came to be applied for by the schools, they were not able to claim the full £100,000.

Mr. BLYTHE

I do not know whether I need deal with the point which Deputy Magennis raised in regard to responsibility for proposals that are laid before the Dáil. The responsibility is the responsibility of the Ministers concerned and can only be theirs. As a matter of fact, it is quite wrong to suggest that officials in any Department can decide what the policy of the Government is to be. A considerable amount of routine work is naturally done by officials. No Minister wants to see that. But every matter of importance must be brought to the notice of the Minister. Nothing is done in regard to policy in any Department without the full consent of the Minister. It is a common thing in Departments for acts to be done by Ministers quite contrary to the advice of the permanent official. It is the duty of the permanent official to give advice. He is, in a sense, the expert. He has been, perhaps, a long time at the work. He has given thought to it. It is his duty to advise the Minister in regard to all acts. But the Minister may accept that advice or reject it, or he may accept it in part or reject it in part.

As regard the suggestion that the Department of Finance can over-rule another Department, that is fallacious. The Department of Finance is responsible to the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance is a member of the Executive Council. He cannot stand for any policy unless he gets the support of the Executive Council on it. If he does not get the support of the Executive Council on any matter on which his Department may be challenged, there is no option for him but to modify his policy or go out.

Deputy Magennis seems to suggest that it would be an ideal thing to provide grants for schools, irrespective of the varying numbers. I do not think that that would be practicable. I think you must lay down certain conditions. To prevent waste and to prevent scandal, you must lay down rules with a certain amount of rigidity. It may be that the rigid regulation will be hurtful in a particular interest. It is very difficult to find any regulation which is not inconvenient at times, but everybody dealing with expenditure of public money knows that if you have not rules you are forced into courses that are unjustifiable and that people take advantage of the loopholes that are given them. It will not be suggested that the people who are concerned with the management of schools are different from any other class of people in the country. I do not think it will be suggested that you can do without rules for the guidance of those administering this money any more than you can do without rules in respect of any other class in the community.

We realise that education is one of the great needs of the country. I do not think that anybody in the position of a Minister can fail to be impressed with the need in the country for education of every sort. Education that gives us special knowledge and special skill, education which leads to research, education that gives us a more intelligent public opinion, education that enables people to do their business more efficiently—all this is necessary. I have not any qualms about saying that the Government have not dealt in a niggardly way with the problem of education. We realise that our resources are limited and that sudden increases in expenditure do not always give good returns. In fact, I may say that sudden increases in expenditure give poor returns. If you take a class of existing officials, and if you suddenly increase their salaries you do not get better work; you get the sort of work they are able to give. You might, if you were recruiting anew, get better people for the service by offering increased salaries. To the extent that you were recruiting, the increases might be justifiable and fruitful, but if you give increases to existing officials, or workers of any particular class, you will get no return from your extra expenditure. I think that principle of husbanding our resources and trying to get the best possible return for them is a principle that nobody can object to. We are likely to have many further calls upon us in the matter of education—calls which I do not see can be resisted. Even such a measure as the Compulsory School Attendance Act will involve charges. That Act will not be held up a single moment by any consideration of the charge that will be imposed on the Exchequer by reason of its being passed. We will not refrain from doing necessary things, and things that we see will give good results, because they will mean expenditure of money. On the other hand, we do not wish to be rushed into expenditure without seeing precisely that a good return will come from it.

Professor THRIFT

I do not want to be too persistent, but I want to be quite clear about one point, and I want the Dáil to be clear about it too. Is it not a fact that the real figures for comparison in this Vote are those under this heading, "Incremental Scales of Salary"—apart from some other scheme which may or may not come before us in 12 months for basic salary —and what was voted last year? And are not the proper figures for comparison, therefore, £92,000, under this scheme for secondary teachers in 12 months, as against a Vote of £100,000 previously, as an interim grant, or the actual sum demanded of nearly £89,000.

Mr. BLYTHE

The increase will be small in the first year. It will be an increase from £88,700 to £92,500, but in each year the teachers will be getting their increments, and the falling of those increments in the Vote will lead to a rapid increase in that amount to, at least, £150,000. The increase in the first year will be small. It is the beginning of a slope, as it were.

Mr. T.J. O'CONNELL

I would like, before this matter is finally decided, to press the Minister to reconsider favourably one point, to which I will confine my attention now—that is the question of the limitation of the number of increments which may be payable to 10. The Minister has said that there is no use in this country, with its limited resources, trying to compete with a rich neighbour like England. But surely no responsible Minister of the Saorstát will say that our resources are more limited in this respect than those of the Six-County area or more limited not alone in this respect but in respect of the whole question of education? The Six-County Parliament has gone very far beyond anything we have done, not alone in this matter of making provision for secondary teachers, but in so far as all branches of education are concerned. I submit that that question of the limitation of our resources cannot possibly hold as far as the Six-County area is concerned. They have not done as well in the Six-County area as they have done in England or Scotland, but I think we should do at least as well as they have done in the North in regard to this question of increments. The increments are not as great here as in the North. The basic salary, so far as I can gather from the suggested figure, will not be as great as it is in the North. To me, this limitation of the increments to ten, instead of allowing for the whole service and permitting teachers with 34 or 35 years' service to get the maximum, is the last straw. The Minister has rather stressed the point that they ought to be glad to get what they are getting, that they came into the service not expecting so much. That is a principle that can be pushed very far. I would prefer that the faith that these men had during the years of stress and hardship, that when their own Government would come they would receive that relief they had been looking forward to for many years, would not be disappointed.

It is not the teachers alone that are concerned. We must remember the actual work in the school during the years that these teachers have yet to serve. It is but right that they should receive an incentive to work and to give of their best. The Minister may say that by making a suitable scale you will get into the service well-qualified and contented people, and that it is not essential to treat those already in the service quite so well. But you cannot simply wipe out all who are already in the service. While the new people are coming in, the work of the school must go on. I would really stress the point strongly, that the Minister should reconsider the limitation of the increments to ten, and that he should allow those teachers who have long service to go to the maximum of the scale on the basis of one increment for each two years' service actually given.

Mr. ALTON

I would like to subscribe to Deputy O'Connell's plea, and I make another plea also. Common gratitude demands that that plea should receive favourable consideration. Ingratitude is detestable in the individual. It is more detestable in the State. These are men who have laboures at a thankless job for very poor remuneration through a very hard lifetime, and you, by one blow of these rules, cut away twenty years of their services. I do urge that this discrimination of ten years' annual increments should be removed, and removed entirely if possible, and, if not, that the scale should be raised to at least twelve years, as it was under the Provisional Scheme. I would like to impress that on the Minister with all the force that I can.

Another plea I would make, not in the name of gratitude, but in the name of common justice, and that is on behalf of the women teachers. It is not fair, it is absolutely inequitable, that they should lose one and all under this present scheme. I do not see any way to gloss over that fact. They were receiving poor enough salaries under the Interim Grant Scheme. They will be receiving less now. I do not see how they will be in the years to come any better off. Their lot seems to be one without hope. Something can be done for the male teachers in the future. The younger ones will become more vigorous and they will agitate, and I can see that the scheme can be made into a feasible, practical working scheme. The Minister estops us with the plea that we are a poor country and cannot afford to pay more. I will take £4,400,000 as all that we can afford for education. But I do urge that £200,000 (for that is the total sum that we at present are spending upon secondary education) is a very miserable fraction to spend on the most vital sphere of education. I recommend that fact to the Minister's consideration, and I do press the Minister to fix this question of a basic salary and to fix the minimum to be paid as soon as possible. It is important from the teachers' point of view that that should be done. Such men have every right to know where they are and what their salary is to be. Finally, I urge on the Minister not to postpone too long the question of the pension scheme. This pension scheme, as put before us, is headless and tailless. The basic salary is not fixed, and the natural corollary to such pension schemes is wanting. I do press upon the Minister to repair these defects. I do not want to seem altogether thankless, because it is something to have such a scheme. I do say that. We have waited a long time for it, and I now press the Minister on these points.

Mr. SEARS

One great hardship under these rules I would like to ask the Minister to reconsider. I will say that certainly the scheme gives some encouragement to secondary teachers. If it is not as generous as it was expected by us it should at least offer as good terms to our old teachers as the Northern Government has given to its teachers. I would not expect, at all events, that we should ask for the same terms as they get in England. One point I would urge on the Minister is that no teachers should suffer under this scheme. I understand that a small number of teachers are suffering, and that they are to get less this year than last year. That would be a great hardship on these teachers. They had a right to expect an improvement of their status and of the profession as a whole, but by this they will suffer for a year or two. I think that is a great hardship. I do not think that anyone in the Dáil would approve of that. I think provision should be made in the scheme whereby no one should suffer under it and that no teacher should be poorer this year because of this scheme than he was last year.

Professor THRIFT

I would urge on the Minister very seriously to consider whether he could not at least raise that minimum ten to fifteen years. The Minister has stressed that our last year's Vote of £100,000 is an Interim Grant merely, and that only £89,000 was called on. I do not think he is entitled to assume from that that had the conditions worked as intended the full £100,000 would not have been called on this year. I say that, because the rules were made rather late, and the schools had no knowledge of these rules at the beginning of the school year. For that reason I think it is extremely probable that the whole £100,000 will be called on this year. I could not state exactly what the additional cost to the State would be by increasing the minimum ten to fifteen years, but I should say that the total claims on the State for the twelve months would not bring the £92,000 up to the £100,000 which the Dáil voted last year.

A further point I want to make is this: that at least the Minister should assure the Dáil that the basic salary question will be settled at the earliest possible date and that it will be settled in such a way that it will be made applicable like the increment rate of salaries, so that it will be from the beginning of the current school year. That is essential, and I daresay it involves an equally essential point, that payment to the schools will also be from the beginning of the current year. I would press upon the Minister the necessity of the case and would urge that this is a piecemeal scheme and cannot be satisfactory unless he accompanies it with the basic scale which should apply from the beginning of the current year.

Mr. HEWAT

It is with a great deal of hesitation I rise to say anything on this matter. In connection with the Supplementary Estimate it seems to me that the case for the secondary teachers is in very good hands. We have heard from very authoritative sources about the grievances under which secondary teachers labour. I would not for a moment minimise any claim secondary teachers may have for better conditions. At the same time I think that Deputy O'Connell in introducing the matter mentioned that economy was the order of the day. As an outsider as regards educational matters, I would like to emphasise that the great part of the community to-day are in a very difficult position on account of the very high taxes that are being imposed on the country, and that they have not the same advocacy, perhaps, as has been put forward in the case of secondary teachers. With regard to the Supplementary Estimate before us one would imagine from what one has heard that it was a case of cutting down the estimate rather than increasing it, whereas the actual facts of the case are that the Minister has come before the Dáil and asked for an additional £30,000 for those teachers. Under the conditions that rule at present one would have imagined that that would have been acknowledged as at least a contribution towards remedying the state of affairs which has been elaborated, if I might say so, by the different authorities on education. It seems to me that this has been put before the Dáil as a grievance rather than a palliative, and to that extent only I take exception to the criticism that has been levelled at the proposal of the Minister. Occasion has been taken of this Supplementary Vote to go through many phases of the question of the remuneration of teachers, but ordinary commercial men must realise that we have not had any comparative figures with regard to what is done elsewhere, and more especially we have not had any figures or any information as to the relative efficiency of the various systems in the different countries. I know that secondary education in Scotland costs, I think, £7 10s. per head, and in Ireland it is, roughly speaking, £7 10s. also.

Mr. JOHNSON

Is that a charge upon the State?

Mr. HEWAT

I think so. In England the rate is, I think, somewhere about £10, but I cannot verify that now. If that information is correct, that they are paying £7 10s. in Scotland and that we are paying the same here, the relative position of the two countries would seem to indicate that we as a taxpaying community are more heavily taxed in proportion to our means for the purpose of education than they are in Scotland. It is, I think, very desirable that the standard of secondary teachers should be raised to the highest possible point. As a business man I think none of us would take exception to a reasonable rate towards securing greater efficiency in connection with secondary education, or even in connection with primary education. I do not think it will be found that any section of the business community would advocate any lowering of the standard, but would rather favour the raising of it. It is a question as to whether the amount of money spent on our whole system gives as good results as we might expect for the money. There may be a difference of opinion about that, but I submit that before any radical or drastic changes take place with regard to pension schemes, and so on, that the whole position should be reviewed, and that whatever basis will ultimately emerge we should secure that the maximum benefit will accrue to the pupils attending the schools. It is certainly very desirable to have pension schemes, and I have listened in the Dáil to very able advocacy of pensions for civil servants and others. In the ordinary course of events a man who chooses an occupation or profession might have reasonably the same claim that he should get assistance in his old age. In the commercial community that does not operate as a rule. I have often thought, is it quite just that schemes of this sort should apply only in certain directions? The question should be dealt with on broad lines. Where bodies of men spend the greater portion of their lives in one occupation pension schemes for their benefit should be on a contributory basis where it can be done. It is very desirable that people should be enabled to make provision for the time when they cannot ordinarily carry on their work. It is a very big question. Deputies have envisaged a better order of things in the future, and which we may all hope we are going towards, but at present I do not think that the country can stand any greater amount of taxation than they have to bear and I think any improvement must run more or less concurrently with the increased prosperity of the country.

Mr. ALTON

There is just one word I wish to say on this matter. I think Deputy Hewat was referring to me when he was throwing scorn on the suggestion that pensions should be given to secondary teachers. I would like to point out to him how uneconomic and how unbusiness-like it is not to provide pensions. Of course, he speaks from the plain business point of view, but nearly two thousand years ago men were talking in the same kind of way. A Roman satirist said that everybody wanted teaching, but that nobody wanted to pay for it. You cannot get good teaching without paying for it, and, indeed, you can get very little of anything without paying for it. Apart from the life tragedy of seeing old men who deserve well of the State, men up to 60, 65 or 70 years of age still teaching—because school managers are not quite so harsh as Ministers or as business Deputies and do not wish to fling these old men out on the road— it is bad for teaching that these old men should be kept on when they are past their work. You are undermining salutary teaching when you subscribe to a scheme like that. It is in the interests of teaching and in the interests of true economy that I am an advocate of pensions for secondary teachers. I think it is a businesslike proposition, and in that respect I claim to represent business more than the Deputies who spoke as business representatives.

Professor MAGENNIS

I just wish to deal briefly with the words of wisdom which my friend, Deputy Hewat, has vouchsafed us. He says that the whole position should be reviewed. Surely that sums up in one sentence the whole doctrine of education as enunciated by Deputy O'Connell and the rest of us who speak here time after time on behalf of educational progress. Has not the clock struck the hour for having the whole thing reviewed? We were under the impression that after months and months of consultation between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education, something was to come forth that would be the basis of the beginning of a great scheme that would serve the future hour and the future generation educationally. And this is what we have to deal with: this is the product of their joint efforts. I am delighted to have Deputy Hewat on our side. The whole position, he said, should be reviewed. He does not take up the cynical position of the Minister for Finance, who told us, with an affectation of callousness that I know does not belong to his true nature, that these teachers will not leave the service merely because these terms are so inequitable. We all know that is the fact. We all know, unfortunately, that the teacher who has been 35 years in a secondary school, even if he had belief in himself and even if the fire of ambition had not been damped down in him many years ago, could not turn to another profession. He might, of course, begin to be a bookmaker and turn his ability to account in that line, but there is no other opening for him.

Mr. JOHNSON

Join the Army.

Professor MAGENNIS

I am afraid he would be too old for the Army except he was appointed a Major-General. Deputy Alton said you cannot expect to get good teaching for a low remuneration. I wonder why he should say that in the presence of an obdurate Ministry which says: "We do expect and we do count upon getting it," and, with words that add strength to emphatic statements, "we mean to get it." It is idle to tell us what the total amount spent on education is when the immediate subject under discussion is the very feature of the educational system in Ireland which is most in need of reconstruction and most in need of adaptation to the national requirements. I had visions of great things emanating from this joint action of the two Ministries. It is very disappointing for me, as a supporter of the Government, to find that this is the best they can produce. Deputy Hewat, as a business man, lays down the doctrine which he seems to think is teachable and capable of being advocated only by business men, namely, that the load of taxation must be lessened, and that if this country is to make any headway the burden that business is expected to carry must be lightened. Why, in the last Parliament, and in this, I, who am only a professor, and not in that high level of business men, enunciated that doctrine. Of course, at that time it was a heresy, it was the idle dream of the professor, who might very well have been better occupied. But now that all the newspapers, with their leading articles and letters to the editor, are clamouring for a reduction of taxation, it is the true gospel, and business men come forward to propound it here and elsewhere. But when those who thought that they had given some study to the matter pointed out that the history of every other country proved that business enterprise was deadened, that the expansion of business was impossible where taxation was too high, they were told that they were only professors and that it was only a professor that spoke.

Education may enable a man to know something about public affairs as well as to be immersed in the counting house or engaged in the exploitation of companies. I am not now referring to Deputy Hewat. It is necessary to say that, as I began with a reference to business men and Deputy Hewat is well known in business circles in Dublin as a man of the highest credit and of the utmost integrity and as having no connection whatever with the exploitation of companies. I said in my last speech that the same rule applies to the State as applies to the individual citizen. A man must either increase his earnings or cut down his expenditure if he wants to escape from bankruptcy. What has not occurred to business men is, how this State could increase its earnings without increasing its taxation, and though that may be embarking upon another subject, may I make a rapid and passing reference to it. If the State were well advised in regard to either the future flotation of a company or a new development, and more particularly if the State is to give its countenance and aid, the State should be entitled to receive portion of these earnings when dividends are being distributed. In other words, the principle that applies in the case of deferred ordinary shares in a company should apply so that the State should be the holder of the deferred ordinary shares in all these companies, and when the proper rate of dividend has been given to the ordinary shareholder the remainder should flow back into the coffers of the community. That is a way in which the State could get more money to spend upon its vital needs.

Education is a vital need in Ireland. To tell us that the proportion that is expended in England is so much less than that already expended here is to ignore one of the great enveloping factors of the situation. England is not building from the ground up. England is carrying on a going concern that has been financed for centuries with rich endowments and with rich accumulations of money. We are here struggling to make a beginning and to put things in order, and everyone who has experience of business affairs knows that in the initial stages you have high outlays to incur. It is at this stage that the overhead charges are felt. If we are seriously putting our hand now to the great task of constructing a new Ireland we shall be blind to all the lessons of history if we do not begin with education as the very centre of reform. Education has been proved to be everything in the making of a nation and the country that is cheeseparing and grudging in its contribution to education is securing a very backward place for itself amongst the rest of the nations.

Mr. BLYTHE

With reference to the placing of teachers on a scale, I think we must not forget that however much Deputy Alton may talk about gratitude the State has no particular obligation to those people as individuals. There was no contract with the State. We have no interest in them except this that they are doing work which is of interest to us, and our expenditure on education should be the expenditure which is necessary to get better results, and I do not think we should allow feelings of gratitude, as has been suggested, to apply to those who entered upon private employment years ago to lead us to expend sums beyond those that are necessary to keep the service improved. That is, roughly, I think, how we must look upon this matter.

With regard to people being worse off under the increment scheme than they were last year, I again suggest that that is not a fair comparison. Last year we gave a considerable increase in the interim grant as a purely temporary arrangement. We did hope to have the increment scheme in operation a year ago. Delays occurred, and as it was not possible to do anything we increased substantially the interim grants so as to fill the gap in some way. We had no intention of keeping the interim grant at that level. We had no intention of making a permanent arrangement that would involve an interim grant of something like £100,000. The figure of the interim grant was, for a couple of years, £63,000. If we are to compare how people will be under this scheme with the way in which they were before we ought to take the year when the grant was £63,000. I am not suggesting that we should go back to the £50,000 they had before we came, but take the £63,000, and I think it will be found that very few teachers are worse off than they were in the two years in which we gave £63,000. At any rate, those with short service have prospects better than they had before. I do not want to say anything that may seem to convey that the secondary teachers do not deserve consideration, but up to the present they have had no different contract with the State. They were just in the same position as every other citizen. They were employees of private institutions. We are not really bound to consider their case more than we are bound to consider the case of an employee of the Tramway Co. or of the Railway Co. Now a new position is being created.

Professor THRIFT

What about the basic salary?

Mr. BLYTHE

I really have nothing more to say on the question of basic salary than I have said. We will provide the amount that will be necessary to give whatever basic salary may be decided upon in this year's estimates. The final figures for the estimate will be arrived at within a very few days from now, so there may be some more details to be settled, but the figures of the basic salary must be agreed within a very few days.

Professor THRIFT

My point is that the Minister for Education assured us that the combined system of incremental scale and basic salary would operate from the beginning of the current school year. Can the Minister say anything to corroborate that? The incremental scale and the basic salary were to operate from September, 1924.

Mr. BLYTHE

I did not really read that particular passage of the speech of the Minister for Education. I cannot definitely say at the moment.

Question put and agreed to.