There is no doubt that the high rate of taxation is very largely responsible for the under-production we are faced with here. There is no doubt that the under-production in industry, and in agriculture particularly, is due to the particular policy pursued by the Government in the last 15 years. At the end of 15 years of present Government policy we find in an agricultural community the condition of affairs to which I have alluded. We are told we ought to have industries in this country. Well, we have here legitimate industries in each and every farm throughout the country. We find that those industries are practically brought to a position where they are unproductive and where the community is not able to meet any of its legitimate demands. We have not enough food in a country that could produce food in plenty. There is not enough for our own people. In that set of facts, how can the Minister have the effrontery to appeal to the workers to put their faith in increased expansion rather than in the restrictive policies which have been the cross-current of trade union activity in recent years? How can he achieve what must be achieved—the lightening and the lessening of those restrictive practices on trade union principles—unless some lead is given both by the Government first and then by the other sections of the community who are making large fortunes out of Government policies? It is useless and must appear nothing but sheer hypocrisy to the workers to ask them to produce more goods in order that the wealth of the community may be increased unless, side by side with that exhortation from the Government, there are some practical steps taken by the Government themselves to put their own house in order.
Soaring prices and high cost of living are due mainly again to the fact that particular individuals who are associated with the Government and with Government policy are given monopolies, licences, concessions and privileges which enable them to exploit the people and the people's needs. There should be an end to that and there should be equal opportunities for all. There is no doubt that there is a widespread belief, well founded, that there exists a close entente between certain sections of the business community of this country and the Fianna Fáil Party. There is no doubt that through that association and through the subscriptions given by those particular people to the Fianna Fáil Party's funds vast fortunes have been enabled to be made. If the Government is to give any lead to the workers, either in industry or agriculture, if other sections of the community are to be exhorted and to take that exhortation as being sincere, then an end must be put to those particular practices. There is no use in denying that they exist. Everybody knows that they exist and visible evidence of it exists before our eyes every day. Where is the money coming from to buy all these big houses in the suburbs? Why is it that that particular section of the community to which I referred a short time ago is unable to get any house either to purchase or to let at any reasonable figure? Because there is too much free money going in the hands of people who have exploited the wants of the people here in the last few years or who have been given opportunities of making fortunes at the expense of the community which they never should have been given by Government policy or Government practice or Government administration.
If ever a temperate conservative Budget lived up to its name in certain sections, this does, because in some sections of the Budget speech the Minister enunciated conservative economic principles which the most conservative economist would not dare to disagree with. In one portion of his speech he decided that he would lecture all sections of the people and tell them that Government expenditure for which there had been such clamant demands from various sections merely made the problem worse, the problem that existed from too much money and too few goods. He lectured people in this section of his speech. I quote:—
"It is too seldom realised that the spending by the State of money borrowed from the public tends to add to the amount of active purchasing power almost as surely as an increase of loans by the banks or a fiduciary issue of notes by the State; for, when the State spends money borrowed from those who are inclined to save, it often reaches those who are inclined to spend, and the lenders are left in possession of State securities which can be sold to the banks or to foreigners or pledged with the banks as securities for fresh advances."
I suppose that paragraph could have been taken from a text-book written by the most conservative political economist. When he proceeds however to elaborate that principle and to say how the Government and the Minister for Finance put it into practice in their own case he says:—
"In the present abnormal situation when supplies are scarce in relation to the volume of money and prices are tending to rise too high, it would be positively harmful for the State to intervene to increase the total volume of expenditure, as distinct from diverting expenditure from consumption to capital development."
Another very correct and very conservative economic statement! Again, I suppose, in the middle of the road or very far over to the right of the road, and he proceeds:—
"Indeed, in this situation it is desirable that the State should sweep some of the surplus money into the Exchequer through taxation."
I can imagine the delight of the Departmental officials when penning that particular sentence—
"sweep some of the surplus money into the Exchequer through taxation !"
Again, I understand that that is a direct conservative economic principle. In abnormal times, in circumstances where there is too much money and too few goods, it is perhaps correct to prevent too much purchasing by the people with too much money of the too few goods. But for the State to justify raking all that into the Exchequer it must be shown that something productive has emerged from that raking. What surplus has emerged in the last six or seven years of raking in the taxpayers' money at the high rate of taxation that the people have to undergo? Unless these principles are mere eyewash to give an air of verisimilitude to the simile of the Dodge cars of the Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government going along the middle of the roads, it is sheer hypocrisy. If those principles are sound, how are they applied? There is no surplus available either for reduction of taxation, the purchase of capital goods, the encouragement of increased production in any industry or on the land, or expenditure upon capital works of a reproductive kind as the result of the millions of money which have been raked into the Exchequer through high taxation.
Has the conservative economist who penned those sentences for the Minister adverted to the inflationary tendency of high taxation itself? Has he ever adverted to the fact that high taxation in itself takes money from those who would have saved it, thereby creating an asset in building up the economy of the State, or from those who are unable really to pay it, thereby creating a hardship for some section of the community? All that has happened as a result of the statement of those conservative high economic principles is that no surplus is shown. The financial debt has not been reduced in any way. No capital assets have been purchased. No works of a reproductive nature have been achieved. The sole achievement accorded in this Budget speech is that certain items which normally would have been met last year by borrowing were met out of taxation to the extent of £642,000. That is the sole result of the application of those conservative economic principles.
Instead of allowing the money that would be available, if these items had been discharged out of borrowing, to be applied to the reduction of taxation this year a conservative principle was applied because it suited the Department of Finance. But there is no proposal from the Minister. Here he wobbles from the conservative right to the radical left of the economic thoroughfare. Here we have him spending away. There is no proposal for the reduction of Government expenditure or for economy. It is not even envisaged that there shall be any restriction in Government activities. He is on the left of the economic thoroughfare there, because, as has been said by speaker after speaker on the opposite benches, the money is wanted for social services. That is the justification for all the extravagances that have been perpetrated and inflicted upon this country by Government profligacy in the last six or seven years. Spending on social services is the excuse for everything. The existence of social services is an indication of ill-health in the body politic. In any case, as has been said, they are nothing more than a row of medicine bottles showing disease in the household. The sounder your economic fabric is, the less need there is for social services. But, because of the policy of the Government, who have reduced agricultural production, caused the cost of living to rise to the soaring heights it has arisen, and because of the malnutrition which people are suffering from, we require these additional social services.
It is all very fine to say they will cost millions of money. But when you find an old age pensioner, with all these millions of money being spent and being used as a justification for Government extravagance, being presented with the price of seven and a half packets of cigarettes on which to live every week, I think the argument of social services will have little appeal for those people who have been looking and are still looking for some indication of the Government's intention to control prices, to reduce expenditure, and do their part in controlling the cost of living.
I said that the Government took a high place in the list of profiteers. They propose in this Budget to raise £17,500,000 in customs duties. That is one of the great factors operating to increase the cost of living and to maintain the profits of the profiters. The value of an article worth £100 pre-war with a tariff of 50 per cent. has now gone up to £200, and £100 in revenue is raked in by the Government. That is the Government's contribution to this spending and to the increase in the cost of living. The tariff has gone up 50 per cent. on £200, not £100, and, accordingly, we find that the importer of these goods pays a tariff of £100 on goods on which he formerly paid £50. Prior to this increase he measured his profit on a percentage basis, directed possibly by the Department of Industry and Commerce, on the £50. He now rakes in a profit on the same percentage basis on £100. He makes his profit on the £200 article and he makes his profit on the £100 tariff. Is it any wonder that prices have gone up to the prohibitive height to which they have gone? That is where Government policy is contributing to inflation and the high cost of living.
I find no proposals in this Budget to deal with that situation. I find no proposals in it to encourage that production which the Government demands from all sections of the community. Everybody is agreed on the necessity for increased production. For many years speakers from this bench have been preaching that. They have been preaching the policy that agricultural production is the real source of wealth, and the source on which ultimately will depend our industrial expansion. It is not to-day or yesterday that policy was preached from the Fine Gael benches.
What encouragement are the Government giving to agriculture or industry in order to increase production? There is not a proposal in this Budget to assist agriculture or industry beyond these palliatives, political palliatives I would prefer to dub them, of the tomatoes in the Gaeltacht and the peat moss for the farmers. I suggest the Minister should reconsider the position in reference to agriculture. My colleague, Deputy Hughes, and other farmers in this Party, are more competent to speak on the subject of agricultural production than I, and they have spoken of it through the country and in this House, and have given our views upon it. I do not propose to trespass upon their political sphere of activity. I suggest that the Minister should reconsider the £1,000,000 he has given towards the reduction of rates on agricultural land. He should reconsider the manner in which that has been given to the farmers. I understand that close on £1,000,000 was given last year for the relief of agricultural rates. It was given to the good farmer and the bad farmer indiscriminately. Whether you were working well, intending to improve your farm and increase production, you got the same as the farmer who allowed his land to remain idle.
As a constructive proposal, I suggest the Minister should consider that instead of giving money for the relief of agricultural rates indiscriminately in the way I have indicated, instead of giving the relief that he does give where employment is given to agricultural labourers, the test should be, not whether you are an employing farmer or whether the land is used for agricultural purposes, but whether you have improved the land and made it capable of increased production; whether what you have done on the land in previous years has added to the nation's wealth. That is one proposal that will help to increase production.
I will give another one, one that is applicable both to industry and agriculture. If a farmer improves his outbuildings or his farm-house, he is in the same position as a city dweller who improves his house—up goes the valuation and up go the rates. What is urgently desired in connection with agriculture is the improvement of the land and the fertility of the land. There should be encouragement for the farmers so that they will spend whatever surplus they may have in these good years on the improvement and development of their factories and farms, because their farms are their factories.
What encouragement is given to industry? Deputy Maurice Dockrell, speaking as a businessman, drew attention to that aspect of this Budget. There are many ways in which industry can be helped, not at the expense of the consumer or the taxpayer, but in such a ay as will in turn assist in the reduction of the cost of living and the price of articles by increasing the efficiency of industry and improving the business. We have had exhortations by various Ministers to industrialists to use modern methods, to consider their costings, to plough back more of their profits into their businesses. It is essential that more of the profits earned by industry should be ploughed back into business. What encouragement is the Minister giving industrialists to whom his colleagues, and perhaps himself, from time to time, make these verbal exhortations? What encouragement do they get to put their money into their own business, rather than invest it in other concerns? What encouragement is there to industrialists and businessmen to get away from the old and vicious principle of making maximum profits and maximum dividends, rather than build up their concerns in the fashion in which the great industries of Great Britain were built up, and to strengthen their business by putting back profits to improve it, making the improvement of their industry their first concern, and not allowing profit-making and dividend distributing to be their chief aim?
The Minister could very easily, and with benefit to the consumer and taxpayer, give some relief to business which would have the effect of enabling industrialists to plough back more of their profits into the business and so bring about increased production, increased efficiency and decreased costs. There is no incentive to do that; there is no incentive to work, because the more profits that are made the more the taxes that are taken off. If the Minister could devise a scheme by which the incidence of local and national taxation could be more fairly distributed, something could be achieved along the lines to which I have adverted. The businessman who keeps the profits, who keeps them in the form of liquid cash, is in a different position from the man who puts his profits or portion of them into improving his business methods and his capital goods, replacing worn-out machinery and thereby increasing the efficiency of his concern and lessening the cost of his goods. There is the type of man who will not bother about increasing efficiency with a view to greater production and decreased costs, with consequent benefit to the community in general.
I suggest to the Minister that industry could be very readily helped, and assistance given to industrial production, with a fall in the cost of living and, incidentally, by the increase of wealth, a fall in taxation, if the Minister would consider preferential treatment for those parts of profits which are ploughed back into industry and used for its development—used for the more efficient development and the creation of better and cheaper goods for the community.
There is a very small amount of money spent on industrial research in this country. There is no plan or project envisaged in the Budget by which the Government can assist industrialists and businessmen to train their workers, to get expert managers to apply the discoveries of modern science to business methods and to existing conditions in this country. That is another suggestion of a constructive kind that I present to the Minister. Again, it would be a benefit to the community.
There has been a lot of talk about profiteering, and there has been gross profiteering in this country, particularly in the past six or seven years. I wish to make it clear that we on this side of the House are in favour of private enterprise. We have no objection to industrialists and businessmen making profits, and even large profits, provided they do not do so at the expense of the community, or by exploiting the wants of the community in stringent times. We think that businessmen and industrialists are entitled to the fruits of their industry, their intelligence, their foresight and initiative and the risks they took and that limited profits of that kind are proper and should be encouraged, provided always that it is made clear that they are making these profits through their own enterprise, intelligence and initiative and that they are not doing it, and will not be allowed to do it, at the expense of the community or at the expense of the people employed. If they are given encouragement along the lines I suggest—a rebate or preferential treatment which will allow them to plough their profits back into industry instead of being given a mere allowance for wear and tear—they can do their part and should be called on to do their part.
If workers are prepared to give up restrictive provisions regarding apprenticeship, working hours and conditions of employment, then it should be made clear that if they are called upon to do their part for the benefit of the community, they will not be made to feel that they are being exploited for the benefit of profiteers, for the benefit of those who want expensive luxuries or who want to pay exorbitant prices for country mansions. If they give up these restrictive practices, which must be given up some time for the benefit of the community, they should feel that they are getting something in return. When businessmen and industrialists ask trade unions to give up their restrictive rules, to allow a greater flow of apprentices into the various crafts and trades, industrialists who get the benefit of State assistance should be asked themselves to do their part in connection with the abolition of these combines and trusts of protective associations which exist for the purpose of restricting entry into particular classes of trade, industry and commerce and also for the purpose of keeping up prices.
There are many aspects of the Budget upon which it would be desirable to speak. I have touched barely upon the fringe of the problems presented by it. I make the contribution I have made, not in any spirit of mere carping criticism, but to show that as far as we are concerned, we have constructive suggestions which are absent from the Minister's proposals in this Budget.