I am always hopeful anyway. I do not know whether those who speak so lightheartedly of the need to reduce our consumption standards realise how close they are coming to the policy set out in the Central Bank Report. If, for argument's sake, we have to pay for all our capital investment, or a very large part of it, by taxation, whom are we going to tax? I take it for granted, because I can only go on past experiences, that that taxation very largely will be levied on the ordinary mass of the people and the purpose will be, not merely to raise financial resources but also, by taking from them some of their spending power, to ease, as the Taoiseach says, the pressure for increased imports and, therefore to ease, what he has now indicated to us, the processes that are causing inflation inside the country.
If the mass of the people are going to consume less, they are going to buy less; there is going to be less for people to sell to them; there will be less people required in the shops to sell the goods; there will be less necessity for the shops to buy goods from manufacturers, and right down the whole line of production and distribution of goods there will be a gradual and steady contraction and we will end up with the reduced consumption that seems to be the beloved policy of the directors of the Central Bank.
That in itself would not be so bad if it was like a water tap that we could turn on and off. Most people who have watched the policy of deflation being applied in other countries have noticed that one very marked feature of a policy of deflation is that it is very easy to start and very difficult to stop, and I think that particularly the Tánaiste, who has not merely spoken in favour of a policy of expansion but has indicated the lines along which he thinks that expansion should take place, should set himself very definitely against the application in a concealed form of the policy openly set out in the Report of the Central Bank, because the danger in the present situation is not so much that the policy of deflation proposed by the Central Bank will be applied as a result of a full-dress debate in this House, the acceptance by the House of that policy and the translation of that policy into legislation, but that the policy will be applied without legislation in many ways, and it can be done by ordinary administrative measures.
To some extent that has already started. There has been a number of questions in this House with regard to the new policies with regard to housing and, while there is nothing very marked about it, members of the House who are associated with the Dublin Corporation will tell you that they have already started to have the effect of slowing down housing activities. It is just as effective if, by the application of red-tape measures, you prevent the spending of money over a given period, as if you refuse to provide the money. That is one feature that has already made itself felt.
We have had other references in regard to other forms of Government expenditure and it is not unknown to many of us who have in small ways come in contact with Government Departments that it has been much more difficult in recent months to get decisions on small matters which involve expenditure than it was in previous periods and I am not thinking of the period of office of the previous Government but even of periods of office of the previous Fianna Fáil Government. Therefore, from that point of view it is not sufficient to have a public statement made by the Tánaiste that the policy of the Central Bank is not being accepted by the Government and that they propose to proceed on a policy rather of expansion, but it is equally important that other spokesmen of the Government should realise that, while they are hedging and trimming their sails, as they have been doing for the past few weeks, and trying to convince the people that certain measures should receive their support, many of the measures that they are speaking of are at the basis of the whole policy set out in the Central Bank Report and that once we start on that particular road we will find extreme difficulty in reversing directions before we have done too much damage.
That is why I say that in regard to the immediate difficulties—and I am thinking of the difficulties in regard to many of our manufacturing industries and traders and the resultant disemployment and short-time of working men and women—it would be helpful if at this point such a statement could be made from the Government that would assist in restoring confidence in the industrial and trading position, and would make possible a relaxation of the tightening up of credit which has undoubtedly taken place. That would help to ease the financial position of many of those who are facing exceptional difficulties at the present time.
It is to be accepted that in so far as the excess supplies of goods in the country are concerned it is almost impossible at the moment to do any more than to wait for them to work themselves out. There is a general feeling in the country that we are about to face straitened times, that not only have the banks to protect other people's money which they happen to hold, but that ordinary men and women have to conserve what few pounds they have because there is the likelihood that they will have to fall back on them very shortly. So long as that atmosphere of nervousness and fear and trepidation in respect of the future prevails in the country, we will have this hiatus in certain of our manufacturing industries and in many of our distributive trades.
As I said earlier, the key to that situation, the possibility of remedying it, lies in the hands of the Government, and requires from them that they should be clear in their own minds as to the policy to be pursued and that they should speak with one voice. Up to the present there have been many voices, and no more contradictory voices have been heard in respect of the opening statement made by the Tánaiste than some of those belonging to colleagues alongside him on the Front Bench.
In the course of the debate, we have had references to the adverse trade balance in this country and the question of our external assets. I feel that if we sat down and examined this problem of imports during the past nine months of this year, as we did when the capital programme of Deputy McGilligan was examined in this House, we would find that there was not such a great difference of opinion as to what imports were necessary and what percentage of the total imports brought in could have been done without. Personally, I do not believe that the amount of stockpiling referred to in this House is anything like as big as suggested, because when you take out of the total imports such factors as wheat, essential raw materials for industry, timber, medical supplies and, presumably, things like butter, tea and sugar in the given situation, we are left then with a relatively small quantity of certain manufactured goods. In respect of these manufactured goods, I certainly would agree that it would have been better if a more exact and careful control had been exercised over the imports. But that is not an unusual feature of our trade position. It is one that has arisen out of our industrial weakness inside the country itself.
The most marked feature that I see in regard to our trade position is not so much the adverse trade balance, not even the failure of our manufactured exports to continue to increase, as— the one factor which seems to be basic to our whole discussion—the complete failure of Irish agriculture, not alone to respond to the policies that have been applied in the hope of bringing about improvements and productivity and ability to provide exports, but to meet to any reasonable extent the rightful demands of the community upon it. So far as industry is concerned, there has been a quite marked increase in production, and particularly in productivity in comparison with 1938. We have had a small but steady growth in our manufactured exports. They have to try to force their way into the export market under much greater difficulties than agricultural exports because, as we have been told in this House, so far as agricultural exports are concerned, practically every country in the world is waiting to get food in one form or another. It is not so easy to get every country in the world to take our manufactured goods. To the extent to which we have succeeded in building up, even in a small way, our industrial exports, that is a commendation for Irish industry and those engaged in it and for the workers who have increased their productivity.
When we turn to look at agriculture, we get an entirely different picture. I do not think that farmer Deputies will object when I say that so far as the main sections of the community that engage in production are concerned, during the period from 1939 the agricultural section has been the most fortunate and has received the biggest increase in return for the labour they apply in their industry. Not only have they gained through improved prices, through the easier position so far as the agricultural market is concerned both in this country and abroad, but they have been given continuous and increasing assistance and support both by the previous Government and by the Fianna Fáil Government prior to 1947. In fact I think they receive a good deal more from the community than they contribute.
I would be the first to agree that, so far as the standard of life of our people in agriculture is concerned, they are entitled to have that standard raised and to get an adequate return. But when the community, through the Government and the Oireachtas, set out—possibly not always in the best way, because farmer Deputies are always criticising the Government whether they support it or not and are always generally dissatisfied, the same as trade unionists are—to assist agriculture, the community is entitled to a better return than is shown by the figures when we find that agricultural exports not only failed to increase but that, in respect of the main export of live stock, there has actually been a very small reduction during the past year.
More important still, without going back over a considerable period of years, there has been no significant change whatever in the output of our agricultural industry. Yet, we are told that agriculture is the basis of our whole economy. Deputy Dillon went so far as to tell us that agriculture was the only thing in this country that produced wealth. Like a lot of Deputy Dillon's economics, that wants to be reconsidered and reformulated. However, accepting Deputy Dillon's statement in regard to the basic importance of agriculture, it is essential, when we face a situation such as we have, when we have a large adverse trade balance, when we have a problem facing us as to whether we are going to eat into our external assets in order to give effect to our domestic policies, when that particular section of our economy which could fundamentally and in a large measure contribute to the easing of that problem of our foreign trade is failing to do it, that it should be pointed out and regard paid to it.
So far as the question of balancing our trade is concerned, I agree with the Tánaiste that, through properly co-ordinated and planned industrial expansion, we can expect to cut out many industrial imports which we take in at present. We can also expect in a more limited form to be able to increase our industrial exports. But the only field in which we can expect a fairly large measure of success within a limited period is that of agricultural exports, because we still have all the foreign markets available to us. We also have in agriculture a field of activity in which in certain ways it is possible to get a much more immediate and quick increase than in our limited field of industrial resources.
Whatever other aspects of this problem the Government addresses itself to, the immediate one, I think, should be agriculture. If farmer Deputies, as they do repeatedly in this House and are entitled to do, come in and press their claims for improved prices, for additional assistance for the agricultural producers, they in turn have to accept their responsibility to give an enhanced return to the community from agriculture because it is in their hands that one of the most immediate and easily applied remedies lies in respect of the problem we are discussing.
So far as industry is concerned, as I have said, we have already had quite a marked increase in industrial output. We have had an increase in industrial productivity and our figures in that respect bear reasonable comparison with what has been done in other countries, even countries that have not, like ourselves, actually been physically devastated by war.
Quite clearly much more can be done in that respect. I think two helpful suggestions can be put forward. Just as our agricultural producers are given protection by the community, protection to which they are entitled in order to safeguard the Irish market for them and to make that market a basis from which they can enter into competition in foreign markets, in the same way Irish industrialists have also been given protection and special care by the community. But that protection is not given to the industrialist because we like the colour of his eyes. Neither is it given, as has been said on many occasions, so that some individuals can acquire wealth beyond anything they normally expected in the earlier years of their lives.
National policy is being applied. If that policy happens to provide benefits for certain individuals, that is their good fortune; but, in so far as subsidies are given by the ordinary consuming public to the Irish manufacturer engaged in industrial activities in a tariff-protected industry, the community is, in return, entitled to place certain requirements upon that industry. One of these requirements, as was indicated by Deputy Norton, is that if an industry is enjoying protection it should not be allowed to stand still. It should be required to work on a basis of progressive development. It should be required more and more to undertake such additional forms of manufacture as will reduce our present imports. It should be required to make its contribution where it is technically possible towards closing certain of the gaps that exist at present in our industrial economy.
I admit it is not always easy to do that because I appreciate, quite clearly, that if I have a small industry in which I am getting a reasonable return for my investment I am not very much inclined towards undertaking an additional burden and worry by entering into some possibly speculative field of development, which may be very important to the country as a whole but does not afford me any immediate return. Yet, so far as my industrial activity and my return is dependent upon the protection and the subsidy I receive from the public generally, there should be that public requirement placed upon me, and that requirement should come from and be directly under the control of the Department of Industry and Commerce, which is charged with implementing our industrial policy, a policy upon which we all agree, of protection for Irish industry.
In the second place, we have appeals made repeatedly to Irish workers to give their assistance in increasing industrial production and productivity. On the whole I think Irish workers have given a fairly good return in the light of the general situation, particularly when we recall that even up to the present time we have not yet balanced the gap between the rise in prices and the rise in wages, and when we remember that our wages to-day are still short of the 1939 level, and that we have forgone 12 years during which we would normally have been entitled to make some real progress in our standard of living generally. Bearing in mind the experience our workers had during the years 1939 to 1947, they have not responded too badly at all in so far as their contribution is concerned towards increasing industrial production and productivity. I agree that much more can be done. But I wonder why it should be done and on what basis.
In the course of the period of office of the last Government an approach was made suggesting that some definite lead should be given in relation to workers' participation in management. A somewhat elaborate memorandum was submitted and certain proposals were made. Possibly some of them would require legislation. We got a blessing and an expression of the hope that this could be brought about by voluntary agreement between the employers and the employees. That will not make for any great degree of progress. Anybody who has read or heard the views expressed by Irish industrialists in recent years knows very well that there is no great depth of voluntary acceptance on their part of the principle of bringing those who are called their partners in industry into the field of management. If they do not bring them in, if they persist in keeping them outside the room where the problems of management and industrial production are considered and decided, why then should they expect those they shut out to make any contribution? Why should they expect the workers to make a contribution towards increased productivity and industrial output if the additional fruits of that higher output and productivity will be claimed, as they have been in the past, by one side only?
I think the Tánaiste should consider this aspect of the matter. It is quite clear to anyone who knows anything about industry that the ordinary average worker, who does not think very deeply, perhaps, on the problems on the particular industry in which he is engaged, very often knows many wrinkles and many ways in which savings could be made and production increased, and in which productivity in relation to the individual worker might be improved. But he gets no invitation; he gets no encouragement; and he will get no recognition if he does try to make that contribution. Yet he is told that Irish industry is just as much his concern as it is of those who own it; that he has as much interest in the development of Irish industry as any other member of the community. But when he tries to express that interest and to take his proper place the door is very tightly closed against him.
If we accept that our problems in relation to our balance of payments and the use of our external assets, our resources for capital investment and the level of our domestic consumption will all be materially eased if we are able to increase our agricultural and industrial exports and if we are able to reduce the cost of production in agriculture and in industry and if it is clear, as clear it is, that a marked contribution can be made by workers in industry towards bringing about that change, particularly in relation to industrial output, then it is worth while making the effort.
Similar remarks can be passed in regard to agriculture. There are a number of wage earners engaged in agriculture. Let me say—we have gone over this ground before—that the adverse attitude of the farmer Deputies here to questions in relation to the wages and the working conditions of farm labourers is not very encouraging while they expect their labourers to make their contribution to the greater prosperity of their farmers. If we require this policy of expansion to be applied and if we expect all sections to make their contribution then there must be a recognition of the contribution that can be made by all sections and we must get rid of the idea that because the farmer says that the farm is his private property and the industrialist says the factory is his private property, the locked door must be maintained against the men and women who make their contribution and, in return for that contribution, receive a weekly wage.
I would like, particularly, to refer to the statements which have been made in the course of this debate and outside the House in regard to the question of the level of consumption in the country. Quite clearly, when we speak in terms of carrying out our capital programme on the basis of taxation we notice a difference in the shading between the Tánaiste and other members of the Government. The Tánaiste spoke in terms in which he took it for granted that part of that capital programme would be undertaken by borrowing, but he did pose the question as to whether all of it could be undertaken without increased taxation. Then we got the final shading when we arrived at the point where the suggestion was almost made that, unless we are going to provide all the resources for our capital programme out of taxation, we cannot expect to be able to carry it out.
Clearly, we have to consider the question of the level of consumption in the country. I often wonder, when people talk about the level of consumption, whether they ever try to break it down and whom they mean when they refer to the level of consumption. We are repeatedly told by the newspapers, we are told by the Central Bank and by other public spokesmen, that we are consuming too much, that we are living at too high a standard, that we are spending too much money on everyday things and should save something, and that we are importing too much goods for everyday consumption. It appears to be taken for granted that the people of this country are living as they never lived before, that they are living far and above all other groups of people throughout the civilised world, and that it would be a good thing for our souls if we retrenched a bit and got on to a somewhat lower level.
Who is to get on to the lower level? Is it 180,000 old age pensioners, the 50,000 or 60,000 unemployed, the 80,000 farm labourers, the 30,000 widows and orphans, or is it the several thousands of men and women eking out a living on public assistance? Now, they are not small bodies of people, or is it the 50 per cent. of our people working for wages? According to the White Paper issued in connection with the first Social Welfare Bill they are only receiving less than £3 10s. a week in wages. Where are they to cut down on consumption? It is a fair and a reasonable question. We get, taking together the 180,000 old age pensioners, the 80,000 farm labourers, the 30,000 widows and the 50,000 unemployed a very large section of our total Irish population, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 300,000. Many of these have dependents, wives and children. This is the section which is to make its contribution towards capital investment by eating less, by wearing less, by cutting out some luxuries, and, generally, by coming down to a lower standard. Is not the thing completely fantastic?
I remember on one occasion talking to a manufacturer when I was looking for more wages for our members. He said to me: "Look here, Larkin, if you go out and get the farm labourers another 5/- a week I will give your members an increase of 10/-." It would be very good economics for him to do so because, as he explained, if the farm labourers get an extra 5/- they would be able to buy an extra pound's worth of the particular commodity he was producing, and that increase in output would provide extra work and higher wages for the workers engaged in his factory. If we are going to start by telling people who are already living, not on the 1938 standard, but on some kind of a standard that possibly could have been applied to the Stone Age, that Ireland's future depends on their going on a still lower standard—telling the old age pensioner that he has got to do with, possibly, one cup of tea less in the day, that he has to cut by half an ounce his tobacco consumption in the week, that he has to reduce the few slices of bread he manages to eat, or tell the widow that she has to cut out some of the milk which she manages with great difficulty to give to her orphan child, or tell the farm labourer that he has to cut his consumption on his wage of £3 6s. a week—then I am very much afraid that the hope which the Taoiseach expressed in the future of this country is going to be a vain hope.
Let us look at other sections, those who are employed and in receipt of wages. The over-all consumption in this country since 1939 has, I think, increased by something like 9 per cent. So far as the mass of wage and salary earners are concerned, I find great difficulty, when going through the various industrial categories, in coming across large groups of either salary or wage earners who have managed to keep their wages in line with the rise in prices, or who can be said to be enjoying the same real standard, or the same standard of real wages, which they had in 1939. I have no doubt that there are small groups which have managed to do that, mainly those engaged on piece work or where there has been, for some reason, a radical improvement in basic rates. That, however, has generally resulted from the fact that the rates pre-war were far too low. But the general run of wage earners are not able to show any marked advance in their standard of life to-day as compared with 1939. It will be argued by most of them that, in fact, their standard is down. One never seems to get anywhere when one is arguing against the Government, unless one accepts the official figures. I prefer to accept the official figures because they serve my purpose just as well.
If the great mass of salary and wage earners have to-day a lower real standard in relation to their wages and salaries or even an equal standard, to what they had in 1939, does the Tánaiste or the Government regard the standard of 1939 as a standard on which a marked saving and reduction in consumption can be made? I doubt it very much. Therefore we find that, having taken out the most unfortunate section of our community, the farm labourers, the old age pensioners, the widows and unemployed and those on public assistance, and having put them on one side and said: "Well, at least we are not going to expect anything from you," and then having taken the salary and wage earners, men and women with family responsibilities and examined their picture and decided, as I think it is reasonable to decide, that there is not very much contribution which they can make in the form of savings or by adopting a lower standard of consumption, what are we left with?
