I desire to join briefly in this discussion, because I was just thinking that it would look out of place if I allowed Deputy Good to speak on behalf of the building trade without saying something in reply. I do not intend to be too hard on Deputy Good on this occasion. I have a great deal of sympathy with a lot of the things he said, particularly with his objections to Deputy Hall's remarks. I would like to say, in support of one of Deputy Good's contentions, as an interruption to a remark of Deputy Hall's, that it is not so very easy to start in the building business. If it were, and if I was sure of getting good profits out of it, I would be ready to start in the business to-morow. As a matter of fact, it takes years of training before any man, no matter how naturally clever he may be, can hope to arrive at a successful conclusion in pricing a bill of quantities for any kind of a simple job, even a small cottage job. If it were half as simple as Deputy Hall says it is to get on in the building business. I think everyone would be a building contractor. Anyway, there is not a great deal in what Deputy Hall said on that.
On a few occasions in the past, I took it upon myself to defend building tradesmen from Deputy Good's onslaughts, particularly the building tradesmen in Dublin. I was very glad to hear him say, in reply to a remark of Deputy Gorey's, that the output of tradesmen in Wexford was not as great as it is in Dublin. That is a tribute to what I have been saying in the past, that the building tradesmen in Dublin —Deputy Good himself admits it now —have never been nearly as bad as Deputy Good and people like him would have us believe. I am going to tell the truth, and I may say that I am taking a great risk in saying this: that there is some justification for Deputy Good stating that there is not as great an output in the building trade now as there was in the past. On two or three occasions in this Dáil, and in the previous Dáil, I tried to point out that such was not the case. I did that from a sense of loyalty to my own class, but I am now willing to admit that there is some justification for it. I would like to give a reason for it, and the reason is this: that in the days prior to the European war the men engaged in the building trade in Dublin, in every part of Ireland, and in every big city and town in England, had to work as veritable galley slaves. At that time they were compelled to work hard in order that they might be able to keep their jobs. They could not relax their efforts, because there was always such a large number in the ranks of the unemployed willing to take their places if their efforts did not come up to the expectations of their employers. At that time, too, whenever they made an attempt to get an increase of even only one halfpenny per hour in their wages, unless they could catch the building contractors napping, they were compelled, in most cases, to remain on strike for a month, two months, and sometimes even three months before they could get that advance of a halfpenny. The impression which years of treatment of that kind left on the minds of the men was that the contractors were not their friends.
It would take a very clever and a very eloquent man at the present day, either in this country or elsewhere, to convince a group of building tradesmen or building workers that when Deputy Good says he would like to see the spirit that exists in the linen industry existing in the building industry, he means everything he says, because these men have not very happy recollections of him or of his fellow-building contractors in the past. As I have stated, before the outbreak of the European war tradesmen in this country and in England had to work as galley slaves, but a change occurred about 1916 or 1917 when a good deal of government work was provided in the building of factories and aerodromes. At that time practically every tradesman in England and Ireland, including myself, was employed on that work. For a few months I worked myself in England on one of these jobs. Early in 1918 a number of aerodromes were erected in different parts of Ireland, at least four of them being put up in the vicinity of the city of Dublin. In connection with the building of the aerodromes and factories in England and Ireland one heard a good deal of this sort of cheap joke passing from one man to another: "If you are caught working hard here you will be sacked." In other words, these were Government jobs. They were not contract jobs, but what are called subsidised jobs, and they were given to a contractor who, as far as I know, got 8 per cent. as a profit or payment on the total sum spent on the job. Deputies, I am sure, will see the point of that: that the longer the job lasted and the more money, therefore, that was spent on it the larger was the profit which the contractor derived. The less the tradesmen and other workers did the longer, of course, the job lasted and the more money went to the contractor. What happened on these jobs led these tradesmen, who previous to the outbreak of the European war had been worked like galley slaves, to the conclusion that it was not always good, even from the employers' point of view, that men should work hard. During the war quite a large number of employers found that they could make considerably more money by allowing their employees to go easy.
The Minister for Agriculture, in answer to Deputy Johnson, said that it would take some years before the benefits of recent agricultural legislation could make themselves felt. Everyone knows the long number of years it takes to train the mind of the individual. The education of children in the schools goes on for years and years. In the same way it is a difficult thing to eradicate bad habits that have become ingrained in the individual character. It has not been found a very easy task to eradicate the habits which tradesmen were encouraged to cultivate on these jobs in order to please their employers, so that the profits which the latter derived from the buildings put up would continue to soar higher and higher. Consequently it is not fair for Deputy Good or for any sensible man like him to expect that the habits ingrained in these men during the highly profitable war years could be scrapped immediately.
Deputy Good himself admitted that the building trade was a seasonal one. I worked at it myself for over twelve years. The men engaged in it know that no matter how good the job may be that they are employed on, there is always a period of unemployment awaiting them, and when I was much younger, I confess that I often told them that they were fools to work hard when they knew quite well that their doing so would mean an earlier completion of the job and a nearer approach to the day when they themselves would be in the ranks of the unemployed. My talk to them in the past had not much effect, but the experience they got during what I may call the prosperous war years, when engaged on Government jobs, has had its results, and has not worn away yet. It will take a great deal of denunciation before it will wear off, and it will take a great deal of talk on the part of building contractors before they will succeed in convincing the workers and tradesmen engaged in the building industry that they really mean well to the men themselves when they ask them to accept a reduction in wages or to give a greater output in their work.
The reason the building contractors will fail in that is, that in the past their employees have never seen any evidence of a desire on their part to benefit the industry as a whole or to improve the conditions under which the employees work. All the employees have seen is the grasping hand of greed put out by the contractor to get as much as he possibly could. I am not blaming them, but I am stating the facts as I have seen them. It will take a great deal of effort on the part of the building contractors before they will bring the workers to realise that it would be to their benefit to do more work than they have been doing during the past few years. It would take a good deal to convince the workers on that point when, in reality, they know from their own experience that the more work they do the sooner they will be thrown on the ranks of the unemployed, and the sooner they will be lining up for the dole, if they are lucky enough to be in benefit for the required period to enable them to get it. In conclusion, I desire to say that I believe that the remedy Deputy Johnson has reiterated time and again in this Dáil is the only real way in which we can get a greater output in the building or in any other industry, and that is by some great national effort to give security to the men engaged in these trades. There is no use in making an appeal to a tradesman to work so hard at the building of a house that the perspiration will come through every pore of his body when he knows that the only result of his labour, from his point of view, will be that instead of getting eight weeks' work on the job he will only get four weeks. We all know that that is the fate of the average man in the building trade. I say that you are not going to get increased output in that way. On the other hand, if you are going to make some great national effort, meant to convince the working classes in this country that the employers regard them with good-will on their side—and it will take a lot to convince them on that point—but if once you succeed in convincing them of that, and that you do something to guarantee them continuity of employment, then I would be willing to say, and in saying this I do not think I would be giving offence to any wageearner in the country, that they would be quite willing to do their very best for the country as a whole as well as for themselves.
