I support this resolution with a definite reservation in respect of the second part of it. The first part asks the Government, if I may put it in a summarised way, to undertake a survey of poverty. The second part requests the Government to promote a higher standard of living amongst certain citizens. I recognise that Deputy Byrne's intention was confined to those who were unemployed or unemployable as a result of disability or in receipt of low wages but, certainly, in regard to the third group, I do not agree with him that the ideal solution would be to have their standard of living raised by making the provision set out here. I am quite certain that Deputy Byrne's view was that that was the sort of thing which would have to go on until a completely new policy was substituted for the type of policy in operation at present. I do not know what objection there can be to the first part of the resolution— a request that a survey of poverty should be made. I do not think that Deputy Byrne is insisting too much on that word "poverty". I take it that the sort of survey he has in mind is that which has been done in some of the big English towns by social reformers, such as the Rowntree Survey. If that survey were carried out by an outside body, the people who think they answer everything when they say that the £ is worth 20 shillings would be enlightened and we would have an approach to realism.
I do not think that anybody will deny the premise on which the Deputy's motion is founded — that there has been an increase in the cost of food, clothing and footwear. The Trade Journal sets out the amazing increase which has taken place in the cost of foodstuffs and the less, but still substantial, changes that have taken place in the cost of those ordinary, industrial goods which are regarded as amongst the necessaries of life. The Trade Journal does indicate that, the cost of living having gone up by a certain amount and the wages of those engaged in transportable industries—I take it that that means industrial occupations in the main—having gone up much less, the cost of living is definitely having a serious impact on those who are amongst the lowly paid members of the community and others who would not be reckoned in that class—the persons in receipt of fixed salaries or emoluments of any type. When this war came we set out with gay hopes. We were told that the face of the Government would be sternly set against profiteering, that the aim would be that people would not obtain incomes in excess of those they were enjoying in certain standard years prior to the war. It was not merely that there was to be no profiteering, but, so far as it could be achieved, incomes were to be standardised and people were not to be allowed to get ahead of their old-time income by reason of the fact that they were in a position to make money out of the exigencies of the situation. Those were the phrases used. Along with that, we were told that we were to have wages stabilised. That was the balance: there was to be no increase in profits and wages were to be kept at the same point. We were warned that, if wages began to rise, we would get this terrible spiral which is used as a sort of bogey when any question of wages arises. All spirals in wages are not bad. There is a virtue in a rising spiral of wages on certain occasions. But the spiral is always regarded as if it were going to rise and rise until we reach the old bogey of inflation. That bogey is paraded before the people, who are told that those in receipt of small wages will be the first to suffer. To avoid inflation, we were told that wages were to be kept stable and that incomes were to be stabilised likewise. The assumption was that, so far as the Government could manage it, prices would be kept steady. That was a well-dove-tailed plan. If prices were kept steady during the war, then there would be no reason why people should seek an increase in wages or an increase in profits. If prices were not kept stable, there was immediately a reason why those on the borderline of insufficiency, or below that borderline, should, at least, be saved the new hardship of having to make further sacrifices out of their inadequate resources.
The Government entered on this policy, we assume, with the hope of achieving success. One thing they did achieve was the Standstill Order in regard to wages. Some advantage was given by Bonus Orders, but the last version of that I saw in the Trade Journal showed that the gap between the increased cost of living and the increased wages was somewhere in the region of from 62 to 64 points from the pre-war period. That means that the purchasing power of the £ has gone down to about half what it was. It is only facile nonsense to say that you will get 20 shillings for £1. Nobody is bothering about the number of shillings put into a person's hand. It is what those coins buy that counts. One might as well say that one would be so much better off, if instead of getting 20 shillings, one got 40 sixpences. The fact is that, though the purchasing power of the £ has been reduced, the person concerned is getting merely 20 old-time shillings put into his hand. That is the situation at the moment.
As regards the upper end of this problem, I suppose the meanest campaign ever waged with regard to increases in salaries to people above the low level of wage-earners was that waged by the banks against their staffs. We were told at one time, when a certain demand was made, that it could not be granted, that the banks would go bankrupt if it were. The banks demanded that, if they were to give the increase demanded in the early stages, they would have to be allowed to increase the charges to their customers. The Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Finance, looked into the matter and told us that the new charges the banks were to impose were necessary. After introducing those increased charges, bits of advances were made. The staff decided that they would go further and made application to one of these tribunals. A long and involved inquiry and arbitration followed, at the end of which, with the greatest reluctance, the banks yielded that particular point.
Those are the people who, a year before that small increase was granted, got leave to increase their charges. Within the last three weeks there is not one of the banks that has not reported increased profits in the last year, while setting off the increased wages they have to pay to their staffs. They are all bemoaning the high bill they have to meet for their staffs. Notwithstanding the fact that they have added that in on one side of the account this year, there is not one of them that has not shown a net profit increase of several thousand pounds. They are all still able to pay their old 7½ per cent., 8 per cent., 10 per cent., 11 per cent. and up to 12 per cent. dividend. I am not saying that it is too much. They were able to do it before the war. But they waged a mean campaign against their staffs, and it was all based on the fact that business could not stand it. But here we find that business has stood it.
Take one other example. I have not the exact figures with me, but they can be found in the Trade Journal. The statistical system that we have indicates the wealth produced by industry. First, you get what is called the gross output of industry, and then certain overheads and other expenses of the business are taken off. When that is done, you get what is called the net output. The Trade Journal gives the division of net output. That is the clear profit of the business over and beyond all ordinary overhead charges. The division of net output pre-war, as between the proprietors of a business and the staffs, used to be about half and half. The last of these divisions in the March number of the Trade Journal for the year 1944 shows a nominal increase in net output of something between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000. That is the nominal increase because it is not graded down to pre-war prices. How is that new £5,000,000 divided? Not as the old net output used to be—half and half between employers and staff. The position now is that only 5 or 7 per cent. of it goes to the employees. The rest goes to the employers. The result is that the employers get away with something in the region of £4,500,000. That is the position although we were told at one time that the Minister was setting his face against profits going up.
What is the position of the lower end of the scale? We decided here on a rationing system and, as a necessary accompaniment to that, to have coupons. Take the case of the unfortunate married woman with six children who does the charring in a business. For her husband, herself and six children she gets the same number of coupons as the employer in a business if he is married and has a wife and six children. That is grand democracy, since both get the same number of coupons. Of course, in the shops the coupons are no good by themselves. There has to be another currency— ordinary money. The gentleman in the employing class is getting well away. He has the extra moneys to meet the rising cost of living, but the unfortunate person with a whole lot of valuable coupons, entitling her to get garments and foodstuffs, etc., for her children, has not the money, and, of course, cannot buy. The Minister has seen to that by his Standstill Order. Her husband's wages have been kept to the old standards, if we except some small increases that have been granted. In that situation there is an immediate occasion for dishonest operations. You have one person with plenty of coupons and no money to back them, and the other person with plenty of money able to buy more than the legitimate amount that his coupons entitle him to. The result is that the person with the low-grade income is tempted to sell her coupons. All these things have their impact on Deputy Byrne's motion which speaks of the hardship on many of our citizens. Of course, there is going to be hardship as long as that situation lasts.
The Minister has told us that money has not really changed in its value, and that the £ is still worth 20/-. When speaking in the House recently he complained that Deputies had construed the electricity measure as if it were a demand for £40,000,000 while, he said, the scheme that he was contemplating, if taken at pre-1939 prices, only amounted to something in the neighbourhood of £27,000,000. Then he said hurriedly that, of course, prices after the war are going to settle down at between 45 and 50 per cent. of pre-1939 prices. That is a stepping up from £27,000,000 to £40,000,000. In regard to electrical development in the future we are to reckon as regards the cost of materials and of wages, in so far as wages are put into the material that we import or the labour that we employ on the schemes themselves, that there is going to be an advance in costs of from 45 to 50 per cent. above pre-war. Up to date the Minister has been praised in such of the cold economic journals as advert to his policy at all for this: that he is quite right to keep wages down because once you let wages up it is hard to reduce them: that if you let wages up and if costs generally came down to the 1939 figure you would have a terrible time getting those who enjoyed some slight increase in wages brought back to the previous level. The other day we got from the Government an acceptance of the idea that, in the post-war world, we are going to have to live on prices that will be from 45 to 50 per cent. above the pre-1939 figure. When are we going to get wages stepped up by that amount? If there is a realisation now that we are moving towards a stabilised period post-war in which wages will be 50 per cent. above the 1939 point, are we going to jump them up all of a sudden? Surely, there is no reason behind the inhuman policy that if you raise wages now it will be difficult afterwards to get people to yield something of what they had gained during the war period. The Minister knows that prices are not being stabilised at 50 per cent. above pre-war, but at a much higher figure. Are we going to carry on until some bright day dawns when, I suppose, by the removal of the Standstill Order free rein will be given to labour organisations to pass the word to the employing associations to get a recognition of the fact that the new world has dawned with much heavier costs and prices, and only then will it be regarded as fair and desirable to step up wages? But, meantime, hardship is being worked and great injustice and wrong are being done.
Despite all that has been said about calcium, this new found miracle, the vast majority of people in this country believe that the onset of tuberculosis here is due to malnutrition and the fact that people are not able to buy as much of the protective foods as they used to. I have even heard judges comment that the new increase in crime, a very serious increase, is due to some extent and, possibly, a large extent, to the same cause. We know that there are people who have had to go through this war by depriving their children of small educational advantages that at one time they had decided to give them. One knows that amongst the lower-paid classes in the community any number of people have come through the war in this situation that they have seen all their economies of previous years scattered. Any little money they had, that they were able to invest in insurance policies or anything else, has been wasted. The Minister will have fought this war, or maintained our neutrality position during this war, by disease to some degree, by the onset of crime, by the dissipation of small men's small resources and by the deprivation that some people have had to put upon their children in the matter of education and other social conditions. Of the new nominal £5,000,000 of net output that industry in this country gives us, those at the top of the tree get all but 7 per cent. of it. Many families in this country can get a reward because of being monied, but work cannot get a reward equal to the old reward, by simply being work or service.
Deputy Byrne's motion simply glances at this hardship which has been caused, and which he bases on the increase in the cost of food, clothing and footwear. If that is what is meant by "consequent hardship" and includes all the things people have to buy here, the motion is factually correct. All a survey could do, while it would be worth while, would be to take a certain amount and adjust it to fit a new family budget; because the cost-of-living figure is based upon very old figures. We had passed that and, as between our cost-of-living figure and the very one which has to be compared with it, we had been making some small increase in the standard of living in the world and measuring up people on the old 1914 standards but without the 1914 costs. The British, of course, have outpassed us since. They have had the inquiry of which Deputy Byrne's motion speaks, and have had an inquiry into the present day budget, or rather the pre-war budget, of the working family. They have there very definitely measured up the increased standard of life and are equating the new cost to it.
The British situation, which is in sharp contrast to ours, is such that, in the last Budget which the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced in England he was forced to threaten that, by subsidies and in a variety of other ways, the cost of living would be kept in check, as wage rates increases were in advance of the advance in the cost of living. Having said that, he added that, of course, a very small fraction of the working community at the time were tied by the wage rates, because there was overtime pay, which most of the workers got, and there were piece rates, which most of them worked on also. He said the situation which they had promised to keep equal with—as our Government had promised to keep equal with—had now become so lopsided in favour of the working-class that he proposed deliberately to increase the cost of living by several points in order to have the balance preserved again. On the other side, where they have rationing and coupons and all the rest of it, the one thing they are certainly not short of is money. It is the coupon, the amount that they are entitled to get out of the store of goods preserved for the community, that is their difficulty. Any person over there who has sufficient coupons certainly does not lack one thing, that is, sufficient money to lay beside the coupons he is entitled to. We have the situation I have described, and we have, on the other side, this decision to have this new budget for the working classes. It is surely about time that we had the old figure, on which we are basing so many matters, stepped up here in order that it may reflect an increased standard of living, whether that had been achieved or not.
I know that there is quite an amount of literature written at the moment that holds out, if people advance along the lines on which it is written, a hope of a much better life for a certain section of national communities all over the world. However, most people remain a little suspicious of the strong insistence there is amongst these new pamphleteers on the nutrition standard. People are asking if it means that the new society is going to be based just on what will keep life and nothing else, or what even will keep a person in health and nothing else. In any event, can we get a budget which will be based, from the point of view of realism, upon what people in working-class families were spending their money on, whatever money they had? Secondly, we could try to get for ourselves—and we have many eminent men who can give us the figures, who can give us the materials that have to be bought and the price relating to them—the figure which the family of different sizes here ought to have, if it is to be kept in good health and nothing else. If we get that, without at all intending that that should be taken as anything but a standard—and a low standard—on which to base ourselves, then I could possibly say that Deputy Byrne's motion, when it speaks of hardship, uses a very mild word for the conditions that prevail.
I alluded in a recent debate to one other statistic that has come out recently, a most horrifying statistic, which has been produced in the Report of the Inquiry into the Housing of the Working Classes in the City of Dublin, Appendix 17—the relevant appendix in this matter. The references given in the body of the report, paragraph 133, which says:—
"Appendix 17 gives a summary, prepared by the City Manager, showing the sizes and incomes of 10,500 families taken at random from the 33,411 working class families included in the 1938/39 survey. An earlier summary of 4,000 families was also presented, but the percentage differences were comparatively slight, and it is sufficient to confine attention to the larger sample which, being one-third of the whole, may confidently be taken as representing the whole. This indicates that 20.06 per cent. of the families had incomes—"
that is, family incomes—
"from 5/- to 20/- per week; 25.49 per cent. had family incomes between 20/- and 40/- per week..."
If I stop there, it means that 45 per cent. of these 10,500 families had in 1938 something up to and lower than £2 per week. If I take the next figure, 9.48 per cent. had between 40/- and 50/- a week, and if I take these three together it means that 54 per cent. of the 10,500 families examined, being one-third of the whole who had ever been under observation, had under 50/-a week, and that is 50/- a week in the year 1938. The Minister has seen that in the main these families have got little if any increase in that 50/- since the war started; and that 50/- now is, of course, worth only something between 25/- and 30/- on what can be bought for it. The paragraph goes on to say, after giving the rest of the figures:
"A general average over all the families based on the mean of the foregoing ranges would be 48/6 per week, but it will be more enlightening to note that 20 per cent. receive less than 20/- per week and can presumably pay no rent if they feed and clothe themselves in even the most meagre fashion."
I apply that phrase not to those getting under 20/- but to those nowadays getting under 40/-, because the present 40/- is worth about the 20/- of the 1938 period. Therefore, you can take it that 45 per cent. of our people can presumably pay no rent if they have to feed and clothe themselves in even the most meagre fashion.
Of course, that again indicates the definite hardship there is in this city. It is a hardship which the Minister has done very little to mitigate. He has certainly during the war done nothing to mitigate it by the ordinary means. I am sure I will be told about all the social services. I said "little mitigation by ordinary means". A very eminent Bishop in this country recently addressed the people of his diocese when opening a new sanatorium and he said he hoped they would not be misled into any false pride; that they would not think this country's economic status was to be measured by the number of hospitals, sanatoria, or homes for various people that were being erected; that these, in fact, were signs of bad conditions; that they were something better than not having these places there if the conditions warranted them; but that nobody would really think, if he had any national pride, of bringing foreigners into this country and showing them as the mark of our civilisation a whole lot of tuberculosis sanatoria, houses for the aged and destitute, and all that type of equipment. That is the type of equipment or appliance which is the Minister's response to the conditions prevailing and which in effect Deputy Byrne calls for at the end of his motion.
I have seen a phrase recently used in some journal that nobody would ever have thought in the days when the world was going out against the slave traffic of going out to these men, on the emancipation of the slaves, and telling them that, after all, the slave had a fairly comfortable life, that he got sustained, that he was, kept at least in such bodily health as enabled him to be a good tool, something the equivalent of the machine tool at the present day. Every development considered at the moment is giving the security of the plantation to people who will submit to the discipline of the plantation. That, of course, is what the enlargement of the things at the end of Deputy Byrne's motion might mean. If we are to have increased unemployment benefit, increased unemployment assistance and further relief administered by boards of assistance, and if that is the best we can do—it may be the best we can do in the period of emergency—but if that is the best we can do in ordinary times, then that motion would almost damn itself by pessimism. Nobody regards the proposals at the end of the motion as being anything but a temporary sort of expedient. If that is the best this country has to offer to certain classes of its citizens, more unemployment benefit, more unemployment assistance and more relief administered by boards of assistance, then we should almost call back the British. It was to end all that sort of thing that many people had their hopes fired in connection with certain political movements.
I do not know what the Minister's attitude in all this matter is. I think the Minister will accept it that wages are now at half point level, that he has by his Orders put the working community and those who are in receipt of salaries and wages on half pay. That is more or less what he has done. He has not lowered the costs of living to the point that half pay would be able to meet the charges put on the old full pay. He has let that get out of hand to the point that the motion speaks of and has simply and brutally held wages fast. The Minister may say that that is the best we can do, that any other policy would mean an enormous amount of money in subsidies and that they must simply be tossed aside as impossible. If they are impossible, it means that, whatever the costs are that would be necessitated by subsidies, they are being borne in some shape or another by somebody. Certainly they are not borne by those people who run away with all but 7 per cent. of the increase in the net output of industry.
What does the Minister propose to do with regard to the future? I think, if the motion were passed, and we could get a new survey of conditions amongst working class people, we would have some starting point on which to base at least the aim of a new policy, whether effective or not. I often wondered when the Minister, in these interruptions of his says a £ is still worth 20/-, what idea has he with regard to the future. At least one or two points of enlightenment have come to him within the last four or five months. Recently there has been an appreciation of the fact that costs are not going to come back to pre-war level, that prices are not going to come back to pre-war level. It is impossible to think that people who live on salaries and wages are to be asked to pay the costs of the post-war period with the pre-war moneys. What, then, is the Minister going to do? The Minister also has apparently in recent months appreciated that this matter of sending a lot of produce out of the country in order to get credits abroad may not be just as good as a possible policy as it at one time was regarded. He seems to have got an appreciation of the fact that our sterling assets abroad may not be at our disposal when we want and as we want them. Having got that new view, does he propose to make any change in the type of distribution that is going on of whatever goods we produce at the moment, or does he think that the best thing to do is to let the drift continue, that it is too hard to stop it, that for good or evil all this money has piled up and that the little bit we might stop between this and the post-war period would not be worth talking about?
Apart from that, has the Minister any proposal dealing with employment, dealing with the occupation of people, for the future? I heard talk in this country, even from the Minister himself, of how we had even over-produced certain articles. If you think in terms of human appetite, this country has never over-produced. There was a statement in a paper at one time that the production of certain agricultural goods in County Dublin was so much; then some calculation was made of the goods that were in fact consumed in the city and, a simple subtraction having been made, it was stated that County Dublin over-produced by so much. If that had any reality, the people who used it must feel that everybody in County Dublin and in the city had got as much of their human needs satisfied as would satiate these people. That was never the position. We have never had over-production in this country if you are to think only in terms of appetite and what human wants are; what the economists call the needs of the community. Of course, we have over and over again over-produced if you are thinking, not in terms of appetite, but of appetite plus purse. If you are thinking, not of what people are able to consume, but of what they have to spend on the goods, then, of course, both in the County of Dublin and elsewhere in the Twenty-Six Counties we have had from time to time great over-production. Does the Minister intend to do anything about that?
As I understand the new policy, they founded themselves entirely upon spending and outlay, giving people enough to enable the industrialists in the town to buy whatever is produced in the way of agricultural goods in the country. It will be said that the agriculturist will not produce for the townsman who wants food; that he will only produce for the townsman who is able to buy food. Is the Minister able to tell us that the farming community is so well satisfied with the goods it gets from the towns that it could not do with a little more of them? Until he can say either one of these things, there is need for more production in the country even amongst ourselves of the things that we want here. I can see no appreciation by the Minister of that particular new line of thought, basing itself on spending, and spending, of course, of money which must be earned. Therefore, the background to that is work so that goods can be exchanged as between the people of the country. The opposite policy is the one the Minister is following.
You could see that a community has plenty of money, and see that they work for it, but that they would have plenty of money by which the townsman could buy the countryman's products and the countryman could buy the townsman's products. Or, you could put everybody on the low level of the unemployment assistance and unemployment insurance and the relief given by the guardians. In that event, there will be very small moneys in the hands of a certain fraction, but a steadily increasing fraction of the community, and they will not make very much demand on the community for the goods that are being produced. You can either step up or step down. You can do that consciously and deliberately, with purpose. The only purpose the Minister has shown, the only efficiency the Minister has shown, the only really big result he has achieved since this war started has been on the closing down of the moneys that go into the hands of certain people. He has not prevented money coming into this country in abundance. He has not prevented the effect of that, of an inflationary type, on the goods to be sold here. He has simply seen that that is channelled into a small number of hands and, once you do channel these sums of money into the hands of a limited number of people, you get an inflation; you do not get such a demand for goods as you would get for purchasing power distributed through the mass of your community.
There are two policies. You can step down and go on a meagre life and let people live inadequate lives. And when you step down one section of the community, you inevitably step down another. Or, you can go on, in a purposeful, deliberate way, to increase spending or outlay. The whole tendency, as I see it, at the moment, from the Minister, is towards restriction. The one thing that was easy for him to do was just the harsh, ruthless, rather brutal business of saying: "You will not get any more money of a certain type than you are getting." He can be praised—if he takes it for praise— for his efficiency in that matter but that, pursued into the post-war world, will bring about that condition of things that other nations are trying to put behind them. I see no change of mind in this respect.
When I welcome, as I do, Deputy Byrne's motion, it is simply for trying to get this survey of poverty made. If I accept the second part, I do it with this reservation, that it is only because in the particular emergency in which we find ourselves it may be the only way we can get over another three to six months. I would not like anybody to take the second part of that motion as meaning that we want it as a policy for the future in the post-war period.
