This is an important Estimate. It is an Estimate on which one likes to speak, because one can speak to the head of the Government. It is a very useful thing to be able to speak to him, because he is more or less a man concerned with all the Departments and to get his ear is certainly something worth while. I am satisfied that for the last ten years or more the Taoiseach must have been a very sick and tired man, because some years ago he aimed at big and noble things and I believe he meant well. I believe that if he could put them into effect, as he really thought he could, this country would be a place worth living in. But, definitely, something has happened. After 25 years of a native Government we find that things are not at all happy or well in this country; things are very sickly in this country at present. The Taoiseach will have to tell us whether something has gone wrong. What has become of all the plans he put before the people and the House? Why can he not put them into operation? Is it lack of finance or lack of national spirit, or what is the matter? At present we have a country with practically undeveloped national resources, a country which has gone lopsided, where the agricultural economy has practically "gone burst," as the saying is, and where industrial development has gone out of bounds and got into an uncontrolled position. That industrial development has taken the whole attention and finances of this State away from the land which is the primary industry of the country and taken away the people to the cities and big towns where the whole rush of money is. If we had a balanced economy we would have a tendency to go from the city industries back to the land.
No matter what industries we start here, agriculture should be given premier place. Until that stage is reached I do not believe we will have any normal development of the agricultural areas. Emigration we will always have. Every nation which is progressive must increase in population and must spread out.
Therefore I am not against a normal flow of emigration. It is good for the world that people should flow here and there like the tide and get new ideas. But I am not satisfied with emigration on the vast scale which we have at present. We should have curbed emigration from this country to a bigger extent. Emigration at present is too vast. It has become a national canker or sore which will have to be eradicated from the life of the nation. We will have to keep emigration within normal bounds and keep more of our people at home. I do not see why we should not be able to do it. It should be possible to do it with healthy industries and our people working as they used to work in the past. I believe they are not working like that to-day. Our people have become more or less soft and sloppy. They want to get things more easily. In the past they had to work for a living and they were better off. We had a bigger population and we were able to give more facilities to that population. They went along in a more easy and peaceful way and money did not really count with them. In fact a man could live in the country with very little money.
At present money seems to be the dominating factor. While money holds that position I do not think we will see much development. Everybody's idea is to get money and, when they have money, it is of very little use to them. I know people with vast amounts of money and they are the most unhappy people in the country. Other families are living in a small meagre way, barely able to pay their way, but they are really happy people. They may not have £5 on a Saturday night to spend but they certainly are happy. I should like to be shown the rich man who is happy. You will always find that he is grabbing for more and more. He generally dies more or less in misery in the midst of plenty. He is loaded down with money and it is no use to him. This country should be built up in a small, normal way by getting away from money and by getting back to the plain, happy family life. If we could do more for the ordinary family man we could put this country on its feet. We have started from the top, which is the wrong way. We are told that you must creep before you walk. We jumped to our feet far too soon.
This country is at least 100 years behind other countries. That is not our fault, but we should realise that we have 100 years of leeway to make up because of 700 years of domination by a foreign Power. We were kept down by every means in their power. Now we have got our freedom. We have jumped to our feet too quickly and gone too far ahead. If we went at a slower and more normal pace this country could give a better living to its people. Indeed, we should be able to provide for 5,000,000 more people in this country. If we thought more of the smaller things and less of the bigger things we would make some headway.
I do not want to criticise the Taoiseach because I think he means well, but I believe our whole national policy is wrong. That applies to every side of the House. As I said, we are aiming too high. We have reached a stage where the agricultural industry which should be in the premier position and paying the best wages is in the worst position and paying the worst wages. There is something wrong there which will have to be put right, whether by this Government or some other Government. We have a false wage policy. We have new industrial development at a rapid rate. I am glad to see that happening, but not in the way it is happening. In the towns and cities we have gossoons of 18 years of age going into factories and earning £3, £4 or £5 a week and going as far as £8 a week, while the agricultural workers, the most important of all, are getting less than £2 a week when living in the farmers' houses. That is certainly wrong. There will have to be a revolutionary change in this country. We will have to see that agriculture takes its rightful place, because if you have men in the cities and towns earning from £4 to £10 per week you will not be able to keep people in the country districts working twice as hard for £2 per week. That is one of the biggest snags we have to contend with. We will have to tackle it and I think this House as a body should tackle it, irrespective of politics.
We will have to thrash out a decent national policy which we can all stand over. There is no reason why we should not. We have been wrangling for 25 years and it has brought us nowhere. The day has now come to consider things more calmly and to have more love for each other. Let us admit that we have failed. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour have all failed in giving the people the right to live on the right lines. We should have a decent national policy which we could all stand over. Unfortunately politics takes too big a place in this country. Everybody has a better plan than the others, and when the plans are tried out they are found to be all wrong. No Party should go before the electorate with a policy unless they are able to implement it when they get into power. That is where I believe Fianna Fáil failed.
They may have meant well in 1932. They had theorists who told them that this and that could be done and that not alone could we provide a living for the people in the country, but we would have to bring our people back from America, the Argentine and other places. They were not able to do it. The plan has flopped and our people have become disheartened and dis-spirited. They say: "Why did we ever fight for freedom? Since we got our freedom we are worse off than before. We are hedged around by regulations and red tape. When the British were here we had more freedom." I believe that that is a fact. We have not given our people what we promised to give them. We should give up these high-falutin campaigns all over the country telling the people that this could be done and that could be done. Very few of these things can be done.
Take the position of our national finances and the strength of the country. At best we can do very little. The resurrection of this country will take a long time to accomplish. The industrial development we have had has done an immense amount of harm. I would like to see industrial development carried out on orderly and progressive lines. I would not allow one foreigner to come in unless he is a technician. I would not allow foreigners to control the destinies of this country. We should have Irishmen and Irish money purely. If we observed that rule in the past we would have very little trouble to-day. The City of Dublin is practically controlled by foreigners. We have nothing but foreign money and foreign investors. If it was sold out in the morning 90 per cent. of the wealth of Dublin would be brought to Palestine. We have let the Jewish grip get hold on us. I have nothing against them, but they have got a hold and some Government in the future will have to smash it.
I am not out to attack anybody, but what I say is quite true. There is not a decent shop in Dublin that is not owned by a foreigner. That system is wrong. I am not saying that out of spite; I am merely stating the facts. The ordinary man who endeavours to do something in this country cannot get an opportunity. Big money, chain-store money, is used to oust the Irishman. Industrial development is carried on here, not under the name of the man with the money, but under some Irishman's name. The business will be run by Paddy So-and-so, but right behind him is the foreign monopolist pumping in the money. The Irishman's name is over the door and he gets a living out of it, but it is a mean, skulky living. Any man who is not able to stand over his own name should not get any privileges.
One of the principal things that has gone wrong in our country is our educational system. I am sorry the Taoiseach is not here to speak on that subject. I want to draw attention to it, not so much from my own point of view as from that of a pioneer in the County Meath, one of the most able men in this country. He is a pioneer in the same sense as Father Hayes, who started Muintir na Tíre, and Father O'Flanagan, who established Boys' Town. I refer to Father Clavin, Parish Priest of Longwood, County Meath. He has ideas which, if put into operation, would resurrect this country almost in a year or two. He started in a small way and he has already brought great benefits to the people. He has established among them a sense of self-respect. He has certain ideas with regard to the vocational system of education and he suggests the dove-tailing of vocational education with the national school system. He intends to urge that that should be done and, if it is possible, he is anxious to see the Taoiseach on the subject. He knows it can be done but he realises that he will have to cut a lot of red tape in order to get it done.
He wants to have a new class-room built in every national school so that the system of education there can be dove-tailed into the vocational system. He does not want big vocational buildings unless, perhaps, in the larger towns and cities where they may be needed. He wants the national school to be the pivot of our educational system and he wants the new system worked in such a way that school managers will not have to face a crux every now and then. He believes that if his system is adopted we could resurrect this country overnight. We have spent vast sums on vocational education for the last quarter of a century and we have got a very poor return. We are really working on wrong lines.
If the Taoiseach will consider some of the things I am saying, it is my belief that he can do a good deal, even at this late hour, to get back to the ordinary Irish life. We have failed because we have not looked after the family man. The family man is neglected. At the present time we find in many places very unhappy families. Eighty per cent. of our small cottiers and small farmers are living in a miserable condition. You will find in the case of cottiers that they are living on bread and tea. That is a miserable condition of things. In their garden plots you will not find a dozen heads of cabbage and you will not see any pigs or poultry around the cottage.
The little cottage industries which flourished in past years are all dead. The priest whom I mentioned wants us to forget all our big ideas about buildings. If you have money to spend, give the little cottage industries a chance. At present we are building vast sanatoria. We are told that tuberculosis is increasing. I admit it is. Why is the disease increasing? I suggest it is because we are not looking after the plain man. If you attend to the health of the plain man and woman and their little families, you will need very few sanatoria. Establish health in the home unit and try to make their system of living such that they will not look to Dublin, Cork or Limerick but will prefer the home life.
Nearly all our young country girls and boys—a good deal of them have brains and a good deal of them have not—go in for a clerical education and learn typewriting and shorthand and book-keeping. Some of them get jobs in Dublin at a few pounds a week. If you meet them on a Saturday or a Sunday they have hardly a bob in their pockets. Very often the people at home have to pay for their "digs." If you re-establish cottage industries these people would make far better money and they would live a cleaner, healthier and happier life. They would have parental control and the parish priest would look after their welfare and in that way we could revolutionise our whole system.
You can see Dublin spreading like an eagle spreads her wings. Foreign money is coming in and taking over the city. The poor Irish people are hewers of wood and drawers of water for the big monopolists. We shall have to stop that type of development. Many people suffered severely to achieve the resurrection of this country, but we have not got that resurrection. Our experiments have resulted only in failures. We should not be failures. We have one of the most fertile lands in the world. I agree it is partitioned and we have to keep costly administrations in two parts of the country. I agree that we will never get the ideal State until Partition is removed. At the same time, we in the Twenty-Six Counties should be able to have a better State than we have. We should be able to hold up our heads and, after 25 years of freedom, show progress. We should be able to stand on our own feet and be in a position to say that we care for nobody, outside or inside, that we can pay our way and live happy lives and rear a bigger and better population. Can we say that to-day? We certainly cannot. Therefore I maintain that there is something wrong nationally. Financial considerations have to a great extent held us back.
I am not saying that it is Fianna Fáil that holds us back. If Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour were to evolve a policy, at the end of the period of trial of that policy, we would arrive at the same stage. Fianna Fáil have tried a policy for a long time and the stage we have reached now is practically the stage where Cumann na nGaedheal left off. I am not saying that Cumann na nGaedheal had a great policy. It was only a middling policy. They did not put into effect all that they could have. It all boils down to the fact that it is from the land the people will be resurrected, through the ordinary people living on the land. Therefore, the Taoiseach, who has been the responsible head of the Government for the last 15 years, has a good deal to answer for if he has to stand up here and admit failure. I know that it is a thing he will not like to do but I would prefer that he would admit that there is something wrong. I agree that the war, for five or six years, upset the equilibrium but there is no use in sheltering behind the war. The fact remains that we had failed before ever the war started.
I have put this idea before the Taoiseach, and I think he would be the first to adopt it if he thought it was a good thing. As I have already said, this priest in County Meath has established a cookery class. Before he started the cookery class in his area he lectured from the pulpit and in any other place he could, and asked the people to get their children to buy vegetable seeds and to sow them in their own plots. He even bought the seeds for the children and they sowed them. He procured an ordinary house beside the national school and he got one of the best vocational teachers in County Meath and one of the best national school teachers in County Meath and started classes in plain cookery. About 25 or 30 pupils attended the classes.
Deputies may have seen in the Press about a year ago that this priest wrote a strong letter to the vocational education committee stating that he wanted a cookery class in the area but did not want any high-falutin nonsense. He did not want fancy pots or pans or cookers. All he wanted was a cookery class conducted on the exact lines of the kitchens in the homes of the cottier and small farmer, where there is a hearth fire made of sticks and turf, and ordinary pots and pans, even the skillet for cooking the porridge. He insisted on that and would not allow any class in his area to be conducted in a high-falutin manner. Before he started the classes he called the people of the area together and instructed them that there was one teacher in the class and, no matter what anyone knew, they must keep quiet, that they were pupils there to learn, and nothing more, that there was to be no inferiority or superiority complex there. He did that for a very good reason. On previous occasions classes had been started in County Meath. The class would start well with, perhaps, 40 pupils the first week and then those who had been at fancy classes, perhaps at a convent or some other school, would come in the first night and try to show the teacher what they knew about icing cakes and other fancy cookery, with the result that the poor, decent cottiers and the small farmers' children would feel in some way inferior and backward and would sneak out and go home. This priest would allow no nonsense or snobbery, with the result that the ordinary poor person could come there and feel proud.
I was at the closing of that class last night, and it was certainly a joy to see the co-operation between the priest, the two teachers and the pupils. If that is followed up and if a lot of nonsense is done away with, it will help to create the happiest homes in Europe. I do not see any reason why that cannot be done. There is no need to spend vast sums of money. All that is required is a resurrection of the people.
The people in this case are cooperating with the priest and giving every facility. The priest goes around to the houses to see the children cooking in their own homes, in skillets and pots, on turf fires. He will not allow high-falutin cookery classes in his area. He intends to re-open the class in October and to continue it. He has asked me to mention it in the Dáil and anywhere I can and, if possible, to get the Taoiseach interested in it. He is going to re-open the class in the winter, and he wants the Taoiseach and the higher officials of the Department to come down, on some appointed day, and he will show them exactly what his ideas are and how they can be worked out. I ask the Taoiseach, would he come down to a class like that, where new ideas are being tried out, to see if it is a success? If it is a success, would the Taoiseach and his officials consider the question as to how national education and vocational education could be dove-tailed? This priest suggests the building of a large class-room attached to every national school and the discontinuance of the idea of building large vocational schools that cost £8,000 to £20,000 and which are definitely a failure. They may be doing a little good, but they are not doing enough for the vast amount of money spent on them.
I believe it is along these lines that our people can be resurrected. To carry out this idea, large sums of money are not needed. The majority of our small farmers and cottiers do not want money in the sense that the world to-day seeks money. They can live in a decent, frugal way on the proceeds of their poultry and garden stock. They can have a peaceful, happy and contented life. In that way, we will not have the huge taxation that is crushing every one of us and we would end the idea of our young people going off to schools and getting a smattering of education and then giving the advantage of it to London, Birmingham or Dublin. We want to avoid that. We want to develop a love of the country. That can be achieved.
I would ask the Taoiseach to consider the idea of linking up the national education system with the vocational education system and to evolve some means by which these can be dove-tailed. That is the principal idea. If that can be done, it is the opinion of the priest I have referred to, and my opinion, that it will revolutionise the entire education system in this country. At the present moment we are up in the clouds, spending money at the top that would be much more usefully spent at the foundation. Now that the attention of the country is focused on the teachers and the strike it is time for the Taoiseach to consider what is wrong with the whole system. I will not say that the teachers are 100 per cent. right or that the Minister is 100 per cent. right.
