I am not going to chase that hare. The point Deputy Dillon made was that higher wages here necessarily involved difficulties about exporting goods and the capacity to do so. I put to the Deputy another example where wages were substantially lower here and that the advantages he sees in Britain are not comparable to the danger he pretends to see in industrial goods being exported. That is a matter upon which we will not agree, any more than on the proposed joint campaign that Deputy Hickey and Deputy Dillon would agree when they came to an examination of the point of view. I will leave that matter aside. This is an Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce, and I want to refer to some matters in respect of which the Minister has a serious national responsibility, not merely to the House and to the nation as a whole but in particular to those who are the unfortunate victims of a social system which condemns tens of thousands to conditions on the border of permanent pauperisation. In the old days before 1932, the Government Party of to-day used to tell us how easy it would be to solve unemployment. The Taoiseach told us before the 1932 election that work would be made available by the Government Party for the whole number of unemployed people. Somewhat earlier, when he was obviously much younger, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce believed the problem could be settled in 12 months.
Let us get that background of the picture, and let us see how little reality and comparison there is in a statement of that kind with the position that exists to-day. According to the Government's own statistics there were in March, 1937, 92,000 persons registered on the unemployment register. In March, 1938, the figures had risen to 101,000. In March, 1939, 106,000 people were registered as unemployed at the employment exchanges. These are ghastly figures, and the steadiness of the tendency to increase indicates that there is in this country a hard core of unemployment of about 100,000. The rigorous test imposed by the employment exchanges shows that they were available for work and were genuinely seeking work. That problem faces the House to-day. That is the problem before the Minister. That is the problem to which we have to find a solution, and it is the one on which we ought to have something comprehensive from the Minister. As if supporting the fact that we are looking to them, in the present policy which is being pursued by the Government for a continuance of that large unemployment problem, we have only to look at the figures in respect of the insured population.
According to the Government's figures, there were 19,000 workers with claims current for unemployment insurance benefit, as distinct from unemployment assistance benefit in March, 1937. In March, 1939, the number of insured unemployed workers with claims current at employment exchanges was 22,000, so that we have not merely an increase in the number of workers seeking benefit, and seeking employment in respect of insured occupations, but we have also a very substantial increase in the number of persons seeking unemployment assistance, in which there is no insurance status whatever. I should like to ascertain from the Minister to what he attributes the substantial increase in the number of unemployed in the past two years. What is the cause of that? It cannot be said that industrial disputes are giving artificial returns at the employment exchanges. It cannot be alleged that there is any temporary dislocation in any particular industry which is adding to the number of unemployed insured workers.
Are we to take it that our unemployed insurance workers must now look forward to longer periods of unemployment than formerly? Are we to take it that we are always to have here a very hard core of unemployment, represented by such an appallingly large unemployment figure? When we come to the unemployment fund, there are certain statistics available that have been ascertained by Parliamentary questions. The figures of the unemployment insurance contributions paid by insured workers indicate that such workers suffer long spells of unemployment. For the unemployment insurance year 1938, the average number of contributions per worker was, in the case of men, 28; in the case of women, 41; in the case of boys, 23; and in the case of girls, 23. If you take the counterpart of these figures you find that unemployment amongst men during that year amounted to 23 weeks per man, whilst among women it amounted only to ten weeks. These figures indicate that not only is the unemployment position not satisfactory from the point of view of those employed, but even those obtaining employment must, apparently, be prepared to expect long periods of unemployment, and be content to derive any benefits they can from social legislation, that may have been passed by this House, for their sustenance during periods of unemployment.
These figures, particularly in respect of unemployment, would be serious and disturbing if, at the same time, our population were increasing, or if we were keeping our people at home and finding employment for the natural increase in the population which occurs each year in every progressive country, but what are the figures in respect of emigration? Between 1926 and 1936, 167,000 people emigrated from this country. During the same period, I may mention that the excess of births over deaths was 163,000, so that, during the ten years 1926 to 1936, we not only exported the entire natural increase in our population, but we sent 3,000 or 4,000 citizens after them into the emigrant ship and, notwithstanding the export of our population, we still have a very serious unemployment problem. It may be argued that the figures I have quoted in respect of unemployment do not tally with those in respect of emigration, but the figures in respect of emigration for the years 1936, 1937 and 1938 do not make any more comforting reading. In 1936, there went to England alone, taking the balance of inward and outward passengers, 29,000 people from this country. There was a net export of 29,000 people. In 1937, we exported 31,000 and in 1938, 18,000, so that in the three years 1936-1938 inclusive, we have exported 78,000 of our people. During that period our unemployment figure still continued to increase because the number increased from 92,000 in 1937, to 101,000 in 1938, and, still higher, to 106,000 in 1939.
These figures, I suggest, ought to give food for thought to the Minister and they ought to do so particularly in view of the latest information which has been made public as a result of the recent census. There, we find a very serious and a very disquieting position. According to the volume of the census just published, there is a very grave menace facing the nation to-day from the standpoint of the loss of its virile manhood and womanhood. Two of the most serious conclusions to be drawn from the census figures are an increase in the number of old persons and a decrease in the number of young persons. In 1841, only 3.1 per cent. of the population were 65 years and over and, in 1936, 9.7 per cent. of the population were 65 years and over. If we look at the figures in respect of the young people, we find that, in 1841, 38 per cent. of the population were under 15 years and, in 1936, 27 per cent. of the population were under 15 years. These are very striking figures; these are very menacing figures; and these figures indicate that there is in this country an economic disease which is preventing people from getting married and driving the flower of our manhood and womanhood to the emigrant ship in an effort to find, in other countries, the work which is apparently not available for them here.
We had yesterday from the Minister for Industry and Commerce in respect of industrial problems the first breath of reality we have had from him for some considerable time past. Speaking at the opening of a new chocolate factory, the Minister made these statements, and when you remember that they were made by a Minister whose custom it has been to make flamboyant, picturesque speeches, bristling with prosperity, the significance of the words becomes even more remarkable. He said:—
"The next five or ten years will be the most critical in the history of Ireland."
He made an appeal to all classes and Parties to give a fair chance to industrial development which, in those years, must play a vital part in the nation, and he declared:—
"In that period we will repair the ravages of the past and build up firm foundations for future prosperity or we will fail, and our failure will mean the ultimate disappearance of our nation. We must not, and we will not, fail."
There is a declaration by a Minister who obviously realises that, not withstanding all the boosting of his policy, notwithstanding all the efforts to make an unplanned policy work, we are in for a critical period, and that it will require the co-operation of all classes and parties, if we are to avoid a failure which will "ultimately mean the disappearance of the nation." The whole speech of the Minister yesterday indicated that, at last, he was beginning to realise that things are not as prosperous as one would imagine from listening to rosy speeches in the House by the Minister, because, referring to the publication of the recent volume of the census, he went on to say that the number of children under 15 years in rural areas declined by 13 per cent. in the past ten years, that 64 per cent. of the women under 30 were unmarried, a situation not parelleled in any other country in the world, that the percentage of both men and women unmarried at the younger ages was the highest in the world, and that emigration had reduced the normal proportion of the population at the productive ages and left an exceptionally large number of old people in relation to the total population. He added:
"These facts pointed inevitably to the conclusion that there existed a deep-rooted disorder in the economic system which must be eradicated if the race is to survive."
That is very good from the Minister for Industry and Commerce, from the man who recently stated in the Seanad that there was more nonsense talked by otherwise well-meaning and intelligent people on the drift from the land—and, of course, that meant the drift to the emigrant ship—than on any other subject that is being discussed in this country.
The Minister, with the new report before him apparently realises that unless something is done to stop that rot, to stop that drift from the land and across the seas, there is grave danger that the race may not survive. In the face of a speech of that kind yesterday, delivered by the Minister, who is very slow to admit his mistakes and who is always willing to grasp any kind of factor which will justify his own point of view, we ought to have from the Minister on this Estimate some indication as to what the Government policy is in relation to stopping the drift from the rural areas to the cities and from the rural areas and cities to the emigrant ship. Beyond a few routine remarks about the machinery of his Department this afternoon, the Minister did not open up for the House any indication of the Government's policy in respect of the serious unemployment problem which confronts them to-day. The reason for that probably is that the Government have no policy whatever for dealing with the unemployment problem except the Micawber-like policy of waiting for something to turn up—put on a tariff on this commodity; try and start an industry, and see what will happen; assist this industry by a tariff or a quota, or perhaps by a bounty, and then we will see what happens. But there is no plan; there is no co-ordination. There is a tariff on one commodity, which is the raw material of another industry, and consequently you get a kind of tug-of-war—a manufacturer or producer of a raw material with a tariff on imports of his particular type of commodity in order to keep out a cheaper type of commodity, and the manufacturer here then, who requires that raw material, being compelled to pay a very high price for the native manufactured raw material. There can be no plan or no co-ordination or industrial stability arising out of an ill-conceived policy of that description. You get that unthoughtout and unplanned position, not directed by minds concentrating constantly on the problem, and if you graft on to that the instability caused by the recent London Agreement you get some picture of the necessity to-day for hard thinking and serious thinking and the speedy application of remedies for unemployment in the industrial situation as it confronts us in this country to-day.
It is idle for the Minister or anybody else to pretend that the London Agreement did not cause dislocation and dismay to Irish industrialists. There is not an Irish industrialist who has been backing the Government who does not acknowledge that the effect on Irish industries of that Agreement has been very unsteadying indeed. Every industrialist who is free to talk, since the London Agreement was made, has complained about the instability that Agreement has caused, and has expressed grave concern as to the future of many of the industries here when, at the request of English manufacturers, the tariffs which brought these industries into existence are to be revised. Here, our Government go to London and make an Agreement with the British Government, with not the slightest consultation with any Irish economic interests, except such as they represent themselves or such as they conceive they represent themselves. Not an industrialist in the country was consulted. Not a trade union official in the country was consulted.
Nobody was consulted as to the wisdom or otherwise either of signing the Agreement providing for a review of practically every tariff we imposed, and, where that was not provided for, for a very definite reduction in some of the tariffs already imposed. The British, however, did not do that. They consulted their manufacturers; ascertained from them what exactly they wanted done; stipulated that there should be reductions in certain tariffs imposed by our people against their products; and, judging by the Agreement—its terms and consequences, and the dislocation caused in Irish industry —it was the British industrialists and the British Government who got the best of the economic and industrial sides of the London Agreement.
The statement made by the Minister this evening on the London Agreement and its unsteadying consequences will do nothing, I fear, to restore stability to industry, or to remove the doubts and misgivings which have been caused by a review of tariffs by the Prices Commission, and by the overriding fear that, when the British got that Agreement signed, providing for that review of our tariffs, they knew at the same time that they were going to get a reduction in the tariffs which so far have operated disadvantageously against their exports to this country. I think it will be a long time before our industries overcome the effect of the London Agreement. I think there is less employment now in our industries in consequence of that Agreement than there was before the Agreement was made, and I think that a review of the tariffs, and a reduction of them in the interests of British manufacturers, is going, not only to slow down employment in our industries, but to postpone some of the industrial development which it was hoped might take place here so long as our industrial policy could not be influenced by external considerations.
At the last election we had a statement from the Government Party that they hoped, during their period of office, to open another 300 factories. There have been very few of them opened since the last election, and there is no indication now of any terrific enthusiasm to open new factories here, nor any indication of the development of gigantic factories here, or that this country is attracting to it a large number of potential industrialists anxious to exploit our industrial resources here. All the indications are that there is a very definite slow-down in respect of industrial production in this country, and I have no hesitation in saying that I think the London Agreement, in the manner in which it was negotiated, and in the manner in which it is operating, will probably prevent the development here of a number of industries which might have been expected were it not for the disorganising effect and influence of the same Agreement.
Yesterday, the Minister appealed to the House and to the nation to co-operate in order to give a fair chance to industrial development. On what basis can anybody co-operate? On what basis can any Party in the House, not withstanding its utmost desire to preserve and develop Irish industry, co-operate to-day? One does not know what the Government's industrial policy is beyond the fact that one of the things they want is to impose tariffs, to impose quotas, and to impose restrictions; but as part of, or in connection with, what, one is left to wonder and to think for oneself. One does not know what relationship the tariff or bounty, the quota or restriction has to any kind of national effort to develop our industries on a sound and healthy basis. One can only see what is done—just a piecemeal effort to develop industry as far as it can be developed; but there is no national plan; there is no co-ordination and no national thinking-box dealing with the question of the development of our industries to-day. If the Minister wants co-operation I think there are men and women of goodwill, both inside and outside the House, anxious and willing to co-operate in every possible way; but if there is to be co-operation it must be co-operation in furtherance of a plan, in furtherance of something that has been surveyed—something that has been thought out, something that offers a promise of realisation.
At one stage in their political evolution the present Government, through the months of the Taoiseach and others, used to advocate a policy of establishing an economic council here which would survey the requirements of the nation and plan to supply these requirements along the most efficient and comprehensive lines. After seven years of office we see little indication that they now have any use for an economic council or machinery of that kind. We can see now no evidence that they appreciate the benefit of a council of that kind, but we have sufficient experience to know of the loss to the nation in misdirected and blunted effort from having no body of that kind to think out the nation's plan and to plan the road over which the nation should have travelled during the past seven years of attempted industrial development in this country. If the Government wants co-operation it must plan first, and plan on comprehensive lines. It must plan on lines which would beget the co-operation of all Parties and all peoples towards a building-up here of an industrial system which gives promise of being conducted on efficient lines and which will not always have to be bolstered up by a tariff which, in many cases, can operate merely as an incentive to an employer or a group of employers not to develop their industries on the most efficient lines.
There are one or two other matters which call for review on this Estimate. The first is the question of unemployment insurance and its administration by the Minister's Department. The statistics which are available to members of the House indicate that in the employment year 1938-39——