We have been engaged all during this and the previous debate, and very often on other occasions in this House, in a comparative analysis of Government expenditure and the results achieved as between 1926 and 1931 and 1931 and 1938. What has emerged from those debates is a general acknowledgment of an increase in expenditure since 1931, ranging from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000. So far as results are concerned, we have had a huge increase in unemployment, an increase in the cost of living and a great depression, if not indeed dire poverty, among many of the people engaged in the chief industry in this country, agriculture. Recently the Government very hurriedly and, I might say, slavishly, adopted the principle of daylight saving, following the British in that regard. I might suggest that a portion of the time and energy of the Government might well be expended in effecting other savings which would have a better effect on the prosperity and, indeed, the health of the people.
Central Fund Bill, 1940—Second Stage (Resumed).
The Deputy is, no doubt, aware that the Emergency Order relating to Summer time, was decided recently in the House on a motion?
I was merely making a passing allusion to savings of different kinds.
The main question.
The main question we are concerned with is saving, not daylight saving, but saving from the economic point of view. Some of us hold that the Government have been neglecting that particular aspect. I do not accuse them of daylight robbery, but I do say that they have dipped their hands into the pockets of the people rather heavily and, in view of an annual increased expenditure ranging from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000, the results are negligible. The two Ministers who spoke yesterday spent a great portion of their time endeavouring to prove that they had put into occupation 1,000 or so more men than they actually did put into occupation. It is immaterial whether or not they engaged in occupation 1,000 or 2,000 more. The fact is that there are still 120,000 unemployed. That is the net result of the Government's efforts.
There are many farmers and small holders living under conditions of great hardship. The cost of living has gone to a very high level and the time has long passed when a serious effort should be made to reduce expenditure, or at least to give some definite results for the money that has been expended. It has been suggested that savings are impossible. We have been asked under what headings savings might be effected. Many Deputies have referred to the Army, and I respectfully suggest that, instead of this huge expenditure of millions on the expansion of our Army, we might better expend the millions demobilising the huge army that has come into existence within the last few years, whose principal occupation is a weary journey to the labour exchanges and other places seeking some sustenance in lieu of the employment which should have been given to them.
Whatever way one looks at the situation, the only achievement of this Government is that we have been overtaxed—that is, if we compare their period in office with the period of the last Administration. The over-taxation ranges from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000. Perhaps there would not have been the grumble there is at the over-expenditure if some tangible results were shown. We are entitled to look for results, and, in the circumstances that exist, it is not unreasonable that there should be severe criticism of the policy of the Government in recent years. I do not want to lengthen the debate unduly, but when you do come to analyse the position you find that between the periods I have taken expenditure in this State has gone up by £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 a year. I believe that indirectly the increase runs into £15,000,000. Therefore, I say that employment might have been found out of that for all the unemployed at a wage of over £2 a week, or it might have been utilised to put our agriculturists in an unassailable position. But neither result has been achieved. No inroad whatever has been made on the number of unemployed. In fact, the number has been increased. It will be generally acknowledged that the conditions in our chief industry are not as rosy as they were in the time of the previous Government. I propose voting against this Bill in the knowledge that savings can be and must be effected.
In my opinion the country cannot continue to bear the present heavy load of taxation. The money raised is not being spent in the right way. This year we find an increase of over £2,000,000 for the Army, while the Vote for Agriculture shows a decrease. That, I think, is a great mistake. Agriculture, and not the Army, provides the real defence for this country. What can we here ever hope to achieve by having an Army? We could not think of fighting against any of the big nations. I believe the Government are beginning to realise that agriculture is the chief industry of the country. Their statements, at any rate, would lead anyone to believe that, but their action is not in accordance with their expressed opinions, because the Vote for Agriculture is being reduced this year by £1,250,000.
That is not true.
That is what I understood. On the other hand, we find that the Estimate for the Army is up by £2,000,000.
That is not correct, either. There is an increase, but not by that figure.
At any rate, we voted millions and millions for the Army last year. It cannot be denied that the Vote for Agriculture is not as big this year as last year. The Government, in my opinion, are not handling the agricultural industry in the right way. They are spending millions of money on things that they should not spend it on. There is very big expenditure on the growing of wheat. That is all right for big farmers. I can grow 30 or 40 acres of it, but if so I am enabled to do so at the expense of my neighbours, small farmers and others who are not in a position to grow it. I can grow wheat by using tractors and big machinery, but I am enabled to do that, and so are other big farmers, at the expense of the general community. Money is being thrown away on other schemes which are of no benefit to the people. If the Government spent £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 on artificial manures they would be doing something useful to help to increase production. Due to the fact that artificial manures are not available, I and other farmers have to keep more land under meadow than would otherwise be the case. I could have two or three fields less under meadow if I was in a position to buy more artificial manures. I can quote the case of a small farmer beside me, a man with about 30 acres, whose land is simply impoverished for the want of manures. He has to take conacre meadow because he is not able to buy artificial manures for his own land. If the Government were to give £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 free for the purchase of artificial manures, thereby enabling our farmers to manure their land, they would be helping to increase production and would be conferring a real benefit on the agricultural industry.
In yesterday's debate I heard two Deputies on the Government Benches say that the farmers of the country were in a good position. Deputy Kissane for one said that. If the returns relating to the position of the agricultural community are looked up, I do not think they will bear out these statements. The latest returns show that, in the case of 5,000 farmers against whom decrees were issued on behalf of the Land Commission, the sheriff made a return of nulla bona. There was an increase of 2,000 cases compared with last year. If the farmers were in a prosperous condition these returns would not be made. I know that in Westmeath the sheriff in some cases refused to take the last cow or calf from poor farmers against whom decrees had been issued. He was human and made a return of nulla bona. Consider the position of the 5,000 farmers who are in the circumstances I have described. They may have ten or 15 acres of land each. All of it is lying idle, because the owners have not a penny to cultivate it. Instead of wasting money on some of the schemes they have promoted, would it not be better for the Government if they did something to put those farmers into production? Another 10,000 or 20,000 farmers have made bargains with the Land Commission with regard to the payment of their land annuities. These figures give one an idea of the number of farmers we have in the country who are in a very bad way.
The increase in the Army Vote reminds me that some days I saw passing by my place five, six and sometimes up to 20 military lorries. The people's money is simply being wasted in petrol. When I made inquiries I was told that the lorries were out for the purpose of having men taught how to drive them. That surely is a pure waste of money. The Government should concentrate on our chief industry and enable our people to get into a position in which they will be able to meet in competition in our best market, the exports from Denmark. The Danes have taken that market largely from us. We have never regained the 10 per cent. preference that we had in it in pre-economic war days, and the Government do not seem to be exerting themselves to get it back for us. They are simply carrying on in a slipshod way, feeding the wolf with a bit of his own tail, People in the poorly-populated parts of the country have no chance of getting work. Many of them cannot get unemployment benefit because they have not a sufficient number of stamps on their cards. The chief need of the country is to get the land put into profitable production. The Government should concentrate on that instead of wasting money on the dole, and on some of the other schemes they have started.
I would like to see the Government spending more and, if necessary, increasing the Estimate for Agriculture instead of on the Army. Agriculture is the key-note of our industries, and unless the Government realises that there is no hope for the country. I went to the trouble of counting the people in a parish and I found that two-thirds of them are living on some kind of dole or are drawing something from the Government. People of commonsense know that that cannot go on. That is the system this Government has been trying to work on. That has been Government policy, and the result is that nobody seems to be satisfied unless they are drawing something from the State. If the Government would try to teach the people to live within their own resources, and to be industrious, and not to adopt an attitude of jealousy towards the farming community it would be better policy. The present feeling seems to be that if a person is doing well he should be pushed out. The aim ought to be to have everybody doing well. The policy of the Government seems to be to pay, pay, and if people are shouting loud enough to give them some dole. I ask the Government to reconsider their policy and not to be jealous of the position of the farming community. I agree that it would be a good thing to give money for drainage, but the scope of any scheme should be widened to embrace those living on the hills as well as in the lowlands. The Government should realise that under the present system people want to live on the Government by drawing all they can from it instead of being industrious and earning their own living.
In connection with the Vote on Account and the Central Fund Bill which we are discussing, we have reached a point in the financial history of this State when, to my mind, some very serious decision will have to be taken not only by the Government but by the country as a whole. We have heard for the third successive time from the Minister for Finance, the general statement that the country must spend the money it is spending, that people need the social services, and that every Department of State requires certain funds, but that the Minister for Finance does not know how long that process can continue unless production is increased. We heard that from the former Minister for Finance in two previous Budgets. On each occasion there were warnings to the country that expenditure might not continue unless production increased, so that profits in ordinary production would provide the money for taxation without reducing the income of the people. That situation has arisen largely because of the fact that national income did not rise during the period of office of the present Government owing principally to the economic war, a war which had to be fought and concluded, and a political question that had to be settled
The explanation of the fact that the Government did not show figures revealing any very large increase in unemployment is perfectly simple, and does not require juggling on either side. Nobody need exaggerate the issue. The actual income of this country at the present time is still about the same as it was when the Government took office. It has increased in certain directions and has never recovered in certain other directions. I think it is well for this House when discussing questions like this to have before it an actual picture of the income, because without that it is useless to discuss finance, and, at the risk of repetition, I propose to read to the House what the income of the country is from a statement prepared by Professor Duncan, the accuracy of whose survey is unquestioned as being painstaking and generally speaking the truth.
The income of this country is derived from six services—agriculture, fisheries, industries, distribution in general, personal service such as domestic service, tourists, housing and income from abroad. That income in 1926 amounted to £154,000,000. In 1931 it had fallen to £146,000,000 owing to the decline in cattle prices, owing to the beginning of agricultural depression, and then depression in England. It fell to the very low figure of £134,000,000 in 1933 owing to the economic war, and then onwards slowly recovered until it reached £154,000,000 in 1939. Of course that figure has only a certain value. But if you relate it to purchasing power the income roughly speaking reaches the same figure. If you weight each figure for income in relation to the cost of living you generally find the same position. The national income is no greater than it was previously owing to the fact that one item left to recover has not done so. If agriculture was at its former income then the people's income would increase during the whole period and the Government could have said that their programme was complete. Until agriculture increases largely beyond what it was in 1931 we cannot say that our programme is complete. Therein lies the danger of the position.
Again the matter is not so difficult to analyse. We are spending about £10,000,000 more than we spent in 1931, and that has to be provided out of income that is approximately the same. In addition we have borrowed a great deal of money on which we have to pay interest and that interest is partly mortgaged on the future savings of the people while the present income of the people is no greater than in 1931. Therefore the effect of the £9,000,000 cannot possibly increase national production. It is transferring money from one set of pockets to another. It is taking from the rich and giving to the poor, transferring profit from one section and giving it in the form of social services or Government expenditure in another form. Similarly the interest and the increase of the national loan has to be found in some way from the income of the people. It may be said: "Why not transfer the money from one set of pockets to another?" There are two answers to that. It must eventually reduce the purchasing power of the people because there is expenditure attendant on the distribution of that money. It has not the same purchasing power and the employment giving effect when spent by the Government as it would if the same money was spent by private individuals because of the fact that it costs money to distribute and administer. There is a limitation to that statement. If individuals are left to spend extra money they may spend it on employment in the wrong direction. They may not spend it on employment which would employ the unskilled labour class in rural districts which is one of the principal problems of the Government as far as unemployment is concerned; secondly, in the extra expenditure there is the effect on the purchasing power of the people and the capacity to improve production. It definitely creates a lack of the same degree of initiative on the part of those who have brains and capacity and savings to give employment, and that is a very serious item which the Government has to consider. No Government can guess in advance how far taxation will impede initiative in giving employment profitably. Every Government in Europe practically has made mistakes in their estimate of that position. The United States made an enormous and a gross error in their estimate as to how much increasing taxation might inhibit initiative in the private lives of citizens, both rich and poor, in giving employment.
We need not apologise for that. The idea that a Government can tax its citizens without creating an adverse effect on production has been now proved in half a dozen countries in Europe. Everybody thought that the idea of pump-priming was a good one, but it has been proved in most cases to have a good effect and a bad effect, and you have to measure one against the other. I am not suggesting that that good effect should be eliminated. I am not suggesting that pump-priming may not be good in certain conditions; but when it goes beyond a certain point, it limits the efforts of individuals to improve their production. When we speak of that question in this country, we immediately think of agriculture, and we are reminded of the fact that agriculture is the most depressed industry in the world. On account of the fact that the supply of agricultural goods all over the world is always equal to the demand, the price of agricultural goods never can go very high and agriculture as a whole is not profit-earning to any great degree. Therefore, agriculture is peculiarly susceptible to anything that reduces what profit there is left to the agriculturist after he has sold his produce. A Government calculation of the profit on the fixed capital of agricultural farms in Switzerland was about 3 or 4 per cent. in 1929. It went rapidly down to nothing in 1931-2. It has slowly risen since, and the last figure I saw was for 1936, when it was reckoned to be 1½ per cent. I must explain that figure of profit on fixed capital. A farmer has a right to make a profit out of his produce and, having done that, he has a right to make a reasonable percentage on the capital value of the buildings, lands and machinery and on what you might describe as the extra fertility in the soil which is the result of his labour and the fact that he has placed fertilisers in the soil. He has a fundamental right to make a profit which will yield a reasonable interest on the capital, in addition to any profits he may make on the immediate sale of his stock.
When one realises that all over the world farmers have been unable to make these profits, and that even in parts of Scotland, where farmers got most tremendous help from the Department of Agriculture, where they were close to their markets, and where in many places they own themselves a lot of the local markets, although they made profits on distribution to the large markets, even in an area like that it was reckoned that it was not possible for a farmer to make more than 5 or 7 per cent. on fixed capital during the good years of agriculture in Scotland.
Therefore, we realise that the Minister for Finance's fears with regard to the future of our financial policy are real fears and that we do face, aside from any Party question, a very grave problem as to how we are going to increase agricultural production in face of our difficulties. Then there immediately arises the question of the war. For the past seven years every other agricultural country has managed to increase its income from the low point of the depression. Denmark has increased her income by 25 per cent., to which agriculture contributed. Norway increased her income by 25 per cent., Sweden by 33½ per cent., and Australia by no less than 40 per cent., largely in the production of wool and other agricultural products. Because we had to go through the economic war —and I think it was as cheap a way of settling a great part of the national issue as any other way, and I have not been told of any cheaper way, although there were great losses to the Irish people in sacrifices of one kind or another—our income has not increased by these amounts. It is no good putting forward any kind of new policy or new financial theory in order to increase income. Other countries have managed to increase their income and have raised their status agriculturally to immense heights. Therefore, as I said, we are up against a very serious problem.
The most serious problem we have to face, over and beyond any question in dispute on the Central Fund Bill, is the perpetual resilience of the Irish agricultural community to any change in the physical volume of their agricultural output under any administration since 1920. That makes the problem more serious. I fully believe that whether we took the advice of the Opposition, or whether we continued the whole policy of the present Government, or whether we took a half-way point and modified our policy, that having done so we would still be up against the real problem of agriculture, whether it is possible to go on with this taxation which has an effect on our physical volume of output as well as the extraordinary resilience to change in the last 20 years. I will not try to make any attack against the Opposition, but it is an extraordinary fact that the physical volume has changed very little since we became an independent nation. The most serious problem affecting the country is that everybody entered into the life of independence of this nation, both before and after the civil war and later, with the idea that that independence of itself would bring us into a financial heaven, that automatically production would increase and go up by leaps and bounds. In actual fact, when one examines the physical volume of agricultural output, one will find very little modification since 1922. There are obvious reasons for that—political disturbance, the effects of the civil war, profound disagreement of the people as to their national status, the economic war, and other things. Yet, even that hardly accounts for it. If you go back as far as 1900, you will find that the physical volume of agricultural production has not increased to anything like the proportions it has in New Zealand and Denmark.
I think myself the whole question of our financial future is a very serious one, because it appears to be fairly easy in countries with very much the same sort of standard as our own to produce an increase in the physical volume of agricultural production. Just to take one or two items. A survey was made of certain farms in eastern England and, God knows, the English neglected agriculture long enough until it became an almost depressed industry. Yet, as soon as they attempted to make an effort at increasing the physical volume of production, the effect can be seen in the figures for a survey of eastern English farms prepared for the Department of Agriculture. I need not go into the details which come from an economic journal, 1937. The physical volume in 1931 was 100. In 1936, it had risen, in spite of the depression, to 119, an increase of 19 per cent. in five years. That survey was over a comparatively wide area and, no matter how much you examine the subject, you will find an improvement. In 1931, the agricultural worker produced £206 worth of goods, in 1936, he was producing £310 worth. In terms of physical volume he is producing 122 as compared with 119 in 1931. I give that as an example. There are other examples which show that practically every other agricultural country in the world was susceptible to efforts made to increase the physical volume of agricultural production but this country. It is a very serious and fundamental problem and goes far beyond the controversies in this House. When the Minister for Finance in three successive Budgets warns us that he does not know how long he can go on paying out for the social services he is telling the very truth because unless we get down to that fundamental problem our Budgets in the course of the next five years will show very grave decline.
I am willing to support this Central Fund Bill because I believe it would be fatal to make any large contraction in expenditure, but I would give one final warning. We are entering upon a period of war and one of two things will happen. If, as at present is the case, industrial prices rise as rapidly as agricultural prices, the farmers will make no profit out of this war, unless they simply save the money, restrict consumption, put the money into the banks and create unemployment in the towns by so doing. So far I do not see any sign of a more rapid increase in agricultural prices over industrial prices. I see them both rising roughly together. If, on the other hand, luck comes the farmer's way and as a result of the war the English Government are compelled to offer higher prices for agricultural produce and the farmers make a profit they will perhaps increase their production; and after the effects of the tillage policy, as followed with adverse facts created by a rapid change of policy, have passed away.
There may be quite a large increase in our turnover on account of higher prices. But then at the end of the war if the economic situation repeats itself the effect of the war on our neighbour whether she wins or loses may result in a collapse of purchasing power with a consequent fall in prices. What have we done in the meantime to face lower prices and to face a renewal of the economic war not arising from a political but from a world situation? What steps should we have taken by then in the way of producing more per acre at a far lower cost in order to retain what portion of the English market we would have got? During the whole of that time New Zealand, which is one of our principal competitors and which has plenty of fertilisers and whose home production of phosphatic fertilisers and other materials for improving the land is considerable, will have been pouring out hundreds of thousands of tons of fertilisers to increase the fertility of its land and to enable that country to prepare for the shock when the war ends and prices come down. When they have the struggle with lower prices and have to reduce their cost of production, they will be enabled at all events to make some profit. Whether or not we pass this £10,000,000 to-day will have only a very minor effect on the situation as compared with the serious necessity for increasing our production. I commend everything I have said to the serious study of the House.
I would like to congratulate Deputy Childers on his intelligent narration of taxation and production. I beg to congratulate him further on the courage of his speech because it is a very provocative one. It will provoke us in this House irrespective of Party to really consider not only where we stand but whither we are tending. I only want to interfere in this debate just to make a sensational statement with regard to taxation in this country. I rely on no less an authority than the Taoiseach. Some years ago the Taoiseach came into this House and told us that our taxable capacity in relation to the British was something like 66 to one. He had a very historic background for that statement. He had the findings of a very important commission in relation to the relative taxation of this country and Britain. We are all intelligent persons and we are quite well aware of what is going on around us. I think all of us have been appalled by the fact that England is spending £6,000,000 a day on the war, and that she is budgeting on spending £6,000,000 a day or £2,000,000,000 per annum for the next five years. England is doing that, a big Empire in the throes of a mighty war in which she is fighting for her very existence, her future and her security.
We here in this country are dealing with this year's Estimate of about £36,000,000 including Supply Services and possibly Supplementary Estimates. It is a facer as Deputy Childers says. But compared with Britain's expenditure of £6,000,000 a day it is still a facer because it is relatively more to us. The sum of £36,000,000 means to this country a great deal. Multiply that £36,000,000 by 66 and you get a figure of £6,600,000 a day. That would be the relative figure of expenditure for this country as against £6,000,000 a day for England. Now this country is not at war. This is entirely for ordinary social services, the maintenance of our Army and so on. That means that we are paying £600,000 a day relatively more than England is spending on a war in which she is fighting for her life. That is a very serious state of affairs and makes us think. I am relying on the fact that the Taoiseach was right when he said our relative taxable capacity was 66 to one. I was going to say here that coming as I do from a very poor part of the country, it means very little to the people I represent to talk at all about even £1,000,000. I represent thousands upon thousands of people whose valuation is less than £4 a year. I need not tell you what £1,000,000 means to that class of people. The figures are illuminating. Our total national income is £154,000,000 per annum. That is about £50 per head of the population or roughly £1 per week of the total population of this country. That is national income of the people for whom we are legislating now. And on that £154,000,000 there is a taxation of £36,000,000 for national purposes plus local taxation which is about £6,000,000. This figure is out of all proportion.
I said I was to make a sensational statement and I am doing so in the sense that, like Deputy Childers, I might provoke some thought in this House because this matter is above strife and above controversy. We all realise what the resources of this country are. We ought to realise where we exactly stand and whither we are trending. Imagine this country spending for its own local housekeeping more money relatively than England is spending on carrying on a gigantic war. Where she is spending £6,000,000 we are relatively spending £6,600,000 and we are not engaged in a war at all. We ought to think seriously on that. I again congratulate Deputy Childers. He has made a very courageous speech to-day, courageous like his latter pronouncements. They give us to think about the whole future of this country. We as Irishmen with a common interest, a common background and the hope of a common future ought to take shape and give over all this high falutin' about social services and everything else and consider where we are standing and whither we are trending.
With the two speeches to which we have just listened by Deputies Childers and O'Neill, a lot of what I intended to say has been said. I listened to the debates last week, yesterday and to-day, and I have found pleasure in the fact that all sides of the House seem to be agreed that national and local taxation have reached the peak, that the mainstay of this country is agriculture, and that it represents 75 per cent. of its wealth.
One thing which was touched on lightly in the debate, except for the contribution of Deputy Childers, was the adverse balance of trade. We did not hear a word about it from the other Deputies. I think that it is a matter of serious consideration for the Government and the whole House. How are we to reduce the adverse trade balance save by production and exportation of our surplus. I hope that when future legislation is being enacted, all sides of the House will take cognisance of the fact that taxation is now at the limit and that legislation must be enacted within that limit. I happen to be a farmer myself. If you talk to a farmer to-day about increased production and tell him that there is an opportunity of increasing the amount of his produce, he tells you in a few words that he gives the question up as hopeless, that he does not think we can balance our trade owing to heavy taxation and the farmers interests being left out, although he is responsible for 75 per cent. of our production. Watch in any town the motor traffic and see the amount of petrol, tyres and cars in use. What production will balance our trade in these circumstances? The trend, the farmer will point out—and "trend" is a word that was very much used here during the last couple of days—is towards the getting of a motor car and mileage for that car as soon as a man gets into any position, even if he be only a rate collector or a guard. The farmer, therefore, is not producing as he would if he had a reasonable opportunity and if he was getting the encouragement he deserved. As we were told yesterday, by the Minister for Finance, agriculture is a serious problem for the Government and for the whole House. We heard challenges yesterday as to what should be done to reduce expenditure. There was a suggestion by Deputy Cosgrave that the cost of the Army be reduced by £2,000,000. Here is a motion put down by Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Benson, members of Deputy Cosgrave's Party, as reported on page 182 of volume 74.
"The Dáil views with concern the failure of the Government, recently disclosed, to provide protection for our people against possible attack from the air and is of opinion that a select committee be set up immediately to inquire into, take evidence and report on the causes of this failure."
Deputy O'Higgins, speaking in support of that motion, said:
"The soldiers were left there with empty rifles, the artillery was left without shells, the people without gas masks and the public even without advice."
These people were criticising the Government for not incurring certain expenditure at that particular time, and they complained yesterday that the money was ill-spent. Further on in his speech, Deputy O'Higgins said:
"But the money was voted freely year after year for eight years and, far from taking political advantage of a Minister who might be unprepared, when it became clear to us, in the closing days of 1937, that danger was ahead and that, apparently, no steps were being taken to meet that danger, I put down a question to the Minister for Defence."
On air-raid precautions.
On the Army in general.
He complained of empty rifles and no shells for the guns.
Further on, Deputy O'Higgins asked:
"Must they wait until the enemy is knocking at the door before another man comes and takes over."
I cannot understand Deputies playacting in a very serious situation. Deputies who advocated this expenditure now come into the House and complain, thinking that the memories of the public are too short to remember their speeches last February.
Deputy Benson said on the same occasion:
"There are, of course, in my view anyway, two forms of protection: firstly, what might be called the active and, secondly, the passive. In the active, I would include the provision of planes and anti-aircraft guns and, in the passive, the provision of shelters, auxiliary firefighting services and respirators."
The Deputy may not read further from the reports of debates. Deputy Cosgrave, apparently, did suggest that the cost of the Army might be reduced. The debate which was then concluded may not be reopened now.
What I want to urge is that we should all take this matter seriously, and if we are to reduce taxation we should not be blowing hot at one time and blowing cold at another. We should not be complaining of taxation at one time and inviting the Government to incur more expenditure on another occasion. A Deputy on the opposite benches said on one occasion that £5,000,000 would not equip the Army. I find some comfort in the trend, on the part of all sides of the House, to the belief that agriculture is the main industry. At the meeting of the industrialists that fact was recognised and it was acknowledged that the success of our new factories and everything else depended upon the success of agriculture. Is it too much to hope that the wisdom of this House will be pooled in order to help that industry instead of having members trying to make political capital and to score off one another?
This stampede away from Fianna Fáil is becoming embarrassing. I remember Deputy Victory, poor man, expatiating in this House on economic self-sufficiency until I thought he would get an apoplectic fit. His eloquence on the subject of economic self-sufficiency was moving. He looked to the day when we would make the agricultural industry independent of all external markets.
Be fair.
He placed our prosperity on wheat and beet and peat, not forgetting tobacco, industrial alcohol and old cows. What has become of all the prosperity that was to be born of these schemes? Why are not these schemes producing the national income absence of which troubles so much Deputy Victory's beauty sleep these days? They have all gone "up the spout" and we know they have gone "up the spout." The people who were responsible for inflicting them on our fellow-countrymen are now all confined in a wild stampede to repudiate their own children. Have they no sense of shame or of the ridiculous? Why do they not betake themselves outside and take counsel together as to how best to repudiate their own past with some scintilla of respectability? People who strip themselves naked in public are a public menace. There is a place for doing that and I wish Fianna Fail Deputies would go and do it there.
Deputy Childers is not going to receive at my hands the kiss of death which Deputy O'Neill implanted upon his brow. I do not salute him as a convert to our Party at all, but I should like to ask him a few questions. He spoke to-day of the policy of Fianna Fáil, "taking money from the rich to give it to the poor." Are the flour millers poor? Are the people who eat bread the rich? Is taking money from the bread-eaters and flour-consumers and giving it to the millers "taking money from the rich to give it to the poor," or is it taking money from the poor to give it to the rich? Is it only the rich who smoke tobacco? Is twist tobacco, which is 11d. an ounce to-day, consumed only in Fitzwilliam Square? Is the aroma of plug to be found only in Pembroke and Ballsbridge? Does that tax represent "taking money from the rich to give it to the poor?" Is sugar known only in Ailesbury Road or is there any of it purchased in Gloucester Street? Does the tax represent taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor?
The Deputy knows that taxation may not be discussed.
Quite so, but I am merely referring to the remarks made by Deputy Childers.
And the Deputy misrepresents me.
I understood Deputy Childers to say that the Fianna Fáil policy was that of taking money from the rich in order to give it to the poor. Do I misrepresent him in so quoting his remarks?
I said that the general effect of taxation in any country is to transfer money from the richer portion of the population to the poorer sections and it has had that effect here just as in any other country.
The Deputy seems to be greatly concerned about the failure of the profits on agriculture in this country to produce an income adequate to meet the expenditure of government. We have been talking about reducing the cost of production in agriculture for the last five years. How else does the Deputy suggest that we should increase the profits of the agricultural industry? We cannot make the British pay us more than they are inclined to pay us, and we have not any alternative markets. The fact of the matter is that, though we looked for them, we failed to find them. How else are we to increase the farmers' profits if we cannot increase the price of his goods, unless it is achieved by reducing the cost of production? How does the Deputy reconcile the task of reducing the cost of production with the imposition of tariffs, quotas and restrictions on everything the farmer uses in producing the stuff he has to sell?
I am noting with some alarm this indecent stampede from Fianna Fáil. What I am afraid of is that, as in any other stampede, a lot more will be trampled into the earth in panic by the stampeders than the wretched political organisation that is responsible for the country's ills. We are told it is the system of government that is at fault; we are told they do not know what is at fault; we are told it is the laziness of the people that is at fault; we are told it is the ubiquity of the dole that is at fault; we are told it is the motor car that is passing through North County Longford that has put Deputy Victory's neighbours out of humour and, because they are out of humour, they will not work. What is the use of going on with all that codology? Do you not know damn well what is at fault? Your own follies for the last seven years are to blame. It is the first and most elementary rule of logic that if an explanation of something is lying before you it is contrary to reason to look 1,000 miles away for a more remote explanation. There is the explanation sitting in front of us, an incompetent, silly lot of men. Where is the cure? It is the sound democratic remedy of going out to the hustings and letting us kick you out of office in a democratic way. That is the way to cure our ills.
It is late in the day you have started talking about a common council coming together to give a contribution of wisdom to the solution of the awful difficulties that confront you. When we told you how to avoid the difficulties you were not so anxious for a common council. You were as proud as a cat with two tails, with "sabotage" written on one of them to wave in anyone's face who dared to criticise. We were told we were playing the game of sabotaging the noble national policy of the divinely chosen leader of the Irish at home and abroad and now, when the Irish at home and abroad find themselves in a bottomless bog, the leader has vanished and common council is sought to take them out of their troubles. If you had taken common council five years ago you would not be where you are now.
I made the same speech in this House five years ago that Deputy Childers made to-day, telling you that you were going head on into bankruptcy; telling you that you were going the road Newfoundland went; telling you there was before you in two or three years' time a day when you would not have money with which to pay your bills, and telling the Labour Party that the people who would suffer hardest in that hour of stress would be the poor, the defenceless poor who could not get away.
There were poor people here in your Government's time, too.
I am telling Deputies that the rich from whom Fianna Fáil were supposed to be taking the money to bestow it on the poor will get out and take their riches with them and "cock snouts" at the fools who have brought disaster on themselves and are unable to get away. There is not one of the rich in this country who cannot put his foot on the mail boat to-morrow and escape the consequences of all this. Where is the poor man who can do it, the man who has been fool enough to sink his all in Ireland and who cannot get it out? He will get smashed, but when his bones have manured the land of this country the rich will come back and deplore the folly of that silly generation of Irishmen——
They were here in your Government's time, too, and do not forget it.
——who chose to be fooled by the man called de Valera. I never forgot the poor and the poor were never forgotten by the Governments that went before, but their poverty was not traded upon to steal their votes by false pretences.
It used to be the procedure here that the matters discussed on the Central Fund Bill should differ from the topics discussed on the Vote on Account. For some years back a habit has developed of carrying the debate on the Vote on Account over to the Central Fund Bill. It was the custom to intimate to the Ceann Comhairle the matters to be discussed by the Opposition on the Central Fund Bill. The subject-matter handed to me by the Opposition was unemployment resulting from Government expenditure, of which we have not heard much for the last ten minutes.
I am sorry if I have trespassed upon the custom of the House. So far as I am aware, every syllable I have uttered has been in answer to statements made by Deputy Victory and Deputy Childers.
It is difficult to see how challenges of a general election, a challenge made on the Vote on Account and repeated on the Second Reading of this Bill, are related to this Bill.
I am sick listening to tales that the present ills of this country are due to democracy and due to anything and everything but their true cause, and that is Government incompetence. I say there are effective methods within the four walls of the democratic system to put an end to it all and one effective method is to kick out the bad Government and put in a good one. I do not know how to solve the unemployment problem and I have yet to meet the man who will tell me. If any man will tell this Parliament of a plan that will secure 48 hours' work a week at a fair wage for every man and woman in this country who wants to work, I do not care what the cost is and I do not care what the sacrifices involved for the remainder of the community may be, I will vote for it and campaign for it, and I will stake my public life on it. Are there any takers? I never found one yet. I can tell this House very readily what the reason is for the increase in unemployment in this country. The attempt to achieve economic self-sufficiency is responsible for 50 per cent. of the unemployed in this country at the present time.
To begin with, that chimera, that cursed chimera, economic self-sufficiency that has blasted the whole world, this country included, involved our Government in increased expenditure. In 1931 the Supply Estimates were £21,700,000; in 1932, £24,200,000; in 1933, £26,000,000; in 1934, £26,500,000; in 1935, £26,000,000; in 1936, £26,300,000; in 1937, £28,200,000; in 1938, £28,200,000; in 1939, £31,400,000 and the present Estimate £30,500,000 without any provision for Supplementary Estimates at all. Now, we set out in pursuit of economic self-sufficiency, and part of that was the plan that was fraudulently passed off on the electors of this country by the Fianna Fáil Party in 1931. It provided for an expenditure of immense sums, first on housing, non-recurrent employment which was financed very largely out of borrowed money. There was always a certain amount of housing done in this country, but, for the purposes of my argument to-day, I am referring to housing as the excess housing that was done over and above what was always done —the excess housing financed out of borrowed money during the last eight or nine years. The plan also called for immense sums of money to be spent on famine works. Men were employed for three days a week scratching the sides of the roads and perpetrating the other follies that the landlords used to engage men in 70 or 80 years ago. Nor were those the only famine works that were set on foot, because famine works were set on foot by every local authority on the basis of sharing expenditure with the Central Exchequer. In addition to what was known as relief schemes, there were grants to local authorities for famine works if a local authority would put up a similar sum, and, lastly, there were tariffs and quotas directed to achieve national economic self-sufficiency within the tariff barrier. Bear in mind that when we think of tariffs and quotas, we should call to mind this fact, that their cost to the community is represented not only by what was paid in tariffs to the Revenue Commissioners, but also by the increased cost of industrial and other products produced within that tariff wall.
Tariffs are not relevant.
I say that they are directly responsible for unemployment in this country.
I wish that in the interests of debate Deputies would realise that this is the Tenth Dáil; also that taxation may not be discussed on the Vote on Account nor on the Central Fund.
Surely, if I am to discuss unemployment I must say what, in my judgment, causes unemployment. It may be the popular view in this country that one thing or another causes unemployment, but the humblest Deputy in this House, however stupid and obscurantist he may be, may offer his humble opinion as to what the cause of unemployment may be. I may be wrong, but surely I am entitled, coming as I do from the country, to give a simple layman's view. I await anxiously to hear more informed Deputies point out where I have gone wrong.
The Deputy realises that any other tax might be raised by another Deputy as the cause of unemployment and be completely out of order. The Deputy has no special privilege in the House to discuss taxation more than any other Deputy. His colleagues might allege that other taxes caused unemployment, and with equal relevance or the absence of it, try to defend their argument. The question set out for discussion was: Government expenditure as the cause of unemployment.
I am trying to track down the cause of unemployment in this country, and I am as certain of that cause as that I am standing here. If the Chair objects to the word "tariffs", well there are quotas which have no relation to taxation at all. Quotas are the cause of unemployment in this country. Economic self-sufficiency is the cause of unemployment in this country. Economic self-sufficiency is the cause of the present aggravation of unemployment which is bewildering and harassing us all, and it has become in this country, as a result of intensive propaganda by the Fianna Fáil Party, almost a heresy to say so. But I say that the tariff monger is growing fat on the poverty and destitution of the unemployed. I say that economic self-sufficiency has driven hundreds of men to their deaths by hunger as a result of the unemployment that was thrust upon them. No amount of propaganda, no amount of vested interests and no amount of influence in this country will prevent those who know that saying it, and saying it again until this country opens its eyes, as every other civilised country in the world has opened its eyes, to that fact. Let us think not in terms of broad general principles but of the individual standing at this moment down outside the labour exchange near the Custom House. He has to go home to-night hungry because he has not a job. Let us face this particular problem—what can we do to get him a job. I sometimes get bewildered when I hear references to what is happening in Denmark, Poland, Greece or Peru, when I hear elaborate statistical returns read out to me of world trends and so forth. What matters is, what we have done by individuals in this State at this moment who, through no fault of their own, are being denied the right to live. I say that that denial has been made by those who sought, for their own profit, their own personal advantage, to erect in this country the doctrine of self-sufficiency as a religion to attack which was heresy and treachery.
That is the cause of unemployment, and on top of that we had wheat schemes, beet schemes, peat schemes, industrial alcohol schemes and maize meal mixture schemes, all directed, if you please, to solve the unemployment problem, but each single one of them making its own contribution to its aggravation. Is proof wanted of that? Because if it is it is there from the Government's own mouthpiece in his admissions last night. The figures cited by Deputy Mulcahy in this House on unemployment cannot be too often brought to the attention of the House and to the country. Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party remember that they denounced the Cumann na nGaedheal Party for that they did not spend money on housing, for that they did not give money for relief works, for that they did not take any Government action to stimulate employment. Do the Deputies opposite remember that? Do they remember telling them that they ought to have maize meal mixture schemes, wheat schemes, peat schemes, beet schemes in order to provide employment, and do they remember saying that they were mean and niggardly men when they would not provide these things from the public funds in order to employ the public. But if you look back on the record you find that these mean, niggardly men put 11,400 of their fellow countrymen into permanent employment every year and that without putting one penny of extra burden on the taxpayers.
Then comes Fianna Fáil with economic self-sufficiency, which was to create a vacuum of employment designed to draw back emigrants from across the Atlantic Ocean. There was to be economic self-sufficiency with all its taxes, burdens and quotas. There was to be a scheme to end poverty. There was to be annual expenditure, taking into account the concealed taxes, of £20,000,000 a year more than Cumann na nGaedheal exacted from the people. Let us never forget the £3,000,000 on bread, £1,000,000 on sugar and millions on the extra cost of goods produced behind 75 per cent. tariffs and quotas, and what was the result? Instead of 11,400 men and women moving into permanent employment, there were thousands admittedly employed on housing which, we all knew, was bound to come to an end sooner or later, when we built all the houses we wanted, and then all these people were to fall into permanent unemployment; there were thousands employed on relief schemes, thousands employed by local authorities on their famine schemes, and when you put all these together, the best boast Fianna Fáil can make whereas Cumann na nGaedheal put into employment 11,400 in the five years from 1926 to 1931 in the six years from 1931 to 1937 we put 12,166 every year. That is their boast —766 more and that includes the famine workers and the people engaged on housing. If I put it in another way. They said that from 1932 to 1937 they put 13,000 more than their predecessors including all the famine workers, including all the people working on houses. But when we say "Very well, we will take that five years and admit that with the famine workers and housing you can only regard the increase of 1,600 more."
What happened in 1938 and 1939? The Minister for Lands took up his brief and began to read the figures. He read the figures for 1938 and said that they had only 1,000 for that year, they were 10,000 worse than Cumann na nGaedheal but they had the building strike to contend with. When asked "What about 1939?" he turned pale and did not answer. In 1939, the annual increase was about 1,000 men and the excuse for that was that there was a period of international tension. Was there no international tension in 1931? Had not credit collapsed? Was not the economic life of every country, including the United States, crashing into ruin in 1929-30 and 1931? But 11,400 Irishmen and women were walking into employment in each of those years until at last a voice was heard saying in Geneva, one country in the world stands out apparently impervious to the financial catastrophe overwhelming the rest of the world— Ireland; and then this blessing came upon us, Fianna Fáil arrived and the world, having reached the very bottom of its depressed depression began to creep slowly up and Ireland which up to then had been insulated from the repercussions of the world catastrophe began slowly to sink down. There is nothing more dramatic than to compare the economic curve in this country with that of the world. It reached the very bottom in the world in 1931, but Ireland was still high up and then disaster, catastrophe and our Credit Anstaalt arrived in the form of Fianna Fáil and since then the tale has been one of unrelieved gloom and economic disaster for this country culminating in the speech made by Deputy Childers to-day when he told us, reluctant as he was to make the confession, that he is scared. God knows it is nearly time.
I think we can do something now to relieve the unemployment situation. I believe unemployment in this world would vanish if the people would grasp one fundamental economic principle. Up to a few years ago unemployment was not an acute problem anywhere because when it became so emigration to new countries relieved it. The world was meeting and overcoming its difficulties by the conquest of new territories and by new projects. We have crossed all territorial frontiers until now there are no territorial frontiers left to cross. Are we to sit down and wring our hands and weep by the waters of Babylon and wait for the catastrophe to come upon us or are we to control the forces and resources that science has brought within our reach? I think we should control them and if there are no territorial frontiers to conquer or expansions to be developed are there not other frontiers to cross when millions of people are hungry, half-clad and destitute? If we can bring to them not riches but a very modest degree of comfort will we not have work to do for all the hands that are available? I think we will. Deputy Childers to-day asked us to approach the question from the wider aspect. I think we will. I want to point to the objective towards which this country should work if we are going to make an end to the nightmare of unemployment, and I say that the only hope of making an end of it is to turn back the hands of the tariff clock that started to tick when the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Bill was passed by the Senate of the United States of America. Every civilised country has recognised that, except Germany, Russia and the Fianna Fáil Government. Cordell Hull, France, England —all the nations of the Commonwealth —and the Scandinavian countries are agreed that the only hope of reducing unemployment in any of the countries in the world is to clear the channels of international trade.
We have reduced the tariffs on 35 categories of goods.
Thank God for that. You did it so quietly and shamefacedly that it is hard to keep track of it. I wonder do those four leading lights of Fianna Fáil over there know about the reduced tariffs. Did you submit it to a Party meeting? Did all the Fianna Fáil Deputies put on the white sheet of repentance and confess their error or did you try to do it behind their backs? Having fooled them for seven years into tariffs you are now trying to fool them out of them. I am trying to bring the poor creatures into the light of day and let them see where they are going.
A Deputy
Name the tariffs.
Here is this pundit arriving. I do not believe he could name three tariffs which have been removed in the last six months. He thinks he is an influential member of the Fianna Fáil Party but he does not know what you are doing. You have led him, tied by the nose, down into tariffs and you are leading him up by the tail back out of them. If unemployment is to be effectively tackled I say that the channels of international trade must be freed and economic self-sufficiency must be repudiated and retracted even more rapidly than the 35 reductions of tariffs which Deputy Childers referred to would indicate. I say deliberately that I do not believe that we can ever achieve in our day complete freedom of trade the world over. But the nearer we get to it and the nearer it is made universal in the world the less poverty and unemployment will remain.
I believe that until we face that fact, that instead of raising barriers and restrictions to prevent the flow of goods flowing down to the poor and enriching their lives, and until we make up our minds to tear these barriers down and let the poor share in the wealth of the world, there will not be work for idle hands to do. If we do remove the restrictions and the obstructions in the course of trade and let the poor in China and in Ireland, in India and in America get their share of the world's goods, there is a potential demand in all these countries to occupy every hand idle at present. I see difficulties and I believe that there lies before us the obligation to accept the conclusion that unemployment will continue in the world with all its dangers until we can achieve a free passage of men, money and goods between nations.
Does the Deputy really think that a disquisition on free trade versus protection is relevant?
I solemnly declare that I believe that unemployment in this and every other country in the world is due mainly to the continuance of restrictions on international trade.
The Deputy's sincerity is not in question.
I say that if this debate does nothing else than, with the figures of Deputy Mulcahy, bury for all time in this country the chimera of economic self-sufficiency these days have been well spent. I invite the Minister for Finance to get up and tell us does he still believe in the doctrine of economic self-sufficiency, or does he realise that it is ruining the world? I want to say in conclusion, and I apologise if I have trespassed too long on the time of the House, that I take the view that unemployment is the most important problem confronting democracy, and I share that view with many of the Fianna Fáil Party. There are those who are speaking both from Labour platforms and from Fianna Fáil platforms who have got into the habit in the last few months of saying that if unemployment cannot be solved within this system we should change the system. There are only two changes you can make. You can have freedom or you can have absence of freedom if you want to change the system. The suggestion is being covertly made from these platforms that either the German solution or the Russian solution should be adopted here.
That is absolutely unfair. The Deputy mentioned the Labour Party.
I have seen speakers from the Labour Party saying that the system must be changed.
What has that to do with Russia or Germany?
I have heard it stated from Labour platforms that, after all, Germany solved the unemployment problem.
Give the quotation.
I shall not name the speaker in public, because I am not certain, but I will give the Deputy the speaker's name I have in mind. I do not think he meant it. I do not believe that the members of the Fianna Fáil Party want Hitlerism or Stalinism in this country. But I am pointing out that this language is dangerous unless you come to the logical conclusion and complete pointing the moral.
The inferences appear to be dangerous.
Most dangerous. I want to draw the inferences. You can solve unemployment according to the Russian plan and according to the German plan but you cannot do it without making slaves of the unemployed.
Might I say, on behalf of the Labour Party, that we want neither the Russian nor the German plan?
I never doubted that that was the Deputy's view and I am glad to get the expression in categorical form. But the danger is that when these words are spoken that probably the young people of whom the Minister for Supplies was speaking will begin to turn this matter over in their minds and will fall into this error that they will say: "Why not give it a trial; would it not be worth a trial?" What they do not see is that you cannot give systems of that kind a trial because, once you put them into force, you cannot get rid of them again. They have been brought up under democratic systems and to believe that you can give "Dev" a chance and kick him out if you do not like him. But, if you turn "Dev" into "Hit" or "Stal", you cannot put him out when you are sick of him. I ask Deputies to watch this thing carefully and to appreciate this fact: we are confronted with an immense problem which undoubtedly is perplexing the minds of every man, woman and young person in this country and that is the problem of unemployment. If we run away from it by putting the blame for our failure to deal with it effectively, our joint failure to deal with it effectively, on the system of government, we are just doing what Fianna Fáil is trying to do, to blame their failure not on their own incompetence, but upon the system of government. If we go on saying that Hitlerism and Stalinism did it, sooner or later the people will say: "Why not give their methods a chance?" I want to emphasise that they did not cure unemployment, but they substituted for unemployment slavery, and we can do that. We can take all the unemployed and put them into concentration camps and, if they do not do what they are told, mow them down, decimate them. Nobody here wants to do that. If we are afraid to do that, if we are unwilling to do that ourselves, why set up one individual to do it for us? If we think it is the right thing to do then this House should pass an Act of Parliament directing the Army to go and round up the unemployed like mad dogs and slaughter them if they do not do our bidding. We should not run away from the responsibility of doing that by setting up somebody whom we call a Fuehrer or Dictator or Duce, or I suppose the Vice-President, if asked, would find a Gaelic name for it, and get him to do it.
Would "Tánaiste" do.
No, he would want to be a Taoiseach or an Uachtarán to get away with that job.
Or an amadán.
Many a one thought that about Germany and the amadhán got away with it and everyone is respectful to him now when Hitler is a great man. There was a time when they described him as a poor, cracked amadhán. Now everybody is bowing down before him. It is not only the Germans who are disciplined. There are a lot of people learning that discipline too, and we might get a touch of it before this business is over. Do not let us hold up as an example to be copied the solution of unemployment which has been put into operation in Germany. That solution is there; it is open to us as it is to them, but it would be fatal to everything in life which we value. We do not want that solution; we have to find another. I have pointed out what in my judgment is the only escape from this dilemma. I know that the freer trade lines I advocate are not popular. I would be glad if the Minister for Finance to-day would tell us if he knows of any other.
I understand, Sir, that this debate is directed towards the question of increased unemployment and increased expenditure. We have the position that expenditure in this country has increased in the past eight or nine years by £10,000,000. The question has been put up to us how we are to set about reducing that expenditure or is it possible to have it reduced and, if so, have we any suggestions to offer. We have at least the position that in a large number of Departments of State expenditure, there have been enormous increases without any justification. In the Army we have an increased expenditure of over £2,000,000. We have a large increase in the Presidential establishment. There are various other Departments as, for instance, the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Office of the Taoiseach. All those Departments have substantially increased. If these are added up they would amount to about £5,000,000 exclusive entirely of the social services. I believe it is possible to secure a reduction of taxation by at least £5,000,000 without reducing the social services such as old age pensions, unemployment assistance, housing and so on. That reduction of £5,000,000 would bring about the restoration of confidence in this country. It would help the Government to reduce taxation on many of the necessaries of life. That is taxation which is causing widespread discontent. I think it is upon those lines that the Government must proceed. Expenditure must be reduced by the figure I have mentioned, and that reduction must be made within the next year. That is the job to which the Government has to set itself.
With regard to unemployment, the country is up against a more serious problem. The country is up against a problem which if not solved will bring the nation to complete disaster. How is that problem to be solved? In the first place a reduction of expenditure would help to a certain extent to solve it, inasmuch as it would encourage increased agricultural and industrial production. It would bring about increased activity amongst all sections of the community and induce them to become more industrious and more energetic. I have already suggested that a number of the people at present unemployed could be attracted and directed into the agricultural industry. There is no doubt whatever but that can be done. There is no reason whatever why in an agricultural country like this, over 50,000 able-bodied men with knowledge and experience of agricultural work should be idle and compelled to draw the dole or compelled to accept work on so-called relief schemes. These schemes do very little to add to the wealth of the nation. There is no reason whatever why these men should not be directed into agricultural production by the simple process of allowing farmers to allow those men to work for them and let the State continue paying them while the farmers provide them with the balance. There is no reason why a scheme of that kind has not been adopted. It has been suggested that a scheme like that will be adopted in the near future with regard to the drainage of land. But why cannot it be adopted in regard to increased production? Deputy Childers dealt very courageously and very thoughtfully with this question of increased production. He stated the remarkable fact that over the past 20 years there has been very little expansion in the agricultural output. Surely it would be desirable even for the Government, in the case of 50,000 men who have a knowledge of agricultural work, to put those men into agricultural employment and to do that at once. If that were done it would certainly increase agricultural output. It would help to increase our national income thereby helping to enable this State to meet its demands, and at the same time to reduce what Deputy Childers referred to as our adverse trade balance. There is no other way of reducing that except by increasing the output of the country and thereby reducing our imports. This is certainly one way in which we can increase the output of this country. We can increase production on the land by permitting the unemployed to work on it. If the Government were to adopt that it would be a way of solving much of their difficulties. I would recommend that they would go even so far as to rent land for allotments or plots or in any other way they like so as to give employment in production in agriculture. That really is the first essential—an increase of agricultural output. We know that in that direction there is some prospect of improving conditions in the country. There may not be a very certain prospect that conditions will improve in regard to the price of foodstuffs and in regard to agriculture generally. We all know that immediately after the war situation is ended we will be faced with even a more difficult situation than we are in at the present time, and unless we strengthen our position by increasing agricultural output in those years when market conditions are better, this nation will have no possibility certainly of facing the difficult period when the international situation is over.
Statements have been made from both Front Benches in regard to the number of people put into permanent insurable employment in the last 18 years. I find it very difficult to accept everything said by either Party. We are told that, under the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration, the number of people in permanent employment increased by 11,000 a year and that, under the Fianna Fáil Government, the number increased by 12,000 a year. I am wondering where these Governments got these thousands of people. When this State was set up, there was very little unemployment here. During the past 18 years, the population has not increased and, if these two Governments have put over 200,000 additional people into permanent employment, I wonder where they found them. I cannot solve that problem. My personal opinion is that statistics are absolutely unreliable and that figures can be made to prove anything. I have always tried to avoid figures and keep as close as possible to facts. The fact is that the country is sinking into a condition of poverty. The output from agriculture and other old-established industries is steadily declining and, at the same time, Governmental and general expenditure is increasing. We, as a nation, are living up to a standard that our production would not justify. If the Minister, as a new Minister for Finance, will set himself deliberately and resolutely to the task of reducing national expenditure by at least £5,000,000, he will be doing a great national service. If he will, at the same time, direct his energy to getting the unemployed working in the agricultural industry, he will be helping to increase the real wealth of this nation and will be assisting it in surviving the difficult years ahead.
Like Deputy O'Neill, I should like to congratulate Deputy Childers on the subject-matter which he introduced into this debate. When the debate opened, I rather thought it would be futile to discuss the questions arising on this Bill knowing, as one does know, what the result will be in a division. But I think this debate has served a very useful purpose. It has brought unity in this House upon one point. That is, that we have reached a figure beyond which taxation must not go. Deputy Childers gave us some very interesting and illuminating figures. After careful study, he was able to show us what the national income is. I have just made a small calculation and I find that if all the unemployed were put into employment at a reasonable wage, the national income would be increased by over £10,000,000 a year. That would mean that there would be available an additional sum of £10,000,000 which would go back to the producer and, of course, principally to the largest producer—the agricultural community. This House and this Government have proved themselves to be an admitted failure. We have with us an unemployment problem which is a disease in the life of the nation and everybody confesses that this problem is incapable of solution. That is a very serious situation and it is a very serious admission for any assembly which has to deal with matters of this kind. It is a situation that calls for very drastic treatment.
What the Government has been doing from year to year is simply tinkering with the subject. Each year, a certain amount of public money is devoted to the relief of unemployment. You cannot, and will not, do away with unemployment until you increase the number of prospective employers or augment the capacity of these employers to employ. We are united on this point at all events—that there is a problem incapable of solution but very necessary of solution. We are united on a second point—that agriculture is our principal industry. We have had a lot of debates in this House as to the causes of the present condition of agriculture. We have had debates on the why and the wherefore of the condition of agriculture. I am not concerned with that. What I am concerned with is that both inside and outside this House the Government and their spokesmen should recognise that agriculture is the important industry and the one that really matters. It is into agriculture the money should go. It is to the agricultural employers that assistance should be given so as to increase their numbers as employers and their capacity to employ. We are able to raise large sums of money for the purchase abroad of munitions of war. These sums are included in the Bill with which we are dealing. Every penny of these sums will be going out of the country. Those parts of the Army expenses which are not going out of the country are being put to an employment which gives no return. What I want to see is our national finances conducted in such a way that the State will become relatively the tiniest employer in the land and public money, which has to be taken from those who can afford to give it by way of taxation, will be used to subsidise, if necessary, independent employers such as those engaged in the agricultural industry.
What would be wrong in subsidising increased labour on a farm? Instead of the father of the family drawing a small amount each week by way of the dole or unemployment assistance, you would have him employed on a full wage. He would have a larger purchasing capacity and the result would be that some other person would be put into employment. You would find, after a while, that the purchasing capacity of the farming community, both employers and employees, would have expanded to such an extent that other employment would immediately become available and gradually people would be absorbed back into employment. It would not be necessary then to be looking for customers for the products of our new factories. The purchasers of the goods manufactured would come into being as a result of the increased purchasing power of the persons employed in the farming industry. I suggest the Government should consider the wisdom of devoting money to the subsidising of labour on farms for such work as drainage, hedging and generally increasing the fertility of the soil for the benefit of agriculture.
Until the unemployment problem is solved, no other problem in this country can be satisfactorily dealt with. In a very short time a very serious situation will arise in this country, war or no war, unless some effort is made to solve the unemployment problem. I can find no contribution towards a solution in the financial policy of the Government as outlined in this Bill. Unless the unemployment problem is solved, we will be facing what amounts to national bankruptcy. What is the use of spending vast sums of money on education here if you are merely to educate people and then let them enter on a life of unemployment?
One of our biggest items of expenditure here is in connection with education. It is poor consolation to a man to know that he is going to be well educated up to a certain point and then he will be turned out on the streets merely to draw the dole or whatever other charity is available for his sustenance. What consolation is it to him to know that he has a good education if there is no work for him to do? If we are agreed—and I think we are—that the problem is a serious one, let every Estimate be attacked, let every big item of expenditure be cut down. You are not going to solve the problem by chipping off £100, £200 or £300. The chipping off must be done in millions, and one of the Estimates I would like to see reduced— not because I want to see it reduced on its own account, but as a contribution towards the solution of the unemployment problem and the distribution of the money elsewhere—is the Department of Education Estimate.
Another item that I have always attacked in this House, because I consider it useless and absurd expenditure, is the expenditure that goes on from year to year on an armed force and the munitions that are necessary to keep it going. It is the most absurd form of expenditure that any country of our size and situation ever went in for. We are continuing to expend money on an Army on the excuse that we must defend our freedom. It will be poor consolation to the ever-increasing volume of the unemployed if all the freedom they have to defend is an empty stomach and the dole. That is not the type of freedom they want to see defended. In my opinion every penny spent on the Army is absolutely wasted. Where it is spent by way of remuneration it is spent on people who give no return to the community except possibly by way of insurance against some emergency. So far as there is any material return, it serves to keep unemployment from other lands, but it is not preventing unemployment here. Our money goes to purchase Army goods abroad, goods of a useless character.
What you must do in order to relieve unemployment and put our national finances on a proper basis is to increase the number of prospective employers and the capacity of such men to employ in our paramount industry. I think in that way the unemployment problem will largely solve itself and customers will be found for other industries. Persons will be found to start other industries if the purchasing power in the agricultural community increases. Anybody connected with the farming industry will realise that if you increase agricultural production it is possible there may be some difficulty in obtaining a market for any large increase in your produce. I hold that we have a solution for that at our door. There never was a time in the history of this nation as a separate economic unit when things were so favourable or when we were in such a privileged position.
We have a huge market available at our door. While circumstances are in our favour at the present time, and while there may be a general desire on the part of England to purchase our agricultural produce, a time will come when the ports will again be open and England will be in a position to get canned goods and frozen and other goods from the far corners of the earth. It may be that at such a time England may not desire our agricultural produce. At the moment, however, we are in a privileged position and I think the interests of this country would be usefully served if some Ministers went to London and made a good trade agreement with the British for a term of years. They could get a guarantee from the British Government that they will take from us a certain quantity of goods and we could guarantee a regular supply to them. That guarantee should extend, not for the period of the war, but for a number of years, irrespective of any war. If that method of approach was adopted, I think that something good would come of it.
I read in the paper this morning that we have a delegation on the other side. What are they bargaining for over there? I understand that the Minister concerned mentioned that the British were giving the matter very sympathetic consideration. Of course they are. Our delegation went over on a simple matter of supplies—buying something from the people on the other side. Of course the shopkeeper over there is very keen to sell his goods and a delegation like that would naturally get a sympathetic hearing. We are in a position now to go over there and more or less dictate our terms so far as selling our produce is concerned and we could get a good agreement that would last a number of years and would enable the people here to work out a plan of campaign with regard to the production of agricultural commodities. I believe we have most excellent civil servants, heads of Departments, and I believe a deputation which would be composed of such men, if they were assisted by influential members of the Government, could put an excellent case before the British. They could arrange a sliding scale of prices or something of that description. I believe they could come back to this country and say: "We have a guaranteed market for you for a number of years to come. We are prepared to subsidise you to fill the quotas in those markets."
If that were done you would find there, I believe, a large contribution towards the solution of the unemployment problem. But if, instead, the Minister for Finance, as representing the Government has to come in here year after year and say: "I cannot do any better; we are two or three thousands down this year and hope to be two or three thousands up next year, and all that I can do is to bring in the Estimates for the essential services and ask the House to pass this Central Fund Bill," in that set of circumstances the Government are not pulling their weight in trying to solve the unemployment problem. All that they are trying to do is to govern, to patch up the gaps that are in our economic life. They are not building for the future. That is a lazy way of approaching a serious subject. This country is entitled to something better than laziness on the part of the Government who are there of their own volition. Speakers from all sides of the House have emphasised the importance of this question. Its importance is realised by everyone who has reached adult age If the best that the experts on the subject can do—the mouthpiece of a Government who are there of their own volition and their own free will—is to say that "we must have money for the sake of governing, but so far as this problem of unemployment is concerned, one that concerns the whole welfare of the country and is of paramount importance, all we can say is that we have no solution for it, and must face year after year increased unemployment," that is a terrible confession for any Government to have to make.
I believe that if the Government approached the problem properly, if they attempted to secure markets for our main industry and subsidised what they now see is the main industry of the country, that bit by bit the unemployment problem would ease and that eventually like a snowball, which increases in weight as it goes along, each extra person put into employment would ultimately bring someone else along with him into employment. In this way we would reach the stage when only the old and the infirm would have to rely on public generosity and the finances of the State to support them.
Mr. Brennan
I would like, first of all, to draw the Minister's attention to a statement he made earlier in the evening. I think that in saying what he did he made a mistake, but I would not accuse him of deliberately misleading any member of the House. I would leave that to the Minister for Supplies. Deputy Fagan, when speaking, referred to a reduction in the Vote for Agriculture. The Minister interrupted to say that there was no reduction.
That is right.
Mr. Brennan
Perhaps there is not, but if there is not a reduction in the figures, as presented to us on the sheet in my hands, then I do not know how to read figures. The Estimate for Agriculture for 1939-40 was £963,256, and for 1940-41, £684,011.
The first one includes the Supplementary Estimate. The Deputy should look at the original Estimate for last year.
Mr. Brennan
We find on looking at the Book of Estimates that in the case of Estimate No. 30, page 111, under the sub-head G (3)—Fertilisers Scheme —the provision this year is £80,000, while last year the figure was £98,000. On page 112, under sub-head M (7)— Expenses in connection with the provision of butter for winter requirements—the provision last year was £302,000, while this year it is £5. If one skips a few pages you come to the total for salaries, wages and allowances. You find it has gone up from £176,000 last year to £190,000 this year. The Minister may try to impress on the House that there has not been any alteration in the total Vote for Agriculture. So far as I can see there has been an alteration for the worse.
There is an increase this year in the Estimate for Agriculture of £90,000 as compared with last year.
Mr. Brennan
I agree that there has been an increase of almost £15,000 in the cost of administration for salaries and wages, etc., while in the case of fertilisers, in which one would naturally expect an increase, there has been a decrease of £18,000.
The Vote for Agriculture is up as compared with last year. The statement was made by Deputy Cosgrave last night, and repeated by others, that there was a decrease in the Vote for Agriculture, but, in fact, there is an increase of £90,000 as compared with last year.
Mr. Brennan
I accept the Minister's statement. One of our difficulties is to know where to place Deputy Childers. He dealt with the subject before the House in a particular way. Personally, I felt like complimenting the Deputy for his candour, honesty and industry. Listening to him, I was reminded of an old story about the man who travelled the wrong road thinking he was on the right road. The man who travels the wrong road, knowing that he is on the wrong road, does not deserve any consideration, and what strikes me is this, that it is not to-day or yesterday that Deputy Childers formed the opinions which he expressed here to-day. He expressed opinions which I have been endeavouring to express for many years. It appears to me that Deputy Childers was travelling a road to-day that we have been endeavouring to travel for a long time. It is rather curious that Deputy Childers should give the benefit of his intelligence, ability and industry to a party that he knows was absolutely wrong all the time.
I compliment Deputy Childers on one of the things that he spoke on. It is a sign of the times that it should have come from the Government Benches. It was this: that he agrees that by taking money out of the pockets of the people and putting it into the Government coffers it may not be as well spent by the Government as it would be by private employers. That is true. I have been endeavouring to impress that truth on the House for a long time. It is that kind of thing that is killing initiative in the individual. It is true that that is happening in the country. The Minister for Finance, speaking last night, tried to impress on the House the fact that the call for economy was accompanied by a clamour for increased social services and increased Government expenditure. Has it ever occurred to the Minister that every downward trend in employment and upward trend in the cost of living is bound to create a demand for increased social services?
I think the demand will be there whether they go up or down.
Mr. Brennan
That may be. You may have the demand there all right, but there will not be the same necessity to meet it, and there is a huge difference between the two. If you could restore material prosperity to the country there would not be the necessity for the social services that you have to-day. What has the Government been doing? They have been creating an amount of vested interests by way of social services that it will be very hard to get rid of, no matter what prosperity is there. There is no use trying to divorce economics and social services, because the two hang together, whether we like it or not. The cure for increased social services is more prosperity.
Deputy Childers referred to the case of New Zealand. What struck me forcibly about that was that it is a pity Deputy Childers did not endeavour to influence the Government Front Benches for the past three or four years. He told us of the present position in New Zealand.
I was referring to the situation there, dating back to 1900, which has no relation to the policy I stand for here, and which was not settled by Deputy Cosgrave's Administration.
Mr. Brennan
It is a great pity Deputy Childers would not have patience and not allow his imagination to run so fast. I was going to refer to the position to-day—not to 1910 or 1920—and the efforts of New Zealand to fertilise the land. In his impatience Deputy Childers rushed into correct something I did not say.
I misunderstood the Deputy.
Mr. Brennan
It is a great pity, when the Deputy had the feeling that certain things were being done in New Zealand, in order to bring that country to a state of prosperity, that he did not advocate them to those on the Government Benches. I am glad to bear testimony to the fact that Deputy Childers does want greater production. We all want it. Will the Deputy make another suggestion to the Front Bench, to create production? That is what is wanted. Deputy Childers and Deputy Victory are convinced that there is only one way to overcome increased taxation, and that is to increase production and the market for our produce. The Minister for Finance gave expression to that view. What has the Minister for Finance, or the Minister for Agriculture, or the Minister for Supplies done in the present situation? The Government, apparently with the consent of Deputy Childers and Deputy Victory, put tariffs on imported manures. For some years past, owing to dwindling revenues, farmers were unable to purchase manures and consequently imports went down. We are now facing a war situation and we have not sufficient manures. Deputy Childers having realised that fact should have impressed it upon those on the Front Benches. He should have told them that there was only one thing would stand to this country, and that was the land, which should be fertilised, and that it was a crime to prevent manures coming in.
The consumption of fertilisers during Deputy Cosgrave's administration was ten times too little.
Mr. Brennan
Agreed, but how much greater is it now? Will the Deputy give the figures dealing with fertilisers for both periods and see how the position stands? At the present time sufficient manure is not being used, yet we are supposed to have extra tillage. What is to be done? What efforts have the Government taken to secure extra production? None whatever. There is only one way to cure unemployment. It will not be cured by doles or by social services. It can only be cured by increased production of a type that will give a profit, and by products that can be marketed. That is the only thing that any Government can depend on to relieve unemployment.
Many aspects of this problem of unemployment have been examined from different parts of the House, and the consensus of opinion is that increased production is the only way to reduce unemployment. I feel that the greatest possible amount of employment should be given on the land, and that if agriculture was put in a position to do so, it could absorb most of the unemployed in the rural areas. I suggested to the Minister on a previous occasion that, where an employer could at any time employ an extra hand or two, already in receipt of unemployment assistance, that in order to encourage production the dole paid at the Labour Exchange should be paid to the farmer, so that the standard wage could be paid. Owing to their financial position and the prices they are getting for produce, many farmers are not now in the position to pay the standard rate of wages. That does not mean that the agricultural worker is not entitled to the regular agricultural rate, or that it is too high, but that farmers are not in a position to pay it. In my opinion such a change over of the dole, if it may be called that, to the agricultural community, would go a long way to solve unemployment in rural areas. I ask the Minister to say if that proposition has been examined to see if it is practicable.
I am more than pleased at the turn that this debate has taken. I distinctly remember 1929, 1930 and 1931 when the late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Hogan, advocated a policy which he insisted would improve the condition of the country generally, and put more people into employment. That was the policy of one more cow, one more sow and one more acre of tillage. The advice of the then Minister for for Agriculture was met with sneers and jeers by Fianna Fáil. In my hearing members on the Government front benches as well as the back benchers challenged that advice and asked: "Why should this country be a cabbage garden or a production garden for England?" I am delighted to see that that attitude seems to have been completely thrown overboard, and that the best thing we can do now is to be a producing farm for England which, it has been found, is our only market. I agree that every step taken towards increased production is going to relieve unemployment. That can only be secured by restoring the farming community to the financial condition in which they ought to be. It was admitted here this evening that the economic war wrought havoc amongst the agricultural community.
It was worth what it cost.
I cannot hear what the Deputy is saying. There is no question that the Cosgrave Administration, as has been proved here, every year put 11,000 people into employment, with a £20,000,000 rate of taxation— that has not been contradicted—and that the Fianna Fáil Administration, even giving them their best figures, put 13,000 into employment with an increased expenditure of £10,000,000. Would it not have been better to put the 13,000 people into the Shelbourne Hotel? You would do it cheaper than £10,000,000. It does not matter anyhow whether unemployment was good or bad under the Cosgrave Administration, or whether it is better or worse now; it is a problem to be solved. This is our country and, when our country is prosperous, whatever our Party divisions or affiliations are, the people will be prosperous and we can all be fairly contented. That is the philosophy of this particular Party and it is mine. I do not care who improves the position of the country so long as it is improved.
I contend that we should restore the farmer to his former financial position. There are a lot of records to show that at the present time there are over 4,000 farmers with no means whatever. To my own knowledge, there are thousands of farmers whose stock was removed from their farms through no fault of their own. They were unable to pay the land annuities, and the court messenger, in the enforcement of the law, stripped the farms. These people have never been able to get back to their former position. They cannot get a loan from the Agricultural Credit Corporation because there is no stock on the farms to pay the annuity which would be necessary if the loan were granted. Some steps must be taken by the Government to put these people in a position to get back into productivity and to be able to produce again. They would then be in a position to give employment and in that way the unemployed would be absorbed and the Central Fund will be relieved of certain charges.
Pending this, assistance should be given to the farmer who employs an additional employee in this way. If the employee is a married man in receipt of 14/- unemployment assistance, or if he is a single man in receipt of 6/- or 7/-, the farmer should be given that money, and then he should pay the standard rate of wages of 18/-, or, if he is not maintaining the man, 30/-. That, of course, will not improve the condition of the worker, because that 30/-, which is now the standard rate for the agricultural worker, is not able to purchase sufficient to support a man and his wife and family of four or five. I know families in the country who are in receipt of 14/- or 15/- unemployment assistance. I admit that that money is of some use to them, but it does not go near meeting their requirements in order to keep body and soul together. That is due to the taxation, and the other imposts put on or tolerated by the present Government on flour, sugar, and everything that is essential for the maintenance of a family.
Then we have the problem of our financial position. I believe that it is not in order to touch upon that in this debate. But, again, the Government should be doing something about that, keeping in mind that the great problem that we have to contend with is the problem of unemployment. They should see how far that can be met by tackling the question that I have referred to. I should like to compliment Deputy Childers upon realising that the position is not what he thought it was when the last Budget was introduced. I remember that when he spoke on one of these Budgets, I think it was the last one, he said that this country was ideally situated for increased taxation. He went on to base that upon all the factories in the country and the increased productivity of the country. But this evening he has come round to our point of view, that increased taxation does not help increased production, but, on the contrary, that it lowers production, increases unemployment, and is hurtful to the country.
On a point of order, I must protest against that. I said nothing of the kind. On the last Budget, I said that this country, because of actual savings, could take sufficient punishment in the form of taxation without material damage, but that there was a point when the matter would have to be reviewed. That is not what the Deputy said.
I am interpreting what the Deputy said, that this country was ideally situated for increased taxation and it could take all that. I submit that Deputy Childers' interruptions both of Deputy Brennan and myself are uncalled for and unseemly. We did not interrupt him. We let him make his speech in his own way. If, every time we were misquoted or misrepresented in this House, we were allowed to say "You are wrong" on the spot, we would never get very far.
Any Deputy is entitled to raise a point of order.
It was not a point of order, it was a point of explanation.
The last time he rose to a point of order.
He did not raise a point of order. I contend that the increased taxation imposed by this Government and its colossal expenditure upon wild-cat schemes—I think that is the only adjective that is suitable for them—have brought this country to its greatest depth of unemployment and financial stringency, and that the time has come when the Government must seriously consider the whole problem and find ways and means for solving this problem. As far as we are concerned here we believe that negotiating treaties and agreements between this and other countries for the acceptance of our agricultural products and increasing our productivity are the only means by which this country can be financially established and the unemployment problem solved. There is one point more that I want to raise in conclusion. Deputy Childers in an interjection said that this Government had changed 35 tariffs. On that point he gave the impression that the Government itself did that of its own volition and that it considered it good business to do it. But we all know for a fact that these tariffs were reduced because of the Financial Agreement made with Britain in 1938 and had nothing whatever to do with the policy of the Government. We know that these tariffs were reduced because the British Government made it part of a bargain which they made with this Government.
But they are no part of this Bill.
No, but I am raising this on a point of personal explanation. I want to say that I feel that the Government should seriously consider the whole situation of unemployment. It should arrange that there are ample fertilisers available for the agricultural community; it should recognise that the productivity of this country can be increased by allowing farmers to get fertilisers. In that way they can make better crops available and thus allow the agricultural community to absorb a large number of unemployed workers in the rural areas into the functions of employment. In that way the people of the country will produce more. They will have their own butter, eggs and everything that is required for the use of the homes, and even though there may not be as high a standard of living as in the cities, still, there will be a living for the farmer if he is given the proper conditions for his work and freedom from too much Government interference.
Mr. A. Byrne
In what I have to say I will be very brief. The attention of the Minister has been brought vigorously to the problem of unemployment. Can the Minister hold out any hope for an improvement in the unemployment position in the towns and cities? Has he any hope other than that of tightening the belt? The belt has been already tightened to the extreme limit. The Minister, I am sure, is aware of the very grave hardships borne by the unemployed in the towns and cities and especially so in the City of Dublin, where so many of the people are trying to live on a totally inadequate income got from unemployment assistance, in some cases supplemented by the Dublin Board of Assistance. The Dublin ratepayers are already bearing a crushing burden to meet this latter demand. I think if the Minister were in touch with the people he would be up and doing and give the unemployed greater encouragement than he gave them when he said we could tighten our belts. These people have already tightened their belts to the extreme limits. I think the time has come when the Government should see that these people have something better than the miserable existence they are at present enjoying.
So far as one can see, this debate on the Central Fund Bill has been carried on in the same manner as the debate on the Vote on Account, with this exception, that many of the Fianna Fáil Deputies have availed of the opportunity to put their views before the House. Personally, I welcome some of the speeches made, but I would like to tell Deputy Childers that he will have to use much plainer language than he used in the course of his speech. I would like to tell him that he will have to call a spade a spade and that he will have to go down to the ordinary people of Longford with Deputy Victory and tell these people that he and Deputy Victory were wrong when they told them when they first elected the Fianna Fáil Government to power in this land that the country would flow with milk and honey once they were elected and that there would not be man, woman, or child, boy or girl idle; that in fact, as one of the Ministers stated in my constituency, owing to the increased work that would be available at increased wages the doors of the houses would be found to be too narrow and that they would have to be widened—the people would grow so fat. But that is not the position that one finds after Fianna Fáil has been eight years in office. Deputy Childers is a young man in this House. Now I wish to tell the Deputy that many years ago when I first offered myself as a candidate for election to this House I made something approaching the very speech he made here this evening. During that election I told our people that as far as I was personally concerned I would never ask any Government to solve the unemployment question; because I have sufficient common sense, knowing the weakness of human nature, to know that that was impossible. But I stated that the Government could by wise laws and helpful legislation enable those who were in a position to give employment to continue giving that employment.
As I stated the other day, the most important factor in regard to employment is its continuity. Wages and the conditions are only of secondary importance in comparison with that so far as this country of ours is concerned. Possibly the Fianna Fáil Party were honest when they stated in 1932 they had a plan to solve this problem. They got a majority in every election since then; we must admit that. Every time they went before the electors since 1932 they were re-elected. Of course I could give reasons for that, because everybody knows that one of the principal factors in their return is is that there is a certain section in every constituency, a certain number of voters, sufficient to turn the scale in favour of a particular Party who make rash promises as to what they will do when elected. Now we have arrived at a time when we find, to use an old expression, that the Fianna Fáil Party have come to the end of their tether. Members of the Fianna Fáil Party suspect now, in 1940, what I knew in 1927 and that is that if you continue to draw from your reservoir continually without putting in anything you are bound to empty the reservoir. If you continue to take more out of it than you are putting in you are bound to find it empty. The Government have now arrived at the position that they find, so far as the financial resources of this country are concerned, it is almost impossible to extract more from the people in the way of taxation.
One could readily sense the fear with regard to the future that ran through the speech delivered by the Minister for Finance yesterday. That fear was not prompted by knowledge that he would not be in a position to give increased social services or to arrange for increased employment. The fear which ran through his speech was—I want to emphasise this—that he might not be in a position to maintain even the present social services. As one who knows something about hard work, about sacrifice and what it is to be in want of many things, I say that most of the difficulties that beset this country are due to our being in too great a hurry to make good. We started to walk before we learned to creep. Even in setting up this State, we were not content to be equal to the great Empire across the water with which we had long association. We wanted to go one better and the result is that, year by year, we have set up institutions that are in many cases more costly to maintain than those maintained by the richest empire in the world. That, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why we find ourselves in the position in which we are to-day.
On the question of unemployment, I want to make an appeal to members of the Labour Party and I am only sorry that all the members of that Party are not here. It is an old saying that "prevention is better than cure." One of the main factors in creating unemployment is the high cost of carrying many of the social services, in addition to the other things in which the Government are interested. It is all very well—I speak now as a trade unionist of 40 years standing— to have good wages and good conditions provided you can maintain continuity of employment. It is wellknown that if you impose burdens upon an industry which that industry is not able to bear, the first thing done by the people in charge is to cut down expenses. Very often that is done by dismissing a few men. One of the things in which I am interested at the moment and in which I am sure the Minister is interested is the high cost of building. During the last six years, the Government made various contributions to public bodies such as the 66? contribution to enable houses for people living in the slum areas to be built and rented at sums which these people would be able to pay. In other cases, they gave a subsidy of 33? per cent. Large numbers of houses have been built during those six years and, as a natural consequence of that intensive campaign of house-building, thousands of men have found employment in that industry.
That industry is almost at a standstill at present. It was, in my opinion, the height of folly to imagine that the building of houses would provide permanent employment for the many thousands who had entered that industry during the last six or seven years. Anybody who knows anything about the business knows that if the Minister were in a position to set all the builders of the Twenty-Six Counties building houses at full speed, inside a period of ten years the land of this country would be covered with houses to such an extent that it would be almost impossible to get the wherewithal to raise a pot of potatoes or to sod a lark. What is the use of working at peak point for five or ten years in a man's life? That activity has come to a standstill and the worst feature of that is that, owing to the great help given by the Government to house building and owing to the boom, the cost of building has risen enormously. It is just at the worst period possible—in the middle of a great war—that the Government is, more or less, compelled to "go easy" in regard to the building of houses. Incidentally, as I mentioned the other night, the building of private houses by way of investment is almost non-existent. Men who followed the business by profession for years are to-day idle and have little to which they can look forward. I wish Deputies of all Parties would at times have the courage, not to speak in this House, but to go down to the workers in the country, discuss the whole question, and tell them that something must be done. In my humble opinion, as one who knows a little about the business, it is necessary to reduce the cost of building if this country is to give employment in the future. I do not care who does that—employers, workers or builders' providers. All those concerned must come together, because the resources of this little country do not permit of the building of houses at the figure which they are costing at present.
What about the bankers?
I shall come to the bankers. I should like Deputy Hurley and leaders of the Labour Party—I am a Labour man myself, to a certain point —to meet me in College Green and discuss this whole question. I have been discussing these matters in public for the last ten years and I am elected, to a great extent, by Labour votes. "Truth may be blamed but cannot be shamed." In the long run, you will find that the policy I advocate will be the policy that will be the most beneficial to the men engaged in the industry. I worked at the business all my life and I know the position. At present, you have men in employment for a few months and out of employment for, perhaps, six months. He will be a lucky man in the future, so far as I can see, who will get 20 to 25 weeks' work out of 52 weeks. That is not a happy state of affairs so far as men engaged in that industry are concerned. The same applies to many other things. Everything would be all right if those in authority would compel the people who are giving employment to keep up their numbers. As I pointed out the other day, if a man employing ten men finds he cannot continue employing them and he still has to carry on, he will dismiss two or three. That is one of the factors that creates unemployment and makes the matter more difficult of solution.
I think all Parties should recognise the fact that this is not a rich country. Deputies, and especially those in the Government back benches, who made certain promises to the people and thereby raised their hopes and led them to expect that they would get this, that, and every other thing, must undo all they have done and must contradict almost everything they said during the last eight years, especially in regard to the solution of this problem. We will then arrive at a stage when we can proceed to solve this problem. Until that is done and until we recognise our limitations and ascertain what this country can afford, you cannot hope to reach even a partial solution of the problem. This is a problem which is engaging the attention not alone of this State, but of all other States throughout the world.
I have listened very carefully to the debate on this Bill and I think it has emerged very clearly from that debate that, so far as the two major Parties in the House are concerned, they have no solution for the unemployment problem. We have the fact that there are 120,000 people whose energies and abilities and potentialities are allowed to go untapped. There is no prospect of putting these people into employment. We are told by the Government Party that there is over-production and we had very severe criticism of the Government Party by members of the Fine Gael Party during this debate. We must cast our minds back to the time, now that there does not seem to be any solution offered from the Government side, when there was a solution and when the present Government Party were in Opposition. They showed at one time how that problem of unemployment could be and should be tackled. They even declared that there was no reason why there should be unemployment in a country like this, with its resources and potentialities and the position it occupied. All the plans that were then in contemplation seem to have vanished. There is no prospect of putting any of these plans into operation.
The Minister for Finance has very dolefully put the position before us. He so despairs of things that he thinks the problem is almost beyond solution. That is very poor consolation for the people who are unemployed and who have families. Just consider that there are 120,000 people unemployed, many of them fathers of families. There are many of these men whom I know in my own constituency, in places such as Passage West and Cobh, who are trying to exist on 14/- a week. That amount is allotted to a man who has a wife and five children. If there is over-production in families, if a man has six or seven children, he still gets only 14/- a week and I know places where that is the only income for the house. How can they exist under such conditions? Surely, the Government should address themselves more energetically towards finding a solution for that position. They are not doing their duty as a Government if they do not address themselves more energetically and cease talking in such a doleful, despairing way, telling us that there is no solution. There is no hope for the Irish nation if they cannot find a solution for the curse and cancer of unemployment.
Deputy Dillon was very severe in his criticism of the Government and very emphatic as to how economy should be effected. Does he suggest that the same plan should be put into operation as was tried by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government—cutting the old age pensioners by one shilling a week? If you put them into power how will they solve the unemployment problem, especially with their record as a Government for ten years?
The Deputy should be debating a Bill submitted by the present Government.
Yes, I am, but I must have some kind of background in order to show the position.
We are not now concerned with the Administration of the previous Government.
If one cannot refer to it here perhaps there is some other place.
You have the cross-roads for that.
I should like to make a comparison between certain Estimates for 1939-40 and 1940-41.
The Vote on Account is itemised. The Bill before the House is not. Questions arising on particular Estimates would be more relevant on the Estimate for the Department of the Minister concerned. This is becoming a more detailed debate than we had on the Vote on Account.
The whole thing shows that instead of any provision being made to alleviate the impact of unemployment in this country, the position is being worsened, and I do not see any hope of an improvement under this Bill. There was put into operation on the 6th March an employment order, presumably because a certain number of men will be able to get into employment. I have from time to time mentioned the position of men, fathers of families, who are being taken from the City of Cork and put on a corporation housing scheme at Spangle Hill, outside the city. Under this employment order men who have dependents will be put off unemployment assistance and will have to turn to home assistance. It is simply shoving the burden from the national Exchequer over to the local authorities. I want to know what is the reason for the issuing of that order so early in the year? There is definitely a hardship put on those people.
Was that order not debated already?
No. Not alone is there that definite hardship put on those people, but they are being seriously affected in another direction. Whatever provision was made for them under the Unemployment Assistance Acts it is now being taken from them. It cannot be argued that these men are agricultural workers, and it cannot be argued that they have suddenly come into employment. There is no employment there, and I think it is callous treatment of such men to throw them off unemployment assistance and leave them to find sustenance wherever they may.
That, surely, is an aspect of unemployment that the Minister, the Government and this House must take serious notice of. We had references here to house building and strictures passed on it as a means of relieving unemployment, or as a national asset. I am of the opinion that the proper housing of the people is an asset to the community. The trouble is that there is not enough of it. House building could very profitably be engaged in as a means of helping to solve unemployment. If it were undertaken on more extensive lines it would help to put the unemployed into work, and provide the thousands and thousands who are living under intolerable conditions at the moment with decent houses. These intolerable conditions prevail not only in cities like Dublin, Cork and Waterford, but in the rural parts as well. Labourers' cottages are badly needed. When these suggestions are put forward the despairing cry is raised: "Where is the money to come from?" while at the same time we are told in this House of the millions of money invested in Great Britain. The former Minister for Finance told me in this House, when I raised that matter, that that was the reason why we were one of the great creditor nations of the world. But of what use is that when we have to make this doleful wail that we cannot find money to go ahead with house building?
There is plenty of work to be done as well in connection with hospital building. Not a penny has been spent on hospital buildings in Cork City or the districts surrounding it. While that is so, millions of money, raised by means of the Hospitals Sweepstakes, are invested in Great Britain. There are many other directions in which employment might be found for our people, and I suggest to the Minister for Finance that if he wants to solve this problem he should explore them energetically.
Then there is the great question of credits. The banks can issue credits on their own behalf and on behalf of their shareholders, but the people who control the banks have as little interest in this community as I have in the man in the moon. The Government have not the pluck or the courage to go out and say how that control should be exercised on behalf of the community in order that some attempt might be made to put our 120,000 people into employment. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to the questions I have addressed to him, and that the House will devote some attention to the question of how this unemployment problem is to be solved. It can be solved. There were solutions for it eight years ago, and surely they are available to-day. If this nation is to survive, this problem must be got rid of.
On previous occasions, I have drawn the attention of the Minister for Finance, and of other Ministers, to Passage West, which happens to be in my constituency and which, in my opinion, is one of the most depressed areas in the country. There is no kind of employment there, except what is given by way of relief grants on three or four days in the week. Opportunities are available for providing constant work for the people. For example, there are dockyards to be established in Cork Harbour. All these questions which I have raised should engage the serious attention of the Minister. If my suggestions were put into effect they would help to relieve unemployment in areas where it is very acute. In conclusion, unless we can solve this problem there is no use in talking about a future for this country.
I have listened to the speeches made by the Minister and by Deputy Dillon. They were simply an admission that nothing has been done to relieve the position of the unemployed. Even in the rural areas now, as has been pointed out by Deputy Hurley, young men without dependents who are unemployed are not to be maintained out of national taxation, but are to be put on the local rates. The Minister made the case that the Increased Tillage Order would help to relieve unemployment in the rural areas. In some areas agricultural workers may be able to get employment, but the operation of that order will not mean more employment in County Wicklow because there the farmers are now tilling more than the order requires. There is one Government Department that is retarding, instead of assisting, a greater production of food. I refer to the Land Commission which is sub-letting to ranchers the big areas of land that have been in its possession for years.
A simple guide is that matters that were or could be raised on an Estimate should not be raised on this Bill.
I was just pointing out that the operation of the Increased Tillage Order in County Wicklow will not help to relieve unemployment there because of the policy that is being pursued by the Land Commission.
This is not a debate on unemployment.
We are being asked in this Bill to provide funds for the Minister, and the two big Parties agreed that one of the questions to be discussed was that of unemployment.
The question put was: Unemployment resulting from over-expenditure. I will not debar the Deputy from discussing that, but I must debar him from discussing what the Land Commission are alleged to be guilty of.
I will pass on to house building. Public bodies are now finding much greater difficulty than heretofore in securing loans for the building of houses, due to the policy which is being pursued by the Department of Finance. When application is made to the Department of Local Government for a loan by boards of health the excuse is made that for some reason or other the application is being held up in the Department of Finance. The position, therefore, is that when public bodies endeavour to carry out the Government's policy they are prevented from doing so by the Department of Finance, although I believe it would be the Minister's personal wish that public bodies should be allowed to put that policy into effect. If the erection of hospitals were proceeded with, it would provide employment for the large number of skilled men who are available.
The County Wicklow Board of Health has been waiting for the last three years for a reply to a letter from the Department of Local Government and Public Health in connection with building hospitals in that county. There is only one Department endeavouring to provide employment, the Civil Service Commissioners and the Local Appointments Commissioners, which is costing over £17,000 and which has 86 employees. That Department sanctioned 347 public appointments in the last 12 months. That represents four officials in the Department for every official appointed in the Twenty-Six Counties. In its own way that Department is trying to do something to relieve unemployment in the Civil Service, but it is costing £17,000 to deal with the appointment of 347 local officials. I should like to know if that Department will be increased in view of the fact that public bodies are now to be given the opportunity to appoint nurses and to fill minor positions.
I join with other Deputies in pointing out that the only solution of unemployment is to have more people engaged in agriculture. Some Deputies seemed to think that the only hope for the agricultural community lay in the Government trying to prevent strikes by those in the cities and towns who demand increased wages. Having persecuted the agricultural community for years, the same Deputies are now turning over at the eleventh hour and appealing to the Government to aid agriculture. Deputies on these benches pointed out on various occasions that the only way to solve unemployment on the land was to guarantee a profitable price for agricultural produce, and in that way secure work for large numbers of men.
I believe the Unemployment Period Order will increase local taxation, because hundreds of men who were signing at the employment exchanges will find themselves without means, and will go to the local relieving officers for assistance. I was disappointed at the tone of the speeches from the Government Benches. It seems to me that they have no solution of unemployment and their excuse is that as taxation has increased for the last few years they are unable to do anything more for the unemployed. They are unable to increase allowances to the unemployed, to old age pensioners, to the sick or to those drawing insurance benefit.
That is a pitiable state of affairs. This is a credit-worthy country, and if the Government can provide so much money for an army and a navy there is nothing to prevent it providing money for useful work upon which large numbers of unemployed in the cities and towns could be engaged. Another way would be to allow the public bodies to proceed with housing schemes, the building of hospitals and schools. It is a sad state of affairs to have the Estimate for Minor Relief Schemes reduced, and a decision taken not to build technical schools. I believe the credit of the country is good and that there is nothing to prevent the Government permitting public bodies to get the money they require for housing, schools and hospitals.
It has been freely admitted by the Government in recent months that they have no plan for the solution of unemployment. It is now admitted that not only have they no plan for the solution of unemployment, but that they have no plan to mitigate the evils arising directly and indirectly from that problem. In a letter that appears in the public Press to-day it is pointed out by the Department of Local Government that they are not prepared to adjust unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit to the increased cost of living.
The Deputy may not advocate measures requiring legislation.
I am sure most of the Deputies have a distinct recollection that when the Government was seeking office not so many years ago, everywhere the tricolour waved over meetings at cross-roads, a banner was displayed with this caption: "Work or maintenance for all." We now find that they have no plan for finding work for anybody, and no scheme for maintaining those in receipt of State benefits or on the bread line. I ask the Minister for Finance, who is the representative of a Dublin constituency, who enjoys great popular favour in that constituency, and is highly esteemed by the citizens generally, to weigh very carefully the situation so far as the citizens of Dublin are concerned. The onus is being placed on them by the Government to make good the difference between the inadequate allowance of unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit by way of subsidy in the form of home assistance, that comes directly from the pockets of the ratepayers. Some years ago I remember that bitter attacks were made by members of the present Government Party on a former Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy McGilligan, who was alleged to have stated that the formulating of a plan for unemployment was not a Government function. I remind the Minister for Finance that that now seems to be the attitude which the present Government is taking up towards that problem, and if they persist in that attitude they may find themselves before very long in the same position as Deputy McGilligan—ex-Ministers.
According to the Minister we are faced with a Vote demanding from the public some hundreds of thousands of pounds less than the published Estimates of last year. I am long enough in the House to know that there is nothing more misleading than to rely on published estimates.
We all know that in the course of every year it has become the fashion to introduce crops of Supplementary Estimates, and that the most unreal guide to the expenditure in any given year is the published Estimates for that year. If we are really to decide for ourselves whether there is an attempt at economy in this published list of Estimates, the comparison that should be taken is not a comparison between the Estimates for this year and the Estimates for last year, but a comparison between the Estimates for this year, which we must take it indicate the Government's spending intentions, and the actual expenditure for the last year available.
If we take a comparison between the Estimates of this year and the Estimates of last year, we see a decrease, an apparent saving, under 15 or 20 heads out of the 70. But if we take the Estimates now issued as against the actual expenditure for the last year for which figures are available, 1938-9, we see that there is an increase in every one of the 70 headings except three. In other words, the apparent decrease is, in reality, an increase, as against the actual expenditure. I do not see any great fruits of the work of an active economy committee in that. Anyway, we must take this as a fact, that it is the intention of the Government, the deliberate intention of the Government, to spend more under practically every single heading of the 70 headings than they succeeded in spending the year before last. That is a fact established by the figures. But, as far as there is an attempt at economy, and as far as there is a paper decrease, it is worth seeing under what headings the decrease is effected. In the main, the whole reduction in the Estimates this year, as against last year, is under the heads of Public Works, Agriculture, Fisheries, Local Government Department, Lands, Unemployment Assistance and Unemployment Insurance. In other words, the whole of our economy is going to be at the expense of what could be described as the work-giving Votes.
I will say frankly that I think economy has got to be welcomed, no matter under what heading. But either there is or there is not a choice. When we see the office expenditure and expenditure on what may be crudely referred to as officialdom going up under every single head, and economy effected in the employing Departments, I wonder if it is wise.
Eight or nine years ago the Minister and his colleagues and all his followers, with a certain amount of truth and a great amount of enthusiasm, were constantly pointing out the fact that the previous Government, having been there eight or nine years, had completely lost contact with conditions in the country; that the fact that they were there in Government offices for so many years explained the fact that there was an immense gap between them and the people; that they had lost all contact with the people, and all knowledge of the people. That may or may not have been true. I think there was a degree of truth in that charge, and I think that even those ex-Ministers, looking back, would admit that there was quite a volume of truth in that charge. If there was any truth in it then, there is ten times more truth in it now.
I cannot see in the proposals of the Government for the coming financial year any evidence that they realise the real position in the country to-day. We have vastly increased expenditure on officialdom and on what could properly be regarded as pomp and ceremonial, and we have drastic economy in the employment-giving departments. At the same time we have progressively and rapidly-growing unemployment and consequential despair throughout the rural places of this country. We have marriages practically at a stand-still, certainly amongst the members of the agricultural community. We have two equally vicious races going on at the same time. We have a national decline in our population. But, in spite of the fact that the national population is falling, and falling rapidly, we have a rapidly increasing population in the cities and urban towns.
I have experience of a fairly large administrative area where there are three urban centres and 23 rural divisions. The census shows that in all of the 23 rural divisions the population is falling, and falling rapidly, and that in one of the urban centres it is increasing. The marriage rate would show, in fact, I think, in all our midland counties that there is a very steep fall and that you would nearly want to pick out a man with a long memory to remember the time when there was a marriage in the parish, other than amongst the workers. Every attempt is being made to balance that population fall, and a very commendable attempt is being made by the increased rate of building labourers' cottages. But the real falling off in the marriage rate of the agricultural community is being obscured by an attempt to balance it up by an increased marriage rate amongst the workers and unemployed.
I could enumerate rural schools where, as recently as ten years ago, the number on the rolls was over 70, and where the number on the rolls now has dropped to 30, not through defiance of the School Attendance Act, but owing to the fact that children are not to be found or seen in that locality. We selected a time like that to take from the Agricultural Grant and to take from the other employment grants and to spend on armaments, armies and navies. We justify that huge expenditure of millions by the fact that there are other neutral countries in Europe that are spending more, quite jauntily ignoring the fact that in these other neutral countries they have only to look across the ditch to see mobilised armies of other belligerent countries who would think nothing of crossing the ditch at any time that military advantage or material gain was promised by the crossing of the ditch. An attempt has been made to trade on our insular ignorance by pretending that our position is similar to the position of such countries and that this huge expenditure is necessary.
Up to a few years ago the Central Fund Bill was rarely discussed at any length. This Bill has now been five hours under consideration. Deputies are quite within their rights, but there are no items in this Bill and it is not permissible to resume or repeat matters debated on the Estimates and to which the Deputy now refers; they were also recently debated on the Army Vote.
I hope the Chair does not hold me responsible for the five hours during which this Bill has been debated.
Deputies are quite within their rights in relevantly discussing this measure as long as they desire.
I have not spoken yet for five minutes.
The Chair objects to the repetition of matters debated already on the Defence Bill and on the Army Estimate.
So far as I know I have not so far indulged in any repetition. But this Central Fund Bill and the Vote on Account are allied more closely than twins. The observation made by the Minister on the Vote on Account is an observation to which I happened to refer for a matter of three seconds. We are being asked to vote an instalment of £30,000,000 and we are supposed to discuss and consider the wisdom of that expenditure. I was proceeding to express my views with regard to the wisdom of expenditure. My view is to the effect that with an army of 100,000 unemployed people, with numbers of the agricultural community unable to afford marriage, with a population shrinking and with people living in poor homes unable to get the necessaries of life or a sufficiency of the necessaries of life because of the weight of taxation, we are not justified, in an island remote from the scenes of war, and with no invader threatening our frontiers, to spend money on an Army. Having stated that much or rather repeated it, I will leave the matter at that. It is a matter of firm conviction. I leave it as a matter for very full consideration by the House, by the Government and by the Minister for Finance. We have a state of affairs where not only is taxation increasing but through circumstances and conditions which we do not control, the cost of running every household in the country, wealthy and poor, is rapidly increasing. One factor in this is the increase in taxation. That is a factor that we do control. We allow taxation to increase. We know that every charge is increasing and we do nothing about it. We spend our millions on armaments. We get millions from food taxes. I believe it is a brutal policy. It is a policy that shows every evidence of lack of knowledge by the Government as to what is actually happening in the homes. The wealthiest person living in the City of Dublin is meeting the increased cost by some form of economy or another. They can meet the increased cost by giving up luxuries, some by buying less luxuries, others by having a cheaper holiday or a less expensive holiday and others by having a shorter holiday. But no matter how much the upper or middle classes may complain, everyone of them can meet the increased cost of living by doing without some little pleasure or going without some little luxury. But when we go below a certain level, when we go into the houses of the wage-earner or the unemployed or into the home of the family living on home help or the blind pension or the old age pension, one finds the Government rapidly increasing the toll to be paid by such household. No luxuries ever went into that home. Those people never spend money on holidays. They never had money to spend on luxuries but they have got to economise the same as everybody else. The only way in which they can meet the increasing demands all round is by buying less of what they used to buy. What they used to buy were the barest necessaries of life. What happens in a home of that type? Less necessaries of life are being bought because the cost of the commodities is going up, the rates are up and the taxation is up. There is less food going into such a home and less nourishment going into the stomachs. While we look on at that in hundreds of thousands of homes we go in for millions extra for armaments.
Last November we got a Vote passed here for £1,000,000 for armaments. In March we found that we did not spend it on armaments, but on something else. At all events the money is gone. We mobilise thousands and pay for the useless expense. We defend all that by saying that others did it. Now it is for the people in other Parliaments to decide the wisdom or the injustice of the course taken in other countries. It is for us in this Parliament to decide whether it is fair, whether it is Christian to stand idly by, when in hundreds of thousands of homes there is something more than semi-starvation, while we spend millions on unwanted soldiers and unwanted naval displays. The responsibility is not just on the Minister for Finance. It is not just on the Government. Parliament is supposed to be something more than bodies of "yes" men faced by bodies of "no" men. Parliament is supposed to be a place where, at least, in serious times everybody who is voting millions of pounds in one direction has got to be satisfied that it would not be better spent in another direction, and where every individual Deputy, when he votes for taxation on the scale on which we are asked to vote for it, has got to be satisfied (1) that there is no reasonable room for economy, (2) that we are spending the money on things that are essential, and (3) that the people from whom we expect to get the money are capable of providing it without jeopardising their health and their lives or jeopardising the health of those who still have their lives ahead of them— the infants, children and juveniles. When any Government in any country reaches the point that they have explored every normal way of getting in revenue, and have to come to the larders of the very poorest people, then we have, at least, reached the point where serious and lengthy consideration has got to be given the position by the Parliament which contains the representatives of the people. I see in the Bill presented to this House no evidence of any awakeness to the real hardship and the real tragedy that is to be found in the poorest homes. I see no evidence of an active, energetic economy commission working with a knowledge of what is actually happening right down through the country. I see in this Bill evidence of an attempt to get money in the easiest way, and the easiest way to get money is to get it from the many. I think that if the Government were serious in talking about economy and in desiring to ease the burden of taxation, they would, at least, have unloaded some of the military expenditure which might appear to anybody as necessary last September, but which nobody, in frank discussion, can defend as reasonable to-day. Either at one end of the Bill or at the other end, there has got to be more sympathetic consideration than is shown here for the people who have to foot the bill.
We are living in dangerous times, in times when nobody can afford to be a prophet. We are living in times when the costs of food stuffs and materials are rising acutely and when nobody can say that within six months the price of any commodity is not going to be quadrupled or the cost of running any modest home is not going to be doubled or trebled. Surely the best contribution we can make to the safety of the country and the security of the people who have to live in it is to try to conserve whatever credit we have, to try to conserve whatever resources we have, to try to build up, not only within the nation but within every home in the nation some little resources and some little reserve to assist them in standing up against the dangers and terrors and demands that the future may hold for them. Surely none of us is playing the game with the people when we gaily dissipate our last resources, squandering what is there and even demanding what does not appear to be there—and doing that at a time when danger is not immediate. The only provision we are making for the time danger may be near is to see that danger, when it comes, will be faced by a half-starved, crippled and impoverished people.
I intervene in this debate in a very serious frame of mind. The life of this State up to the present has been comparatively short, but if the present rate of taxation continues the people of this country will be faced with ruin. We have reached a point when the Government will have to cry a halt. Since the Government came into power, there has been an increase in expenditure of about £10,000,000. The people are being asked this year to meet a bill £10,000,000 greater than that which they were asked to meet in 1932. They are not able to do that. We are told that the farmers are getting better prices for their cattle than they did in the last few years. That is not the case. For the past three or four months there has been no sale for store cattle in my constituency. Farmers who took their cattle to the fairs could not sell them. The position of the farmers in my constituency is worse to-day than it was three years ago. They are not able to pay their rates or meet their other demands and, in my county, they will be faced with a bill for £100,000 more than they were asked to pay last year.
The greatest menace to this country at present is unemployment. Eight years ago the unemployed in my constituency were told from Fianna Fáil platforms that work would be found for all of them. At that time there were about 60,000 unemployed in the country. To-day there are about 120,000. In the town of Fermoy, which is near me, instead of seeing two or three men standing at the corners, as one used to see eight years ago, one now sees hundreds.
Unfortunate men have come to me within the last month, looking for home assistance. The Government is asking them to live on 6/- or 7/- a week. The position is growing worse, because you have unemployed men in the rural areas being told at the labour exchange that they are not to come there until next October. What are the Government going to do for these men between now and next October? Where is the Fianna Fáil plan now for unemployment? We hear very little about it. We have been discussing these matters for two days and only three or four members of the Fianna Fáil Party have been behind the Minister. Very few members of that Party have spoken, and those who did should have been speaking from this side of the House, judging from their speeches. I would like to see more members of that Party having the courage to speak the truth. They say there is no plan to relieve unemployment. I hold there is. We have torpedo boats around Dun Laoghaire, and we have thousands of men in barracks all over the country. The people are paying for them, paying for munitions and everything else to the tune of something like £3,500,000.
We have a paltry sum of not quite £200,000 for re-afforestation. We have a position in my locality where, under the previous Government, there were 50 or 60 men employed at forestry work at Kilworth. Now there are something less than 20 men. When they set out to plant 60 acres not six miles from the Kilworth forestry station, on the other side of the town of Fermoy, where they have 300 or 400 unemployed, they must take the men from Kilworth, out beyond the town of Fermoy, to plant the 60 acres. These men were passing daily through the town of Fermoy. That is a disgraceful state of affairs. The money could be better spent giving employment to some of the men who were on the labour exchange books in the town. Instead of selecting the townsmen, they got the men from the country to pass through the town every morning in order to plant the 60 acres on the other side of the town.
There has been a Vote on forestry within the last fortnight. The Deputy could then have raised that matter.
I am merely explaining to the Minister that this money that they are expending so foolishly could be better expended by giving employment to unfortunate men on the dole, planting trees. They would be better employed than to be lounging around waiting for 6/- or 7/- a week. If the Government are in earnest about doing something in regard to unemployment, they should not be reducing the Votes that they have reduced. The money can be found under other headings, such as the Army, and they should devote that money towards necessary works that would help to relieve unemployment. I believe the position in this country at present is very serious, and the Government will have to take some steps in the near future to relieve the people from the terrible burden of taxation.
As has been pointed out by various speakers on this Central Fund Bill, the unemployment problem appears to be the most formidable one that faces this country. During the later years of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, the position of the unemployed was continuously debated. That was particularly the case on many occasions when the Fianna Fáil Party came in here. During the course of those debates it was repeatedly stressed by the Fianna Fáil Party that unemployment was the most formidable problem that then confronted the country. They were surprised that the Cumann na nGaelheal Government had not grappled with the problem, and they said that if they had the opportunity they would put into operation certain plans designed to put all the unemployed to work. After eight years of Fianna Fáil Government, instead of unemployment decreasing we find ourselves faced with a situation in which about 40,000 people have been added to the unemployed list. Surely the Government cannot afford to look upon that situation with any kind of equanimity, and we are entitled to ask if they still have any plan to deal with a serious situation that is growing worse every day.
Their enthusiasm, which was very evident prior to their coming into office and just after they entered office, appears to have gone, and we hear very little now from Government spokesmen as to their intentions in so far as solving the unemployment problem is concerned. Undoubtedly, the present Government gave us an Unemployment Assistance Act, under which the unemployed get certain weekly allowances. As regards the working of that Act, during recent years certain moneys have been given to local authorities in order that employment should be given under their supervision. The arrangements are that men in receipt of unemployment assistance get a certain amount of work spread out over a period of a month. They get three days in each of four weeks. In a great many, if not in all cases, it would be better if these men were not given work at all, because of the fact that every time they do certain work for local authorities over the period of a month, as I have mentioned, they usually lose a certain amount of money.
Take the case of a man who ceases work with a local authority on a Saturday. He has to sign for nine days before he gets any unemployment assistance in the labour exchange. I do not want to place the Government in a wrong position, so far as that is concerned. I am not suggesting that the man is not paid for the nine days. He is definitely paid, but he does not get anything until nine days after he has worked for the local authority, with the result that in a great many cases that man is unable to meet the rent collector, the grocer, and other people with whom he has contracted debts. The result is that every local authority feels the impact of that position by reason of the fact that almost all the slum dwellers who have been transferred to council houses are people who are engaged in this rotational system of employment, and every time 12 days' work during the period of a month is given to the person who is dwelling in one of these houses, the local authority has to do without a week's rent. Arrears are thus rapidly accumulating in so far as rents are concerned. It is a very serious matter, and I would ask the Minister for Finance, or the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, who happens to be here at the moment, to make representations to the Minister for Industry and Commerce with a view to securing that when men sign for a whole week after a period of employment with the local authority, they should be paid at the end of that week.
That would enable them to pay their rents to the local authorities for the houses in which they are living. At the moment, a great many of them who secured a period of employment simply add another week to their arrears of rent. That is a serious matter for local authorities, and to my mind will be responsible in the near future for any hesitancy that shows itself on the part of local authorities to proceed with the erection of artisans' dwellings.
It has been suggested, and rightly so, that since the advent of the Fianna Fáil Government housing has given a good deal of employment. I am prepared to admit that. A large amount of work has been given through the medium of house building to people who, but for it, would have been unemployed. At the same time, I think there will be some hesitancy on the part of local authorities to engage in house building in the future to any great extent because of two factors. The first is that since the outbreak of war the Minister has raised the rate of interest on moneys advanced from the Local Loans Fund for the purpose of building houses from 4¾ per cent. to 5¼ per cent. The increase may appear small, but when it is taken into consideration that the period of repayment is 35 years and that the cost of house building has increased by at least 30 per cent., as compared with pre-war days, it will be admitted, I think, that it is a very big factor. I cannot understand why the Government increased the rate of interest on these loans. At the outbreak of war the bank rate in this country was 3 per cent. Immediately war broke out it was increased to 4 per cent. About a month or six weeks after the outbreak of war the bank rate went back to its pre-war figure, 3 per cent. At the outbreak of war the Minister raised the rate of interest on these advances from the Local Loans Fund from 4¾ per cent. to 5¾ per cent. A few weeks ago, after a certain amount of pressure had been brought to bear on the Taoiseach by a deputation representing the building trades, the rate of interest charged by the Government was brought down from 5¾ per cent. to 5¼ per cent. I cannot understand why the Minister did not bring it down to 4¾ per cent., the rate that prevailed before the outbreak of war. The rate of interest charged on these advances will, in my opinion, have a serious effect on house building, and, consequently, on the provision of employment in the future.
Another matter that is affecting local authorities, and that will affect employment in the near future, is the question of rents, the question of the economic value of the houses that are being built. Everybody, of course, knows that the full economic rent is not being paid for these houses. The Government contributes two-thirds to meet the interest and sinking fund on any loans given to a local authority, but even with that contribution the rents which people are called upon to pay are in most cases beyond their means. In the first place, in order to secure that two-thirds subsidy on houses it is necessary that the people who are to occupy them should be taken from slum areas. It is well known that the people who live in slum areas in the various towns are able to rent houses at 1/6, 2/- or 2/6 a week. Naturally, when they are taken from the slum areas and put into houses which are rented to them at 4/-, 4/6 and in some cases 5/- per week, they are not able to meet the new rents, and quickly fall into arrears. That position is becoming alarming, so far as a great many urban authorities are concerned. The arrears in these cases are growing rapidly. In addition to the Government subsidy, which is given to provide houses for slum dwellers, the different urban councils also give a subsidy, yet despite that the arrears of rent on these houses are growing. The local authorities are responsible for the sinking fund and interest charges due on the money advanced to them, and repayments have to be sent regularly to the Board of Works which makes the advances from the Local Loans Fund.
What I want to suggest to the Minister is that a little more discretion should be allowed to the various local authorities in the selection of tenants for these new houses. I should say that it was the Minister in the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration who started this scheme for the provision of houses for slum dwellers, and I should say that he was moving in the right direction in the initial stages when it was possible to get houses built at a reasonable cost. My suggestion is that a discretion should be allowed to the local authority to give these houses to working people who would be in a better position to meet the rents than those taken out of the slum areas. If that were done, the people taken from the slum areas could get the smaller and cheaper houses vacated by those going into the new houses. Those with administrative experience in urban centres will, I think, agree with me when I say that the slum dwellers themselves would be glad to see an arrangement of that kind made. I do not think it is fair either to the urban authority or to the people who are living in the slum areas to take them out of houses which they had been able to rent at 1/6 or 2/- a week—people in receipt of anything from 12/6 to 17/6 a week unemployment assistance—and expect them to pay 4/- or 5/- a week in rent for the new houses. It is absolutely impossible for them to do that. They could not do it and at the same time provide themselves with the necessaries of life. If my suggestion meets with the approval of the Minister it will mean that the local authorities will be getting their rents and that the slum dwellers will be catered for. I ask the Minister to give his serious consideration to that because the arrears problem is becoming a very serious one for local authorities. It is a formidable task to keep the arrears down. I hope also that he will give attention to the point I made about men in rotational employment: that they should be paid on the Saturday or Friday after their employment ceases so that they will be able to pay their rents. Under the conditions I have described it is not easy for them to pay a double week's rent as they have to do at present.
Many people, including, I think, Deputy Dillon, stated that the unemployment problem is incapable of solution. I am prepared to admit that it is not easy for anybody to come along and say there is a remedy which would put every man at work, but I suggest that there are some things that should be done, which would enable a certain number of people to be put into employment.
Many speakers referred to the Army, and I also want to know why there is a necessity to expend £3,500,000 on the Army in this small country. I cannot see why that is necessary. We are in an isolated position and, as far as I know, there is not much chance of an invasion. The difference between what it cost to maintain an efficient Army in 1932, and what it costs to keep the present Army, amounts to a big sum, but the difference in efficiency, so far as numbers are concerned, would not warrant the huge difference in expenditure between 1932 and to-day. The difference amounts to at least £2,000,000. That £2,000,000 would give employment to almost 20,000 people, getting at least £2 a week for 52 weeks. That would go a long way to solve the unemployment problem. As Deputy Esmonde suggested, the fact that these 20,000 men were going to work would, perhaps, be responsible for other people being put to work.
Another question that has engaged a good deal of controversy for the last eight years is that of tariffs. Deputy Dillon referred to it at length to-day. Some tariffs that have been applied have been absolutely essential in order to start certain industries, but I agree with Deputy Dillon when he stated that tariffs have also been responsible for unemployment. That is quite easy to demonstrate. I believe that if the situation as far as tariffs are concerned were examined, it would be found that in consequence of tariffs being applied a great many dock labourers have been rendered idle. Many dock labourers who were engaged in the unloading of general cargoes at the various ports have, in consequence of the application of tariffs, been put out of employment, and these dockers were paid far and away more in wages than the wages paid in some of the new industries. We know quite well that in many of the new industries that were started the wages paid are very low.
Our patriotism is being appealed to to support the products of these firms, and to give them an opportunity to get on their feet. The time is gone by when the patriotism of the people should be appealed to, so that certain people who came to this country and put money into industry, should be supported. The time has arrived when another commission should be set up to investigate the position in so far as the application of tariffs is concerned. We know quite well that certain tariffs have been put on merely for revenue purposes, and others to help industry. I have criticised Cumann na nGaedheal as often as anybody, but some Deputy pointed out at the beginning of the debate that while they reduced old age pensions by a 1/-, Fianna Fáil have reduced old age pensions by a good deal more than a 1/-, because of the increased costs of food stuffs. In that way much more than a 1/- has been taken from poor persons with an income limited to 10/-. I ask the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to convey to the Department concerned what I have said about housing and about rotational employment. If there is adjustment made on these two questions it would considerably relieve unemployment and also local authorities. Serious consideration should also be given to the expenditure of two extra millions on the Army in recent years. If we had 20,000 people getting £2 a week for 52 weeks that would go a long way towards creating the contentment that is badly needed.
Mr. Brodrick
Looking at the Central Fund Bill for the last few years, it is rather lamentable in 1940 to find the present state of affairs, particularly when the Government has been nine years in office, and has had 13 years experience in this House. They cannot say that it was want of experience brought about the present position. If they wished to learn they had 13 years to do so, and during that period I suggest they were in closer contact with the people than any of the other Parties. They should have known the needs of the country and have made some attempt to carry out the promises they made some years ago, instead of fooling the people. Since this Government came into office they admit that taxation has gone up by at least £9,000,000. I believe that the people would be generous and would not mind taxation going up if they got some benefit from it. What benefit have they got from the increased taxation? As far as I know none whatever. It may be said now that the high cost of living is due to war, but the cost of living was increasing every year since Fianna Fáil took office. The war is not the cause of that. I believe it is due to bad administration. The Government cannot say that they were hampered by the Opposition, by Labour or by any Party in the House. They got help from every Party to reduce taxation and to give the people all the services it was possible to give them. However, they were guided by a group of individuals.
Take the industries that were started here by what I call "get rich quick" men. They got rich with the aid of the Government. They were advised years ago to be careful about industries they were about to start. What is the position to-day? At least 80 per cent. of the industries that were established by Fianna Fáil are either closed down or working half time. That position was brought about by want of foresight on the part of the Fianna Fáil Party in establishing industries that in a time of war or trouble were unable to get raw materials. During the years that these industries have been working a large amount of money has been advanced by the Government on loan for the purpose of building them up and helping men who were not able to make a living for themselves. These men have made fortunes out of the poor and the unemployed and out of the agricultural community that has been taxed so that loans might be given to these industries. It is to the point to ask where the money has gone. Who is to pay it? I should like to know if interest is being paid on the loans that were advanced for the establishment of factories that are either working half time or are closed down. You have these poor men unemployed at present, and they are a burden on the nation, because they are on the dole, or home assistance, or unemployment assistance.
We have heard from Ministers that agriculture is prospering and is having a good time, particularly this year owing to the war. I say that the very opposite is the fact. There may be a slight increase in the price of cattle and sheep, but the increased price does not pay for the feeding of the stock since last October. Anyone who goes through the fairs held in the country can see what the Fianna Fáil scheme for the slaughtering of calves has cost the country. They will see very few heavy cattle in the markets. At present the farmers are selling their young stock when they are not well fed. If they could keep them over the summer they would be very much more valuable to the farmers. But the farmers have to sell them in order to buy manures and seeds.
As to their sons and daughters, very few of them at present wish to stay on the land, because they cannot get a livelihood out of it. There is no use talking about increased tillage unless you offer some inducement to the people that they will be able to get a livelihood out of it. Everything that the farmer uses is taxed. Machinery, boots and shoes, tea, sugar—everything is taxed to the highest possible point. On the other hand, the farmer is selling his products at practically the same price at which he sold them a few years ago, with the exception of the slight increase in the price of heavy stock.
We know that the unemployment problem is a very big one. The present Government have heard enough about it since they came into office. They promised to reduce it, but let us see what they have done. Over 12 months ago a Drainage Commission was established by the Government. There are a large number of members on that commission, and a large number of officials of county councils and other bodies have given evidence as to the drainage schemes needed in their areas. Notwithstanding that, we have not yet received any report from that commission. I should like to ask when that report is likely to be presented, and when the recommendations will become effective. That is one way in which unemployment could be relieved to a great extent, especially amongst the farming community. Not alone that, but it would make their lands much more productive. There is no use in setting up commissions unless we get reports from them and some of the schemes recommended are put into operation.
There is also the Agricultural Commission. I should like to know when a report is expected from that commission. I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister what these commissions are costing us, and yet we have no report from them. Apparently, they are not operating. The country is paying for the cost of them, and it is time that some report should be made, and, when made, that it should become effective. The Agricultural Commission has now been sitting for about 12 months. I believe that if we had a report from that commission, and the report was adopted by the Government, it would be a great help to agriculture and to the unemployed. We hear a good deal of talk about the condition of agriculture. Probably many members of the Government are not as much in touch with the country in recent times as some Deputies are. If some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies spoke their minds, I think they would demand that the reports of these commissions should be made available and acted upon. There are some good men on each of these commissions, and I believe it would be a great help to agriculture if we had reports from them and they were adopted.
Then, as to housing, we find that loans for housing are held up while expenditure has gone up by £10,000,000 and we have more unemployed now. As Deputy Corish said, the cost of building has increased by 30 per cent. within the last five or six months. The war is responsible for that to some extent, but the materials made in this country have also increased in cost as a large amount of the raw material has to be imported. At the same time some of our industries are on half time and some of them have closed down. I appeal to the Government, even at this late hour, to give consideration to the position of the country and the burden that is placed on the people owing to high taxation. As I said, they should insist on getting reports from these commissions which they have set up and put the recommendations into operation.
One of the greatest problems in this country, and one which is eating like a cancer into the very heart of our national economy, is the incidence of unemployment. To my mind, that is due in no small measure to Government policy; the huge impositions of taxation regardless of the capacity of our people to pay, the use of the tariff system, and the creation of monopolies. Deputy Mulcahy, to my mind, was very conservative in his calculation of the number of men on minor relief schemes. He made that calculation on the sum of money administered by the Office of Public Works for minor relief grants, a sum of £1,500,000. He omitted from that sum the contribution that is made from local authorities. Minor relief grants, as most Deputies know, are conditional on a contribution being made by the local authority. I think we can assess that sum at least at £500,000. There fore, the amount expended on minor relief schemes, between what is spent by the Office of Public Works and the contribution made from local authorities, is at least £2,000,000. That would definitely make a further impression on the extraordinary figures revealed by Deputy Mulcahy in the Dáil. We were told, and it was admitted by the Government and the Minister for Finance, that the annual increment of 11,400 was put into permanent productive employment during the time of the late Government from 1926 to 1931. The annual increment in productive employment from 1931 to 1937 was 12,166. In other words, there was an increase of something over 700 in the annual increment during the period of the present Government. That is, from 1931 to 1937. In the year 1938 the annual increase was only 1,000.
That information was given without any hesitation by the Minister for Finance when dealing with those figures yesterday. Both the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Lands appeared to baulk somewhat when they were pressed for the figure for 1939. When the figure for 1939 was finally revealed we saw that there was an actual reduction of 1,000 in the number of employed in 1939 as compared with the number employed in 1938. Now, admittedly, for the period from 1931 to 1937 there was a bigger number of people put into employment than for the five or six years during the period of the late Government from 1926 to 1931. But side by side with that we are faced with a situation of an enormous increase in the cost of administration. A number of people put into employment by the present Government over that period were put into employment of a non-productive nature. This is where we definitely differ with Fianna Fáil. If we are going to solve the problem that is presented to this House it must be solved on a basis of putting the people into productive gainful employment in this country.
The Government have taken on their shoulders the responsibility for solving the unemployment problem by providing employment themselves. That type of employment can only be provided by minor relief grants, housing, waterworks, sewerage and social works which are good social works. I admit at the same time that we must realise that because of the enormous strain on the financial resources of the people, these are a type of work that can only be entered on with safety during a period of prosperity. So that any Government intending to enter on that type of social work would find that it would be its responsibility to ensure that side by side with that work, there was productive prosperity in the country. Not only that, but I would like to point out that in their policy of industrial development and the use of the tariff weapon, not only selective but whole-hog use of the tariff weapon has brought about a situation where you have even a clash of interests between agriculture on the one side and industry on the other. I think the Government has failed to appreciate this point when we are talking about agriculture in this country—that living as we do in a modern world when transport facilities are so highly developed, and when competition amongst the various countries is so keen—that the margin of profit in agricultural produce is very narrow. It is considerably narrowed down by the highly modern methods of production and modern transport facilities. To my mind this is the mistake that the Government made, that in their development of secondary interests in this country they did not hesitate at any time to throw back on agriculture burdens that agriculture was unable to bear. In other words, that they were starting industries in this country that the country could not support, with the result that very large numbers of people were put out of productive employment. The margin of profit in agricultural produce is so narrow and our competitors are so keen in their methods of production, that if there is any undue interference with production here we automatically are unable to compete, and the result is we go out of production. That is what has happened.
To-day any measure of prosperity that we have in this country—to my mind purely artificial—is brought about by the Government policy by supplying moneys which may provide social improvements for our people, but they are not the type of improvement that is producing any wealth. If there is going to be any economic future for this country we have got to get down to the type of work that will produce real wealth in the country. The only solution for that big problem is productive permanent employment. I suggest that that to some extent can be found in the land. I have no hesitation in saying that farms in this country of over 30 acres could be used to make provision for at least one man, and in a majority of cases two men, if the owners were in a position to find the wage. There is no doubt about that. The work is there if they had the wherewithal to pay the workers a living wage; the work could be found. The reason why our people are not in a position to pay is because of the reckless extravagance and unsound policy of the Government during the past few years. What strikes me on listening to this debate is this: that we have in this city one of the greatest industries of our country. I refer to the Guinness brewing industry. If one examines the output of that great firm one realises— and I think every Deputy in the House knows this—that the output is rapidly diminishing. A few years ago that company established a branch at the other side, at Park Royal. The reason why they were forced to establish that at the time was because of the increase in the excise duty that was imposed by the Government on their products and the uncertainty of the whole position created here by the Government policy with regard to the future. I suggest that every effort should have been made to preserve that great and productive industry for this country. Instead of that, the Government allowed that industry to slip through their fingers and made no effort to assist it. That industry was producing more wealth for the country, per man employed, than any other industry in Éire.
When was the increase of excise duty?
We are prepared to swap that type of industry for a packing industry employing juvenile labour and for an industry for the assembly of motor-car parts. Is that an economic proposition at all? I do not believe it is, having regard to the number of men put into employment and the increased cost to people who have to buy cars. Very few people in this country buy cars for pleasure purposes. The vast majority of cars are used mainly for business purposes. To put a few extra men into employment, the cost of cars to people who have to buy them for business purposes is severely increased. A huge sum was put into peat production. Approximately £200,000 was buried in a bog in my constituency in Kildare. Any man with a business capacity or with an appreciation of things would have known from the word "Go" that there was not a chance for that industry. Now they have turned on to another bog. Not satisfied with burying £200,000 in one bog, they must try another. We have told the Government, time and again, that something should be done to increase production on the land, and we suggested that a subsidy on artificial manures would be useful. I have often compared the willingness of the Government to bury £200,000 in a bog with their unwillingness to expend a miserable £40,000 on artificial manures. That is the type of economics the Government is practising.
We have Deputy Childers warning us that the situation is dangerous and that we can hardly afford to do the trick this year. He says that there will have to be a reduction in taxation. I remember him making the same speech last year, and saying that that was the last year we could afford that scale of taxation. He is giving the Government licence to do the trick again this year. He spoke about the physical volume of agricultural production, and he said that it showed extraordinary resilience but could be improved. How, in the name of goodness, could you expect any increase in the physical volume of agricultural production with the enormous burdens that agriculture has to carry? It is impossible. He suggested that the agriculturists were in some measure responsible for the present state of affairs. He said that even in England, under a Government that was not sympathetic, the physical volume of agricultural production increased from 100 to 119 in recent years. To my mind, he suggested that our agriculturists were at fault.
I should like to remind Deputy Childers that in Northern Ireland, during the period of office of the present Government here, agricultural production increased from £10,000,000 to £16,500,000, while during the same period our agricultural output decreased from £63,000,000 to £48,000,000. We have as good farmers in the South as they have in the North. Obviously, it is not the agriculturists' fault that our production has fallen off during that period. In the previous decade our production compared very favourably with that of the North. In fact, I think we did better in that period, which was prior to the coming into office of the present Government, than the Northern Ireland farmers did. In looking for the cause of agricultural depression, there is no use in trying to find fault with the farmer. The fault is not with the farmer, but with the handicaps and burdens placed upon him. He must be relieved of these, and now is the opportunity. The competition to which I and other Deputies have referred has to a large measure gone to the market where we sell our agricultural produce, and every effort should be made to get back that market.
The Minister for Supplies told us a few days ago that there was no danger so far as he could see at the moment. Even taking the figures of unemployment for the last few years, we find that there is a danger signal. Last year there was a fall of 1,000 in employment as compared with 1938. The greatest danger signal of all—I say this, particularly, to the Minister for Finance—is that the Government failed to get their loan subscribed. After all, the best judges of whether everything is right in a country are the people who would invest money in a national loan. When a Government fails to get its loan subscribed by the public, it is a real danger signal. It may be said that the loan was under-written and taken over by the joint stock banks, but that should not reduce the anxiety which ought to be felt by the Government and by the people in this House. There must have been a considerable number of Exchequer bills with the banks before any attempt was made to float a loan. If the banks took over nearly the whole amount of the loan, the amount of Government paper carried by them must be enormous. Eventually, they will be forced to realise their sterling holdings at a time when the market is against them. Sooner or later, if this position continues, the country will be facing a financial crisis. The sooner Deputies on the other side realise that the better.
There is only one way to avert that and that is by the use of the axe—by cutting down expenditure where at all possible, and not waiting until you will be forced to cut it anywhere and everywhere, regardless of those who may be hurt. We ought to face up to the danger signal, and not wait until it is too late. The people are beginning to lose confidence in the financial position of the Government and are not prepared to risk their money. I appeal to the Minister to cut, wherever possible, the Estimates which will shortly be before us. Other Deputies have dealt with the Army and other Votes, where huge amounts are being spent and spent unwisely. That is a matter that will be the subject of discussion during the next couple of months. But now is the time to economise. The danger signal is there.
We have heard so much, both last week and this week, in connection with the condition of the country that it may be worth while to go a little into the arguments used. Deputy Hughes has given as a reason why Guinness established a factory on the other side the increased excise duty. I asked him when this increase was put on and he could not tell me. I went into this matter a few years ago fairly closely. It was at a period when some Deputies were looking for a reduction of duty or a reduction in the price of the pint of stout. I find that the brewers and distillers then had an extra profit of 37/6 a barrel as compared with the period 1919-1922, and they were putting that extra profit into their pockets. I gave certain figures here before. The price of barley from 1918 to 1922 was 52/- a barrel. The price until the Beet Growers' Association took up the matter with Messrs. Guinness was 13/- to 13/6 a barrel. The price of stout was the same in 1918 as it was until the last increase in duty, and the difference between the 13/- that the farmer got for his barley in that period and the 52/- he got before was taken by the brewers and put into their pockets. I do not think that Deputy Hughes would argue that it was the lift that barley got from 13/- to 18/-, or from 18/- to the little lift we gave it this year, that made Messrs. Guinness start their firm in England.
Deputies over there seem to have two ideas in their heads. First of all, they howl about the figures relating to unemployment and, secondly, they brand every industrialist who starts business in this country and gives employment as a robber and a thief and every other description that they can apply to him, and they call on the Government to wipe out that industrialist. That has definitely been their policy. Last week we had Deputy Dillon on the position in regard to flour millers and I went to the trouble yesterday to get figures in that connection. I found that in 1930 there were 3,331,000 cwts. of flour imported at 14/5 a cwt., and there were, roughly, 5,500,000 cwts. of wheat imported at 8/10. The difference between the price of imported flour and imported wheat during that year was 5/7 a cwt. I found that in 1938 there were 7,597,000 cwts. of wheat imported at a cost of 8/6 per cwt., and there were grown in this country 4,600,000 cwts. of wheat, for which the farmers got 11/10 a cwt. The flour was sold at 16/6 a cwt., which left 5/2 a cwt. for the miller here, as compared with 5/7 a cwt. to the foreign miller in 1930, as well as giving the farmer £2,500,000 for home wheat.
When Deputy Dillon comes along with his big brush and starts to brand every flour miller as a robber and a thief, let him turn to his colleague. Deputy McGilligan, and question him about the position in 1930. The argument in this country at that time was that flour was being imported at less than the cost of production in order to wipe out the home miller. Let Deputy Dillon tell his colleague, Deputy McGilligan, that he allowed the foreign miller to rob this country ten times more than the Irish miller is robbing the country to-day, if he is robbing it at all. These figures can be got in the Library by any Deputy who wishes to come here with a straight case.
What about the Prices Commission?
I am not bothering about any commission. I am making a fair comparison that any Deputy can make if he wishes to do so. Remember, in the case of the 5/2 of a difference that I have mentioned, there must also be reckoned the extra cost of labour in this country as compared with the cost of labour in Britain, so far as the flour industry is concerned.
What is the percentage?
The extra cost ranges from 3/- to 3/6 a week per man, comparing the flour millers' workers in this country with those in Liverpool. I think it is unfair and unjust that any Deputy should brand any body of industrialists as Deputy Dillon branded the flour millers. Take the constituency which Deputy Daly and myself represent. I would ask Deputy Daly to remember the 3,331,000 cwts. of wheat that the foreign millers sent in here in 1930, and also to remember the idle mills at Clondullane, where 57 families were thrown out on the roadside and were left to starve until this Government came in, put the mill wheels working again, and re-employed the mill hands. Let him go down to the town of Midleton, where the machinery in the mills had been actually measured for removal to Cork. They were about to close down the mills there. Look at the employment that is being given there to-day. Deputy Dillon is out on a deliberate campaign to get back to the position of 1930, when we were at the mercy of the foreign miller. He wants to get back to the position where you would have these men walking the streets idle and the people eating foreign flour. It is a deliberate attempt to stifle and wreck every Irish industry, and bring about a position where Irishmen with money will be afraid to start industries here because of the danger of Deputy Dillon branding them as thieves, robbers and looters.
How much of the flour industry do they own?
I remember paying 15 visits to Messrs. Hallinan's, of Midleton, during the 12 months before 1932, and the only answer they could give me was that they considered the position hopeless, as they were afraid we could never drive Cumann na nGaedheal out of office so as to enable them to keep their mills open.
The Deputy, having dealt with the matter of flour, which is of doubtful relevancy in this debate, should now address himself to the main question.
There were more people getting a decent living under Cumann na nGaedheal than there are under the present Government.
Remember that the breadwinners of 57 families were idle, and they were in your constituency. We had practically the same position all round. What, for instance, would the position be if the flour millers were not here, and we were not milling our own flour? What kind of flour would we be getting if we had to import it? Most of the Deputies opposite are old enough to remember the kind of flour we got in 1917 and 1918 from John Bull. Suppose we were depending on that now, what would we have to pay for it? If Cumann na nGaedheal had continued in office for another 12 months, every flour mill in the country would have been closed down, and we would be absolutely dependent on John Bull to-day for our supplies of flour in this war.
There was plenty of money in this country during the last war. There is none now.
Deputy Dillon has been urging in this House every other day that he wants the old condition of affairs restored. That would mean landing this country into the war.
Which question is not relevant to this Bill.
Whether we are in the war or not we are paying dear for it now.
Deputy Hughes, in the course of his speech, attacked a number of our Irish industries. I propose to examine the position in regard to each of them. What would the position be if the production of artificial manures here had not been protected, and if foreign manures had been allowed in to swamp the market? I wonder how much foreign manure we would have been able to get. The tariff on foreign artificial manures is off now, and it will be interesting to see how many cargoes come in here from Belgium. I wonder how many cargoes of artificial manures would John Bull be prepared to send us at the present time.
Deputy Dillon has spent the last three years in this House endeavouring to wipe out the sugar factories, but the wisdom of the Government's policy was exposed in the first week of the war. Even though full contracts had been entered into for supplies of sugar in this country, the British said that they should all go by the board, and, for the one cargo that was allowed in, the cost of it was increased by 100 per cent. Any deficiency there was in supplies of sugar in this country was due to the fact that the beet growers did not get enough for their beet last season. The acreage consequently went down, with the result that the cost of sugar to the people had to be increased by ¾d. in the pound. Yet we have Deputies on the opposite side prepared to support Deputy Dillon's policy to wipe out every industry we have in the country.
That is not true.
If any Deputy can produce for me a speech delivered by Deputy Dillon in this House in which he praised any Irish industry, or sought help or assistance for any Irish industry, then I am prepared to say that I was wrong, but I defy any Deputy to produce any such speech. Deputy Dillon talked to-day about more production. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, the control of the price of our surplus agricultural produce is still in the hands of Britain. Britain has a little policy of her own in this war. For the production of feeding stuffs in Britain she is paying a subsidy to her own farmers of in or about £25,000,000 a week. The price of bacon and the price of beef is calculated as so much per ton of maize meal. For instance, maize meal is £9 10s. 0d. per ton in England compared with £12 10s. 0d. here. It takes so many cwts. of fine meal to fatten a pig, and the price of bacon is made up at that rate. The price to the British farmer is fixed at that rate. It is that rate that controls the price of what we send over.
We do not get that price.
We get less.
And your Government agreed to it.
The howls that used to come from the benches opposite about the loss of the British market almost made me deaf in both ears. The Deputies opposite have their free British market now, and they are not satisfied with it. I want to point out to them that if the position continues where we will have to sell in the British market at the price fixed by Britain, and with subsidised feeding stuffs in Britain, then our farmers are going to find themselves in the position in which it would be far better for them to have the 40 per cent. tariff on their cattle.
Your Minister for Agriculture made that arrangement, and why do you approve of it?
Deputies cannot blow hot and cold. We had Deputy Hughes shouting and bawling here for the last three-quarters of an hour for a reduction in expenditure. I remember seeing the Deputy two years ago, before the last General Election walking into the Division Lobby to vote increases in their salaries, not to some poor devils in the country, but to civil servants protected behind barbed wire entrenchments.
The Deputy must come to the Bill under consideration.
I am endeavouring to do so.
What action was taken by Opposition Deputies before the last election does not arise.
I am endeavouring to reply to Deputy Hughes. He spoke for more than half an hour, and I am taking his statements one by one and replying to them.
Surely Deputy Hughes did not refer to how he voted on a certain division two years ago.
He went back to the economic war.
The Chair will hear the Deputy only so long as he is in order.
I want to put a few facts before the Deputies opposite and endeavour to impress on them that their main market in the future, the only market they can control, is their home market.
What are they going to do with their surplus produce?
If farmers have to sell at less than the cost of production, then it would be better for them to do with it what they did with the calves.
Do you mean to slaughter the calves again?
If it is going to cost you £10 to fatten a bullock, and if you have to sell that bullock to John Bull for £8, it would be better for you to shoot the calf.
But that only happened under the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government and their alternative markets. Where are they?
You have the home market and the foreign market now, and still you are growling.
The Deputy should talk a bit of common sense.
And the Deputy must allow him to do so.
He could not do it. He is like a jack-in-the-box.
Order, order.
I am endeavouring to bring home to the Deputy that it is only by its policy that Fianna Fáil provided sugar for the people, also bread, and as far as possible that bread was home-grown. We were by that means enabled to feed our people and not have the rationing scheme that they have in other countries. I am sure that if Deputy Belton takes a look at the boat arriving at Dun Laoghaire he will see on board men, women and children who are coming over here to get enough to eat before they die of hunger. The tourists that we are going to have this year will be, as far as I know, on the one hand, that class of people, and, on the other hand, those who want to get away from conscription.
There is no provision for such immigrants in this Bill.
I suppose we will have to feed them when they come.
The Deputy must observe the rules of order.
I did not intend to intervene until I heard Deputy Hughes speaking. I think I have put the case fairly. Deputies on the opposite benches should realise that the only hope of carrying on here is, not only to keep the industries that we have, but to make ourselves as self-sufficient as possible. Every pound spent here is kept in the country and every pound paid to foreigners goes out of it for good. I agree with some things Deputy Hughes said, but I am afraid that he does not go very far in some respects. This country cannot afford the present Civil Service system, as the agricultural community cannot bear the burden. If all Deputies would only realise that, there would be a better chance of giving the agricultural community a chance to exist and to become fairly prosperous.
I do not propose to follow Deputy Corry as he seems to be back in the old rut, with nothing constructive to suggest. I am glad that a couple of back-benchers have shown some progress, and I only wish that the die-hards amongst them would fall into line, or that we could convince the front benchers opposite to take the hint. I am also glad to see Labour advancing towards our policy and declaring against tariffs. I agree ferring to the unwieldy tariffs. I agree that there is room for certain tariffs. Their point of view coincides with ours, that the Tariff Commission should be reconstituted. It is a good thing to see that the point of view expressed from this side of the House for the last seven or eight years is being taken up all round.
When speaking on this Vote last evening the Minister for Lands found it difficult to follow Deputy Mulcahy's figures with regard to unemployment. When making reference to it the Minister for Finance said it was better to keep away from these figures. Figures like facts are stubborn, and it is not easy to deal with them. Figures that were officially published were put forward from these benches and it is very difficult to alter the lesson they convey. I agree with the Minister when he said that it would be a good thing to get away from these things, and to come down to the problem that confronts the country at present. As the Minister for Finance told us recently, the problem is to find the money that is necessary for the coming year or as he said, to find out where savings could be effected and cuts made.
There is very little use in making suggestions from any side of the House, because they will not be listened to. I heard it suggested several times in the past couple of days, weeks and months that the Army could afford a drastic cut in expenditure. The first way to provide employment for our people is to cut down expenditure and reduce taxation. All Parties are beginning to realise that high taxation leads to unemployment, and that much of the employment that is now provided is what would be termed in the United States as "pump-priming". This is not the United States. This is not a country of millionaires that can afford to go on priming the pump and killing self-supporting employment. There has been a great deal of talk about self-sufficiency. What I call self-sufficiency in industry are industries that are self-supporting. How many industries have we that are living on their own? One great industry that was independent, and needed no support, that always stood on its own feet, is now in a deplorable condition. Then, as Deputy Hughes pointed out, another great industry, brewing, is disappearing gradually, because of the policy that has been put into operation here. The sooner the Government realises that one industry that is able to stand on its own feet is worth ten that have to be proposed up, the better. Industries that are supported by tariffs are increasing the cost of living, and increasing the cost of production, and when that rises above a certain figure a number of men are put out of employment. Any employer who is a practical businessman will count the cost and the value of a product, and if there is a loss he gets out of production and dismisses men.
On the other hand, if he finds there is a profit he puts more men into employment. That is why the position here has changed during the past six or seven years. Notwithstanding all the money that has been squandered in order to create artificial employment, the position is nothing better; it is, if anything, worse, and the money that was expended with the object of increasing employment was so much waste.
The Minister for Supplies was very keen on reducing taxation some years ago. He told the electors that he had a definite plan, that there was no doubt he could solve unemployment and, at the same time, reduce taxation by a couple of millions. Only a short time afterwards his position was changed from that of an irresponsible Deputy to a Minister, and the country that took him at his word gave him the opportunity to put his plan into operation. He found that, instead of bringing down taxation, taxation kept going up. The first year it went up by so much, the next year it went still higher, and so on. He found that it was a kite he was flying, and that he could not control the kite in the long run. The kite has broken the string, and he has given up in despair any attempts to deal with that.
Another man in such a responsible position would feel very downcast, I am sure, if his big plan had failed, as the plan of the Minister for Supplies failed. But the Minister is not the least bit downcast. He comes forward with another kite that will outstrip the first one; that is, to increase production at a greater rate than taxation has increased. He has no control, he says, over taxation, and the only thing is to increase production at such a rate that it will outstrip the other, so one kite is to outfly the other. How is that being done? A day or two ago certain questions were asked about pigs, which are connected with the principal industry of the country. When the Minister for Agriculture was asked about licences, he told the House that the licences were lying in the office, and the pigs were in the styes down the country; all the officials of the Government were not able to bring the licences and pigs together. The pigs were rejected by the curers because they had no use for heavy bacon. Therefore, the pigs were left to get heavier and still heavier, as there could be no licences got to export them.
Such details should have been raised on the Estimate. In fact, they were discussed on the Estimate.
I am dealing with the question of unemployment and what is causing unemployment. To my mind, unemployment is caused by the high cost of living, by high taxation, and by lack of production in agriculture. I am trying to find out where the Government are failing in their business of increasing production. The Minister for Supplies told us that increasing production is his plan; that is his second plan. I have pointed to one instance of the way in which that is being started in regard to agriculture. I could point to many others; for instance, the breaking up of land and increased tillage without even normal supply of manures.
That is another kite that will not fly. You may very easily take land out of the profitable production of grass and put it under the plough to be unprofitable. The first thing the Minister for Supplies should have done was to secure proper supplies of artificial manure if he wanted to increase production in agriculture, which is our principal industry. According to him, the only way we can meet the increased taxation is to increase production at a greater rate. I am not satisfied, and there are very few practical farmers satisfied, at what the Government is doing to increase production in agriculture or in any other branch of industry.
It has been suggested that there should be a reduction of a couple of millions in the Army Vote and that that would go far to increase production in some direction if it were used properly. There is another army, an army of officials, and they are the most unprofitable army in this country. They are a dead weight, not for an abnormal period, but from year to year, and they are an increasing burden. That army could be dispensed with to the advantage of the country. I do not believe that anybody down the country would be sorry if they heard that half the inspectors that are troubling them and interfering with them in the free exercise of their rights were abolished and put to some profitable production.
The Gárda Síochána is another force that we were told before the present Government got into power was over-staffed. But instead of reducing the numbers and reducing the expenditure upon that force, the numbers and the expenditure have gone up. Expenditure is going up in all directions. Production is going down, and the ability of the taxpayer to meet the increased expenditure is diminishing. That is a serious position. The only hope we have is that there are some symptoms of the dawning of reason upon some members of the Government Party. I hope that that tendency will spread amongst more and more of them, because every Party in this country has to shoulder the responsibility of bringing about a better trend of production, as well as a reduction of taxation and an increase in employment.
I know that these problems are difficult, but they must be faced. The only way to do that is to face up to the fact that this country is a poor country, that it is living beyond its means, that we are imitating great wealthy countries, and trying to do what they are doing, but that is beyond us, and that we must do what every other country and every other individual who has good sense has been doing and must do, and that is, to live within our means. I hope that the Minister will consider these matters, and see what can be done to improve the position.
We are asked in this Bill to vote supplies for the remainder of this year, and some on account for next year. Since the Budget was introduced last year, the Government and the country should have learned a very useful financial lesson. The Minister went to the country to get a loan and he did not get it.
That is not true.
If I must explain, I will. The Minister and his advisers went to the underwriters, and the underwriters undertook to underwrite this loan. It was underwritten. The Government got the money. That much I say. But when that loan was put on the Irish market, was it subscribed by the Irish public? I say it was not, and that is what counts, not that the banks hand over the money, but that the public subscribe it. A prominent member of the Minister's Party spoke here yesterday and said that because the loan now stands two points above the issue price it shows that everything in the garden is all right. Anybody that has any knowledge of money transactions in large amounts knows that the Irish bankers do not want any more holdings of Irish Government securities or certain municipal securities in this country either, because they have too much of them already, and because they are not liquid security. In other words, there is not a demand for them, and if these banks were pressed for a half million of money or a million of money they could not change these securities into liquid cash to meet any demands upon them. On that matter I challenge contradiction by the Minister when he comes to reply. The acid test of an individual, a community or a nation is that their securities, or their bonds, are easily converted into liquid cash.
That is a serious state of affairs, and here we are proposing to give the Minister for Finance power to borrow £11,000,000 at any rate of interest he chooses to pay. The Minister has learned a lesson, as every local authority in this country knows. He learned that lesson on the flotation of the loan last year, when he immediately increased the rate of interest on local loans that were to be paid out of that loan from 4¾ per cent. to 5¾ per cent. He increased the rate of interest by 1 per cent. Now I want to ask the Minister a direct question—if he got that money freely from the Irish public, what cause had he to charge local authorities 5¾ per cent. for it?
He is now charging 5¼ per cent.
Why? That was because the local authorities let in the light of public opinion on the transaction, and it was only then he reduced the rate of interest. That is a very serious state of affairs. It should be a guide to our expenditure. What is our security? On what does our credit rest? On our ability to pay our debts. What assets has the Government? The taxable capacity of the people to pay. Have not those who study form in the financial field come to the conclusion that as regards the margin of security for money invested in State undertakings or lent to our Government, while the present State expenditure continues, that that money has got to be there? They know they cannot carry on good banking on a liquid system if more money is forced out of the banks and tied up in those assets. It is the most significant warning that this or the last Government got since native government was first set up in this country. It is time, surely that notice was taken of that warning. In addition to that we have the danger signal of an increase in unemployment. But the only sop we have to throw out to unemployment is more unemployment assistance and more public assistance. The more generous the Government is in those directions, arising out of the necessity of helping people who are not in a position to help themselves, the more they are admitting that their own government is a failure. Why are not those people in useful employment? That is for the Government to answer. It is not by coming in here and taxing a decreasing and diminishing income to give aid to people willing to work and who cannot get work.
That is a confession of failure on the part of the Government. Personally, I would rather see unemployment assistance and home assistance diminished with, of course, the necessity for them diminishing first. The only way they will diminish is by increasing employment. Why does not the Minister tackle this? Why is the Minister for Finance of this country, the Minister for Finance of the Irish people, bossed by institutions who have their bosses outside this country? When any country is up against a crisis they call into consultation first the Prime Minister, the Minister for Finance and the heads of the banking institutions. I go so far as to say that the high problem of unemployment in this country is a problem in the solution of which the Prime Minister, the Minister for Finance and the heads of the banking institutions in this country have never met. Why not? If this is a creditor country with £300,000,000 to its credit, why are not these credits used to put to work people who are idle? If non-creditor countries have less unemployment than we have, is it an advantage to be a creditor country? Surely the man with credit and money is in a better position to run a business than a man who has no money? It beats me to know how an individual without money can have better credit than a man with money and how a debtor nation can have more credit than a creditor nation. It makes me doubt whether people understand the meaning of creditor and debtor. I can never forget the answer the Minister gave me a few months ago. He told me that the bank rate was raised without his knowledge. He was not consulted. Would that happen in England? The Bank of England would never dare to do so without the permission of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is laid down in an Act of the British Parliament.
To advocate legislation is not permissible now.
I need not quote the Act so.
Nor advocate new legislation.
I will produce the Act to the Minister. I have not the Act with me just now.
All right.
I would not make a statement of that importance here without having adequate grounds for it.
Oh, now it was not the first time the Deputy chanced his arm.
I would like the Minister to give an instance.
I know the Deputy made statements here before and chanced his arm.
I am not a betting man, and I never make a statement without being sure of it.
"Never" is a strong word.
I defy the Minister or any member of this House to find me out in a false statement or in a statement of which I had not investigated the pros and cons before making it.
Do not go too far.
I will give the Minister full licence to go as far as he can into that assertion.
I shall be more usefully occupied.
The Minister should not make a statement unless it was useful to make it. Having made it, he should prove it.
Does the Deputy expect greater licence than he has been granted?
I ask the House to bear witness to the truth of what I said.
Order.
Ask your own Party.
They can speak if they like.
If the Minister wishes to draw a rejoinder from these benches on that matter, he will get it.
I am prepared to draw it from anybody who is able to give it.
The matter might be left between the Minister and Deputy who obviously understand each other.
We are able to deal with each other without any intervention.
If we joined together, we might do something for unemployment. It has been said that the Minister's Party had a plan and that it did not fructify. The unemployment is there. I said quite recently that a Tillage Order had been made to increase production. It is indicated that prices would be fixed to help those who go into production or are forced into production. I should like the Minister to apply himself to this problem. How can anybody go into production, especially food production, relying on any paper guarantee as to price when they see increasing unemployment around them? There is a certain similarity between the conditions obtaining now and the conditions which obtained in the early forties. The Minister is well aware that in the famine years— in our young days, this was our pet grievance—more foodstuffs were exported than would have kept in comfort the whole population of this country. Anybody who has studied the financial history of this country prior to that knows that a couple of million people were on the starvation line all the time. Only a little knock was needed to sweep them into eternity. Now, the Minister is guaranteeing prices in order to increase production of food stuffs. How can he guarantee prices with increasing unemployment and an increasing number on the hunger line? Is he going to visualise a time when food will be exported, and people who have not a chance of earning a livelihood will be left without food? Who will buy it for them? It is up to the Minister, in consultation with the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Agriculture, to devise schemes of employment, and it is the job of the Minister for Finance to finance these schemes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain is able to get £6,000,000 a day. There is less gold in Great Britain than there was when the war started. If increased production is required here, why are not facilities made available by our Government to finance it? In financing increased production, you will absorb the unemployed. There is no other way of doing it.
There is no royal road to increased production or reduction of unemployment. You must exploit the financial resources of the country. It is because that has not been done, is not being done and because there is no inclination in the Government to try it that there is no hope for the unemployed. I should be glad and interested if the Minister could put up any scheme because, after all, he controls the national purse and it is the national purse that controls industry and agriculture in this and every other country.
The Minister has, I am sure, learned a lesson from the Supplementary Budget which was, I think, his first Budget. I should not mind wagering that the increased duties have caused a diminution in revenue rather than an increase. Consumption has gone down and increased duties will not compensate for the reduction.
The question of duties and taxes does not arise on this Bill. An opportunity will be afforded on the Budget debate to discuss taxation.
I do not advocate cuts in salaries as a means of economising. I am afraid we are in a very precarious position in regard to that because salaries have been high and high commitments have been entered into. A whole fabric of credit has been established and it would be very difficult and, perhaps, dangerous to depress that position now. It would be very hard to see the end of the repercussions. What we must look for is increased service rather than diminution of the rewards of service. We would be going a very dangerous road if we started out in that direction.
It has been pointed out that if it were not for the far-seeing policy of the Government in regard to wheat and flour we would now be on the war bread on which we had to live in the last war. I think the same position that we have now could have been reached, and more equitably reached, if, instead of granting a monopoly to the flour millers, we insisted upon a percentage of Irish wheat in Irish flour. That was advocated many years ago by the farmers and I think if it had been adopted we would have less monopolies here. I do not know whether they have made exorbitant profits or not. I have not investigated and, because I do not know, I am not going to say whether they have or have not.
That is right.
They may have, but I do not know whether they have or not. I always felt it was a more equitable way of getting at it by insisting on a percentage of Irish wheat in the grist and the same thing would have been achieved for, after all, if we milled 100 per cent. of our flour requirements and did not grow the wheat in this country, we would have taken no precautions in the case of an emergency like the present one. The key to the situation at the present time is the amount of wheat we grow in this country. When we have the wheat we are sure to mill it somehow; even if we had only the ordinary country mills we would mill it and we would not go hungry for want of bread. I do not think it is fair for any critic on the opposite side to be waving the banner of protection in this direction. There is protection here—the protectionist policy is supported by this Party here.
Not by Deputy Dillon.
I am speaking of the Party, not a Deputy.
Is not Deputy Dillon the Vice-President of the Party?
Perhaps, unlike the Minister's Party, no Deputy of this Party is the Party.
I am glad to hear that.
I would be glad to hear that no Deputy of the Minister's Party is the Party.
That is true.
I have a doubt about it, but will not press it any further than that—and I speak with a little knowledge.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing..."
Not in this case, but it might be dangerous to the Minister and his Party.
Deputy Belton ought to have learned that lesson before now.
Well, I suppose we are all old enough to have learned a lot of lessons.
Some of us are, anyhow.
I hope the Minister has learned a salutary lesson this evening.
Not yet.
It is very hard to teach the Minister anything. There is nobody as hard to teach as the man who does not want to learn. You have not solved the unemployment problem.
Has the Deputy taught me how to do it?
I am telling you, but you will not learn. You have the money and nobody can solve this problem except the man with the money. All the other Ministers can talk as long as they like, but they have to go to the Minister for Finance for the wherewithal to carry on, and if he does not take the necessary steps to get the wherewithal, he cannot give it to them to carry on.
That is perfectly right.
I hope the Minister has learned something from that hint. We were told from the opposite side tonight about how far-seeing the Government were; they foresaw that we would have plenty of sugar. I do not think when the question of pioneering sugar production in this country was raised in 1925 that a single one of those who adorn the benches opposite sowed one pound of sugar beet to experiment, and ascertain whether the crop could be grown successfully here.
I did.
The one swallow!
How many acres were grown in your county?
There was as much grown in Laoighis as anywhere else. Laoighis is not behind in the growing of beet.
The suggestion did not come from you or your associates; it came from the farmers on this side, and we grew it as an experiment.
Sure, you were not on that side at that time?
Deputy Belton was with this Party then.
I was not then a member of this House, but I met the Minister and his Party roaming about outside, and I brought them in later. There was a terrible oath then that would not be taken, but that became a very small thing when it suited members of the Party to come in here. You came in then.
And the Deputy has been weeping about it ever since.
No, I do not weep; I live in the future, not in the past. The Minister has more reason to live in the future than I have, because I have no past with a skeleton in the cupboard. Those who have skeletons do not want to remember anything about the past.
Perhaps the Deputy will now come back to the living reality?
I am trying to get a living for the unemployed.
I will make the Deputy a present of my skeleton.
I hope that skeleton will never do the Minister any personal or political harm. We have lived beyond those days, and I hope we will all live in the future in good relationship, trying to do our jobs as best we can. I would like the Minister to ask the Minister for Agriculture why he and his Department, who are going to get a slice of this money, do not honour their agreements. Why, when they make an agreement with the public, do they not keep it? Last November and December there was a milk strike which threatened the milk supply of the city.
I think a reference to the milk strike is out of order. That matter was debated here on a special motion, and it should not now be referred to on this Bill.
I am not going to refer to the milk strike as an incident in itself, but I wish to refer, with your permission, to the manner in which the Department of Agriculture have observed their agreement with the farmers, the agreement on which the strike was settled. The Department of Agriculture will get its share out of this money from the Central Fund.
The Deputy must not refer to any special Department on this Bill. He will have an opportunity on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture later on.
Yes, but meanwhile creameries are being deprived of their grants because a certain Minister and a Department will not honour an agreement. I will leave it at that. Perhaps the door is not yet fully locked. and the Minister or his Department may see fit to re-open it. When the Estimate comes along he might, like the Minister for Finance, have no skeleton in the cupboard. Now, in conclusion, I hope the Minister who, I expect, will be replying very soon——
We have had enough of it from the opposite side.
I hope that the Deputy who sheds crocodile tears over the state of employment, the number of unemployed, and the want that is in the City of Dublin that he represents, will be able to go back to his constituents and explain why, when he has the opportunity of putting their case in this House before the Government, he lets it slip. I hope that I will succeed in rousing him from his slumbers now, and get him to speak on behalf of the people he represents here. He knows quite well that the Dublin Corporation has to provide this year £106,000 more than it did last year for home assistance. Yet we have a people's Government in power. We have in power the people who were to cure unemployment, the people who were to put the wheels of industry going. In view of the conditions that prevail in this city at the moment, I wonder what on earth sort of a city we would have if we had people of the opposite sort in power.
We have a lot of talkers in this House wasting public time.
But the Deputy will not get up to speak on behalf of his constituents, 50 per cent. of whom are unemployed at the present time.
I do not speak on behalf of them. I speak to them.
You could stay at home and do that. When you come to this House you should speak for them.
The Deputy has been speaking now for nearly an hour, and what is the House the better for it?
I hope that the Minister, when replying, will tell us what his plan is for the cure of unemployment. I hope he will not be satisfied to give them unemployment assistance, home assistance or any dole or relief. Money in that form should only be provided temporarily while men are not at work. There is any amount of work to be done in this country. This is a creditor country, with millions of money invested in the ends of the earth. Why does not the Minister make conditions in this country such as to induce that money to come home? The portion of that money that is in British war loan is threatened already by the British financial authorities who have indicated that the British 4½ per cent. war loan will this year be converted into a 2 per cent. loan.
Could not the Minister create conditions here which would ensure that when that conversion loan is undertaken Irish money, instead of being invested in it at 2 per cent., would come back home where we will be glad to give 4 per cent. for it? Why does not the Minister take up that attitude, and have money available here at 4 or 4½ per cent. to be utilised for the drainage and reclamation of the land of the country, for the purpose of showing to tourists who come here that our people are living and progressing instead of dying and decaying?
Let the Minister get that money loose in the country and there will be no unemployment. There are men of enterprise in this country who are not afraid to enter into commitments if they can get money at a workable rate of interest: if they can get it at 4 or 4½ per cent. If money could be obtained here at that rate I would guarantee that within six months you would not have a man or woman idle in the country. There is one man who can do that. The question is, is he going to do it? I hope he will answer when he comes to reply.
I am not going to make a speech, but having heard so much last evening about the need for increasing production I just want to say a word or two. The Minister tells us that we will have to tighten our belts if we do not increase production. I would be glad if he would tell us, when replying, why he suggests that in view of the fact that there are thousands of people in the country who are willing to work and to produce goods and services in abundance. Why is it that these willing workers are not permitted to work?
The Minister to conclude.
This is the fourth day, I think, that we have had this debate, if one can call it such. Heretofore, the practice was, when we were in Opposition and since we became the Government, to have the debate on the Vote on Account, and to pass the Central Fund Bill after about half-an-hour's discussion. It was customary to have a few questions asked. Why that procedure was not followed, a procedure that had been customary since the establishment of the Dáil, on this occasion, I do not know. Despite the departure, I do not think that we are much better or wiser, because in my opinion, as regards a number of Deputies anyhow, it would be just as well if they had made a gramophone record of their speeches, which were almost word for word the same as their speeches on the Vote on Account. So that if they had been put on a gramophone record, they would have been just as effective.
And a gramophone to reply?
I do not think the Deputy can say that about me—not with truth.
I am not speaking personally.
I spoke for an hour and three-quarters last night answering pretty fully the points that were made, and I do not propose to go over them again in this debate. We will have this debate in one form or another for the next three months or so. The Estimates will come up for detailed discussion, though many Deputies went into detail yesterday on the Vote on Account, and again to-day on the Central Fund Bill. The Chair tried to inform them as to what the procedure was, but Deputies insisted on going into details. Well, that is their own affair. I am not going to follow their example.
I listened to the jeremiads of a number of Deputies about the financial position of the country, and in particular of the agricultural element. Listening to them one would imagine that this country was down and out: that there was no hope and no future for it. I have been listening to that story from the agricultural element for nearly as long as I can remember, and yet the farmers are still there, thanks be to God, fir and strong, and not likely to disappear off the land. We were told that the farmers are on their last gasp. How often have we heard that —the farmers cannot last another season? Well, any of them that I have known have lived on the land. reared their families on it, educated them and done well for them. When they reached old age they had their families well fixed in life. Their sons and daughters are still carrying on, some of them in the old homesteads and many of them on larger holdings than their fathers held. That is the position of the farming community as I know it.
Deputy Belton, Deputy Hughes and other Deputies yesterday and the day before referred to the fact that the last loan was not fully subscribed, and suggested that that was a danger signal and a warning. The same warning was administered ten years ago in the time of the last Government. Is the country any worse off? I could go through the list of all loans that have been issued, but I do not think it is of any help to the financial standing of the country to go back to see what happened ten or twelve years ago, or at any other time, or as to whether loans were over subscribed or undersubscribed. It does not help.
It does not harm.
It may do more harm than good.
Everybody knows it.
Some people wanted 5 per cent. or 6 per cent.
It does not matter what the price was. I do not think that helps. I do not want to go over past history. I could tell stories that came to my knowledge and that are, perhaps, known to Deputies as well, but I do not think it is wise to go into past history about loans, how they were floated, how they were secured and over-subscribed, or how that was arranged.
The loan of last year was important.
Every year is of importance. Next year will be more important, and also the year after if we have to go for a loan. Anything we can do to boost the credit of the country is welcome from every side rather than the contrary. In that connection there is one item everybody will be glad to hear, particularly farmers who say that we are on the verge of collapse. The workers' savings are put into the Post Office and into Saving Certificates. On December 31st. 1931, there was in the Post Office Savings Bank £3,703,000, belonging mostly to workers and small farmers. On December 31st, 1939, the amount had gone up to £10,652,000, an increase of £6,949,000. Is not that something good to boast of belonging to poor people, workers and small farmers, and not the rich?
How can you prove that?
Does the Deputy doubt my figures? They are shown by the Post Office Savings Bank returns.
I know people with money who are doing that to evade income-tax.
They cannot do it in that way.
Many of them are doing it.
Are they not putting their hands into the lion's mouth? The Saving Certificates have not gone up to the same extent. On March 31, 1931, they amounted to £6,352,000 and on March 31, 1939, to £7,866,000 showing an increase of £1,514,000 or a total increase of £8,463,000. That is something to look on with credit.
Mr. Brodrick
What about the banks?
They increased their holdings in the last year by a very large sum. The bank balances at the end of last year show that by their returns. I may be able to get the exact figures later.
Mr. Brodrick
If they have increased their returns why have they ordered a reduction of overdrafts by 25 per cent. in the last month?
They have not done anything of the kind.
Mr. Brodrick
Find out. Make inquiries.
It is usual when a Minister is concluding to answer any questions at the end. It is not right while he is concluding that he should be subject to a running fire of interruptions.
For the information of Deputy Belton, I should say that there is no truth in the statement that the rate of interest in England cannot be changed without the consent of the British Chancellor or the British Government. No later than two months ago a question was asked in the British House of Commons about that matter, and the Chancellor said that he was not consulted about it, and he refused to interfere. It was a matter he said for the Board of the Bank of England to raise or lower the bank rate.
I will have another opportunity of intervening.
Yes, but that is an answer to your question. Here, at any rate, the banks meet to decide the question. The Government are in pretty close communication with the Bankers' Committee which is the body to decide.
Do they change the rate when the British change?
They do. I will not go into that question now for a very good reason. If they did not change a lot of our money might go elsewhere very quickly if there were tempting offers. A lot of money might disappear in that way.
You could stop that.
We could now under the emergency powers but not in the ordinary way. There are emergency powers in existence now. The Deputy also referred to the numbers on home assistance. I have the figures for the years ending March 31st, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938 and up to December 31st 1939. In 1935 the proportion was 28.4; in 1936, 27.8; in 1937, 26.7; and last year 27.8. The figures have not varied a great deal in the last five years.
And there is unemployment assistance.
The variation has not been great. A great deal was talked yesterday and to-day as well in the course of the earlier debate about housing. This is not a good time for housing. Certainly it has not been going on at the same rate since the war situation arose. One reason is that immediately the war started money got tight. There was, from my point of view as Minister, a certain holdup until we saw what the situation was going to be. No housing loans that I know of and no schemes submitted to the Department of Local Government have been held up. I am not aware of any scheme that has been held up in the last one or two months. Sanctions have been issued in the normal way.
If schemes are not going ahead at the former rapid rate it is not the fault of the Government, as far as sanction is concerned. There was a hold-up because the cost of supplies is much greater now and local authorities, as well as private individuals, hesitate before investing large sums of money, as they must, if they want to get building done. I hope that the coming of spring and summer will see a large resumption of housing, and even if we have to borrow, that local authorities will go ahead with building. I do not accept Deputy Cosgrave's position. It may be taken that the Government do not accept the position that we should stop building houses because we are building them largely with loans. Are we to leave the people festering in the slums? That was his policy. We are building gradually to the same extent, and I say go ahead. It should have been done decades ago. It is our duty to do it in my opinion. We will pay as much as we can in these days and the generation that will come after us will pay the balance.
Get the money cheaply.
I try to get it as cheaply as I can. The houses will be there and will be a profitable investment. There is a return from them. Nobody can say that it is a dead-weight debt. In my opinion, it is not. I have always been interested in that matter and I want to see housing go ahead. I am not ashamed of the fact that we borrow and that I urged the Dáil here to adopt the 1932 Act. In the last seven and a half years we have built or reconstructed, or there are in the course of building or reconstruction, 100,000 houses. That is a creditable performance, even though we have had to borrow a large sum of money for it. I am not a bit ashamed of that. Within the measure of our resources, I hope we will continue to try to abolish the slums at as fast a rate as we can, in the rural areas as well as in the urban areas and cities.
There are only one or two other points with which I intend to deal. As I said earlier, we will have this subject under various forms over and over again in the next two or three months, and it will be discussed from many aspects. Last night before the Adjournment Deputy O'Sullivan made a statement that surprised me. He said that cattle prices had collapsed since Christmas. I do not keep au courant with cattle prices. I do not know much about them, and I could not challenge his statement there and then, though I felt it was wrong. I asked for the cattle prices and I have them here. He did not particularise any kind of cattle. He only said, “Cattle prices have collapsed since Christmas.”
There are different kinds of cattle.
The Deputy knows more about them than I do. I asked for the figures and I have them here. On the 21st December, 1939, the price was 42/3 per cwt.
Is that for fat cattle?
Fat cattle, live weight. Deputy Belton probably could quote them. He is interested in this matter—I am not. Of course I am interested from the point of view of the prosperity of the country and I should like to see the farmers get a good price. But, if I were asked, I could not tell any day what the price of cattle was without inquiring. On the 28th December, 1939, the price was 43/9 per cwt.; on the 4th January, 1940, 45/9.; on 11th January, 48/-; on 18th January, 47/-; on 25th January, 47/-; on 1st February, 47/9; on 8th February, 47/3; on 15th February, 48/-; on 22nd February, 48/3; on 29th February, 47/9. These are the figures for the Thursday markets in Dublin each week from 21st December to 29th February. Then at provincial fairs the prices were: fat bullocks and heifers, December, 1939, 41/- per cwt. live weight; January, 1940, 45/-; February, 1940, 46/-. Fat cows and bulls: December, 1939, 31/-per cwt.; January, 1940, 33/-; February, 1940, 34/-. There is no collapse shown there.
There is a collapse in stores.
What percentage of our cattle population is represented by these figures?
The statement was that cattle prices had collapsed and there are the official figures supplied to me.
For fat cattle.
The Deputy did not say whether they were fat cattle or any other cattle. He said "cattle". I have given the figures.
We export more stores than fat cattle.
The Deputy got his opportunity to talk.
I want to correct the Minister.
The Deputy will have plenty of other opportunities to talk.
Anyhow the Deputies behind you could tell you.
Any Deputy could tell me about cattle. I am not pretending to know anything about them. I have quoted official figures.
These are only for fat cattle, not store cattle.
The Deputy, when speaking last night, did not say store cattle.
Stores were up £2 per head in the last fortnight.
Do not ask me to price them for you.
They did not make the November price.
I quoted some figures last night on employment and I compared last August with February of this year. I was criticising other people last night for comparing sets of figures that should not be compared and, as I fell into the same error myself, I want to correct the figures that I quoted last night. The total number on the live register, on the 4th March, 1939, was 106, 854; the number on employment schemes (excluding land reclamation) was 27,041, making a total of 133, 895. On the 2nd March of this year the total on the live register was 117, 416; the number on employment schemes (excluding land reclamation), on a close approximation, was 25,809; making the total of 143,225.
The total number of persons in receipt of unemployment insurance benefit or unemployment assistance or who were engaged on employment schemes or who were on the live register was 9,330 more during the week ended 2nd March, 1940, than in the corresponding week of 1939. That is the figure I wanted to correct. I did not have the correct figure last night. A careful examination of the returns from the employment exchanges indicates that of this number something like 5,000 or 6,000 were persons who had returned recently to this country from other places, and whose customary place of employment was not in this country. The balance of about 4,000 odd represents, therefore, the increase in unemployment arising mainly out of the industrial difficulties created by the war. In case I might be quoted, or set people astray by giving the figures I gave last night, I want to correct them.
I think it was Deputy Cosgrave, last night, referred to some propaganda literature, which he did not quote exactly, issued by Fianna Fáil at some early election. I think he said the Minister for Supplies or somebody on our Front Bench anyhow, promised that employment would be found for 81,000 or 84,000 persons—he was not sure which it was. That was the promise that was made. There are two sets of figures that may be relied on if you like. They are the only figures available to show what actually are the numbers of persons in employment at a given time. To get exactly accurate figures each week is difficult. We have been debating this on the basis of the National Health Contribution Fund figures. These are the figures selected by Deputy Mulcahy. He is working on the basis of these figures. These are the nearest approximation we can get to show the numbers in employment. It was on this basis that he quoted figures for the years 1926 to 1931. He claimed an average annual increase of 11,400 put into employment in each of these years. I claim that on a similar period of five years after we came into office, one set of figures showed an annual increase of 13,000; the average for the five years 1932 to 1937 was 12,166. That was the average increase in the number put into employment each year.
Take the total figures or, say we take the National Health Contribution Fund figures; they have already been quoted. I gave Deputy Mulcahy another set of figures and they are to be published in the Official Report so that they can be quoted. I asked Deputy Mulcahy if he would like to have them and he said he would. There were 285,000 subscribers to the National Health Contribution in 1926. In 1931, this figures had risen to 342,000. That shows an increase of 57,000, and that may be taken roughly as the number of additional persons put into employment in those years. In 1932, the National Health Insurance figures was 349,000 and in 1939, this had increased to 417,000. That shows an increase of 68,000 during that period. All these figures do not come up to the 85,000 that Deputy Cosgrave challenged we had promised. At any rate, we got employment for 68,000 additional persons. That has been shown by these figures. If we turn to the net employment contribution figures they show a different set of numbers. They show a better side of the story so far as we are concerned. These figures of employment insurance contribution do not include employment in agriculture or in private domestic service. These figures show that there were in that class of employment—that does not include agriculture or private domestic servants—161,000 people on employment insurance contribution forms registered in 1926, and 188,000 in 1931. That shows an increase of 27,000 in those five years. In 1932, there were 136,000 on that register, and in 1939 that figure had increased to 256,000. That shows an increase of 120,000 put into that class of employment during the period of the Fianna Fáil Government. So that according to these figures there was put into that class of employment covered by the Employment Contribution Insurance Fund an increase of 120,000 persons. I give you these figures for what they are worth. We are as much entitled to claim any credit that is coming to us for increasing that number in the Employment Contribution Fund income by 120,000 as Deputy Mulcahy was entitled to claim credit for the five years 1926 to 1931. He claims that his Government put into employment on the basis of the national health figures, 11,400 additional persons annually, over a period of five years. As I said last night, one can arrange one's figures when dealing with statistics to suit oneself without altering the figures. Deputy Mulcahy altered them and arranged them.
Whoever gave the Minister those figures arranged them too.
Those are the figures year after year.
Listen a minute—is the Minister not aware that so far as the relief schemes are concerned that he got two stamps for a week's work in so far as two men were each given three days' work?
I know I am not talking to a set of fools. I know that the people in this House know how to use these figures as well as I do. I asked Deputy Mulcahy last night would he like to have all these figures published and I told him they will be published. Most of them have been published already. I want to have the figures available in public and let anybody who wishes to use them do so.
I might as well use them now or use them in a debating point in a week's time.
I have no objection. I do say that Deputy Mulcahy altered the figures in this sense—that he said that the Government should not include people engaged in housing or relief schemes in the number of people who were returned as placed in employment. Why not? Why should we not do so? Why should we not include people who were on relief schemes if he included them in his figures? Use both sets of figures. That is fair. If Deputy Mulcahy takes certain items of our figures why not take similar items off his own figures? Otherwise it would not be strictly accurate. Why should we not include the people engaged in the hosiery manufacturing trade for instance? In that trade there were employed in 1926, 849 persons, and in 1937, the number employed was 4,032. Are we not entitled to put in these? There is in that item an increase of 3,183 persons from 1926 to 1937.
Are they permanent?
The Deputy can make any point he wishes.
Yes, but are we to assume they would be permanent?
Was the hosiery employment from 1926 to 1932, permanent? Why does not Deputy Mulcahy take these figures?
It does not matter at all —they are employed.
I have here an item in which the number employed in 1926 was 4,001, and that number had increased in 1937 to 11,789 persons. We are entitled to claim whatever credit is due to us for that and so on with other items. The total for hosiery, clothing, paper-making and manufactured stationery, bricks, pottery, glass and monumental masonry, metals and boots and shoes in 1931 was 11,261, and in 1937 that number had risen to 30,682. Boots and shoes, in 1931, employed 1,195 and in 1937 that number had risen to 5,745.
Will the Minister now give the figures relating to agricultural employment?
We will have plenty of time to give them. There will be a two days' debate on that.
The Minister is afraid to give the figures?
No, I will give the Deputy any figures he asks for. I will not deny anyone any set of figures if they have not been published already. I will get them for him. I invite the Deputy to ask for any figures he wishes. If anybody can make any use of them against the Government they are welcome to do it. In conclusion I say this now: this country as the Deputy and others are very fond of reminding us here has as its main industry agriculture. The biggest number of people engaged in gainful occupation in this country are engaged in agriculture. The people who decide the elections in this country are the farmers. There have been several elections here since 1932 and the Government has been returned triumphantly election after election and will again.
Wait and see. It is well to be hopeful.
We have been returned over and over again. Somebody asked me what the increase was in the deposits in the Irish banks. The increase on 31st December was £5,020,000 as compared with the same date the previous year. There are more deposits in the banks despite what Deputy Hughes has said about the farmers. We are told that the farmers are the big people and I admit they are the people who should rue this country. They ran it by putting this Government in over and over again and they will do the same to-morrow.
That might mean—
Will you, for God's sake, sit down and give somebody else a chance?
The Deputy must not interrupt the Minister.
Farmers are supposed to be strong, silent men. What do you call that specimen?
What do you call the specimens behind you?
He is afraid of his life to hear the truth and he never will get anything but the truth from me. Can anybody deny that it was the farmers who put this Party in?
Quite true.
Farmers who turned over from Cumann na nGaedheal, in the main. Deputies opposite claim that they will turn over again. I am prepared to do what a Deputy opposite invited me to do— wait and see.
Mr. Byrne
The Minister said nothing about the future of the unemployed. Have you any hope for the unemployed?
As long as this Government is here, there will always be hope for this country.
You did not answer my question.
I did not answer a lot of questions.
Mr. Byrne
The only hope for the unemployed is to tighten their belts.
The Minister gave us the increase in bank deposits in 1939 over 1938. Would he say what the increase was in 1939 over 1932?
I have not got that figure, but I will get it for you if you want the information. I do not think you do. Surely, you do not want me to answer a question like that without notice.
You answered the other question because it was satisfactory to you.
Because the information was easily got. The bank reports were published only a month ago.
Is the Minister prepared to continue the grants for new houses in rural areas?
Matters of that kind are proper to the Minister for Local Government.
The Minister for Finance is master of the situation.
The Deputy knows my position in regard to housing. So far as I can, they will be continued.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Séan.
- Breathnach, Cormae.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Friel, John.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Hurley, Jeremiah.
- Kelly, James P.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Loughman, Francis.
- McCann, John.
- McDevitt, Henry A.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Breslin, Cormae.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Corish, Richard.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Davin, William.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Meaney, Cornelius.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Mullen, Thomas.
- Munnelly, John.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George C.
- Benson, Ernest E.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Broderick, William J.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Coburn, James.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, John L.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hannigan, Joseph.
- Hughes, James.
- Keating, John.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.