Last evening there was some remark made from this side of the House about the quality of the handles in hay-forks and the quality of shovels. There seemed to be such doubt cast upon those statements from the other side of the House that I thought I would just let the House know what was my experience of an Irish spade. Some months ago I bought an Irish spade and used it for the purpose for which it was designed. It was not very long before I noticed the laminations in the spake parting company and presently a bit came off. A little bit later on the handle broke. I brought the handle in with me. Here is the handle [produced].
Committee on Finance. - Vote 57—Industry and Commerce (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be reduced by £100 in respect of item A.— (Deputies Pattison and Davin.)
A dangerous weapon.
It is, but it would be more dangerous if it were a better quality. What I would like to point out to the Minister are some of the consequences that flow from matters such as that. I think I paid 5/6 for the shovel and I inquired what a new one would cost and what an English one would cost. I was informed that an English one would cost considerably more and, accordingly, I purchased another Irish spade. At the time I asked did any people purchase English spades at the considerably higher price and I was told yes, that a certain percentage definitely paid a much higher price on quality.
I do not bring this matter to the notice of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to ask him to inquire personally into the spade that I had such an unfortunate experience with, but I would like to point out to him some of the things that flow from that. Apparently that particular handle is what they call hedge-grown; the grain is not as straight as it should be. I understand that Irish spades are hand-forged and that the English spades are machine-forged. I am not going to say, for one moment, that the manufacturers of the Irish spades are not doing their very best, but the ultimate test as to whether Irish spades or English spades are going to be used in this country rests with the consumer. The consumer can pay a greatly increased price, and will do so if he thinks he is getting value for it.
A lot of praise was given to the Minister's Department for the way they are conducting affairs at the present time. If I could not go quite so far as some of the speakers, I certainly am not prepared to throw any stones at the Minister's Department. I think they are endeavouring to discharge a very difficult task to the limit of their ability, but there must come a stage at which the Department must say: "Now, we cannot continue to give this preference," or "This preference is not worth while owing to the cost to the consumer." I think, not at all considering the spade in question any further than as an illustration of what I mean, that it behoves the Minister and the Department to give some idea to the consuming public at what point they would abandon protecting an Irish industry which, although they might be doing the best according to their lights, were really not giving value, considered in the light of the fact that the people who work with the spades have also to get a return for their labour. That brings one to another point.
On a point of information, could we find out from the Deputy what factory he is referring to?
It would be much wiser not to name the factory.
Mr. Brennan
Deputy Dockrell is talking generally.
I entirely agree with the ruling, or the advice, of the Chair, whichever it is.
Mr. Brodrick
They are all in the same boat.
On a point of explanation——
If the Deputy in possession agrees to give way, Deputy Tubridy may intervene, but not otherwise.
I do not object to the Deputy asking questions.
We have a factory.
What do you mean by "we"?
In my constituency in Galway.
Where is the factory?
We would like to know is it a fact that a complaint has been made that the produce of that factory is not satisfactory?
That is quite a different question. Deputy Dockrell has not mentioned any factory.
The Deputy might answer that.
I do not propose to answer it. I have said that I do not wish the Minister, in replying to me, to take my remarks as a personal attack on spades in general or on factories in particular. I merely wished him to state for the benefit of the consuming public where the borderline was crossed in which he thought that the consuming public were not getting a square deal. When I say a square deal, I do not mean by that that the factory is defrauding them, or anything like that. All the circumstances taken into account, the people over here may have to work by hand when their competitors are working by machinery, and I merely wanted to know how far the game was worth the candle. That is one phase.
The Deputy wants to shovel them out of existence.
It is a spade I am talking about, not a shovel.
Mr. Brennan
If they are not giving value it would be a very good job to shovel them out.
I do not want them to dig themselves in on the good nature of the Minister and his Department.
Mr. Brennan
Well said.
You want to go four spades on a two spade hand.
I think I have the ace of spades.
Deputy Dockrell must be allowed to handle his speech in his own way.
There is another matter I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister, and it is merely a type also. The Minister's Department, when asked for a licence or permit or something like that, usually says: "Apply to the people who manufacture those goods." In some cases, of course, it is absolutely in their line. They reply and the goods are imported duty free. But there is a borderline case where a manufacturer considers that the goods which he offers ought to be used. The person who wants to use them may find some difficulty in using those goods. He points out to the officials of the Department the diference that exists. I have heard it said that one harassed official replied to a person: "Well, I know one of you is lying, but I do not know which." He did not know whether it was the applicant or the manufacturer. Be that as it may, I am afraid that sometimes shelter is taken behind the point: "Well, goods are manufactured in this country and these on the face of it appear somewhat similar." You have not got a letter from the people who purport to manufacture those goods, and you must pay the duty. I am afraid in a lot of cases the duty is paid and that is only raising the cost of living on a number of people here.
Another matter that I wish to bring to the Minister's notice is this — and it is something on all-fours with the other two points — what is a reasonable time during the busy season for an Irish manufacturer to be behind in his delivery of stock? Would, for instance, the Minister consider that three months was a reasonable time in the case of an article or a pattern that was in general request? What would be the procedure or remedy for a thing such as that?
There is one other point that I wish to raise because I am sure the Minister's Department must be plagued with it and it is this: There are a number of articles which are not manufactured in this country. It would take time and money to set about engaging in the manufacture of these articles. Yet permits have to be got for every single consignment of those goods. I would like to read out to the Minister the procedure for one single transaction such as I have mentioned. In order to get a licence an invoice must be obtained from the manufacturer. That takes two or three days. This invoice has to be submitted to the local manufacturer who will give a letter stating that he cannot supply. This means another couple of days' delay. This letter and invoice have then to be sent to the Department of Industry and Commerce. After three or four days we get a letter stating that they have instructed the Revenue Commissioners to send us a licence. We get this licence after a further three or four days. We then have to submit the licence to the shipping company who will hand it to the customs officers, who will release the goods after three or four days. At least 14 days' delay occurs in all these transactions, and, if there is the slightest hitch or anything like that, double that time may elapse. I would like to ask the Minister what is the sense of having these items which are not made in this country subjected to this procedure? The cost of the Minister's Department has risen. He does not answer these letters for nothing. They have to be looked into by responsible officials. The same applies to the members of the mercantile community. They have to employ clerks and typists to deal with and send out these letters and carefully file the replies.
I have mentioned four types of cases that I would like to bring to the Minister's notice. In the last case we can do nothing; in the other cases I would like if he would say how far he realises what is happening? In the old days when goods came in here without duty the public either took the goods of Irish manufacture or of English manufacture according to their individual ideas. Now that the Minister has stepped in and there is only the Minister's Department between the general public and the question whether those goods are to be allowed in or what goods are to be used, I would like to urge on the Minister that in the last resort the final decision rests with the public.
The French have a proverb that you have to be cruel to be kind. I would like to suggest to the Minister that in some cases if he were cruel, nominally, he might save it in the goodwill towards Irish manufactured goods. I say that because in the last resort the goodwill and purchasing power for Irish industries rests on the services and the prices and delivery that is obtained from the manufacturer. I do not want to increase the Minister's difficulties because this is a very complicated and difficult subject, but at the same time no service would be done to Irish industries by concealing the fact that there is a very difficult situation which requires to be very carefully and delicately handled.
I wish to intervene in this debate for the purpose of trying to elicit some information in regard to certain industries in the area which I represent — Cork. I have already spoken with regard to the closing down of a mill at Sallybrook, Glanmire, County Cork. This mill has been in operation for generations — close on 100 years. In March, 1937, the proprietors gave notice that the mill was to be closed down. The local people intervened and tried to persuade the directors to carry on that mill. It had competed successfully for generations and there were between 70 and 80 people employed in it. It was the second last remaining little rural industry in that locality. There had been at one time as many as 10 or 12 of these little rural industries in this particular area and at present there is only one.
This mill, however, was threatened to be closed down in March, 1937.
The local people summoned the representatives of the constituency without distinction of Party and a deputation was appointed to interview the proprietor, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, and find out what exactly was the cause of closing down the mill. Mr. O'Shaughnessy refused to meet this deputation on which were representatives of the constituency. The mill struggled on until just after the General Election of 1937. The attention of the Minister was called to the fact that the mill was about to be closed down. Even the Taoiseach was made acquainted with the facts by myself. But despite everything that could be done, the mill has definitely closed down and these people have been thrown out of employment. My opinion is — and I think it is correct— that a number of them have gone across to England to find work there; I think about six have been employed in another mill at Dripsey which Mr. O'Shaughnessy also runs. Now that building at Glanmire is idle at the moment. It probably will be pulled down, as another building which housed the starch factory in the neighbourhood was pulled down and dismantled. It is a very fine structure. The reason why I refer to this matter is that while it is the policy of the Department of Industry and Commerce to help to get industries going in each locality, I think there is a greater necessity for trying to keep going industries that already exist in localities, especially in rural districts.
I referred to the Sallybrook mill. I do not know if there is any possibility of that being utilised in the very near future for carrying on that industry, but it is a fact that it made a profit over a number of years, even without the help of tariffs. It manufactured a type of blanket which found a ready sale, not alone in this country, but across in Great Britain. We have in Douglas, near the City of Cork, a woollen industry, and I should like to know from the Minister what exactly is the position with regard to that industry. Rumour has it, just as in the case of Sallybrook, that there is a danger of that industry also going, and various reasons have been put forward why that rumour is correct. I should like the Minister to inquire into the position there, and see if it can be remedied so that that industry will not also go in the same way as the one in Sallybrook went. They had been on short time, or half-time, for some weeks previous to the general election, but with the general election the work started there and it is going on in some fashion. There are two mills in Douglas, O'Brien's and Morrogh's, and both have been on very slack, or short time, for some months. I want to draw the Minister's attention particularly to that industry, because if it is allowed to carry on as it is the danger is that these mills after some time will also go the way of the Sallybrook mill.
Another matter to which I should like to refer is the question of the unemployment in Passage West. Some few years ago Passage West was promised a tannery. The industry of tanning was to be set up there, and certain preparations were made. Unfortunately, however, that did not materialise. At one time Passage West was a very busy place. It was a hive of industry. There was a dock there, and as a result of the numbers of skilled men in employment there in former times, I think that Passage West now ranks as one of the places where you have more skilled men unemployed than any other place of its size in this country. Now, if anything is going to be done with regard to the establishment of industries suitable to the position, I think Passage West should be taken into account. It is on the riverside, the numbers of unemployed there are very large, and the position of the town as a result of unemployment is very bad. Some time ago — early this year — there was an inquiry into the condition of affairs of the urban council, the state of the rate collection, and so on. I think that a good deal of that condition there, with regard to rates and so on, was due to the fact that unemployment is so rampant in that locality. I especially mention that to the Minister in the hope that something may be done other than these rotational schemes that we have in operation around that district, but which do not give the kind of employment which is desirable in that locality.
On the other side of the river from Passage there is another dock, Rushbrooke, which had been in operation within the past two years. It was taken over by Mr. MacLysaght, of Mallow, with the intention of starting an industry there, something akin to the one that is being started in Haulbowline. For various reasons, the industry was not allowed to proceed in Rushbrooke. Mr. MacLysaght had made arrangements to sell the fittings of the dock, and to dismantle it in order to recompense himself in some way for his investment there, but just after the general election last year there was a meeting held of the people of the locality, in Cobh, and representations were made to Mr. MacLysaght not to take away the essential parts of the machinery which could be utilised if there were ever to be a dock there again. With very commendable public spirit, Mr. MacLysaght agreed, and the essential machinery is still in the dock. Now, it may be that there are other places in view with regard to this suggested scheme of defence, but if there is to be some scheme of defence, or other activities in connection with defence, in that area, I suggest that that dock could be utilised for the purpose for which it was intended, namely, for the repair, and in some fashion, the building of ships.
I have mentioned those places, Sir, where an industry had been and where an industry, without very much expense, could be restarted now. I wish especially to mention the wool industry in Douglas, and I hope the Minister will make inquiries into the position of the wool industry in the district. There are the Douglas, Blarney and Dripsey mills, and of the three mills I think Douglas seems to be in a very parlous condition. The position in Blarney was not very good for some time. It may be due to the fact that there was a certain amount of uneasiness about these negotiations with Britain, but now that these have been concluded, I think it would be no harm if the whole question of the woollen industry in that area were inquired into. I understand that we do not produce in this country anything like near the requirements of our population in woollen goods, and if such is the case there is no reason why those mills should not be going on full time. I think that these are the points I wish to make in connection with this debate, but I wish to ask the Minister very seriously to look into these things and see whether or not something can be done to remedy the position, especially with regard to Passage West and the unemployment there. As I have said, I raised this matter several times, but nothing seems to be done and the town seems to be left to its own resources, which are nil, and which give to the town a most deserted and dispirited outlook. That promise of a tannery, which did not materialise, probably caused an amount of despair and heartburning that made the people feel that nothing could be done for them. Now that we have the promise of so many new industries to be started, I hope that this place will not be forgotten. That is all I have to say and I put it forward in that spirit that the Minister will see if anything can be done for the places I have mentioned.
I intervene in this debate, Sir, solely because Sallybrook mill has been mentioned and also Mr. O'Shaughnessy's name. The Deputy who has just spoken, Deputy Hurley, spoke about the attempts that were made to keep the factory open. I can say fairly definitely from my conversations with Mr. O'Shaughnessy, and also from some particulars which I received from a gentleman who has since got a very big appointment in another firm, that the factory was closed down by reason of the unreasonable behaviour of some of the employees, and also the interfering busy-body method of a trade union. In small country industries you cannot have the same regularity about everything that there is in big industries in the city. In the circumstances, there was unreasonable behaviour on the part of the employees. The trade union, instead of making an effort to get the employees to pay some attention to the representations made by the management, took the other step. They went back on that, after giving the employees certain definite instructions. Mr. O'Shaughnessy himself stated — I will use his own expressive words —"You know, nobody can do anything with such tavern methods."
When the Minister is replying I should be glad if he would give a little more information than is obtainable from the Estimate on the question of the Industrial Research Council. As far as I can gather from the Vote here, it does not itself carry out any research, because there is no technician mentioned on the salary scale. Apparently it carries out its work entirely through other bodies. I should like to know what type of matter has been dealt with by the council. I should also like to know whether it has any liaison with the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research of the Privy Council. That body controls a vast number of research associations in Great Britain, and I am perfectly sure that there is valuable information to be got from that body, and that they would be quite willing to give it.
I should also like to refer to another point which I think is proper to this Vote, and that is the question of trolley buses. I am sorry that the Minister did not use whatever power he may have to get the trams in Dublin replaced by trolley buses rather than by petrol buses. He may say he has no power to do it, but I say that a conference between himself and the Minister for Finance and the tramway company on the question of remission of wayleaves would very quickly have made the matter attractive to the tramway company so that they would have provided trolley buses rather than motor buses, thereby using home-produced fuel, and supplying a much more rapid as well as a quieter form of locomotion. However, I am afraid it is too late now; the die has been cast. I suppose no section of the Minister's Department has received more praise than the statistical branch, and I think that praise is probably very well deserved. The only question I should like to ask is whether it would be possible to increase the speed with which the summary of figures from the census of industrial production is made available. We got the 1936 figures only some time this year. I do not know whether it is possible to make them available with any greater promptitude.
I should like also to refer to another matter which has been touched on by one or two speakers, and that is the fact that there seems to be a feeling amongst a lot of people that industry only started when Fianna Fáil came into power. Very many of us are connected with businesses which have been in existence for 50 or 100 years. Unfortunately, in most cases the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government has not been an encouragement to those businesses, but has rather inflicted disabilities on them. I should like the Minister to consider — possibly he does; I do not know — the ramifications of the various duties which are imposed, as affecting existing businesses which have given considerable employment, and given it without having to be nursed by any Government.
There is one point to which I should like to refer, and that is the working of the Road Transport Act. We have received numerous complaints in regard to the system now operating, and I would make a special request to the Minister to review the whole position so far as the operations of that Act are concerned. The principle of the Act and the underlying motives were excellent in so far as the railway companies and the transport services generally were concerned, but the main principle has been defeated. The private owners, and the lorry owners in particular, set out to evade their responsibilities, and through a very clever arrangement, were able to change from being private owners, people entitled to compensation under the Bill, and whose lorries were debarred from competing against the railway companies and so on. They came along at a later stage and advertised themselves as being entitled to act as distributors. I understand that in that way they were able to evade their responsibilities under the Road Transport Act. Consequently, they have become a menace to the railway company in particular and to traders all over the country. The position as we find it in Kerry is one that calls for immediate attention. It will eventually be a question as to whether the Department will come in and save an industry which caters for thousands of workers, as against a system which is being abused by a few people here and there throughout the country. As I have said, the position certainly demands immediate attention.
There is one other point to which I want to refer — I have already referred to it on the Estimate for the Department of Fisheries — and that is the question of part-time fishermen being entitled to unemployment assistance. Time and again in past years we had occasion to draw the Minister's attention to the question of men working one day per week or one hour per day being debarred from obtaining unemployment assistance. In Cahirciveen and along the southern coast those men are employed for perhaps an hour per day or three hours per week. The employment officer arrives there at 7 o'clock or 8 o'clock in the morning to try to make a case against those unfortunate workers. I should like to ask the Minister if those employment officers from the labour exchanges are intended to act as detectives? Are they to go down there and query each fisherman as to whether he intends seeking work or whether he has been offered employment. That is the position in that part of the country, and certainly it is one that should be investigated. I make those points simply because they are urgent in so far as our area is concerned. I think it will be for the benefit of the people as a whole and of the workers in those areas if those matters are considered.
I am glad that Deputy Flynn has drawn attention to the question of evasion of the Road Transport Act. I do not think the Minister can be too frequently informed of the seriousness of the situation which has developed from those evasions. As Deputy Flynn pointed out, the Act was introduced for the purpose of saving from destruction one of our biggest industries, and preserving to the State a most important service. A decent attempt was made to give effect to that legislation, but unfortunately flaws have been found in it, and, as Deputy Flynn pointed out, its good intentions are being nullified to a very serious extent. At the moment, the position of the railways is becoming very precarious. If something is not done immediately, the employment of railwaymen will be seriously endangered. The legislation passed here is being rendered ineffective, to a very serious extent, by the road pirates who are using the money they got both from the railway companies and the Government to do that. Unless further remedial legislation is introduced, the position will become very serious indeed. I am sure the Minister must have had representations made to him about the matter. I thought it advisable to avail of this occasion to call his attention to the serious position that exists, and to urge on him that it ought to be dealt with with the least possible delay. The seriousness of the position is causing alarm in the country, because, if something is not done immediately, there may be a very grave collapse in our whole railway system. There is at the moment what amounts to an almost complete evasion of the provisions of the 1933 Act, and that is being done by people who got very big compensation from the railway companies. As I have said, the railway industry is threatened with very serious danger, and it is of the utmost importance that something should be done at once.
There is another important matter that I want to deal with, and that is the position of labour exchange staffs. I am aware that after a good deal of agitation an effort has been made to end the temporary nature of the employment of labour exchange staffs, and to give them some kind of permanency on passing a qualifying examination. I understand that an examination is to be held this year and that the number of vacancies to be filled is to be "not less than 20." At the present time the offices have become almost denuded of staffs because it is the custom at this period of the year, when an Employment Period Order is put into operation, to reduce the staffs to the lowest point possible. That position is likely to continue until October when the order ceases to operate. The complaint that I want to make is that the present staffs are altogether inadequate to deal with the claims made for unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit. The position becomes really acute when the list of unemployed persons is fictitiously reduced by the simple process of an Employment Period Order because then the staffs are almost completely automatically wiped out. Abundant evidence can be produced to show that there is not sufficient staff to give attention to the claims made by unemployed persons for unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit. I am anxious to know what the intentions of the Minister are on this matter and what the position is likely to be at the end of the Employment Period Order. If all the temporaries are to be wiped out, what is the position going to be in view of the fact that "not less than 20" vacancies are advertised to be filled? Surely, that number will not be sufficient to replace the temporaries who are being dispensed with. I want to put it to him that adequate staff, temporary or permanent, ought to be employed to give to the claims of unemployed persons in the country the attention that they deserve.
Under the Employment Period Order the unemployed are getting a raw deal. I do not want to go into that matter now because there is a motion on the Order Paper dealing with it. Before the order was put into operation the staffs employed were no more than sufficient to deal with the work in the offices, but when it was made the staffs were cleared out, and, unless some declaration is given to the contrary, there is no indication that they are likely to be re-employed even after October when the order ceases to have effect. What I am anxious to know from the Minister is what are his in tentions with regard to the temporaries who have been dispensed with. Are we to take it that only the 20 vacancies that I have referred to are to be filled or what is the position going to be? It will be a very serious matter if the employment exchanges are to be expected to carry on the heavy work they have to do with depleted staffs, thereby causing additional hardship to unemployed persons.
Mr. Brennan
The question raised by Deputy Dockrell is a very big question. In fact it is a bigger question than the Deputy actually represented it to be— the production in this country of an inferior type of article that enjoys very high protection. The Minister some time ago introduced a Bill setting up a new Prices Commission. It was heralded at the time by the Government Party as a safeguard for purchasers in this country. At the time we were not very much enamoured of it. We felt that even if there was an examination with regard to prices, there was no machinery being provided to test the value of the articles produced. I entirely agree with the remarks that were made by Deputy Dockrell, namely, that the agricultural implements that are being produced here are, for some reason or other, very inferior. I could produce not broken handles but broken heads of graips, forks and spades — very inferior stuff indeed. There is no machinery provided to see that the people get value in what they buy. The Prices Commission was set up with a great blow of trumpets. It was said that it would be a great safeguard for purchasers. People thought that, at least, there would be an examination as to price, and that we would see results from the work of that Commission. I am afraid that the results so far are not encouraging.
We now find that the Prices Commission is to be diverted from its original intention, as explained to this House, namely, to safeguard the purchasers of this country. The commission is now being put on to another work — to safeguard, to some extent, British manufacturers under the late Agreement. I understand that certain representations have been already made to the Government here by British manufacturers or their agents to have certain matters considered, so that under the terms of the recent Agreement they may have a full opportunity of reasonable competition in this country. I am told that the Prices Commission must take up these matters straight away. I believe it is the feeling of the Government that this work will occupy all the time of the Prices Commission, and that it will take them a long time to overtake it. If that is true, and I believe it is true, what prospects can there be of the Prices Commission safeguarding the purchasing public here with regard to the goods produced? There is no doubt whatever but that the remarks made by Deputy Dockrell are right. Inferior articles are being produced, and at a very high price. Everyone in the country, no matter what side he is on, wants to use and support the Irish article if he can get it, but we are entitled to a good article and ought to get it. In the case of agricultural implements we certainly are not getting it.
There was another matter raised last evening by Deputy Gorey which brings us back to the industrial policy of the Government and the security that it looks for, or ought to look for, when State moneys are advanced. If the allegations made by Deputy Gorey are correct, and I believe he can stand over them with documentary evidence, that transaction in relation to the Carrick-on-Suir slate quarries was tantamount to fraud.
What part of it?
Mr. Brennan
Perhaps the Minister has not seen the documents. They will be given for the Minister and for the House to see.
The Deputy has used the word "fraud."
Mr. Brennan
In connection with what?
The Carrick-on-Suir slate quarries. That went on for ten years. I am asking what part of it. The Deputy is accusing the slate quarries.
Mr. Brennan
I am not accusing anybody. I am saying that if the allegations made by Deputy Gorey are true, and he is prepared to substantiate them by documentary evidence, it is tantamount to fraud.
What fraud? Who committed the fraud?
Mr. Brennan
The Minister will get an opportunity of appearing in the whole matter and the documents will be produced. We shall see what steps the Minister is taking to safeguard the moneys of this State. In this instance, certain moneys were given by way of loan and certain moneys by way of grant. We want to know what happened to that. We are entitled to know that and the Minister and every other Deputy will get an opportunity of examining the matter from the way we are going to put it.
The Deputy will not be able to avoid having that done.
Mr. Brennan
That is what we want. We do not want the Minister to be able to avoid it. We want to put the Minister in a position in which he cannot avoid it. If this State is going to lend money, and give money by way of grant, for the setting up of industries, there should be some examination of these matters both before and after the giving of the money. It is not good enough for somebody to say that he believes the project is a good one when, inside two years, from £5,000 to £10,000 of State money is lost and the whole concern goes bankrupt. There ought to be some examination, even then, to see if fraud has been committed. We want that matter cleared up. We want to know if any advances are being made on similar lines to other undertakings and what guarantee there is for the people in the use of their money in that particular way. I hope that, when the matter comes before the House and an examination of it takes place, the Minister will stand up to his responsibilities. Of course, he will have to do so, but we want to give him the opportunity, and we shall do so.
When I was speaking a few moments ago, I am told that I referred to "demands" of the trade unions. I should have said "attitude" instead of "demands."
This Estimate is, in many respects, the most important Estimate on which the House is asked to pass judgment because it refers to a wide field of national and economic endeavour such as affects the lives and livelihood of large sections of our people. It is right, therefore, that the Estimate should be examined critically and with a desire to indicate to the Government the weaknesses which reveal themselves and the opportunity which presents itself to apply renewed energy and greater enthusiasm to the task of repairing the economic ravages which are visible to all of us to-day. I should like to ask the Minister what his intention is in respect of the application to other grades of workers than industrial and shop workers of the legislative code intended to regulate the hours of work in industry, to provide holidays with pay and to impose other restrictions on the conditions under which industrial workers and shop assistants at present toil. Is it the Minister's intention to extend these codes to the transport services, to offices and to commerce? What is the general plan for removing the difficulty which reveals itself when you remember that certain types of workers are covered by that legislation while other workers are completely ignored? We had from the Minister the statement some time ago that it was his intention to introduce legislation for the purpose of securing to all workers the right to holidays with pay——
Legislation may not be advocated on Estimates.
I am not advocating legislation. I am asking the Minister what he intends to do in connection with the statement he made that legislation would he introduced. Can the Minister, at this stage, give the House more definite information than he gave at that time?
The Minister would not be in order in doing so.
I understand you to rule that it is not in order for me, on the Minister's Estimate, to ask whether he can supplement the statement he previously made that legislation would be introduced in connection with this matter?
The Deputy need not paraphrase the Chair's ruling. Legislation may not be discussed, as such, nor may it be advocated in a debate on the Estimates. That ruling requires no paraphrase.
I submit that I have not advocated legislation. I have asked the Minister what he intends to do to bring about a position of equality as between worker and worker.
If that is not advocacy of legislation by the Deputy, I am much mistaken.
If you rule that it is out of order, I shall pass from it, but I submit it is a rather rigid ruling on a matter of this kind, when I am merely asking the Minister to give the House more definite information than he gave on a previous occasion.
The Deputy has now repeated the request for legislation.
I want to know if the Minister intends to do anything in connection with the transport service in the City of Dublin for which he is responsible under existing legislation, and for which he has a special responsibility as Minister for Industry and Commerce. We used to be told, at one time, that it was the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party to nationalise the railways, and to municipalise the city transport service. We have had no evidence, so far, of a policy to nationalise the railways or to municipalise the city transport service. There is widespread complaint in Dublin in regard to the inadequate transport service. The Press contains letters almost every day from citizens who complain that they are seriously inconvenienced by the inadequacy of the service. Recently, a demand was made on the Minister by the Dublin Corporation to exercise his power and call a conference to discuss this whole question of inadequate transport services in the city. The Minister has not seen fit to do that. He takes the view that everything is all right in regard to the municipal transport service. Everybody who has to use these services knows that they are far from being right, that they are all wrong in many respects, and that they are less adequate than the services which people enjoyed five or six years ago. On top of that, the transport service to-day is much more costly than it was five or six years ago. There has been a very substantial increase in the bus and tram fares. That increase has not been imposed as a result of any impartial examination of the claim for increase by the tramways company before a body of persons who have some interest in maintaining an efficient and less expensive mode of conveyance than exists to-day. The Minister is quite prepared to allow the present unsatisfactory service to continue and, apparently, he does not propose to do anything in connection with the frequent rises in transport charges in the city. It is not merely a case of one increase. There have been a number of increases, and a number of hidden increases, by means of a scheme of shortening the stages, and consequently increasing the charge for a long-distance run.
There was also a very long strike and a very substantial increase in the rates of wages paid.
Is that the Minister's justification for it?
I do not say that it is a justification, but it is at least an explanation.
What is the case for refusing an impartial examination of the whole position of transportation charges and inadequate transport services in the city? The Dublin Corporation is being forced, as part of its housing scheme, to purchase virgin sites on the outskirts of the city, and workers are being asked to move from their present insanitary accommodation into the new houses being erected by the corporation there. No sooner have they taken up residence in their new houses, for which they are probably paying a higher rent, for, I admit, very much better accommodation, than they find transportation charges over these routes substantially increased. These increases, coupled with the increase in rent and the heavy obligations which fall on them in endeavouring to equip their new homes, mean a greatly increased tax on the workers. The enterprise and energy of the corporation in providing virgin housing sites is being availed of by our city transport company to increase fares and thus impose a very heavy tax on those who live in these areas. Is there nothing to be done by the Department to prevent workers so circumstanced from being held up to ransom by a private transport company which has apparently no responsibility to the citizens and into whose activities the Minister is apparently not prepared to direct a searching inquiry?
I think the people who are living in these housing areas ought to know, before they move out to them, what they are likely to be committed to in respect of transportation charges. It is obviously unfair that people who move out to Kimmage, Crumlin or Drimnagh should, shortly afterwards, find that transportation charges are increased and no guarantee that there will not be further substantial increases. It is just another way of reducing their income. The Minister ought to tell us whether he has any proposals for dealing with that situation and what he intends to do to ensure that the citizens will not be held up to ransom as they have been held up, during the past few years, in particular.
This, Sir, is a suitable opportunity for reviewing the policy of the Government in respect of unemployment. We used to be told that the Government had a plan which would solve the unemployment problem, and some people were so entranced by that plan that they even visualised the possibility that we might not be able to get all the unemployed workers who would be necessary and that it might be necessary to send to America for the emigrants. The Minister apparently believed in that condition of affairs in 1931, because during a by-election in the constituency of Kildare in that year, he declared, at Monasterevan:—
"There is no reason why there should be any unemployment in the Twenty-Six Counties."
There was no reason in 1931 why there should be any unemployment in the Twenty-Six Counties, but, in 1938, before the two recent Employment Period Orders were made operative, we had approximately 100,000 unemployed, that is, seven years after that hopeful prophecy was expressed. That kind of statement by the Minister is an indication of the enthusiasm with which the Government believed it would be possible to cure unemployment and their optimism is symbolised in that flamboyant statement, which is typical of a number of other statements.
Since 1932, we have seen efforts by the Government to deal with the unemployment problem by means of the development of home industries and we have seen efforts made by the imposition of tariffs, quotas and restrictions to assist in the building up of native industries here. I concede at once, and I say it again now, even though I am sure I shall be misrepresented by the Minister when he is replying, or when he is speaking elsewhere, that I believe it is essential that we should protect our industries against foreign dumping because in this country, with its small population and its lack of a well-rooted industrial tradition, it is obvious to anybody who takes any time to study the matter that we cannot establish industries and compete in the open market with the products of industries in countries which have a long industrial tradition, which have reached a high degree of mechanisation, which have enormous capital resources and which have the ability to produce for a large market. In circumstances such as these and surrounded by competitors of that kind, one would be foolish to imagine that one could develop industries here without the imposition of tariffs, quotas and other restrictions necessary to protect the home market. While I say that the imposition of tariffs and resort to quotas and restrictions are necessary as part of a scheme of development, my complaint is that the Government's policy in respect of these items takes the form merely of imposing a tariff, or applying a quota or restriction, and not effectively supervising development and production in the industry which it is sought to protect.
A very obvious feature of the Government's policy is that they merely impose a tariff to assist an industry and wait to see what will happen. There is no effective State supervision in the meantime and no effective inquiry as to the degree of progress being made by the factory which it is sought to help. Apparently the factory can carry on supplying 20 per cent., 30 per cent., 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. of the home market requirements and no effective steps are taken by the Department to ensure that that factory is equipped and organised to supply the entire requirements of the home market at the earliest possible moment. There seems to be a complete absence of any plan of supervision, or any plan to stimulate development, in relation to some of these new industries. The proof of that is to be found in the fact that there is still an enormous amount of imports coming into the country for which the consumer here is paying, because our home factories are not capable of supplying the entire home demand, and when you impose a tax —let us face it frankly—on foreign goods, it is the consumer, and not the exporter, of these goods who pays the tax. It may be necessary that the consumer should pay that tax for a while because of the difficulty of devising some machinery by which he can be exempted from doing so, but commonsense surely demands that if the consumers' need, nationally expressed, cannot be satisfied from home production, steps should be taken to accelerate home production and to insist that factories which have been established here with the benefit of tariffs and quotas should at the earliest possible moment equip themselves to supply the entire home market.
That type of supervision, however, does not apparently find any place in the outlook of the Department or of the Minister in respect of these new industries. I know that many of them which are supplying 40 per cent of the requirements of the home market, and have been doing so for years, show little evidence that they will ever supply 100 per cent. of those requirements, even in respect of standard commodities in which there is no great variation and in respect of which the home product could be made as good as the imported product. I think a considerable portion of the Minister's efforts in respect of the development of industries is being wasted and thwarted by the slothfulness of some of the new industrialists to take advantage of the very considerable assistance they have got in the form of tariffs and quotas. They seem to be prepared to jog along in the present position, not realising that in respect of these industries, not merely in law have they a degree of responsibility, but that they are also trustees for the people in the matter of manufacturing goods of that type. I said before, and I will say it again, that I do not believe that in a small country such as this, with a large population, which might be described as a peasant population, that it is possible to develop a policy of complete self-sufficiency.
Hear, hear.
A new alliance.
You will be converted shortly too.
You are embarrassing Deputy Norton considerably.
Order.
I have never believed it possible, because I think the physical, financial and productive impediments are so great as to prevent anybody achieving that situation. You can do it only by producing certain commodities for which you will have to charge famine prices. If you do that, then you immediately worsen the standard of living of those who have got to purchase at famine prices. That does not mean that you cannot develop in this country large-scale industries which are indigenous to the country, or which can be suitably carried on in this country with adequate facilities and with adequate supervision from the State. I notice that the Minister for Industry and Commerce in a speech at a dinner which he attended recently threw over completely the idea of entire economic self-sufficiency. To that extent, therefore, we are at one, that you cannot in the circumstances of this country concentrate upon, and hope to bring to fruition, a policy of complete self-sufficiency. It can only be done by debasing the standard of living of large sections in the country. You cannot live in the conditions of this country if you produce all you need for your own requirements and to be able to sell in some other market your surplus produce. If you are entitled to seek complete self-sufficiency, every other nation is entitled to do the same. When you get eventually to that state of complete national self-sufficiency throughout the world you have got a position of hair-shirt economics that the world would be well rid of. I think anybody who seeks an objective of that kind is travelling along the wrong road for the development of our industries here. But I do believe there are many industries, very important from the point of view of supplying the goods our people require, very important from the point of view of providing employment for our people, and very important from the standpoint of utilising the raw materials of the country, which can be developed here and which can be developed to a greater extent than they are to-day.
I think the Minister and his Department ought to survey the economic position of the country and determine in respect of the large scale industries which are suitable to this country, which have a tradition rooted in this country, that there should be an extensive State supervision to ensure that these industries will be encouraged to produce to the maximum possible extent to supply the home market. Our industries so far have got all encouragement possible from the Legislature by the imposition of high tariffs. They have got all the asistance possible from the community who have had to bear heavy taxes on imported articles and it is not too much to expect that these industries should respond to an urge from the State, that they should equip themselves to supply in the shortest possible time all the requirements of the home market. I am making all due allowance for all that has been done within the past six years. Some of the things that have been done have been praiseworthy. The ideas which inspired some of these achievements have been admirable, but when you have said that, you still see a vast field of thwarted endeavour, a vast field of things undone, an enormous amount of work which still awaits to be done.
We were told in 1931 by the present Minister for Industry and Commerce that there was no reason why any unemployment should exist in the 26 counties, yet we have to-day 100,000 unemployed after the plan has been in operation for six years. When we consider that in a small State of 3,000,000 people, we have 100,000 unemployed people, I think we must come to the conclusion that the fact that you have that large number of unemployed really means that you have an idle State within the State itself, because the dependents of these unemployed people are not taken into the calculation in reaching that huge figure.
Where did the Deputy get that figure?
From the Minister's own statistics.
The Deputy could not get any such figure from my statistics.
I shall quote them for the Minister.
Is the Deputy quoting the current figure?
I am quoting the figure for the week ending 30th May last.
Why go back to the 30th May? This is July.
There has been an Employment Period Order since.
The Minister would not say that there are many generations between May and July.
Take May. Go on.
If the Minister would suppress his impatience I shall give him the figures. The Minister asks why I do not take the month of June instead of the month of May. The Minister has been dealing the cards in the meantime. I want to give the position of the cards before the Minister got his deal.
Is there a joker in them?
Why not go back to February?
I shall tell the Minister.
There was another Employment Period Order made in March.
Before the Employment Period Order was made, that is, in the week ending May 30th, there were 97,571 registered as unemployed.
They were not registered as unemployed.
If the Minister is going to throw doubts on the accuracy of the figures supplied by his own Department it is impossible to pursue the discussion with him.
The Deputy is confusing two things.
Let me explain the figures to the House, even if the Minister disagrees. According to the Department of Industry and Commerce, there were 97,571 persons registered as unemployed and seeking work at the employment exchanges in the week ending the 30th May. Before that the Minister had issued an Employment Period Order, under which approximately 3,000 persons ceased to be registered at the exchanges because there was no purpose in their registering there. Is that not 100,000 people? Under the recent Employment Period Order, another 24,000 will be knocked off the figure of 97,000. That does not prove that they have got employment. It only proves that they are not qualified now to receive unemployment assistance benefit. They may be just as hungry as they were in March or April, but they will get no benefit during the currency of the order. It is quite clear, notwithstanding the talk about all that has been done, that all that has been done has made no effective impression on the unemployment problem in the country. In my opinion, the Government now realises that, notwithstanding all the talk of plans and of all that has been done for the past six years, they are now in the position of really having no effective plan for dealing with the unemployment problem.
This is what the Taoiseach said on the subject when he addressed himself to it last month at Blarney, after someone had suggested that £10,000,000 should be made available:—
"Ten millions would not solve the unemployment problem. They could spend the money and it would only keep the wolf from the door. In a little while they would have to look for another £10,000,000, and still another £10,000,000."
There is a vast difference between the sentiments expressed there and the enthusiasm of the Minister for Industry and Commerce when he spoke in Monasterevan in 1931. The Taoiseach was talking in the light of realities showing they had no policy. He said that they could spend £10,000,000, then another £10,000,000, and a third £10,000,000 on unemployment, and that it was only going to keep the wolf from the door. That is the position we have now drifted into from the optimism of 1931-32. The Government has thrown up the sponge on the question of unemployment. There is no policy whatever for dealing with it, except to try to deal the cards and put in unemployment orders, but the figures then do not represent the true facts of the situation. Bad as the problem is now, it would be worse but for the fact that there is an armament boom in Britain to-day. Every ship leaving this country taking passengers or stowaways is taking men and women to England, trying to get the employment there that they cannot get here. The returns during the last five years show that 75,000 of our people have gone abroad looking for employment that they cannot get here. The Taoiseach told the House yesterday that the paying of £5,000,000 to Britain was equivalent to giving that country all our fat cattle for nothing. Now we are making a present of 75,000 adults, the flower of our manhood and womanhood, to Britain, and getting nothing in return, although it is estimated that the cost of rearing and educating an adult man or woman is approximately £1,000. We are giving Britain 75,000 men and women and we have no policy whatever for stopping that drift or dealing with the situation when the tide turns. It is generally conceded by those qualified to judge, that the prospects of a European war have now somewhat receded, for the time being at all events, and that a calmer situation exists in Europe. That may have an effect on Britain's armament proposals and these may not be as extensive as was at first contemplated.
In any case, there is a limit even to Britain's armament proposals and the amount of work provided under them. When the armament plans of Britain are completed or slowed down, Irish workers who went to England will find themselves unemployed. It is quite possible they will try to carry on under the scheme for unemployment there, by existing on the rates of benefit provided under the various Acts under which they are eligible, but quite a number may drift back here trying to find employment. When that drift back takes place we will then be in the position of having a vast army of unemployed people for whom we have made no plans for the provision of work, and no proposals to deal with the returned exiles who will then be clamouring for the opportunity to get work. There is not a feature of the present Government policy calculated to deal with a situation of that kind. Obviously, if we are to avoid the evils which will arise from it someone should be thinking about formulating a policy to reduce the numbers unemployed, and stop the wasteful drift of men and women to England seeking employment. Unemployment will be bad in any circumstances, but it is much worse when you find unemployed workers compelled to exist on rates of unemployment assistance which take no cognisance whatever of human needs. There are three scales of unemployment assistance benefit. One applies to large cities, one to towns with a population of 7,000 or over, and the other scale to towns with less than 7,000 and rural areas. As everyone knows, the bulk of our towns have a population of less than 7,000, and it is there, probably, that the greatest degree of hardship exists under the Unemployment Assistance Act. A man, his wife and five children are expected to exist on a benefit of 14/- a week in these towns. Supposing he had not to pay rent, buy clothes, for himself, his wife or children, boots, medicine, fuel, light, school books, or any of the commodities which enter into the budget of any ordinary household, no matter how poor the standard of living, and that those commodities were supplied free — of course, we know they are not — we find that a family of seven people have 14/- to live on.
The rates are fixed by the Dáil and are not varied by me.
I know that. I am not saying that the Minister has power to vary the rates, but I am asking him what he proposes to do as Minister for Industry and Commerce whose office is a charge on this Estimate, to deal with a situation that necessitates thousands of our people existing on that pauperised scale of benefit.
It is in the Act which the Dáil passed.
The Minister now, in accordance with his usual petulance, wants the Dáil simply to pass anything he asks, and to ask no questions or direct his attention to an obvious situation. So long as there is freedom of expression in this House I will try to ask the Minister what he intends to do as Minister for Industry and Commerce —even though he does not like it. That is the one benefit of democratic government, that we can at least put the impact of one point of view against another.
At the right time. This is not the right time.
On the point raised by the Minister, on Estimates administration is discussed. If, however, there is a motion to refer back even an item in the Estimate, intention is indicated to discuss the policy of the Minister.
The Deputy has been referring to rates of unemployment assistance payable which were fixed by an Act of the Dáil. I refuse to take responsibility for that. The Government as a whole is responsible, and any question affecting that legislation, or proposing to alter it, can be raised here, but I submit not on this Estimate.
May I submit that changes in legislation may be advocated, and facts that follow from that may be adduced to strengthen such arguments, which is a different thing. That, I take it, is what Deputy Norton wants.
I took the remarks made by Deputy Norton to refer to the policy of the Government in regard to certain matters, with certain results, as seen by the Deputy.
I do not think the Minister should be so peevish if I direct attention to the fact that so many of our people have to exist on that amount.
I have been sitting here for two days.
That is the Minister's idea of democratic institutions.
It is because the Minister has been sitting here for two days, but under the sub-head a salary is provided for him. That is why we pay the Minister a salary — to sit here and listen to these things, and, after all, the Minister has only just come back from an election in which he asked the people to enable him to sit here for another five years and deal with this matter. Now the Minister gets impetuous because his attention is directed to some facts which ought to concern him as Minister for Industry and Commerce. I am pointing out hard facts that cannot be overlooked — that a man, his wife and seven children have got to exist upon 14/- a week under the Unemployment Assistance Act.
Five children.
Five children, or seven, or ten — no matter how many a man has — he still only gets 14/- per week. If you assume that a number of commodities will be purchased for him and given to him free, such as rent, fuel, light, clothes, boots and shoes, school books, medicine, and a whole lot of things of that kind, then the man is driven down to the position that he has 14/- per week upon which to feed a family of seven for seven days; that is 2/- per week per person. In seven days he has got to provide 21 meals for each person out of the 2/-, and if you work it out on that basis you find that each person in that family can spend five farthings on a meal, notwithstanding the fact that they have no money whatever for a whole range of other commodities which necessarily enter into the budget of a working-class family. Yet, in spite of that, we have the most glib references to prosperity and the most irresponsible references to returning prosperity. If that prosperity does exist why is it not possible to share some of it with a section of the community that is suffering as harshly as these recipients of unemployment assistance benefit are suffering? If the Minister feels disposed again to talk about prosperity at functions let him keep these hard facts before him, and I think they will prove a very effective antidote to irresponsible talk about prosperity when conditions of that kind are the conditions which tens of thousands of our people know to their cost throughout the year. The fact that that situation exists, the fact that we have 100,000 at least unemployed people in the country, the fact that our new industries are not giving the productivity which they should give and would give under adequate State supervision and direction and stimulus, indicate that, so far as our industrial development is concerned, it has not reached a degree of efficiency and is not fortified by any planned outlook in respect of industry. I advocated before — the Taoiseach used to advocate it in other days — the establishment of an economic council which would deal with matters of that kind in some kind of planned way. Since then I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce may have persuaded the Taoiseach that it is quite unnecessary, that he can do all the planning, all the thinking and all the long-range view in respect of industrial development. We can see the catastrophe that is attending the attempt by the Minister to carry out functions of that kind — a large number of unemployed, low rates of unemployment assistance benefit and a very serious stratum of poverty throughout the country. If that position is to be corrected, then there is need for more thinking and for more vision in the Department of Industry and Commerce and more evidence of a real determination to push those phases of industrial development which will yield the best results in the shortest possible space of time.
I, therefore, have availed of this opportunity to direct the Minister's attention to these problems in the hope that anything I have said on that mat ter may stimulate thought in the direction of realising that even though certain progress has been made here in this country during the past 16 years a lot remains to be done. And here we are not doing as much, radical though we foolishly imagine that we are, as other progressive countries in Europe and throughout the world are doing in this age of rapid change.
I think the Minister ought to take the House into his confidence and give us some indication of what are the Govern ment's proposals for dealing with the very serious unemployment problem and for dealing with an emigration problem which is as serious as the unem ployment problem because it is reducing the population of the country; it is bringing down the standard of virility in the country and giving us the unenviable reputation that there is a lower marriage rate in this country— always an unhealthy symptom — than in any other white country on the face of God's earth to-day.
Deputy Norton has come round to the view that economic self-sufficiency is a cod. Is not that a great blessing? How long is it going to be before the Minister for Industry and Commerce has the moral courage to come out and tell the people that he also has come round to the point of view that economic self-sufficiency is a cod? Every rational man in this country knew that six years ago. In the glorious days when the Labour Party and the Fianna Fáil Party were stumping this country over economic self-sufficiency and denouncing anybody who criticised that as a West Briton and as a saboteur of Irish industry, I remember that when we pointed out that economic self-sufficiency could never be got and that it would only involve the poor of this country in frightful hardships Deputy Norton and the Minister for Industry and Commerce used to get choleric with rage.
Quote me once as backing complete economic self-sufficiency.
I hear all sorts of adverbs and adjectives being dragged out of the bandbox now in order to provide some kind of loophole for escape. Economic self-sufficiency was the policy of the Labour Party and the Fianna Fáil Party for the last six years. Now they have got sick of it, but they have only got sick of it after they have made our people suffer bitterly for six years. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is taking up the adjectives and the adverbs too. He is explaining that he never meant real economic self-sufficiency; that he never said entire economic self-sufficiency; that he only meant partial economic self-sufficiency. When will both of these gentlemen have the moral courage to get out and say: "We have made fools of ourselves and now we want to work back to get back as fast as we can out of the mess into which we have dragged the country." Mind you, when they do it they will do that in good company because it was a remarkable thing that the Secretary of State for the United States of America got up at Geneva two or three years ago and stated publicly that he was obliged to confess that the United States of America had led the world into the morass of economic self-sufficiency and stated "for our responsibility for that error we feel the duty heavy upon us in now leading the world out of that bog." And one voice was heard. One voice in the councils of the nations of the world was heard to say that he still believed in economic self-sufficiency, and that was the voice of Seán Lemass, the Minister for Industry and Commerce from Saorstát Eireann, as it then was. And since then he has been taking up the adjectives and adverbs in order to prove that when he spoke of economic self-sufficiency at Geneva and in the country here he did not mean complete economic self-sufficiency; he meant only partial economic self-sufficiency. When can we clear the decks of all the rubbish that has accumulated in the political and economic past of the Fianna Fáil Party and get down to work in order to mend the damage that has been done in the futile search for economic self-sufficiency? The sooner the Minister for Industry and Commerce comes out and announces his readiness to take the necessary steps to repair the damage that he has done the sooner we will be able to get on with the job. I suggest to him that he will find in the Banking Commission report a very good hobby horse to ride off upon. He can put all the blame for jettisoning his own economic past on the Banking Commission. I think when he gets time to read that document — he has had it for three months now, but he has not got down to reading it yet — but when he does get time to read it, and strength to read it, he will find in it all the arguments he wants to justify abandoning the fraud and folly of economic self-sufficiency.
There are one or two urgent evils arising out of that fraud, however, that require correction at once, even before the Minister for Industry and Commerce has mustered the requisite moral courage to reject the doctrine as a whole. Deputy Benson to-day pointed out that, to judge from many of the speeches made by Fianna Fáil supporters, one would imagine that they believed there was no industry in this country before Fianna Fáil came into existence. Deputy Benson added that, far from that being so, the best industries in this country were in existence before Fianna Fáil was ever heard of or thought of. And those are the industries that gave good employment, steady employment, produced goods at an economic price, and asked for no tariffs or subsidies at all. They find themselves, far from being helped by Fianna Fáil economics, gravely embarrassed by them. You had good industries established in this country. They were growing in efficiency, they were improving their products, they were improving their conditions of employment, and they were reducing costs to the consumer.
In that state of affairs the Minister for Industry and Commerce arrived upon the scene and announced his intention of producing in this country, not only the finished article, but the raw materials of the existing industries in Ireland. Then he proceeded to tariff these factories' raw materials in order to get them manufactured here, whereupon these well-established factories had to pay exorbitant prices for their raw materials and these exorbitant prices that they had to pay resulted in their having to raise the price of their own finished product. Not infrequently they have been obliged to incorporate in their finished product a raw material which they knew to be inferior, but they were forced to take it because they would not be allowed to buy the best raw materials, which were not obtainable in this country at all.
The necessity that was put upon them of incorporating second-class raw materials in more than one case has injured the good name of their product, which up to then had always been regarded as first-class, and in addition to reducing the quality of the finished product, the higher cost of the raw materials thrust upon them by the Minister raised the cost of the finished article to a point in some cases where the consumers' purchasing capacity does not permit them to buy the same quantity as they used to buy. The well-established factories giving good and steady employment at decent rates of wages are being forced on to part-time because they have been obliged to raise the price of the product and reduce its quality as a result of tariffs inadvisedly put on by the Minister on the raw materials that these old-established businesses were obliged to buy.
That is all the logical working out of the doctrine of economic self-sufficiency, and where I find fault with Deputy Norton is this, that he urges the Minister to operate the policy of economic self-sufficiency, the Minister takes him at his word and proceeds to operate that policy, and when the obvious flaws and follies of that policy manifest themselves, the first man to protest, and most vigorously, is Deputy Norton. There is no use urging the Minister to prosecute the policy of economic self-sufficiency and then complain bitterly when he does it. He cannot help it. If his riding instructions are to produce in this country everything that it is physically possible to produce, then the difficulties of which Deputy Norton complains are absolutely inevitable. They are going to force costs up and up until the old-established industries find the consumers are no longer able to pay the price of their product, and the consumers simply have to do without that product. It puts the factory on halftime and incidentally reduces the standard of living of the people.
The difference between a high standard of living and a low standard of living is whether a farmer down the country can buy boots for his children or has to send them out bare-footed. If you keep the price of boots reasonably low, then the farmer can afford to buy them for his wife and himself and his children. The labouring man earning a weekly wage can afford to buy boots for himself and his wife and family. That can be regarded as a high standard of living. If you raise the price of boots unduly, the time will come when he can afford boots only for himself, his wife, and the children who are going to school; the younger children go bare-footed. That is a low standard of living. You may lower it further to the point where the children have to go bare-footed all the time. The lowest degree is where, if you raise the price of boots to so high a level that they become luxury, we must go back to the 1848 standard, when the labouring man and his wife and children all went bare-footed.
And that happened. There was a time when the landlord class in this country thought it right that it should happen, that the dirty Irish should go bare-footed. They were not entitled to a high standard of living. It was presumption on the part of the dirty natives to want to have boots. They had strong feet designed to walk on stones, and they ought to walk on them, and they made them go bare-footed. We got liberty in this country in order to provide these people with a reasonable standard of living, and give them the right to dress and live as well as their neighbours. That is what the whole struggle was about. Now, having got to that stage, we are sedulously taking it away from them, not for the benefit of the landlord class, but for the benefit of certain individuals who come in here and, behind sky-high tariffs, mulct the people. I refer now to the warriors who have landed here from Czecho-Slovakia and the world beyond in order to plunder our people. The sooner they go back to Czecho-Slovakia the better pleased will I be, and I have never disguised that. They are no damn good to us or to anybody else.
The well-established and well-run industries controlled by Irish companies have given good service to the Irish people, and, if they were allowed to carry on their business in the way they always did, they would improve their efficiency and give a better article as time passed by. They were doing that when Fianna Fáil came into office. It is only since Fianna Fáil came into office that the highway robbery that is going on behind tariff walls began. There is no use in Deputy Norton complaining when he himself voted for every tariff, when he encouraged the Minister to bring in the fly-by-nights and carrion-crows that have flocked here from the four corners of the world to fatten on our people.
We have got to face this. Our national income in this country depends upon the profitable exploitation of the land of this country. But the profitable exploitation of our land depends upon the success of the farmers and the labourers who live on that land selling the produce of their labour profitably in the British market. All the cod about the alternative markets has gone up the spout now. Nobody believes in that sort of thing any more. It is just like one of the cheap election cries of sending to America and bringing back our emigrants from America to fill the positions in this country that we could not fill ourselves. Our success eventually depends upon making a profit out of the agricultural produce that we sell in the British market. We have got back eventually the British market with some restrictions. But we have got it back. We cannot, however, control prices in the British market because we have no power to do so. We have got to take for our agricultural produce whatever that price will fetch in the British market.
Our profit and our national income depend on the difference between the cost of production of agricultural produce in this country and the price at which we can sell that produce in Great Britain. That is the profit and on that profit the entire national income and ultimately the standard of living of our entire people is going to depend. I repeat again that we cannot raise the prices that are to be had in the British market, but we can reduce the cost of production in Ireland. It is just as effective for us to reduce the cost of production in Ireland as it would be to raise correspondingly the prices in Great Britain. If it was in our power in Dáil Eireann to-day to increase the price of every beast and every pound's worth of agricultural produce that we send to the British market would we not do it if we could by Act or resolution of this House?
If we could get for every farm and every farm labourer in this country 20 per cent. more for his work than he gets at present would we not do it at once? Yes, it would be done unanimously. We cannot increase the profit of our agricultural workers in that way, but we can do it just as effectively by reducing the cost of production as we could by raising the price of our produce in the British market. We would pass that resolution unanimously in ten minutes; we can add to the profits of our farmers and farm labourers just as effectively by reducing the cost of production as if we were to pass a resolution raising the prices of our goods in the British market. The profit for our farmers can be made by taking steps to reduce the cost of production.
At the present time there is a tax on Indian meal, there is a tax on artificial manure, a tax on farm implements and, indeed, on every single thing the farmer has to use. In the production of agricultural produce every tax reduces the profit of the people living on the land. Every penny put on by tariffs reduces the profits. Every penny that you take from the farmer in tariffs represents one penny off his profits. Every penny of relief that the farmer gets increases his profits. As I have already said, if a resolution of this House could raise our prices in England we would all be unanimous in that. At the present moment if you want to buy any artificial manures to spread on your land you find that you have to pay 4/6 a cwt. for superphosphate as against 3/- per cwt. in Northern Ireland. Can you imagine what that 1/6 on 3/- represents to the farmers? If you want to buy a cwt. of Indian meal you have to pay 2/- more for it than you do in Northern Ireland. It is the same if you want to buy a fork, graipe, rake or anything else that is required on the farm. If the productivity of your land is to be fully developed you have to put on artificial manures.
If you raise the price of so simple a commodity as boots the point will be reached when people cannot go on wearing them. If the prices of artificial manures are raised too high the farmer must stop using artificials on his land. The quality of the land will go down. Now, remember that the land is not only the farmer's property. It is a national asset. If the custodian of the national asset is excessively taxed and is forced to give up caring for his land as he had been caring for it in the past, not only is the property of the individual farmer being deteriorated, but the national asset is being deteriorated. Will any man who knows the country deny that the land has in several regions deteriorated so much that scutch grass and weeds have spread through it in the course of the last four years? Why is that? It is because the people are not putting into the land anything to replace what they are taking out of it. The farmers are not able to buy artificial manures. They are not able to properly feed their stock because of the tariffs on feeding stuffs and because the tariffs make feeding of live stock uneconomic. The result is that the farmers are not only losing their profit, but they are dissipating the wealth which was buried in the land in the time of our fathers and grandfathers since the farmers got fixity of tenure. That was one of the great revolutions in this country; when the people got fixity of tenure they put their savings into improving the land instead of keeping their savings in old stockings or putting them in the bank. The people went on improving their land and steadily as a result of that the standard of living of the people was raised and their wealth grew. These things resulted from the improvements the people were able to carry out on the land.
Now if the Dáil is going to make the cost of artificial manures and foodstuffs too high so that it is uneconomic to use them, the standard of living of the country is as certain to go down as it went down in the days of the rack-renting landlords and the reign of the bailiffs between 1800 and 1848 and again between 1848 and 1881. There is no escape from that. There is not a Deputy in the House who would oppose a resolution raising the price of our produce in the English market by 20 per cent. We would be all unanimous on that. If we take the tax off the raw materials which the farmers have to use, the Dáil can increase their profits just as effectively as by passing that resolution increasing the price in the British markets. There surely is no need to labour the necessity of casing the pressure on the farmers.
The Minister at present is harassing our old established industry by reason of the high cost of the raw materials the farmer uses. Every small farm in this country is, in a sense, a small factory in which the man and his wife and two or three children are employed. He brings on to that land raw materials in the shape of bonhams and feeding stuffs. His livestock is used as the machinery through which the feeding stuff, the raw material, is turned into the finished product. He brings the finished product to the fair and sells it. That is how he makes his profits. Surely we ought to take the burden off the backs of this old-established industry that has been giving good employment and did good work long before Fianna Fáil was ever heard of. After all, many of the farmers had a good standard of living and were able to amass money before the advent of Fianna Fáil to office. The Minister for Industry and Commerce would sooner produce alcohol from potatoes rather than milk, beef and pork out of Indian meal. There is of late growing up in this country and in most other countries a most extraordinary economic fallacy. That is that there is abundance of everything for everybody and that the time has come when we can all sit back and take things easy. They tell us there is too much for everybody. That is a most insane illusion. The fact is that if we are to maintain our standard of living even as it is, much less improve it, we all have to work like blacks.
It will put us to the pin of our collar in the next ten or twenty years to maintain our existing standard of living. It is going to be extremely difficult. Remember, the output of the agricultural industry in this country has fallen in the last few years by over 30 per cent., and that means a reduction in our national wealth. Far from contemplating further reductions, I warn this House that we will have to strain at the collar to maintain the existing standard of living as we all desire to do, but it is going to be mighty difficult to do. Remember, we have enjoyed for so long a time safety and the sense of security resultant from being members of the Commonwealth of Nations that we have forgotten what it means, what it could mean, if that security were ever jeopardised. Deputies here forget that the Chancellor, Von Hitler, of the German Reich, asked his people whether they preferred to have guns or butter, and then announced that anyone who preferred butter to guns was a traitor and would be put in a concentration camp and that they had damn well better prefer guns to butter; and they are doing without butter there in order to finance the purchase of guns.
Now, I do not want to see the day in this country when we are going to be asked to choose between guns and butter; when we are going to be asked whether we would elect to finance the defence proposals of the Government or reduce our employment bill or any of the other social services at present in operation. If we are not to do that, however, we have got to face the fact that hard work is vital for us all and that there can be no question of anybody lying down on the job. Now, under our system, the only way to get hard work is to make hard work profitable, and if you are going to leave the major industries of this country in such a condition that the harder you work the less you earn, the people will stop working them altogether and, instead of working on the land, they will simply register as unemployed, because they will come to the conclusion that the dole, which comes in regularly once a week — even it is only 8/- —is more than they can hope to get slaving on the land. They will let the land go to waste and collect the dole instead.
I wonder if any Deputies in this House have read a book called "The Irish Countryman"? Did they ever realise how rural life in this country really functioned? Did they ever ask themselves why the farmer's son ever worked on the land at all? All of us who live in the West of Ireland, near where the small congests live, are familiar with the way in which the small 20-acre farm is worked. The farmer is able to work his small farm because his sons work for him. He does not employ labour, but his boys help on the farm. The reason they helped was because they had to get their pocket-money from their father. He could not put them out of the house because that would cause a scandal in the neighbourhood, and when they came for money for cigarettes, dances or amusements, they depended on the father's approval of the help they had given in the past week in order to get the money and, signs on it, they took very good care to keep on the right side of the head of the house because, if they did not do so, they knew that they would find no softness in him and there would be no pocket-money.
Now, however, you have the dole, and a very considerable number of these boys have registered for 8/- a week. They cannot be put out of the house because, as I have said, that would mean a scandal in the neighbourhood and would cause a rift in the family and general disgrace. They have three square meals in the day and their bed, and they draw the dole as well. The result is that there are a great many small farmers in this country who find it extremely difficult to get their sons to do any work at all on the farm, and they are not able to put up any competitive bid against the dole for the services of their sons because they are not getting enough out of the land to enable that to be done. Ask the people who live in rural Ireland if that is not true, and you will find that in large parts of rural Ireland the young people would much prefer to get the dole than to work on the land, and can make a much better living out of the dole than if they worked on the land without it. Now, we have got to correct that, and the only way to correct it is to make the land profitable.
Farmers' sons are not getting the dole.
They do not get it at certain times of the year — during the employment period — but they do get the dole at other periods of the year. As I was saying, the only way to make it possible for the farms, as organised in this country, to work as economic units, is to make farming pay. You cannot make them work on the land. There is no method of getting them to work unless you can make agriculture pay; and, remember this: you must either have the system of individual liberty and free competition, such as we have here in this country, or a system of slavery such as you have in Germany and Russia. There is no halfway house between the two. Either you induce people to work on the land by the prospect of profit, or you will have to conscript them into labour camps and make them work and say that it is their national duty to do so. Now, I want to preserve the system of individual liberty and capitalism such as we have in Ireland at the present time. The only way to preserve that system is to make it pay, and we can make it pay if we go the right way about it.
There was some discussion about the price of bread here yesterday. It is at a prohibitive level at the present time in this country, and the millers are plundering the public. Of that, there is no possible doubt. On every sack of flour milled in this country at the present time, the consumer of this country is robbed of 10/-. Of that, there is no conceivable doubt.
That is utter nonsense.
It is absolutely and certainly true. There is a miller working in this country at present. He has a mill in Limerick and one at Liverpool. He can buy a cargo of wheat 500 miles off the coast of Limerick, and he can bring half the wheat into Limerick and mill it there, and half of it into Liverpool, to be milled in Liverpool, and on every sack brought into Limerick he will get 10/- more from the Irish consumer for a sack of flour than he can get from the English consumer for the flour manufactured out of the same wheat in Liverpool.
A gross misrepresentation of the known facts.
It is an indubitable and unquestionable fact. Every cwt. of flour, purchased by a countrywoman in this country, for the manufacture of a cake of bread in her own kitchen, carries on it a tax of 4/- per cwt., the bulk of which is going to swell the profits of the flour millers in this country. The Minister knows that. They slipped the quickest one across on him that ever was slipped across in the history of this country. They got him to go out bleating around the country about his resolve to maintain the rural mill, and the boys all sat in together and acquired a rural mill — each one of them —and at the same time they built a mill at the port — each one of them. Then the question was: "At what level will we fix the price of flour to make it economically possible to operate the rural mill?" Then they said: "We are not saying that that is the best way, but we know that it is the desire of the Taoiseach, and the Minister's desire, to maintain these rural mills, and we are naturally anxious to cooperate."
The Fine Gael Party agreed to it here yesterday.
Wait a minute. They went on to say: "We are determined to keep those mills open, because you want us to do it. Of course, it means that flour is going to cost a little more, because we cannot make it as efficiently there as we could make it at the port." That representation was sympathetically listened to; the bugles were blown and the triumph was proclaimed. Mills in rural Ireland that had not turned a wheel for years were set revolving by the magical hand of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He went down with a gold scissors and cut threads; the mills started to grind; everybody sat back, and there was no more talk. Then the boys came around again and said: "By the way, Minister, we are in a little difficulty. Those rural mills are going to cost more than we thought. They are even more uneconomic than we felt they were in the beginning. Of course, we could close them down, but, seeing that you had opened them with a golden scissors, we did not like to close them without asking your leave." There had been so many speeches made, and so many bugles blown, and so many golden scissors used, that it was deemed politically inexpedient to close them. The boys gathered round the Minister again and said: "To keep those mills open, we will want a price for flour in this country approximately 10/- higher than in Liverpool." The Minister said: "Look, boys, you keep the mills open and I will keep the telescope to my blind eye." Accordingly, the price was fixed at 10/- a sack over the Liverpool price, in order to make it possible to operate uneconomic units, leaving a reasonable margin of profit. But the boys had up-to-date and highly economic mills at the ports of Limerick, Cork and Dublin, and they proceeded to collect on the entire output of those mills 10/- per sack in excess of a reasonable profit. There are 3,000,000 sacks of flour consumed in this country every year. That represents £1,500,000 levy on the people's bread every year for the benefit of the miller. The uneconomic units are producing about 10 per cent. of the total flour. Ninety per cent. of it is produced at the port mills, which are some of the most modern and up-to-date mills in the world. But the Minister is in this dilemma if he insists on bringing the price of flour to a fair level; the boys have all built those great mills at the ports out of the profits they have been making, and they do not give a fiddledee-dee whether he closes the rural mills or not. They have made enough profit in the last six years to keep them going for the next 160 years. They do not care whether he burns them or blows them up, or what he does with them, but they will put in their claim for compensation if he insists on a price which would make those units uneconomic. Now, what is a reasonable price for flour? Would a difference of 5/- per sack between the Liverpool price and the price in Ireland make it uneconomic to run those mills? It would not. The inland mills could be perfectly economic mills on that price.
Has the Deputy discovered that since?
Discovered what?
That the inland mills were in existence before Fianna Fáil came into office?
Exactly, and kept efficiently running because the Minister's predecessor never allowed the wool to be pulled over his eyes. When those boys came around with highfalutin schemes to protect milling he kicked them out, and told them he was not going to be sold a pup by them or anybody else. But when the Minister came in, it was not a pup they sold him but a Saint Bernard dog.
The Deputy said those inland mills were all opened deliberately since Fianna Fáil came into office.
I said no such thing. The history of this transaction is well known to the people of this country. Certain of those millers tried to blackmail the previous Government by threatening to close down the inland mills if they were not allowed to plunder the public, but they got kicked down stairs, and told that that kind of codology would not work. The history of that transaction is well known to the people of this country. The Minister's predecessor was described as the bondsman of Joseph Rank. He was held up to public odium on that account. I say here that Joseph Rank made in the last 12 months in Ireland more money than he made in the entire period of Deputy McGilligan's Ministry. If the Minister can disprove that I am prepared to withdraw all I have said.
The fact that the Deputy says so does not mean it is true.
It is true, and the Minister cannot disprove it. He made more money in the last 12 months than in the ten years of Deputy McGilligan's Ministry, because Deputy McGilligan had the measure of that combine, and kept them in their place.
How did he do that?
But this Minister has been completely fooled, and, as a result, our people are paying 10/- a sack in excess of the price obtaining in Great Britain for flour. That is one of the principal reasons why the price of flour is prohibitive in this country at the present time. The Minister has been told by his own Prices Commission that the margin of profit on flour is excessive.
That is not true. The Prices Commission's report has been published.
Did not the Prices Commission tell the Minister that in their opinion the margin of profit on flour was excessive?
By 10/- a sack?
I am not talking about that.
The Deputy is wrong.
I am asking the Minister is it true that the Prices Commission considered the margin of profit on flour to be excessive?
The report has been published.
It was, and he did nothing about it.
Because the millers reduced their price. That is another explanation, but it did not occur to the Deputy.
The Deputy has to buy flour every day of his life, and he knows how the people in this country have been robbed and plundered in the last ten years. He has watched the labouring man, who earned 24 "bob" a week up to a few weeks ago, coming in and buying a cwt. of flour for his family, and he realises that 4/- out of that wretched 24/- is going to the flour millers in surplus profit, profit over and above the legitimate profit on that one bag of flour. I may tell you that when a shopkeeper has to act as a tax gatherer of that kind shop-keeping becomes an almost intolerable occupation.
Cement Limited are producing an extremely good article. They are producing good cement, but I think their inauguration should not be allowed to pass without comment on one of the most delightful manæuvres I have ever seen carried out by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I think the majority of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party at the moment believe that the reason Cement Limited was established in this country was to deliver this country from the danger of being exploited by the international cement cartel. The Minister used to tell us that. He admitted that the price of cement was lower in Ireland than it would be if cement were manufactured in Ireland, but he used to tell us: "Oh, but the cartel could force the price up as high as they liked, and what we have to do to provide against the day when the cartel would be attempting to raise the price is to establish our own native industry here, so that we can produce our own cement for our own purposes independent of the cartel." I wonder do the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party know who Cement Limited is? It is the cartel. The cartel have moved in bag and baggage, and they have got the monopoly. It is the international cartel.
Nonsense!
Is it not so?
Oh, give it up.
Does the Minister deny it?
Most emphatically. It is an Irish Company, established under Irish law, and owned as to two-thirds of its shares by Irish citizens.
Does the Minister deny that on the Board of that Company there is a representative of the cement cartel?
I do not know what the Deputy means by the cement cartel but——
The Minister knows what the cement cartel is just as well as I do. He knows its headquarters, and its board of control. Does he deny that sitting on the board of Cement, Ltd., at present is a member of the cement cartel, and does he not know in his own heart that that person is the nominee of the cement cartel?
He is not the nominee of anybody except the Danish company associated with the cartel. All the cement companies on the Continent are on the one cartel. This company, as to two-thirds of its shares, is owned by Irish citizens.
The cartel has moved in bag and baggage, and we are privileged to pay the company now — mind you for a good product, an excellent product, because the cement is really good, but not a bit better than any other cement: it is a good commercial product — I think 57/6 a ton for that product, and you can buy Continental cement delivered at Limerick quay for 28/6. Now, I only mention that. The business is done, and there is no use in going into it further. We will have to pay that price to the company for their cement, except for such quantities as they are allowed to bring in and make a profit on that for themselves. I simply mention that to warn the supporters of the Minister for Industry and Commerce that they would need to watch him as closely as they would want to watch the man with the thimble and the pea, because he is one of the most adroit persuaders of the innocent that ever stood up in this House. I would venture to swear that there are plenty of Deputies sitting up there who feel that we have the cartel by the throat. There is Deputy Allen, for instance. I am sure that he believes that we have really mastered them this time, and that we, standing on the shores of the Emerald Isle, can bid defiance to all comers, quite unconscious of the fact that the cartel have come in through the back door, making themselves at home in his kitchen while he is bidding them defiance on the threshold. The sooner the Deputy discovers that, and makes up his mind that he has got to live with them in peace, the better for him and for everybody else. Meanwhile, we will have to pay Cement Limited about £1 per ton more than we need pay for Continental cement.
That is utter nonsense.
It is true. I showed the Minister quotations from Spanish and Polish cement companies. Does the Minister deny that Polish cement companies were offering cement at £1 per ton lower than the price of Cement Limited?
I deny that it was possible to get a regular supply of cement at that price.
Does the Minister deny that there was offered in this country Polish and Spanish Cement at the port of Limerick at approximately 20/- a ton lower than the price quoted by Cement Limited?
You can get lump lots at a less cost at any time, but you cannot get a regular supply.
The Minister cannot deny it because he knows it is true. I am not going to go back over that whole story again because I laid all the facts before the House when the Cement Bill was last before us. I now come to the Carrick-on-Suir slate quarry. That industry has been wound up and, according to the information available in the public Press, which is all that we can get, the Killaloe slate quarries — I believe they are the persons associated with it — were profoundly interested in the Carrick-on-Suir slate quarry. There were common interests between the two quarries. The Carrick-on-Suir quarry had got a trade loan, I believe, many years ago from the Cumann na nGaedheal Government for the purpose of developing that quarry.
Deputy Gorey said yesterday it was a scandal that they should have got the loan.
The Minister ought to be a little careful. Remember he is going to put his head in a halter if he is not careful. I have no desire to tie a halter around his neck because I believe he is being made a fool of. The Carrick-on-Suir slate quarries got a trade loan several years ago to develop what, in my judgment, was a most valuable slate deposit in Carrick-on-Suir. I am told that by builders. I have seen the slate myself, and I say that a better slate was never quarried in Ireland than the slate that was quarried at Carrick-on-Suir. That is the position. The discovery of that deposit, and its successful development, amply justified whatever loan was given many years ago.
According to Deputy Gorey, it was a scandal that the loan was given.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce was then asked for certain grants out of the unemployment fund, or for some assistance the exact nature of which I do not know, to further develop this deposit and he gave it. I think that probably on the facts before him he was amply justified. He wanted to provide employment, and he wanted at the same time to facilitate the development of what he had reason to believe, and what he knew his predecessors believed, to be a valuable slate deposit. The money was forthcoming, and I presume was partially spent on the development and on clearing operations in the slate quarry with a view to preparing the slate face for further extraction of marketable slates. Then the management of the two companies becomes more or less identical — not absolutely — but there are common interlocking interests between the Killaloe company and the Carrick-on-Suir company. The next thing we hear——
Is the Deputy saying that happened?
I am simply stating the facts as I know them. I have no source of information but the public newspapers. The Minister has a vast array of public officials behind him. He is getting a large salary to look after these things and it is his business to look into them himself.
I simply want to know what the Deputy said.
The Minister will have his chance of telling us the whole history of the Carrick-on-Suir transaction when answering on this Estimate. It will be his duty to do that. He has got a highly paid staff to help him to do it. I have no doubt that he actively interested himself in the matter.
I was simply asking the Deputy to repeat what he had said because I did not hear him.
We require information, and in respect of this we are going to get the information. There comes a time after all this money has been sunk in the enterprise when we are told that the deposit of slates is no longer there for exploitation, and that, accordingly, the Carrick-on-Suir company are going to fold up and walk out. There is then sold at public auction an immense amount of equipment.
Sold by whom?
I presume by the liquidator of the Carrick-on-Suir company. An immense amount of equipment is sold for about £104 — for a very triflng sum.
When I tried to correct Deputy Gorey on that he shouted me down.
A considerable quantity of equipment was sold coram populo—there is no disguise or concealment about it — to the Killaloe slate quarries. In view of the common interests between the two enterprises, and the very fact that, I have no doubt, the authority and influence of the Killaloe slate quarry was used to secure for the Carrick-on-Suir slate quarry accommodation and assistance from the Minister, it would have been more becoming, before the assets of the dissolved Carrick-on-Suir quarry were purchased by the Killaloe company for a trifling sum that the Minister should have been consulted.
What had the Minister to do with it?
He was a creditor of the Carrick-on-Suir quarry for about £6,000.
And it was the Minister who put in the receiver. The Deputy did not know that.
Did the Minister inquire into the circumstances surrounding the quarry before he put in the receiver? Did the Minister authorise the receiver —did he consent to the receiver—selling the entire assets, machinery and equipment of the Carrick-on-Suir company to the Killaloe company for £104?
A receiver's job is to sell the assets to the highest bidder. He cannot sell them to anybody else.
Maybe the Minister did his best. Remember, the Minister for Agriculture told us that the Roscrea factory was the best job that he could make of an industry, but they have got an action at present pending against the Minister for damages for that he failed to deliver to them a sufficient number of cows for nothing. I do not know whether the Minister for Industry and Commerce is involved in that.
I want to know where the fraud in Carrick-on-Suir is that Deputy Brennan talked about.
If Roscrea is not part of the responsibility of the Minister for Industry and Commerce——
I understood the Deputy to say that the Minister for Agriculture was responsible.
He was, in so far as the enterprise was partially designed to relieve agriculture, and, on the other hand, to promote industry. The product of the Roscrea meat factory was meat meal and, in some degree, canned meats which were, in fact, exported. I do not know if they received an export bounty on industrial products. They probably did, and, in so far as they did, would come within the ambit of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
I had nothing to do with it. The Deputy is trying to get away with a red herring. Deputy Brennan said that a fraud had been perpetrated at Carrick-on-Suir. What is the fraud?
If the Minister suggests that instead of bad fish we have rotten carcases, I agree. Both smell abominably, with the result that Roscrea meat factory and decomposing herring have one common quality. They both smell in an unsavoury way, and, in so far as they have a bad smell, I admit I am trying to bring Roscrea meat factory into the discussion——
A get-away.
Is the Minister's idea of a sound industrial enterprise——
What was the fraud at Carrick-on-Suir that Deputy Brennan was talking about?
I am asking the Minister for certain information in regard to a transaction that appeared in the public Press.
And that Deputy Brenman said was a fraud.
I do not know what Deputy Brennan said was a fraud.
And Deputy Gorey said was a scandal.
If it is permissible to describe the Minister's incompetence as a scandal, then I think the Deputy would be right. I think it is a scandal, but I do not like to proclaim before the world that the Irish people have endorsed a scandal. We cannot escape from the fact that to have an incompetent person in such an office is a scandal, and I think the Minister is a very incompetent person.
You are making a good run for it.
I think he is a very incompetent person and I think it is a scandal he should be where he is, but he has an undoubted right to be there because the people put him there. Another matter I wish to refer to in connection with the Minister's administration is the rather humiliating farce into which he has been forced in connection with the Shops Act and the Shops Hours Act. Nothing is more humiliating than to see a Minister so alarmed by the reaction of his own folly, in the middle of a general election, that he is compelled to run away, lick his wounds and say: "We will suspend the whole business until the election is over, but for God's sake, vote for us and we will do whatever you want us to do when the election is finished." The Minister had to do that in this case. I want to appeal to the House not to be frightened into abandoning the good parts of that legislation by the excitement caused by the Minister's incompetence. It was the Minister's own folly and ignorance of the task he was tackling that led him into the serious difficulties in which he now finds himself involved. I told him when this legislation was going through the House that he ought very clearly to distinguish between rural conditions relating to shops and urban conditions relating to shops. So far as the hours and the half-holiday provisions are concerned, they are an admirable reform. I believe they are welcomed by every responsible merchant in the country. When you come down to the question of Sunday trading, the special conditions which govern rural communities deserve special consideration. I am not going to deal with that now, but I do urge the Minister to hold some sort of inquiry before which country shopkeepers and shop assistants may state their view. The absolute close-down order on certain shops on Sundays throughout Ireland immediately affected the islanders who used to come in to Sunday Mass and make their purchases afterwards so as to avoid a second trip from the island to the mainland. When the islanders came across they found all the shops shut and were told that they would have to come across again. That is one case which must be provided for. Provision must also be made for another case. When people die in the country early on Sunday morning or on Saturday night the members of the household must get certain funeral requisites which are customary in Irish country houses. Provision must be made to permit merchants who ordinarily supply such things— tobacco, funeral habiliments, groceries and other things — to supply these goods on such occasions. There is no necessity to make any exception or exclusion in regard to intoxicating liquor because, happily, the use of intoxicating liquor on such occasions is now practically unknown. It has been strongly discouraged by the clergy, and it would be just as well if there were no facilities for supplying it because nobody wants it. But there are certain other things which country people buy on such an occasion and provision must be made for their getting them. That kind of difficulty does not arise in the city in the same way, because the ordinary shopping by the people is done in a different way. These are the kinds of emergencies for which provision must be made. There are many others which I could mention. They are known to people who live in the country, but they are unknown to a man brought up in the City of Dublin who has no understanding of the country person's way of life. These two problems are separate problems and ought to be separately dealt with. The difficulties which have manifested themselves in the rural parts of the country should not discourage the Minister in respect of the general framework of the conditions and hours provided for shop assistants. They require adaptation and the sooner adaptation is undertaken the better it will be.
I am principally concerned to see the doctrine of self-sufficiency publicly abandoned. When it is there will be scope for co-operation amongst us all, so that we may push this country forward, get it on its feet again and raise the standard of living of the people. So long as any vested interest can plead in justification that they are helping on the cause of industrial self-sufficiency by charging exorbitant prices, we can get nowhere and, instead of helping industry, we will injure it. We should make up our minds as to what industries we want and go all out to make a success of them. One of the first essentials is that the raw materials should be made reasonably cheap. If we can do that, we can get somewhere but, if we cannot, we shall get nowhere. Seeing that Deputy Norton is a convert, that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is beginning to wobble and that —most significant of all—the Prime Minister has been writing him sharp letters telling him he will have to think out his economic policy again, I do not despair. During the general election, the Prime Minister said in Athlone that he had already warned the Minister in a confidential letter that he would have to review his economic policy in the future in order to see what required to be done. The sooner the Minister takes the Prime Minister's advice the better for this country and the better for the workmen who earn their living.
I read some time ago of an Englishman known as "The Admirable Crichton." He is supposed to have known something about everything; but so far as I can judge from the position here, the Admirable Crichton would be only carrying drinks of water to Deputy Dillon, because there is no subject which the human mind can conceive but Deputy Dillon speaks on it. He takes up the time of this House talking, talking and talking. I remember one day when I had nothing else to do a copy of the Official Debates came to my hand. I counted the leaves to see how many leaves Deputy Dillon occupied in that volume. I found they numbered 50. I do not know what the Oireachtas has to pay the printers, but the cost outside would be about 10/- a page, and, on that basis, the State had to pay £25 for that oration of Deputy Dillon's.
And cheap at the price.
Mr. Kelly
The Deputy may think so, but there is a different opinion elsewhere. No matter what the subject— mousetraps, cement, castor oil, flour, Machiavelli or some other political "chancer" he knows about — Deputy Dillon speaks on it and takes up time hour after hour. There is only one consolation I have. It is a smug consolation, no doubt, but I do believe that my reward hereafter will be great for the penitential time I go through here patiently listening to speech after speech. There is one thing, however, which Deputy Dillon is not much good at, that is, the gift of prophecy. Deputies on the opposite benches have the Fianna Fáil advertisements on how to do away with unemployment and how to bring about reductions in taxation and they produce them time after time. I have a prophecy here, issued and signed by James Dillon in 1934, to the effect that this country was going to ruin. He states:
"United Ireland — the new national organisation which includes Cumann na nGaedheal, Centre Party and National Guard, has been founded to build up a robust and disciplined national movement to save the country from impending ruin and to restore the political and economic stability of the State."
Five years after that prophecy, there is no sign of economic ruin so far as I can see, and so far as the political and economic stability of the State is concerned, I think it has been more firmly established as a result of the last election. There is only one thing can be said of his prophecies and it is that, as a rule, prophecies take a very long time to materialise. I have an illustration of that here in connection with one of the Deputies opposite. He produced from time to time here during debates on the economic war, the prophecies of Columcille and, in solemn form, read them out. He said that Columcille stated that the package should be worth more than the contents, and he related that to the policy of the Minister for Agriculture in connection with the slaughter of the calves and said that the skin was more than the calf. There is no evidence that Columcille was thinking about calves at the time. He lived in the year 450 or thereabouts, and the Minister for Agriculture did not flourish until this, the twentieth century, so that it took about 1,400 years for the prophecy to come true.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce has one great gift. He has a placid temper and he is able to listen patiently to the various statements concerning him, and, I am sorry to say, to various attempts to damage his character and that of his Department. We had one of them here yesterday. I say that he carries on his shoulders a great national tradition, a tradition which our people have upheld through the centuries — an industrial campaign when military activities had rendered them otherwise useless. He carries on his shoulders the tradition of Swift and the Volunteers of 1782, and the teachings of economic leaders since. He has endeavoured to make this country self-sufficient and self-supporting, and in that I think he has achieved great success. Let us see what was happening a few years ago. I related this incident from a platform in James's Street, and there is no harm in relating it here. I presume the audience here is as intelligent as the audience in James's Street. In 1933, an enterprising commercial traveller established himself in the street in which I do business. I got to know him, and he became semi-confidential. He used to tell me of the materials he had for sale, their prices, and where they came from, and he introduced to me one day a bundle of pullovers. I said to him: "What are you selling those at?" and he replied: "Six and six a dozen." I asked him where were they made, and he told me Madagascar. I asked him from what they were made and he told me they were made from grass. I asked him: "What will they realise in the shops?" and he said it would all depend on the conscience of the owner of the shop; that the wholesale price was 6½d. each and some shopkeepers in the poorer streets might charge 11½d. or 1/1½, because drapers are very fond of halfpennies, and in the big shops in Grafton Street they might be exposed for sale at 5/6. That was the class of materials he sold throughout the country, and that is what the farmers were to buy. He also showed me ladies' suits. They were two-piece suits, beautifully made. I have some knowledge of cloth, because at one time in my varied career I used to sell cloth. These garments were very nice to look at and to handle. The ladies then were wearing two-piece suits. I do not know how many pieces they are wearing now. I asked him what the prices of them were and he said 9/6 but that they would fetch probably three or four guineas. I asked where they were made, and he said in factories in Central Europe. I then asked what wages would be paid to the makers in Madagascar and the factory hands in Central Europe, and he said: "What we would call starvation wages." The third item in his programme was suits of clothes. There happened to be in the papers at the time certain statements as to consignments of men's suits made in Russian jails and delivered here. I examined them. The colour was all right, but what the material, a hard substance, was, I could not possibly guess. I asked him what were the prices, and he said 9/6 for a suit. I asked if he was selling many, and he said he was selling a good deal. I said to him: "That material seems queer," and he said: "If it avoids the rain, it will be all right." He asked me if it rained very much in Dublin, and I said it did. I actually saw those suits exposed for sale in Mary Street here in the city. A very enterprising shopkeeper had a big notice in the window: "Buy two suits for the price of one!" Was it not time that the development of the Minister's policy should stop that class of trade?
What was worse, we were getting from Japan boots and shoes made by the unfortunate Japanese, who exist on a bowlful of rice and a bit of dried meat, and are probably paid a few shillings a week. We were getting boots made by these people which could be sold very cheaply, no doubt. That was the position until the Minister's policy stopped it. I cannot conceive how a man like him who has done such work can be assailed here in the manner in which he is assailed. If the Opposition are not going to accept the position that has been put before them by the voice of the country, if they will not try to do the work of the country in the right manner, if they are going to develop attacks on Ministers, such as have been developed against the present Minister — I know very well that he is well able to reply for himself—if that is going to be their policy, I would advise them to drop it and drop it quickly.
I have studied quite recently a work written by a man whose name I have heard mentioned here a number of times — namely "the Resurrection of Hungary". I have studied it quite recently to get an exact idea of the policy, which I knew very well in the old days and which I have not entirely forgotten yet. The policy of self-sufficiency was advocated mostly during the 18th century and it is in connection with that portion of the country's history that the "Resurrection of Hungary" was principally written. There was no war in the 18th century. Fighting had ceased in Ireland. The statement was made that the Irish were done, the Irish Catholics especially. There was no way to raise the drooping hopes of the people after the Boyne except by means of directing their attention to trade. Jonathan Swift successfully did that in his time and his policy was pursued all through the 18th century, as anybody acquainted with that period of our history knows well. What was the result of that?
In the official records of the Irish Parliament of that period you will find a report of a debate which was held in connection with the Catholic Relief Bill of 1792. Sir John Parnell, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a statement to the effect that if any of the Budgets which he had the honour of introducing into that House, contained articles calculated to advance the prosperity of the country and the happiness of the people, he was indebted for the inspiration of those articles to Mr. Edward Byrne. That was an exclusively Protestant Parliament where no Catholic dare enter. He was indebted to Mr. Edward Byrne of Mullinahack, the greatest and richest tradesman of Ireland at that time. He had arrived at a period of his existence when that could be said of him. He represented the Catholics of this country at that period. A policy of self-sufficiency was successfully pursued at that time. Swift's dictum "burn everything that comes from England except her coals" was acted on right through the whole century and with success. It was on the inspiration of that period that the "Resurrection of Hungary" was written in order to inculcate into the people's mind, the same doctrine that was in the minds of our forefathers in years gone by. Because our present Minister is carrying out that policy and has carried it out successfully to my mind, very successfully, he is now being made a target for all sorts of innuendoes and insinuations, but no direct charge. Why do those Deputies not stand up here and say to him "You are a fraud; you are backing up frauds?" Instead we have insinuations about this, that and the other thing.
It is because of the absurd protection that is thrown over members of this House by the law, preserving them against the legal consequences of their words, that these attacks are made possible. I have listened to them to-day quoting documents; I have seen them whispering to one another, and heard their insinuations that the Minister's Department had acted wrongly, but they did not say so in so many words. Then we heard the Roscrea factory being brought up again. There was another factory which got money from the Government, and I read their balance sheet the other day. The statement occurs in the balance sheet that they are not using the money given to them by the Government for the purposes for which it was given to them. I had that balance sheet in my pocket during the last election, in case anyone might stand up and accuse Deputy Briscoe of acting in any way dishonourably. If so, I would have something to say about it. He had to go through the election just as I had. We were colleagues in that campaign, and I was fortified with that document. I seldom go out to speak on a public platform now, because my memory is not as good as it used to be.
What was the document?
Mr. Kelly
It was from the meat factory in Waterford.
Deputy Gorey knows all about it.
Absolutely. What is the insinuation?
Order!
I demand an explanation in definite terms of what the Deputy means by mentioning that document.
The Deputy must be allowed to make his speech in his own way.
I want to say——
Deputy Kelly must be allowed to speak without interruption.
Mr. Kelly
Now, we have it. The man who brings in here all these documents is afraid now when any reference is made to other documents.
I want to hear what the charge is.
Mr. Kelly
I read the balance sheet and if you are connected with it——
The Deputy might now come to the matter before the House.
Mr. Kelly
I am trying to do so for the past 20 minutes and have not succeeded. I heard the matter of the Roscrea factory being brought in here almost constantly for the last few days. When I stand up and mention another factory——
What is the allegation?
Mr. Kelly
Another factory got money from the Government and in the balance sheet they state: "We are not applying that money to the purposes for which the Government gave it; we are applying it to another purpose."
It is in a lunatic asylum you should be.
Mr. Kelly
I am not in a lunatic asylum. I am a Dublin citizen representing Dublin people in this House and unless the people believed I was right, they would not send me here. It might be a good job for myself if I had not been sent here.
And for the people who sent you here, too.
Mr. Kelly
Deputies on the other side think that the Minister should submit to all criticisms and that we should remain silent, that we should not say anything about them. Now we have to stand up for the purpose of showing you that the back-benchers here are as good as the back-benchers over there and maybe better. I am very glad to see here a young Deputy who spoke yesterday, as I look upon him as the rising hope No. 2 of that Party. Might I remind him of an incident which occurred during the debate on the recent Agreement. Deputy Brennan was after making a very sensible and statesmanlike speech and nobody rose to speak after him but Deputy Linehan opposite and he, with a war-whoop that could be heard in the valleys of Cork, got into it and with animated face and hands went over the whole gamut of the terrible things the Fianna Fáil Government had done. I was wondering what was the effect on Deputy Brennan, the elder statesman sitting beside him. First, Deputy Brennan put his hand to his face, then he sat with his head bowed, and finally he got up and went out. I see that Deputy Linehan has been promoted in almost threequarters of an hour. He was only a back-bencher a short time ago and now he is on the front bench. I would advise him not to mind the past. He should take my advice as an old hand and not be going into the past. If he wants to be a rising hope, he should look to the future and not mind the past.
The Party opposite should take the commonsense point of view of backing up the Government when it deserves to be backed up, and not be always criticising and, what is the worst of it, making speeches directing public odium against the Ministers and their Departments for no substantial reason. All I can say is, if they continue in that way, on their own heads be their fate. So far as I am personally concerned, I am satisfied that the Minister's policy is the best policy for this country. I believe in it all through, and I am perfectly satisfied that he is a capable and able man, and up to this, at any rate, he has shown the spirit that is in him.
I should like to say a word with regard to the question of licences and monopolies because I look upon the Minister more than any other Minister as being responsible for the creation of these monopolies. With regard to the monopoly given to the railway companies, a situation has developed to which I want to refer. A carrier was drawing milk to a creamery and the railway company objected, with the result that the Minister refused to grant a licence to that man, as it was said he did not comply with the regulations. Because of this little technical point that man was deprived of a licence. When the matter came into court the railway company gave an undertaking that they would provide the same service at the same remuneration as this man who was applying for the licence had been giving to the district. There were 36 small mountainy farmers involved. The average daily supply of milk was 120 gallons. The railway company undertook to draw that milk to the creamery and the Minister refused a licence to the man who had been carrying the milk for a number of years.
Notwithstanding that undertaking, which was given in 1935, in the beginning of 1938 the railway company demanded £2 per day for carrying this 120 gallons of milk, and they discontinued the service because they did not get that sum. The value of that 120 gallons of milk per day was 50/- at the present price of milk. The railway company demanded £2 out of that 50/-, leaving the people who produced the milk with 1d. per gallon for the milk after paying 4d. per gallon to the railway company. Yet the Minister refused to grant a licence to the carrier who was prepared to carry the milk for 7/6 or 10/- and who has been carrying it from January last for nothing. Is that a situation that can be defended? I should like to know what Deputy Kelly has to say to it. Will he tell us that this is not a matter that should be brought before the House, and that conditions like these should be continued? Of the 36 families concerned, three-fourths of them are supporters of the present Government. Even Deputy Smith told us in this House that they were all supporters of the Government at one time, and he knows the district. Yet were it not for this carrier they would be deprived of the means of getting their milk to the creamery, or getting their cheques, small as they are, if the milk was not carried gratuitously.
What is the position now? This man again applied for a licence, and here is the reply from the Minister, dated 27th June last:
"I am directed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to refer to your letter of the 13th instant relative to grant of a merchandise licence under the Road Transport Act, 1933, to Mr. Peter O'Hara, Lannanariagh, Bawnboy, County Cavan, and to inform you that, as the Great Southern Railways Company are prepared to provide merchandise road transport facilities for the carriage of milk in the areas from which Swanlinbar and Ballinamore creameries desire their supplies, the Minister is precluded by the Act from granting a merchandise licence to your client.
I am to add that the Minister is not satisfied that the existing merchandise road transport facilities are inadequate in the area concerned or that there is any adequate demand for increased facilities having regard to the failure of the creameries and their suppliers to co-operate with the Great Southern Railways Company towards the successful organisation of the company's merchandise road transport service now withdrawn."
What explanation has the Minister to give the House now that these services are withdrawn, although an undertaking was given that services equally good as those given by Mr. O'Hara would be provided and at the same remuneration? Because they would not get £2 a day for carrying milk they withdrew the services. Where the producers only got 50/- for their milk at the creamery they would then be left with only 10/- after paying the freight. Thirty-five small farmers in four townlands are now left without any means of conveying their milk to the creamery, yet the Minister refused to grant another licence, stating that he was precluded from doing so under the Act. As I understand, the Act was prepared under his own supervision and steered through this House by him, so that it is up to him to have it amended.
The Deputy may not advocate that now. He cannot advocate legislation or amendment of the law now.
I do not want to do so, but something should be done for these people. In his letter the Minister stated that the railway company was prepared to provide a service. The company is not doing so. I was speaking to a representative of the railway company two days ago and I asked him if they were prepared to do the work. He said the cost would be so much, and that they would have to send six miles from Ballinamore, and then go a further six miles, and that ¾d. a gallon for delivering milk would not pay them. Even if it was four times the amount, he said, it would not pay them. I asked him why the company was playing the dog-in-the-manger policy by preventing a man who was entitled getting a licence and who would draw the milk at the usual rate. He said they were not adopting the dog-in-the-manger policy, and that they had no objection to the granting of a special licence. Despite that we have the letter from the Minister of June 27th saying that he is precluded from granting the licence.
This is a serious matter for 35 families. More than half or some member of each family are on the dole. To ask small farmers to pay fourpence to the railway company for delivering their milk is out of the question. I do not think that position can be defended. Something should be done, and I ask the Minister to look into it again. I was told that the railway company have no objection to the granting of a special licence. Perhaps the Minister will say why he will not grant it.
Deputy Kelly referred to things that I consider are irrelevant. I do not propose to follow him in that direction. The Deputy talked about starvation wages being paid for certain things that were sold here. I will only refer to one of the industries recently started, the alcohol factories, to which potatoes are supposed to be supplied at 2¾d. or, at the outside, 3d. per stone. I understand that the economic price at which alcohol can be produced from potatoes means that they would be supplied at 2¾d. per stone. Is not that a starvation price? Are farmers able to produce potatoes at 2¾d. per stone? I should like Deputy Kelly or someone else to tell the House what it costs to produce potatoes. As a great deal has been said about the cost of production, I do not propose to cover the ground again, but, taking that specific instance, I ask anyone who understands anything about the growing of potatoes to say if 2¾d. or 3d. a stone is an economic price. These factories were put up on that supposition, but eventually, when agriculture is restored to its proper position, and when proper prices can be obtained for agricultural products, farmers will discontinue growing potatoes at that price. Then these factories will become white elephants the same as the Roscrea factory.
May I appeal to Deputies to have a little discretion and a little consideration in these matters. I have no objection to Deputies referring to the Roscrea factory, but I should like them to tell the truth. A considerable amount of money is invested in the Roscrea factory, and it is not a white elephant. That factory is going to continue and to give employment.
On the Minister's Vote I am discussing industrial policy.
Do not make false statements.
If factories are put up that cannot be carried on economically, then this country will be well rid of them. If the Roscrea factory was built on the assumption that cows will be supplied for nothing, then that factory should not be started. I say the same with regard to the industrial alcohol factories. If they were started on the basis that potatoes would be supplied at 2¾d. or 3d. per stone they cannot continue and will become white elephants. The country would be better without such industries if they cannot be carried on economically. I intervened only to draw attention to one glaring instance. I do not know whether it is caused by muddling in the Minister's Department, or because of some unforeseen difficulties that have arisen under the Railways Act. It is a matter that the Minister should look into, because it is only one of many instances that have arisen out of the licensing system and the granting of monopolies to certain firms. The Minister should get away from the licensing system, and replace it by a system of more individual freedom. A great deal has been done to acquire national freedom, but national freedom is very little good if there is not individual freedom. The Minister should get away from the system of licensing, because it hampers business people, farmers and others. I hope he will try to make amends in the instance I mentioned.
I wish to intervene to counteract a false impression which was created by statements made yesterday by Deputy Hughes in reference to Tuam beet factory. As a beet-grower, and one who is in a position to represent the beet-growers in the West, I deny the allegations of Deputy Hughes. He said that the four factories were carrying one factory on their backs. When he was asked which one that was, he said Tuam.
That is the way he would like it to be.
I challenge him on that. He also said that the land in that part of the country was unsuitable for beet. If he looks at the returns of the yield per acre, he will find that the results from the West bear favourable comparison with other areas where beet is grown. On one occasion the returns for the Tuam factory were better than those from Carlow. Mallow was better because it was supplied from Wexford. The Deputy also said that the man who established a beet factory in the West should be in a mental hospital. I think the Deputy should not make such statements, and should not try to kill an Irish industry that is of great importance to the farmers and to the people in the West. If we are going to have tillage, the best type of farmer is the man who works with his team of horses and plough, and with the shovel, and not mass production as in Carlow. We may be small farmers in the West, but we are decent, honest people, and we are able to stand up against any type of farmer in this country, particularly people who have swelled heads, and certain ideas about their own type of farming.
I want to ask the Minister for some information in connection with the closing down of the railway from Tuam to Sligo and from Claremorris to Ballinrobe.
On the 28th April I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if his attention had been called to a statement made by Mr. W.H. Morton, on behalf of the Great Southern Railways, that with the consent of the Minister for Industry and Commerce about 120 miles of unremunerative railways had been closed and further branch lines were under consideration for similar treatment, and if he would state if the railway company had made applications to his Department for his consent to close further branch lines and where such lines are situate. I want to ask the Minister whether his Department has received an application from the Great Southern Railways Company for the closing down of additional branch lines and if it is the intention of the Government to give them that permission. I think the railway company has certain obligations and certainly should not be allowed to get away with that. The railway company, after all, may have some branch lines that are unremunerative but they have got other lines which are paying propositions, and are they going to be allowed to escape their responsibility to carry on all the lines? I think it is the duty of the Minister and of the Government, if the Great Southern Railways Company want to close down any more lines, to immediately nationalise the entire railway system in the country.
Nothing short of that should be done. The railway company, as you are all aware, have increased their freights and fares since the 1st January last by substantial amounts. I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce should take steps immediately to see that there will be no more increases anyway. What we should get is a reduction. As far as the people of this country are concerned, the merchants and traders in the West of Ireland and all over the country are practically bled white by the railway company charges.
A great deal has been said to-day in regard to the high cost of living in this country, particularly the cost of flour. On 1st June, a proposition was made by a merchant down in Balla called Mr. Higgins, to import 2,000 tons of flour into Westport Quay, which he would import for 11/6 a cwt. —£11 10s. a ton. The proposition was sent to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. We have heard nothing about it since. We will probably never hear anything about it. The offer was made that he would import 2,000 tons from Liverpool at a cost of £11 10s. a ton. That would be sold retail for 12/- a cwt. all over the County of Mayo and when that 2,000 tons would be sold he would get the same amount again, and so on. The saving on 2,000 tons alone would be, roughly speaking, about £10,000 to the people of Mayo. The Minister for Industry and Commerce should give the opportunity to these people to reduce the cost of foodstuffs in this country. We have heard nothing about it since and I suppose we will not hear any more about it, not as long as Messrs. Ranks have almost control of the Minister's Department.
We heard some of the disclosures here made by Deputy Gorey with regard to the Carrick-on-Suir slate quarries. I think, after all, when disclosures are made, it is the duty of the Minister to immediately hand over the facts to the Attorney-General and have these people indicted who are responsible for robbing this State of about £10,000.
How?
That is exactly the amount of the loss to this State and I think something should be immediately done. I think it is the duty of the Minister to investigate this matter as soon as possible.
With regard to the alcohol factories, we built alcohol factories and spent £225,000 on them in this country. How much have we got out of them since they were built? The alcohol factory in Mayo was built five miles from the nearest railway station. Therefore if you want to get any potatoes brought there, you must bring them to the station first, carry them there, and take them to the factory — send them out five miles to the alcohol factory and when the alcohol is manufactured, carry the stuff back five miles again to the station. That is the kind of humbug the Minister for Industry and Commerce is responsible for, or at least the Government is responsible for. I suppose it is like a lot of the other factories we have had erected in some parts of the country. There are not many in my part of the country. We are glad there are not. We do not want factories of that description which are giving no work to anybody, not relieving unemployment and which are no good to anyone. I think the quicker the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Government wake up and shut up half the factories which they have built, the better it will be for everybody concerned in this country.
I understand Deputy Nally attended a meeting in Claremorris quite recently with the representatives of the railway company, at which members of all Parties were present, and where the question of closing down branch lines was discussed. He knows what took place there, and he has spoken here for the purpose of wasting time and getting publicity for himself.
The motion which was moved by Deputy Pattison to reduce the amount of this Estimate was apparently inspired by certain objections which he had to the manner in which the unemployment assistance scheme was being administered. He and the Deputy who followed him and who seconded the amendment spoke upon that matter, but very few other Deputies have referred to it. The general criticism of the administration of that Act which was voiced will be dealt with by the Parliamentary Secretary on the appropriate Vote. I propose here to deal with the matters of major importance which were raised concerning the general policy and administration of the Department of Industry and Commerce.
Deputy Dillon said that my being Minister for Industry and Commerce was a scandal, and he referred to my ignorance and folly, and describes people who had invested money in Irish industrial enterprises as carrion crows and highway robbers. Remarks of that kind made in conjunction with the reckless charges and wild misstatements for which the Deputy was responsible are irritating, and I was provoked into interrupting the Deputy, for which I am sorry. I say that because I am anxious that we should consider in a somewhat calmer atmosphere than that created some of the more important questions of policy which were raised during the course of the discussion. I propose to deal with the more serious speakers from the Opposition Benches first. I will deal with the jokers afterwards.
Deputy Mulcahy thought that I should have, in my introductory statement, taken the House into my confidence concerning the general lines which it was proposed to follow in industrial development arising, he said, out of the British Agreement. There was in Deputy Mulcahy's query an implication that some change in industrial policy was necessitated by the provisions of the British Agreement. Deputy Belton, of course, who spoke also on that matter, was much more dogmatic, as Deputy Belton usually is, and he asserted that we were forced by the British to abandon our policy. In fact, Deputy Belton had some difficulty in finding a word to convey his exact meaning. I think "compelled to crawl in the dust" was one of the terms he used, but the general sense of his remark was that we were forced in London to abandon our industrial policy. Any Deputy or member of the public who read the terms of the British Agreement with ordinary intelligence would have seen at once that no change in industrial policy was necessitated by it. Certainly no change is intended. It has always been the policy of the Government to foster the industrial development of this country by every practicable means, including the imposition of tariffs and the imposition of import restrictions. Deputy Norton spoke as if the Government had no other idea in its mind for the promotion of industrial growth than the imposition of tariffs. Tariffs and import restrictions are, of course, an essential weapon for the solution of our industrial problems, but they do not in themselves constitute an industrial policy. The industrial policy of the Government is still what it always was. A properly planned tariff policy must necessarily take into account and must necessarily make provision for the different circumstances existing during the earlier development stages of new industries, and the circumstances which may be expected to arise when such industries have become fully established. During the earlier period it is not reasonable to expect our new industries to reach maximum efficiency, or that their products can compete in respect of price or of quality, or of variety, with the products which we can import from other countries. The protection granted to these industries must necessarily be higher than fully established industries would require and, furthermore, it must be so graded as to ensure that despite whatever deficiencies there are in their productions they will still be able to dispose of their products, and thus secure for both the management and the workers the skill and the experience which are the basis of efficiency.
When industries become fully established, and by the term fully established we mean in a position to get the maximum output from their staff, machinery and organisation generally, they must not expect, and certainly should not need, protection to the same extent as in their earlier stages. It was never the intention of the Government that they should get it. That was the Government's policy in the past, and it is its present policy. The Agreement we made with the Government of the United Kingdom necessitates no modification of that policy. The Agreement does not restrict the Government's power to impose new duties, despite Deputy Belton's emphatic declaration to the contrary, except in respect of certain named products. It makes special arrangements for industries not fully established, and provides that when tariffs are reviewed in the case of fully established industries, they will be fixed on a basis which will make suitable provision for British exporters while still affording to Irish manufacturers adequate protection.
On the general question of industrial development, I need say little more than this, that the need for industrial development here is as great as ever it was and this country could not afford to abandon its industrial programme. Deputy Dillon describes the self-sufficiency policy as all cod. The only thing about the policy that is reminiscent of that fish were the various attempts made by Deputy Dillon to misrepresent what was intended by it. When the term self-sufficiency was used by members of the Government Party, or by ordinary intelligent members of the public, a very definite idea was conveyed, not a state of affairs in which there would be no imports of any kind, in which we would, by all sorts of artificial means, endeavour to produce goods for which our climatic conditions or other circumstances would be unsuitable. The term was intended to convey the idea of developing such resources as we have and establishing such industries as could be established economically, having due regard to the reactions which their establishment would have on the general circumstances of the country.
In the early days of the industrial revival the protagonists of the self-sufficiency policy, those who advocated the adoption of a programme to promote the industrial development of the country, always directed their arguments against a certain type of individual who was supposed to regard the sole economic function of this country to be the production for export of a limited range of agricultural products and who condemned out of hand every Irish industrialist as a crook and every Irish industrial product as rotten. I always regarded that person as a figment of the imagination; I never thought such a person existed. I am glad to say that I have met one, although perhaps it is a bit belated. Deputy Hughes is that person. Until he spoke here yesterday, I regarded the suggestion that such a person could be found in this country as a purely imaginative statement. Such a person actually does exist, and Deputy Hughes has the honour to be that person. But even Deputy Hughes made no attempt to follow his arguments to their logical conclusion. Many of his arguments were reminiscent of the ones we have heard from Deputy Dillon, and occasionally from Deputy Belton.
At first I thought that Deputy Hughes was going to be somewhat more consistent than they proved themselves to be in the past. They are completely illogical. What they say in one sentence they contradict in the next. What they say here in speeches they contradict outside. What they say in speeches outside, in rural areas, they contradict in speeches delivered in urban areas. All hope of consistency in argument from Deputy Dillon, Deputy Belton and their colleagues is out of the question. I thought Deputy Hughes was going to be a consistent supporter of the policy of producing entirely for export to the British and other markets and buying materials abroad for use at home, wherever we could get the cheapest industrial and other products we require. In the end Deputy Hughes did not prove to be consistent. He said industrial development was too much of a burden; it involved the farmers buying rotten products at excessive prices. I gathered from his remarks that the ideal Ireland would be one inhabited by a certain limited number of farmers like himself, who would export all their available products and import whatever would be their requirements, industrial and otherwise. I think his ideal is unattainable and he should make an endeavour to realise that fact.
The Irish people will refuse to be exterminated merely to serve his interests, and that being so, the Government policy must make some provision for the maintenance of those people. The policy outlined by Deputy Hughes is impracticable. He is nothing more than a rainbow chaser, a man who will not face the cardinal fact that the great number of people who cannot get employment on the land must still be preserved and must be occupied in production of some kind. I have no desire, I never expressed a desire, and I certainly never attempted to defend inefficiency in Irish manufactures. Deputy Hughes says he can buy a cheaper mowing machine from America than he can get in Ireland, and he can buy a better spade or fork of foreign manufacture than he can procure here. That may be so, but I do not think it is generally the case. Deputy Dockrell produced a broken spade, which he said was of Irish manufacture. I could produce a dozen broken spades of British manufacture, if it would serve any purpose.
I admit that there are occasionally produced here products of inferior quality. There are individual firms that have not come up to a certain standard, but to suggest, because of one or two instances, that all Irish firms are inefficient and that all Irish products are rotten, as Deputy Hughes would seem to suggest, is absolutely indefensible. He has shown that he is influenced by the opinions of other members of his Party, because his arguments were re-echoed by certain members of the Party to-day. He claims that he should be allowed to keep his cost of production down, that he should be facilitated in procuring his mowing machines and his spades and forks wherever he can get them cheapest. He points out that they may be got cheaper in Japan, Germany, Russia or anywhere else, and the farmers here should not be compelled to use only what is manufactured in Ireland.
I wonder what Deputy Hughes' attitude would be if the workers in the factories where these mowing machines and spades and forks are made were to adopt a similar line of argument from their own point of view. They might say that they could work for lower wages and reduce the costs of their products and even get to the position where they could export those products if they were faciltiated by the Government in the sense that they could import various necessaries from different parts of the world, such as Argentine wheat, Czecho-Slovakian sugar, Chinese eggs and so on. If they were to agitate for the free import of foodstuffs from abroad it would represent the height of folly because, of course, the success of their agitation, by destroying the Irish farmers, would also destroy the best market for the goods they are making. If that is true of these workers in the factories, it is equally true in relation to the farmers. Apparently that idea never occurred to Deputy Hughes. The home market is the best market for the Irish farmers. It is the only market of which they could be certain in all circumstances, a market in which they can be guaranteed a price which will secure to them a return on their capital and, at least, will cover the cost of production. It is, of course, the policy of the Government and the wishes of the Government to maintain the export of agricultural products to the maximum extent. They are working to secure a preferential position for the farmers in the home market by guaranteeing them profitable prices there and subsidising prices on exports. Deputy Hughes told us that the export prices were not economic and that the prevailing prices would not return to the farmers the cost of production. How does the Deputy think that these should be subsidised?
He has not asked that.
I am trying to impress upon Deputy Hughes as a new member the importance of thinking before he talks. There is no use in impressing that on Deputy Gorey, but Deputy Hughes is a new member and he may learn. There is no conflict of interest whatever between Irish farmers and Irish industrialists. There is no conflict between a sound agricultural policy and a sound industrial policy. The best thing that can happen to farmers in this country is the success of the industrial policy. Deputy Hughes said that our industrial development was not properly planned and, as an example of that contention, he mentioned the sugar factory which was established at Tuam. Certain Deputies who spoke on that matter have more knowledge of the immediate concerns of that factory than I have.
Behind the industrial policy there are more than economic needs. The industrial policy has been designed not merely to serve an economic purpose. It has been designed to serve a social purpose as well. It is because we have these social needs in view as well as the economic needs that we are endeavouring to scatter industrial concerns throughout the country. All the industrial activity in this country would have been centralised in one or two large cities and there would be no factories established throughout the country if we had only in view the economic outlook. But from the social angle it was necessary for the Government to force the spread of industrial activity from the cities to the rural towns. It was because its aims were not merely economic aims but social aims that this was done. We knew it would be more difficult to make the beet factory a success in Tuam than in some other part of the country. But we said, nevertheless, that the benefits of this industry must be secured for the people of Connacht. Purely economic considerations would have dictated its being established somewhere else. It was not party political motives that suggested that. It was a sound economic policy. It will take harder work and a longer time to make the beet factory a success in Tuam than if it were established in some other agricultural centre. But the harder work will be put into it and the success of the factory will be secured.
Many references were made to the boot and shoe industry. The boot and shoe industry at the moment, it is true, is not working to its full capacity. That situation has arisen, partly because of the false impression created by the boot and shoe manufacturers and partly by the foolish statements made by Deputies from time to time in this House. It is also due to the many foolish statements made by people outside the House to the effect that the British Agreement would mean the resumption of boot and shoe imports. There were references to the possibility of boots and shoes being dumped in here at cut-throat prices. I do not blame the trader who, reading these statements, sat back and said: "I will not order any goods from the Irish manufacturers." Even though the trader would prefer to support the Irish factories, he could not afford to do so if his competitor across the street were to be in a position to offer cheap boots in competition with his. That was because it was anticipated that a flood of dumped goods in boots and shoes was to be let loose on the market in this country. Because of these reasons orders to Irish boot and shoe factories ceased.
I want to say now that there will be no change in respect of boots and shoes for some time to come. That change cannot commence before November next. The present quota expires in the end of October and the new quota begins then. Some of our boot and shoe manufacturers fear that the traders who have let their stocks run low will send simultaneous orders to the Irish factories, orders which cannot be immediately filled. Irish manufacturers fear that then the traders will base upon the inability of the factories to supply their orders at once an agitation to increase the quota. The quota will not be increased on that account. It is just as well that the traders should be clear as to the position.
Some boot and shoe factories got into difficulties before the London negotiations commenced. These difficulties were sometimes due to bad management and sometimes the difficulties were caused by over-production of certain lines of goods. Deputy Brodrick spoke yesterday as if the Department of Industry and Commerce were responsible for the management of individual concerns even where they were privately owned. That is nonsense. The Department is responsible for creating conditions under which efficient concerns will be a success. It is nonsense to suggest that for the average day to day management of privately-owned concerns the Department is responsible. For some time back they have been actively discouraging the starting of new factories for boots and shoes. There are certain lines in boots and shoes that are not made here yet in sufficient quantities. It does not follow that the requirements in each class of boot can be produced here to the fullest extent necessary. Deputy Brodrick made special reference to the boot factory at Ballinasloe. That firm is producing very high-grade quality in ladies' shoes which no other factory in this country is able to make. They are receiving from the Department of Industry and Commerce special facilities not given to other firms.
We have had many references made to the position of the slate quarries. Deputy Belton yesterday in his usual style said that he had gone out that day to place orders for Irish slate and could not get Irish slate. He announced most dramatically that if I could tell him where to get Irish slates he would place an order at once for 100,000 slates. I thought it no harm to inquire to what extent it was possible to get supplies. He told us yesterday he could not get Irish slates and, if he could, he would order 100,000. The agents for the Drinagh and other West Cork slate quarries stated in reply to inquiries that they were in a position to execute any orders promptly. The Donegal slate quarry say they can supply the orders from stock and the Killaloe Slate Quarries Company say they will have no difficulty in executing any order at once if it is given. Deputy Belton is not here now but it is quite clear that he was talking the usual nonsense, doing his little bit of damage to Irish industry, trying to give it a last kick down which it was hoped would finish it. He was following the example of his betters in the Fine Gael Party. He is not accustomed to them now very long. He has not long been back with them this time. I have no doubt that in due course he will learn finesse from Deputy Dillon.
It is true there has been a decline in the output of the slate industry recently, due to a number of causes. There has been a falling off in orders for natural slates, mainly, I think, because of the increased cost of building arising from the higher wages, and the increased cost of materials, naturally, has forced builders to consider the possibility of using cheaper roofing materials. Of course, the concrete-tiled roof, or a roof covered with asbestos slates, is very much cheaper than a roof of natural slate. We have had complaints also concerning the West Cork quarries to the effect that on occasions in the past they have supplied slates of an indifferent quality. The main difficulty of these quarries is, I feel certain, due to the fact that, in the main, they were under-capitalised, and they were depending on a steady output and turnover to enable them to meet their outgoings and to pay the instalments on their machinery, most of which was purchased on the hire-purchase system. The cessation of activities owing to the building strike also created difficulties for them. Then there has been a reduction in the grants with regard to certain classes of housing, which also made builders turn to the possibility of getting cheaper roofing material. We are very anxious to develop that industry, and we have already spent a very great deal of money upon exploration work and assisting private interests to get slate quarries opened. I do not think, however, that we can go on indefinitely giving grants to private people for purposes of that kind, but the industry is one which has considerable possibilities and is particularly useful in so far as it provides the right type of employment in areas where such employment is badly needed. Therefore any action that the Department can take to promote that industry and ensure the success of these quarries will be taken.
Now, we had this case of the Carrick slate quarry, to which Deputy Gorey referred. He said that it had got a trade loan, and said that it was a scandal.
I said nothing of the sort.
Apparently he has discovered now that the company got the trade loan from the Cumann na nGaedheal Government three years before this Government came into office. Deputy Gorey said, undoubtedly, that it was a scandal.
That is not what I said. What I said is on the records. I should be allowed to explain what I said.
I have not much time, and I do not propose to give way to the Deputy.
The position is that I said that the wrecking of the quarry was a scandal, and the selling of the plant.
I shall deal with the question of the wrecking of the quarry. At any rate, a company was formed in 1928 to work the Carrick slate quarry. A substantial amount of private money was put forward by individuals for the purpose of forming that company. That money has been lost, and Deputies who referred to Mr. O'Driscoll here in the House and to other persons associated with that company should bear in mind that the private money they invested was lost, and it is difficult to understand how they could gain anything by wrecking an enterprise started by their own capital. However, we had Deputy Belton also referring to an industry which was flourishing here in 1929, 1930 and 1931, and which closed down when the Fianna Fáil Government came into office. Did he not say that? I am certain he did, and it is on the records of the House. The position is this. The company got this trade loan in February, 1929. Up to the 31st March, 1929, it had lost £492. In the year ended the 31st March, 1930, it lost £422. In the year ended 31st March, 1931, it lost a further £220, and in the nine months to the end of the year 1931, it lost £542. It made a first profit in 1932, after Fianna Fáil came into office, but it would have continued to make profits were it not for the fact that the vein of slate on which they were working developed faults. The company encountered a vein of quartzite in the slate deposit, with the result that it was impossible to get slates in that part of the quarry which was being worked, with any reasonable prospect of profit. When that happened the company had to face the prospect of closing down immediately. Naturally, I was very concerned about that, because a substantial number of workers were concerned, and on that account we made available money, out of the relief of unemployment grant, for the purpose of exploring the possibilities there and in the vicinity of that quarry and other parts of the neighbourhood with the object of discovering another deposit of slate which would enable the machinery to be utilised in production which could be recommenced on a profitable basis. That exploration work proved unsuccessful. It was not possible to discover a vein of slate of a quality which would permit of large scale commercial work being engaged in.
It was not in another place?
I do not claim to be an expert, but I am advised by experts.
Neither was the owner.
And these experts advise me——
Before the Minister leaves the period of 1929, would he tell us——
I am not going to give way to the Deputy.
Will he tell us why——
Order. The Minister must be allowed to continue his speech.
I am giving the history of the company to the Deputy. It was formed in 1928 by Mr. J.B. O'Driscoll, Mr. Isaac Beckett and Mr. McQuillan. There were two other shareholders, as well as the Bank of Ireland and the Industrial Trust Company of Ireland— not to be confused with the Industrial Credit Corporation—that has since been wound up. These held shares to the amount of about £4,500. There was a trade loan guaranteed from the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in February, 1929, and the company continued to operate until 1931, making in every year a substantial loss, until 1932 was reached, when a profit was made for the first time. A profit was also made in 1933. And then this difficulty arose in respect of the vein of slate. The quarry was inspected by an economic geologist from my Department, on whose report I place the utmost reliance, and it was clear that, on the basis of the vein of slate on which they were working, commercial large-scale work could not be continued. We went out, then, spending money with a view to discovering a new vein of slate in the vicinity, but no such vein was found. The National City Bank then asked me to concur in a proposal to appoint a receiver over the assets of the undertaking, in which I concurred. What happened after that was a matter for the receiver, and it was his duty to get the maximum he could for the assets of the company. Accordingly, the receiver proceeded in the ordinary way to realise the assets and put up the property for sale.
For tender, was it not?
Yes, tenders were invited.
It was not public auction?
The highest offer was £465 10s., which was accepted by the receiver — which he was bound to do by law.
What about the plant and machinery, and the original price?
Of course the machinery had cost more. The putting down of a railway track is expensive, but if you try to sell that track, in situ, to somebody who has to take it up and transport it, you will find that it is a very different matter and that you will get very much less. Anybody could have told the Deputy that. Anyhow, that was the highest price offered, and the receiver was bound by law to accept it. That is the end of that.
Does the Minister say that is the end of that? I want to know about the buildings and——
I do not propose to give way to the Deputy.
The Minister must be allowed to finish his speech.
What about the buildings and the ten cottages, and the manager's house?
I have no doubt that it is possible to win slates by some hand-method to a limited extent. That is not contested. What is contested is that the large-scale commerical work for which the company was formed, and for which the machinery was purchased, was impracticable. I am not offering that as a personal opinion, but as the opinion of the experts employed by me.
We have had a lot of talk here about unemployment. I think the speech made here to-day by Deputy Norton was a disgrace. He is the leader of the Labour Party, and as such purports to make unemployment his special concern. He came in here to-day and made a speech on unemployment, a prepared speech — not a speech that he made on the spur of the moment, not a speech that he was provoked into making by some statement from this side of the House. It was a prepared speech, and that speech consisted of nothing else but a series of political gibes, misrepresentations of the facts, and attempts to score purely debating points against the Government. Is that the Labour Party's contribution towards the solution of the unemployment problem? On many occasions I have appealed to Deputies on the opposite benches to face up to the fact that unemployment is a serious problem. It is not as serious here as in other countries but, nevertheless, it is serious enough to justify, not merely the serious attention of Deputies, but the mobilisation of all the resources of this country to the fullest extent that is practicable for the purpose of dealing with it. If we are going to get unemployment dealt with properly here, we have to take it out of this atmosphere of political controversy. We have to have a serious attempt by Deputies on all sides of the House to contribute to the sum total of all the constructive suggestions we can get. Those attempts to score purely debating points against the Government are of no service whatever. That is the type of thing which lost the Labour Party four seats in the last election and will lose them four more at the next election. That is why I suggest, as I have often done, that Deputies should come into this House, not merely as representatives of a faction, but as Deputies elected by the people to a council of Deputies for the purpose of evolving a constructive plan to deal with what is our most urgent social problem.
There is no solution for the problem of unemployment except the provision of permanent constructive work. It is true, of course, that there are wild plans for the provision of permanent employment in agriculture and industry. It is necessary to provide State schemes of work to cope with the situation, but I can assure Deputy Cogan that we will never get to the point at which it will be possible to realise the ideal he has in mind, where every worker losing employment can go to the labour exchange and be employed on a State scheme within two days. Human ingenuity is not capable of devising a scheme of public works capable of producing that result. The scheme has to be planned in advance; engineers have to work on it; the finances have to be examined; managerial problems have to be solved; and it can be brought into operation only as circumstances permit. It is not possible to have such a scheme of work that every man who leaves private employment can be immediately absorbed on a Government scheme. That is an ideal; it is not practicable, but we can attempt, and are attempting, to distribute throughout the country public works which will at least ease the problem considerably. We have gone a long way in imposing burdens on the people that such a scheme of public works might be made possible. In each year in which the Fianna Fáil Government has been in office we have provided a larger amount for the financing of public works than our predecessors thought fit to provide during their whole ten years in office. That was not done easily. It was only done through increased taxation — increased taxation which is being constantly opposed in this House by the very people who are demanding more and more public works. Moreover, we have provided public services which are designed to protect the unemployed against the possibility of destitution.
Deputy Norton can make as many speeches as he likes about the inadequacy of the unemployment assistance rates to maintain the unemployed people and their families. We know they are not capable of maintaining the unemployed and their families during protracted periods of unemployment. They were not designed for that purpose. They were designed, as the name implies, to assist unemployed people during temporary periods of unemployment. The rates were fixed, not in relation to the needs of those people, but in relation to the total amount of money that could be made available for the service. The cost of that service exceeds £1,000,000 per year. In the year 1934, when that service was instituted, taxation had to be increased by £1,000,000, and that increased taxation produced an uproar in many parts of the country. We had to face that uproar. We had to convince the people that not merely was it a wise policy to provide money for that service, but that it was the fulfilling of what is an essential part of the functions of Government, to erect those barriers against destitution amongst the unemployed or the partially unemployed people of the country. We could, of course, if we liked exaggerate our unemployment problem. That is perhaps to be expected during election periods. Those who are against the Government will naturally try to represent existing conditions as worse than they are, but here in this House the facts are known, and those attempts at exaggeration and misrepresentation can have no purpose except to mislead the people who are outside this House. They certainly will not mislead anybody here who has the same access to the facts as those who speak in that way.
At the labour exchange there is a register in existence. That register is sometimes called the register of unemployed. It is nothing of the sort. It is a register of people who are available for employment. On the date that Deputy Norton said we had 97,000 people unemployed, there were upon that register 45,000 people who were described as having means. There were 29,000 people described as without means, and there were 19,000 people with claims to unemployment insurance benefit. Of course there will always be a certain number of people who are not really unemployed, who do not regard themselves as part of the unemployment problem, but are merely passing from one job to another. The worker employed by the building trade employer, who finishes work on one job, may have to wait a week or ten days before getting another. The docker working on the quay may work only two days, and get enough to keep him for a week, although he is not working during the other four days. There is always a certain number of people of that kind who are not part of the unemployment problem. Their total number at any one time is 20,000 or 25,000, and the more employment we get in the country the larger that number will become. In trying to estimate the size of the unemployment problem we can deduct that figure from the total number on the register. There are all those farmers' sons about whom Deputy Dillon was speaking. Even when the census of 1926 was published, the Minister of the day would not include those people in the total of the unemployed as calculated on the register, even though they described themselves as unemployed.
There was justification for that attitude. They are not unemployed. There is work which they can do on their fathers' farms, but they are available for work, if they can get it, on the roads or on forestry schemes in their areas. They are, in a sense, part of the unemployment problem, but to represent the figure to which they total as a measure of our unemployment problem is completely inaccurate. Even if there were 97,000 people unemployed in the sense that Deputies use that phrase, that is, people without means or the possibility of occupying themselves profitably, our unemployment position would still be substantially better than that in Northern Ireland. The population of Northern Ireland is about one-half the population of the Twenty-Six Counties, and the register of the unemployed there for this week exceeded 91,000. I am not saying that the fact that we are not as bad as others is a reason why we should neglect any opportunity for trying to improve the position. On the contrary, I say that our position is sufficiently grave to justify this Dáil in contemplating even increased burdens on the people in order to provide the means for removing the possibility of hardship arising from unemployment. But if we come here with proposals to put those new burdens on the people, proposals to raise by new taxation extra sums to be devoted to the financing of public works, or to some scheme for the permanent improvement of the unemployment position in agriculture or industry, or to increasing the social services and consequently protecting the people against hardship, will we get the support of the Party opposite? Nothing of the kind. We never got their support for that purpose.
This debate, I understand, is to adjourn at 7.30. I do not want to carry the discussion on the Estimate over until to-morrow. I do not think any of the other matters that were raised need necessarily be dealt with on this occasion. Other opportunities for dealing with them will occur, and consequently I move that the question be put.
Motion put and declared lost.
Vote put and agreed to.
Vote 58.
It is now after half-past seven, and the arrangement was that other business would be taken at this hour.
I have no objection to the other Estimates standing over until to-morrow. I move to report progress.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.