Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 26 Jun 1941

Vol. 84 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Emergency Powers (No. 83) Order, 1941—Motion.

Mr. Norton

I move:—

That the Emergency Powers (No. 83) Order, 1941, tabled on May 8th, 1941, be and is hereby annulled.

The object of this motion is to convince the House that it was unwise economics and bad national policy for the Government to make this Emergency Powers Order. At the outset, it may be desirable to correct a prevailing misconception as to the purpose of the order. It has been referred to by Ministers and by the Press as a standstill order but, of course, it has none of the characteristics of a standstill order. For instance, it does not prevent a reduction of wages, it does not prevent large sections of workers being put on half-time, it does not guarantee that workers will hold the jobs which they had on 7th May, 1941. It does none of these things; it merely keeps wage's low, and keeps low wages below the subsistence level.

It may be thought, reference to the wages paid to certain classes of workers in employment, that we generally have a high wage-level in this country, but an examination of industrial classifications will disprove any such erroneous contention. For instance, if we take as an example the engineering industry and examine its wages bill we find that in 1939 the average wage for male workers in that industry was 54/1 per week. If we take the linen, cotton and jute industry as another example—and these are average samples of wage scales industries—the average wage in 1939 was 45/7 per week. If we go to industries which are monopolised in a large measure by women and ascertain their wage levels, we find that, spread over the year. these industries are rarely capable of providing an average wage of 30/- a week to the operatives engaged therein. If we take the Census of Production—produced officially—and examine the wage scales of industrial workers, we find that the proportion earning more than 60/- per week over a year or over a period of years is negligible, compared with the large number of workers, male and female, who are earning on an average substantially less than that figure.

This order takes no cognisance whatever of the wage scales in any particular industry. If it finds workers sweated in an industry then it says, by implication, that the sweating is to continue. If it finds workers in an industry where wages are higher but still unsatisfactory, it preserves that condition of affairs.

In respect of a large number of occupations covered by the order, in no case does it provide for any increase whatever over the scale of wages paid on 7th May, 1941. For instance, in any particular town or in any particular section of industry, if there should happen to be a single employer who is regarded generally by other employers as paying a low rate of wages and who on that account is taking an unfair advantage of his own colleagues in that industry, this order described as a stabilisation order piovides that that bad employer, notwithstanding objections by his own colleagues, notwithstanding the efforts of trade unions to raise the wages, can still continue to pay the low rate of wages and it is made an offence for him to increase them even if he now desires to do so.

In other words, if in a particular town there are two factories, one paying a recognised trade union rate of wages and the other paying less than that, and if the unions want the nonunion factory to pay rates comparable to the union factory, and if the employers in the union factory desire that their competitors also should be required to pay wages equal to those in the union factory, this order prevents the bad employer being compelled, either by force of public opinion, by the efforts of trade unions or by the influence of his fellow employer, to raise his rate of wages above the low level in operation on 7th May, 1941. This order does everything possible—and does it very efficiently and effectively—to give every security to the bad employer. It protects him against the force of public opinion, and against trade union action.

Any of these new industrialists who came into this country in recent years from any part of the world—some of whom never were anxious to recognise the necessity to pay trade union rates of wages—and who may have succeeded up to the 7th May this year in avoiding their responsibilities in that connection, can continue to avoid them during the currency of this order. It protects them against any demand for an increase in wages in respect of their lowly-paid employees.

An order of this kind would be difficult to justify in any circumstances, because it represents a complete reversal of the normal process of improvement of the standard of living and an effort to reverse the whole social tendency towards a better standard of life. But the order takes on a new viciousness when we find it made operative in a period when prices have risen and continue to rise with such alarming rapidity. If we take the cost-of-living index figure for July, 1914, as 100, the official cost-of-living index figure in August, 1939, was 173. If we trace the movement of the index figure from August, 1939, to February, 1941, we find that the figure moved from 173 in August, 1939, to 218 in February, 1941, an increase of 26 per cent. No group of workers in this country have received in that period a wage increase of anything approaching 26 per cent. In fact, I would say that the general level of such wage increases as took place between those two periods was on an average not more than about 5 per cent. So that, while workers' wages have in some instances increased by 5 per cent., according to the Government's official figures the cost-of-living index figure, which represents the movement in the price of commodities, has risen by 26 per cent.

During that period we have, of course, seen the most ineffective methods applied to dealing with price movements. Away back in September, 1939, we had a grandiose declaration by the Minister for Supplies with regard to what was described as a standstill order in respect of prices, and pegging down prices to the level in operation in the last days of August, 1939. But since then we have seen one commodity after another removed from the scope of the prices standstill order, and, so far have some of them been removed from the scope of that order that the price of these commodities in many instances has increased by 50, 80, and in some instances 100 per cent. No effective steps have been taken to control prices in this country.

No effective measures have been taken against hoarders who exploited the shortage of commodities and then try to charge the fancy prices which are being charged for those scarce commodities to-day. Tea is still being offered to the public at 6/- and 7/- per lb. You can get almost any price for white flour, owing to the activities of certain racketeers who appear to enjoy Ministerial benediction in this country. Petrol is being offered to the public at 10/- a gallon, and some people in certain areas are looking for 70/- for a ton of turf. All that is happening; Deputies know it is happening; members of the public know it is happening. The only people who do not know it is happening are the people we pay and expect to know it is happening, and expect to deal with the situation. Any effort effectively to control prices has long since been abandoned.

The Minister for Supplies seems to have resigned himself to complete inability to take any effective steps to control prices. The Minister does not seem to know on what commodity tlie next increase in price is likely to take place. The Minister is presented with demands for increases in prices and, in the most baby-like fashion, he authorises the increases. That is why the cost of living has risen by no less than 26 per cent. in a period of 15 months. If one is to judge by indications, and if one is to reflect on the incompetent methods employed for controlling prices, one may be sure that during the next 15 months there will be a still greater increase in prices than during the past 15 months.

Recently the Minister for Justice was asked in this House to introduce legislation to control the rents of houses. Wages are prevented from rising under this order; house rents may still rise notwithstanding this order or any order. Of course there is now only a small number of houses within the scope of the Rent Restriction Acts. Although the Government made an order of this kind keeping wages low, the Minister for Justice the other day refused to make an order to keep rents even at their pre-war level; so that anybody who cares to speculate in house purchase or in the letting of houses in tenements or in the conversion of those houses into what are described as self-contained flats has the full permission of the Government, and the Minister for Justice in particular, to charge any rent he likes. Not only is he not prevented by any section of this order from doing so, but we have not a single order in operation which prevents a racketeer of that kind exacting any rent he can from those who, in present circumstances, have perforce to resort to the tenancy of houses owned by such people.

It is clear to anybody who knows the position that this country is the Mecca of profiteers. No country in the world treats them with such kindliness and such tenderness. If you ask the Minister to deal with profiteering, it would seem as if the profiteer was a kind of national apostle; the Minister gets indignant usually, gets vituperafive, and proceeds to denounce anyone who suggests that this kind of national hammerheaded shark ought to be asked to yield up any portion of his ill-gotten gains in a crisis such as that through which we are now passing.

I should like to know what is the real purpose of this order. I am bewildered by the explanations given by different Ministers from time to time. I should like to get some authoritative declaration from the Government as to what the purpose of the order is. We are told by one Minister that the object is to prevent inflation. The person who talks of an order of this kind preventing inflation has not yet reached the kindergarten stage of economics. It is a well-established fact that you cannot have inflation where yon have unused national resources. This country abounds in unused national resources, which, if labour were applied to them, would give us new sources of wealth and new national assets. So long as we have unused resources of that kind, unused labour power, and instruments of production, it is sheer economic heresy to talk of the possibility of inflation. We can only get inflation when we have used up our national resources and cannot create new wealth against the new money put into circulation. I suspect that the purpose of the order is frankly and avowedly, to keep prices. —wages down.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy was right the first time—prices.

Mr. Norton

Surely, we are not going to have any more of this cackling from the Minister? No wonder things are in such a mess when that is the kind of contribution we get from the Minister. The purpose of this order, as declared on its face, is to keep prices down— wages down.

Mr. MacEntee

Stick to prices.

Mr. Norton

In the manner in which that is done, there is not the slightest regard for the type of wages kept down. This order prevents an apprentice, in an industry to which the Apprenticeship Act applies, getting an increase in wages. Even a lowly-paid apprentice cannot get an increase under the scope of this Emergency Powers Order. In order to make this order effective we had to tear up the Wages Agreement Register establislied under the Conditions of Employment Act; we had to scrap the trade union clause as made applicable in the Housing Acts, and the Wages Board establislied under the Shops (Conditions of Employment) Act had similarly to be jettisoned in order to give effect to this order which, in its operation, takes no cognisance of the wage scales which it wants to keep down.

One would imagine that in their approach to the problem the Government might have observed some definite scale in the matter of wages. One might even understand this reasoning, if one did not agree with it, that, in respect to wages not over a certain level, no effort will be made to peg these down to the level of the 7th May, 1941. One might understand the Government saying, in respect to low wages: "We will permit these to rise within certain limits." But the Government did not do that. They said to the man in receipt of indefensibly low wages: "You will not get an increase in wages and neither will a person who has four or ten times as much." What is the purpose, and where are the moral ethics, of an order of that kind, which takes no cognisance of the varying wage scales and treats the underpaid worker in the same way as a much better-off worker?

The effect of this order in relation to employment and in relation to production generally will be obvious after it has been in operation for a short period. With prices rising as rapidly as they are, there will be less money to spend on goods. Money wages will now be less than formerly and money wages will, therefore, buy an ever-dwindling quantity of goods and, as every wage envelope is a demand on industry to deliver up goods to the value of the contents of the wages envelope, then the less the contents of the envelope will buy the less goods it will be necessary for us to produce and the less value we give wages—and we are giving them a diminishing value by our willingness to allow prices to rise— then the less goods it will be necessary to produce to satisf that wage demand, because the wages will not be capable of purchasing the same quantity of goods as formerly. In turn, that will result in a contraction of employment in industry and a contraction of the demand for goods and services. In the sphere of agriculture it will result in a demand for less milk, butter, meat, eggs, for less of all those commodities which were formerly purchasable when wages were capable of purchasing more goods than the shrunken value of wages can buy to-day.

Why was it found necessary to make. an order of this kind? This order seems to me to be vicious both in its conception and in its application. One might understand the making of such an order if there had been any unreasonable demands made by workers for wage increases. But there have been no such unreasonable demands made by any section of workers and, if it is alleged that such demands led to the making of this order, then the Minister ought to tell us what demands were made, what was the extent of the demands and by whom they were made. Even if any such unreasonable demands were made—and I deny that they were—it surely was possible to. deal with a situation of that kind without resort to the making of an order of the type we are now discussing.

One would imagine that in a democratic country which sought to resolve its problems by the impact of reason on reason, and which sought peaceful evolutionary progress by reliance on similar methods, there would have been a discussion between, let us say, the Government and representatives of the employers and workers with a view to endeavouring to regulate wage movements in some kind of ordered fashion during this emergency and at the same time regulate price movements and fix a price control as well. Nobody desires to see the products of industry sold at bankrupt prices. I stand for the fixing of a fair level of prices for every commodity and for the fixing of a fair level of wages because, just as I think it unfair to exploit a worker and pay him a low wage, so do I think in respect to industry or agriculture that it is unfair to compel the producer of goods to sell his commodities at a price that does not give a fair return for the capital invested therein. It seems to me, however, that no consideration was given by the Government to the question of finding a remedy, if it were necessary to find a, remedy, for any unreasonable demands made by workers in any type of industry.

I suggest that if such a problem were extant it was always possible for the Government to approach a solution of it by methods other than those employed in the Emergency Powers Order. The Government might have considered the question of establishing a tribunal to deal with demands by workers for wage increases. In our largest industry, the railway industry, there has been in operation for many years a piece of machinery which has been a valuable medium for adjusting disputes in that industry.

The Railway Wages Board is an organisation which deals with applications by railway unions and railway companies for increases or reductions, as the case may be, in wages. The tribunal, by reason of its personnel, is capable of pronouncing impartially and yet authoritatively on demands which are submitted to it and the findings of that tribunal have, in practically all cases, been accepted by the unions and the railway companies. It is because of that fact that in our largest industry we have had a period of industrial peace. There has been no dislocation of our railway industry, but there has been a general recognition, both by the unions and by the railway companies, of the beneficial effects of that piece of machinery in relation to that industry.

Why could the Government not have considered the adoption of methods such as that as a means of regulating wage demands and adjusting wage movements? It ought to be possible for the Government to have consulted with employers' organisations and workers' organisations for the purpose of ascertaining whether machinery of that kind could not be devised in respect of all industries and services, so as to provide for a fair and equitable regulation of wages during the period of emergency. Of course, the Government wore too big and too dictatorial to rely on the wisdom of anyone but themselves. Instead they make an order, such as Emergency Powers (No. 83) Order, completely regardless of the consequences of that order in its relation to workers affected by it. Apart from the defects that I indicated, this order shows a most muddled conception of the purpose and use of money. It seems to render obeisance to money and to the form of money that existed in the last century. We seem to be the one country in the world left to render worshipful allegiance to a system of currency and credit that has been long discarded by other enlightened countries. Here we continue to worship a Victorian conception of money and money values, and in our worship of that conception of money we completely lose our sense of human values and our sense of moral values, in order that we can continue to worship what the rest of the world has found to be a palpable delusion.

One would imagine that sound economic thinking would have induced the Government here as a remedy for some of the intensified evils which the emergency situation might well bring upon us, to put people into employment, believing that the most wasteful form of national expenditure is the keeping of people in a state of involuntary idleness. Every citizen is fed out of a common national pool, but if a person contributes nothing to that pool, while still taking from it, that person can only continue to do so at the price of debasing the standard of living of all those who contribute to the pool. We have still very large numbers unemployed, notwithstanding the flight of thousands across the Border, notwithstanding the fact that we have more than doubled our Army, notwithstanding the artificial employment available this year in the form of the increased production of turf, and notwithstanding the increased acreage under cultivation. You cannot sow and garner crops for ever; you cannot cut turf the whole year round; and when the harvest is in, we will be approaching a period during which it will not be possible to produce turf or to find employment to the same extent in agriculture, so that an already serious unemployment problem will become more intensified.

One would have thought that the Government would have approached whatever economic difficulties exist by putting additional workers into employment in every sphere of national activity, in which the utilisation of their energies would have created new capital assets or enriched the national estate. One would imagine that in a country where productivity is so low— and it is appallingly low because we are too lazy to plan to increase it—the Governmynt would recognise that production must be intensified and national development accelerated in every possible way. Here, however, we continue to plod along in the same old Micawber fashion, doing things in 1941 because they were done that way in 1921, although other countries have long since abandoned the methods upon which we rely to-day. If, in peace time our lazy and inefficient methods gave such appallingly poor results, how much poorer are these results likely to be when we try to apply peace-time methods to a rapidly worsening war-time situation? It seems to me that there is an undue saturation into the minds of many people in public life of the belief that all that has to be done is to keep wages low, and then automatically that will be a passport to permanent prosperity. If low wages could ever make a country prosperous, China would be one of the greatest and most prosperous countries, and it would probably have close competition in Abyssinia or Liberia. Low wages have not made these countries great or prosperous. On the contrary, in countries where wages are high there has been built up a system of industrial and commercial greatness which is the envy of other countries.

Therefore, a high standard of living builds up a people with character, independence and stability, and makes more useful citizens in our common world than those destined unfortunately to live in countries where low wages are worshipped in the manner that they are worshipped here. New Zealand is a small country and in many respects resembles our own. It provides an example of what can be done. The population of New Zealand is about half the population of this country and it is not situated as close to a great market as we are. In New Zealand during the past 21 months wages have been raised, until agricultural workers now enjoy a wage of £3 12s. 6d. for a 48-hour week, while the average wage of industrial workers is 2/4 an hour for a 40-hour week. Men working in Government employment are paid 18/- a day for an eight-hour day and a five-day week. Yet, the cost-of-living index in New Zealand in August, 1940, was only 4 per cent. higher than in August, 1939. In Eire, between August, 1939, and August, 1940, the cost of living increased by 17 per cent. Our workers would think people were mad if they were offered wages comparable to those in operation in New Zealand.

What seems to me to be most vicious about this order is the manner in which it was made. In 1939 this House passed the Emergency Powers Act for the purpose of giving the Government power to deal with the then threatening international situation. The Government asked for these powers so that they might utilise them to defend the nation and defend the homes of our people, but we find that in making this order the powers of the Act have been used, not to defend the nation but to attack the homes of the workers who, in turn, are expected to defend the nation.

There never was a greater prostitution of governmental power than that revealed in the promulgation of Emergency Powers Order No. 83. An Act which was got by the Government under false pretences, the pretence of defending the nation against aggression and of preserving its liberties and independence, is being used to make a savage attack on the standard of living of the workers. That attack is being made at a time when the Government confess, by their own action, their complete inability to control the prices of essential commodities in the State. This order has, in my view, one purpose, and that is to debase the standard of living of the workers. So far as this country is concerned, if this order is continued, the effect on the workers will be gradually to drive them down to a very much lower standard of living than that which, after years of toil and sacrifice, they had managed to attain.

I think the Government have shown a complete lack of economic sense in promulgating an order of this kind. They have shown that they have very little regard for those higher purposes which ought to animate a Government in this State to-day. By the making of it, the Government have sown, and soWn thickly, the seeds of discontent and disunity, and appear, even in this crisis, to be quite unconcerned with the consequences of their action.

Both disunity and discontent have been made manifest by the promnlgation of this order. The discontent is intensified by the efforts which are being made by the Government to strangle the only piece of protection the workers have—their trade unions. The Government, in these circumstances, cannot afford to ignore the current of public opinion. There is a widespread demand for the withdrawal of this order, and widespread indignation at the unfair character of it. If the Government were wise and concerned with the preservation of national unity, they would take immediate steps to withdraw it, and allow workers their legitimate right to claim compensation for the increase in prices that has taken place. I suggest to the Government that, even now, although harm has been done, it is not yet too late to repair the harm: that even now they might withdraw the order and, instead, arrange for a discussion with employers and workers with a view to the regulation of wages and price movements. In that way I think we would be much more likely to beget stable conditions in industry and agriculture during the present emergency than we are by reliance on an order of this kind which has no economic justification, which is devoid of all moral foundation and which, in its operation, can only inflict untold hardships on many thousands of lowly-paid workers in this country.

Mr. Keyes

I second the motion. Deputy Norton has fairly fully covered the grounds as to why the order should be annulled. One is temptad to ask what motives can have prompted serious-minded men, entrusted with the government of this State, to make such an order and to inflict it on the country. The Emergency Powers Art was given to the Government to enable it to deal with an emergency of a national character. That Act had the support of all Parties in the House. I am sure that no member of the House, not even tncse sitting on the Government Benches, ever thought that the Government would, in such a short time, turn around and, without consultation with anyone, use the powers given them under that Act against the workers of the country.

That is what they have done by pro mulgating this order. I make no pretensions to legal knowledge, but I feel fairly confident that this order would not stand the test of the courts if an appeal were made to the courts, and that it would be held the Government had over-reached themselves in making it; that they had, in fact, abused the powers given to them by all Parties in the House to enable them to deal with a national emergency.

An order of this kind is, in my opinion, calculated to damage the interests of the nation as a whole. We find the basis for it, I think, in the statement made by the Minister for Finance when introducing the emergency Budget in December, 1939. On that occasion he said that the Government had set their faces against anybody in this country increasing their wages and salaries at the expense of the State, irrespective of any increase that would take place in the cost of living. He confessed there, as he had to, that increases in the cost of living were inevitable, notwithstanding all that a Government might do to counteract them. The war situation, however, was such that no Government could keep prices to the level which obtained in September, 1939. We allege that the Government could have been more active since then in trying to keep down and control prices. It must be agreed, however, that no matter how active or assiduous they might be in their efforts, certain increases were bound to take place. As Deputy Norton has pointed out, since the outbreak of the war the cost of living here, whether through the Government's negligence or otherwise, has increased by 26 per cent. That figure is taken from Government statistics. We must take it, therefore, that the framers of this Emergency Powers Order No. 83 assumed that the people of this country, rural and industrial, were in such a happy, comfortable position before the outbreak of the war that they could afford to bear, without any compensating increase in their wages or salaries, a 26 per cent. increase in the cost of living, a figure that may go still higher while the emergency lasts, despite the Government's best efforts. I think that what I have said may be taken as a fair reading of the mentality of the people who framed this order. I challenge the Minister to deny that when he is replying. He has already denied it to me personally.

In making an order of this kind, there is one factor that no body of sensible or serious-minded men could afford to ignore, and that is the standard of living of the people on whom they were going to impose this standstill order. It should also occur to their minds what section of the country they were going to serve by it. The Minister for Finance, in his recent financial statement, said that the order was intended to be complementary to the proposals in regard to income-tax and corporation profits tax, and to prevent inequalities in purchasing power, due to a general increase in prices, accomlunied by increased wages in certain industries and decreased wages or unemployment in certain other industries which, through a lessening in production due to a lack of essential commodities, could not provide increased wages even by passing on the increase to the consumer. That, as far as I know, is the only printed record we have to indicate the Government's reasons for making the order. The Government, apparently, believe that in making this order they are performing a national service. I want to suggest that in adopting that kind of reasoning in the present emergency they are not worthy to be trusted with control of the nation's affairs. Workers' wages were not of such a character that they could afford to bear the vast increase in the cost of living that has taken place since the outbreak of war.

Deputy Norton spoke of the railway industry. I happen to have been closely connected with that industry for very many years. It performs a very important function in this State. It is the biggest employer in the country. Deputy Norton has indicated that, in recent years in connection with that industry, machinery known as the Railway Wages Board was set up. That was done without any order of this character. The board has been functioning for a number of years, and is respected both by employers and employees. During the period of its existence, reductions have taken place in the wages of employees according as conditions in the industry were held to justify or warrant them, or were alleged to warrant them. The reductions took place, the workers being asked to tighten their belts.

The statement which I shall make now is an amazing one but it can be substantiated and proved. It is that, under the machinery of trade unions operating through the wages board, the railwaymen have contributed back to the industry no less than £9,500,000 as their contribution to keeping it going — that is from the time when they were in receipt of peak wages. In 1921, which was the peak period, the wages of a railway porter were 66/6 a week. From that date until now, those railwaymen—approximately 8,000 in number—have contributed bacK in reductions, owing to the difficulties of the industly, no less than £9,500,000. That is a case in point. There was no necessity for a standstill order in that case. It was really a retreating order and the railwaymen retreated in the best order they could, recognising their duty as citizens, striving as best they could to maintain their families but appreciating that the industry was not able to pay the wages which they had previously been receiving. The scales for railway porters have now been reduced to 41/- a week town and 30/6 a week in the country respectively. Does the Minister consider that these men are so well placed that they can maintain their families and perform their functions as citizens, with a 26 per cent. increase in the cost of living imposed upon them?

These men and other workers are not alone contributing to the maintenance of their families but, as is well known and as will scarcely be denied by the Minister, they have been contributing to the maintenance of widows and orphans whose treatment by the present Government and the past Government was a positive disgrace. As the Minister knows, nobody is so charitable as the poor, and these men have been making their contributions to relieve the necessities of others. Widows and orphans have had legislation in their favour introduced by the present Government and passed. To the extent to which that legislation has been placed on the Statute book we are grateful to the Government, but the levels established under the Act are deplorable from the point of view of a Christian Government. The pensions allowed—7/6 in the town and 5/- in the country—are not reasonable. I know that workers have been contributing from their scanty wages to the maintenance of widowed mothers, mothers-in-law and other relatives in addition to keeping their own homes going.

As Deputy Norton said, this is not a standstill order, because all the reductions that are desired can be effected under it. The Minister would call it instead a "cease fire" order. This is an instruction to the trade unions to cease their activities. I contend that any organisation which has a definite objective or function, and which is robbed of that objective or function, will, by non-utilisation of its machinery in that direction, cease to be of effect. The primary function of a trade union is, surely, to improve the standard of living of its members. By this order, the Minister makes it impossible for any trade union to secure a 1d. increase for any employee in any part of the country so long as the order operates. The order goes further than that. It makes it impossible for any employer, no matter how well-intentioned he may be, to grant increases to his employees. Since the war emergency period, increases have been given, through the intervention of trade unions in some cases, but, in many other cases, voluntarily, by employers to their employees. I can produce evidence to show that, without any request from employees, employers recognised that the increased cost of living had placed an unfair burden on their workers, who were carrying out their duties fairly and satisfactorily, and they voluntarily granted increases to these workers. That is made impossible by the Government under this order.

As I have said, the unions have no further function. They cannot look for an increase of 1/- or 1d. for their members. Who is going to benefit by this procedure it is difficult to say. Deputy Norton has dealt with the economic side of the question. The old, outworn idea that you cannot take more out of a pool than is in it seems to have weighed with the Government. We have heard the argument that you cannot take more out of a pint pot than is in it. But the Government found that there was no bottom to that pint pot when they delved into it and brought up pensions for people who were alleged to be entitled to them, but in respect of whom no provision had been made for pensions. When it comes to the case of the worker, you "cannot take more out of the pint pot than is in it". Deputy Norton has pointed out the real extent of this pool. He explained that we were allowing workers to stagnate in idleness, and failing to avail of the potentialities offered by this undeveloped country at the present time. There could be no justification for the introduction of this prohibiting order at any time but a time when the co-operation, support and help of all sections of citizens, with a view to their working in harmony, is being sought, is surely not the time for the introduction of such an order.

Members of the Government have expressed surprise at the indignation and resentment shown on the Labour Benches recently, but they do not seem to realise that they have sown deeply the seeds of distrust in the homes and hearts of the people by their action in connection with this order and the Trade Union Bill. The Labour movement has a good historic record. It has no reason to be ashamed of that record. It has done nothing to justify this, treatment by people whom they assisted to power. If the Government were wise, this order would never have seen the light of day. Whoever is engineering matters behind the scenes must be aiming at the destruction and ruin of the Government. "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad." That is the only explanation of the introduction of this order. In common sense, there is no defence for it. The Government seek to bind the workers down to a fixed limit which was admitted to be uneconomic even before the war increases in the cost of living came about. They do this instead of putting their shoulder to the wheel and helping to devise schemes of employment at reasonably good scales of pay which would put money in circulation amongst shopkeepers and the community in general. It is recognised that a reasonably well-paid working class is the best possible spending medium. Wise spending is what we want, not holding on to what we really have not. All our boasted wealth may go up in smoke one of these days. Instead of trying to hold on to that sum of £300,000,000, we should concentrate on developing what we have. We have a potential national asset in the idle people who are being shipped day after day in hundreds and thousands to Britain and elsewhere to escape the unemployment and misery which have been created under the present régime.

Order 83 is a fair sample of what has come from that régime. I should say rather that it is an outstanding example of criminality. With Deputy Norton, I say that if there is any vestige of commonsense left in the minds of the Government, they will reapply themselves to this question and withdraw Order 83. It will not, and cannot, serve any useful purpose. It will produce disastrous and chaotic consequences in the minds of the people and it will destroy that unity the preservation of which is the desire of others as well as the Government. If the Government are as anxious as they lead people to believe for the preservation of that unity, they should not throw these balls of discord amongst the people and they should not set them in conflict when the call to unity is sounded. I ask the Minister seriously to consider the points that have been made and to realise that he cannot serve any useful purpose by this order. He would be doing a good day's work tor the future economically, nationally and socially by withdrawing the order and forgetting that it was ever introduced.

Mr. D. Morrissey

If this order were to have the effect which Deputy Keyes mentioned—the effect of destroying this Government—then there would, at least, be something to be said in its favour. There is nothing to be said in favour of it. I invite any Deputy sitting behind the Minister to get up and make one point in favour of this order. If Deputies feel they are not free to get up to make one point here in this House, I invite them to follow the very good example of one of their colleagues and write a letter about it to the Irish Press. This order is a bad one. It is an unjust order and it is made more contemptible still by the excuses which are offered in an attempt to justify its introduction, excuses which are offered not merely by certain Ministers and certain members of the Fianna Fáil Party—not in the House but down the country—but in a leading article in the Government organ this morning. This order, we are told, is brought in to save the workers themselves and, in particular, to save the poor.

Deputy Norton very rightly said that people should not fall into the mistake of calling it a standstill order. It is not a standstill order for the worker; it is a very definite moving back. For the profiteer, if it does not help him forward towards far greater gains, it certainly does not put any shackles on him. If there was to be any justification whatever for an order such as this, it could only be that, side by side with it, it was within the power of this Government and of this House to make another order, keeping the prices of commodities that have to be bought by wage-earners at the same figure as when the workers' wages were fixed. I Put it to any fair-minded Deputy in this House that when you fix wages at a certain figure, beyond which you will not allow them to rise and when, you do not at the same time, whether it is because you are unable or because you are unwilling, fix prices, it is not a standstill order you are making. When you keep wages at a certain level, and allow prices to increase, you are reducing wages because you are reducing the purchasing power of these wages. What is the use of telling anybody that the purchasing power of a man who has 30/- a week to-day and who had 30/- a week two years ago, is not far less to-day, or that he is not in the unfortunate position that he can buy far less for his 30/- to-day than he could two years ago?

Most Deputies in this House are purchasers of various commodities. I want to put this question to them: Is there any Deputy in this House who can buy coal, meat, flour, clothes, boots, tea, or 101 other items I could mention at the same price as he could two years ago or even at the same price he could six months ago? Let me take one item. The average working man two years ago or eighteen months ago could purchase a cwt. of coal at 2/6. The price to-day is 4/8 to 5/6, if he can get it. That is just one item, and that represents a very important increase to a man with 25/- or 30/- a week.

Mr. Hickey

Take potatoes.

Mr. Morrissey

I could mention a great many other commodities. Is it not a fact that the people to-day, particularly the poor, cannot secure sufficient supplies of what to them are absolute necessities unless they are prepared to pay 100 to 150 per cent. over the price which these commodities cost two years ago, 12 months ago or even six mouths ago? Let me take another item. Take the poorest people in the country, the people who because of their poverty and low standard of living have been constrained to exist on tea, practically three times a day. They cannot get enough tea to-day, but they could get enough if they were prepared to pay 7/- a lb. for tea that cost 2/6 or 3/- a lb. 12 months ago.

This is an order, we are told, to keep prices down. Did anyone ever hear such a humbugging statement inside or outside the House? Will the Minister mention one single article, the price of which this order is going to be effective in keeping down? I shall go further and say that in existing circumstances —not only in existing circumstances but far more in the circumstances that are likely to arise in the future so far as anybody can see—it is beyond the power of this Government to keep prices down so far as a great many commodities are concerned. Even with the best will in the world they are not in a position to do it, but they are going to take jolly good care that they will force the unfortunate underdog to accept the old scale of wages. If he has to pay more for a certain commodity he has to grin and bear it and do with half the quantity he was able to purchase before.

I think we ought to get our minds clear in relation to this matter, to cut out all the humbug, the cant and the excuses, and get down to the reality of the situation. The Minister got these extraordinary powers from this House for the purpose of maintaining peace and order in this country. That was the reason the House gave the Government very extnsive powers. Very many members of the House were reluctant to give them these powers and very many people outside in the country thought that the House was not wise in giving them such powers. They were given, as I have said, to preserve peace and order in the country. Does anybody suggest for one moment, that inflicting such grave injustice as this order inflicts on such a great number of our population, the poorest section of our population, is a step making for peace and order in the country? I doubt it very much.

This order taken by itself is bad enough. The Trade Union Bill taken by itself is bad enough, but the Trade Union Bill and this order taken together! Talk about sitting on top of dynamite, it would be a comparatively safe place compared with the situation which will exist when the full effects of this order and the Trade Union Bill begin to be felt in the country. Look at the powers the Minister is taking. There are certain sections of workers in this country who have been consoling themselves with the thought that their occupations are not in the Schedule and that this order does not apply to them. Let us see the security they have. Let us refer to Article 3 sub-section (2) of the order:—

"The Minister may, whenever and so often he thinks fit, by order under this paragraph, declare that any employment defined in such manner and by reference to such things as he thinks fit, shall be a scheduled employment for the purpose of this part of this order."

That is the security with which some classes of workers are inclined to console themselves. Talk about having a paper wall between yourself and hell! Let me take another paragraph:—

"In this part of the order, the word ‘employees' means any person of the age of 14 years or upwards."

Let us assume that this emergency will last for three or four years, that this order remains in force and that an employer of the class we have heard about so often here has a boy of 14 years of age in his employment at 5/-a week. That boy goes on until he reaches 15, 16, 17 or, perhaps, 18 years of age. Under this order as it stands, he goes on working for his 5/- a week. justice!

We are told that this is designed to prevent the vicious circle, but does it? I have demonstrated already very clearly, I think, apart from what was demonstrated by other speakers perhaps still more clearly, that it does no such thing. Here we are talking about controlling prices and keeping prices at certain levels in an attempt to justify this order, while the fact is that the cost of living in this State, a State at peace and neutral in this war, is, so far as the food group of articles is concerned, 25 points higher than in Great Britain or the Six Counties, a country and a part of a country which are belligerent and up to their necks in war. Notwithstanding that fact, and the fact that the British Government arc subsidising foodstuffs, there is no effort to make an order like this in England or Northern Ireland. But we get it here. This is a very serious matter in respect of which we are unfortunately confined, owing to certain circumstances, to three and a half hours' debate, when we have often spent three and a half days, and perhaps three and a half weeks, on matters of far less importance and matters which certainly had far fewer direct and bitter consequences for our people. The consequences of this order will bring a good deal of misery— perhaps I should put it the other way and say will bring a greater measure of misery—into many thousands of homes in this country.

The only way in which any Government could he justified in bringing an order like this before Parliament would be if they were in a position to say and to carry their statement into effect: "We are going to stop wages increasing but, at the same time, we are going to stop prices increasing." The old gag used to be that when prices went up; wages went up, that prices went up further and wages went up again, and that the old vicious circle, as people were pleased to call it, went on and on. Now we are to have a position in which wages stand still under this order but, in reality, it is not a standstill order because it means a very definite and continuing reduction in the purchasing power of the workers' wages, while the profiteer can go on gaily, with no effective steps taken against him. The Minister, I have not a shadow of doubt, will tell the House, in his best style, that another part of the order refers to dividends, to directors of companies and to employers, but that is all "cod". There are many other Deputies who wish to speak on this motion and, as the time for discussion has been limited by agreement, I do not desire to say any more on the matter. I have tried to put what I had to say as clearly and concisely as I could, and I want to bring my remarks to a close with the expression of the hope that the Minister will rise as soon as possible and try to give to the House and the country some reason, if there is any, for introducing this ocder at all.

Mr. Byrne

I support the request made to the Minister to withdraw this standstill order. I do so because of the fact that when it was first introduced we were told it would leave things as they were—foodstuffs were to remain at the same price and the person with a moderate wage was to get the same value for his money—but the Minister and his followers know that that is not true. The cost of living has gone up much higher since then. The cost of vegetables and every article of food has increased. A few days ago I saw a crowd around a shop which used to sell tea to the working classes at 3/-a pound. I asked what the trouble was and was told that there was plenty of tea there at 6/- a pound. The 6/- tea, although we hear a good deal about rationing, was taken trom the people who were allowed half an ounce per week because, as they had not the money to pay for it, they could not get any additional supply, no matter what conditions they lived under or what goods they were able to buy.

Deputy Morrissey has referred to the fact that in the City of Dublin tea, bread and margarine were the essentials of many of our unfortunate tenement dwellers—not very nourishing, I agree, but it kept them, as a Minister said some time ago, from starvation. On that occasion, when the Minister was asked if that was all he would give them to save them from starvation, he said that it was not, that he would give them a gold chain. I was at a function a few days ago at which a very eminent doctor of this city spoke to a body of ladies interested in child welfare. That doctor—Dr. Shanley, who is well known to every member of the House—said that malnutrition and starvation were widespread in this rity. Other speakers followed him, and we gathered that it was due to the fact that the increase in the cost of living was depriving them of the nutrition he thought they should get.

This order has had another effect which has not been touched upon. I was speaking recently to a North Wall worker who lost his position because of the reduction in exports and imports. He had a son who was engaged in another industry, and the industry was doing well. He told me that his son, although working in a good industry temporarily, was not entitled to get an increase in his wages to help the unemployed members of his family—seven of them, of whom four were of the age for employment.

I think this standstill order is one of the worst orders ever introduced by any Government. Taking it together with the Trade Union Bill—both of them being discussed on the one day— I say that they are the two worst measures ever proposed by my Minister in any Assembly such as this, and I ask the Minister, and the other members who have spoken or who will speak, to consider the seriousness of the situation and withdraw the order. It has not had the effect which he originally thought it would have, that is that the wages of the day would buy the same quality and the same quantity of goods for the workers at the same price. Foodstuffs have gone up in price, while the wages were small, and workers who were in the habit of paying certain prices have to do without these commodities now.

One Deputy made a reference to coal. I do not think the question of coal need worry him very seriously because, in Parnell Street yesterday, I was told that there was no coal at any price. A few doors away from Parnell Street I met a person who used to sell coal by the stone, and that person is going on poor law relief next week. Even those who used to engage in the business of selling coal in lots of a stone or two stones, in order to help the poor—and it is the poor who help the poor—cannot get a sufficient amount of coal to enable them to go around with a donkey and cart selling it. As a result, customers are deprived of their coal, and the person to whom I have referred asked me to recommend her to the local relieving officer so that she could get relief. You have all these things in Dublin—high rents, low wages, and continued unemployment— and then you have this order which prevents one member of a family, if there happen to be six or seven working, from getting a slight increase in his wages. I hope that every member of the House will speak on this matter, even if only for two or three minutes, in order to show the Minister what their views are.

Dublin is in a bad way at the moment. I have seen people sitting on doorsteps at about half-past eleven at night in the tenement quarters in various parts of this city, waiting to get a blow of fresh air, and as you pass they ask you: "Have you any tea, because we got none to-day?" That may sound like a joke to a person passing by, but the fact is that in streets such as Gloucester Street, Summerhill, York Street or the Coombe, you will meet a class of person—shall I say, almost the best class of person in the city—poor, simple, motherly people who have been depriving themselves of their half-ounce of tea so that their children might be able to get a little extra.

Mr. Dillon

I submit that we have got to choose now between the inflationary spiral, in which some people do not believe, and survival, and I think that the inflationary spiral is a real danger. I do not think there is any danger to me, because I have got enough of the world's goods to indurate myself against its effects, but the person who is going to suffer in that inflationary spiral is the poor person. So far as those who are well circumstanced in this country are concerned, that inflationary spiral is something that we ought to pray for, but so far as the poor are concerned, if we are the trustees of the poor it ought to be our solicitude to prevent that spiral developing. That is as certain as we are here in this House, and those who will not face it are sticking their heads in the sand. Will this order prevent the development of the inflationary spiral? It certainly will not, if it stands alone——

Mr. Davin

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

——and the Minister knows that just as well as I do. The principle underlying this order is a sound principle if it is accompanied by the proper safeguards, and it is our job to ask ourselves now, what are those safeguards? The safeguards with which it ought to be accompanied are: controlled prices, subsidised essentials of life, and family allowances. It may be true that we foresee that the spiral of inflation will destroy the poor in the long run. It is no remedy for that for us, by statutory order, to destroy the poor in advance.

If we fix a level of wages and allow prices to run riot it simply means that we bring the poor wage earners up against starvation sooner than they otherwise would be up against it. If we allow the inflationary spiral to follow out to the end of its dialectics, we know that the poor people in this country will starve. That is certain. This order, standing alone, is going to bring them to starvation sooner than if the spiral were allowed to operate, and in times such as these we ought to have a sufficient sense of responsibility to face that fact.

Everybody is making pious speeches about the appalling circumstances with which we are to be confronted next winter, and each one, having made the pious speech, sits down and prays to God that something will turn up to prevent that happening. God helps those who help themselves, and unless we take vigorous measures now— to-night—to prepare for next winter. we shall meet with a catastrophe which will make us the by-word of the world and, mind you, may create political dangers for us infinitely worse than any deficiency in our military defences. I put it to the Minister that no economic argument can conceivably justify a precept to the poor of this country to let their children go hungry, so long as he and I, and a great many more of us in this House have comparatively comfortable surroundings. The first charge on the national income of this country is to ensure that every individual in the State will get sufficient food to maintain a modest standard of comfort, and that goes, first, for the children of the poor. I say that in older to do that—if we have made up our minds that that has to be done— we have got to ask ourselves, how are we going to do it?

I put it, first, that in order to ensure that modest, basic ration for our people, we must try to avoid constituting it from imported articles, for fear we cannot import these articles or for fear that they may be sunk by Hitler. Therefore, we should try to get them from the products of our own land—potatoes, milk, oatmeal and such other foodstuffs as we can control here within the island—in the knowledge that we have them here, that they cannot be taken from us and that nobody can reach them. Secondly, we should offer these commodities at prices which the income of the poorest among us will be able to reach upon; and, thirdly, we should try to ensure that every individual head of a family living in this country will have an income sufficient to guarantee his ability to buy, bring home, and cook the necessary ration to maintain himself and his family. I know of no way in which that can be done except by the deliberate subsidisation of certain selected articles of diet and the provision for every family in this country with children to rear of a family allowance sufficient to ensure that, if the parents are prepared to do their God-given duty, their children will never go hungry. Will anybody else in this House get up and, instead of slating the Government and wiping the Minister for Industry and Commerce's nose in the Trade Union Bill and the standstill order, tell me of any other plan that will meet the situation we are going to be confronted with next November? Will anyone in this House get up and plainly and bluntly advocate taking the lid off and letting prices go sky-high on the one hand and letting wages go sky-high on the other hand? That is the issue. And is there anyone on the Labour Benches, our Benches or the Fianna Fáil Benches who will advocate that?

Mr. Hickey

Of course, there is not.

Mr. Dillon

There is no one to advocate that. We can put that in the ash-can now. We are all agreed there ought to be some measure of control.

Mr. Hickey

Of course.

Mr. Dillon

Very well. I think we can reach agreement. We are agreed that there must be control of wages if there is to be control of prices, but that, if there is control of wages, there must be effective control of prices to ensure that any increase in cost is not going into the dividend receiver's pocket or the director's pocket if it is not allowed to go into the wage-earner's pocket.

Mr. Everett

There is no control of prices.

Mr. Dillon

We are all agreed that if we can get effective control of prices, effective assurance that the families of the poor will get a sufficiency whereon to maintain a modest standard of comfort, we have no objection in these circumstances to control of wages. That is fair. That is a basis upon which universal assent can be got in this House, and if that is the basis on which we are all prepared to agree, it is a fair basis, and I do not think there is anybody in the House—I do not think there is anybody over there who will argue—the Minister will not argue— that we ought to clamp down on wages and take the lid off profits.

Mr. MacEntee

No.

Mr. Davin

He will not talk.

Mr. Dillon

If we are all agreed on the fundamental principles, what is the use of slating one another instead of coming together and trying to get the job done? It is up to the Minister to get up now and I am inviting him to get up now. I intervened at this stage in order to make it perfectly clear that if the Minister is prepared to get up and adumbrate before the House a fair and honest scheme to effect these purposes: to control wages——

Mr. Davin

He is doing that.

Mr. Dillon

——a fair and honest scheme to do, not one thing, but three things—to control wages, effectively to control prices and to ensure for the poorest family in this country a modest ration of the food necessary to maintain health, I do not think he will find any difficulty in carrying an order designed to these three ends through this House. In fact, I think he will get unanimous support for it. It is up to him to intervene and tell us has he a plan to do that and, if he has not, let him seek the co-operation of those who are prepared to help him to find such a plan and, pending the production of an effective method of achieving these three ends at the same time, let us hear no more of this order which is designed to achieve only one of three things which must march together or should, not march at all.

Mr. Everett

Deputy Dillon in his closing remarks made an appeal for co-operation. Co-operation on what? We have had bitter experience of alleged co-operation here for the past two years. We know all the co-operation is expected from one side and, as a result of the co-operation, we are here to-night criticising a Minister for his attack upon the poor section of the community. Deputy Dillon may be worried now for the moneyed class. So well he may. It is they, not the poor, who may have to tighten their belts. This Emergency Order, as I will prove here to-night, has been aimed solely at the poor. Where the well-paid official is concerned the Government will evade the order so that the official may receive increased remuneration. I will cite an example for the Minister. The Wicklow County Council, 18 months ago, passed a small increase of wages of 2/6 a week for road workers. For men employed on the roads, whose wages were only 30/- a week, 2/6 per week was not a large increase.

The Minister for Local Government threatened that if the county council agreed to give the increase he would withhold the grants. What do we find afterwards? While the poor section of the community was not allowed to receive any increase in wages, two well-paid officials are to receive increased remuneration, notwithstanding the standstill order, notwithstanding the statement of the Minister for Supplies that we are regulating the wages of workers in sheltered industries. Did the Minister mean that the order only applied to the lowest paid worker? He apparently had not in mind that it should apply to the highly paid official. Notwithstanding the Minister's order of the 7th May, a letter was sent to the county council in Wicklow by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, dated the 17th May, ordering that county council to increase the salaries of two engineers by £266 each, but we do not call it an increase of wages; we call it a personal allowance. We will get around the standstill order. Here is the sheltered position for the privileged class. For the past five years every act of this Government has been in the interests of the wealthy people. So well may Deputy Dillon shed crocodile tears here to-night on behalf of the people with money.

Deputy Dillon has his share of the wealth of this country. Let him have it, but he may not have it for long. The poor people are going to demand their share now and I, for one, will oppose any co-operation from this Party with the Government because no agreement is binding with the present Government and no one will accept their word in this Party, if I have any say in the matter. We have had bitter experience. In their letter of the 17th May, the Department of Local Government, in connection with two well-paid officials in receipt of salaries of four figures, approve of their appointment to permanent positions with a personal allowance of over £266 per annum.

Mr. MacEntee

Would the Deputy read the letter?

Mr. Everett

I will hand it over to the Minister. It is dated 17th May, 1941, and addressed from the Department of Local Government and Public Health, Custom House, Dublin. The letter is as follows:—

"With reference to previous correspondence regarding the reorganisation of the engineering services in County Wicklow, I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to state that he approves of the proposal of the county council to appoint two assistant county surveyors, ... These officers when appointed will carry out all council work——"

I am not worrying about that.

Mr. MacEntee

I am.

Mr. Everett

These were two new men. It does not apply to the former official, Mr. O'Byrne. The letter continues:—

"These officers when appointed will carry out all council work in the areas to which they are assigned under the direction and supervision of the county engineer. The scale salary for the posts proposed by the county council is agreed to, subject to the maximum being fixed at £400....

"At the meeting of the board of health on the 28th October last, it was agreed that the board's engineers be allowed until 1st April, 1941, to complete all schemes in course of progress...."

—That is 15 per cent. of housing schemes——

"As regards the two assistant surveyors"

—mentioning the two men's name—

"the scale of salary already approved will apply, but in order to meet as far as possible the views of the county council and board of health, consideration will be given to the payment of additional remuneration...."

£150 personal allowance is sanctioned with a maximum salary of £400 a year. One man's previous salary from the board of health and the county council was £344. Under the Minister's arrangement his salary was to be a maximum of £400 with a personal allowance of £l50. Travelling expenses and other allowances bring the total to £740.

Mr. MacEntee

Had he been earning £1,500 as a part-time officer?

Mr. Everett

No, Sir, excuse me, he was not a whole-time officer.

Mr. MacEntee

Part-time.

Mr. Everett

He was a part-time officer and as the housing schemes are finished now there is no chance of his earning even £800 a year on housing schemes. As the Minister knows very well, the housing schemes have been completed, but now that the housing schemes have been completed we go and put him on a permanent salary of £800 a year, while the road workers would not be allowed half-a-crown a week of an increase. The Minister's Department calls it a personal allowance in that case. It is immaterial to the men who work on the roads what you call that 2/6 a week, but you refuse to give it to them. Then members of the Government stand up and point out that they are the poor man's Government. But this order affects only the poorer sections of the community. I am sure that members of the Minister's Party who are members of public boards will admit that certain officials of those boards, although they are whole-time officials for pension purposes, do not devote a quarter of their time to the business of the public boards. Here, seven days after this standstill order was issued, you have this instruction sent down to the county council to increase the salaries of those two men. The Minister may not be aware of that, but he is a member of the Government which put that order into operation, and that order at the present time is being used solely against the poorer sections of the community. There was no standstill order in September, 1940, when the Government refused to allow public bodies to increase the wages of their unfortunate road men. The Minister's Department, even in the case of men engaged in turf production, refused to pay more than 32/6, and before they got the extra tea allowance those men had to bring Oxo cubes with them, and that was their food for the whole day. We have the Government attacking the public boards for paying those men for wet days when they were unable to be employed on the bogs, and were waiting for the lorry to take them back to their destinations. We have the Government devoting its whole time to inflicting keener hardship on the poorer sections of the community. Then we are appealed to by Deputy Dillon for co-operation. I think the Labour Party has got sufficient of that kind of co-operation. The Minister will really be sorry as a result of any of the things which have taken place this week. I am making no threats——

Mr. Corish

You will be censored if you do.

Mr. Everett

I am not worrying about it. I have my own views in connection with it, and I will not ask anybody to do things which I am not prepared to do myself. I am not going to talk about what may happen. I know that in regard to the Trade Union Bill the Minister has been misled; I know that people have given him wrong impressions, but I think the Minister ought to realise the serious position which the country is in. He must realise it, if he goes around among the poor people, and if he does realise it, I am certain that he will give up wasting the time of the House on that Bill or on this order. If the Minister wants unity, that is the only way in which he can achieve it. Neither this Bill nor this order will be any help towards avoiding friction. How can friction be avoided when we have well-paid part-time officials being made whole-time and pensionable, and given an increase of £266 a year, while unfortunate men working on the roads are refused a miserable pittance of 2/6 a week? How can you have unity while that state of affairs exists? Coal has been mentioned. Coal has been scarce in, Wicklow town for the past eight months. Not a cargo of coal came in for 12 months. Four or five lorries of coal came from another village to supply the people in the town. In any case, the poor people cannot afford to Day for it. No wonder we have agents in Wicklow town canvassing the young men to go across to England at a guaranteed wage of £4 13s. Od. for a six-day week. No wonder we have special trains each week taking them from Wicklow and Arklow and the country areas. The Minister must be aware that a large number left this week, and to-morrow or Saturday the agents will be in the town again, taking the younger men from the agricultural areas, so that there will be none left for the harvest. They are getting a guaranteed wage for a six-day week, with extra pay if they work after 2 o'clock on Saturday. Their expenses are paid from the time they get into the train. I say it is no wonder that is happening. When the engineer of the county asked those men to work, he was told that they had got a good offer of a job now.

Apart altogether from the Trade Union Bill and from this order, there is distress throughout the length and breadth of the country. We have those vicious circles which we heard so much about in the Dublin area, where people with wealth are not confined to rations, while the poor people cannot even purchase the miserable rations that are allowed. Notwithstanding that, the Minister tries to defend this order. In the case of well-paid officials, an increase is called "a personal allowance", but that does not make any difference to the people who receive it. Deputy Dillon tells us that we want unity. How can we expect unity when 100 or 150 men are deprived of 2/6 a week increase, while they see officials getting £266 a year of an increase for driving around in their cars? I hope the public representatives on the Government Back Benches will agree with me when I protest against the various instructions the public boards have received from the Government to increase the wages of officials, while sanction of a miserable pittance to the lowest-paid workers is refused. We had the case of a poor invalid who was awarded only £17 a year pension. If her card had been stamped she would have been entitled to receive 7/6 a week, but as her card had not been stamped the public body sanctioned only £l7. Then we have appeals for unity, when we see this order being used solely against the poorer sections of the community. I do not think there will be a response to the appeal for unity in this instance. If the Minister refuses to withdraw it, let the trade unions deal with this measure, and we will see what will be the result of it.

Mr. Linehan

First of all, I think that neither the Minister's order, nor Deputy Everett's rather strange misunderstanding of Deputy Dillon's appeal, nor Deputy Everett's attack on unify, is going to improve the position. Without referring to the merits of the order at all, I have one strong fundamental objection to it, and it is that in my opinion the Emergency Powers Act should never have been used for the bringing in of an order such as this. When I voted for those powers—I voted for them with a certain amount of misgivings which have been amply justified since—I do not believe even the Minister himself imagined that he would be introducing an order of this nature by virtue of the Emergency Powers Act.

If this were necessary at all, there was one way to bring it in and that was by a Bill, so that it could be discussed in the ordinary way and go through the ordinary procedure and become law. The Government were able to make a law in the ordinary way, where it would be discussed, not as this is being discussed, as something which definitely will happen. We are in the position of a prisoner who is appealing for a reprieve, knowing perfectly well that the court of appeal has already decided that he will be hanged whether his appeal is successful or not. The case for the annulment of this order is that it shows—and it was necessary that it should be shown— that the Emergency Powers Act was not handed over to the Government so that they could do anything whatsoever they wished by order.

I think it is tragic and wrong that an action of this kind should be done in this way. First of all, it affects the livelihood and interests of hundreds of thousands of people in this country, yet it is done as if it were an order for the establishment of a public holiday. It is ridiculous, then, to talk about the preservation of neutrality, the preservation of freedom and the preservation of democracy. If this is democratic government, I say: "May the Lord save us from democratic government." I am becoming remarkably doubtful of the values of democracy and doubtful of the meaning of the word "democracy." If I were a party to giving the Government the powers that they have under the Emergency Powers Act, I am sorry I had any hand, act or part in doing it, if it was intended to introduce legislation in this manner.

We hear a lot about the spiral and the vicious circle of prices. I suppose it is an impossibility, and I do not see how you can have a circle with only one side or a spiral with only one side, or have a spiral staircase with only one step, but that is what is happening in this country. Ever since this order was made there has been attempt after attempt by various Government Deputies, in the House and outside it, to justify the Government's action towards the poorer section of the community. Their one attempt to justify it is to say that the people who oppose these orders or legislation of this kind are not representatives of the workers. So far as I am concerned, I do not care whether I am a representative of the workers or not, and I do not care whether my colleague Deputies who claim to be representatives of the workers got more workers' votes than I did. I am against this. In so far as the earning of the worker is concerned, he is being dealt with by the Government of this country in a manner that gives neither him nor his representatives any right to say anything.

So long as I am in this House— whether I represent the majority of the workers or not—I maintain I have a right to air my views in their defence. The discussion on this annulment order is not properly a discussion, for the worker knows that the case has already been tried, that the verdict has been prejudged and that the case is absolutely finished so far as be is concerned. Even if I were satisfied that this was the best order ever introduced into this House, even if I were satisfied that we would get all the co-operation and unity we needed and hoped for through an order like this, I still would vote for the annulment of the order, as I do not believe anyone in this House ever intended the Emergency Powers Act to be used to deal with matters of this kind. If it is the Government's intention to use their powers under the Emergency Powers Act to deal with matters like this in future, the quicker a motion is put down to repeal that Act the better. Then we can have matters thrashed out properly here. I am not concerned as to whether people want to unite with the Government or do not, or whether they dislike this action or that action. I do not think that that affects the point at all.

There are two points: whether it is being brought in in a proper manner at all—I say that it is being brought in in a dictatorial manner—and, secondly, the relation it has to its ultimate results. I am not concerned about its results so far as the resentment of people to it goes, but I am concerned about its results if we are to have only half of a vicious circle going on for ever. Bad as a vicious circle of prices and wages may be—just like the word "democracy", a vicious circle is accepted as being something terrible and bad enough as it is—it is much better than to have a vicious circle of rising prices only. Purely from the point of view of Parliamentary values, if the Government ever again have any notion of looking for powers to deal with a serious matter, the quicker they forget adopting the powers that they got from the Dáil the better. Deputies —and even the Minister—have criticised the attitude and antics of people in this House and have suggested that it has been holding Parliamentary government up to disrepute.

If there is any way to bring Parliamentary government into disrepute, it is by having a Dáil here which can only deal with an order affecting the lives and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people, by putting down an annulment motion that must be dealt with within 21 days. Even then the Government have to be implored, on the 20th day, to give time to discuss it. I do not think that is a proper method. This should be done by legislation or not at all. If it were done by a Bill in the ordinary way. Deputies would have some way of dealing with the matter, of airing their views and of expressing the views of their constituents. We are now in the position of the prisoner under sentence of death who goes to the court of appeal knowing that the judges already have decided that he is to be hanged.

Mr. Corish

In September, 1939, this Parliament was called together in order that curtain powers should be given to the Ministry—powers that they thought it necessary to have in order to protect our liberties. These were powers that enabled them to take any action in the event of our being attacked by any of the belligerents. We were asked to visualise a certain situation in which we might be invaded by any of the belligerents and thus dragged into this war almost unconsciously. We were told it was necessary for them to have these powers so that they could deal with any situation that might arise. Nobody ever thought, on that day, that the powers given to the Government then would be used, not for the purpose of defending our country, but for the purpose of invading the homes of the working class and the homes of the very poor. Deputy Dillon made certain references which might lead people to believe that we in this Party had an utter disregard or indifference for the very poor. He seemed to think that we were not concerned at all with the very poor.

General Mulcahy

Who did?

Mr. Corish

Deputy Dillon did.

General Mulcahy

I think both Deputy Everett and Deputy Corish were not listening.

Mr. Corish

I was listening, very definitely. He said the Labour Party were concerned only with the Wages Order, and not concerned with the spiral referred to by the Minister and others.

General Mulcahy

I do not think so.

Mr. Corish

Oh, he did. As far as this Party is concerned, we are satisfied that something should be done in order to secure that the very poor with no protection shall not be left unprovided for. We are satisfied that the time has arrived to hold a conference of various interests in this State to prevent anything like that occurring here. We have a situation created by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in which numbers of the working class are prevented from seeking an increase in wages in order to try to cope with the cost of living, which has risen considerably since the war began, and which the Government have made no serious attempt to deal with.

In this order, when it was promulgated, shall I say, first, there was some reference to profiteering. Some effort was also made to collect some taxation from people who the Government thought were profiteering by means of the excess profits tax, but to a great extent that has now been abandoned. We know quite well, and the Minister knows quite well, that profiteering is rampant at present and no serious effort is being made by the Government to deal with it. If something were done on the lines suggested by Deputy Dillon, one could understand an order of some kind being made with regard to wages. No attempt was made by the Ministry in an order of this kind to prescribe a minimum wage. There are men working in some towns and cities to-day whose wages are as low as £l per week. There are men who were taken on a few months or perhaps a few weeks before this order came into operation. These men may have been taken on trial, and perhaps they were brought in at 15/-or £l a week. It does not matter how competent or efficient they may have become in the meantime, under this order an employer is prevented from giving them any increase. Surely the Minister will agree that there is something wrong when this order has an effect like that.

Hand in hand with this order we have the Trade Union Bill. That Bill handcuffs the working classes; it disarms the working classes; it prevents trade unions from using the machinery which they had been using for years back to do something in the interests of the people they represent. This order has been erroneously referred to as a standstill order. It is anything at all but a standstill order. It is only a standstill order so far as it concerns an increase in wages. There is nothing in the order to prevent wages from being reduced or to prevent an employer from discharging a man who has a certain wage and, after a week or so, taking on another man or the same man again at half the wages that man was paid before. In view of this, surely it should not be called a standstill order?

Deputy Morrissey or Deputy Norton, I forget which, referred to the situation which may prevail in certain areas. We may have two or three establishments in a town carrying on the same class of business. One employer may not be paying the same wages as the other. Is it fair that this bad employer, who is competing with those who are paying good wages, should be protected by the Government? Is it fair that a trade union should be prevented from securing that that man should pay the same wages as the other employers in the same business?

I should like to hear from the Minister what action he proposes to take to control the cost of foodstuffs. As has been pointed out, the prices of foodstuffs have risen considerably; I think the figure of 26 per cent. was mentioned. Very few increases have been granted to workers since this war started. Certainly they got plenty of reason for applying for an increase in wages, but very few wage movements have taken place since the beginning of the war. I know that in a certain town a large number of men were on strike for 13 weeks prior to the 7th May in an endeavour to secure a decent wage. The moment the Minister's standstill order came into operation these men had to go back to work, although, as far as I can ascertain, the employer was about to concede the increase of wages. These men had lost a considerable amount by being on strike, but, because of the Minister's action, they had to go back again without gaining anything after all they had lost.

So far as wages are concerned, I think it will be conceded by everybody that, in consequence of the fact that the Government have made no serious effort to control prices, instead of getting an increase, the workers have had a reduction in their wages in almost every industry since the war began. Deputy Linehan referred to the fact that he did not think, when the Dáil was voting to give the Government these far-reaching emergency powers, they would be used in such a manner as this. The members of this Party at that time asked the Taoiseach to give a guarantee that these powers would not be used in a matter of this kind. That guarantee was given, but the Taoiseach apparently changed his mind, and we now find ourselves in the position that emergency powers, given to the Government to protect this country and to prevent it from being invaded, are being used to prevent the workers securing a living wage.

Deputy Everett has referred to an increase for road workers which was agreed to by local authorities, I think, in September, 1940. The Minister for Local Government at that time refused to sanction this increase. Indeed, he went further, and said that if any county council conceded the increase which they had agreed to, he would withdraw any grants given to the council, and would not give any further grants. I think that was a peculiar attitude for the Minister to take up. These road workers only get about three or four months' work in the year, and are idle for the greater part of the year. The Minister, by refusing to sanction the increase that had been agreed upon, treated them very badly. That was the headline set by the Minister, and it prevented other workers from getting increases.

We in this Party are fully alive to the situation so far as the poorer classes of the community are concerned. We know quite well that what the Minister puts forward as a reason for what he is pleased to call a standstill order is not a reason but an excuse. It is merely a handy man's way of doing it, and will not have the effect that the Minister claimed for it. It is to be hoped that the Minister, even at this late hour, will reconsider the situation and, instead of making a one-sided order of this kind, he will take some steps to secure that the cost of foodstuffs will be kept in line with the amount of money that men earn.

Dr. Hannigan

The views expressed by the members of the Labour Party on this order represent, I think, not only the views of organised labour, but the views of every fair-minded person in the country. I do not think any order made under the Emergency Powers Act has caused such widespread dissatisfaction as the one which Deputy Norton's motion seeks to annul. It is inherently bad, but when considered in conjunction with the legislation which is now under way in the House, it takes on a very much worse aspect and reveals itself straight away as a further instrument of oppression against the workers.

I object to this order on the same ground that I object to the Trade Union Bill. I regard it as a further demonstration of the drift of Government policy towards Fascism. The effect of this order will be, not merely to preclude any working-class family from improving its standard of living, but it would even prevent that family from maintaining its present standard. It must definitely mean a lowering of the standard of living of workers. I have no doubt that the Minister will use the stereotyped argument that has been used against any demand for increased wages. In support of this order he will use the argument about the vicious spiral and inflation, though I do not believe that it is within the power of our Government to prevent inflation on account of the very nature of our monetary system.

This order must inevitably have the same effect in the country as the introduction of the Trade Union Bill. It will tend to destroy the spirit of unity which exists. It will bring about disorganisation in some of the services which are of vital importance to the country in this emergency. I appeal to Deputies on all sides of the House to vote against the continuance of this order. I recognise it is almost futile to make such an appeal because, under the present system. Deputies, particularly on the Government Party, are voting not only against their judgment but against their very consciences. That is a deplorable state of affairs and I hope that some day we may be able to anticipate, with some little prospect, that one or two members of that Party will take their courage in their hands and vote as they should vote.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Hannigan is quite right. We are engaged in a very futile performance here. This is not an occasion upon which the Minister is called upon to reply to a debate. This is an occasion when, in order properly to discuss the matter, the Minister is called upon at an early stage in the debate to explain the details of this order, the intention of it and its likely effect, so that a very serious, important and far-reaching action on the part of the Minister may properly be considered here. This order has been made by the Minister, but the Dáil has not heard one word of its likely effects. Eight Deputies have addressed the House——

Mr. MacEntee

There ought to be some limit, even to Deputy Mulcahy's misrepresentations. I dealt with this order on the General Financial Resolution.

General Mulcahy

I ask the protection of the Chair in order to be allowed to make a very short statement on this matter. Eight Deputies have spoken and the Minister was invited specifically by Deputy Dillon to intervene and he made no effort to assist the House. It is quite right to say that we are engaged in a futile performance here. We are, in the first place, conducting the discussion in the atmosphere created by the Minister's attitude to this order. In that atmosphere we tend to discuss the matter in a manner in which we are likely to misunderstand one another. It would be quite impossible for Deputy Corish or Deputy Everett to misunderstand Deputy Dillon if we were discussing this matter in a normal atmosphere.

We have the difficult atmosphere created by the way in which the Government are carrying out their work, in the first place, and, in the second place, we are here within walls built by the Ministerial hand through the operation of the censorship. Perhaps there are officials in Leinster House telephoning reminders to the papers that anything that is said here that might be likely to affect public opinion must not be recorded in the papers tomorrow. Do the Government think that by interning, as it were, the Parliament, they can prevent their actions giving rise to reactions outside?

We are here utterly powerless to do anything that even the combined wisdom of the various Parties could decide upon, simply because, no matter what our wisdom is and no matter what agreement we come to, we require machinery to carry out our decisions and the machinery composed by the present Government is machinery that is incapable of carrying out anything. The Government approach everything they have to do in a most incompetent and tactless fashion. They bring to the carrying out of any work they do face a character and an ability marked by a long history of deceit and misrepresentation. That is the position in which we find ourselves at a very serious time.

Deputy Dillon's suggestion was that if Deputies would consider the present situation and the true nature of the emergency, they would be likely to agree to a standstill of prices and wages and the making of arrangements of a supplementary character so that there would be sufficient allowance made from State funds to ensure that no family would starve. His suggestion was that every section in the House should agree that a scheme like that would be worth trying in order to meet the conditions arising out of the emergency. I believe that scheme would be worth trying. But if you arrive at an agreement like that, you want the capacity and the desire to have it carried out. If we are to judge Ministers by their actions and their words, they seem to be more concerned with preventing the various Parties in the Dáil coming to grips with realities, getting into any kind of close communion with one another, or taking clear decisions so that something may be done.

There is about as much unity on what are the main economic things to be done in this country in the present emergency as there is on any definite proposals, and perhaps even a lot more. In the early days of the emergency we went to the Government and pointed out that the economic situation was the really urgent problem that would create an emergency, and we asked that outside the Government, and outside the administrative machine, a few detached minds would be got, competent to look at the situation, competent to advise, and competent to watch, and that in the light of the information given by competent and careful observers who were detached in order to see in what way we might be helped, and led by a light that, as it were, was outside of mere Party, outside of mere officialdom, led by men of practical experience, with no axe to grind, the Oireachtas as a whole might then proceed along proper lines, so that these lines could be expressed in a uniform and co-ordinating way. Here we find ourselves to-day, as many Deputies pointed out, stabilising wages, while the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in one of his litanies, said prices were being kept to what they were some time ago, and were even lowered, but Deputy Dillon was able to quote facts and figures of the way in which important articles in use by the people were rising, and how any comparison between food prices here at the present time and before the war, or between here and England would show how hard it was for ordinary people, particularly those with low wages, to carry on.

The present situation cannot continue. The futility of this House cannot go on in the manner in which it is going. The situation is not going to avoid development simply because this House is interned. This is a discussion, on which one would like to bring forward a number of facts and figures, and to make a number of comparisons, but no facts or figures or comparisons that we could exchange amongst ourselves, are going to be of any use until we get some kind of assurance or some gesture from the Government that they are as anxious as we are to help in this situation. We read in yesterday's Press the opinion expressed by some coal merchant that we were going to get no more coal except for gas or electricity undertakings. Deputy Byrne spoke about the difficulty with regard to coal in Dublin, and Deputy Everett spoke about the same difficulty in Wicklow. What is our industrial position going to come to, if that is the situation, apart altogether from our domestic position? What are Ministers trying to do about it?

In the debate on supplies the Minister for Supplies charged us with criticising them, and criticising himself particularly, although he said he had given us the facts. I do not know of any item in which facts were given to anybody by the Minister for Supplies, except to myself, and that was in respect to petrol, and for that purpose he put it up to me that there was no use in putting down questions about petrol supplies. I was asked to visit his Department and I was told certain things. I was not without criticism of the Minister then. I did not put down my question because it was said that it would not be helpful, but I told the Department that they had more files than petrol, and that I did not know how Ministers, with responsibility in relation to the petrol situation and the employment situation, could sit down in offices in Dublin without having inter-Ministerial, face to face conferences with Ministers in Great Britain. I say the same with regard to coal. I say the same with regard to our agricultural products, the export of which is falling. We are talking about what we can do to prevent this order being put into operation. An order may be passed, but, actually at present, with the order in force there are conscientious employers in Dublin who are side-stepping it, because if I know of anything that is troubling employers it is how they are going to keep their employees at work, and how they are going to mitigate the hardship of employees with families.

There is no use talking about the order if the other side of things that should go with this order is not going to be tackled by Ministers because there is not competency there to tackle them. They have got themselves into an attitude with regard to this Parliament that is absolutely impossible to understand, and in relation to those big things that affect in a big way the maintenance of industrial production and agricultural well-being. Not a single Minister is standing up to the main things that ought to be done to maintain our industrial production and our agricultural production.

For months past we have been asking that people who are dependent on unemployment assistance particularly, and on unemployment insurance would be assisted, by increased grants in view of the increase in the cost of living. Very slowly, appeals which Ministers have now got from every part of the House are fructifying. I do not think that people in receipt of unemployment assistance are yet getting any of the increases that were promised, even as recently as the Budget debate. We are coming near the end of the second year of the war, and while everything on the economic side that was likely to happen here was fairly well foreseen and brought to the notice of Ministers, we find them as completely lacking in co-ordination of their efforts as they are lacking in any competency to face up to any of the things they have to do, and as completely lacking in any capacity to handle and to use Parliament as they were at the beginning. Every offer of assistance and every advice that could be given was offered them. They have got all possible assistance they could get on the defence side and they were offered all possible assistance on the economic side. Our economic position is such as was suggested by Deputy Dillon, and the Parliamentary atmosphere that has been created by Ministers and by the Government generally is such that, when Deputy Dillon spoke in the way that he did to-day, even two members of the Labour Party found it impossible to understand him. I do not think it was difficult to understand him. The only thing I would like to add to Deputy Dillon's speech is this: for goodness' sake give us, sitting on the Front Benches and at the head of the various Departments of administration, men who will bring good will and some capacity to an attempt to put into force the view of the consolidated mind of this House, because there is no difference in the minds of ordinary Deputies as to the things that ought to be done to help the country, and particularly the poorer classes, through the present economic emergency.

Mr. Hickey

Since this order was introduced I have often asked myself this question: at whose instigation was this class legislation introduced? Whose hand is behind this Emergency Powers Order No. 83? As one who has had experience in dealing with employers over a long period of years, I want to say that since the outbreak of this war not as much as one hour has been lost in Cork City or district by a stoppage of work. We have in the City of Cork a negotiating committee composed of employers and trade union representatives in the shipping industry, coal trade and general work of the city, and we have not had a dispute since 1923. We have numbers of workers in Cork City to-day who have not got any increase in wages since the war started. They made application for increases, but did not receive them because of the economic position in the industry in which they are employed, and hence have decided to withhold their demands for the present. We have a number of workers employed in public institutions which cater for Cork City and County. As far back as November last they were given increases which ranged from 2/- to 4/- per week. Their wages are £2 3s. or £2 5s. per week, while some female workers receive only 30/- a week. Although the board concerned is far from sympathetic in its attitude towards lowly-paid workers, it agreed to give these small increases of 2/-, 2/6, and 3/-, but up to date the Government have refused to sanction them.

The Minister, when speaking on Resolution No. 26 dealing with this Emergency Powers Order, quoted the case of certain classes of workers who, since the war started, have got increases of 12/- or 13/- a week. These are the cement workers in the country. He went on to state that these increases were reflected immediately in the price of cement, in the cost of housing, in the rents charged to workers and in the rates that have to be paid to the local authorities. What are the fasts concerning the workers who received the marvellous increases spoken of by the Minister? He was not able to quote any other class of worker that has got an increase since the war started.

These cement workers started at 48/- a week. They accepted that wage at the request of the directors of the cement factories because, at the time, they were not skilled men. After 12 months or so they got an increase of 6/-, bringing their wages up to 54/- a week. Since then they have got a war bonus of 6/-, making their wages 60/-. That is the minimum rate for cement workers in Limerick to-day, with 1d. per hour increase for quarry men, and 3d. per hour increase for men in the crushing plant and washing mill. I would ask the back benchers in the Fianna Fáil Party who are here representing working-class people, just as I am, to try to visualise what a wage of 60/- a week means for men employed in a cement factory. They are working in an atmosphere in which they are swallowing dust from morning till night, and have to work a 48 hour week for this 60/-. There is a three-shift scheme operating in the factories. The men have to work on Sundays and bank holidays. Other classes of industrial workers are able to enjoy the bank holiday and still get their week's wages. But the cement workers only get half a day's wages when they work on a Sunday or bank holiday, while other classes of workers get an extra day's pay. Neither do these cement workers get any special allowance for night work. All other classes of industrial workers ordinarily engaged on it get an allowance of 1/- per night.

On last Monday week I read an advertisement in the newspapers which stated that the price of cement had been increased by 4/9 per ton. In spite of that the Minister says that these workers must not receive as much as 1d. increase in their wages. Apart from the question of Party discipline, I should like to know if the members of the Fianna Fáil Party who, as I have said, are here representing working-class people, just as I am, are prepared to accept that, position? Surely they also have an obligation to the working-class people of the country. The Minister quoted the case of the cement workers as his justification for bringing in this order. We all know that the conditions in a cement factory have an awful effect on the workers' clothes and boots. Yet the Minister thought it well to quote their case as one of the reasons for making this standstill order.

I now come to the question of boots. Deputy Dillon addressed a question to the Minister for Supplies about the price of boots to-day. I know that during the past 12 months, even as late as March last, the workers engaged in the boot and shoe industry sought an increase in wages. The employers met them to discuss the matter, and while so engaged a letter was received from the Department to say that their wages were not to be increased—that the Government would not allow any increase to be passed on to the consumers of boots with the result that these workers have received no increase. I ask the Minister to refute this statement if it is incorrect: that the percentage cost of wages for operatives in the boot and shoe industry was the same in 1939-40 as in 1926. Yet while that is so, the workers in that industry are to be prevented by the operation of this order from seeking any increase in their wages.

We have a firm in this country engaged in the manufacture of worsted yarn. Its balance sheet for last year showed a net profit of £28,000. Allowing for the income-tax rate, the firm must have made a gross profit of over £42,000. I understand that over 3,000,000 yards of worsted yarn are manufactured here. While the firm was able to make a profit of 2d. per lb. on the yarn manufactured, the workers in the industry are denied an increase in their wages. The Government intimated that an increase should not be granted. If the workers' demand for an increase were conceded it would mean 1d. a lb. on the quantity of yarn manufactured. They were denied an increase, but the firm is allowed to make a profit of 2d. per lb. In spite of all that we have the Minister saying that this standstill order is necessary. It has been said by members of the Government that this standstill order aims at equality of sacrifice. When we talk about equality we do not mean the political equality which is nullified by social and economic principles. We know from statistics published by the Government in the last four or five years that we have in this country 2,500 persons who, after paying income-tax, surtax and super-tax amounting to over £500,000, have a nett annual income between them of £8,500,000. I think that is an unfair and an immoral state of affairs while you have, at the same time, unemployed men who are expected to keep a child from one year to 14 years of age on 1/- a week, now raised to 2/6. When Resolution No. 26 was under discussion we had certain statements made by Deputy Dillon. We had a speech from him to-day. The kind of sob-stuff that he throws out does not appeal to me. He said in this House on 8th May last that it he had his way he would confirm the allowances for the unemployed at a level sufficient to keep a single man from destitution. He went on to say that nobody will ever start a revolution in this country because "able-bodied lumps of fellows" are unemployed when, in fact, they could join the Army Construction Corps. Is that the conception we have of men in this country —"able-bodied lumps of fellows"? These men have souls and minds as well as Deputy Dillon and other members of the House. That is the sort of conception of life that is going to bring turmoil and strife in this country. The standstill order which the Minister has brought in is going to add to that, and I can see only trouble and strife.

We have had other Deputies arguing against a tax on excess profits and saying it was wrong and unfair. Some Deputies urged that instead of choosing two of the best years immediately prior to 1939 for the purpose of this tax, it should be based on two of the best six years prior to 1939. Looking at the Government's own figures, we find that, for the seven years ended March, 1940, the Government have received in income-tax, excess profits tax, corporation profits tax, and super tax an average of £6,241,000 per year. That is a sure indication that this country is being run by a small group who have been dictating the policy of this Government for a good many years since they came into power; I am afraid the same thing happened in the case of those who went before. We have also lectures-almost sermons— from some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies. We had a statement here from Deputy Meaney and we had another lecture in this morning's paper.

Mr. Davin

Not here.

Mr. Hickey

Of course, we had not it here. If Deputy Meaney is here, he may be interested in a document issued by the Sugar Company at Mallow to any man looking for employment. He will not get employment unless he signs a document stating:—

"I............. of ........... hereby accept the offer of employment from the Sugar Company on the following conditions.... With regard to the termination of such contract, the company shall be at liberty to terminate my contract of employment on giving me not less than one hour's notice of termination, the circumstances to be in the sole discretion of the said company."

These are the conditions in which men will be employed in the Mallow Beet Factory, which is financed by the State and which is situate in Deputy Meaney's constituency. I should like to know from Deputy Meaney whether, with that great national outlook which he claims to have, he would accept employment in a firm which lays down those conditions. When I started to work for a week's wages, the fellow I worked for made it a condition that he should take 1/- off my wages until a £5 deposit was reached. I had to sign an agreement not to belong to any organisation. If I were known to belong to any organisation I should be dismissed the service and I would forfeit the amount of money in hands.

I say to the Minister and to every Deputy on the Fianna Fáil Benches that their class legislation is not one bit better than the tyranny exercised when I started many years ago to work for a week's wages. I say to the Minister, not as a Deputy occupying a place on these benches but as one responsible to the people: "You demanded a clear majority to save the country—a clear majority over all Parties. I listened to you in the City of Cork on the night before the poll was taken and you told the people of the danger of voting Hickey into the Dáil. What you wanted was a clear majority to save the country and help the workers." I am not saying that in any Party spirit. I say to the Minister and the Fianna Fáil Party that that standstill order is immoral. It is not in keeping with the doctrines contained in the Encyclicals or with the teaching of our Church, and I ask you in all sincerity to annul it.

Deputy Dillon spoke a short time ago about the need for giving family allowances to poor people. We have advocated that for a number of years. I am afraid that not alone the members of the House but the mass of the people outside have a very light idea of what poverty means in this country. Some time ago I put down a question as to how many men were receiving 14/- a week unemployment assistance in Cork city and county. I was informed that 191 fathers of families were receiving 14/- a week. To get 14/- they should at least have five children. That means that there were seven members of the family. I allowed 2/6 per week for rent, which is very low— a great many of these people pay more —and it worked out that, after deducting rent, there was £109 17s. Od. per week for 1,337 persons, or 1/8 per week per person, or 2¾d. per day. I also asked how many fathers of families were in receipt of 13/- in Cork city and county and I was informed that there were 152. If you allow 2/- per week rent, which everybody will admit is too low, there was £83 12s. Od. per week for 912 persons, which works out at 1/10 per person per week, or 3d. per day, or 1d. per meal. These are not fictitious figures. A man will not get 13/- unless he has a dependent wife and three or four children. He will not get 14/-, even within a mile of Cork city, unless he has five children. These people are compelled to live on 2¾d. per day, or 1d. per meal.

This is the time that is chosen by the Government to issue a standstill order for the working classes to prevent them from obtaining any increase in wages. The economic system under which we are compelled to live was shown by the last world crisis and this war to be the greatest pretentious fraud that could be imposed on humanity. Yet, this is the system which this country is trying to maintain. It has robbed humanity of the gifts which science and invention provided for the good of all mankind. We have to ask a Christian Government, a Government which claims to have a better national outlook than anybody else, to annul an order which prevents men from getting any increase in wages. A number of workers in this country have received no increase since the outbreak of war. Some workers have received the big increase of 2/6 since 1938. Is the Minister, and are the back benchers of his Party going to stand for an order which will prevent workers from obtaining another increase, even of 2/6? This order is immoral, unjust, and contrary to Christian principles. In all fairness, I ask the Minister to withdraw it.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. MacEntee)

I had hoped, if time permitted, to have dealt with the case made against this order by Deputy Linehan, and to show that the order is not ultra vires the Emergency Powers Act, that it is an order that can properly be made under the Emergency Powers Act, and that it was only by proceeding under the Emergency Powers Act that it was possible to deal with the situation with which we are faced and not by introducing a Bill, for the introduction of a Bill would have precipitated the calamity which we are striving to avert. I should like also to deal with the allegation made by Deputy Everett, because that allegation, if not answered, would imply that I was prepared to acquiesce in what is virtually an accusation of bad faith on the part of the Government and of deliberate victimisation of workers as against professional men. The circumstances of that case are very simple and very clear.

There is one gentleman, according to what Deputy Everett said there may have been two gentlemen, in the part-time service of the Wicklow County Council. They are paid a retaining fee, or a salary, of £200 per annum, plus fees. They are, as I have said, part-time employees and they carry out not only the work of the county council but they engage in private practice as well. For a very long time the Department of Local Government has been trying to bring that position to an end. The Wicklow County Council itself has recognised how disadvantageous it is to the county council and they have been trying to bring it to an end also. So advantageous to the gentlemen concerned was this arrangement that, over a considerable number of years, in addition to this fixed salary of £200 they have drawn fees running into four figures. In order to bring that situation to an end, it has been necessary to put it up to them that they must become whole-time servants of the county council in a subordinate position. Quite obviously, you are not going to get gentlemen, who are in the advantageous position which I have recounted, to abandon that position at a sacrifice, at what might be described as an enormous sacrifice. You are not going to get gentlemen who have each drawn a salary of £200 plus fees running into four figures to take a position at £400 a year.

Ultimately it was decided by the Local Government Department to offer one of these gentlemen—as I say there may have been two involved—an appointment as whole-time assistant surveyor. He had been, remember, a part-time assistant surveyor, drawing a salary of £200 plus fees running into four figures. The Department offered him a salary as assistant surveyor of £400 a year and a grant, in lieu of fees, of an allowance of £150. Therefore, a sum of £550 was the total which this gentleman would receive in future.

The Deputy who has spoken is a member of the county council. One would have thought that that agreement was advantageous from the point of view of the county council but it did not satisfy the county council because they thought, not that it was not sufficiently advantageous to the Wicklow County Council, not because they thought it was advantageous to them, but not sufficiently advantageous to the gentleman concerned. Nothing has been decided in the matter so far because a request has been made to the Department of Local Government to increase the amount, but it is quite clear that what has been done has not been to increase the remuneration of these professional men employed by the county council but to reduce it very drastically.

Mr. Everett

The Minister is making a mistake.

Mr. Murphy

The Minister never makes a mistake.

Mr. MacEntee

This order has been commonly referred to as a standstill order. I think that it was more correctly described by Deputy Keyes, who referred to it as a cease-fire order. That is what it is intended to be—an order which asks members of the community as a whole, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, to cease firing upon one another, which asks that those amongst the most highly paid elements in the community should cease fire upon those who are lowly paid and upon those who are in receipt of no payment at all.

In the course of his remarks Deputy Norton referred to the fact that low wages mean a low demand for certain essentials of life. Developing that argument, one might say that high wages mean a high demand for commodities which are necessary to maintain life and that increasing wages would mean increasing demands upon these commodities. All these demands, whether high or low, might be satisfied in normal circumstances without doing any great injustice to any other section of the community, but in the circumstances in which we find ourselves to-day, in which there is likely to be a decreasing output of commodities for the common consumption of the nation, it is quite clear that these increasing demands upon that diminishing pool can only be met at the expense of those persons who are not in a position to command high wages, who are in fact in a position in which they cannot command any wages at all. That is to say, if we were to permit those who are in secure positions, and who are drawing high wages because they are in secure positions, to continue to make these demands upon the community in general, the result would have been to hive greatly worsened and depressed, even to a greater degree than when they first became unemployed, the standard of living of those who are unfortunate enough to be without jobs.

To be without a job is not going to be in the circumstances which will confront the nation, in so far as we can foresee them, an uncommon position in this country. Unfortunately, no matter what Deputy Norton may say about putting more people to work upon schemes which would develop the natural resources of this country, the fact remains that a considerable amount of unemployment is inevitable in the country. In so far as we can foresee the future, in so far as the present situation, in which we are virtually shut off from all commercial intercourse with the world outside Great Britain, continues, it is clear that there is going to be a very large number of persons who have been engaged in specialised occupations in this country, thrown out of employment. There is no use in saying to me that you can send out to the countryside a person who has been engaged in the textile industry, a cotton operative, say, who has been thrown out of employment because there is a shortage of cotton yarn, and because supplies of cotton yarn cannot be secured, and that you can put that person to work planting trees, draining bogs, or making roads, be that person man or woman, because this unemployment is naturally not going to be confined to males. There will be unemployed all sorts and conditions of people, people who, as I have said, have been tradesmen, who have been in skilled occupations, who have been in clerical occupations, who have been rendering professional services of one sort or another to the community, are going to face unemployment, and there is no use in Deputy Norton getting up and making the glib remark: "Why does the Government not set all these people to develop the natural resources of the country?" Some of them could not do the work. They have not got the physique to do any sort of manual labour. Others have been trained in specialised avocations, and there is no use sending a man who has been trained as a boot and shoe operative, a cotton operative, a tailor or a garment worker out, as we have tried to do, to do work, and particularly heavy manual work, to which he ie completely and wholly unaccustomed.

Mr. Norton

It is a good job you did not bring back the emigrants from America.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy Corish referred to the position of the very lowly-paid workers. I am quite prepared to say that there are many anomalies in connection with this order, but the order is a blanketing order, designed to stabilise the position for the time being in order to see what we can do to deal with it and to prevent its deteriorating further. It is all very well to say that the workers in many occupations have exercised an admirable self-restraint and nobody is prepared to admit that more readily than I or to pay a greater tribute to it, but not all the workers have been self-restrained. A short time ago, I was confronted with the position in which those engaged in an industry which supplies a vital commodity to the people were making demands and had already threatened to strike. Fortunately, the strike was averted and another course taken, but the case was made to me— in connection with the demands which these workers were making and which, if they had been conceded, would have been reflected in an increase in the cost of living of every person in the City of Dublin, and in the areas supplied from Dublin by this particular industry—in the discussions I had with the representatives of these workers that they were entitled to an increase because the cost of living had gone up for them. They pointed out that the cost of boots had gone up, that the cost of gas had gone up, that the cost of commodities like meat and butter had gone up, and they said: "Because these have gone up, we have to increase the price of bread, because we have to get an increase in wages, to enable us to live as we are accustomed, too." I saw that there had been increases conceded to other groups of workers, that there had been increases to gas workers and other elements in the community, all of which increases in wage costs had been reflected in the cost of living. Was I to say to these men, who were making a ease based on the fact that other people had got increases of wages and that these increases had resulted in an increase in the cost of living for them: "Very well, you go ahead and take your increase. Send up the price of bread, if you like, to every man in the City of Dublin," and was I to say subsequently to everybody who came to me looking for an increase in his remuneration because the price of bread had gone up: "No, you cannot get it. Although we have allowed the bakers to increase your cost of living, we are not going to allow you to compensate yourself for that increase at the cost not only of them but of every other element in the community"? That is the position which was developing.

Let me be quite clear about it again. I must say that, in relation to the situation as it has existed for the past 12 months, since conditions in this country really became critical, that the general mass of the workers have behaved with admirable restraint in that regard and I have never for a moment suggested otherwise, but that restraint has not been universal. On the contrary, there have been certain sections who have not behaved with such restraint. There are those who were in secure employment, those whose future was not being rendered uncertain by reason of diminishing supplies, those who were in the position of these workers to whom I have referred who knew that bread would have to be baked, gas supplied and other commodities obtained, who, because these things were forthcoming in very large measure, never anticipated that there would be unemployment in their trades and who, because they were in key industries, were inclined to endeavour to preserve their ordinary standards, and naturally so. because, when we find that the amount of money we have to spend on this or that commodity is reduced, we are all. inclined to try to get more money so as to maintain our former standards. And what was going to happen in the end? We are going to have what Deputy Dillon has rightly described as this vicious spiral and we were going to have the wages of an ever-diminishing number going up at an ever-increasing rate, while, at the other end of the scale, we were going to have men being pushed out of employment day after day to swell the ranks of the unemployed, the ranks of those living on what is, admittedly, the miserable pittance of unemployment assistance, but which is, in the circumstances of this community, the utmost we can afford. Therefore, so far from this standstill order being a refusal to look after the under-dog, as Deputy Morrissey proclaimed, it is really an earnest attempt to look after the under-dog and to safeguard his interests.

Mr. Morrissey

Do not be talking that sort of balderdash.

Mr. MacEntee

I want, Sir, to continue this speech, because I want to say one or two other things of some importance, too. I am quite prepared to admit that the case of the lowly paid worker has been of very grave concern to us. A case has been made here in regard to the man getting 35/- a week. Deputy Corish instanced the case of the man getting 15/- a week, and other Deputies have spoken of the man with 20/- a week.

Mr. Corish

Say £l a week.

Mr. MacEntee

I know that the case of the man drawing 35/- or 40/- a week was mentioned when I met a deputation from the Trade Union Congress. I do not want to defend these low wages, but I want the House to remember that, very often, in the case of a man with a job here in the city at 35/- or 40/- a week, there may be an element of compassion in his employment, and I do not think that, even if I were to exempt that man from the operation of the order, his position would be bettered. It does not, however, appear to me to be right that these particularly hard cases should be caught in the order and I have been trying, in the interviews I have had with the representatives of the Trade Union Congress and the Dublin Trades Council, to get from them some constructive suggestion that would enable me to deal with that situation and with one or two other anomalies which exist.

Deputy Norton suggested that this order would not have been so bad if we had exempted certain low scales of wages from its operation, and I agree with him, but supposing we had done that: supposing I had said that in certain districts, provided the wages do not exceed 40/- or somewhere about that figure, then the order does not apply or that, in certain other districts, provided the wages do not exceed a certain higher amount, the order will not apply, what would be the criticism? It would be alleged that the Government was fixing these amounts as a standard rate of wages. Now that is the one thing that the Government do not want to do, because if we fixed that wage, perhaps there might be an attempt on the part of some people to convert this order, not into a "cease-fire" order, as someone suggested, but into an instrument for the reduction of wages, and they might have done that if we had mentioned figures. If, however, we cannot find some way of dealing with these anomalies I feel that we are bound to make some such order, even though it may be wrongly alleged that we are keeping wages low. Because I have to take into consideration not merely the position of the men drawing a low wage, but that of the employer who may not be able to pay his workmen any higher wage, I cannot take upon myself the responsibility of fixing a high figure in present circumstances when as has been said here—as has been admitted hy one of the Deputies who spoke from the benches opposite, Deputy Mulcahy, I think—one of the difficulties is going to be that there are many employers in Dublin who are keeping men in employment whom, in normal times, they would get rid of. In fixing any figure under this order I do not want to impose what might be regarded by employers as the last straw. I want to keep as many men as possible in employment—in well-paid employment, if we can, but in lowly paid rather than in no employment at all, if we must.

Now, with regard to the tribunal, I do not think I shall have time to deal with the tribunal except briefly, because I know that Deputy Davin is going to wind up the debate, and I do not want to encroach on his time.

Mr. D. Morrissey

The Minister still has time to deal with high prices.

Mr. MacEntee

With regard to the tribunal, first of all I want to say this: It has been alleged that I am in favour of compulsory arbitration because of something that I said somewhere—in the Seanad, I think. I think it was being urged on me there that we should establish some form of tribunal of this sort, and I said that we had thought all that out, and that the person who suggested it had not thought it out, because, if he had, he would have realised that, in view of all the factors that would have to be taken into consideration, it would be setting that tribunal, in present circumstances, an almost impossible task. Such a tribunal, in present circumstances, could not deal with wage claims coming before it, in view of all the factors that would have to be considered, such as the effect on the cost of living, the effect upon prices, the effect upon the economic life of the country generally, the effect upon the efficiency of industry, and so on. It could not possibly deal with all these factors in respect of every wage application that would come before it to-day, and accordingly it would be impossible for that tribunal to function, and it wou1d be alleged that we were setting up that tribunal merely to prevent any decisions, being come to upon these applications.

Mr. D. Morrissey

The Minister has one minute left to talk about high prices.

Mr. MacEntee

I am going to talk about a matter that has greater relevancy to this order than the question of high prices. Deputy Norton suggested that, perhaps, the right way for us to proceed in this matter would be to allow employers and employees, or their representatives, to come together and arrive at an agreement for keeping down costs, and, consequently, I presume keeping down prices, and, following upon that again, keeping down the cost of living.

Mr. Norton

No. I suggested that the Government might discuss with employers and employees, or their representatives, a wages policy and a prices policy with a view to arriving at a method of adjusting the one to the other.

Mr. MacEntee

I may have taken the Deputy up wrongly, but I understood him to say that the right way to deal with the matter would be for employers and employees to come together, under Government auspices if yon wish, and try to deal with the dangers in the present situation. I was going to say that it is a suggestion well worth considering, but it is a suggestion that has not been made so far by those representing either the workers or the employers. If that suggestion does come from a body competent to speak for the workers on the one hand, and for the employers on the other hand, I am prepared to consider it very sympathetically with a view to seeing whether, in so far as the purpose of this order can be secured, we can control the only controllable factors making for an increasing cost of living. The purpose of this order is to control the only controllable cost factors in this country. We cannot control the prices of raw materials imported from outside the country, We cannot control, for instance, the price of coal. We have to take it at any price at which we can get it.

Mr. Hickey

Oh!

Mr. MacEntee

I know that Deputies Hickey and Morrissey would like to send an army of occupation over to Wales to occupy the Welsh coal mines, but we cannot do that. As I say, so far as imported commodities are concerned, it is impossible for us to control their prices. In the present circumstances, we have, virtually, to take these imported commodities at whatever price is asked for them. The only two factors that we can control, in relation to costs here, are wages and profits, and we are endeavouring to control both.

Mr. D. Morrissey

Not at all.

Mr. MacEntee

We are trying to do both. We are controlling profits directly, through the Prices Commission, and we are controlling wages through this order, and in so far as these controls are not effective we are controlling the distribution of profits, and over and above that, in so far as there are any excess profits made, we are taking them from the person who has made them, by means of the Excess Profits Order.

Mr. Davin

The introduction of this measure, under cover of Budget requirements, is, in my opinion and in the opinion of my colleagues, a breach of the understanding under which this Government received the powers contained in the Emergency Powers Order. This measure, I think, can be properly described as a brother-in-law of the Trade Union Bill which the Minister introduced and baptised at the same time.

The Minister, under the powers sought by him in connection with the Trade Union Bill, proposes to reorganise the trade unions of this country and, having done so, to make use of the drastic powers contained in this measure to prevent the reorganised unions from exercising their normal functions. The 300,000 industrial and other workers who know they are going to be affected by the contents of that Bill do not require a lecture as to what it means. I know of no measure or measures introduced during my membership of this House that have caused more commotion and consternation in the ranks of the workers of this country than the Trade Union Bill coupled with this Emergency Powers Order. When the members of this group here, representing over 100,000 of the electors of this country, gave the powers contained in the Emergency Powers Order to the Government, they knew they were giving these powers to a Government that was a Party-minded Government, a Government that had made use of the machinery of Government for Party purposes over a long period. Notwithstanding that, we gave them these powers after the Taoiseach, in this House, had given certain undertakings that they would not be used for certain purposes. The introduction of this order, without any previous consultation with the representatives of any other Party in this House, under cover of a Budget requirement, is a breach, as I say, of the spirit that prevailed at that particular period.

As a matter of fact, this particular order was introduced under the cloak of secrecy, and the copy of the order which was coupled with the General Budget Resolution was not supplied to members of this House until several days after it was mentioned by the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech. That is certainly a breach of the procedure that is normally carried out in this House by Ministers, apart from the breach of the understanding that existed at the time in connection with the powers contained in the Emergency Powers Order. The Minister for Supplies has a record in the political life of this country for telling many stories which do not always relate to the facts. The Minister for Supplies, speaking to a selected audience of less than 30 persons—I am reliably informed there were less than 30 people present—at a meeting called for, I suppose, a political purpose, in the Central Hotel, a couple of weeks ago, said this measure was introduced for the purpose of protecting the interests of the workers as well as the workless.

This is a measure which the Minister must know puts an end to the function of trade unions in regard to questions a Seeking demands for increased wages and interferes with the normal practice of employers and workers regarding the method of dealing with applications for increases in wages, whether during normal times or during a period of emergency. I know that the Minister for Industry and Commerce—and most of the Deputies in his own Party know—glories in talking about the runtents of the Papal Encyclicals, and that he takes great pride, whenever he gets an opportunity, of talking about tho lovely language contained in our written Constitution regarding the rights to organise and the rights of citizens generally. I wonder did he ever read paragraph 34 of the Papal Encyclical which says: "Let the working man and the employer make their agreements and, in particular, let them agree freely as to wages." That particular section of the Papal Encyclicals will go by the board as a result of the contents of this drastic Emergency Powers Order introduced here under false pretences.

The Minister on one famous occasion in this House—and outside the House —made a most uncalled-for attack upon the monetary policy of one of the Commonwealth Governments and, in concluding the statement he made on that particular occasion, he prophesied that the Government concerned would collapse in the very near future as a result of pursuing a certain financial policy. The Government of the country concerned, that is, the New Zealand Government, has raised the rates of wages of every one of its workers during the past 21 months, and the latest information about the wages of the lowest paid sections of the workers in New Zealand is that the agricultural worker in New Zealand is in receipt of a weekly wage of £3 12s. 6d. a week for a 48-hour week. The Minister made that statement at the time, believing it to be true, that the wage policy and monetary policy pursued by the New Zealand Government would lead to collapse for the same reasons as he has advanced here to-night in connection with the justification or attempted justification for the maintenance of this particular standstill, or what I would like to call starvation, order. In New Zealand, notwithstanding the fact that the wages of all classes of workers have been raided during the past 21 months, that every man fit for work in New Zealand is in a job and in receipt of high wages, the increase in the cost of living there between August, 1939, and August, 1940, is only 4 per cent. compared with the increase in the cost of living here of 17 per cent., under this glorious economic and financial policy of our Fianna Fáil Government.

I could, perhaps, as I said when speaking here on the general Budget Resolution, attempt to justify the introduction of a policy of this kind if it was very closely related to an order making provision for a standstill in prices. I am amazed, therefore, to learn from the concluding portion of the Minister's reply that it appears no attempt will he made to bring in effective machinery for the control of the necessaries of life. There can be no acceptance of the principle or the terms of the existing order, so far as we are concerned, unless it is closely related to a standstill order on prices and profits. I know of a number of cases where this order is going to hit very hard some of the lowest-paid sections of workers in this country and some of them who are supposed to be in what the Minister calls sheltered occupations. I have here a letter written to me on behalf of 500 workers employed on Clonsast Bog, where the lowest-paid section, a very large section, of the workers employed there have been, for a considerable time, in receipt of a wage of 8d. per hour or, for full-time work of a 48-hour week, 32/- per week. The writer of this document, I am reliably informed, was, in the last election, one of the strongest supporters of the Fianna Fáil Government in that area. He has written to me at the request of 500 organised workers, protesting against the introduction of this Emergency Powers Order. He says:

"We view with alarm the laws and Bills imposed on us by the present Government. We think the Government have become a proper dictator. They told us a few years ago Ireland was a land flowing with milk and honey and if they were put in power they would develop the country and give a proper living to all workers. What the workers really want is a week's wage for a week'a work. No man could live or exist on the wages paid here in this industry. If the situation is not overhauled it will develop to something like Russia 20 years ago."

I would also try to bring the Minister's mind back to the workers employed in the so-called sheltered industry, namely, the railway industry. Is he aware that in this so-called sheltered industry, the railway service, there has been no dividend paid to the ordinary and preference shareholders in the past 12 or 14 years? That under the terms of the Emergency Powers Order the railway company, that has not paid a dividend to its ordinary shareholders for 12 years, can now pay a dividend up to 6 per cent. to its shareholders, while at the same time the Emergency Powers Order will compel railway workers living in this city to continue to try to survive on a miserable wage of £2 2s. 9d. a week?

Mr. MacEntee

Is the Deputy advancing that as a serious argument?

Mr. Davin

Is the Minister aware that railway workers are employed at that miserable wage?

Mr. MacEntee

Will the Deputy tell me where the railway company is going to get the 6 per cent. dividend?

Mr. Davin

The Minister, under the Emergency Powers Order, is prepared to allow the companies, which have not paid a dividend for that period, to pay up to 6 per cent. and, at the same time, keep the workers down to the starvation wage of £2 2s. 9d. a week. We are determined, whether the Minister agrees to annul this order or not, to carry this campaign out to the workers of this country and to tell them what the meaning of the Government's financial and economic policy is as far as they are concerned and to carry on that agitation until we teach the Minister for Industry and Commerce some kind of commonsense which will compel him to withdraw this order.

Question put.

The Dáil divided:—Tá, 37; Níl, 56.

Tá

• Bennett, George C.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Byrne, Alfred.
• Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
• Cogan, Patrick.
• Corish, Richard.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Costello, John A.
• Daly, Patrick.
• Davin, William.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Esmonde, John L.
• Everett, James.
• FitzgeraId-Kenney, James.
• Giles, Patrick.
• Hannigan, Joseph.
• Hickey, James.
• Hurley, Jeremiah.
• Keating, John.
• Keyes, Michael.
• Linehan, Timothy.
• Lynch, Finian.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Morrissey, Daniel.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, Timothy J.
• Nally, Martin.
• Norton, William.
• 0'Higgins, Thomas F.
• Pattison, James P.
• Redmond, Bridget M.
• Reidy, James.
• Reynolds, Mary.
• Rogers, Patrick J.
• Ryan, Jeremiah.

Níl

• Allen, Denis.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Benson, Ernest E.
• Brady, Brian.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Buckley, Seán.
• Carty, Frank.
• Childers, Erskine H.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Crowley, Tadhg.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• Dockrell, Henry A.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Fogarty, Patrick J.
• Fuller, Stephen.
• Gorry, Patrick J.
• Hogan, Daniel.
• Keane, John J.
• Kelly, James P.
• Kelly, Thomas.
• Kennedy, Michael J.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Kissane, Eamon.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick J.
• Loughman, Francis.
• Lynch, James B.
• McCann, John.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Meaney, Cornelius.
• Morrissey, Michael.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Mullen, Thomas.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O'Loghlen, Peter J.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Rice, Brigid M.
• Ruttledge, Patrick J.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Conn.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Keyes and Hickey; Níl: Deputies Smith and Kennedy.

Motion declared lost.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m. until Friday, 27th June, at 10.30 a.m.