We have here a Vote on Account for £10,630,000. It is right perhaps that we should draw some attention to this expenditure. From 1932 until now the increase in expenditure and taxation has risen by something like £9,000,000. Outside of that we have indirect taxation imposed amounting to about £3,000,000 at least. There are, in addition, numerous items added to local taxation the effect of which has been that the national income, and certainly the national income of a great portion of the population of this State has been considerably reduced. Obviously, one cannot go on extracting ever-increasing amounts from the ordinary pockets of the people without making the economic position something desperate. That is to say, except in cases where you have by the Government methods or otherwise increased the income of the particular person you tax. Now, in regard to the bulk of the people of this State the reverse is the case. I do not think that any Deputy in any quarter of the House will get up and say that the incomes of the great bulk of the population have been increased or that they have been able to hold their own in the last eight or nine years. Yet in face of that additional taxation, direct and indirect, amounting to probably £15,000,000 to £16,000,000 has been imposed. There has been direct taxation in local bodies and there has been concealed taxation in the case of such things as wheat and beet.
The Government cannot go on with schemes of extra taxation without playing have with the ordinary economic life of the country unless, of course, the income of the people is being increased. But the fact is that the incomes of the people of this State have been steadily reduced. One of the particular effects of this taxation has perhaps been the reduction in employment. One might have thought with the advent of the present Government, the unexpected increase in taxation that has followed and the huge expenditure of public money generally that the direct effect, at all events, would be a reduction in unemployment. If anyone ever believed that the reckless expenditure of public money could reduce unemployment that belief has now been falsified. We have had eight years of that experiment and the result has been a clear proof that the unemployment problem cannot be helped in that way. To-day we have far more unemployed than we had in 1932. We have possibly a greater addition, too, in those who are only in receipt of part-time employment. One of the most deplorable things in this whole business is that employment on the land has been steadily reduced. There are to-day fewer men permanently employed on the land than there were eight years ago. There are fewer now than at any time perhaps since the institution of this State. It could not well be otherwise.
When the times grew worse the farmers were bound to economise in something and the only thing they could economise in right at the start was labour. The farmers could not meet the whole of the local taxation, the increased price of all commodities purchased and at the same time spend the same amount of money on labour. There had to be drastic economies effected by the agricultural holder and one of the things he had to do was to reduce expenditure on labour. Very many farmers throughout the country, though they regretted it very much, had to fall back on reducing the number of their labourers. They could not cut their outgoings in any other way. Their taxation, rates and annuities had to be paid and then there was the increased cost of the ordinary necessaries of life to be met. The ordinary implements for the farm cost more. The one thing left to them to cut was their expenditure on labour. Consequently we see everywhere around the country sad evidences in the deterioration of the land and the condition of farming generally. One has not to travel very far to see this. One has only to go into any farming community and see the condition of the moist land everywhere. One has only to look at the fields that ten or 12 years ago were in fairly good condition to find them now over-run with rushes, flaggers and other weeds that grow on damp lands. That is because there has been no attempt made by the individual farmer to drain these lands or to clear out the openings of the drains during the last eight or nine years.
The farmer can find whatever labour he can afford to pay for essential work on the farm—to save his hay if he is a dairy farmer, or to put in his crops if he be a tillage farmer. But work that should have been essential but which could lapse for a few years without any dire results he neglected. No attempt was made to keep the lands in proper order by drainage. Drainage is expensive work. It requires a great deal of expenditure by an individual farmer to keep his farm drained. Where drainage has not been carried out, lands which were once fertile have, in some cases, deteriorated into swamps. Again, you find that on farms where you used to see well-kept farm buildings and well-kept fences these are not now in a proper condition. The farmers could not attend to them. In many counties there are practically no fences and there are, consequently, differences between neighbours because one man's cattle trespass on another man's land.
At a time when a great effort was being made to house the people, the farmers' buildings went into dilapidation. The housing policy of the present Government was one of the items that did give employment. If it had not been for that, the position in regard to employment would have been disastrous. But for the number of people put into work by housing, a position which was deplorable would have become disastrous. The unemployed would have overrun us. In a period when huge sums of public money were being spent on housing— useful work which was giving employment—farmers' houses and out-offices fell into a state of dilapidation because the farmers had not the wherewithal to keep them in proper condition. There is little help for the farmer in that respect. He has got either to do the work himself or to leave it undone. If he had been fairly prosperous he would not have regretted expenditure on labour for the doing of these things, but virtually every Deputy knows that he was unable to afford the necessary expense.
Many Acts have been passed to provide help for other sections and to assist in providing employment. These efforts did not succeed very well. They were experiments. While farmers were letting workmen go because of their circumstances, we had sums of money—in one case one-third of a million—dumped into a bog. That sum, spread over a number of farmers, might have enabled them to put a big hole in the unemployment problem. We had various other examples of wilful extravagances in experiments. We have had Acts passed recently for the development of social life. We have had Acts passed to provide fire brigades and other amenities for people in the towns, partially at the expense of the local rates. It is possible to provide light and water for people in the towns at a certain expenditure. The State bears its share and local bodies the other share, but the farmer has to dip his hands into his pockets all the time. There is nobody to give him light, water or drains. He has got either to provide them himself or to go without them.
We are asked to point to any item in respect of which these Estimates could be reduced. It is not our job to point out to the Government where they can retrench. That is there job. This country was run on £9,000,000 less than it is being run at present. If you take indirect taxation into account, it was run on £15,000,000 less. Let them take a lesson from the manner in which it was run before. The manner in which it was run then pleased a number of people. The people were better off and there were fewer unemployed. They have a headline there. Now, we are setting a new headline. The Government have refused to economise but they are asking local bodies to economise. Recently, a circular was sent to the local bodies advising economy. It went so far as to suggest that they should riddle the cinders so that there would be no loss. A Government that put £333,000 into one bog as an experiment and that spent countless other millions in helping financial hogs to extract the last penny from people asks local bodies to riddle the cinders. We are asked to point out to that Government where they are to economise. If we come down to such small things as cinders, there are in this Vote some cinders to which one could point one's finger. The President's establishment has gone up from £3,600 to £3,900. That is not much. It is only a flea bite but is the President to be asked to riddle the cinders in his Department and effect some reduction. The Oireachtas is costing £1,000 more than it did last year. We might riddle the cinders here to some effect. The Department of the Taoiseach is up by £300. These are infinitesimal increases but a Government which has increased expenditure in respect of nearly every item and which has increased the number of officials has no right to go to the local bodies and ask them to riddle the cinders. They themselves should pass things through a sieve and riddle not only the cinders but some of the small coal and some of the turf.
You cannot go on squeezing the people all the time and, yet, expect that a case can be made by anybody in this House for the reduction of the number of unemployed. It is impossible to go on squeezing the people unnecessarily year after year, extracting the last 1d. from them with a forceps, and expect that, by some miracle, circumstances may so alter that the farmers who own the land may be able to employ a few extra men. We have had recently adoption of the principle put forward by us that, when all is said and done, it is to the land we have to look to for any improvement of the position into which we got during the last six or seven years. That is generally recognised now, I am glad to say.
There has been an all-round conversion to the belief that the experiment of bolstering up every section at the farmers' expense has failed, that many of the wild-cat schemes, such as bogholes and others, have failed, that there is little hope for such schemes as alcohol factories and other such schemes and that, in the end, we have all of us, Government, Opposition, Labour, Independent and every other section, to recognise that the only hope of resurrection for this country depends on the prosperity you bring to agriculture and that the only hope there is of reducing the number of unemployed is in bettering the conditions of agriculture. You will not better the conditions of agriculture, or of any other class, until you get a fairly big sieve and drastically riddle the expenditure of one Government Department after another and try to lop off about 33 per cent. of this expenditure of £10,000,000, and of the total expenditure of some £30,000,000. Then, perhaps, with the expenditure of some portion of that money in the direction in which it ought to have been expended long ago, in aiding the agricultural community, the class which, it is now admitted, is the only class to which we can look for any hope for the country, there may be some chance. It is idle for any Deputy to spend his time going through item after item in this huge list of expenditure, and the best thing I can say to the Government is, in their own words: "For God's sake, start riddling the cinders."