Possibly not. That means that the Deputy is contradicting my statement. If it is true it is not a debating society point. The explanation of the big drive now is that people can register in places where they were not previously authorised to register, but had to walk 15 or 20 miles to do so. I say that they had not to do that. In order to register in the old days all a man had to do was to send an unstamped letter, as I have described, through the post, and that was conveyed to headquarters. He need not even go to the nearest post box to post it because, if he met the rural postman, he could hand the letter to him and it was sent on. That is the first thing. The Parliamentary Secretary again said last night in his attempt to describe the difference between the old maximum of 30,000 that used to register and the present maximum of nearly 120,000—some 500 short of 120,000 on November 5th— that there was a second reason, after giving that first wrong reason, and that was that in the old days the purpose of the exchanges was to provide willing labour for commercial employers. I do not know that anybody, even the Parliamentary Secretary with his past, is so far removed from conditions in this country as to believe that statement. Relief Votes of this type that we are discussing became a feature of life in the Free State since its establishment. Apart from the fact that people were taken from the labour exchanges for vacancies that occurred anywhere, under relief schemes or anything else, it was well-known that when there was relief going Deputies in this House made an appeal—I even saw those appeals being made in writing, and members of the Labour Party agreed that they did make them in writing— to their constituents, who were poor, to register for the sake of getting whatever relief money was going. Yet we are calmly told that the old purpose of the exchanges was merely to provide for commercial employers labour which was of value to them.
There is a third thing I want to ask in connection with those figures. Supposing even that those two statements of the Parliamentary Secretary were absolutely true, which in fact they were not, there is at any rate a lot of 120,000 people at the moment. We were told that there were new people registering and that those new people twice reacted to a fresh stimulus. The funny thing is that there has been no improvement made even in those fresh registrations. I would not mind the statement being made that at one time people used to register for particular purposes; that a new set of purposes came along, and that new people came in, but what about the improvement that we are told has been taking place in the country? Why has it not made some impression on those figures? Supposing the 30,000 should have been 80,000, why has it gone up to 120,000 while we have had relief schemes, quotas, subsidies and Government helps in every possible way? There is another point which has to be referred to, and it is not a debating point in this matter. Take this amazing increase in the numbers registered. Supposing you find that coincident with that there has been a change in the economics of the country, and that you are, prima facie at any rate, entitled to say that that change and the increase in unemployment have some relation one to the other; have you not something more than a prima facie case—almost a concluded case— when you find that the change in the economic life of the country has brought about a lower productivity, to an extent, as far as the farmers are concerned, of at least £20,000,000? At any rate, we are getting somewhere near the point when we can get figures which we can argue about, and not fantastic explanations about walking ten or 15 miles. Supposing it is a fact that there has been a change. It is also a fact that the figures have risen. Is there any relation between the two? If the farming community has lost money as far as their production is concerned, is there not immediately a relation between the decrease in production, the downward trend in the economic life of the country, and the increased unemployment figures?
Deputy Donnelly was very anxious about the old threadbare document so often quoted here about promises.
The document bears some relation to the promises, if it is threadbare and worn. Let us allow for enthusiasm in promising. Let us allow for the fact that it was necessary to put some sugar on the pill of the Republic. Let us allow for all those things. Still there were promises. Was it those things the Deputy talked about to-night? Was it beet, afforestation, drainage and land division? I thought the Deputy would have shuddered when he said land division. We will get precise figures one of these days for land acquired and distributed. I should like to see the figures. What about the figure of 86,000 people that were to be employed? It was not in housing, afforestation, land division or beet. It was to have been in factories. It was to have been on work of a permanent type; not merely work of a permanent type, but work from which, once you got the wheels of industry started to the extent that you employed 86,000, the outflow was going to be enormous. It was for the 86,000 employed to think of the huge wages fund and of its purchasing power. I might even become lyrical and enthusiastic enough to prove as my own the document which referred to more and more money, and why did it ever stop? There were to be 86,000 in industrial occupation of a permanent type, and, of course, with the growth of industry there were going to be other subsidiary industries. Here is the order in which they come—factories were thrown in— housing, beet, afforestation, drainage, land division, and factories. We have queried those factories over and over again. We want to know about them. We know that the Deputy and the Ministers believe that there is an enormous number of new industries started in the country, and that there is big employment in them. We know that Deputy Norton believes that it is only the demoralisation of children is taking place in the country. I do not think Deputy Norton is any nearer the truth than the Minister who talks about the number of factories.
We should at any rate be able to get from the Minister in charge of the figures a statement as to how many people, say, in the years 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933 paid money into the Unemployment Insurance Fund. What did we get? The Minister for Industry and Commerce made a bad mistake one night, and has been trying to get out of it ever since. On the 4th October he took a jump in the dark. Here was the basis of calculation that he took, and, of course, if the figures can be got correctly it is a very good basis; he took the test of the income from the sale of unemployment insurance stamps. Let us leave out unemployment. Let us concentrate only on employment. It is quite true that every person in insurable occupation, who is a week in employment of that nature, has to have a stamp put upon a card for him. That represents 1/7. It used to be 1/1, but more recently it was 1/7. Therefore, if you can get the fund income, and if you can see the change in that income, you have some indication as to the number of people extra or less employed as between the different years.
With that as the correct basis of calculation, here is what results. The income from the sale of insurance stamps in 1928 was £655,000, in 1930, £703,000. If the old rates of contribution had continued, the income in 1933 would be £760,000, an increase of £60,000 which represented 15,000 men getting employment for 50 weeks. The calculation is easy. At the rate of 1/7 for 50 weeks the contribution would be £4. Divide by four whatever the increase in pounds is and you get the number of men. The amount in 1930 was £703,000, in 1933, £760,000. The Minister takes credit for an increase of £60,000, and for 15,000 men. Of course he had nothing to do with the difference between 1930 and 1931. I asked for and got these figures. Here is where I complain and I think properly and rightly complain. Surely there must be some reliability about figures or we will begin to believe there is none, when this sort of nonsense can be carried on. I asked a question before 1933 was complete, so that is had to be an estimate and the Minister agreed that what was given in a group of years for the first nine months did represent accurately and for each year the percentage of the final total. The figures for 1930 were £703,000; for 1931, £744,000—that is my year—for 1932, £767,000 and for 1933, £773,000. That is an estimate and an adjustment. It showed no possibility of error.
In my last year, my decaying year, in which nothing was done for industry and no work provided the fund went up by £40,000 representing 11,000 new people in insurable occupations in the country, between 1930 and 1931. In two years, on that calculation, the Minister had got an increase of less than £30,000, or less than 7,500 people. He made two bad mistakes there. He claimed for a year that was not his, and when found out on that, that what he had done bore such a bad relationship to my last year, something had to be done, and something was speedily done. The next time the matter was debated—and it was only a few months later—the figure for 1933 was found to have risen to £785,000. Still we had this, that in 1931, my last year, it was £744,000 I was given credit for £41,000. In one year the amount was raised from £744,000 to £785,000. That was not bad. The Minister equalled in two years what I did in one. It was not too bad. To-day of course we have to do better. We have done better. I got figures given to me by the Minister showing that in 1931 the exact income was £497,000. These are exact figures, no longer adjusted, and in 1933 they were £553,000. That is £56,000 of a difference. Where was the mistake? Why was I told the difference was only £40,000? I was told about March, 1934 when the figures for the whole year were in. There was no question of an estimate, I was told the difference between the two years was £40,000 and now I get figures which show £56,000. The position is even better than those figures show, for this reason, that when £40,000 was the difference, you had to divide to get that adjusted with 1/7. When four is divided into 40,000 it only gave 10,000 new entrants into new industries in two years, whereas I put 11,000 into industry in one year. Now, when we divide the figure which is based on the 1/1 rate, for 50 weeks it comes to about £2 16s. 0d. It will be found that it represents £56,000 or 18,000 men. That is something to boast about in the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis. It was a good figure to get at this time. Why was the other figure given? What reliance can be put on the figures of men in control of a Department if such serious errors are made? Is it a debating point to say that one is entitled to look with the gravest suspicion on figures produced for these relief schemes. How can we ever get anywhere in relation to this problem if the statistics can be so mishandled as that? Where is the truth? Where are the new entrants to industry? If they are new entrants are they in the sort of industries that Deputy Donnelly speaks of?
Supposing there are 10,000 or 18,000 entrants in two years, are they in industries of the type promised in the old election promises, or are the people engaged in peat, afforestation, drainage, beet or housing. What are they in? It is surely serious enough to ask this question quite properly. In the old promises of employment, the industries were named and the totals given, even down to the tens of the people to be employed. There was no question as far as the 86,000 was concerned about peat, afforestation, drainage or land division. Does Deputy Donnelly think, in face of these figures, that they can claim that the promises about industrial activity have been carried out? I think it was recognised that relief schemes were only a temporary device. Speeches were delivered by those who were in charge of afforestation—which has come under many Ministers—and Senator Connolly told us that it was a method of absorbing the unemployed. He did not talk of it in relation to permanent occupancy. There is another side to be considered, as I was told when defending the unemployment figures. Of course I emigrated a certain number every year. There were no emigrations in my last year. I was told that the average number of people who looked forward to the day when they could leave the country was 30,000. Supposing there are 30,000 who used to, but who cannot leave now, is there not a very serious situation developing? Because the best that this exaggerated figure can show is—let us make the 18,500 into 20,000—that 10,000 new people have gone into some sort of occupation—housing, drainage, peat or factories. That is 10,000 per year for two years. The Government complain that we left them a heritage of unemployed. I do not know what the number which they have fixed to that finally is, but, whatever it was, it is still there, because there are 30,000 being added every year, according to the Government's arguments—that is those who used to leave the country—and there ought to be, if even the old figure is to be kept steady, employment found for a new 30,000 each year, instead of which we have this exaggerated figure of close on 10,000 in each of two years. If the 30,000 are being bred in this country and have no outlet to America, or elsewhere, as they used to have, and the people who are looking for employment are going to remain in the country in numbers which increase at the rate of 30,000 per annum, and if, after two years of a hectic performance of tariffs and subsidies and quotas and closing down of imports and prohibitions and credits and loans, we can only get 18,500 at best into some sort of work, when are we ever going to provide for the 30,000, who, according to that statement, come on our hands? Are we not piling up an enormous surplus? Is it any wonder, if these statements are correct, that the unemployed registered figure has risen to 120,000, and where is the prospect of eating into it?
The Minister for Industry and Commerce got perturbed towards the end of last month about the situation, or, at least, about the figures and about what he called the misconceptions there were as to the unemployment situation in the country, and he issued a statement. He issued that statement, remember, after he had received a report from a special committee of experts from the statistical branch, the employment branch and the trade branch of his Department, "which has had the whole employment and unemployment position under detailed examination." Now, get the atmosphere. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is going to establish an industrial community here, gets perturbed about the figures and he tells us, as I think the Parliamentary Secretary said last night, and as Deputy Donnelly more or less hinted at to-day: "You need not bother about these unemployment figures; they do not matter. The higher they go, really the less unemployment there is. It is the employment side we have to look at," but the best the Minister for Industry and Commerce—not the Minister for relief schemes, and not the Minister for temporary occupation, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce—after receiving the experts' reports, can do is to tell us that there is substantially increased employment in this country. Deputy Donnelly to-night claims housing, peat, afforestation, drainage, land division and beet.
