The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in dealing with this matter on two occasions, went to a lot of trouble to defend the Government and to show that, so far as the high cost of living and the ability of the people to meet the existing situation were concerned, the Government was not responsible. The Minister is generally very interesting and he is a very good barometer as showing the way Fianna Fáil is feeling in regard to certain questions. Whenever you see the Minister taking up the aggressive attitude he took up on this motion, losing his temper and his voice about it, you may be perfectly sure that he has a bad case. These are his tactics. Notwithstanding all that, I am becoming more and more convinced that the Minister knows perfectly well that he and his Party are responsible for the present state of affairs. His bluff will be called some fine day, not by his opponents in this House but by the condition of things in the country, which neither he nor anybody else can ignore. There is no use in hedging this country around with tariffs, quotas, licences and duties and, at the same time, saying that all these things are not responsible in some degree for the high cost of living. No sane person would say that. It does not matter what pains the Minister takes to impress on the House that his tariffs, quotas, duties and licences are not responsible for the high cost of living, he will not get away with it.
I think it is very unfortunate for this country that Fianna Fáil, the Government at the moment, have lost sight of the main industry in its efforts to build up an industrial arm. There is no use whatever in endeavouring to build up an industrial arm unless you have a thriving main industry—in this country, a thriving agricultural industry. Everybody agrees on that. The Minister does not say that in the House, but whenever he goes out to open a factory, he always takes the opportunity of saying it. It is a great truth which nobody can get behind. We all pay a kind of lip-service to agriculture, but the unfortunate thing is that while the Government do that, they seem to forget it so far as legislative action is concerned and so far as any thought for putting agriculture in a position in which it will be able to meet the demands made upon it by duties, quotas, tariffs and everything else is concerned.
It is very unfortunate also that in this country we have at present a system of tariffs, or a tariff policy, which is not at all the result of legislative action, but is the result of Executive action. There was an Act passed here which gave the Government certain authority in respect of those matters, gave them the right to put on tariffs for certain periods and to bring them before the House afterwards for approval. If one takes up to-day a list of the articles tariffed and tries to pick out the articles tariffed by legislative action as distinct from Executive action, one would be amazed that this House at any time handed over to the Executive the right to tax in the way in which it has. We all admit that the Government have a responsibility towards industrialists in this country, as Governments have in others, and it would be no use trying to build up industry in this country if our markets were to be flooded with the products of cheap world labour; but in endeavouring to build up that side, the Government has apparently forgotten the other side altogether. I think, however, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, if he gets a chance to mend his hand, will do so. I do not know that he will get the chance, though.
In volume 69, No. 4, at column 544, the Minister makes two statements which, I am sure, will be read with astonishment by many of his supporters in this country. This, mind you, is the Minister who has gone out on a policy of self-sufficiency and has hedged this country round with tariffs, quotas and licences in order to achieve that self-sufficiency. Speaking on this motion, he says:—
"The standard of living of our community would be increased if the national income were increased."
Further down, he says:—
"The national income will be raised when we get higher prices for our exports."
These are two astonishing statements from the Minister. They do not bear out his anxiety for a policy of self-sufficiency in this country, but in that the Minister is simply bearing witness to the truths which have been recognised in every country in the world. I want to quote from the speech of an Australian gentleman, quite recently, in the Commonwealth Parliament in Australia. Speaking on agriculture, the Minister, the Hon. Sir Henry Gullett, said:—
"Failure to expand the overseas demand for their goods must mean restriction to the present volume of production, which in turn, unless the home consumption market was to be glutted and prices broken, must mean the abrupt cessation, of all scientific advancement in every branch of agriculture."
There is not much difference between the two statements. In fact, there is none, except that he simply mentioned agriculture, while the Minister for Industry and Commerce was dealing with exports which, in the main, represent agriculture, so far as we are concerned. The Minister should act upon the principles he enunciated there, that the standard of living will be increased when our national income is increased, and if he goes back to the Statistical Abstract which he recommended to us and to the Irish Trade Journal which he also recommended, and gather from them what were the chances of an increase in national income, what were the chances of an increase in our export trade, he will not find much hope or much encouragement in either of them. The extraordinary thing is that the Minister stands up here and plays a game of bluff. He suggested that Deputies opposite should read the volumes which his Department publishes. I am going to read one of them. In the light of what the Minister said about our national income being increased if we increased our export trade, it makes very doleful reading. On page 198 of the Irish Trade Journal for September, we have the Saorstát crops and live stock returns of 1937, and the extraordinary thing about it is that notwithstanding the fact that the Minister apparently believes what he said in that statement, he has no regard whatever for the facts which are published by his own Department. He always goes out of his way to say that notwithstanding everything else, this country is flourishing.
This is not, I must say, a complete return; it is a partial return from the Department. As far as it goes, it discloses that tillage has dropped by 19,000 acres, milch cows by 38,000, cattle of all kinds by 50,000, pigs by 60,000, sheep by 73,200, and poultry by 916,000. These are not my figures. They were published by the Department of Industry and Commerce. The Government have gone out on a supposedly tillage policy. If these figures are any way correct; that policy is not a success. What we must aim at, no matter to what Party we belong, because we have all to live in this country, is the ability of the people to pay their way. As far as I am concerned, I do not want to gain any political or party kndos in this matter. Let us deal with the figures as we find them. If the Minister says that these figures are to be relied upon, let us judge them accordingly and, to some extent, be guided by them.