Is nobody going to speak on the Government side on the Vote on Industry and Commerce? Well, I shall go on. This is the Vote which gives a Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is knowledgeable about his post, or even a substitute who is acting for the Minister, an opportunity to reveal what his policy has done for industry and commerce in the country during the 12 months that have gone. It would be appropriate for the Minister under these circumstances to give the House some details, if any details are available, of the increased productivity in the country as well as the increase in the wealth that we are told is so marked around the country towns as well as in Dublin; and to give us a better indication than we have got up-to-date as to where the extra establishments are located, what are the wages paid in them, the hours worked, the proprietors who control them, and the capital, whether it is national or otherwise, which has been involved in them. That would be appropriate any time, but it would be particularly appropriate on this occasion when, for the first time, the Minister who announced his policy as a revolutionary one in industry can say that he had a fairly clear year in which to make good, and it would be still more appropriate to have such a clarifying statement from the Minister when that Minister, previously challenged with regard to his policy, said that he was prepared to take a certain challenge that had been flung out, "a challenge that had been put that in eight months' time we shall find out whether our policy has been a success or not. I am prepared to accept that; I am prepared to back that policy." He talked then about the signs of improvement that he was going to put before the people's eyes in eight months' time, and the eight months date from 12th May, 1932. Here is an opportunity in which not merely have the eight months elapsed, but that extra period which would necessarily be agreed upon to enable the Minister to measure up the full fruits of the success of the eight months and to present them here in a lucid and persuasive way, so that doubts that are at the moment in existence as regards the new policy might be all swept away. The opportunity has not been taken. There has been nothing indicated by the Minister with regard to progress of the policy.
From time to time questions have been asked in this House about single industries, taking mainly the form of asking the Minister for Industry and Commerce to state how many new factories have been established in——, and then the name of the industry occurs, to state where these factories are, to state how many new hands are employed, the wages that they get, and the hours they work, so that we could form an impression of the increased wealth produced in the country and how it is being distributed. There have been a variety of excuses in answer to these questions. We were told at one time that it was not considered desirable to give figures. We were told a little later that the staff was so busily engaged in promoting new industries that they could not stop to count those already established, although they must have records of them in the Department. We were told later on that it was better to present the matter in a comprehensive way and that a booklet dealing with Irish trade and industry was being prepared. When that line was followed up later and questions were put as to when the booklet would make its appearance, we were confronted again with the usual evasions, until at last the Minister was asked had he sent out the type of a questionnaire which was necessary to collect the information about trade and industries. We then found that this sheet of questions had not been yet sent to the industrialists of the country. I do not know if it has yet been sent. I certainly take it that no return has been made to it. I suppose I should not go so far as that, but I take it that, if a return has been made, then it was so disappointing that it cannot be produced.
In those circumstances, we have to examine the Minister's attitude towards trade and industry in the country and his many flamboyant phrases as to the great progress made, the new ground that has been opened, the new sources of wealth that have been tapped. From one detailed indication we can see pretty clearly what reliance is to be placed on the Minister's statement. After persistent inquiry, Deputy Mulcahy recently got a return made to him covering a certain number of industries about which no excuse could be presented to the House for failure to give the return. That was a group of industries on which tariffs had been imposed in 1924, 1925 and 1926, and in relation to which returns had been collected and presented half-yearly to the House. Recently Deputy Mulcahy did get an indication from these figures of the new employment in the industries mentioned, and from these we can get some criterion by which to judge the Minister for Industry and Commerce and some of his great phrases. Speaking in the House on 11th May, 1933, as reported in volume 47, No. 3, column 911 of the Official Reports, the Minister for Industry and Commerce said of the apparel industry that it covers a range of different forms of production and has also progressed much more rapidly even than was contemplated. I am going to refer to the advertisements which gave detailed figures which show the Minister's contemplation. On 11th May, 1933, he stated here that the progress in the apparel industry had been greater even than he contemplated. Then he continued:—
"Deputies who read the newspapers these days will find them full of advertisements for skilled workers in that trade. Every skilled worker in the country has been employed. Increased production has been held up by the fact that additional skilled workers are not available, and the people concerned in that industry are writing to my Department asking for sanction to bring in skilled workers from abroad."
That is a most satisfying statement to anyone who believes in it. The apparel industry has progressed far greater than was ever contemplated. Advertisements were appearing in the newspapers asking for skilled workers in that trade. That was the Minister's own statement, and he has the records of the skilled workers and knows where they are employed and how many are idle. He said every skilled worker in the country had been employed—I am assuming in that trade. Increased production had been held up, because there were not sufficient skilled workers in the country to deal with the increased production. Application had been made to him by manufacturers for leave to bring in people from abroad.
Then lately we got another jolt back to the truth. The number of people employed in the wholesale side of the clothing end has gone down between September, 1931, and March, 1933, by nearly 500 workers. That is according to official statistics. There is something wrong somewhere. If the Minister's own statistical department says that there were 500 people less employed in March, 1933, than there were in September, 1931, the Minister needs to do something more than merely assert that there are no skilled workers in the country without employment in the apparel trade; that there are advertisements appearing daily, with the implication that the advertisements are not being answered, for skilled workers; that production has been held up because there are not sufficient skilled workers in the country and that employers have asked leave to bring in skilled workers from outside. Either of these two statements is untrue. Which is it? Both have been given here officially as from the Department of Industry and Commerce; one by the Minister, speaking in the House, and the other in answer to a question to the Acting-Minister the other day.
We have heard that type of statement from the Minister for Industry and Commerce before. In that debate on 11th May, 1933, it was stated that there was not an industry that had not done better than was contemplated. There was hardly an industry in which production had not at least doubled. There was not one that had gone back. There was not a hint or a breath of suspicion that the detailed figures would reveal that there was less employment round about the period of two months earlier than the month in which he was speaking, than there was two years ago.
I take one other phrase to get it reduced to its true proportions. Speaking in the same debate on the 11th May—the quotation is this time from Column 910, Vol. 47, No. 3 of the Official Debates—the Minister said:—
"Take the confectionery industry. Employment in it has been doubled. The output has been more than doubled and it is still increasing. Progress has not yet stopped in that industry. One new factory of considerable magnitude is being built and there are more to come."
The meanest and the dullest intellect can understand that—"employment in it has been doubled, the output has been more than doubled and it is still increasing." Then we get the detailed figures. Employment as between September, 1931, and March, 1933, went up from 5,096 to 5,247. That is 151 people extra employed in confectionery appears to the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, when he is in one of his high spots of oratory, as double 5,000 people. These are two statements I have taken from the Reports and I have set them against the increases as they were given in the detailed figures. I think that, on reading this, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, when he returns, will have some cause of complaint against his acting colleague for having given away these figures. His policy of not saying anything was far better. It sounds far better for an election poster to say: "Look at the confectionery industry; employment doubled; output more than doubled and still increasing." It brings people with a terrific bash back to earth when, after reading that, they suddenly find that employment instead of having gone from 5,096 to something over 10,000 has merely gone to 5,247. I presume for the future we can adopt in relation to the Minister's speeches that ratio, that his speeches have the same relation to fact as 5,247 has to 10,000. We should certainly get back to the old humorous calculation of taking a number, doubling it, and then subtracting a whole lot from it, if we are going to arrive at the truth of the statements of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
I gather that to-day reference has been made to one really discovered factory. I pride myself on having discovered this even earlier than the Minister for Industry and Commerce because some time earlier this year I found that a number of people in a certain district in the country were having a competition in which they got points for every new factory they discovered and lost points for every industry that had been destroyed. The funny thing about it was that all the people engaged in the competition lost because when they had totted up they had all minus points. They had discovered more destruction than they had new factories, but they did discover one factory which has been referred to here to-day, a factory opened under the auspices of the Minister for Industry and Commerce at Naas and under the special aegis of Deputy Briscoe—the same Deputy Briscoe who, the President said, had done more than any other person in the community to relieve unemployment.
