This debate has ranged around the rise in the cost of living but, as a number of things have been said by speakers on the opposite side in regard to the atmosphere of the election, I imagine that we are entitled to reply. I come from a constituency where, with the same poll which we had in 1951, we increased our vote by 1,000 so that my head, if bloody, is still unbowed as far as the election is concerned. As the House knows, the decrease in the Fianna Fáil vote took place mainly in towns where the cost of living was the principal subject in debate and discussion. The key to the whole election, as I think everyone knows, and as may be seen from the statements of leaders of Fine Gael, was the atmosphere created among the people in their own homes. The atmosphere created, beyond all doubt, was that prices were artificially maintained in the same manner as a blown-up balloon, that they were artificially maintained deliberately by the Government, that the Government of the day, for some crazy reason apparently, deliberately wanted to maintain prices at an artificially high level and that if a new Government got in, the balloon would burst and prices would collapse. No matter how cautious the statements that were made by certain of the Fine Gael leaders when the Press was present and when the official policy of the Party was declared, the atmosphere created by the canvassers and at local election meetings, where no journalists were present, was that prices would come down and come down immediately if there was a change of Government. I myself heard Deputy MacEoin, speaking in a remote part of County Longford, when there were no representatives of the Press present, give a perfectly clear indication that prices were artificially maintained and that there would be an immediate reduction in the cost of essential commodities and in taxation if there was a change of Government. Therefore, I want to make it clear that it is impossible to describe in one word or in one phrase the atmosphere of the election.
We have now a new principle of democracy in this country. We have one major Party officially promising nothing but distributing pamphlets and carrying out a canvass in an atmosphere of promising everything. We have, linked with that major Party, a minor Party which promises everything—reductions in the price of food and reductions in taxation on an elaborate and exaggerated basis. When a sufficient vote is secured for the Parties to coalesce and go into office, if the cost of living cannot be brought down, because of influences which everybody knew were present in relation to prices, they start to carry out a new form of propaganda to suggest: "If prices are stabilised, we have then carried out our promises." As I have said, that is our experience. Deputy Norton, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, has been the king-pin in the maintenance of the Government and Deputy Norton has already begun to state, at functions at which he has been the guest of honour, that he knows that prices have been stabilised, as though that were a fairly good implementation of the promises made during the election, forgetting the fact, of course, that prices were becoming stabilised in this and every other country in the world while we were in office and towards the end of our period in office.
Deputy O'Higgins dealt with some questions relating to the dance hall tax. That is a hoary old one to bring out of the bag. Everyone knows that the dance hall tax was remitted because it was impossible for the Revenue Commissioners adequately to collect the tax. Deputy O'Higgins spoke as though the amount involved in the remission of the dance hall tax and the taxes imposed on beer and spirits were equivalent whereas the reduction in the dance hall tax represented merely one-eighth of a penny in the price of a pint of stout. The two elements—the effect of taxation on the price of stout and the revenue received from the dance tax—had no relation whatever. Of course, it was a nice thing to say at election time to people who know nothing of national economics and who never read the Estimates, that the dance tax was equivalent to the increase in the price of stout. It was good election propaganda.
Deputy O'Higgins spoke of what he alleged to be the extravagant proposals of Fianna Fáil and he mentioned in that connection the rebuilding of Dublin Castle. The rebuilding of Dublin Castle was meant to be a long-term project. It was meant to be, in the ultimate, a measure of economy designed to prevent the eventual construction of far more costly buildings. It was one of a series of schemes which were to be put into operation at times when the level of building by the Dublin Corporation fell below normal because of difficulties of site acquisition and other factors. There have been, as Deputies know, cyclical variations in the rate of building in Dublin for various reasons, particularly in the rate of building by Dublin Corporation. That scheme was to have been introduced as a measure to provide employment in the event of there being a cyclical fall in the number of persons employed in building and was to be eventually utilised as an economy measure, as a measure whereby civil servants could be housed in a manner which in the long run would be most economical. I think most people recognise that fact; but if Deputy O'Higgins raises the issue, then we must reply. Deputy O'Higgins also suggested that Deputy Lemass was inconsistent in his views on subsidies. Fianna Fáil by their very acts have never completely opposed the principle of subsidy since the end of the war. After they left office there was still an enormous subsidy to keep down the price of bread. That was maintained not because we believed in general in the principle of subsidy but because we believed that subsidies could be applied rightly in certain circumstances. We believe that, taking it by and large, it is far better if the economy permits wages to rise rather than maintain subsidies. But it is not always possible in certain economic circumstances for wages to rise, particularly if that rise may adversely affect the export volume of the country's products. Again, wages may not rise sufficiently and subsidies are, therefore, a device particularly useful in time of war when commodities are rationed and useful in time of peace to be applied in the light of existing circumstances.
Now conditions have been abnormal both in other countries and here since the end of the war and, as a result, the subsidy principle was regarded by the Government as a device to be got rid of if wages could rise, and one to be maintained to the extent to which the Budget would permit and to the extent to which wages could not rise and could not, therefore, compensate for an increase in the cost of living. It is quite useless for Deputy O'Higgins to take statements made by Deputy Lemass out of their context because the record of Fianna Fáil is perfectly clear. In the case of bread, where wheat is the commodity, wheat has risen more than any other product of an important character since 1938, and the subsidy was retained. I think it amounted to some £8,000,000 in the last Budget, so that nearly 8 per cent. of the total Budget was, in fact, related to wheat subsidy.
We must once more give an analysis of the attitude of the present Government towards prices and, as I have said, this analysis is one that has to be given in three parts. The Fine Gael Party's official policy was to promise nothing, but pamphlets down the back streets contained an implied promise that there would be an immediate reduction in the cost of living. They implied something more; they implied there was a target which the Government would attempt to reach, and that target was a reduction of prices back to the 1951 level. The implication was that the entire increase in the price structure was something for which Fianna Fáil was wholly responsible and that, if a new Government was returned, sooner or later prices would go back to the 1951 level. This cost-of-living trick has been played twice and each time we have been the sufferers. Each time we happened to be in office when there was not only here but in every other country in the world an inflationary tendency—a period when prices were rising—and I think it is just as well to remind the House in that regard of what happened on a previous occasion and to compare that with the circumstances of the last general election.
During the Second World War, prices rose steadily here and all over the world from 1939 to 1943. In 1943, up to 1946, they remained reasonably stable. But efforts were made to show that the Government then in office had neglected the interests of the people. All sorts of criticisms were used in the 1943 election. It was said that the cost of living need not have risen; although it had risen everywhere else it need not have risen in this country. For three years it remained more or less stable. Then in August, 1946, and into the following year, prices rose by 10 per cent. The Government, of course, was made responsible. Down every back street the cry went up that the Government was responsible for any increase that takes place in the cost of living in peace time and that increase, even if it had been justified in war time, was in peace time due to the deliberate neglect of the Government in controlling the cost of living. It is not easy to explain to people who have no inclination to study economics that when a war ends and money is liberated, money is more freely available than goods and that in every country price increases take place, price increases which are disappointing to the householder and the housewife because they believe that now the war is over there should not be these sudden price increases. It is, of course, difficult to answer an argument of that kind. All an Opposition has to do is simply say: "Look at the price of this" and "Look at the price of that." The answer is one which has to be carefully measured against the known facts of world economics, a subject which is both dull and boring in the extreme to the average person.
At least 50 per cent. of the propaganda during the 1948 election was based on a promise to reduce the cost of living, not by a margin of 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. but to be brought down with a crash; it was alleged that it could be broken because it was artificially maintained. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton, made speeches suggesting there were thousands of profiteers, rolling around the country in large cars, who should be prosecuted. He alleged that if any Government but Fianna Fáil was elected to office there would be widespread prosecutions, all these rich industrialists would be brought to book and the cost of living would be brought down materially.
I suppose the one single individual in the history of this State who did most in support of the cost-of-living ramp was Deputy Seán MacBride, who, with an utter disregard for truth, promised through his Party to reduce the cost of living by 30 per cent. and to effect that reduction by means of subsidies. A simple calculation would have told him that, at a time when the Budget was under £60,000,000, that would mean an additional £30,000,000 in taxation on the consumer. But that promise was made and, although the other Parties did not go quite so far, there was a lurid suggestion in 1948 that the whole of the price increase was unnecessary and that rich profiteers were paying lavish sums to the Fianna Fáil war chest; if they were caught there would be some pretty publicity in the newspapers and the result would be a rapid decrease in industrial costs and the level of prices of industrial products, with immense advantage to the public in general.
What happened? There were no prosecutions. No profiteers were found. The largest decrease in the cost of living was that effected by Fianna Fáil who increased the subsidies towards the end of 1947, thereby securing a reduction of 3 per cent. in the cost of living; and thereafter the cost of living remained stable not only here but in other countries because goods became more plentiful and from 1947 until 1949, when the £ was devalued, there was a general stabilisation of prices everywhere. During that period there were some protests. Deputy Larkin at the Trade Union Congress in 1949 said he was not satisfied with the administration of price control. He said that prices could be broken and should be broken. That was his statement. Now at that time this same Act was in force and apparently Deputy Larkin found it full of faults and found Deputy Morrissey, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, inefficient in his administration of the Act. Shortly after that the true facts came out when Deputy Morrissey, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, at a speech at a public luncheon said that the remedy to bring about price reduction lay after all in the hands of the public and for the first time the public were then told that the promises made could not be honoured. The most the Government could do was to see that the cost of living remained stable as in most other European countries with a few minor variations—I mean countries with balanced budgets and economies maintained by the normal processes of government and in which there were no unusual features such as inflationary policies.
The cost of living began to rise in every country in the world from the time the £ sterling was devalued and it is well it would be remembered that it would have risen if the Korean war had not occurred. Dollar goods became more expensive for sterling countries. The effect of the devaluation so far as price increases were concerned was naturally delayed so that the prices did not rise in the case of many commodities until 1950. After the start of the Korean war, in August, 1950, the cost of living rose all over the world. That period is now known as the Korean boom. Members of Parliaments all over the world have accepted what became known as the "Korean boom". At the end of three years it was an accepted feature in world economics. Nothing which would be effective to combat its influence on prices could be done by any Government in the world, but in this country Mr. de Valera was made responsible for its effects. The suggestion was that Mr. de Valera was in conspiracy with Joe Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, President Truman and other world leaders to create the Korean boom. In other words he was made responsible for the effect in this country of world circumstances and for conditions which had been brought about by international affairs.
The cost of living also rose during the period of the inter-Party Government's office. The prices rose steadily from August, 1950, to August, 1951. Then the election took place in the middle of the boom and members of the Fianna Fáil Party at that time directed attention to the promises made to have the cost of living reduced. Fianna Fáil made no promises whatever that prices could be reduced but pointed to the fact that the previous Government had failed to redeem its promises. As I have said prices rose steadily from the time of the Korean boom. Every country in the world was affected except those where the currency was as strong as the dollar, and prices rose slightly even in these countries. Prices rose at different periods in different countries. They rose not only in this country but as much in six other European countries whose social services and social security measures included subsidies. These Governments were forced to reduce subsidies. Before the period in which Fianna Fáil was in office the cost of living rose mainly in countries which had been forced to reduce subsidies in order to face the period of inflation. This state of affairs occurred in every one of the Northern European States. Some began to reduce subsidies in 1950, some in 1951, some in 1952. In some the reduction was a single effort; in others the reduction was gradual. But the process was going on everywhere and it was going on in countries of a predominantly Labour character. Reduction in subsidies took place in Norway and Sweden. Subsidies were being reduced everywhere. The cost of government had gone up in the different countries. Everywhere efforts were being made to have economic policy orientated so that the cost of living might eventually be met by a comparative rise in industrial earnings and through the compensation of social service benefits.
The process was absolutely continuous everywhere and I think it is just as well to recall how events progressed from official statistics at that time following the rise in the cost of living. Prices rose steadily and became stabilised in nearly every country at the same time as here. I suppose one of the most reliable organisations on which we could base a study of economic trends at that time was the International Labour Organisation, devoted largely to the interests of the workers, and I am proud to say it has been manned by an Irish secretary for many of its years of existence. Many of its conventions have been ratified by us. I will take some statistics from the International Labour Review. In the review the International Labour Organisation find it is essential when comparing prices to find some year as a base year—a year which could be regarded as fair to all parties, to employers, to workers, to Governments in office. They chose the year 1948 because for the two previous years there had been some degree of stability in prices following the war. It was also the year before the £ was devalued; it was the year before the Korean war. And so they recommend the year 1948 upon which to base the increase in prices which has taken place since that time. It will be seen how prices varied from country to country in respect of identical commodities. In some, prices rose by large margins and in others the margins were small. I will take Belgium, where from 1948 to 1953 the cost of living went up by only 6 per cent. the reason being that the Belgian franc was not devalued. The Belgian currency was very strong, as strong as the dollar, and for that reason the cost of living went up only by a very small fraction. We will now consider Denmark where the currency was devalued, a country on the whole run with splendid efficiency by what you might call a fairly Left-Wing Government, a country partial to the interests of the workers. The cost of living there rose by 24 per cent. during that period. I will now take France where Governments unfortunately were unstable and where the cost of living rose by 46 per cent. Then we come to Ireland and here the cost of living rose by 24 per cent.—exactly the same as in Denmark. Denmark was a country which while occupied during the war was not damaged physically to any great degree.
In Italy the cost of living went up by 16 per cent., the reason for the small margin being that there were few subsidies and those that were there were mostly ineffective. In Italy subsidies could not be afforded with the result that reductions in subsidies did not arise. In the Netherlands the increase was 22 per cent., about the same amount as in the case of Ireland, but in Norway the increase was 34 per cent. In the case of Sweden, a neutral country during the war, and a country run by a Government with a Labour character and with the most authoritarian method of economics, the cost of living rose by 30 per cent.—six per cent. more than in the case of this country.
In the case of the United Kingdom the cost of living rose by 28 per cent. We use the same money as the British people. Our £ is supposed to be worth the same amount. We pay approximately the same amount for foreign commodities. The increase in the agricultural price level during the period was approximately in the same proportions and we can ask ourselves how it could be that the cost of living could go up in Britain and not go up here by approximately the same amounts. I mention that because it seems to me self-evident that if in the sterling area in general the cost of living rose in that period by an amount equivalent to what it did here, it shows that the last Government was only responsible for the increase in the cost of living to the extent that they with other modern western European countries, for the sake of preserving a balanced budget and with an increase in wages in view, were compelled to modify the subsidies.
That is the general picture. I could go on quoting the whole of these figures from every country in the world. They show the same principle. There were roughly three classes of countries at that time: countries where there were no subsidies to reduce and where the cost of living went up least; countries where there were subsidies to reduce and where they were reduced and where the cost of living went up by about the same amount as here and then certain exceptional countries whose currencies remained strong, such as Switzerland, Belgium and the United States and then there was one exception too, Germany, which showed astonishing stability in its cost of living due to the fact that the German people were prepared to work at extremely low wages to restore the country and, as a result of the wage level remaining low during that period, their cost of living went up very little more than or at about the same rate as it did in the countries with stronger currencies.
As I have said, it does not matter how you study these figures, you will find during some of the individual years the cost of living went up more here than in other countries. You will find in other single years, comparing one year with another, that the cost of living would go up here less than in another country at one period and more in another, but you will find the general over-all increase was about the same as it was in other countries where the country was properly administered, where the budgets were balanced and, curiously enough, the increase was roughly the same in countries with the same sort of panoply of social services as ourselves, where the workers were safeguarded in the same kind of way and where they had arbitration councils or boards safeguarding the workers' interests and encouraging increases in wages where they were possible.
I wanted to mention those particular figures because they seem to me to be a valuable commentary on the propaganda that has been associated with the increase in the cost of living.
There are many other facts that could be given, facts which should be recorded in the annals of this House.
The International Labour Organisation also secured other sets of figures to show the incidence of the cost of living. They said to themselves: "Perhaps it is not quite right to compare costs of living using the cost-of-living index of various countries; maybe there are errors; maybe there are different ways of calculating these indices; maybe there were changes during the period." So, the International Labour Organisation prepared another set of figures and in this case they decided that one of the fairest ways of estimating the increase in the cost of living, or the impact of the cost of living, was to find out what was the average wage rate of an unskilled labourer in every country and, having established the weekly wage of the unskilled labourer, to find out how long that labourer took to earn a unit of an important commodity. The International Labour Organisation pointed out that perhaps that was the fairest method of all, that there could be no false comparison, that if you calculated how many hours it took an unskilled labourer out of his weekly wage packet to earn some pounds of sugar or pounds of butter or pounds of bread, that all the differences that might occur because of the different value of currencies or because of different methods of calculating the cost of living would disappear, that that would be an absolutely fair method which nobody could dispute.
It is very interesting to examine those figures for the period of October, 1952, which is the last available figure that I could find, after the subsidies had been decreased here and after the major increase in the cost of living had taken place. I do not think I need go into very great detail in regard to these except simply to say this, that the time that an Irish unskilled labourer would take to earn his sugar and his bread, two of the most fundamental commodities, would be the same low level as that of two or three other countries in the most favourable position in Europe. How can I put it? In October, 1952, it took a Danish labourer 21 minutes of his weekly wage to earn 6 lb. of sugar, and it took Ireland, Sweden and Norway 55 to 60 minutes to earn 6 lb. of sugar, and it took all the rest of the countries, some eight countries, a longer time to earn their sugar. In other words, we were in one of the most favourable positions.
If you take the subject of butter you will find that Denmark, Norway and Sweden came off best in butter. There the unskilled labourer could earn his butter a great deal more quickly than he could in the case of Ireland and England, who came next on the list. Of course, the reason is obvious. Denmark, Sweden and Norway go in for high milk-yielding herds, with a yield of some 800 to 1,000 gallons of milk a year and, naturally, they would be in a favourable position in regard to butter costs. But, after those three countries, Ireland and England came next and in every other country of Europe it took much longer for an unskilled labourer to earn a pound of butter. In the case of milk, Ireland was roughly in the same position as in the case of butter. In the case of mutton and beef, Ireland was the third in Europe in regard to this method of calculating. There were only two other countries where an unskilled labourer could earn a pound of mutton or a pound of beef in a quicker time out of his total wage packet.
I thought those facts should be mentioned here because, as I have said, during an election it is so easy to distribute the little yellow leaflets—they were yellow in my constituency, blue in others—comparing the prices of 1951 and 1954. How much more difficult it is to give a patient statement showing the cost of living had gone up in every country of the world, and when it became stabilised in some countries, roughly speaking at the end of 1952 and in other countries during the period of 1953, it also became stabilised in our country. When Deputy Norton says that he has achieved a measure of stability in prices, or that a measure of stability has been achieved, that is as a result of the fact that at the moment in the world at large, although there are upward surges of prices and although prices have gone up here in the case of certain commodities, a reasonable figure of stabilisation has been reached. As I have said, it seemed to me to be very important to mention these facts.
We next come to the question of the position of this country in regard to how the people lived during this period. You have noticed that members of the Government are already beginning to take credit to themselves for any good economic results that have been achieved in 1954. We hear the Minister for Industry and Commerce beginning to quote figures for trade, figures for production, as though the economic climate of 1954 could have been materially altered by the incoming Government, forgetting that they were working on our Budget, that all the live stock here were born before they achieved office, that for a Government which adopts the Budget of its predecessor and which makes only marginal changes in policy, which carries on the whole of the capital programme, which carries on the whole policy of reconstruction, it takes a longer time than that to alter the economic circumstances of the people. But already the present Government is taking credit for these things. We have already heard about the good production in 1954, about the success of the National Loan—although the National Loan could never have been successful unless the companies and the people had saved enough during the previous year and up to June, 1954, to invest In the National Loan. There is not a living economist in the world who would deny that loan can only be successful if for at least a previous period of six months, nine months or a year there has been some evidence of savings effected by public companies, private companies and by the public. And we are already told that the success of the National Loan was due to the reputation of the present Government.
Much was said during the time of election about the woeful state in which the people were living, much was said about the crushing taxation, about the appalling burden of costs, about the appalling cost of living and the high rate of unemployment. People were told they were living in a state of misery and that it was entirely unnecessary, that it was the result of completely unnecessary taxation. Unfortunately, the Government have damned themselves by authorising the publication of the Irish Statistical Survey. The publication of this survey had to be authorised at a specific meeting of the Government and the Government at that meeting had to say that every single word in this survey was accurate, that not a word could be disputed. That is the position in regard to the survey. The precedent for that was set by the present Taoiseach himself when the survey was commenced during his period of office. What does the survey show? It shows in almost every particular that 1953 was one of the best years there ever was in this country. That is not to say there cannot be better years; that is not to say we have anything like solved the problems of pockets of poverty, or of agricultural productivity. It is not to say that there are not many decades of work to be done before the nation will be as we would like to have it, but it is at least a step in the right direction. The present Government have admitted now that 1953 was an excellent year, showing excellent progress in almost every particular of our economic life. It is just as well not to have this volume lying fusty on the shelves of the Library in Dáil Éireann. It is just as well that some particular facts should be recalled in the House and laid on the Table of the House in the usual way through its publication in the volume of Dáil Reports. I would just mention a few things.
The total national income of the people increased in 1953 to a record high level. Most of that increase was related to an increase in prices which was also taking place during the Coalition period of Government. But at least the income of the people increased; there was no reduction in the income of the people. That is one of the facts they are forced to admit, that there was an increase in the national income. The next thing we find is that the personal expenditure of the people rose to a level—based on 1938 prices and making allowances for all the increases of prices that had taken place —the actual expenditure of the people calculated on the 1938 basic price level rose to the highest level in the history of the State, with one exception, which was the year 1951. The difference there was some 3½ per cent. and it will be found in the records of every well-run State in Western Europe that 1951 was a year of very great commodities expenditure, solely because of the stockpiling that took place in that period. With, as I have said, the exception of the year 1951, the personal expenditure of the people, based on 1938 prices, was at record high level, and there was no sign, so far as the people's spending was concerned, that they had not money to spend. However hard they found it, whatever difficulties were met in regard to the cost of living, they spent more than in any previous year, save the year when they were stockpiling at an enormous level.
We find next that the quantities of exports rose to a figure that had never before been achieved. The quantity of exports rose steadily until the exports actually were 14 per cent. more than they were in the previous year. We find, again, that the people imported more in 1953, in quantity, than at any other time since the foundation of the State—again with the solitary exception of the year 1951, in which every country on earth, through fear of war, imported large quantities of goods and, as a result, of course, afterwards there came the inevitable temporary recession in business which was found in Northern Ireland, in England and in every other country, until the piles on the shelves decreased and until normal buying could commence again. In regard to that, the position showed itself to be satisfactory.
In regard to the volume of agricultural output, the gross amount of agriculture also increased during that year. The net output remained practically the same, but there was a slight increase in the gross output and it was for the first time measurably above the figure of 1938, it was actually 7 per cent. above the figure for 1938. So that, although agriculture did not show the productivity we would like, there was nothing unhealthy about it. It was showing a small but beneficial change in the right direction.
In the case of industry, the volume of production for industry went up in 1953, in spite of all the difficulties of stockpiling and was at a record figure in the history of the State, so when all the difficulties with regard to excessive stockpiling were over industry was once more on the march. One can go on and describe other features of the national economy that were satisfactory. The industrial earnings of the people had already outstripped the cost of living back about half-way through 1948 and at the end of the period of our office the industrial earnings of the people had gone up higher than the cost of living, relating the year 1938 to the year 1953, not by a very large margin, not by a margin which we would regard as being the best we could achieve, but at least it could be said that during the long period when costs were going up steadily, during the war with the exception of three years and after the war for the reasons I have already stated, somehow or other the industrial earnings managed to rise until in actual fact, if you take 100 as the basic figure for 1938, the cost of living had gone up to some 226 and industrial earnings had gone up to 250. As I have said, there is nothing to boast about in regard to that figure; we would like to see it much more, but at least it showed that things were not altogether unsatisfactory.
Then we found also that the people consumed as much food as they consumed in any previous year. They consumed very nearly the same amount of drink and tobacco as in any previous year. We find that in spite of all that, in spite of the great difficulties which housewives faced in dealing with the cost of living—and everybody knows there were difficulties and everybody knows it is very easy to play upon the mind of the person who, not knowing and appreciating what is going on in the country to the full extent, faced increases of prices; and increases of prices can be felt very severely because they frequently lag behind increases of wages, so there is always a feeling during a period of rising prices that the housewife is being deceived or being exploited, and in nearly all cases, unless there is some automatic index system in regard to wages, as in certain countries, particularly in America, unless the index for wages rises simultaneously with the rise in prices, people naturally feel aggrieved —the fact remains that the personal savings of the people in 1953, their own personal savings, not company savings, not big company savings or small company savings, but the personal savings of the people rose to a record high level. The personal savings of the people in 1953 were four times what they were in 1950 or 1951. It amazes me when I think of the circumstances of friends of mine in every section of the community, how that could be correct, and if I were the Taoiseach and present at a Government meeting, at a meeting of the people who had to authorise this volume and had to admit that the facts were correct, I should consider going back to Dr. Geary who is one of the foremost living exponents of statistics and saying: "Are you quite sure of that figure?" Is it possible in the year 1953 when all these desperate things were supposed to be happening and when people were supposed to be screwed down by the extra taxation and unable to enjoy themselves that somehow or other by some miracle they managed to save four times more than they saved in 1950 or 1951. It is one of the figures that staggered me. I can only rely on the Taoiseach and the members of the Government for its authenticity because they have published the figures and they have authorised them.
Some people say that figures are dull and boring and that nobody wants to hear about them, but even though this book is rather boring and dull it tells, roughly speaking, how the people lived and in spite of all their difficulties in 1953 this book shows a reasonable enjoyment of life, a reasonable expenditure on goods and services, an expanding output of imports and exports, expanding production in industry and a very slight increase in agricultural production as well as an expansion of savings among the people. There is not a single word in this book which justifies the vastly exaggerated propaganda of the present Government during the last election. The disappointing features in this survey are virtually nil so far as election propaganda was concerned. As I have said of course, it is easy to spread the little yellow leaflets down the back streets because you cannot expect the average person to want to read this document and the average person is not trained to understand these documents and I am quite sure the average person is much happier because he does not have to read such documents.