I was occupied last night when the House adjourned in endeavouring to get the House to realise that a certain difficulty which had arisen for the British as a result of the war was bound to have its repercussions here, that in fact we had already felt these repercussions and that, from what we had already experienced, we should try to find a way in which to form a judgment as to what was likely to happen in the near future and in fact possibly for a generation. In endeavouring to associate that with our own relatively small problem, but which to us is possibly as big a problem, I pointed out that the difficulty of Great Britian imposed a difficulty on us, that it raised an immediate problem and raised a problem for the next five, six, ten and possibly 15 years. I was moving on from that to point out what this country required if that problem was to be solved in a way which would be of benefit to the whole community.
To get the argument again in form, I had put to the House that it was quite clear from the British economists that the British situation was one which they represented as being of amazing difficulty. They were faced with the loss of all their old-time investments, with a decline in their supremacy at sea and with very definite competition of a most intense type with regard to all matters of insurance and other commercial matters that used to bring in moneys which bridged the gap in their visible balance of trade, which was generally against them as it was against this country. I pointed out that that difficulty had impressed itself so much upon English people that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had thought fit on recent occasions to go to various bodies and make the position clear beyond all doubt, using phrases about the country being terribly short of dollars, about the delicate balance of their economy and about how it might be completely destroyed and saying that if they in Britain were not helped to get the post-war world on its feet, the post-war world was going to collapse.
I thought it necessary to stress that certain of these economists had used such phrases as this, that the debts they had accumulated would have to be funded—words which must have an ugly sound to our ears. I read from economic journals where politer phrases were used, to the effect that these debts of the British would have to be divided into three lots. So far as they were clearly inter-Allied war debts, there would have to be cancellation; in so far as they were debts somewhat off that line but still for war purposes, they would have to be treated as if on a lend-lease basis; and finally when they came to what might be described as ordinary commercial debts which still hung heavily on their shoulders, the gentle phrase was used that the economy of the British would have to be "insulated" against any bad effects from these commitments.
There is the situation: there is an enormous difficulty facing the British, a difficulty which they must meet by expanding exports to the point of doubling the old amount of £450,000,000 or £500,000,000 worth which they send abroad. They are reduced to a situation in which they are openly talking of the cancelling out of debts, or putting them on a lend-lease basis, which is a basis of very far deferred payments and then only payments of a percentage, and finally using phrases like "insulation" and at other times the ordinary term "funding". It means that those who are owned money by England and who have old-time accumulated credits are not going to get payment at once. I do not want to impute any desire to the British to write down their £, but we must know that steadily over the last 15 or 20 years the £ has declined, and that if the repayment of what is owed by England is postponed for half a generation, the likelihood is that the £ will have depreciated to the point at which we will get in value about half what we sent out, and, as I say, we will get it late.
In that connection, I had drawn attention to one definition which I think is a very valuable definition for those who talk about sterling assets, and particularly those who pride themselves on the accumulated sterling assets which this country has, to know just what the soundness or unsoundness of that particular accumulation is. The definition I quoted was in these terms, that the £ sterling was a promise by the chief cashier of the Bank of England to pay on such date as the British Parliament might determine such sum as the British Parliament would then decide upon. In other words, they gave us I.O.U.s with no date for repayment and no sum filled in as the amount which they will repay us.
Apparently some people in this country are pleased—the Minister for Local Government certainly was quite pleased—that we should go on hoarding up these I.O.U.s with no date on them and no really defined sum set out, and that our future is soundly built when built upon these. I pointed out that that raised two difficulties, two problems, for this country. We had the immediate problem and the other problem, which will possibly endure for five, ten, 15 and possibly 50 years. They both spring from the same point, that is, that just as Great Britain on visible trade always had an adverse balance, so had this country. That means—one must simplify these matters—that both this country and England used to import more in the way of goods than the value of the goods sent out. The British amount is about £450,000,000—it goes up and down with the years, but averages about £450,000,000 per annum.
In the years before there was any distortion by reason of the economic war or anything like that, the more quiet years of 1924 to 1932—I use the word "quiet" in inverted commas and simply leave it at that, without wanting to call attention to what caused disquiet in the country at that time—on an average we imported almost £16,000,000 worth of goods more than we sent out. The most important item confronting those who have to guide this country in the next half-dozen or maybe 25 years is that fact. How did we achieve that surplus over so many years? One would think that if it were going on for so long, we were like the man living far beyond his means who would go bankrupt almost immediately. The situation, of course, was that we had enormous investments abroad— enormous from the point of view of the size of this country—and the dividends which we received from these enabled us to bridge the gap between the visible items of trade.
That means that from emigrants' remittances, from investments or from adventitious aids like the sweepstake at certain times—and now from the adventitious aids of new remittances from new emigrants—we bridged for years the gap in our trade of about £16,000,000. In those days, most of our trade went to England—not as much as Fianna Fáil succeeded in making go to England in later years, but always the greater part of it was with the United Kingdom. In the early days, it did not matter where our trade went, because, if you bought sterling, it was an international unit of currency. Sterling bought dollars, bought kroner, bought anything, and when you bought sterling, you bought, as I say, an international unit. You bought something which was certainly as valuable as will be the new unit, if any new unit of currency proceeds from the Bretton Woods Conference. We carried on trade, not merely bilaterally between ourselves and Great Britain, but multi-laterally. We traded with England for anything we got from her, but we got goods also from America, the Argentine and other places and we had a unit of currency which was as good as gold.
That situation has long since gone. This is where our difficulty links up with the British difficulty. The English are not now in the position in which they could rely on getting in the old £400,000,000 or more that they used to get as a result of their foreign investments. Their foreign investments are gone. They are transformed into debts now. In the days when they were drawing in some £400,000,000 or £450,000,000 per annum, they could easily spare us what paid our £15,000,000 even if we were going to spend that in countries outside England. That could easily be done. The British had money in plenty and foreign currencies floated in at such a rate that they reinvested a certain amount of the money each year. That situation has gone and the British are going to find it hard, desperately hard, to meet the new position. In this situation, nobody in this country with any sanity can believe that, for many a long day ahead, we can see a situation in which the old easy position will be achieved. The British now talk in terms of cancellation, a wiping out of debts; sometimes it is phrased as a "loan" from America of £1,000,000,000. Sir John Anderson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, says they do not want a loan of £1,000,000,000, but rather a gift of that amount because a loan, bearing with it the obligation of repayment, would involve calculations as to rates of interest, amortisation, etc., and they do not want to complicate the situation further in that way.
They being in that position, will anyone believe that they are going to work to pay us over the next ten or 15 years anything on account of these old credits? Can we get away from these symbols? Money after all is only a symbol; it is a very valuable symbol, a symbol we cannot do without, but the background of this talk about money is work—the production of goods and the exchange of goods. England in order to keep up her standard of living to the point at which it stood before the war—they even talk of increasing it—has to import the goods she imported before. She has got to export more goods to procure the goods she used to buy before with dividends and investments. It is going to put them to the pin of their collar to produce all these goods to get in from any of these other countries new goods. Who are we to think that the British are going to stop work for one single week out of the 52 in order to give us goods, not in return for new goods but in return for old accumulated debts owing to us by them for many years? I certainly I do not think it is same to ask them and I do no think it is sane to expect they are going to do it. We have had a number of signs and hints by various people which would indicate that much as they would like to get back to the old position their position is somewhat similar to that which obtained after the last war when Lord Balfour wrote, somewhere around 1922, that they were contemplating asking for a moratorium.
What is the reaction from that? What are we going to do about the £15,000,000 we used to get in without sending out visible goods in payment for it? The immediate problem is a very serious one. The Minister for Finance, in the course of an earlier debate last night, pointed out that if anybody thought that sterling balances were of no use for trading with the hard currency countries, he would like them to remember that we utilised sterling assets to purchase a large percentage of the goods we required in hard currency countries during the past few years. So we did, but how did we manage it? The British managed it for us. It was not due to any Minister here or to any management carried out on this side. The one thing that emerges from the table is that the British had through circumstances, particularly finance, shipping, import licences, etc., control of these matters. They so ruled the matter that although we did get goods, it was they who got them for us. We did to some extent get some goods ourselves from some of the hard currency countries but they got for us the bulk of our imports. What did they get in return? They took sometimes one-and-a-half times the value of the stuff, sometimes twice as much as what they sent back. They ruled that roost.
There is a mind behind the figures revealed by this table. For four years back the British have not allowed to come into this or any other outside country even as much as was sent out from these countries to them, let alone allowing us to cash-in in the way of goods on these old credits of ours which we have accumulated. In the last four years, taking the trade from all over the world, whatever trade we were building up in the last four years, we were forced to send out something in the region of £3,000,000 worth of goods more than we were allowed to bring in. I understood from the Minister for Local Government in a recent debate that it was proposed with happiness to continue that system. The Taoiseach told us here the other night that he was not going, hat in hand, to any other country. He has been going to England hat in hand and with a terrific hatful of goods for the British for the £3,000,000 we have got in each year in the last four years and, apparently, he is going to continue that policy. Of course, there is a difference of view on the Government Benches. The Minister for Local Government feels with Churchill that everything will come right eventually. The Taoiseach says, no; he does not like the situation but what can we do? That is the immediate problem that confronts the Government to-day.
I notice the Minister for Supplies quoted in this morning's paper as saying that the supplies position is going to be normal after another four or five years. I think that is a developing view of the position. The immediate position is to extend over four or five years. Apparently for four or five years, even if we think that the supplies position is not developing properly, we are going to continue to give the British more goods than they give us. I do not think that is right. Certainly if I thought that we were to get about even in five years the prospect might not be too bad, but have we had any guarantee as to the payment that we might expect from Britain within five years? Have we had any guarantee about payment or have we made any inquiry from Britain as to the payment of that amount which after all is relatively small? I asked questions here before on which I hoped to found a debate in regard to this matter and I was told that no inquiry was made, that we were going on the assumption that goods would be forthcoming. I do not think that is a right assumption to make. I want to draw attention to this matter. Even if we have not got any guarantee from England, if we have not entered into any conversations with them, if we have no arrangement as to the immediate future, I see no good whatever in giving the British one single pound's worth of stuff more than what she gives us. I see no good in international trade in giving a single pound's worth of goods to anybody surplus to what they give us.
I know I will be asked immediately, as if it were the only alternative, am I going back to slaughtering calves. I never slaughtered calves. That was one of the fine points of folly of the Fianna Fáil Party, and I was rather glad to notice from the speech of the Minister for Local Government the other day that he has now realised what consummate folly that was. There are other ways of dealing with calves than slaughtering them to throw them out. They may be slaughtered and made into foodstuffs for the people of this country. They may even be slaughtered and made into foodstuffs for the people of this country which the people of this country could buy if the people of this country were put into some sort of production. Nobody can say—I mentioned the phrase last night—that this country is either overfed or overworked. We have idle men, we have idle resources, and, very often, hunger through the country. Notwithstanding that, it is thought a desirable position that we have reached—that we are giving England, or countries other than England, more goods than they send us or than they promise to send us.
The bigger problem, of course, is the one that is not associated with this odd million or two that we are giving to England more than we get back from them. The big problem is: What are we going to do about the £15,000,000? In the old days we imported a certain amount of goods. As to £15,000,000 of that, we did not balance on a payment for goods we got in from investments. I suggest— of course if I am wrong in this the whole basis of my argument is destroyed—that nobody can with assurance say there is any hope that we will be allowed to get those investments going again. If we are not, what are we going to do? We used to bring in a certain amount of goods. It is possible to say that we brought in too much, and, therefore, that we could live, even at our present standard of living, without bringing in as much as we did before. I do not know anybody who will say that our standard of living was so high that we could do without those altogether and that we could live as if we never had that £15,000,000 worth of goods coming in as a result of old-time investments.
Certainly, when one examines this table, one can see how amazing the trend of Fianna Fáil economics has been. They used to talk, No. 1: as if there was no necessity for imports; No. 2: as if we could get big business done in industrial exports; and No. 3: as if they had markets for their produce other than England. This table, which was given to me in reply to a question on 4th July, denies all those old views of Fianna Fáil, and shows how they have been denied by circumstances and facts. As far as the exports to countries other than the United Kingdom in the years 1924 to 1932 are concerned, there is an average export of £2,000,000. Since that time, in 1933 to 1938—I leave out the war years; I can add them in if necessary, but they do not really, to any great extent, affect the picture—Fianna Fáil reduced that export to countries other than the United Kingdom to about £1,500,000. That is not a very big difference, but it shows the tendency. The tendency was to develop trade more and more with the United Kingdom, more and more to the exclusion of those other countries. As far as exports other than live animals, food and drink, are concerned—and that was a figure given to me in reply to a question about exports of industrial products—the situation is that in the years from 1924 to 1932 there was an average export of those industrial products of £6,000,000 per annum. Since 1933 up to the war years that has been reduced from £6,000,000 to £2,500,000.
Apart from platform talk, the reality is that Fianna Fáil has developed trade more and more with Great Britain to the exclusion of other countries, and has developed trade more and more in agricultural products to the temporary eclipse of industrial products. We have now at last, according to the statements of three Ministers, arrived at the conclusion that we must have these imports—that they are necessary for our standard of living. I ask myself then: what are we going to do? We have got to the point of trading in the main with Great Britain; we have got to the point of trading almost entirely in agricultural products; and we have got to the point of recognising that imports are necessary for the maintenance of our standard of living. What are we going to do to get the old £15,000,000 worth of goods? I hold that we cannot rely on the credits being there for us. I hold that Britain has not enough of other currency to go round to allow us to get hard currency, and I do not believe that Britain, even in connection with the sterling area, is going to work hard for us for a week or two to provide us, in her extremity, with goods, except we send goods to her in return. It seems to me that the whole tendency of Fianna Fáil has shown only one thing, that all we can hope to do is to export more goods to England, to export more agricultural goods. If we have got to get that old £15,000,000 worth of stuff in to-day, and cannot pay for it by dividends on investments, we have to pay for it by goods. That is a considerable task. We have to increase our exportable surplus, which, in the main has to be agricultural goods, by £15,000,000. In fact, we have to increase it by more. We have to increase it by whatever volume of goods would, about 1930, have brought us in £15,000,000. Of course that means a great deal more at the moment.
I should point out that trade in this country, which the Minister for Finance seems to think is on the upgrade, is, of course, declining. In 1943, we were supposed to have an import trade of £26,000,000, which, valued at 1930 prices, means only £13,000,000. In comparison to the old days of, say, £56,000,000 imports, our trade is down to £13,000,000. I do not think anybody is foolish enough to believe that we could go on living and maintaining a proper standard of living with the imports just as we have them at the moment. Accordingly, we must get exports. We either have to get exports or else tighten our belts and live on in the present narrow circumstances for many years to come. Which is it proposed to do? I do not think anybody can seriously contemplate a future in which we will live as we are. Therefore, the only thing we can hope to do is bend our backs, and see can we get more production in this country on the agricultural side, and, finally, when we have got it, will the British take it from us and at what price and when will they pay us for it? I am no believer in giving the British goods merely with the idea that some day, sooner or later, they will pay us some sum of money, whatever they may determine. I am not a believer in that policy at all. I would believe in giving them immediate trade, even increased trade, when they give us increased imports from that country in return.
Have any inquiries been set on foot in regard to that? I have asked about that, and been told "No". I even asked about a question which I thought was definitely tending towards what would be called capital goods, and got a not very satisfactory answer. At the start of the war the Minister who was then in charge of Industry and Commerce said that the only thing that was likely to be interfered with in this country if a European war broke out was supplies of raw and partly-finished materials, fuel, machinery, mechanical replacements and stores. For a self-sufficient country it was a pretty tall order that there was going to be interruption in those things. I went back to that old statement of his, and asked him what forward arrangements had been made for the importation into this country of—then I quoted the various items—raw or partly-finished materials, fuel, machinery, mechanical replacements and stores. I was told it was not clear what I meant, and that industrial firms were endeavouring to make contracts for supplies of these things and would be assisted by the Government in whatever manner was possible.
In other words, the Government has done nothing. If the Government has not done anything, what then about the great plans that we have for the future? Two at least have been mentioned. One is rural electrification, and the other is not so much a plan as a statement of fact with regard to housing. For housing, one requires timber, and for rural electrification there is a need for electrical equipment. Where is the electrical equipment to come from? There is only one country outside the sterling area that can supply it. Have we made any arrangements to get it from that country? Again, I asked in that connection a very pertinent question. Recently an arrangement has been made between England and Sweden, in which both countries have agreed to trade without there being any passage of gold between them, which was the old system. The idea is to allow a debt of something in or about £100,000,000 to be run up, but until that limit is reached no gold will be demanded, and kroner will be exchanged freely against sterling. The agreement is framed in terms of sterling against kroner. It is not stated in whose hands the sterling is. I asked whether it was thought that the agreement covered the sterling in our hands, and whether we could use it for the importation of electrical equipment, if we desired to import that equipment from Sweden. I was told that it was presumed it was.
That was the answer I got, but I suggest that the Ministry are not so stupid as all that, and must know that the Swedes themselves hold that it does not cover it. I think that the Ministry are aware of what the situation with regard to the importation of timber into this country from Sweden is, and that we are not going to get any unless we are able to pay in kroner. If we have no kroner we cannot buy much timber, and if we cannot get either electrical machinery or timber, where are we going to get the supplies that we require? I may mention, incidentally, that there is a well-authenticated story that Russia has decided that there will be no trade in timber done with this country, and that she has put a definite veto on that. As I have said, I have that as a fairly well-authenticated story. If the Minister were to make inquiries from the Timber Trade Association in England he would probably be able to get advice on that.
By the autumn it should be possible to ask the various Ministers what goods have been got into this country from the hard currency countries, or what goods that we require in the nature of capital goods, such as raw materials, partly finished materials, stores and machinery have come in. Possibly, when another four or five months have rolled by, and when the Ministry have had time to place their complacency in opposition to facts, then probably they will have got a better realisation of what the true situation is. I suggest that it is extremely serious and that our needs are not going to be given any very definite priority over the needs of the war-scarred countries and that we certainly are not going to ask people to let us get goods on the old accumulated balances of many years ago. Therefore, we must go back to increased production in agriculture. I see no hope for it except increased production in agriculture, and in a bigger exportable surplus directed to Great Britain. Before commencing on a programme like that there would have to be arrangements made with England. I understand that there has not even been an inquiry made from England to see what the situation is likely to be. I do not believe anyone thinks that we can go on as we are talking in terms of keeping up the old standard of living. If we cannot have the old £15,000,000 worth of imports, then we are going to have a lower level than we ever had before, and we all know that the old level was not anything to be proud of.
On a previous occasion I quoted, from the Report of the Inquiry into the Housing of the Working Classess in Dublin, the significant paragraph 133, and the reference in appendix 17. In that appendix there is set out a summary of 10,500 families in and around Dublin as a sample of 33,000 working-class families, previously the subject of an inquiry in 1939, when the committee reported. It appeared that of the 10,500 families which were taken as a sample, 20 per cent. of them had incomes of from 5/- to £1 a week: almost 26 per cent. had family incomes of from 20/- to 40/- and something short of 50 per cent. of the 10,500 families, which were regarded as a good example of the total of 33,000 families, had family incomes somewhere about £2 a week. Now £2 a week in these days is the equivalent of in or about 23/- and by taking 23/- one is putting the figure high. To think of the standard of living that used to be maintained in the way that I talk of is not, of course, to say that the old standard of living was very much, but still there it was. People had to pay something out of their income in those days to meet rent, if they wanted to live any sort of a decent life at all they had to pay something in the way of insurance, they had to buy books for children attending school, and they had to buy clothes, fuel and food. In regard to 50 per cent. of the families that I have been speaking of, all that had to be done out a family wage of £2 a week, the present purchasing power of which is something less than 23/-. That is part of the situation.
In another debate in the House I read a series of extracts from statements made by doctors when we were speaking here mainly in connection with disease.
