Furthermore, the resolution asks the Dáil to instruct the Executive Council to make available forthwith sufficient money to permit the carrying out of large schemes of public works. The House should note the word "forthwith," because, in my view, and I am sure that every practical man in the House will agree with me, the acceptance of the word "forthwith" by the Dáil would impose upon the Executive Council a task which is, in present circumstances, impossible of fulfilment. If we were to take this word and the rest of the resolution at its face value, we must assume that the sums to be provided must be sufficiently large to provide continuous employment for every man-jack who is at the moment unemployed or who is caused to be unemployed in the future, and we must also assume that these sums must be expended forthwith in such employment. That, I think, is the meaning of the terms of the resolution in their more general connotation. If that meaning be objected to, it has to be pointed out that the resolution is vague in every regard except in regard to the time in which the money has to be provided. It has to be provided forthwith. If, however, it is admitted that it would be impossible to provide immediately sufficient money to enable everybody to be put in employment at once, and that the resolution is to be read in the narrower sense that some large scale public works should be undertaken to provide employment, then it can be pointed out that the Government has, in fact, undertaken such works already. This year we are spending £4,500,000 on the provision of houses. We are responsible for an expenditure of £1,500,000 on sugar beet schemes and of over £500,000 on the deepening of Loughs Derg and Allen. All of these are large scale public works—all financed by the Government or through the Government or under the Government's aegis, and they are all for providing work for people who would otherwise be unemployed.
I say that to indicate to the House that there is no conflict of view between the Government and our friends of the Labour Party as to the way in which it is most desirable that this problem of the distressed conditions of the unemployed should be dealt with. Having said that, I think that I am entitled to assume that what the movers of the resolution had in mind when it was put down is that the Government should formulate a programme of large scale public works calculated to relieve the distress due to unemployment and should take steps to carry out that programme. As I have indicated already, a Government committee is hard at work upon that task, and that job is not an easy one. As a preliminary step to doing anything we have to ascertain what is the real nature and extent of unemployment. It would be only facile to say that whatever knowledge we might have as to the real nature of the problem, its extent was fairly indicated by the published figures for the live register from week to week. As the Minister for Industry and Commerce has pointed out already, this figure is not a record of the number of people unemployed, but of the number of people seeking employment, and these, I suggest, are very different things. The figure for the present live register, undoubtedly, gives an exaggerated idea of the extent to which poverty and distress consequent upon unemployment exist. In considering the figures we have to remember that it covers many persons who are not genuinely seeking employment, but have registered in the hope of securing unemployment assistance by concealing their true means. It contains also many others who are in possession of land and other property and who have means of subsistence other than wage earnings. Furthermore, I have no doubt that it includes, also, many persons who are already employed, but who are seeking for work which would appeal to them more than their present jobs. Lastly, I think it will have to be conceded that it contains many people who, for one reason or another, are unfit to work and who, under any scheme of public works, would be unemployable.
However, in formulating such large scale public works as this resolution advocates, we must ascertain, first of all, the approximate number of people belonging to each of these four characters. This figure has hitherto not been available. In the 11 years in which the State has been in existence, no comprehensive attempt has been made to analyse the live register and to place the individuals thereon in the categories to which they properly belong. The Inter-Departmental Committee, to which I have already referred, is making a searching investigation of the live register and is asking those people whose names appear upon it to facilitate them in the task. For this purpose a questionnaire is being prepared which will be circulated, I think, in the middle of next month to all those who are in receipt of unemployment assistance. As a result of the replies to this, it is hoped that we shall have very detailed information about the age, normal occupation, location and other circumstances of the people who are unemployed. As I have already said, in seeking a way to ameliorate the position of the unemployed, we must know, not merely the extent of the unemployment, but its real nature, and it is hoped that the information obtained through the questionnaire will assist us in our investigations in that regard and will enable us to satisfy ourselves whether unemployment, in the acute form in which it is now manifesting itself throughout the world, is going to be a permanent feature or merely a passing phase of our present social organisation here.
There are some authorities, as the House well knows, who hold that the intensification of the unemployment problem is inseparably associated with the mechanisation of industry. There are others who do not agree with this view, and who say that the mechanisation of industry does not, on the whole, create unemployment, but merely changes the form of existing employment, converting unskilled and laborious occupations into skilled and less fatiguing work. There are some who, while inclining to the view that the mechanisation of industry creates unemployment, regard the prevalence of that evil as mankind's reaction to overwork and hope to cure it by enforcing greater leisure upon us all.
Long term measures for the amelioration of the condition of the unemployed must be determined largely by whichever of these views is believed in the end to be correct.
In this connection, might I express my regret that those who have spoken in favour of the resolution have not taken the opportunity to prove that, taking all the factors into consideration, the means suggested in the resolution are the best that can be devised for the relief of distress? They have assumed that there was agreement on that point, and while they may not be incorrect in that assumption, nevertheless, I think they would have been discharging a public service if, in their speeches, they had given that aspect of the matter the full consideration it deserves, because it has to be remembered that it is not the only way in which the problem of social distress arising out of unemployment may be dealt with. There are others, and each of them has its advocates in this country as elsewhere.
For instance, some people hold that one effective way of relieving that distress is to impose restrictions on the growth of employable labour by discouraging immigration. If one were to take a detached and philosophical view of this matter and to consider that suggested solution in the light of historical fact, it is questionable whether, in the long run, such restriction does, in fact, tend to reduce unemployment. New countries, undeveloped countries, underpopulated countries, have a great deal to gain by permitting the entrance of new blood. We have only to look at the part played by our own people in building up the United States of America, the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of Canada, to realise that immigration is not an unmixed evil. However, when there is no longer a free movement of peoples and when barriers are raised elsewhere against our people, we have no option but to retaliate here and to preserve for our own whatever opportunities of livelihood there may be in this country.
We may also relieve social distress due to unemployment by the simple expedient of throwing on one side the public works solution altogether and by providing maintenance only. It is, in the view of many, the cheapest solution and the easiest to administer, but it has from many points of view great, almost conclusive disadvantages. It leads, I believe, to a great deal of social deterioration; it encourages the work-shy to avoid all possibilities of work; and in the long run it tends to render the unemployed unemployable.
I have mentioned that there are some people who hold that the growth of unemployment in the world is due to the increasing mechanisation of labour forces. So strongly convinced are some people of this that their remedy would be completely to derationalise industry and agriculture so as to increase the manual labour content in all processes and by increasing the sheer toil of production, find a remedy for the idleness which unemployment imposes. It may be that in a certain limited way, and in some rather specialised occupations, a little would be gained if machinery were to be replaced by manual labour, but, on the whole, I feel that the destined road for humanity does not lie in that direction. I believe that this process, if carried too far, will result in a drastically reduced standard of living and worsened industrial conditions, because primitive agriculture and primitive industrial organisation cannot support modern social services and modern State institutions. Other methods of providing employment should, therefore, be considered. Much can be done in the way of creating opportunities for employment by fostering and protecting home industry. The Government has already done a good deal in this way by means of tariffs and quotas. But even the Government's efforts in that direction can largely be reinforced by a strong public opinion which demands that, as far as possible, only goods of Irish manufacture should be used or worn. That public opinion should have its reaction and its complement in a determination, on the part of those who have secured and enjoyed protection for their industries in their own market, to enter with enthusiasm and a certain civic spirit, overlooking the narrow point of view of self-interest, into the task of providing everything we need to meet our requirements here.
Then, apart altogether from restricting immigration, some steps might be taken to secure a constriction in the volume of employable labour. We could, for instance, retard the entry of young persons into employment, and, by raising the school-leaving age, compel them to better equip themselves for the business of life. But, here again many considerations have to be taken into account. In many families it would be no easy matter to defer the time at which young people begin to earn. In some industries, industrialists and tradesmen generally will be disposed to argue that it is essential for those who propose to take them up to enter young. Then, again, the cost to the State by way of increased expenditure on school buildings, on the teaching and staffing due to the raising of the school-leaving age, would not be inconsiderable. As this would be an annual cost it would represent an increase in taxation which, possibly, might call in certain circumstances for reduced expenditure in other directions in order to obviate them. Furthermore, it is probable that employers would have to pay proportionately higher wages to later entrants, and thus the cost of production would increase, a feature to which serious consideration would have to be given in connection with whatever export industries we have.
I mention these things merely to show that even restricting the entrance of young people into employment cannot be undertaken without a certain amount of investigation and examination, and in fact I may say that such an investigation is at the moment going on. Then, again, at the other end of the scale of life we could offer inducements to elderly persons to retire from work, and in this connection something has already been done by the provision of old age pensions. It might be argued that not enough has been done here, but in this connection we have to remember that elderly persons form a very large proportion of our population, larger than in most countries, and that the actual cost of old age pensions here is higher than in other countries. If any further steps were taken in this connection I feel it could only be done by means of contributory schemes and I am not at all certain that its effect in reducing unemployment would be as great as might be expected. Then, again, we might endeavour to induce certain classes of women to give up employment and put them in a position to give their attention to their family responsibilities. The Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Bill which is now being prepared, and which we hope shortly to introduce, will do this so far as widows are concerned.
A suggestion which was made in the course of the debate was that we should reduce working hours in industry. Even if we allow for the possibility of increased production principally consequent upon the diminution of the fatigue effect, it is clear that a reduction of working hours must result either in an increase in wages cost or a decrease in the per capita wage earned. If wages are to be retained at their present weekly level there must be an all-round increase in prices and, therefore, a reduction in real money income, but the advantage of a reduction in working hours is that it spreads more equitably over the whole community the burden of maintaining the unemployed. I feel myself that a reduction in working hours is bound to come, and that more and more we should take advantage of the improvements in industrial processes, in methods of transport and in the development of civilisation generally and the rest, not in the form of increased money income but in the form of increased leisure. All these expedients will have to be carefully examined and their effects considered, but when they are, and when many others have been applied, there will still remain a problem to be dealt with. As to the size of that problem we have to remember that at any time the hard core of unemployment is not equivalent to the number of persons who are unemployed.
We all know that there are certain industries and trades which are seasonal, where, owing to natural conditions of climate and the rest, occupation and employment must be more or less intermittent. Then there are large scale constructional industries on which employment cannot be continuous and constant. If a large project, the construction of a railway, the completion of the Shannon scheme — any one of a number of jobs which Deputies can visualise for themselves—is completed, it requires a certain period of time to wind everything up and to get ready plans for a new project. The fact of the matter is this, that it seems to me that the complex organisation of labour in modern industry necessitates the maintenance of a certain reserve, and these people, the people who find their occupation mainly in seasonal industries and trades and those who are engaged in large constructional works, are not likely to be provided for in large scale public works, because large scale public works are like the large scale constructional works: they must be continuous. We cannot start them to-day, interrupt them to-morrow, and resume progress on them a week or a fortnight hence. They have to be carried on in many cases when the weather will facilitate the execution of the works: that is to say, at the time when those engaged in the seasonal trades are busiest. Then, again, people who are temporarily unemployed will not offer themselves for employment on large scale works at a distance or where the work is of a nature to which they are not accustomed. When making every allowance for the fact that there are people engaged in this way who will have temporary spells of idleness and again are put into intermittent employment, there will still remain the hard core of people who are unemployed. How is that hard core constituted? It consists of all classes: the clerical worker, the professional man, the skilled tradesman and the unskilled labourer, all classes, all ages, all kinds, all trades, all grades, living in all parts of the country and enjoying all conditions of physique. We cannot take this heterogeneous body of men and regiment them and compel them each to do his allotted part in any large scale undertaking and, therefore, we have to consider how we are going to employ all these people on public works. The moment we begin to consider that new difficulties arise, because if the works are to have any effect on employment they must be in addition to, and not in substitution for, the existing work of the community. There is no use in putting a shoemaker to compete against existing shoemakers or market gardeners against market gardeners. Constructional works must be of a type that do not ordinarily come on the market and compete with the existing supply, and this brings us face to face with a problem of the immobility of labour in the Free State. This is one of the problems that those of us who are trying to formulate a scheme of public works, which will meet the requirements, I think, of those who moved the resolution, are going to be up against. That immobility exists both in relation to trades and to localities. As long as unemployment was regarded as a temporary problem it was natural to agree that an effort should be made to provide employment of a type suited to the trades of the unemployed in the localities where they existed. If we adopt a long term policy in regard to this matter, then I think that we shall have to be met in some way by those who are responsible for the organisation of labour in this country. They will have to recognise that modern methods of industry have rendered a number of trades obsolete, with the consequent addition of a number of people to the permanent ranks of the unemployed. Certain trade union restrictions as to apprenticeship, and the provision of similar types of work as between the various trades, increase cost, diminish efficiency, and are inconsistent with a national policy pledged to abolish unemployment. In a number of cases, for instance, the change in the condition and development of transport alone is tending to render certain urban areas superfluous, and unemployment is likely to be permanent there.
As an example of the immobility of labour I could cite the case of stone cutting. In the modern world, with the new methods of monolithic construction, stone cutting, except for decorative purposes, is tending to disappear completely. Normally, one would say that the people who have been engaged in that trade—masons and others—should be allowed to turn their hands to something else. One of the things which we should have to deal with when we are initiating a programme of large scale public works here will be what we are going to do with the skilled tradesman who has been thrown out of his job because constructional and manufacturing methods have changed since he was a boy. Are we going to employ him merely as an unskilled labourer, or are we going to give him a tradesman's wages and employ him at some other trade akin to that to which he was apprenticed, and in which the manual skill which he has acquired in his own trade would be capable of better utilisation than if he were condemned to labour in an unskilled capacity?
I am merely going over those matters to show that this problem of public relief works is not an easy one of solution. Of the works which have been suggested here, take for example, drainage works. We have heard a lot of talk about large scale arterial drainage schemes. The unfortunate fact about large scale arterial schemes is that their labour content is excessively small. I know of one scheme which has been under consideration, costing, I think, something over £90,000, and it would not give employment to 150 men for six months. Of course, it might be said, that, after all, that is the primary labour content; that even if only 150 men are directly employed in that job nevertheless a considerable additional number might be employed in making machinery, and so on, but the unfortunate fact is that the machinery which is utilised on those large scale arterial drainage schemes is all imported into this country and does not give any secondary employment at all. Drainage is a very special engineering problem in this country. We have a rather cup-shaped country which is difficult to drain. Possibly, because of this difficulty to drain, it has been a very fertile country, rich in herbage and all that, due to the moisture contained in the soil. If we start to drain this country in the same way as some other lands have been drained it may be that we will lose a great deal of pasture land which is valuable to-day, because it cannot be over-looked that undrained soil is a very efficient natural reservoir for moisture, and that possibly it has tided the farmer over many a dry spell.
The question of demolition has been raised. That seems to be one of the easiest jobs we could tackle. I have often heard it said: "Why not set all the unemployed men to pulling down the ruined buildings which disfigure most of our towns?" I think if you ask any person who has been on a local authority which has tackled that job he will tell you that it has turned out to be a most complicated business. It is only when you start to pull down one of those old shacks that you begin to find out the number of people who have claims and rights, and are determined to assert ownership of it. This question of carrying out widespread demolitions through the country would mean an amendment of the law, and would require a considerable amount of investigation before it could be undertaken as a large scale public work to be continually carried out as absorbing such unemployed as may offer themselves for it. Bog development was mentioned. We are giving the utmost attention to that matter from every point of view; first of all, to try to utilise this huge natural resource which is available to us, and which has hitherto been undeveloped; secondly, to provide relief for the areas where poverty is chronic; and, thirdly, to give a certain amount of relief to those who otherwise would be unemployed.
In regard to schools, we have considerably increased the grant for schools, but there again other difficulties arise. It is not easy to design schools for all the manifold situations in which they are placed in this country. The staff or architects in that regard is somewhat limited. The Board of Works is working at top pressure in regard to schools, but already, I think, more grants have been sanctioned than we are able to provide plans for. Water supply schemes and public health works generally have also received the attention of the Government. We have provided a special subhead in Minor Relief Schemes this year for that purpose. There again we are up against the fact that you cannot execute those works until proper plans have been prepared. The number of people who are competent to prepare such plans in this country, and I am afraid the number of people who in certain circumstances desire public health schemes, are somewhat limited.
May I say that I have read through all this debate, and the one thing that I would plead for in connection with suggestions for public health schemes is that we should have a little more imagination. Things have been suggested which are, in the main, being carried out. They are the sort of works to which every Government has had recourse more or less in the past. If we had the co-operation of civic minded individuals everywhere, who would look around to see what good might be done in their own localities, what useful things might be carried out there, and if they sent them along to the Secretary of the Committee of Public Works, they would be dealt with by that Committee in its general survey of the ground, and would possibly be placed in the programme which they will definitely formulate. Thanks to the Civic Guards and to others through the country a good deal has been done but, I am perfectly certain that all the desirable things that could be done will not be brought to the notice of the Commissioners. The Commissioners feel that. Within the next week an invitation will be extended to people everywhere to suggest schemes of useful work that might be carried out.
In connection with some remarks made by Deputy Morrissey, when talking about public works, I should like to emphasise that in all these matters there is one essential that has been sadly lacking during the last ten years; there was no serious and settled policy. From 1922 to 1932 the whole problem of unemployment was neglected. Its existence was, in fact, on occasions denied. Public relief works were carried on, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money spent, but the works on which the money was expended were inadequately planned and often as not quite useless. There was no systematic attack, no foresight, no prudence, no plan. In fact, I might say nobody wanted a plan. A plan would have been an encumbrance, as the money provided by the Dáil would have to be spent in accordance with such plan. Something permanent would have to be shown for the money, and it would have to be spent in the areas where the need was greatest, or where public works of some value were practicable. If the money was not spent in such areas then an account would have to be given as to the whereabouts of the spending and such an account was the last thing that Deputy Morrissey's friends wished to render. Any obligation of that nature had to be evaded at all costs, because these hundreds of thousands of pounds had not been spent in the areas where, from the economic point of view, the need was greatest or where the poverty was direst. The money was spent in these areas only where its purchasing power in terms of votes was greatest; not plans and not poverty determined the spending of the money. It is quite obvious that in such conditions there could be no planning and no coordination; nothing to secure any permanent benefit.
We are in a different position. We regard public moneys as a trust, and we are not going to use them to slush about. It would be quite impossible for us to provide forthwith all the money that would be required to absorb on public works all the unemployed. We have to take a choice. To maintain a man under the Unemployment Assistance Act would cost about £30, to employ a man on public works would cost £175 a year. If we take it that there are 50,000 or 60,000 people unemployed—taking 60,000 as a round figure, which I think is an excessive figure—the cost would be £1,800,000 under the Unemployment Assistance Act. It would require £10,000,000 annually to provide employment for those people under the other schemes. It is obvious, therefore, that we must be satisfied that we are going to get an economic return, a sociological return for the moneys we spend on public works. We are not going to rush into any widespread expenditure until we have a definite programme and a definite plan. We have set up a committee to consider that problem. It is working on it and some times holds meetings two or three times a week. It has assessed a mass of information about unemployment and poverty, and I have not the slightest doubt that from that Committee, on which there are engineers and experienced administrators, as well as people who know this country inside out, before next March we shall have a definitely formulated programme of public works, and when that programme is forthcoming, I have no doubt that we will be able to provide the moneys for it.
